[Budget PC Build] Themis
All right, here we go now!
Two boxes, case and shtuff. The shtuff box arrived a bit beat up - which I took
pictures of, in case - but everything except the corner of one Nexus fan box was fine.
Eine video card! It'll be more exciting on the inside, I promise.
The lowest-voltage DDR3 ever made. Probably save, like, 5 bucks a year or something.
At least as importantly as the cost savings - more than 5 bucks - will be the lower heat,
meaning lower fan RPMs necessary to keep the same temps, meaning lower noise. That'll
be important, particularly considering some of the components involved, which /aren't/
known for being quiet.
And...is that? Could it be another...?
Yes, it is a cat, highly interested in the Nexus fans. These are so quiet, they're the
standard benchmark fan at silentpcreview.com, the jerks who made me into this. He's no
ordinary cat, though, as you'll see.
Such a boring, tiny thing to be the brain of such a machine. This one will be undervolted,
giving it very nearly the performance of a standard i5-2400, while giving it the power and
heat characteristics of the i5-2400S. Best of both worlds.
So, wait, you can buy Windows?
The Monoliths, a pair of 1TB WD Blacks. There are better, faster, cheaper ways to do
this and get more storage, but this way, one dead drive can never take out the machine.
Client choice. Check out the vinyl in the background, and the cutting board Ana uses to
clean bones.
Ah! No ordinary cat! He's a shadowcat, living permanently between his realm and ours,
a demon from the deepest reaches of time! Or so he seems at 0400 when he's chewing
on my throat.
A pair of optical drives. I remember when choosing these was actually interesting.
A chill runs down my spine. The Z68 motherboard this all runs through.
Probably the most esoteric piece of equipment in the whole affair: a power supply
without a fan. With the bottom-mount in the Antec 300, it should allow the heat from
the power supply to raise and be evacuated by the top fans. The outer grille will then
act as an intake, bringing cool air into the PSU. Completely isolating it would be even
better, but that's for a different case altogether!
The gods weep before it, and reality crumbles in the face of its mighty will. Oh, no, it's just the wifi card.
So, my work here is...wait, it looks like some of this stuff plugs into some other stuff.
Weird. I think I'm going to maybe fiddle around for a while, see what I can't turn up.
Later!
Two boxes, case and shtuff. The shtuff box arrived a bit beat up - which I took
pictures of, in case - but everything except the corner of one Nexus fan box was fine.
Eine video card! It'll be more exciting on the inside, I promise.
The lowest-voltage DDR3 ever made. Probably save, like, 5 bucks a year or something.
At least as importantly as the cost savings - more than 5 bucks - will be the lower heat,
meaning lower fan RPMs necessary to keep the same temps, meaning lower noise. That'll
be important, particularly considering some of the components involved, which /aren't/
known for being quiet.
And...is that? Could it be another...?
Yes, it is a cat, highly interested in the Nexus fans. These are so quiet, they're the
standard benchmark fan at silentpcreview.com, the jerks who made me into this. He's no
ordinary cat, though, as you'll see.
Such a boring, tiny thing to be the brain of such a machine. This one will be undervolted,
giving it very nearly the performance of a standard i5-2400, while giving it the power and
heat characteristics of the i5-2400S. Best of both worlds.
So, wait, you can buy Windows?
The Monoliths, a pair of 1TB WD Blacks. There are better, faster, cheaper ways to do
this and get more storage, but this way, one dead drive can never take out the machine.
Client choice. Check out the vinyl in the background, and the cutting board Ana uses to
clean bones.
Ah! No ordinary cat! He's a shadowcat, living permanently between his realm and ours,
a demon from the deepest reaches of time! Or so he seems at 0400 when he's chewing
on my throat.
A pair of optical drives. I remember when choosing these was actually interesting.
A chill runs down my spine. The Z68 motherboard this all runs through.
Probably the most esoteric piece of equipment in the whole affair: a power supply
without a fan. With the bottom-mount in the Antec 300, it should allow the heat from
the power supply to raise and be evacuated by the top fans. The outer grille will then
act as an intake, bringing cool air into the PSU. Completely isolating it would be even
better, but that's for a different case altogether!
The gods weep before it, and reality crumbles in the face of its mighty will. Oh, no, it's just the wifi card.
So, my work here is...wait, it looks like some of this stuff plugs into some other stuff.
Weird. I think I'm going to maybe fiddle around for a while, see what I can't turn up.
Later!
This gets ridiculous.
The first thing you should know is that I hate the Antec Three Hundred. It's cheap. It's
tinny. The sides are made of the thinnest tin-foil they could get away with.
There's nothing wrong with that, of course: that's what it's for. It's meant to be
an inexpensive, serviceable box to hold your stuff. But when you've got nice stuff,
or you'd like to do nice things with it, the Three Hundred lets you down in ways it
doesn't have to.
Like many modern cases, the Three Hundred has a row of front-panel connections
across the of the front of the case. The accordant wires lead from these, through
a little punched-metal cable management hook, across the top of the external
drive bay, and down into the body of the case.
Except this isn't really where those cables should go. Leading through there,
the cables are going to get in the way of airflow, and get in the way of all
the other cables you need to run between drive bays and motherboard.
What you need is to run the front panel connections out the underside of the case,
under the motherboard tray, and then back into the body of the case through
the [very well-placed] void in the motherboard tray behind the internal drive bay.
