Once in a while I boot up a GC game on it. If I feel like failing at F-Zero GX for 3 hours, I'll put that on. I played Brawl for about 45 minutes with Nuri's brother about a week ago. That was the first time I'd run a Wii game in like a year.
I may look into a Wii emulator and see if the discs can be read in a standard DVD drive.
As far as motherboards, look for something with a B85 or H87 chipset. The Z87 is the "overclocking" chipset. I have one, I'm been unimpressed. The board just has a billion little voltage settings that I never fiddle with. Another thing to just keep in mind is that Haswells run stupid hot, make sure your case has good ventilation. I'd also consider a aftermarket CPU cooler, I use mine to keep my CPU running at it's max turbo speed under all conditions. Also, if you're building the PC forever and a day, I'd suggest opting for the i7 even though the performance/dollar is slightly worse.
I'm conflicted on the i5/i7 debate. Benchmarks just don't show a difference that's worth dollars in most cases, at least not in the last couple of years. My GPU increasingly does all the "hard" work my computer does.
Yeah, that i5 is by no means a bad choice. Most hard core games these days can use up to 4 cores. Personally I like having more cores (yes, I know they're virtual, but they're cores as far as Windows is concerned) than the games I'm playing so I have extra processing power for other things. I pretty much always have a google video hangout going with the friends I'm currently playing with.
I don't think there's anything to be really conflicted about on i5 vs i7. If you can justify $100 for 6% extra clock speed, go ahead. Otherwise, you need to actually understand how Hyper-Threading works and be able to actually justify how HT helps in a non-trivial way for the types of applications you'll use it for.
If you can't make a coherent argument for the performance improvement and why it matters, don't get the i7. The argument from "futureproofing" doesn't hold up.
I don't think there's anything to be really conflicted about on i5 vs i7. If you can justify $100 for 6% extra clock speed, go ahead. Otherwise, you need to actually understand how Hyper-Threading works and be able to actually justify how HT helps in a non-trivial way for the types of applications you'll use it for.
If you can't make a coherent argument for the performance improvement and why it matters, don't get the i7. The argument from "futureproofing" doesn't hold up.
I like how you carefully worded that to imply that if you want hyperthreading then you don't know what you're talking about. :P
I don't think there's anything to be really conflicted about on i5 vs i7. If you can justify $100 for 6% extra clock speed, go ahead. Otherwise, you need to actually understand how Hyper-Threading works and be able to actually justify how HT helps in a non-trivial way for the types of applications you'll use it for.
If you can't make a coherent argument for the performance improvement and why it matters, don't get the i7. The argument from "futureproofing" doesn't hold up.
I like how you carefully worded that to imply that if you want hyperthreading then you don't know what you're talking about. :P
I do like to carefully word things ^_~
Anyways, you don't necessarily need to understand how HT works because you can get a clear enough picture from the benchmarks. For some kinds of situations it does indeed offer a significant performance improvement.
I do think that there can be and are good reasons for some people to buy an i7; my point is that because the across-the-board difference in performance is quite small you need stronger and more specific reasons to justify the extra expense.
If I setup two computers next to each other. One had i7 and one had i5. But you can't look at the system settings or open the box to figure out which is which. All you get to do is browse the web, play games, and do the other things you usually use your computer for. Can you actually tell the difference? I highly doubt anyone would be able to any better than 1/2 times.
I just replaced my Geforce 560 Ti with a 780 Ti. Haven't played any games with it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I don't really think about my desktop that much, but I realize I kinda went overboard when I built it three years ago:
- i7 2600K CPU - 16 gigs RAM - 2x128 gig SSD (windows, and steam) and around 1.5 TB HDD - 780 Ti GPU - 27" monitor and 2x 20" monitors
I also got a PSU to replace the one in my old (~2006) desktop, to try and see if I can get that working again. I'm going to put my old GPU in that (though I don't know what I'll use the old desktop for).
If I setup two computers next to each other. One had i7 and one had i5. But you can't look at the system settings or open the box to figure out which is which. All you get to do is browse the web, play games, and do the other things you usually use your computer for. Can you actually tell the difference? I highly doubt anyone would be able to any better than 1/2 times.
I'd probably do some PS2 and Wii emulation and see if there's any difference there between the machines. That's one field I know where my lacking CPU shows it's lack of power.
Most emulators are not known for much in the way of parallelism.
Yes, that is the crux of our silly argument, since the i5 and i7 have the same single threaded performance. I personally don't mind spending the extra $100 to have the extra performance when I have a huge processing task. I think I encoded a ripped DVD into H.264 the other day in about 5 minutes, it was nuts.
Most emulators are not known for much in the way of parallelism.
Yes, that is the crux of our silly argument, since the i5 and i7 have the same single threaded performance. I personally don't mind spending the extra $100 to have the extra performance when I have a huge processing task. I think I encoded a ripped DVD into H.264 the other day in about 5 minutes, it was nuts.
Imagine yourself sitting there with an i5 ripping that DVD. It says it's going to take 10 minutes to complete. An angels shows up and says, I can cut that time down to just 5 minutes for a measly $100. Do you pay?
When you come to the city, why not take a cab everywhere?
Because I can burn $100 extra when I'm building a computer once every 5 years, not every day.
EDIT: However, I will say that if I was building my computer again, I wouldn't pay the extra $10-$20 for the 4770K. The unlocked multiplier is not all that useful unless you want to water cool and push the voltages, which I don't. My computer runs at 4.0GHz cause it's stable there so why not, but I learned later that the K CPUs were stripped if new virtualization features that I would have used if I have the regular 4770.
