Hardware New Hardware

[RisingFury]

My results with the Intel I7 3770K and the Antec H20 620 closed water cooling.

On default maximum speed of 3.9 GHz, all cores running at 100% in hot weather, the temperature doesn't rise higher than 65°C.

Overclocked to 4.4 GHZ, it runs smooth and stable, with 100% power in hot weather, the temperature doesn't rise higher than 70°C.

Mainboard S-1155 ASUS P8Z68-V/Gen3, ATX

 

[FADEC]

My results with the Intel I7 3770K and the Antec H20 620 closed water cooling.

On default maximum speed of 3.9 GHz, all cores running at 100% in hot weather, the temperature doesn't rise higher than 65°C.

Overclocked to 4.4 GHZ, it runs smooth and stable, with 100% power in hot weather, the temperature doesn't rise higher than 70°C.

Mainboard S-1155 ASUS P8Z68-V/Gen3, ATX

Thanks for the info. Nice machine.

I fear that the advance of Intel is unbeatable for AMD. The i5 2400 already is unrivalled.

 

[Screamer7]

Oh my gosh, the Pentium G860 is a performer for sure for that amount of money.
Looks like AMD is falling behind even further than I expected.
Which is sad in some ways, because Intel do not have real competition any more.
Since the Core 2 Duo CPU's arrived, AMD struggle to lead.
Maybe they hanged on to long on the Athlon 64 success story?

 

[Urwumpe]

AMD simply tried to cheat, that was their error. Like Intel tried to market with Clock rate once, AMD now tries to sell their CPUs by the number of cores.

Sadly, you effectively have to cut the number of cores into half on Windows for AMDs, because, two Integer cores on the current family share resources (FPU, instruction decoding, scheduling, etc). This means for most games, a 8 core AMD will behave like a 4 core Intel (Linux on the other hand can handle this CPU design well). Combine this with the poor game programming in the recent years, and the performance is further reduced compared to Intels, 4 collision free cores fare better with poor multi-core software than 8 paired cores.

I also recommend Intel for now, but this can quickly change. If AMD would fix the errors on the Bulldozer cores instead of further cheating, it could outperform Intels again. But Intel does also not sleep. (And that AMD closed its Dresden R&D facility, while Intel invests into its Braunschweig laboratory is also no sign for a change for AMD)

But nothing really beats IBM CPUs when it comes to crude GP-processing power - only GPGPUs are faster.

 

[FADEC]

Yeah. AMD chosed the easiest way. And they lost the race. They try to sell their CPUs by the number of cores, but also by the core clock. 4x4GHz sounds amazing. But if one takes a look at the performance, one will notice that it's not even as fast as the Pentium G860 (for gaming), but uses as twice as much power. The G860 achieves slighty more performance (for gaming) with only 2x3GHz. THAT is actually amazing.

I think AMD has to build a completely new generation of CPUs. But I will buy an i5 next year anyway

 

[Screamer7]

I also decided to jump on the upgrade wagon.
This is the system I can afford.
That is a total upgrade from my ancient Core 2 Duo E 4400 CPU.

Gigabyte Z77m-D3H Mobo
Intel Core I5 3470 3.2 GHZ CPU
2 x 4 Gigabyte Transcent Jetram 1333 MHZ
Seagate 1 TB Sata 3 5900R Hard Drive
Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce 660 GTX
Antec Case 200 V2
600 wat PSU
LG IPS235V 23" LED Monitor.

I think I will see some improvement from my current rig? :lol:
I am not sure about the hard drive though.........

 

[FADEC]

I also decided to jump on the upgrade wagon.
This is the system I can afford.
That is a total upgrade from my ancient Core 2 Duo E 4400 CPU.

Gigabyte Z77m-D3H Mobo
Intel Core I5 3470 3.2 GHZ CPU
2 x 4 Gigabyte Transcent Jetram 1333 MHZ
Seagate 1 TB Sata 2 5900R Hard Drive
Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce 660 GTX
Antec Case 200 V2
600 wat PSU
LG IPS235V 23" LED Monitor.

I think I will see some improvement from my current rig? :lol:
I am not sure about the hard drive though.........

Nice

Just an idea: why not buying 1600 MHz RAM? The board you chosed and the CPU does support it. The prices of 1333 and 1600 MHz RAMs are mostly equal.

By the way, what do you guys think about ATI graphics cards? What would you recommend, Nvidia or ATI?

 

[Hielor]

By the way, what do you guys think about ATI graphics cards? What would you recommend, Nvidia or ATI?

Nvidia, full stop, end of story.

ATI can get similar performance for a lower price, but driver support is terrible.

 

[Screamer7]

Nice

Just an idea: why not buying 1600 MHz RAM? The board you chosed and the CPU does support it. The prices of 1333 and 1600 MHz RAMs are mostly equal.

By the way, what do you guys think about ATI graphics cards? What would you recommend, Nvidia or ATI?