This isn't impossible. There's a tiny hole, an intersection of several [riveted]
metal sheets, where there's just enough room to fish the front panel connections.
Stupidly, I fished the lights-and-switches stuff through first:
Ta-d...oh, damn it. Fishing the little connectors through first means less room for
the fat bundled USB + audio cables. Well, I could take them back out, or just
soldier on stupidly. Yes, better do that.
Much struggling later, I've got the USB and audio cables through, too, but when
I look inside to make sure I've got it laid as flat as possible against the front panel...
Son of a bitch. I forgot to pull it above the top of the drive cage before threading it.
So...undo the whole thing, start over from scratch, this time knowing what I'm doing.
That shit is tight. Not only did I thread it between motherboard tray and case
panel, but I managed to re-enter the body of the case through a tiny slot below
the external drive bays, above the internal ones. Very tidy.
Except...that space in there, where the cables are coming out, is normally where
the case panel edge slots in. Going through the hole isn't a problem: using any
room on the other side is a big problem. So it's going to mean a little bit of work on
the case panel, but overall, still worth it.
I hope the One Hundred isn't this much of a pain in the ass, since that's what
I'll probably recommend when I build a new work computer.
But what's going in it? Well, this bad-ass, for one thing.
The board has two physical switches, EPU and TPU, basically power saving and
overclocking. My intention was to switch the EPU on, but a brief read through
the manual suggests the actual state is determined not by the switches, but
by whatever the last value given was, whether by the switch, UEFI [BIOS],
or in Windows. So if I switch EPU on, but then turn on TPU in Windows, and
then after that set it all back to normal in UEFI, it'll all be on normal.
Stupid. So I'm going to set it in Windows, and let the user choose.
Okay, I get that high-end power supplies are supposed to come with extras,
but a velvet bag for the power supply [which you'll immediately take out of it
and never need to put back in it], a vinyl bag for the modular cables, three
Velcro patches, and a "powered by Seasonic" sticker? This picture doesn't include
the two business-card sized stickers I found later. I'd rather just pay less for
the power supply, and have it come in a plain brown box that's not full of shit
I'll throw away on day one.
Also, a manual that contains useful information written by a native speaker of
my language would help a lot.
So we have another problem. The dual EPS 12V line needs to run from the power
supply to the very top of the motherboard, but normally the two would be almost
touching, so the cable isn't really very long. If this were in my beloved P183, I'd
need an extension, but as it is, there's just not enough cable. I tried some hooking,
tried routing the whole thing between motherboard and tray, but no luck. On a
machine of my own, I might have unbundled the lines and run them individually
under the motherboard, but instead I chose the bodge above. It gets better.
The unbelievably diminutive Sandy Bridge cooler. Unreal. The cooler I'll get if I build
one of these for myself will be four or five times taller. Chances are, it won't really
need a fan. But that's for another day.
This cooler inspires me to try something I normally wouldn't: using Intel's stock heat
paste. I just mounted it like a dude, and so we'll see if it can produce temps I consider
acceptable. If not, well, it's out with the goop and in with the Arctic Silver.
I know no one's really reading by now, so I feel liberated enough to be honest about it:
this RAM is fucking queer. If I buy it, I'm taking the stickers off. No, fuck that, I'm taking
the heatspreaders off, and replacing them. With anything at all except these gun-shaped
penis-proxies. Seriously, I love this RAM and spec it every chance I get: does it have to
look fucking retarded?
Ordinary nail polish remover - acetone - cleans semen from electronics surprisingly well.
A-ha! I used this solution on my dual Pentium 3 system: run the 12V line under
the video card notch; most cards still have a notch there, even though motherboard
manufacturers don't put any caps or anything there anymore. Plenty of room for
the bundle of cables, and a much more tidy install.
Visually less satisfying that running it under the motherboard tray, though. I like
nothing more than the sinful, sinful pride I feel when someone looks inside one of
my personal computers for the first time. You can see they're trying to figure out
where all the wiring is, what's not plugged in, what illusion they're seeing. It's really
rewarding, but we're not going to get it this time, not with two optical drives
and two hard disk drives.
It's not art, but it's serviceable. I was kind of hoping for sublime, though.
That's it, 100 percent parts-complete. Now to boot and test.
The first thing you should know is that I hate the Antec Three Hundred. It's cheap. It's
tinny. The sides are made of the thinnest tin-foil they could get away with.
There's nothing wrong with that, of course: that's what it's for. It's meant to be
an inexpensive, serviceable box to hold your stuff. But when you've got nice stuff,
or you'd like to do nice things with it, the Three Hundred lets you down in ways it
doesn't have to.
Like many modern cases, the Three Hundred has a row of front-panel connections
across the of the front of the case. The accordant wires lead from these, through
a little punched-metal cable management hook, across the top of the external
drive bay, and down into the body of the case.
Except this isn't really where those cables should go. Leading through there,
the cables are going to get in the way of airflow, and get in the way of all
the other cables you need to run between drive bays and motherboard.
What you need is to run the front panel connections out the underside of the case,
under the motherboard tray, and then back into the body of the case through
the [very well-placed] void in the motherboard tray behind the internal drive bay.
This isn't impossible. There's a tiny hole, an intersection of several [riveted]
metal sheets, where there's just enough room to fish the front panel connections.
Stupidly, I fished the lights-and-switches stuff through first:
Ta-d...oh, damn it. Fishing the little connectors through first means less room for
the fat bundled USB + audio cables. Well, I could take them back out, or just
soldier on stupidly. Yes, better do that.
