And? That doesn't change the fact that the card burnt out on a bad driver. And just a week or two after the 2 year warranty expired. Still, a card should last well beyond two years.

12/21/2011 2:09:20 PM

yeah it sucks. I had an 8600gt go bad on me due to bad memory. and the damn thing was out of warranty by a month.

12/21/2011 2:12:32 PM

Wow, similar stories. Maybe they designed those to burn out just after the warranty expired, get you buying a new one.

12/21/2011 2:17:49 PM

I mean who keeps video cards for more than 2 years anyway?

12/21/2011 2:22:30 PM

well there was that whole issue a few years ago about the 8000 series had a design flaw and would burn out after 2 years of heavy use. there was a class action lawsuit and I think nvidia lost, but I donno much more then that. But I believe that only pertained to mobile chips, not desktop.

12/21/2011 3:46:54 PM

Got a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ for Xmas, and it's a monster compared to my stock Phenom II X4 955 cooler! Between that and mikey99cobra's HD 5870 I'm picking up, I should have a good time ahead of me with swapping parts.

12/25/2011 2:53:53 PM

Quote :

"Got a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ for Xmas"

12/25/2011 9:57:10 PM

yeah its pretty nice and considering its one of the cheapest cpu coolers on the market... its just so full of win... cept I fail cause I have no overhead on my 850w PSU to take advantage of the cooler. but hey, atleast its running a lot cooler on load.

12/26/2011 8:45:35 AM

So my computer doesn't play SWTOR very well and I already have an upgraded video card and 8GB RAM. My CPU and mobo suck so I'm debating getting an i5 and an ASUS mobo. I'm open to suggestions on those as well, but I think I'm set.

My question is about a new HD. I think I'll get an SSD but I'm worried about moving all my games/MP3s, etc over to the new HD. A friend recommended only putting the OS on the SSD then keeping all my other stuff on the old HD (it's really slow). Would there be any lag from running my SWTOR game from the old HD after booting from the SSD? If not, how exactly do I set it up where I can see the old HD from the new SSD's OS?

Sorry for stupid questions but I'm not as familiar with this.

1/1/2012 3:13:22 PM

Quote :

"Coolermaster Hyper 212+ etc."

Just installed mine today, and my idle temps are down from 35C to 25C - this thing is ridiculous! Can't wait to try it under load and see what I can get for an overclock.

Speaking of overclocking, I've got the AMD VISION Control Center software, and I'm running an ATI video card and AMD processor. The video card is currently slightly OC'd using the software, and it allows me to OC the CPU in the same program - should I go ahead and use the AMD software or do the OC through the bios, or would there really be any difference?

1/1/2012 4:52:25 PM

Pardon the double-post, but just an update on my CPU overclocking with the 212+

Ran the AMD auto-tune overclocking software and it got my 3.2GHz Phenom II X4 955BE stable up to 4.3GHz Throttled it back to 4.0GHz just to be safe and it's been smooth sailing so far. Very satisfied with this new cooler!

1/1/2012 7:53:22 PM

@Nashattack: what's your full system specs? And no, SSD will not help your gaming performance. Its only a nice feature if you want to boot up fast or have apps that are installed on the ssd to open up fast as well. It would be moot for gaming specially since your friend said to store the games on the old hard drive. The only real hdd load for gaming is the initial loading of the program, maps and any user info for temp files related to those maps. You shouldn't see any realistic slow down unless you are running a piss poor slow ass drive that has crazy seek times.

@jcdomini: yeah I like the 212, dropped about 15-20C+ on load. Debating about pulling one of the 570's out so I can OC the cpu.

1/2/2012 10:30:09 AM

formatting my future mother inlaw's laptop this weekend and putting windows7 home on it.

I went to newegg and noticed the system builders OEM was 99 and the regular was 189.

Whats the difference?

1/2/2012 4:30:54 PM

OEM technically is tied to one machine and you don't get the support/manual/box you would with retail.

1/2/2012 4:38:27 PM

^ thanks. Going with the OEM.

I don't see her ever using or needing the support/box ever.

1/2/2012 4:47:40 PM

Getting quite a bit of research done on a 3 or 4 way 580 sli classified water cool system using a 3960x in a silverstone TJ11 case for this one guy. Should be pretty cool if he actually buys all the shit.

4 way SLI using a two loop LC setup.

After talking to some LC guru's, it'll actually run into some heat issues since the bottom radiators are only 3x 120mm and would still have to find a better way to get cold air for them while dealing with the heat outtake. Might put a 3rd 3x radiator on the back wall and put some fans on the firewall and top of the case to pull some cool air just for the radiators to use. The setup requires two PSU (a 1500w and an 850w) to power the cards and cpu with some overhead for crazy OC.

