To the people who are computer freaks (building them)

[Guerrillakilla13]

Awesome, the thermal paste explanation is great. I was asking a friend if he thought I should scratch the stock CPU fan for a heatsink or a bigger fan. He said I should but that the stock fan wasn't bad either. The stock fan comes with pre-applied thermal paste so I don't think I need to dish out the extra cash on another fan right? I don't plan on over clocking the cpu, plus the case has room for 7 fans, and comes with an intake and exhaust fan.

64 bit it is!! I read that everywhere I hear, that the 64 is much better than the 32. I'm buying some top notch gear so the 32 is like a Prius to me.

[SMWS6TA]

What computer do you have it took mine no where near that?

I was just pointing out the irony that downloading firefox thru explorer seem to take forever, once I got firefox all my downloads went fast

[Valor X]

Stock CPU coolers are OK but you can always wipe off the pre applied thermal paste with alcohol and apply some artic silver 5.
The pre applied stuff is so cheap and wouldn't be surprised if its all dried up.
Think of it as preventative maintenance just like you would do on your car.
And the stuff is only about 8 bucks and it has enough for you to use on other devices if you so wish.

I took apart my ps3 and replaced the stock thermal paste with article silver 5
To my amazement the ps3 NEVER raised the fan speeds afterwards and ran real quiet at lower temperatures.
Just to show how big of a difference it makes.

[35th-ANV-SS]

I have a laptop from 2005. Still works great

[Guerrillakilla13]

Alrightttt Ive decided to keep the stock fan but use arctic silver 5 to help I don't want an aftermarket heatsink anymore, cause I assume i won't have room for a GTX graphics card in my mid tower 912 if I do! lol

Buddy your lucky, my damn laptop only lasted 2 years. Not even that long ha

[Blakbird24]

Are intel's 320 series ssd's any good?

Sorry, I completely forgot about this thread. I used the 320's for all my company's builds. They're fine. Good and reliable. But they are sandforce powered, which means there are much better options that are only slightly more expensive. The samsungs have an in-house controller built-in, and really benefit from SATA III on the write side. Which brings up a great point...if you don't have an SATA III controller on your mainboard, then it doesn't really matter which one you buy because you will be bottlenecking either one.

Alrightttt Ive decided to keep the stock fan but use arctic silver 5 to help I don't want an aftermarket heatsink anymore, cause I assume i won't have room for a GTX graphics card in my mid tower 912 if I do! lol

As long as you never plan to overclock, the stock fan is perfectly fine. But then why would you buy the 3770k, which is an overclocker's chip? You're building a forged LSX block with stock LS1 heads and cam.

The reason everyone is recommending an aftermarket heatsink is because it's like having a wet kit installed on your car. You don't have to ever use it, but you know you will want it sooner or later. So rather than paying more and having to tear apart the motor down the road to install it, you install it while you are doing the initial build. Especially since the i7 3770k has a forged bottom end. That chip will take a 200 shot all day long and smile, as long as your cooling system is up for it.

See what I did there?

[raynor139]

Blackbird is right the k series are an overclockers chip. Intel I think figures its going to be in a high end system with after market coolers. So they don't invest much in them. My 2600k heatsink was fine for the non k series but couldn't keep up with it once you started overclocking. Didn't even install it. Think I still have it in the box somewhere.

[Guerrillakilla13]

I installed my normal fan, which seems to be doing fine. The top of my computer is as cold as ice still even when it's running fast. CPU temps usually stay at around 70-78, but I do plan on overclocking maybe once I get my video card. Thinking about getting an Nvidia GTX 560ti superclocked. Than a few more fans and my computer will be AOK, maybe even a water cooling system anyway as you all may figure, I built the computer and it was a resounding successful build! I love it, I love the 1080P screen I got, I just hate myself for spending 700 on a shitty god damn laptop that ended up ultimately raping me in such a little amount of time.

[SMWS6TA]

Rylan just don't try to think that in 2 yrs time all the stuff you just did will be outdated .......





I spent last night trying to figure out why mine keeps turning off at random times. My fan/heat sink were not correctly installed to the MB. Had to carefully bend the attachment pin straight. Reinstalled and it's been working fine, while I was doing that I also found out I only have 2 GB of ram. What sucks is I can only upgrade to 4GB, so I foresee a new MB/Processor/ram sometime in the next few months.....

[Guerrillakilla13]

Which is exactly why I tried to pick the best of the best parts I could my friend. So far I love my setup and I owe a big part of it to all you guys for helpin me out with this. Only reason I did it was because my laptop broke after less than 2 years of service, so I decided to go all out so I don't have to worry about a non-durable good.

