The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

I haven't seen any 4K TV's in action. I have however seen my brothers new TV. It has a very high refresh rate. VERY nice TV. It's a 60". The picture is so clear, it almost looks fake lol. I can't imagine 4K looking any better Other than using the potential for windows resolution/real estate, I just don't see the need right now. But, as I say, I haven't seen them in action. I could be wrong. I certainly see the difference with the other technologies.

Sam, 30hz? Why in the world would you run at that refresh? If you said 24Hz, I might understand. Because when I watch a 3D BD on my monitor, Powerdvd automatically changes to 23Hz. But then I have to go into settings, and change it to 24Hz. Not sure why it does that. 23Hz is quite stuttery lol. As I'm sure you can imagine. I haven't played with the other refresh rates yet while watching. Not sure if they're properly attainable.

 

Because if you use a 4K TV, 30Hz is what you'll get at the desktop. 1080p TVs have finally now started offering 60Hz at 1080p, but at 4K, unless you buy a monitor, you'll be running 30Hz over HDMI. Not for me thanks!

 

HDMI won't support a better refresh? Isn't there a new standard for better refresh? 2.0 for instance looks like it supports 60Hz/60Fps :S So, is it the drivers and/or cards not supporting 2.0?

 

There is a new HDMI standard - 2.0 as you point out, but I'm not aware of any TVs supporting it yet, nor graphics cards for that matter.

 

Ah... the waiting game LOL!

I see there are graphics cards which boast HDMI 2.0 native. And I read (Don't know if it's true) that current HDMI cords are compatible with the standard. Though there'll likely be companies attempting to sell "2.0" cords for a premium lol...

I read old posts saying that companies like LG, will have TV's in spring 2014 that support 2.0. I'll be damned if I can find any now. I suspect I'm gonna wait on any more display purchases. The only thing I'm interested in now, is a 120Hz UHD, HDMI 2.0 screen. No doubt, It'll actually be yet another revision of HDMI to support 120Hz.

I'll be waiting a while!

 

Are you kidding? First of all the resolution is 4X that of HD, that's HUGE, and the shading is extremely better due to the enormous color pallet and blacks are as good, no much better than a plasma TV's. And who said resolution had anything to do with the color pallet, I certainly did not.

If you browse around forums or reviews for 4k UHD's you'll see many people going to 4K TV's for monitors due to their superior performance, resolution, color pallet, and cost effective size compared to lower res IPS monitors, it's the smart move. Seiki Digital is the preferred TV monitor but no reason not to use a better panel like Sony, LG, or Samsung

 

At the risk of repeating myself, again though, this is because 4K TVs happen to be newer, slightly higher-end models. It's nothing to do with the fact that they are 4K. Pixel count alone does not account for anything to do with the colour pallet or black levels. I admittedly haven't seen many 4K TVs but I would still be surprised if they could deliver a monitor-like experience at the desktop. The biggest problem with doing so is as I said before, a 30Hz refresh rate if you do use 3840x2160 at the desktop.

 

Polk Monitor 60s and CS2 center arrived today. They are big, heavy, and beautiful. Very nice looking speakers. Great build quality. More on them when I have the time to sit and listen. No broken grills like some are reporting and nice weight to them. The 60s are a bit larger than I expected. I have a feeling the 70s may circumvent the need for a subwoofer. Either that or 4 x 60s will be more than enough with a sub. Very interested in getting them broken in over the next few weeks and getting a feel for them.

 

I wanted to buy the FX 9590 so bad this tax return. But I'm very disappointed with the reviews I'm reading with ALL the manufacturers. It seems no one can run this CPU properly, for a great length of time. The boards required for this CPU, are all getting questionably bad reviews. I would prefer see 90% positive. Is that too much to ask? :S

 

It's a LOT of power, so that doesn't surprise me. Same as clocking the nuts off a normal CPU really...

 

I understand, but surely they can give their motherboards respectable components, to handle the demand!?

 

I dunno really, power regulation seems to have been a problem for AMD boards for some time. I don't much see the reason for it myself, but heard a few stories from Phenom II overclockers, which is still ultimately less power. Running 150A through something at any voltage takes some fairly decent equipment...

 

It only really reared its ugly head when Bulldozer and Vishera came along. Bulldozer CPUs especially were responsible for tons of blown boards. My 990FXA easily has good enough power regulation for a top clocked Vishera, not much different from my 6 core Thuban overall. However I would always be wary of OCing a Bulldozer in any board.

Phenom IIs only blow mid range boards with no VRM cooling. Any board with decent cooling will OC a Phenom II no problem. It was a problem during the AMD 700 chipset run though. Lots of mid range boards with no VRM cooling at all, and 140W 940s like mine being OCd. A problem you'll notice was largely solved by the time AMD 800 rolled around. Very good chipset BTW. 890 is better than 990 in a few ways. Particularly stability and Phenom II OCing.

 

I remember finding it odd that none of the top-end boards for 125W Phenom II chips had anything like the VRM complexity and cooling that my upper-midrange P55A-UD4 did for 95W LGA1156 chips - there weren't even any 130W chips for this socket!

 

I may get one of the boards, and hope for a better revision down the road. I think this board is getting long in the tooth. And I'd rather a UEFI capable board/bios. I generally don't overclock anymore. Only reason I'd see the point now, is if a single thread app were lagging.

