So, I went to read in the park, got back and my ASUS EAH6850 wouldn't come out of suspend. Nothing doing with a restart so I hooked one monitor up to the motherboard's VGA output and it worked. Looks like the card is fried but I'm going to try pulling it out and having a look at it.
I've never seen it go much above 50 degrees idle so it's odd for it to have failed while suspended.
Edit: Fixed it by pushing in on the side of the graphics card and wiggling it slightly.
I feel a bit dumb for having to ask this but I am about to build a computer and need help knowing which parts are the best to purchase at the moment. I do not need a computer that is the most powerful thing available but I would like something that could run most games now and for the next few years as well as maybe do some video editing. I have looked at a few places online for help but most either seem to recommend overpowered builds or at the other end of the spectrum. Also I felt that if there was anywhere that could give me great advice on that it would be here.
Yeah, I sent my EAH6870 VGA back to ASUS yesterday. It was still under warranty, hoping they'll fix the DVI ports and send it back. Hopefully they don't send me a shitty refurbished one, mine was in good condition minus the DVI ports suddenly not working.
Everything looks fine. Nothing stands out as super pointless. I don't bother with a lot of the advanced cooling stuff, but it couldn't hurt. You could afford a more powerful power supply (650-750W), but 600 isn't low.
Any recommendations on a 750W power supply? I was going with Silverstone based on hearing good things from friends but their 750W is nearly twice the price of that one, or is that about what I should expect?
This graphics card looks very similar, is from a better brand (imo), and most importantly, is much cheaper. The only think it has less of are CUDA cores. The one you chose is a TI and this one is not. I'll look into benchmarks a bit but I don't think there's much difference.
What's the computer going to be used for primarily? That's a lot of storage capacity, processing power, and memory. Great for something that has to do a lot of work (as opposed to gaming) probably, so I'm assuming that's the use case. It would still be perfectly fine for gaming, but dollar for dollar on a gaming rig I'd spend more on the GPU and less on the other things, and probably use a smaller higher speed hard drive.
I think the case and power supply you have there are fine for that.
That said, I do like Apreche's case/power supply combo slightly more. And I really like the corsair 650/750 power supplies lately.
The one upgrade that might make a major difference (in price and usefullness) is an SSD in addition to the storage drive. Something to handle all the applications, while all the documents get put on the storage drive. Or another upgrade might be getting a second storage drive and running them in raid 1 if you wanted to deal with that (not that this replaces a good backup solution, but it's possibly useful).
I think it is for mostly art production. I am building it for a friend who needs to use the Adobe Suite for animation, but doesn't do 3D. They are not PC gamers, like, at all. I don't think they need an SSD right now, since they are on a budget. They can add one later if they want. I figured I would give them a big hard drive for storing after effects projects and stuff.
but dollar for dollar on a gaming rig I'd spend more on the GPU and less on the other things, and probably use a smaller higher speed hard drive.
I disagree with that. Spending more on the core components means that you can trivially upgrade the video card as necessary and keep the rest of the computer for a long time.
My i7-920 is going strong as a computer for everything I do. The videocard has always been the bottleneck, and still is, but I can upgrade just that every year or so and the rest of the machine remains untouched.
Spending the money on a good processor, mobo, the right amount of RAM, and a decent hard drive up front is almost always worth it over any possible savings you could get out of skimping.
but dollar for dollar on a gaming rig I'd spend more on the GPU and less on the other things, and probably use a smaller higher speed hard drive.
I disagree with that. Spending more on the core components means that you can trivially upgrade the video card as necessary and keep the rest of the computer for a long time.
My i7-920 is going strong as a computer for everything I do. The videocard has always been the bottleneck, and still is, but I can upgrade just that every year or so and the rest of the machine remains untouched.
Spending the money on a good processor, mobo, the right amount of RAM, and a decent hard drive up front is almost always worth it over any possible savings you could get out of skimping.
This is a tangent, as the PC in question isn't a gaming rig, but you're simply wrong, Rym.
RAM, for example, is trivial and cheap to upgrade later; if I was building a gaming rig on a tight budget I'd definitely rather go with 4 or 8GB of RAM rather than 16GB and put the rest of the cash into the graphics card.