Scott was your desktop custom built or did you buy a pre made one? Ya man if you can only have 4gs of ram at its highest point its definitely time to get a new MB

Also man disk defragment and disk clean up, as well as CCleaner for your registry do wonders for a slow pc

[35th-ANV-SS]

My personal laptop only has a 1.3GHz processor and 736MB of RAM

[NE-Firebird]

Ya man if you can only have 4gs of ram at its highest point its definitely time to get a new MB

Why do you need that much RAM?
For Windows7, unless you do video editing, it's a huge waste. If you do video editing, get the latest NVIDIA and CUDA graphics card you can afford.

Win8 makes better use of RAM to store recently used programs and files.
For Win8, 4G is fine even when I leave my PC on 24/7 and I do mega compiles.

What sucks is I can only upgrade to 4GB, so I foresee a new MB/Processor/ram sometime in the next few months.....

See above. IMHO, 4G is fine for Win7 and Win8. In fact, both work fine, with no performance hit, with 2G and most applications.

Blackbird is right the k series are an overclockers chip. Intel I think figures its going to be in a high end system with after market coolers. So they don't invest much in them. My 2600k heatsink was fine for the non k series but couldn't keep up with it once you started overclocking.

The non-k series should not be overclocked.
There are some very important differences between the K and non-K chips. But, only for power-users. If you run a VM (virtual machine), then you want the non-K chips. I have applications and licenses that work only on XP. So, that means running XP in a VM. So, I do not use the K chips.

Win8 Pro has a kick *ss VM(virtual machine) and bitlocker (encryption/decryption). Like with their anti-virus, IMHO, their VM and bitlocker (can now do the OS/boot/etc) should be fine for 99% of the users of those tools.

BTW, if you run Win8, get the freeware Classic Shell ( Welcome to Classic Shell ) . With Classic Shell, Win8 kicks the a** out of every other OS out there! I configure my machines to look like either WinXP or Win7.

Without Classic Shell, Win8 is the biggest flaming POS OS ever! What *********ing ******* in MS thought that it made any sense to get rid of the start button in the desktop? With no Slates available, Win8 (without Classic Shell) makes zero sense.


For Win8 Pro and a [B]Bitlocker/B]:
If you have a laptop, then you want to use use some sort of full disk encryption like bitlocker. If you have a 2nd or 3rd gneration i3, i5, or i7, then those chips have hardware assist for AES encryption. And the result is basically near zero loss of performance (maybe 1-2%) using encryption/decryption. Cool!
Bitlocker info:
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh831412.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/w.../jj737997.aspx



For Win8 Pro and a VM:
https://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...windows-8.aspx

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...-e10f0c9ed825/

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../hh857623.aspx


https://www.pcworld.com/article/2018...ows-about.html

[Blakbird24]

Curious.

Why do you need that much RAM?
For Windows7, unless you do video editing, it's a huge waste. If you do video editing, get the latest NVIDIA and CUDA graphics card you can afford.

Win8 makes better use of RAM to store recently used programs and files.
For Win8, 4G is fine even when I leave my PC on 24/7 and I do mega compiles.

You may not NEED more than 4GB of RAM, but that doesn't mean that a computer (even with 7) can't use it. My workstation has 32GB and still reaches 70% utilization on a regular basis.

The extra RAM will come in handy down the road. Future-proofing is what it's called. With RAM prices as cheap as they are, the only upgrade that offers more bang-for-the-buck right now is an SSD.

The non-k series should not be overclocked.
There are some very important differences between the K and non-K chips.

Why do you say this?

BTW, if you run Win8, get the freeware Classic Shell ( Welcome to Classic Shell ) . With Classic Shell, Win8 kicks the a** out of every other OS out there! I configure my machines to look like either WinXP or Win7.

Without Classic Shell, Win8 is the biggest flaming POS OS ever! What *********ing ******* in MS thought that it made any sense to get rid of the start button in the desktop? With no Slates available, Win8 (without Classic Shell) makes zero sense.

Ok this is more than a bit harsh. Win 8 is an excellent operating system all around. Some people, such as myself, actually prefer the new interface. Once you learn to lose your dependence on the start menu, you'll find that you are able to accomplish tasks in fewer clicks. Despite that, the absence of the start button is not enough to significantly damage what is, under the hood, the best OS you can buy.