Much struggling later, I've got the USB and audio cables through, too, but when
I look inside to make sure I've got it laid as flat as possible against the front panel...
Son of a bitch. I forgot to pull it above the top of the drive cage before threading it.
So...undo the whole thing, start over from scratch, this time knowing what I'm doing.
That shit is tight. Not only did I thread it between motherboard tray and case
panel, but I managed to re-enter the body of the case through a tiny slot below
the external drive bays, above the internal ones. Very tidy.
Except...that space in there, where the cables are coming out, is normally where
the case panel edge slots in. Going through the hole isn't a problem: using any
room on the other side is a big problem. So it's going to mean a little bit of work on
the case panel, but overall, still worth it.
I hope the One Hundred isn't this much of a pain in the ass, since that's what
I'll probably recommend when I build a new work computer.
But what's going in it? Well, this bad-ass, for one thing.
The board has two physical switches, EPU and TPU, basically power saving and
overclocking. My intention was to switch the EPU on, but a brief read through
the manual suggests the actual state is determined not by the switches, but
by whatever the last value given was, whether by the switch, UEFI [BIOS],
or in Windows. So if I switch EPU on, but then turn on TPU in Windows, and
then after that set it all back to normal in UEFI, it'll all be on normal.
Stupid. So I'm going to set it in Windows, and let the user choose.
Okay, I get that high-end power supplies are supposed to come with extras,
but a velvet bag for the power supply [which you'll immediately take out of it
and never need to put back in it], a vinyl bag for the modular cables, three
Velcro patches, and a "powered by Seasonic" sticker? This picture doesn't include
the two business-card sized stickers I found later. I'd rather just pay less for
the power supply, and have it come in a plain brown box that's not full of shit
I'll throw away on day one.
Also, a manual that contains useful information written by a native speaker of
my language would help a lot.
So we have another problem. The dual EPS 12V line needs to run from the power
supply to the very top of the motherboard, but normally the two would be almost
touching, so the cable isn't really very long. If this were in my beloved P183, I'd
need an extension, but as it is, there's just not enough cable. I tried some hooking,
tried routing the whole thing between motherboard and tray, but no luck. On a
machine of my own, I might have unbundled the lines and run them individually
under the motherboard, but instead I chose the bodge above. It gets better.
The unbelievably diminutive Sandy Bridge cooler. Unreal. The cooler I'll get if I build
one of these for myself will be four or five times taller. Chances are, it won't really
need a fan. But that's for another day.
This cooler inspires me to try something I normally wouldn't: using Intel's stock heat
paste. I just mounted it like a dude, and so we'll see if it can produce temps I consider
acceptable. If not, well, it's out with the goop and in with the Arctic Silver.
I know no one's really reading by now, so I feel liberated enough to be honest about it:
this RAM is fucking queer. If I buy it, I'm taking the stickers off. No, fuck that, I'm taking
the heatspreaders off, and replacing them. With anything at all except these gun-shaped
penis-proxies. Seriously, I love this RAM and spec it every chance I get: does it have to
look fucking retarded?
Ordinary nail polish remover - acetone - cleans semen from electronics surprisingly well.
A-ha! I used this solution on my dual Pentium 3 system: run the 12V line under
the video card notch; most cards still have a notch there, even though motherboard
manufacturers don't put any caps or anything there anymore. Plenty of room for
the bundle of cables, and a much more tidy install.
Visually less satisfying that running it under the motherboard tray, though. I like
nothing more than the sinful, sinful pride I feel when someone looks inside one of
my personal computers for the first time. You can see they're trying to figure out
where all the wiring is, what's not plugged in, what illusion they're seeing. It's really
rewarding, but we're not going to get it this time, not with two optical drives
and two hard disk drives.
It's not art, but it's serviceable. I was kind of hoping for sublime, though.
That's it, 100 percent parts-complete. Now to boot and test.
- Salvation122
- Grand Marshall of the Imperium
- Posts: 3776
- Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:20 pm
- Location: Memphis, TN
I will become rich and famous when I invent a standardized format for front-panel pinouts that I can just plug into the board on the labeled spot and call done.
It's gotten to the point where most builds now I don't even mess around with connecting that crap because 1): I know when the damn thing is on, I don't need a power LED and 2): how often do you really swap around USB devices anyway.
It's gotten to the point where most builds now I don't even mess around with connecting that crap because 1): I know when the damn thing is on, I don't need a power LED and 2): how often do you really swap around USB devices anyway.
Depends on what you're doing. When I'm using my tablet, printing and a flash drive at the same time, it's pretty handy, i guess.Salvation122 wrote: 2): how often do you really swap around USB devices anyway.
I suspect that people who speak or write properly are up to no good, or homersexual, or both
I've been building computers for a couple of decades, and I swear that's one of the very, very few things that hasn't changed a bit. There are a lot of kind of seemingly stupid legacy aspects to computer design, but usually they get wiped out given enough time. This computer I'm building doesn't have PS/2 ports, or serial ports, or even floppy or IDE connectors, but you know what it does have? The same method of pinning out lights and switches that's been used as long as I can remember.Salvation122 wrote:I will become rich and famous when I invent a standardized format for front-panel pinouts that I can just plug into the board on the labeled spot and call done.
