|OT| The PC Hardware Thread -- Buy/Upgrade/Ask/Answer

[bbd23]

probably a stupid question but here we go!. Looking to upgrade my monitor when i upgrade my PC this year to a 1440p screen. I also have my PC hooked up to my TV and thats usually what I use to play my games on unless its an FPS or moba. currently in my windows setting I have options set to "duplicate screens" and its super easy for me that way. am I going to run into any issues though with this setting when using a 1440p monitor + 1080p TV or will things continue to be smooth. am I just being paranoid/dumb for no reason?

 

[ISee]

going to run into any issues though with this setting when using a 1440p monitor + 1080p TV or will things continue to be smooth. am I just being paranoid/dumb for no reason?

You have to "share" the resolution between displays when duplicating a screen.
Your new PC display will run at native 2560x1440 and your fullHD TV will take the 1440p image and downsample it to 1080p.
Or you can run 1920x1080 and your PC display will than upscale the image to 2560x1440p and your TV will run at native fullHD.

 

[bbd23]

You have to "share" the resolution between displays when duplicating a screen.
Your new PC display will run at native 2560x1440 and your fullHD TV will take the 1440p image and downsample it to 1080p.
Or you can run 1920x1080 and your PC display will than upscale the image to 2560x1440p and your TV will run at native fullHD.

wonderful! thank you

 

[Xiaomi]

I have an RTX 2080 and I've been getting driver crashes very sporadically while playing games. Doesn't seem to be engine dependent, as I've had it happen on Apex Legends, Anno 1800, MHW, and more. All I can glean is that it's the driver crashing (according to event viewer) and that it happens when the graphics card's working at its full power limit for a while. It doesn't happen often, only once or twice a week at most. But is this a PSU thing? I'm only working with a 650W SFX power supply right now, with two cables from it attached to the graphics card, and I'm worried it might not have enough juice to keep the card up and running at all times.

EDIT: I should clarify the card's not "at its power limit" but rather being afforded a 100% power limit in Afterburner. Reducing this to 75% used to help stability in Apex Legends when it was crashing a lot more there.

 

[ISee]

I have an RTX 2080 and I've been getting driver crashes very sporadically while playing games. Doesn't seem to be engine dependent, as I've had it happen on Apex Legends, Anno 1800, MHW, and more. All I can glean is that it's the driver crashing (according to event viewer) and that it happens when the graphics card's working at its full power limit for a while. It doesn't happen often, only once or twice a week at most. But is this a PSU thing? I'm only working with a 650W SFX power supply right now, with two cables from it attached to the graphics card, and I'm worried it might not have enough juice to keep the card up and running at all times.

EDIT: I should clarify the card's not "at its power limit" but rather being afforded a 100% power limit in Afterburner. Reducing this to 75% used to help stability in Apex Legends when it was crashing a lot more there.

Are you running an overclock?
Driver crashes during high GPU loads are mostly an indication for an unstable overclock. An oc can appear to be stable, but during high load in this one game it isn't. You either have to adjust voltage or set it back by 10-20 MHz in that case. I sometimes had overclocks running for months, but than a new release proofed me wrong. You never know.
If not, uninstall your nvidia driver completely, maybe it is the driver indeed. Use a tool like DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to do so. This will get rid of everything driver related. Download and install the newest nvidia drivers.

PSU not being able to supply enough power should result in either a blue screen of death and/or your PC randomly restarting or turning off.

At least that's my experience so far.

 

[Xiaomi]

Are you running an overclock?
Driver crashes during high GPU loads are mostly an indication for an unstable overclock. An oc can appear to be stable, but during high load in this one game it isn't. You either have to adjust voltage or set it back by 10-20 MHz in that case. I sometimes had overclocks running for months, but than a new release proofed me wrong. You never know.
If not, uninstall your nvidia driver completely, maybe it is the driver indeed. Use a tool like DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to do so. This will get rid of everything driver related. Download and install the newest nvidia drivers.

PSU not being able to supply enough power should result in either a blue screen of death and/or your PC randomly restarting or turning off.

At least that's my experience so far.

No overclock aside from the factory overclock right now. Running the latest nvidia drivers, but I can try doing DDU again. It's been a few months since I've cleared them out and started fresh.