[NE-Firebird]

You may not NEED more than 4GB of RAM, but that doesn't mean that a computer (even with 7) can't use it. My workstation has 32GB and still reaches 70% utilization on a regular basis.

What applications are you using that need that much RAM? IMHO, databases and Video editing are the only "common" applications. That is unless you run VMs (virtual machines).

Why do you say this?

i7-2600K
ARK | Intel® Core
Intel® vPro Technology No
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) No

i7-2600
ARK | Intel® Core
Intel® vPro Technology Yes
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) Yes

Ok this is more than a bit harsh. Win 8 is an excellent operating system all around. Some people, such as myself, actually prefer the new interface. Once you learn to lose your dependence on the start menu, you'll find that you are able to accomplish tasks in fewer clicks. Despite that, the absence of the start button is not enough to significantly damage what is, under the hood, the best OS you can buy.

For an OS, Win8 is TONS better than Win7 or anything else. Many underlying reasons for that.

I use many programs at work. I have well over a 100 installed professional programs. It all depends what people use a PC for.
Some just use a few applications. In that case, put a shortcut on the desktop. Again, for power users, there's often a need to have many professional applications installed.

The Start Menu and using hierarchical folders is the best way to manage a large number of installed programs.

Again, I see no reason for not including the start button, other than some ********* wanted to stress the touch interface for Win8. Yes, Win8 MUST BE TOUCH FRIENDLY!! But, with Classic Shell, Win8 is now "everything you need it to be". Note that some ******* at MS decided to remove the Start Button, And, for a while, that ******* ******* even had a Win8 beta release prevent a start button and directly booting to the desktop. WTF!!! Thankfully, they stopped the BS in the release version!

the only upgrade that offers more bang-for-the-buck right now is an SSD.

SSDs are a very involved topic. IMHO, if you're allowed to use a commercial version of an SSD at work, then IMHO, then your IT department is clueless.
With XP, an SSD would be a huge joke - if it didn't screw people over massively.
With Win7, an SSD is better.
With Win8, there is finally proper OS support for an SSD.

Still, regardless, SSDs have a very limited write life to the same cell. The latest generation of controllers do a better job at "write wearing".
But, the new controllers also often mean they use EEPROM that has an ~1K write limit to a cell. WTF!
And, the commercial SSDs are having less and less spare blocks. The amount of free space in a SSD effects it's life expectancy and it's speed.
Anandtech finally did an article on SSD free space and life expectancy.
AnandTech - Exploring the Relationship Between Spare Area and Performance Consistency in Modern SSDs
The info is there. But, IMHO, to appease their advertisers and to not PO the company's that send them free eval units, they really water down the real meaning/importance of the article.

If someone uses their personal laptop 2 hours a day and they have at least 25% free space, then they are likely okay for ~5 years.
For a 24/7/365 heavily used work PC, using an SSD for any non static data storage is likely foolish. Unless, the data on the SSD is backed up. Or, the SSD is used purposely for fast data reads/writes of temporary data.

With all due respect to Anandtech, I started my career doing a lot of disk-related stuff. And, I've done designs from simple disk interface to a RAID system for an IBM mainframe. IBM mainframe - WTF is that?


Just look at the disk light on any Win7 or WinXP system. Even with "nothing" running.
Bring up the performance monitor. Heck, you don't even need SATA monitors. Now, figure out how many times a write will be done to a disk when the system is running 24/7/365 and even if it's just "doing nothing". There are many reasons why it's desirable (and important) for an OS to do frequent writes to a disk. To reduce that requirement is not trivial, and requires a significant change to an OS like Windows. That's one of the many disk/file-I/O improvements done in Win8.

Still, the Win8 OS likes to do disk writes. And, for a heavily used PC, there can be a massive number of disk writes.

At work, and at home (I do consulting work at home), I have an LSI RAID card with either 512MB or 1G of RAM. And, I use it in write-back mode. I also have disks that are designed to run 24/7/365 for 1million+ hours (enterprise-class drives). With 4 disks in parallel, I get 400-500MBytes/sec reads/writes.
I always backup my disks/data to an off-line disk and also to a separate location. You do not want your important data in one system/case/location where a power spike, or power supply dying, can destroy the data.

IMHO, SSDs are fine for when space, weight, or power are important (like in many applications). But, for a desktop, give me a big case, an LSI RAID controller, enterprise-class drives with SAS interfaces ( Enterprise Drives | Seagate ), and I feel sorry for people with SSDs in their desktops.

[Blakbird24]

What applications are you using that need that much RAM? IMHO, databases and Video editing are the only "common" applications. That is unless you run VMs (virtual machines).