The best improvement in all that time - besides finally sticking most of the pins in the same general location, and mostly starting to standardize their layout - was the Asus Q-Connect:
And they don't provide that anymore. I mean, what?
The idea that we have Thunderbolt connections that move 10 gigabits, but we don't have a single, unified cable for lights and switches is completely absurd, and always feels like the most retro, low-tech part of building a new machine. I understand why this state of affairs has arisen, but it doesn't have to be like this.
Yeah, most of my front panel - power switch notwithstanding - is always disconnected, including USB and audio, because I don't need any of it and I find the lights distracting, but on client machines I always hook it all up, because it's surprising how many different ways people have of working. Like, I never use front panel USB connectors, because for years I didn't have them, and I have a web server for when I want to move files around, but my parents and many of my friends use them all the time, because they're constantly plugging in portable hard disks or thumb drives, or using game controllers they wouldn't want "in the way" all the time. I never would have guessed on my own; I just don't work like that.Salvation122 wrote:It's gotten to the point where most builds now I don't even mess around with connecting that crap because 1): I know when the damn thing is on, I don't need a power LED and 2): how often do you really swap around USB devices anyway.
- Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
I'm pretty impressed. After what I'd call a pretty ham-handed install by me, with no particularly special care taken [since I assumed I'd be re-installing it anyway], it's doing in-place FFTs in Prime 95 - RAM and processor stress testing, in other words - while doing a file copy across the network, and it's running a cool 60 or so with all the fans at auto or minimum. That said, 60 is higher than I'd prefer, particularly since the video card isn't being stressed [yet].3278 wrote:This cooler inspires me to try something I normally wouldn't: using Intel's stock heat paste. I just mounted it like a dude, and so we'll see if it can produce temps I consider acceptable. If not, well, it's out with the goop and in with the Arctic Silver.
I did the same test with the top and back fans off, and it was very illuminating: I gained 10 or so degrees just by not having those fans running, because convection basically had to do all the work: the processor fan would blow "down" toward the motherboard, but then that air just swirled there, in place, getting pulled back into the fan to heat up further, with only convection to lift it up and out. Add even the slowest fan, and convection is quickly outclassed as mechanical lift is applied rather than just difference in air density.
After the file copy is done, I'll run some GPU stress tests to make sure the cooling is sufficient as-is. Once I'm confident it can run for an hour at stable and acceptable temperatures, on artificially-induced full load, with the fans all on auto or low, then I'll sit around and play video games on it for a while.
The real torture testing won't come until tomorrow, when I have some more time to spend with it directly. Then it'll probably get a full 24 hours of Prime 95 + Furmark. And through it all, I need to add 20 degrees to all my temperature calculations, to compensate for the possibility the computer will be used in 100F conditions. Of course, it'll never be run at 100 percent for 24 hours at 100F, but it should be able to be. Just in case.
You'd have done fine, I'm sure. This stuff is easy to do; it's tab a and slot b kind of stuff, mostly. It's even easy to do well, if you take your time and think about it. Doing it expertly, well, that's tough, yes, but fortunately, I. Am. Awesome.Jeff Hauze wrote:I believe I'm quite glad that we didn't decide to do this as a project ourselves.
Continues to amaze. Rock-solid, stable through every stress test. Has undervolted with no problems; I'd love to get ahold of a power meter and see what it's drawing at idle. Also, all very cool. I'm going to remount the processor heat sink anyway, just for comparison.
The video card is unreal: it runs whatever I throw at it, at the native resolution of my monitor, at highest settings. Things like Crysis 2 and GTAIV. So your dad should have to trouble playing whatever games he chooses! The fan control is idiotic; it ramps from 47 percent to 53 percent, from idle to load: makes no sense at all. Keeps things cool, but is much louder than it needs to be at both idle and load; manual fan control solves this problem, but you can't edit the fan curve, only set a given percentage, so that's useless for any but power users. Worse, the fan won't start below a given load - say, 20 percent - and the fan control makes no mention of this: it even lets you simply turn the fan to zero, with no warning that doing so could - will! - wreck your card. Poor choice.
Final silencing later this week, as I soft-mount the Nexus fans, and try eliminating the 140mm TriCool up top.
The video card is unreal: it runs whatever I throw at it, at the native resolution of my monitor, at highest settings. Things like Crysis 2 and GTAIV. So your dad should have to trouble playing whatever games he chooses! The fan control is idiotic; it ramps from 47 percent to 53 percent, from idle to load: makes no sense at all. Keeps things cool, but is much louder than it needs to be at both idle and load; manual fan control solves this problem, but you can't edit the fan curve, only set a given percentage, so that's useless for any but power users. Worse, the fan won't start below a given load - say, 20 percent - and the fan control makes no mention of this: it even lets you simply turn the fan to zero, with no warning that doing so could - will! - wreck your card. Poor choice.
Final silencing later this week, as I soft-mount the Nexus fans, and try eliminating the 140mm TriCool up top.
Liar! They provide it just fine, along with the equivalent for USB headers. It was just in the bottom of the mobo box, and I didn't notice it until I was packing everything up. Whoops!3278 wrote:The best improvement in all that time - besides finally sticking most of the pins in the same general location, and mostly starting to standardize their layout - was the Asus Q-Connect:
And they don't provide that anymore. I mean, what?
Yet to do: remount the processor [for fun], and run the front panel connectors. I figure we'll do that Friday or Saturday while Jeff is here.
- Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
All told, over $1,000, but that was because of some unique choices and extra additions. A similar machine, tailored to a different user, would range from $800 to $1200, depending. My own experience with the performance of this one would lead me to believe nearly anything in that range would be overkill of the most profound sort. This generation of hardware is beyond this generation of software in terms of capability, barring extraordinary display sizes.
If anyone happens to need one built, I know this guy...
If anyone happens to need one built, I know this guy...
- Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
More importantly, my dad loves the PC. It works wonderfully, runs blissfully quiet, and has handle this recent heat wave like a champ. Which reminds me, I'm hoping you got that snail mail?
Also...where the heck is the picture of the cat suffocating me?
Also...where the heck is the picture of the cat suffocating me?
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
Now it ALL makes sense, and I can finally get over my insomnia. Thank you, module.3278 wrote:I just noticed one of the jokes - about Kovu being a shadowcat - wouldn't have made sense, since I posted the wrong picture. Since I know that must have kept you all awake nights, here's the right one:
I suspect that people who speak or write properly are up to no good, or homersexual, or both
On Google+...which I've just realized you can't link to posts on. You know what's fucking retarded? The user experience on every single social media site I've ever used. They really need to look toward the forum experience for Google+, rather than slavishly copy Facebook.Jeff Hauze wrote:Also...where the heck is the picture of the cat suffocating me?
Anyway, here:
- Salvation122
- Grand Marshall of the Imperium
- Posts: 3776
- Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:20 pm
- Location: Memphis, TN
So, I recently installed a temp monitor on my computer, and my CPU is occasionally getting ridiculously hot. Like, 80C.
I have no idea if this has been going on for a long time or not - I've never really run into any problems I would attribute to heat, so if it has, my chip is handling it like a boss - but obviously I would like to correct the issue.
Step 1 is easy: there's a rear 120mm exhaust fan that is either dead or never functioned (I honestly can't remember which) that I'll replace with a Nexus.
Step 2 is a new, non-stock HSF for the CPU. I've never messed around with overclocking, really, so I need some advice on what the go-to is here for Socket AM3. Quiet is good, quiet and cheap is better.
I have no idea if this has been going on for a long time or not - I've never really run into any problems I would attribute to heat, so if it has, my chip is handling it like a boss - but obviously I would like to correct the issue.
Step 1 is easy: there's a rear 120mm exhaust fan that is either dead or never functioned (I honestly can't remember which) that I'll replace with a Nexus.
Step 2 is a new, non-stock HSF for the CPU. I've never messed around with overclocking, really, so I need some advice on what the go-to is here for Socket AM3. Quiet is good, quiet and cheap is better.
Yeah, that's definitely not good. The thing is, even with the stock HSF, you shouldn't see numbers like that, even if maybe your case ventilation isn't great. Here's what I would do [sight unseen, of course]:
1. Run the case open, on its side, to eliminate any of those ventilation questions.
2. Fully clean the HSF with canned air or a blower, to eliminate buildup as a possibility.
If you're still running high temps - you shouldn't see over 40 idling, or over 60-70 loaded, depending on your setup? - then the problem is with your HSF itself: either the fan is running too slow [Speedfan serves me well in giving both fan speed and temp readings] or your thermal tape/paste is no bueno. I would guess, based on basically nothing, that the HSF didn't get seated or gooped quite right, and thus your cost could be nothing but a tube of the grey stuff.
Anyhow, if that seems to be the case, let me know: I have some good tips on thermal paste application. Maybe can save the cost of a new HSF or case fan.
That said, if you need a new rear fan, the Nexus is an excellent choice [particularly undervolted, but whatever]. If you're looking for a quiet HSF with a low street price, I recommend the Scythe Mugen 2, which has cooling performance on par with a Thermalright HR-01 Plus, Prolima Megahalems, or a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme Rev. C, but has a street price closer to $40 than the $60-$80 of the others, and comes with a quiet PWM fan; no second Nexus needed to cool the processor, then.
1. Run the case open, on its side, to eliminate any of those ventilation questions.
2. Fully clean the HSF with canned air or a blower, to eliminate buildup as a possibility.
If you're still running high temps - you shouldn't see over 40 idling, or over 60-70 loaded, depending on your setup? - then the problem is with your HSF itself: either the fan is running too slow [Speedfan serves me well in giving both fan speed and temp readings] or your thermal tape/paste is no bueno. I would guess, based on basically nothing, that the HSF didn't get seated or gooped quite right, and thus your cost could be nothing but a tube of the grey stuff.
Anyhow, if that seems to be the case, let me know: I have some good tips on thermal paste application. Maybe can save the cost of a new HSF or case fan.
That said, if you need a new rear fan, the Nexus is an excellent choice [particularly undervolted, but whatever]. If you're looking for a quiet HSF with a low street price, I recommend the Scythe Mugen 2, which has cooling performance on par with a Thermalright HR-01 Plus, Prolima Megahalems, or a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme Rev. C, but has a street price closer to $40 than the $60-$80 of the others, and comes with a quiet PWM fan; no second Nexus needed to cool the processor, then.
- Salvation122
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Yeah, upon review I put on way, way too much thermal paste when I reseated the heatsink a bit ago. (I was getting extremely odd BIOS errors on POST, and checked the chip for scorching. Resetting the CMOS battery resolved the BIOS weirdness, but obviously I had to reapply after reseating the chip. This was, oddly, my first time applying thermal goop - I don't overclock and have always just used the stock stuff which comes pre-applied.) So, $10ish on NewEgg, and if I'm still having problems I'll replace fans. Tips for thermal application would be appreciated!