Here's a pick of someone else doing a similar build, but it kinda fails since you can see how inefficient the placement is.

The cables and LC tubing would get in the way, while there's no real plan on removing the heat between the two radiators since the fans are a pull design (pulling cold air from the sides through the radiator).


After talking to the dude, I pretty much convinced him to go with a more conservative 3way 580 SLI setup using a 4x 120mm radiator for the gpu loop and then use something like the corsair H100 for the cpu so he doesn't have to figure out how to fit two large LC loops and spend another $100+ on just compression fittings or other hardware plumping crap.

1/5/2012 4:24:23 PM

With the help of mikey99cobra, I now have a Radeon HD 5870, and I'm very satisfied with the upgrade This card sure is a monster though.

1/14/2012 6:18:33 PM

GF just got me an ASUS VE228H 21.5" monitor(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236100&Tpk=ASUS%20VE228h) for my cakeday to go with my VH222H-P 21.5" - double monitors all the way!

2/5/2012 4:52:38 PM

I would get this dual monitor stand because those dont have a height adjustment.

http://www.amazon.com/Standing-Horizontal-Monitor-Stand-Widescreens/dp/B003Q3S7LM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1328529289&sr=8-2

I have the ASUS 24" like that at work and it is one of the better monitors for the price IMO. I am just holding out for a 16:10 that doesnt break the bank.

[Edited on February 6, 2012 at 6:59 AM. Reason : ]

2/6/2012 6:55:59 AM

Not really a new build, but a part. Does anyone have experience purchasing a replacement screen for a laptop? Most sellers run about the same price, I was wondering if anyone had recommendations of sellers.

2/16/2012 10:47:51 AM

I've replaced one on a macbook and a dell before. Both fairly easy.

-For a seller I just looked on ebay or amazon.

^^^Decent stand. I gave up trying to mount all three monitors. I have my center 27" on a 2-arm wall mount with ball socket joint and the 2 24"s on each end on their respective stands. Works great.

[Edited on February 16, 2012 at 10:58 AM. Reason : s]

2/16/2012 10:56:24 AM

Where did you get your screens? Anyone you trust more than others?

2/16/2012 10:57:20 AM

Just find the correct model number then find one on ebay. I would imagine if you have the right model number there's only going to be one variation of the replacement screen.

-As far as sellers go just find one with good feedback.

[Edited on February 16, 2012 at 11:01 AM. Reason : s]

2/16/2012 11:00:43 AM

Thanks, I'll hit up ebay.

2/16/2012 11:06:34 AM

I just built my first PC this week.

i5 2500k
z68 extreme 3 gen 3
msi twin frozr 560ti 2gb
Silverstone KL04

etc etc.

I'm loving it.

3/3/2012 8:41:23 AM

I really love my 27 inch imac...and 23inch screen to go along with it.

3/3/2012 1:05:56 PM

I feel sorry for you.

3/3/2012 5:04:26 PM

yuck

3/3/2012 6:47:26 PM

I'm building a freeNAS box with 4TB of RAID-Z2 storage. The box will be used for streaming media and general file server use.

Parts list:

1) Intel Pentium Dual-Core G620T Sandy Bridge 2.2GHz LGA 1155 35W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80623G620T

2) GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

3) Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model KVR1066D3N7K2/8G

4) Four Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

5) SeaSonic M12II 650 SS-650AM 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Semi-modular Power Supply

6) Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Any thoughts or suggestions?

3/3/2012 7:28:53 PM

@A Tanzarian:
If this build is going to be for a simple general file server use using FreeNAS, then I'd stick to a single parity raid5 type setup so you don't loose a 2nd drive, but still have more than enough backup protection/data security for such a small system. A two drive parity setup is really recommended for 7 drives or more. If you want to use the non-standard ZFS raid format with freenas, I'd keep it at the RAID-Z1. You should be able to migrate to Z2 without destroying your existing volume if you do decide later on from Z1.

Also, I wouldn't recommend ANY green drives. The biggest issue with running any raids with slow drives with intrusive power saving settings on the firmware level is that their startups are very very slow; it can be a problem if they lag so long to the point of where your raid fails and thus have to go into recovery mode to be rebuilt. It may not be a huge issue since the lag time is usually set to 35 seconds (at least for standard raids), but green drives can take 10-15 seconds to from a powered down state. If your raid lag time is set lower, the second you go over it, the raid will return as being failed. I'm not exactly sure how ZFS settings account for this.

Green drives will park the headers, stop the rotational spinning of the platters and turn off the logic boards to save power after a certain amount of time (usually in minutes) despite whatever hard drive power setting/mode you tell the OS to put the drives to. At least with WD, you can flash the firmware and turn off their intelligent power mode (with a little work), but I'm not too sure if other green drives have this option. In any regards, I'd go with the 7200rpm drives for a faster response time (17-25ms vs 8-10) and close to 30% throughput increase.