The VRMs... they can handle the current, but they can't handle the heat? Lets say I cool the hell out of one of the higher end boards. In your opinion, could it handle the 220W comfortably?

 

I couldn't possibly say - I've had no experience with them. The power draw of my overclocked 750 isn't quite as high as a stock FX-9590, it's not been an issue on my board, but then I don't run it 24/7 at full load.

 

My board with stock cooling and no modifications or tweaks whatsoever would likely run an FX-9590 problem-free indefinitely. The 9590 is nearly the same wattage as my OC'd Thuban which is just about 200-220W when using 1.5v if I did the math right. Either the 990FXA UD3 or UD5 would be just fine. The UD5 has never gotten the heatsink warm enough for me to even note the temps during hardcore benchmarks and stress tests on a 200+W CPU using more voltage than is technically safe. It's that much of a non-issue. Basically sits at room temp and the cooler never gets hotter than warm to the touch.

As long as the board has properly adequate cooling, your CPU cooler is much more important. I went through a few coolers looking for one powerful enough before I bought the H110, but it's a bit overkill. A solid high end air cooler or something like a Corsair H60 would do the job easily. The liquid cooler that comes with the FX9590 sucks and barely does the job. Even the relatively weak Cool-It Eco 120 is better, as it's the same radiator with a better pump. And the Cool It Eco sucks too.

What you guys are hearing about is idiots trying to run overclocked CPUs on very obviously inadequate boards, period. Have done a lot of research on this. The upper range AMDs require a well cooled motherboard, that's all there is to it. Even then, my old 780G board with no VRM cooler is capable of some OCing too if you watch the voltage. It's all ignorance guys. Just know what you're doing and there are no more problems than with any other setup.

Also, Sam, LOL the longevity of that CPU in your PC. Amazing. Never could have found a more perfect time to buy.

 

Thanks for the info guys. I'll be considering it over the next few weeks, before I commit to any buying. I'm constantly video encoding, so keeping her cool is foremost on my mind I also have to consider a new lens for my camera, but I don't think motherboard/CPU/Memory is out of the question. And I'm sure my power supply won't notice much more draw.

Jeff, I had a feeling one or more of you guys would say something like that. I was hoping you would! What I'll probably end up doing, is having it underclocked at first, monitoring temps closely, with one of those infrared guns. I've been wanting one for some time now. Now I'll have two reasons for purchasing one. How long have you had your board anyway, Jeff?

And the next boards chipset/VRMs, will have my complete attention! Fact is, I may opt to finally run quad 120mm fans on the side.

 

I use a single 250mm fan at 900RPM on the side and it gets the job done nicely. No attention needed. I've had the board for about a year and a half now. Before that I was using a less beefy 890X board which was really 790X and it also worked well. 200+ watts 24/7 and never batted an eye but did get a bit warm and required a small chipset fan.

 

The funny thing is, it's still not going anywhere - there's nothing yet that really warrants me replacing it. This part of my build (CPU, board, and 2 of the 4 sticks of RAM) celebrate its fifth birthday in just under a month's time. I'd have laughed if I were told that 5 years from then I'd still be using the same hardware. It's not quite got the same overclocking headroom it used to have without raising the voltage higher than I'd like, but I still have it running pretty solid at 3.60Ghz, which is nonetheless a 35% increase over stock. Gets pretty hot on the Ultra-120 cooler, but unless the fan isn't running (an occasional bug with the board that can happen every few months) it'll run flawlessly beyond 80ºC if allowed to. That's not bad really given the age of the hardware and how often it's been used. For a CPU, board and memory that cost less than £400 between them at the time (and were upgraded to 12GB from the original 4GB rather inexpensively a year or so afterwards) I'm pretty happy. The case and PSU of course are older still, about to turn 6 years of age. The PSU does seem to have issue with the GTX970 when using the 8-pin connectors in 6-pin mode, but when using connectors 3&4 (the 6-pin only ones) it has no problem. The Radeons that preceded it (HD4870X2s, HD6970s, briefly a 290X) had no issue at all, so I wonder if it's one of those 'nvidia being more picky' issues or whether one rail is a little unstable. Either way, I think come the next upgrade the PSU will probably be replaced out of caution simply for how old it is, as I'm not sure I'd want to run another high-wattage system off this unit given the above.
The Nexus PSU in my server has already been replaced with a Corsair RM650 due to a failed fan bearing on the former, so I may get an equivalent unit for this one as I'm happy with the silence of it.

The Q9550 system is getting a bit long in the tooth now, with the CPU already 6 years old and the X48 board well over 5. I have had issues whereby if the system is hot, it will not reboot unless allowed to cool down for 5 minutes, but I think that's more a symptom of the case cooling in the 4U box being a little inefficient, as it only happens when the case fans are allowed to reduce when the CPU is idle - clearly implying the CPU isn't overheating but something else, probably the chipset or perhaps even the passively-cooled RAID controller, is. Likely since they all (including the CPU) run passive heatsinks. At some point later this year I'll have a bit of a fiddle in there and see if, with a new install of windows, I can cure these little issues. If not, the Q9550, X48-DS4 and HD4830 will be ousted in favour of a much more efficient Broadwell IGP-based setup, such that the only real heat in the system comes from the RAID card and the disks themselves.
For the time being, I run the rear 80mm pair at full 3800rpm and the front 120mm trio at full 1800rpm. It does perhaps make a mockery of previous silencing efforts but it keeps things in check for now.