- Salvation122
- Grand Marshall of the Imperium
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That's easy, then: do exactly as they say. I believe you'll be using the "grain of rice" [PDF] method, but I definitely recommend tinting it first [per their instructions on page 4]. Make sure you using nothing but a lint-free cloth [eyeglass cloths are nice, and they usually give them away at eyeglass places], and rubbing alcohol, [although I've done okay with old t-shirts and nail polish remover, too]. Work somewhere not-dusty, and clean your tools with rubbing alcohol, too. Beyond that, with AS5, just follow their directions; they recommend a lot of little things like twisting the HSF a degree or two after you install it that I think are useful. Who knows how much difference it makes, but the temps I get seem worth the trouble.
I used to do all processors with a credit card, and slather it on thick, trusting pressure to push it all out, but I was wasting tons of paste and ending up with way too thick a layer of interface. Tinting makes it so that I'm not so worried about complete coverage, and about filling those pores in the metal, and then using just a grain of rice keeps the layer thin. [With some processors, though, you still have to apply a thin layer over the whole surface; yours, however, really only gets hot at the center, and the rest is just heatspreader.]
I used to do all processors with a credit card, and slather it on thick, trusting pressure to push it all out, but I was wasting tons of paste and ending up with way too thick a layer of interface. Tinting makes it so that I'm not so worried about complete coverage, and about filling those pores in the metal, and then using just a grain of rice keeps the layer thin. [With some processors, though, you still have to apply a thin layer over the whole surface; yours, however, really only gets hot at the center, and the rest is just heatspreader.]
- Jeff Hauze
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Okay, so listed below is the specs that we used for Themis.
Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
ASUS P8Z68-V LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Seasonic SS-460FL Active PFC F3, 460W Fanless ATX12V Fanless 80Plus Gold Certified, Modular Power Supply
GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series GV-R685OC-1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express
G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
ASUS 24X DVD Burner x 2
ASUS PCE-N13 Wireless Adapter
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive x 2
Nexus BASIC D12SL-12 120mm Case Fan x 2
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
So, I spent the last few days looking over things, and I've realized that I'm even more out of touch now then when we put Themis together.
So, I'll look to you folks for help and suggestions, and I'll stick a few notes at the end. Because honestly, I'm really at a lose anymore on what's worthwhile over something else. The tech curve and its knowledge passed me by about a decade ago.
I dig the crap out of Themis. I'm looking for quiet like that (and btw, I really love that tower he has), but better gaming performance. Ideally, something that'll handle Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 3 (when it comes out), and gaming of that type for the next few years. Probably dual hard drives as well, as that's also a personal quirk I've picked up from him over the decades.
1. I'd probably like to keep dual large size HDDs (which means I'm probably not going SSD).
2. While I don't actively need the wireless support currently, I'm almost tempted to just through it in there, on the off chance that it's needed in the future (if we'd move and the hard wired PC would need to change).
3. Yeah, I still like having the dual media drives. I'm weird, sue me.
4. Uh, I really have no idea what else I really want or need to fit the above desires.
Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
ASUS P8Z68-V LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Seasonic SS-460FL Active PFC F3, 460W Fanless ATX12V Fanless 80Plus Gold Certified, Modular Power Supply
GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series GV-R685OC-1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express
G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
ASUS 24X DVD Burner x 2
ASUS PCE-N13 Wireless Adapter
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive x 2
Nexus BASIC D12SL-12 120mm Case Fan x 2
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
So, I spent the last few days looking over things, and I've realized that I'm even more out of touch now then when we put Themis together.
So, I'll look to you folks for help and suggestions, and I'll stick a few notes at the end. Because honestly, I'm really at a lose anymore on what's worthwhile over something else. The tech curve and its knowledge passed me by about a decade ago.
I dig the crap out of Themis. I'm looking for quiet like that (and btw, I really love that tower he has), but better gaming performance. Ideally, something that'll handle Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 3 (when it comes out), and gaming of that type for the next few years. Probably dual hard drives as well, as that's also a personal quirk I've picked up from him over the decades.
1. I'd probably like to keep dual large size HDDs (which means I'm probably not going SSD).
2. While I don't actively need the wireless support currently, I'm almost tempted to just through it in there, on the off chance that it's needed in the future (if we'd move and the hard wired PC would need to change).
3. Yeah, I still like having the dual media drives. I'm weird, sue me.
4. Uh, I really have no idea what else I really want or need to fit the above desires.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
- Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
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- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Here's the thing: yesterday, I went back over the build list for Themis, and tweaked and tuned it for today's SOTA. Except...it's basically exactly the same. To squeeze a little more gaming performance in CPU-bound titles, I jumped up to the i5-2500, and because it only costs $50 I doubled the RAM to a massive 16GB, but otherwise, other than substitutions for missing products, it's essentially the same.
The big question, then, is the video card, which is 90 percent of the time the limiting factor for gaming. On your monitor, with the 6850 in Themis, with Highest details, FXAA and Dynamic Shadows, Mass Effect 3 will run at over 60FPS 99 percent of the time. And because of some weird timing of releases and new generations, there's still not really anything that's better for the price.
But that's at that price point. How much were you thinking about spending for the whole machine? That answers how much you'd have left for a video card.
[edit: I was hoping to use a small SSD as a cache, but upon reading more, this isn't for you.]
