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Hardware upgrade; For my desktop PC
Topic Started: Nov 5 2011, 10:02 PM (1,165 Views)
Dr. Best
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Recently my 1TB HDD screwed up. Now I have too much money and too little time to reinstall the system before I've upgraded the hardware. So here is what I want to get:
- A new motherboard and CPU. I prefer Intel CPUs and it should be a quadcore.
- A new graphics device. It has to be an nVidia card, because I want CUDA support and the fancy nVidia development tools.
- One or more new HDDs with ca. 1TB in total. I'd rather have a relatively fail-safe HDD than a cheap or big one.
- An SSD drive with at least 60GB, preferably 100GB. I want to have my sources and binaries on it to reduce compile times.

Everything else is already available. I've got 8GB RAM, optical drives, a 650W power supply, a tower with good air cooling and some additional HDDs. Though I may replace my 19" LCD by a larger one, if somebody can come up with a good recommendation.

The system should be particularly fast at compiling and offline rendering, so the CPU is quite important, but the GPU should be decent anyway. I thought of investing around 500 Euros, but it may be more or less dependent on what it gets me.

So let me know what you'd recommend ;) .
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luenardi
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Dr. Best
Dec 7 2011, 02:34 AM
Jay. All parts arrived and I set the system up over the weekend with both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10. Everything is working fine. The only thing that I did not quite figure out yet, is why the RAM is clocked at 1600Mhz instead of 2133Mhz. CPU cooling turns out to be no issue at all. For a little benchmark I've been running pathtracing with 100% stress on all cores for half an hour. Initially the CPU temperature was at 34°C, now it is at 32°C. The maximum was 39°C. I guess I could abuse my tower for cool drinks :D .

Thanks for all the advice.
Those are very good stats.
Check the bios the ram might be being under clocked.
I'm happy you went with some epic latency on the ram.

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But my universe has no such limits.


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Dr. Best
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luenardi
Dec 8 2011, 03:41 AM
Check the bios the ram might be being under clocked.

Thanks. After a bit of searching I found the option for setting the RAM clockrate.

I also did a little benchmark. Crysis Warhead on 1280*1024 with all graphics settings set to "Enthusiast" runs at 40 to 60 frames per second :) .
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Reikyrr
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Very nice, did you use the Demo? (Nevermind, Warhead is still installed on my pc) I can bench my pc to compare. (I will probably get only 1/3d of your performance tho)


Edit*
umm, how did you benchmark?

T.T:
Spoiler: click to toggle
Edited by Reikyrr, Dec 9 2011, 07:31 PM.
~Inspirational quote~
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Dr. Best
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Well, just the way you do benchmarks on such a system. With lots of browser tabs and an IDE open in the background :D . I simply started a new campaign in Crysis Warhead and played the first few minutes. Antialiasing was only set to 4x, but everything else was at max.

I used Fraps for the framerate.
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luenardi
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Cofee Machines Rock
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Dr. Best
Dec 9 2011, 06:37 PM
luenardi
Dec 8 2011, 03:41 AM
Check the bios the ram might be being under clocked.

Thanks. After a bit of searching I found the option for setting the RAM clockrate.

I also did a little benchmark. Crysis Warhead on 1280*1024 with all graphics settings set to "Enthusiast" runs at 40 to 60 frames per second :) .
Was V-sync on?
Posted Image

For your perception no.
But my universe has no such limits.


www.recall.co.nr
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Dr. Best
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luenardi
Dec 10 2011, 09:38 AM
Dr. Best
Dec 9 2011, 06:37 PM
luenardi
Dec 8 2011, 03:41 AM
Check the bios the ram might be being under clocked.

Thanks. After a bit of searching I found the option for setting the RAM clockrate.

I also did a little benchmark. Crysis Warhead on 1280*1024 with all graphics settings set to "Enthusiast" runs at 40 to 60 frames per second :) .
Was V-sync on?
Yup. And my monitor was at 60hz.
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luenardi
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Cofee Machines Rock
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Dr. Best
Dec 10 2011, 05:06 PM
luenardi
Dec 10 2011, 09:38 AM
Dr. Best
Dec 9 2011, 06:37 PM
luenardi
Dec 8 2011, 03:41 AM
Check the bios the ram might be being under clocked.

Thanks. After a bit of searching I found the option for setting the RAM clockrate.

I also did a little benchmark. Crysis Warhead on 1280*1024 with all graphics settings set to "Enthusiast" runs at 40 to 60 frames per second :) .
Was V-sync on?
Yup. And my monitor was at 60hz.
tada..
Posted Image

For your perception no.
But my universe has no such limits.


www.recall.co.nr
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