Posts by David Sanders4

If you absolutely have to order from that specific shop, you might as well go with this one: Corsair RM series

It’s fine if they decide to sell it tomorrow; people are out there hunting for even a $333 for a GTX 660. Honestly, I wouldn't part with my own setup—even with a 20-month warranty—for anything less than $300! RAM doesn't lose much value anyway, and for an LCD, I wouldn't pay more than 1300 either. If I were buying the whole lot, I'd probably try to knock 50-$33
off the total price.

Joshua Ramos14 said:Now I'm curious about my own setup too. ^^

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K, 3600 MHz $433
MBO: AsRock Z77 Extreme4 $167
RAM: 2x 4gb - Corsair XMS3 CMX4GX3M1A1333C9 $133
HDD: Samsung 840 Pro 128GB, $133
Western Digital WD10EALX-009BA0 Caviar Blue, $83 Toshiba MQ01ABD100 1tb $83
VGA: Gainward NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 GS $283
PSU: OCZ ModX stream 600W modular $133
Monitor: Dell U2412M $500
Other: CoolerMaster 690 II Lite, $100
Logitech G502,$100
Logitech G510s, $133
Gamec 380 $50
Scythe Mugen 3 $67

Total $2400 based on parts
all together $2167
-$67 since you don't have speakers

Did you use thermal paste or go without?
No joke,
Just list all the warranties, and then we can wait for the appraiser from Arendelle & Co. to arrive.

Timothy Kim60 said:There’s another issue I find myself bringing up constantly—I can't stand how inconsistent cooler reviews are. Every reviewer seems to be singing from a different sheet. For instance, if you compare two specific coolers, or if one isn't even included in the main comparison but gets used as a benchmark in every single review, the results are all over the place. I’ve sat through four or five different reviews, and even when the coolers are closely matched, you still can't reach a definitive conclusion. One review shows them neck and neck, another gives a slight edge to one, a third favors the other, and a fourth claims one absolutely crushes the competition. It's maddening.

I actually went out and tested this myself, and honestly, it's a thankless job. It feels like a lot of these tests are done half-heartedly. When a review claims to have tested ten or more coolers, it’s pretty obvious they aren't running live tests on every single unit; they're likely just pulling data from other sources. Ideally, everything should be tested in real-time under identical ambient temperatures. Relying solely on temperature deltas is misleading, because heat dissipation behaves differently at 70 versus 85 degrees.

The IBM has vanished from store shelves, which is a shame because, given its price and performance, it was an absolute steal. From what I've read, it was easily in the same league as the Cooler Master Hyper 212.🕺

CPU SHOWDOWN: i5 4460 vs i7 4790K vs i7 920 - Gaming Performance

Assuming this isn't some kind of rigged test, there really isn't any need to hunt down a more powerful CPU. Looking at the results, we're seeing 720p resolution without any AA, occasionally even on low or medium settings. That means if you were to run these at 1080p on Ultra with AA enabled, the performance gaps would likely be even smaller. You can find these older chips, like the Intel Core i7 920, for a bargain these days, but the LGA 1366 motherboards are still pricey, and honestly, who knows what kind of shape they're actually in?🕺

So, buying one doesn't make much sense, but then again, selling them isn't exactly a gold mine either... I guess we'll just see how it plays out.

It just goes to show how much of a lack of imagination and creativity is currently plaguing certain corners of the film industry. It’s become a pure business venture; there’s hardly any artistry left in it. Honestly, video games are where the true art is being made now. Characters in games are consistently developed at a much higher level—I personally think Raiden from Metal Gear Solid was more psychologically and socially complex than every single character in a Batman movie combined. Especially when you look at RPGs; I don't even play them all that often, but the characterizations in those games are 🙏
. When I think back to titles like Shadow Hearts, the sheer quality of the writing is enough to make your heart ache!

Specifically, in The Last of Us, the dialogue between young Ellie and the man helping her with the explosives is nothing short of fantastic. Naughty Dog is truly crafting art here. They proved they could do it with the entire Uncharted series, but with The Last of Us, they’ve pushed everything to a whole new level, both in terms of the dramatic foundation and the actual gameplay mechanics!

Kate Walker54 said:I want to distance myself from one of last night's posts that wasn't deleted. To be clear, I haven't given anything to L3gu or any other moderator.

Come on, don't be such a martyr. You can't even be mentioned without getting defensive. I'm certainly not interested in dragging you through the mud all over the forum, but claiming you can't even be brought up at all seems a bit excessive.