The big question, then, is the video card, which is 90 percent of the time the limiting factor for gaming. On your monitor, with the 6850 in Themis, with Highest details, FXAA and Dynamic Shadows, Mass Effect 3 will run at over 60FPS 99 percent of the time. And because of some weird timing of releases and new generations, there's still not really anything that's better for the price.
But that's at that price point. How much were you thinking about spending for the whole machine? That answers how much you'd have left for a video card.
[edit: I was hoping to use a small SSD as a cache, but upon reading more, this isn't for you.]
- Jeff Hauze
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Explain that bit about using the SSD as a cache?3278 wrote:But that's at that price point. How much were you thinking about spending for the whole machine? That answers how much you'd have left for a video card.
[edit: I was hoping to use a small SSD as a cache, but upon reading more, this isn't for you.]
On price point, I'm honestly not sure currently. I'll try to price that out tonight, and see what it looks like.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
It's called a feature of the Z68 chipset that's called Smart Response Technology, and it works about how you'd think: the SSD acts as a cache for the system drive, and when it works well, it provides SSD-level speed with HDD-level capacity. But there are some downsides: you can only get a maximum of 64GB cached; if the cache is set to maximum speed, a crash or power outage during a file write can render the system unbootable; if it's set to maximum safety, an SSD failure won't ruin the system, but it's also not faster to write than the mechanical drive. At the end of the day, if you're going to buy an SSD and a mechanical drive, you're better off managing what goes on the SSD yourself.
Speaking of which. What are your actual storage needs? Obviously, you're running Windows 7, and will have "some programs," including some big games installed. You also need, what, about 1TB or so for long-term archival storage, stuff like video and audio files, is that correct? Anything else? I'm trying to figure out the best way to meet your needs while still respecting your eccentricities.
Speaking of which. What are your actual storage needs? Obviously, you're running Windows 7, and will have "some programs," including some big games installed. You also need, what, about 1TB or so for long-term archival storage, stuff like video and audio files, is that correct? Anything else? I'm trying to figure out the best way to meet your needs while still respecting your eccentricities.
- Jeff Hauze
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- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
I've got it mostly put together, except I'm not sure what I should use as the replacement motherboard. The one I linked seems to be out of stock. I used this as a placeholder for the moment. Suggestions?
Also, is this the i5-2500 you were talking about?
I kept the same RAM that was listed for Themis, but simply doubled up on it. Would it be better to just get two 8 GB DIMMs, rather than 4 4 GB DIMMs?
With all those things as listed above, I'm relatively okay with that price point. It's about what I would have expected anyway. Honestly, so long as it lasts me into the five year range, I'm generally happy. 5 years (or longer) basically means I'm looking at under $300 per year. I use my PCs a lot more than $300 worth per year. A LOT MORE. Had I not broken the port on the initial one you built, I'd imagine I'd still be using that one now. Even the crappy replacement I have now has pulled in about six years now.
Also, is this the i5-2500 you were talking about?
I kept the same RAM that was listed for Themis, but simply doubled up on it. Would it be better to just get two 8 GB DIMMs, rather than 4 4 GB DIMMs?
Yeah, my general thought was 1 TB drive, 1 TB internal back up, and 1 TB external backup (of which I already have). I'm a little paranoid about data loss, what can I say.3278 wrote:Speaking of which. What are your actual storage needs?
With all those things as listed above, I'm relatively okay with that price point. It's about what I would have expected anyway. Honestly, so long as it lasts me into the five year range, I'm generally happy. 5 years (or longer) basically means I'm looking at under $300 per year. I use my PCs a lot more than $300 worth per year. A LOT MORE. Had I not broken the port on the initial one you built, I'd imagine I'd still be using that one now. Even the crappy replacement I have now has pulled in about six years now.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
Well, here's what I have so far, including substitutions, which I've starred:
(1) Antec Three Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case*
(1) ASUS P8Z68-V LE Motherboard*
(1) Seasonic SS-460FL Power Supply
(1) Intel Core i5-2500 Desktop Processor*
(2) G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB RAM*
(2) Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB Hard Drive
(2) ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
(1) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
(1) ASUS PCE-N15 Wireless Adapter*
(2) Nexus BASIC D12SL-12 120mm Case Fan
In order: the new 302 is larger inside, has better cable management, and includes a pair of front-panel USB3.0 ports; the new mobo is the same as the old one, but loses Bluetooth and some PCI Express 2.0 lanes; stepped up from i5-2400 to i5-2500 [not i5-2500K; you don't need that]; doubled the RAM; old wireless adapter replaced with its replacement.
Ways you could knock off cost: step back down to 4GB of RAM [-$50], step back down to i5-2400 [-$20], step back down to Antec 300 [-$10]. Eliminate the wireless card [-$28]. Eliminate the double optical drives [$-21].
You could spend more money on the mobo, but you wouldn't get anything for it, really. You could spend more on the processor, too, but you'd get even less. The best performance-oriented change would be to add a 120GB SSD [or replace one of the 1TB drives with it, for about the same cost].
As a reminder, if data security is really the concern, putting 3 hard drives on the same system isn't the best solution: keep one local backup [your external drive], and spend that drive money on Carbonite, although I'm always cautious about putting things on someone else's server that might be subpoenaed.
This still doesn't include a video card. Looking at the existing total, what price range are you looking at for a video card? $150-$200? $200-$250? $250-$300? More?