 

[ISee]

No overclock aside from the factory overclock right now. Running the latest nvidia drivers, but I can try doing DDU again. It's been a few months since I've cleared them out and started fresh.

Already assumed that there was no manual OC, but you never know. At least I spared you the usual check temperatures advice ^^.

If DDU doesn't help I would try to down clock my GPU by ~50MHz and check if it still crashes. If it stopped crashing I'd send my GPU in. It has to run stable on factory settings. If it still keep on crashing I'd try out a new PSU.
Maybe somebody else has a better idea.

 

[Xiaomi]

Already assumed that there was no manual OC, but you never know. At least I spared you the usual check temperatures advice ^^.

If DDU doesn't help I would try to down clock my GPU by ~50MHz and check if it still crashes. If it stopped crashing I'd send my GPU in. It has to run stable on factory settings. If it still keep on crashing I'd try out a new PSU.
Maybe somebody else has a better idea.

Hmmm yeah. I'll do that. Temps seem normal, pretty warm in the high 70s under high gaming load but it's in an itx case so I had expected about that high. Would really prefer not to send the thing in but I do have a spare 970 kicking around. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Kuro]

When installing new GPU (Nvidia to Nvidia), just confirming it's safe to attach new one then install new Drivers without any uninstalling right? I think I've done this for the past 5 years with no issues.

 

[ISee]

When installing new GPU (Nvidia to Nvidia), just confirming it's safe to attach new one then install new Drivers without any uninstalling right? I think I've done this for the past 5 years with no issues.

Pretty much. Worked for me so far too.

 

[Copons]

Btw started adding parts to PCPP!
I won't act on it for at least another couple of months (I'll be traveling a lot, and then I guess I'd rather wait for the new AMD CPUs), but is starting to look good to me!
I don't really need the PSU, but the one I've got is not modular and my cable management sucks very hard, so eh, might as well start thinking about that too.

Anyway, plan would be to start with the GPU asap (apparently Kiwami 2 is very intensive, and I don't think my 780 is up to the job ), then slowly but surely upgrade the rest!

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (£133.14 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£80.36 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2933 Memory (£98.12 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card (£428.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: be quiet! - Straight Power 11 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£85.49 @ Amazon UK)
Mouse: Corsair - IRONCLAW RGB FPS/MOBA Wired Optical Mouse (£55.19 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £881.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-17 13:25 BST+0100

One thing I'm not really following is the RAM speed.
ASRock site says that the motherboard supports "DDR4 3200+(OC)/2933(OC)/2667/2400/2133".
But what does the "OC" mean? I'm not into overclocking, so should I step down to a 2667 instead?
Or find a better and more future proof motherboard?

 

[Kuro]

>Buy new GPU thinking the power will be put to good use
>Boot up game from over decade ago
The thirst for new hardware is unquenchable.

Also somehow, managed to break small part of my new SSD's SATA Power, the plastic L-lip when trying to decide where to put it in the case. These things are too fragile, I literally just put on the cable and detached it and saw small part is now missing.
Shouldn't effect use but still asking Samsung what is their policy on this.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/576487633354752020/578979439820537867/20190517_191656.jpg

Or do you peeps think this is safe to use?

 

[Copons]

>Buy new GPU thinking the power will be put to good use
>Boot up game from over decade ago
The thirst for new hardware is unquenchable.

Ahahaha +1

Back when I built my current rig with a shiny new 780, first game I tried: Cook Serve Delicious.

 

[ISee]

Or do you peeps think this is safe to use?

As long as the connection sits and doesn't move, it should be safe.
Still, it's a new product, freshly bought. I'd try to exchange it.

 

[Durante]

>Buy new GPU thinking the power will be put to good use
>Boot up game from over decade ago
The thirst for new hardware is unquenchable.

I'm happy VR exists, not just because it's awesome, but also because it gives me at least some justification for buying this high-end GPU hardware despite basically never playing AAA games.

 

[Kuro]

I'm happy VR exists, not just because it's awesome, but also because it gives me at least some justification for buying this high-end GPU hardware despite basically never playing AAA games.

Pretty much my reason too, at least VR makes good use of it.

 

[Parsnip]

Thinking about buying some extra storage and retiring some older drives. I still have two 3tb wd greens in use that were manufactured october 2012. They still work just fine and they are in an external enclosure that is not powered on a lot, but still. Aproaching 7 years feels like I'm pushing my luck there. Will probably grab two 6tb reds to replace them. Or actually technically I would replace the 4tb reds I have in my pc with the 6tb reds, and put the 4tb reds in the enclosure.