Try AutoCAD or Solidworks. Either one of those will happily eat all the RAM you can give it. My primary workstation's load is much more diverse, but I can hit upwards of 50% average utilization with either one of those alone.

i7-2600K
ARK | Intel® Core
Intel® vPro Technology No
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) No

i7-2600
ARK | Intel® Core
Intel® vPro Technology Yes
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) Yes

Both the 2600 and 2600K support the VT-x extension. The VT-d extension only effects how I/O is handled, it's absence does not preclude virtualization. VT-d is left out of the K chips because Intel realized the likelihood of overclockers boosting Bclk which can cause data corruption in hypervisor tunnels (I don't blame them since they can't even seem to build an NIC that can handle a boosted Bclk). Despite that, i've had no issue with VMs running on overclocked chips, both K and non-K series with VT-d active.

SSDs are a very involved topic. IMHO, if you're allowed to use a commercial version of an SSD at work, then IMHO, then your IT department is clueless.

As the system administrator for a large engineering firm, I appreciate your humble opinion. All our high-end CAD workstations use a single SSD for their OS drive. They do not contain storage drives as all files are stored on one of three file servers. Those servers are backed up with cloud syncronization and offsite hard storage.

With XP, an SSD would be a huge joke - if it didn't screw people over massively.
With Win7, an SSD is better.
With Win8, there is finally proper OS support for an SSD.

The good SSD builders all have excellent software to augment SSD support in 7.

If someone uses their personal laptop 2 hours a day and they have at least 25% free space, then they are likely okay for ~5 years.
For a 24/7/365 heavily used work PC, using an SSD for any non static data storage is likely foolish. Unless, the data on the SSD is backed up. Or, the SSD is used purposely for fast data reads/writes of temporary data.

If you are keeping computers for anywhere near 5 years, then your IT department is clueless. Our workstations are rotated out at maximum intervals of 2 years. Our servers go for 4 (though they contain no SSDs).

At work, and at home (I do consulting work at home), I have an LSI RAID card with either 512MB or 1G of RAM. And, I use it in write-back mode. I also have disks that are designed to run 24/7/365 for 1million+ hours (enterprise-class drives). With 4 disks in parallel, I get 400-500MBytes/sec reads/writes.
I always backup my disks/data to an off-line disk and also to a separate location. You do not want your important data in one system/case/location where a power spike, or power supply dying, can destroy the data.

IMHO, SSDs are fine for when space, weight, or power are important (like in many applications). But, for a desktop, give me a big case, an LSI RAID controller, enterprise-class drives with SAS interfaces ( Enterprise Drives | Seagate ), and I feel sorry for people with SSDs in their desktops.

That's very cool...I used to enjoy building hardware-managed arrays for fun. But unless you need an ungodly amount of space (and there's always a place for that - I have a 12TB datacenter in my own home), SSDs are still the better choice thanks to the fact that they are able to match the throughput of multi-drive striping without taking the access time hit or delivering dismal random I/O performance. Thanks to those virtues, a simple 128GB samsung 830 can outperform a $6000 SAS array. On top of the simplicity and price, they use a fraction of the power...which is an increasingly important feature these days.

[SMWS6TA]

Scott was your desktop custom built or did you buy a pre made one?

Ya man if you can only have 4gs of ram at its highest point its definitely time to get a new MB

Also man disk defragment and disk clean up, as well as CCleaner for your registry do wonders for a slow pc

I built it myself. Back when Win NT4.0 was out I was very proficient with it and Unix but knowing the software is a very perishable skill that if you are not on top of all the time it will leave you like a ZR1.


I also want more ram due to I like gaming a lot. I have a good GVA but increasing the ram also helps out too.

[CJREX]

I don't know which bothers me more:

Seeing 2 computer nerds arguing out specs on the internet or realizing that I am understanding what they are talking about.

[Guerrillakilla13]

Just to keep everyone updated, I recently sold my ps3 ( ) and bought myself two 200mm fans for the case and MSI's version of the GTX660TI. Can't wait to get some serious gaming going

..but knowing the software is a very perishable skill that if you are not on top of all the time it will leave you like a ZR1.

Niceee. It shouldn't be too hard to get a decent motherboard for yourself. I got mine for 127 and it included LGA 1155 slot, 4 usb 3.0 slots, PCI 3.0 with SLI/Crossfire support, HD audio and up to 32gb. ram space. Make sure your GPU's up for the task though, that GTX cost me 300 bucks