I am seriously considering liquid cooling for my next PC. The tech has become standard enough that it isn't dangerous or annoying, and I'm increasingly interested in silent operation. It would also give me more flexibility in where I place the actual PC.
I am seriously considering liquid cooling for my next PC. The tech has become standard enough that it isn't dangerous or annoying, and I'm increasingly interested in silent operation. It would also give me more flexibility in where I place the actual PC.
I am seriously considering liquid cooling for my next PC. The tech has become standard enough that it isn't dangerous or annoying, and I'm increasingly interested in silent operation. It would also give me more flexibility in where I place the actual PC.
I honestly get silent operation out of a $35 aftermarket cooler. It uses something silly like a 120mm fan, at full speed you hardly hear it. You still need a fan to blow air over the radiator with water cooling. Is the noise even from your CPU or is it your graphics card winding up? I went for a non-reference board cooler card when I got my new GTX 770 cause I was tired of the hair dryer noise of the reference coolers.
Depends on the quality of the components. For example I'm sure your car rarely has issues, but there's decades of materials science behind its cooling system. There's lots of little problems that need to be thought about with water cooling. Things like the thermal expansion of water, where is overflow going? It's those sorts of little questions that I'm not sure are well addressed with cheaper systems.
Most emulators are not known for much in the way of parallelism.
Yes, that is the crux of our silly argument, since the i5 and i7 have the same single threaded performance. I personally don't mind spending the extra $100 to have the extra performance when I have a huge processing task. I think I encoded a ripped DVD into H.264 the other day in about 5 minutes, it was nuts.
Imagine yourself sitting there with an i5 ripping that DVD. It says it's going to take 10 minutes to complete. An angels shows up and says, I can cut that time down to just 5 minutes for a measly $100. Do you pay?
If the difference was actually between 10 minutes and 5 minutes, that would be a pretty big deal and I could easily understand people paying $100 for it. After all, it's not like the 5 minutes would be a one-off thing - it would happen every time you wanted to do a similar task.
The actual difference in question is more like 6 minutes vs 5 minutes.
Are we talking DIY or sealed unit liquid cooking? I've got a 1 fan Seidon I got on sale cooling my GPU, which I'm yet to get under full load but is working great. For a CPU, go with a good air cooler, as it will make noise deep inside your case, instead of being mounted at the front or back.
Sound's not a big issue these days as long as you get a PWM fans and can connect them, as not many motherboards (mATX especially.) include a lot of PWM ports so I use this 5 port PWM splitter, which has the added bonus of pulling it's power from the PSU, so it's not dragging more current through the motherboard.
Comments
When they work.
The real question: what do I do with my Wii?
Once in a while I boot up a GC game on it. If I feel like failing at F-Zero GX for 3 hours, I'll put that on. I played Brawl for about 45 minutes with Nuri's brother about a week ago. That was the first time I'd run a Wii game in like a year.
I may look into a Wii emulator and see if the discs can be read in a standard DVD drive.
If you can't make a coherent argument for the performance improvement and why it matters, don't get the i7. The argument from "futureproofing" doesn't hold up.
I did the regular uninstall in safe mode and boot into Windows, then re-install, didn't work.
Repeated it with a much thorough clean out of drivers using Display Driver Uninstall after AMD Cleanup utility in Safe mode.
Booted up into main OS logged in and was about to start re-installing video drivers.
I heard a pop and smoke coming out of the top vents of my case.
No power, no boot from motherboard.
Sad face, can't play games and now I have to get super use to using motherboard laptop till I can rebuild.
Next build -
nVidia 780 ti (unless someone can give me a compelling reason)
I was really holding out for the Haswell - E but this kind of forces my hand.
Appropriate RAM.
Asus or Gigabyte motherboard.
Power supply in case that's what blew up.
SSD Samsung 840 Pro 500gb or lower
I am sad face considering the build before this (2007 build) is still alive at my parent's house.
Anyways, you don't necessarily need to understand how HT works because you can get a clear enough picture from the benchmarks. For some kinds of situations it does indeed offer a significant performance improvement.
I do think that there can be and are good reasons for some people to buy an i7; my point is that because the across-the-board difference in performance is quite small you need stronger and more specific reasons to justify the extra expense.
- i7 2600K CPU
- 16 gigs RAM
- 2x128 gig SSD (windows, and steam) and around 1.5 TB HDD
- 780 Ti GPU
- 27" monitor and 2x 20" monitors
I also got a PSU to replace the one in my old (~2006) desktop, to try and see if I can get that working again. I'm going to put my old GPU in that (though I don't know what I'll use the old desktop for).
EDIT: However, I will say that if I was building my computer again, I wouldn't pay the extra $10-$20 for the 4770K. The unlocked multiplier is not all that useful unless you want to water cool and push the voltages, which I don't. My computer runs at 4.0GHz cause it's stable there so why not, but I learned later that the K CPUs were stripped if new virtualization features that I would have used if I have the regular 4770.
The actual difference in question is more like 6 minutes vs 5 minutes.
I've got a 1 fan Seidon I got on sale cooling my GPU, which I'm yet to get under full load but is working great.
For a CPU, go with a good air cooler, as it will make noise deep inside your case, instead of being mounted at the front or back.
Sound's not a big issue these days as long as you get a PWM fans and can connect them, as not many motherboards (mATX especially.) include a lot of PWM ports so I use this 5 port PWM splitter, which has the added bonus of pulling it's power from the PSU, so it's not dragging more current through the motherboard.