With regards to the motherboard there isn't really much room for savings anyway - you just buy a motherboard with the features you need and that's pretty much all there is to it.
You have more of a point with regards to the CPU, because it's more of an annoyance to upgrade, but even then you're just plain wrong. You can save $40 going down from the i5-2500K to the cheapest quad-core, the i5-2310. The difference? 10% worth of clock speed, and locked multipliers.
Right now, RAM is at a baseline price. No reason not to buy it now: it won't get much cheaper in the next six months.
Motherboard is bought with the CPU. Despite what anyone says, no one really upgrades the CPU and keeps the same motherboard unless they're upgrading way too frequently. But 10% for $40? That's not worth the relatively trivial savings. $40 is a tiny percentage of the total price, and for any rendering, the CPU is going to be the bottleneck anyway.
Right now, getting all the RAM you need and a good CPU is the most important thing. The videocard is what you can skimp the most on so long as you get a baseline performance one. SSDs are still too expensive per unit performance unless you have money to burn.
A $500 video card today is a $250 video card in the near future.
Again, a preliminary note - these considerations apply to a PC where the main demanding task is gaming, because that's what Creamsteak was talking about, and that's what Rym is wrong about.
Right now, RAM is at a baseline price. No reason not to buy it now: it won't get much cheaper in the next six months.
Budgetary constraints are an entirely sufficient reason. For most purposes, gaming included, there is zero difference between having 8GB and 16GB of RAM.
Motherboard is bought with the CPU. Despite what anyone says, no one really upgrades the CPU and keeps the same motherboard unless they're upgrading way too frequently. But 10% for $40? That's not worth the relatively trivial savings. $40 is a tiny percentage of the total price, and for any rendering, the CPU is going to be the bottleneck anyway.
Sure, and if this tangent that you and Creamsteak started was actually about a PC where rendering was one of the main purposes, we wouldn't be having this discussion. However, if you expect that the vast majority of the time your CPU won't be much of a bottleneck (e.g. in games) that 10% matters a lot less.
On the other hand, for gaming that $40 added to the video card makes a huge difference. Combine that with ~$50 from dropping to 8GB of RAM, and for $200 you get a video card that is (from a quick benchmark check) around 60% faster, and I mean in terms of actual frames per second.
As a side note, the $200 mark is pretty much the "sweet spot" for both video cards and CPUs.
Right now, getting all the RAM you need and a good CPU is the most important thing. The videocard is what you can skimp the most on so long as you get a baseline performance one. SSDs are still too expensive per unit performance unless you have money to burn.
What "the most important thing" happens to be depends very much on what the purpose for that computer is. Also, it's not like the 10% slower CPU isn't a good CPU.
A $500 video card today is a $250 video card in the near future.
True, but mostly irrelevant. First and foremost, a $500 video card wasn't even in the picture, and bringing it up is ludicrous in context. Secondly, that same fact applies to quite a lot of other PC components.
The simple fact of the matter is that buying a $120 video card for a gaming PC would be a mistake unless you were very short on money.
The simple fact of the matter is that buying a $120 video card for a gaming PC would be a mistake unless you were very short on money.
I think Rym's just in his own world thinking about his needs and not actually arguing with the statement I was making, but how that statement would apply to himself. Hense the rendering comment.
I would say, spend $50 more on the GPU and $50 less on the CPU/Motherboard/Memory combination if your primary focus was gaming and not productivity. And that still stands and is rather simple, while not being relevant to the original question.
I would say, spend $50 more on the GPU and $50 less on the CPU/Motherboard/Memory combination if your primary focus was gaming and not productivity. And that still stands and is rather simple, while not being relevant to the original question.
Yes, for a gaming PC the ~$200 mark would be a much better bet for a video card; you can get an HD 7850 or a GTX 560 Ti for that price, and both of those are far better cards. Because of the large performance difference (something like 60%, as stated above), this also applies to any computer which you expect to use for other GPU-intensive tasks, such as various types of GPGPU tasks.
Certainly, though that probably locks you into a specific card (probably CUDA in my experience, but ATI has their thing too). And if that's your goal, I'm all about nerding out designing and building a GPGPU rig.