Seems like 8tb is the sweet spot when it comes to price and storage, but sadly wd 8tb and up are helium drives, and all the wd and hgst helium drives I've used have had this relatively loud, repeating clicking noise even in idle. They even have a support article for that. And in contrast, the current 4tb reds I have are whisper silent, so I have to assume that something about their brand of helium tech is the reason. I actually wonder if other manufacturers have that. Or if their helioseal tech has improved in that sense at all.

 

[PhaZZe]

guys, anyone hereere uses or tried custom video drivers?

www.reddit.com/r/XtremeG

 

[Kuro]

guys, anyone hereere uses or tried custom video drivers?

www.reddit.com/r/XtremeG

Can you give any reasons as to why someone should look into custom drivers? Do they unlock OC potential or something? I saw some compatibility drivers before but custom is a first one.

 

[Kvik]

Does anyone have any recommendation for USB 4K capture card? Not looking one for serious streaming purposes, just for screenshotting and making gifs.

 

[ISee]

Does anyone have any recommendation for USB 4K capture card? Not looking one for serious streaming purposes, just for screenshotting and making gifs.

Sorry for my ignorance, but wouldn't a software solution like Nvidias own ShadowPlay (GeForce Experience) or AMDs ReLive be good enough for that? And free.

 

[Kvik]

Sorry for my ignorance, but wouldn't a software solution like Nvidias own ShadowPlay (GeForce Experience) or AMDs ReLive be good enough for that? And free.

Ah, it's my fault for not mentioning my setup actually. Basically, I have an HDMI switch with 4 different sources I want to be able to capture: a PC, a Framemeister and two consoles. I want to pass through the HDMI output from the switch into a capture card and recording via OBS Studio before displaying it on my TV. Secondly, I'm not really a fan of how tedious dumping recording from a PS4 or screenshots from a Switch can be.

And generally, I dislike GFE. Although, I haven't used it for years so I don't know if it's still eating GPU cycles for no reason these days.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Can you give any reasons as to why someone should look into custom drivers? Do they unlock OC potential or something? I saw some compatibility drivers before but custom is a first one.

Mainly for Tweaks & Optimisations i.e. those drivers in the link have tweaked/optimised settings and it's a smaller download as they've also removed the nVidia Telemetry components. I haven't used custom gfx driver bundles for a decade so i'm well out of the loop though.

 

[PhaZZe]

Can you give any reasons as to why someone should look into custom drivers? Do they unlock OC potential or something? I saw some compatibility drivers before but custom is a first one.

i really dont know, makes me wonder why anyone should use it.

 

[ISee]

With next gen. consoles getting some sort of NVMe drives, do you think NVMe will become a necessity for PCs too?
(I'm doubtful they'll get full 1TB+ NVMe drives, maybe more like an Intel Optane solution?)

 

[Xiaomi]

With next gen. consoles getting some sort of NVMe drives, do you think NVMe will become a necessity for PCs too?
(I'm doubtful they'll get full 1TB+ NVMe drives, maybe more like an Intel Optane solution?)

Not next-gen, I don't think, unless something about streaming from secondary to primary storage changes dramatically. The difference in speed between my nvme drive and my SATA SSD in gaming is imperceptible.

 

[JMTHEFOX]

I am very interested in creating an gaming focused HTPC with a Ryzen CPU since my old college. Here is the current list of parts I am thinking about getting:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor ($118.39 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($73.85 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($95.98 @ Newegg Business)
Storage: SanDisk - SSD PLUS 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($48.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($43.98 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB Mini Video Card ($384.98 @ Amazon)
Case: Silverstone - GD09B HTPC Case ($82.99 @ B&H)
Power Supply: EVGA - 600B 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Wireless Network Adapter: Rosewill - RNX-N250PCe PCIe x1 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter ($16.99 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Logitech - K400 Plus Wireless Mini Keyboard With Touchpad ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $950.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-26 06:42 EDT-0400

Also, I have been thinking about upgrading my previous builds. The first one is much of a college work gaming PC:

GTX 750ti on a Budget

pcpartpicker.com

And for the second one is like a prototype HTPC:

Silverstone R9 380 HTPC Build

pcpartpicker.com

 

[lashman]

Intel Announces 8 Core i9-9900KS: Every Core at 5.0 GHz, All The Time

www.anandtech.com

 

[Durante]

My 9900k has also been running at 5 GHz all the time (well, when there is load).
I'm not particularly impressed by them selling a pre-binned chip.