I know and ask the salesman the same question.
He's response was that the 1666 MHz ram is only good if you are in over clocking.
I eat his explanation with a pinch of salt. I suspect he does not have 1666 MHz ram in stock.
But i will ask him again today,and insist for 1666 MHz, especially if the ram prices are nearly the same.
I made a typo regarding the hard drive.
The hard drive is sata 3 and not sata 2.

Regarding AMD and nVidia check this link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-geforce-gtx-650-benchmark,3297.html
FADEC, ATI does not exist any more. AMD bought the brand.
All Radeon cards are made by AMD these days

 

[FADEC]

Nvidia, full stop, end of story.

ATI can get similar performance for a lower price, but driver support is terrible.

So nothing changed. Too bad. Thanks for the advice.

---------- Post added at 11:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 AM ----------

I know and ask the salesman the same question.
He's response was that the 1666 MHz ram is only good if you are in over clocking.
I eat his explanation with a pinch of salt. I suspect he does not have 1666 MHz ram in stock.
But i will ask him again today,and insist for 1666 MHz, especially if the ram prices are nearly the same.

Maybe he is right. On the other hand: why not having faster RAM when it's not more expensive? In some cases 1600 MHz even is less expensive.

I made a typo regarding the hard drive.
The hard drive is sata 3 and not sata 2.

I still use SATA 2 hard drives. I might change to SATA 3 or even SSD next year.

Regarding AMD and nVidia check this link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-geforce-gtx-650-benchmark,3297.html
FADEC, ATI does not exist any more. AMD bought the brand.
All Radeon cards are made by AMD these days

Thanks.

 

[jangofett287]

My advice with the RAM is don't bother. I have 4Gb of high speed gaming RAM, and my system is not noticeably faster than it would have been with normal RAM. Also I think you've typo'd, the highest speed RAM I can find is 1066MHz, rather than 1666MHz.

In case anyone is interested here's my RAM:
http://geil.com.tw/products/showSpec/id/118

 

[Screamer7]

Check out this link:
http://www.ocia.net/articles/memlatency/page1.shtml
And this one:
http://www.huddysworld.co.uk/index....-understanding-choosing-and-overclocking-ddr3
Yes, I did make a mistake.
It should be 1600 MHz.
My bad.

UPDATE.
The compoments had arrive and I assembled the PC.
It was really breeze to build the PC.
First impressions:
WOW!!!
Windows 8 is a different beast to get use to though.
From the moment I press the on switch to the start screen...... 10 seconds!!
And I started from a cold boot, not in sleep or hibernation mode.
Now that is impressive I think.

Sorry for the duplicates.
That is what happening when I try to use my cell phone.

 

[FADEC]

Congratulations to your new system

My components arrived as well. But I did change my mind once again. I know I did it quite often. Actually too often. The problem was that I simply read too much reviews. In the end I didn't want to spend too much money so I returned to my initial AMD choice. I now have a Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (and an ASrock 970 Extreme3 mainboard). I built it yesterday, by using one arm only (mostly). Took almost 7 hours (which includes removing the old components first and cleaning the case; and Windows 7 installation + all the other software).

Overclocking works perfect. I now have 4x4GHz. Idle temp. is 38-40°C. While gaming (flight simulation) it increases to 50°C. Not too bad for an aircooled CPU I think (http://img.hexus.net/v2/cooling/Arctic_Cooling/Freezer_XTREME_Rev.2/IMG_1565-big.jpg).

That's a nice cheap gaming system. And it seems that ASrock meanwhile builds decent mainboards. Not only that it looks nice. The overclocking capabilities are great as well. Everything just works perfect from the first second.

But there is one fly in the ointment. FSX still does not work satisfactorily with max settings and addon scenery and addon aircraft installed. Quite bad for a program that is 6 years old already. MS did really bad with that engine in my point of view. So that was a waste of money (buying the software once again). But FS2004 now runs 100% smooth in the most dense sceneries, fully pimped with addons. It's awesome. Never run a simulation that smooth. And with all the addons I bought over the years, it doesn't really look much different than FSX, except the water (and no ground traffic and birds).

I didn't try orbiter yet. But it already run perfectly with my old dual core.

Can't wait to test gaming, once my collarbone fracture healed. I consider Battlefield 3 since I saw too many videos for not being interested :lol:

 

[Screamer7]

My fist impressions with Orbiter with this new rig was....oh no.
In the stock Orbiter 2010 P1, my frame rates was very bad. About 30 to 38 FPS.
Then I tried the Direct X 9 and Direct X 11 clients.
They reported a average frame rate of 580 to 700 FPS.
Is that possible?
I've run FRAPS to make double sure and the results where the same.
In the Direct X 11 client the scenery was breathtaking.
I was never been able to see it in it's full glory, because my nVidia 9600 GT was only Direct x 10 compatible.

 

[RisingFury]

My fist impressions with Orbiter with this new rig was....oh no.
In the stock Orbiter 2010 P1, my frame rates was very bad. About 30 to 38 FPS.
Then I tried the Direct X 9 and Direct X 11 clients.
They reported a average frame rate of 580 to 700 FPS.
Is that possible?