The GPU is acceptable if you don't really expect to use the computer for any GPU-intensive tasks. However, if that's the case, I'd say you're better off just sticking with Intel's integrated graphics.
As a side note, some modern applications are actually making more use of the GPU these days. For example, After Effects CS6 uses GPU acceleration for ray-traced 3D rendering, although the official specifications only list a small number of cards.
Comments
I've never seen it go much above 50 degrees idle so it's odd for it to have failed while suspended.
Edit: Fixed it by pushing in on the side of the graphics card and wiggling it slightly.
Update: benchmark comparison
Hmmm. I should use the wishlist. Need to log in.
CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
Motherboard - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131786
Video Card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130625
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233246
Hard Drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245
Case and Power supply - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1046194
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
Then get this power supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371035
or maybe even this one if the wattage is enough. The computer only has one drive, it might work.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371033
I think the case and power supply you have there are fine for that.
That said, I do like Apreche's case/power supply combo slightly more. And I really like the corsair 650/750 power supplies lately.
The one upgrade that might make a major difference (in price and usefullness) is an SSD in addition to the storage drive. Something to handle all the applications, while all the documents get put on the storage drive. Or another upgrade might be getting a second storage drive and running them in raid 1 if you wanted to deal with that (not that this replaces a good backup solution, but it's possibly useful).
My i7-920 is going strong as a computer for everything I do. The videocard has always been the bottleneck, and still is, but I can upgrade just that every year or so and the rest of the machine remains untouched.
Spending the money on a good processor, mobo, the right amount of RAM, and a decent hard drive up front is almost always worth it over any possible savings you could get out of skimping.
RAM, for example, is trivial and cheap to upgrade later; if I was building a gaming rig on a tight budget I'd definitely rather go with 4 or 8GB of RAM rather than 16GB and put the rest of the cash into the graphics card.
With regards to the motherboard there isn't really much room for savings anyway - you just buy a motherboard with the features you need and that's pretty much all there is to it.
You have more of a point with regards to the CPU, because it's more of an annoyance to upgrade, but even then you're just plain wrong. You can save $40 going down from the i5-2500K to the cheapest quad-core, the i5-2310. The difference? 10% worth of clock speed, and locked multipliers.
Motherboard is bought with the CPU. Despite what anyone says, no one really upgrades the CPU and keeps the same motherboard unless they're upgrading way too frequently. But 10% for $40? That's not worth the relatively trivial savings. $40 is a tiny percentage of the total price, and for any rendering, the CPU is going to be the bottleneck anyway.
Right now, getting all the RAM you need and a good CPU is the most important thing. The videocard is what you can skimp the most on so long as you get a baseline performance one. SSDs are still too expensive per unit performance unless you have money to burn.
A $500 video card today is a $250 video card in the near future.
On the other hand, for gaming that $40 added to the video card makes a huge difference. Combine that with ~$50 from dropping to 8GB of RAM, and for $200 you get a video card that is (from a quick benchmark check) around 60% faster, and I mean in terms of actual frames per second.
As a side note, the $200 mark is pretty much the "sweet spot" for both video cards and CPUs. What "the most important thing" happens to be depends very much on what the purpose for that computer is. Also, it's not like the 10% slower CPU isn't a good CPU. True, but mostly irrelevant. First and foremost, a $500 video card wasn't even in the picture, and bringing it up is ludicrous in context. Secondly, that same fact applies to quite a lot of other PC components.
The simple fact of the matter is that buying a $120 video card for a gaming PC would be a mistake unless you were very short on money.
I would say, spend $50 more on the GPU and $50 less on the CPU/Motherboard/Memory combination if your primary focus was gaming and not productivity. And that still stands and is rather simple, while not being relevant to the original question.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115233
As an Ivy Bridge, it's 22nm rather than 32nm, and it's slightly faster and slightly cheaper than the i5-2500K.
The GPU is acceptable if you don't really expect to use the computer for any GPU-intensive tasks. However, if that's the case, I'd say you're better off just sticking with Intel's integrated graphics.
As a side note, some modern applications are actually making more use of the GPU these days. For example, After Effects CS6 uses GPU acceleration for ray-traced 3D rendering, although the official specifications only list a small number of cards.