 

[lashman]

My 9900k has also been running at 5 GHz all the time (well, when there is load).
I'm not particularly impressed by them selling a pre-binned chip.

wonder what the price will be

 

[ISee]

Maybe it can also more easily hit beyond 5ghz (+100/200 MHz) but this isn't stealing AMDs current thunder.
The enthusiast space shrugged and the rest doesn't care in the first place.

 

[Ryne]

What's going on with all the hyper threading issues with intel recently? To be safe is it worth turning off hyper threading?

I have an 8700K system that I just might end up donating or changing the CPU to a 9900K to get a bit more performance after the inevitable loss due to another patch going out for these vulnerabilities.

 

[lashman]

mystery solved, i guess ...



(that's about the new nvidia announcement ... they usually publish good leaks when they have them)

 

[gabbo]

mystery solved, i guess ...



(that's about the new nvidia announcement ... they usually publish good leaks when they have them)

Aren't CUDA cores for programming use and less for performance?

Also: question of my own:
Am looking to replace two older platter drives with 1/2 ssds - I don't have the cashmoneys for Evos to use them as backup - is the QVO good for this? It's cheaper and I know it's not the same type of memory, but am only looking to store game installers, pictures, videos, etc on it, not for gameplay or OS use.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

I think that's the market/use they are aiming at. QLC is slightly slower than TLC but can be offered cheaper in larger capacities. I expect you'd still see a performance increase over HDDs. I haven't really checked any benchmarks or anything in the last few months though so i don't know if the cost/capacity is worth it.

 

[gabbo]

I think that's the market/use they are aiming at. QLC is slightly slower than TLC but can be offered cheaper in larger capacities. I expect you'd still see a performance increase over HDDs. I haven't really checked any benchmarks or anything in the last few months though so i don't know if the cost/capacity is worth it.

With that in mind, is there a line of ssd you'd./PC Hardware council recommend that'd be a better $/gb than the QVO?

 

[low-G]

mystery solved, i guess ...



(that's about the new nvidia announcement ... they usually publish good leaks when they have them)

If legit that is quite weird. That's like 10% of the GPU, no? This is the sort of thing you load 20 of up into a supercomputer rack.

 

[Arsene]

Whelp looks like Ill be upgrading to Ryzen 3000 in July

 

[Durante]

Looks like AMD is still focusing on Cinebench in their official comparisons, but it shouldn't be too long before we get third party reviews. I'm not convinced that they'll really beat Intel in all real-world test which don't scale well with cores, but even if not it should be close and at ~50% more cores for the same price point that's a very compelling position.

 

[「Echo」]

Not 100% sure this is hardware related, but recently my headphones have been making a lot of static. For testing purposes I took my headphones outta the jack on my PC and plugged them into the TV. There was no longer any static. But this is a problem because I actually really love Windows Sonic (which is a virtual surround software provided in Windows 10).

Is my on-board sound dead? I'm not really sure what would have caused it. It doesn't seem to the wire or my headphones since the static isn't reproduced anywhere but from my PC's headphone jack...

 

[ISee]

What's going on with all the hyper threading issues with intel recently? To be safe is it worth turning off hyper threading?

I have an 8700K system that I just might end up donating or changing the CPU to a 9900K to get a bit more performance after the inevitable loss due to another patch going out for these vulnerabilities.

AFAIK

ZombiLoad is mostly a threat for Cloud services (like Amazon, Google, etc.) that run multiple Virtuel Machines on one System.
Intel is speaking of three related security vulnerabilities and calls them: Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS).
Data can not be changed here, but only read. Therefore the attack must run either at exactly the right time or for a very long time in order to record sensitive data.
It is unlikely that this form of an attack will be used against us home users, there are apparently more easy and effective ways. Exceptions are highly secured systems with a lot of sensible data.