Kate Walker54 said:Exactly. Apparently, the chat isn't enough; you people need the entire PDF handed to you on a silver platter. 🙏 🙏 🙏

I couldn't agree more.👍
If L3go hadn't graciously provided us with the chat, we wouldn't have anything at all. And now, apparently, that's still not sufficient—now there needs to be yet another chat just for the "chosen few."🕺

P.S. As far as I'm concerned, I'd actually prefer if they kept it to themselves. I personally find things much better when the "traffic" is lighter; it always feels higher quality to me.🙂

Timothy Kim60 said:To's true, the site is a total sham. People point that out all the time over on the Tom's Hardware and AnandTech forums.

I was just looking at the GTX 770 being ranked alongside the R9 290... yeah, right. Maybe Intel and NVIDIA will toss them a little bribe or a new CPU every year just so they can keep pumping out those flashy ads.

To PC Lab data is unreliable—honestly, it’s borderline inaccurate

darkangler24 said:So, I'm trying to put together a gaming rig with a budget somewhere between $600 and $2667 using an Intel/NVIDIA combo. Here’s what I’ve picked out so far:

1 x ASRock B85 Pro4, s1150, Haswell
1 x Intel Core i5-4460 (3.20GHz, 1MB, 6MB, 84 W, 1150) Box
1 x 8GB DDR3 (1x8GB) Kingston, HyperX Fury, 1866MHz, CL10
1 x Gigabyte GTX 960 WF2 Overclocked, 2GB GDDR5, DVI-I / DVI-D / HDMI
1 x 1TB WD Caviar Blue HDD, 1000 GB, SATA3, 64 MB, 3.5", 7200 RPM
1 x XFX P1-550S-XXB9 Pro Series Core edition 80 550W PSU
1 x Samsung SH-224DB sat Bulk Black DVD Writer, SATA
1 x Zalman Z3 mid tower case. 192(W)x465(H)x430(D)mm. MB standard
$2009

Now, this is basically my baseline. I'm torn on whether I should stick with those $667 specs or if it's smarter to push for a better CPU or GPU. If I were to upgrade, I'd look at the i5-4690K, an ASRock Z97 Anniversary motherboard, and a GTX 970 WF3. I'm thinking I might need a beefier power supply for that setup too, maybe something like the XFX 650 w xxx edition. All those upgrades would bump the price up by more than $200, but assuming I can make that happen, is it actually worth the extra cash?

If I wanted a higher-end case, like a Define R4, I'd definitely be blowing past my budget, and honestly, I don't see the point unless it's necessary—especially since I think the Z3 looks way cooler anyway.

Before I even think about overclocking the processor, I'd grab a decent cooler, but for now, I'll just stick with the stock one.

The **bolded** part is really the only justifiable change in your setup. You don't actually need an i5 K-series model for gaming; the one you've already listed can handle everything you throw at it. The same goes for the Motherboard—if upgrading the CPU doesn't make sense right now, it won't make sense in a few years either, as I expect some newer non-K model will eventually be a better value anyway. You also don't need a stronger power supply for the GTX 970, so really, the only thing worth looking at is $333upgrading the GPU...

I flagged this post a few days ago, but I haven't heard anything back, nor have I seen any action taken. It’s quite important to me that this is addressed before Easter; in my view, the reputation of our community is being unfairly compromised here.

Harassment

Best regards,🎉

and maybe give $333
a shot too

It really comes down to the warranty coverage, but you’re looking at prices ranging from $800 to $400...

George Sanders37 said:I suspect my biggest path forward involves upgrading either the graphics card or the RAM. How much sense does it actually make to pick up another 2x 4GB sticks of RAM? From what I can gather, the motherboard features two PCI-E x16 slots, though the primary slot currently houses the GPU at 3.0 speeds while the secondary one is limited to 2.0. The manual mentions support for ATI Crossfire, but it’s strangely silent on anything regarding NVIDIA SLI.🤔

There are two slots available, but only one is an x16; the other runs at x4 mode. As far as I know, Crossfire doesn't support an x16/x4 configuration.
I actually went through the same thought process regarding an SLI setup with the GTX 660, but I ultimately decided against it. When you look at the math, a single NVIDIA GTX 970 outperforms two 660s anyway, plus you get native DirectX 12 support and nearly double the VRAM. It just makes much more sense to go with the single, stronger card.

I think the suggestion regarding the Samsung Flatron is perfectly fine. That said, if you aren't in a rush to move on from the GTX 660, there’s really no need to hurry the upgrade. It still holds its own quite well at 1080p, managing around 30fps even on ultra settings.

Timothy Kim60 said:I haven't come across many tests either, likely because most people aren't rocking 4K monitors—not even the major tech sites, since they usually just test VRAM usage via DSR.

In any case, if there is a noticeable difference, I doubt it's anything drastic. Here is a thread discussing it: click

There isn't any video evidence yet, but based on what I'm hearing, the difference is negligible. Besides, you can easily verify this on a 1440p monitor or an FHD screen using DSR to hit 1440p... if there's a discrepancy there, the gap at 4K would likely only widen.