Yes, it is. I get rotten FPS with the inline client on Windows 7 as well. It turns out my previous computer with XP run Orbiter better in most cases than my current rig.

My usual framerate with the inline client is between 60 and 100, but it was between 100 and 200 on the previous computer. So don't worry, it's something about Windows (ever since Vista) that makes Orbiter slow.

 

[FADEC]

After two weeks of testing my new AMD-based system I have to admit that I was not satisfied with it in the end. AMD CPU's indeed use too much power. While gaming, all fans increased to max speed due to the heat inside the computer, which made the system rather noisy. Even the PSU fan ran at full speed which it never did before when I still had the Core 2 Duo. I could feel the warm air under my desk which is a no go. No more AMD again. This was the last time I gave it a try. How can people be happy with that?

Well, since I am very tired of reading reviews, benchmarks and compare AMD to Intel, I simply chosed to buy the best hardware available obviously. So I don't have to bother anymore.

In other words: today I spend 650 EUR / 840 USD on a new system, except new hard drives and a new PSU. Don't ask where I got the money from while I still had to consider a low budget a few weeks ago... I sold my 17 inch notebook and other hardware on ebay.

This will be my new system:

Case: Cooler Master Elite 430
Mainboard: MSI Z77A-G43
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770 @4x3.4GHz (Ivy Bridge)
CPU cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 412 Slim
RAM: 8GB Kingston HyperX Predator XMP @1600MHz
Graphics card: MSI GTX660 @2GB DDR5

It's already ordered. I expect it to arrive on Tuesday :bananadance:

 

[RisingFury]

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770 @4x3.4GHz (Ivy Bridge)

Almost the same as the 3770K I have. By default, K is a bit more clocked. Runs at 4x3.5 GHz by default, with a maximum boost of 3.9 GHz and overclocked to 4.4 GHz. I'm guessing you can overclock yours the same.

Hope you have a good cooler, because this thing cranks out heat like it's it's job...

 

[Hielor]

That's very close to the new computer I just put together today. Good choices

 

[Screamer7]

I must admit that I was a bit disappointed when you choose the AMD CPU.
Not that AMD makes bad CPU's.
But to be competitive to INTEL, they must do some serious makeovers with their CPU designs.
And the most important one is the power consumption.
The Core I5 and Core I7 and even the I3 is in many ways superior to the AMD equivalent.
I think you done a good choice with the I7 CPU.
Oh...BTW, the Nvidia 660 is really a good card.
I own a Gigabyte 660 GTX OC 2 GB card and was not disappointment with it for one second.
I play Crysis 2 with the Direct 11 and the high resolution patch with all the features enabled, at 40 to 50 FPS.

 

[FADEC]

Almost the same as the 3770K I have. By default, K is a bit more clocked. Runs at 4x3.5 GHz by default, with a maximum boost of 3.9 GHz and overclocked to 4.4 GHz. I'm guessing you can overclock yours the same.

There is only a difference of about 10 EUR between the 3770K and 3770. But I don't intend to overclock my CPU, so I bought the 3770.

Hope you have a good cooler, because this thing cranks out heat like it's it's job...

I think the cooler which I chosed will do a good job. It's a dual fan cooler (push-pull) from Cooler Master. The heatpipes are directly in contact with the CPU:

Additionally my new case offers an installation of two fans on the top, just above the CPU/mainboard.

That's very close to the new computer I just put together today. Good choices

Yeah. I can't wait to get the hardware. I'm curious how FSX will perform on it...

I must admit that I was a bit disappointed when you choose the AMD CPU.
Not that AMD makes bad CPU's.
But to be competitive to INTEL, they must do some serious makeovers with their CPU designs.
And the most important one is the power consumption.

I did not measure the power consumption, but it was obvious that it uses a lot of power only due to the heat the entire systems produces as soon as you start gaming.

The Core I5 and Core I7 and even the I3 is in many ways superior to the AMD equivalent.
I think you done a good choice with the I7 CPU.

Yes. I read that even the i3 ivy bridge CPU's beat the AMD FX CPU's in some games. The i5 already is supposed to be without competition. And the i7 currently is the king of course.

If one takes a look at AMD it seems that this company is going to become an acquisition candidate, if it isn't already. I bought my Core 2 Duo many years ago. At that time Intel already was supposed to be superior to AMD. I've learned my lesson finally. AMD might be a good choice if you are on a low budget. But if the demands are high, it might be better to save some money and buy Intel.

Oh...BTW, the Nvidia 660 is really a good card.
I own a Gigabyte 660 GTX OC 2 GB card and was not disappointment with it for one second.

Good to know

I play Crysis 2 with the Direct 11 and the high resolution patch with all the features enabled, at 40 to 50 FPS.

I might buy Crysis 2 as well. Saw a few videos and screenshots last night. My other choices are Bf3 and CoD Black Ops