I wouldn't worry about it. Afaik, there isn't even something out that utilizes the "old" Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities (yet), let alone ZombieLoad. Amazon and Google deactivated Hyperthreading on some of their Systems because they have to guarantee that their clients data is as secure as possible. Right now, it's more of an Intel problem than ours.

mystery solved, i guess ...



(that's about the new nvidia announcement ... they usually publish good leaks when they have them)

So a RayTracing only accelerator card? Like the old PhsyX cards?
I'm confused.



edit: Ryzen 3000

The 12 core variant is a bit more expansive than I hoped (450€). I'm still interested though, for no good reason tbh. I just wonder what the all core boost is going to be: 4.4Ghz? Maybe? I hope benchmarks are coming before July.
Do you (all) expect PCI-E 4.0 to help with GPU performance. afaik, pcie 3.0 8x vs 16x doesn't really impact performance in the first place.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

gabbo I've no idea what's good now, I'd have to look into it. What capacity and budget are you looking at?
As far as i can tell QVO isn't all that competitive at the moment but there may be deals about.

A quick look shows a QVO 4TB is around £460, EVO 4TB is £570 and a PRO is £870.

 

[Ge0force]

What's going on with all the hyper threading issues with intel recently? To be safe is it worth turning off hyper threading?

I have an 8700K system that I just might end up donating or changing the CPU to a 9900K to get a bit more performance after the inevitable loss due to another patch going out for these vulnerabilities.

I have the 8700k as well and I didn't get any noticeable performance loss after the patch. For gaming, this cpu is still "overkill", so I don't think it's worth it to replace it anytime soon.

 

[Durante]

Not 100% sure this is hardware related, but recently my headphones have been making a lot of static. For testing purposes I took my headphones outta the jack on my PC and plugged them into the TV. There was no longer any static. But this is a problem because I actually really love Windows Sonic (which is a virtual surround software provided in Windows 10).

Is my on-board sound dead? I'm not really sure what would have caused it. It doesn't seem to the wire or my headphones since the static isn't reproduced anywhere but from my PC's headphone jack...

Did you add any new hardware to your PC? Depending on how the audio is routed to the headphone jack that might introduce noise.

 

[gabbo]

gabbo I've no idea what's good now, I'd have to look into it. What capacity and budget are you looking at?
As far as i can tell QVO isn't all that competitive at the moment but there may be deals about.

A quick look shows a QVO 4TB is around £460, EVO 4TB is £570 and a PRO is £870.

budget would be no m0re than $250, capacity doesn't need to reach any more than 2gb. Of course if I can find a deal that puts way more gb within that range I'd be for it. Last thing is I don't need samsung at all - crucial, wd, adata, sandisk, etc. just looking for a reliable line for storage over platters.

 

[「Echo」]

Did you add any new hardware to your PC? Depending on how the audio is routed to the headphone jack that might introduce noise.

Nope. And I'm actually testing with my old Sony MDR-V6's and the static doesn't show up with these... I'm so confused right now. While playing Siege tonight I was able to reproduce the static if I tilted my head a certain way with my other headphones even plugged into the TV, so that's what prompted me to bring out my old ones.

Man... these MDR headphones have been with me for 20+ years and they still rockin' it's amazing. Anyway I don't think it's my headphone jack now but rather my other headphones must be damaged in some way that motion causes static which is weird. I've had cables go bad, where if you touch or twist the cable a certain way it would make static but never the headphones themselves.

 

[madjoki]

my upgrade plan:

X570 MB
12-core Ryzen 3900X
Noctua NH D15
32GB DDR4 3200mhz
Fractal Design Define R6 USB-C
(??? GPU)
1TB NVME drive (PCie4 probably not worth for real world use cases)
Seasonic 850W FOCUS+ 850 Platinum

too afraid to calculate how much this will cost, (especially here in north EU)

waiting for reviews tho.

 

[Durante]

Today at work:

(That's just a subset -- we are building a "cheap" consumer-hardware-based 36-GPU cluster)

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

gabbo Sure, I was only showing the QVO prices as that's about it for QLC aside from the NVMe based cards which were more expensive.
I can't see there being much of an issue with either TLC or QLC drives, so pick up whichever you find on a deal.
I'm in the UK so i've no idea about US pricing or deals, sorry. Hopefully someone else can help there.

 

[lashman]

Today at work:

(That's just a subset -- we are building a "cheap" consumer-hardware-based 36-GPU cluster)

i hate you so much