(1) Antec Three Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case*
(1) ASUS P8Z68-V LE Motherboard*
(1) Seasonic SS-460FL Power Supply
(1) Intel Core i5-2500 Desktop Processor*
(2) G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB RAM*
(2) Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB Hard Drive
(2) ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
(1) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
(1) ASUS PCE-N15 Wireless Adapter*
(2) Nexus BASIC D12SL-12 120mm Case Fan
In order: the new 302 is larger inside, has better cable management, and includes a pair of front-panel USB3.0 ports; the new mobo is the same as the old one, but loses Bluetooth and some PCI Express 2.0 lanes; stepped up from i5-2400 to i5-2500 [not i5-2500K; you don't need that]; doubled the RAM; old wireless adapter replaced with its replacement.
Ways you could knock off cost: step back down to 4GB of RAM [-$50], step back down to i5-2400 [-$20], step back down to Antec 300 [-$10]. Eliminate the wireless card [-$28]. Eliminate the double optical drives [$-21].
You could spend more money on the mobo, but you wouldn't get anything for it, really. You could spend more on the processor, too, but you'd get even less. The best performance-oriented change would be to add a 120GB SSD [or replace one of the 1TB drives with it, for about the same cost].
As a reminder, if data security is really the concern, putting 3 hard drives on the same system isn't the best solution: keep one local backup [your external drive], and spend that drive money on Carbonite, although I'm always cautious about putting things on someone else's server that might be subpoenaed.
This still doesn't include a video card. Looking at the existing total, what price range are you looking at for a video card? $150-$200? $200-$250? $250-$300? More?
- Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
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- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Yeah, I'm not really so keen on the storing on the cloud mentality. I'll stick with my offline back ups.3278 wrote:As a reminder, if data security is really the concern, putting 3 hard drives on the same system isn't the best solution: keep one local backup [your external drive], and spend that drive money on Carbonite, although I'm always cautious about putting things on someone else's server that might be subpoenaed.
Looking over what you've listed, I'd probably say $200-$250 is my upper limit. If I can find something in the $100-$150 range, that's even better.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
- Jeff Hauze
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- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Sorry, work's been appalling.
• For $200-$250, I would consider the Asus ENGTX560 DCII TOP, although it's hotter and louder than the 6850 in Themis.
• At $160, if you'd like to keep the noise down, and are fine with 60FPS in Mass Effect 3, the Gigabyte Radeon 6850 remains an excellent choice.
• For $190, you can split the difference on noise and power by picking something like this Asus Radeon 6870.
I would personally not get the ENGTX560, because the extra performance wouldn't be worth the heat, power, and noise; whether I'd get the 6850 or 6870 would depend entirely on the balance of speed to noise.
• For $200-$250, I would consider the Asus ENGTX560 DCII TOP, although it's hotter and louder than the 6850 in Themis.
• At $160, if you'd like to keep the noise down, and are fine with 60FPS in Mass Effect 3, the Gigabyte Radeon 6850 remains an excellent choice.
• For $190, you can split the difference on noise and power by picking something like this Asus Radeon 6870.
I would personally not get the ENGTX560, because the extra performance wouldn't be worth the heat, power, and noise; whether I'd get the 6850 or 6870 would depend entirely on the balance of speed to noise.
- Jeff Hauze
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- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
No worries or rush man. Just thought I'd needle needlessly. It's not like I'm excited or anything. That's the last I needed, so I'll put it all together sometime tomorrow and put it up for final approval.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
- Jeff Hauze
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- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Whoops. Well, don't buy the one I linked to. That's a 560 1GB, not a 560 Ti. [Jesus Christ. Seriously?] The 6870 is cheaper, faster, and more efficient than the 560 1GB. In fact, it looks to me that in order to beat the 6870, you'd need to step up to the 560 Ti. This is a good one, but the special only lasts until tomorrow; no idea how much it'll cost after that, but there are other 560 Ti we could look at, too.
- Jeff Hauze
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- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
So apparently the HDDs are limited to 1 currently. Thoughts on a replacement? If paired is preferred, I could step it up to the 1.5s, I guess. Also, 6870 is looking like the choice for me after some last minute reading.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
You could just get the one, or like you say, just grab the 1.5TB for another $20, which is an awesome deal on extra capacity! If you don't want the double backups, a little extra scratch would get you this 120GB SSD.
For a 6870, after much [much, much] consideration, I'd go with this MSI. There's a Gigabyte with three fans that I like, too, but it's 12.5 inches long and may not be any quieter, and the MSI is 20 bucks cheaper.
For a 6870, after much [much, much] consideration, I'd go with this MSI. There's a Gigabyte with three fans that I like, too, but it's 12.5 inches long and may not be any quieter, and the MSI is 20 bucks cheaper.
- Jeff Hauze
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Actually, for the price differential, I think I'll just go with two 1.5s. That is a nice price for the extra storage. I know, my data storage desires seem weird and antiquated. But it's what I like. And honestly, I've had more HDDs die on me than any other hardware, so I kind of like having the spare in there that I can swap out to be a new main drive if needed. The problem with the SSDs is that it limits what I can put on there in the way of programs. Just glancing over my main drive now, I'm sitting at near that limit on things that are relatively frequent in use. And judging by Themis, even those HDDs seem hard to notice in terms of noise. I mean, I'm sitting with a jet engine next to me right now. You can hear this thing two rooms away, at the front door of our apartment.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.