Timothy Kim60 said:That's why we need to start using the term "game bottleneck." Modern games are often so poorly optimized that the issue lies within the software itself. Developers have to pull their weight; it's not always a hardware limitation.

I heard about someone playing Arma 3—getting absolute banana FPS while both the CPU and GPU sit idling at 30%. *facepalm*

That is genuinely pathetic... especially in single-player mode. From my experience, multiplayer tends to absolutely hammer the CPU.🤷

As for the topic at hand—we are talking about gaming rigs here.😁

Timothy Kim60 said:I suspect there's a reason this thread spans 25 pages; the OP started this back in September but didn't actually buy the PC until June...

Honestly, if I were in his shoes, I’d be looking at those prices with a heavy heart and slumped shoulders. Not only did the price fail to drop during those six months, it actually went up.👎

Timothy Kim60 said:Of course there’s a noticeable difference; you aren't getting the same pixel density you'd find with native 4K, but even so, it’s still a significant step up from the standard settings.

click

I think I misspoke there. What I actually meant to ask was whether there's a noticeable difference in frame rates if I decide to play at 4K or use DSRx4k. 🤔
I couldn't find that specific data point anywhere. As I understand it, native 4K uses a 1:1 ratio of samples to pixels, whereas using DSRx4k on a 1080p setup essentially runs at a 4:1 ratio.

Larry Ortiz5 said:I just finished playing Dying Light and ended up uninstalling it once the credits rolled. By the way, I’ve been hearing from people that the gameplay experience has become significantly more polished since they rolled out the 1.4.0 patch. If you haven't updated yet, I'd definitely recommend grabbing that latest version before you dive back in to see if it's actually improved.

Quick correction: my monitor resolution is actually 1680x1050. Regardless, I’m going to go ahead and redownload the game and run that update just to see what happens. I was just checking some YouTube clips featuring the latest patch, and it looks like the file size hasn't even hit 3300MB. It seems like the update really did its job and optimized things quite well.

I’m seeing numbers hovering around the 3100–3300 range since that update went live. Interestingly, my GPU usage is all over the map right now, bouncing between 50% and 90%. I was just looking at a user running an i7-5820K on a quad-core setup who’s dealing with the exact same thing, so I don't think we can pin this on the CPU.

P.S. I hope the mods aren't too annoyed that we've veered so far off-topic. 🤣

Larry Ortiz5 said:I turned on DSR and set it to 4.00x 😬 I fired up Tomb Raider at 3360x2100 resolution, kept everything else on Ultra, and I'm getting about 40 to 43 FPS. Honestly, I’m pretty impressed; I didn't realize this card had this much muscle. VRAM usage sat around 2.2 to 3 GB, which is quite 👍

So, you're running a 16:10 monitor? Do you have Dying Light? I was checking my memory usage just now and noticed my GPU usage often hovers around 50%.😲

Larry Ortiz5 said:Is it eating up more than 3.5GB of VRAM? How does the card hold up? (specifically when you toggle DSR). I have an Asus model myself, but I haven't really messed around with those settings yet. Thanks a lot. 👍

I know you're running a Strix; I spotted it at some hardware meetups. I was actually torn between MSI and Asus myself... I didn't pay much attention to the memory capacity at the time, so I think I'll download a utility to monitor the actual usage.

Timothy Kim60 said:Of course, you wouldn't want to try this with Assassin's Creed Unity or those few heavy hitters that demand everything from your rig. DSR is actually fantastic for games where the graphics aren't pushing the frame rate below 60fps—basically older titles or newer ones that aren't overly demanding. For instance, one of the main advertisements for DSR featured Dark Souls 2 (here is the link from David Sanders4). At the end of the day, though, you should just test it out once you have it. 😁

What I'm really curious about is whether there's any noticeable difference between DSRx4k and native 4K. 🤷
In Metro LL, for example, I noticed that the FPS remains identical whether I use fHD x4 Supersampling AA or DSRx4k. So, which one actually looks better? It feels to me like DSR has the edge, but perhaps I'm just overthinking it.

Larry Ortiz5 said:Actually, I don't have any games installed right now, except for Tomb Raider, which stays locked at 60fps on Ultra settings. I also have Dirt 3. 😁 Maybe I'll give those a shot to see how that 4K resolution looks on my 1680x1050 monitor. 😛

Well, Tomb Raider is perfect for testing; it'll show you immediately if there's a meaningful difference.

And you don't necessarily have to stick to DSRx4; you could try DSRx1.76 (if I recall correctly, that would be 1440p).

MSI GTX 970 gaming