Here's my list I'd build:
Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/5miS
Part price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/5miS/by_merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G620T 2.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock H67M (B3) Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($87.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($21.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Fractal Design Arc Midi Tower ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: FSP Group 400W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($67.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $837.46
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-03-04 06:57 EST-0500)

Went with a cheaper mobo that still supports the same type of raids as the z68 you had to pair with the G620T. I also went with a smaller 4GB (2x2gb) set of 1333 ram since you really don't need that much ram in such a system; specially for home file storage use. You can go with the 8gb set, but its honestly a waste of money for this task. Get it if you want since ram is dirt cheap.

Also, you could look at getting 1.25v or 1.35v ram modules if you are looking to save on power operation; personally I'd take a gander at the new samsung 1600 30nm UDIMM's. They are $23-25 for each 4GB MV03V2G3D/US model and run at 1.35v. You can run them at 1333 speeds and then really tighten the timings down to cas 8 or even cas 7 I bet.

I swapped out all of the hard drives with the cheapest 2TB 7200 drive right now since its on sale for a crazy price, in regards to all of the other current 2TB drive prices with respect to post-flood market. We probably won't see $80 or less 2TB 7200 drives for at least another 6 months. I also selected the really nice Fractal Design Arc Midi case that has 8 3.5" hard drive slots as a great home media server case. You can look at NZXT case offerings since they do make some nice $50-100 cases that support 8 3.5" drives as well. If I had to build a nice setup, the FD arc midi would be the top of my list besides the more expensive $150 FD Define XL (w/ usb 3.0) or the $200 Lian-Li Aluminum PC-A70F (w/ usb 3.0) cases that ups the drive bays from 8 to 10.

As for a PSU? I wouldn't bother spending $130 for a seasonic 650w unit; specially for this build. You really don't need that much power at all... For the money, I'd look at the FSP Aurum 400w because of a few reasons:
- Its 80+ gold rated; so it will provide at least 88% efficiency at 20-100% load compared to the 80+ bronze that you selected.
- It uses quality components, just like the seasonic unit, with similar or better ratings.
- Fluid Ball Bearing fan vs a regular ball bearing fan; quieter operation.
- The fan has PWM functions which will dynamically change the speed of the fan depending on the load and temps of the PSU ; will actually turn off the fan on low wattage use (typically 20% and lower)

You could also get away with even cheaper PSU options around the 400-500w area like OCZ offers around the $30-50 price range. Shit, I'd even look at the Corsair 430w V2 builder series PSU since that was just on sale for $17 and generally can be found around $20-30 most of the time; more than enough power for such a system.

[Edited on March 4, 2012 at 7:51 AM. Reason : samsung ram]

3/4/2012 7:39:40 AM

just a heads up, if you do zfs with freebsd (not sure if this is the case in opensolaris) you can put the zil in ram. so all that ram would go to use as read cache if you wanted it to.

3/4/2012 7:52:35 AM

JBaz and smoothcrim, thanks a lot for the feedback.

Data integrity and reliability is pretty much my greatest priority for this build. My original thought was to create a 3-way mirror for ‘vital’ data (financial documents, photographs, etc. that are largely irreplaceable) and use a three drive RAIDZ-1 in a separate pool for everything else (mostly media that I’d have to re-rip, re-download or re-purchase). From there I considered using all six drives in a single RAIDZ-2, which would give more storage and a MTTDL similar to the three-way mirror. I scaled down to four drives because I just don’t need 8 TB of storage right now. I know this will cost me performance (shouldn’t be too much) and efficient storage use ($/TB).

Good call on the green drives!

I went with a larger power supply for reliability and future expansion. I estimated a maximum load of about 300 W (a generous 100 W for the processor and motherboard, and 200 W startup load for up to 8 hard drives), and applied a 100% margin to account for degradation and because I don’t trust the ratings of consumer power supplies. I imagine idle load will be a few tens of watts at most, and hopefully less as I plan to be fairly aggressive with the power management settings. I’ll probably stick with a SeaSonic, though I may look for a cheaper one with at least 6 SATA connections.

freeNAS recommends at least 1 GB of free RAM for each TB of storage for use as cache by ZFS (like smoothcrim said). RAM is cheap enough to go for it.

Do you have any experience with ASRock motherboards?

3/5/2012 1:37:59 PM

Harddrive startup load is not just about wattage, you have to look at the amp draw too. Especially if you are trying to buy the smallest/cheapest psu that will work. One hardrive can pull 2.5A peak (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/2tb-7200rpm_18.html). If you upgrade to 8 HDDs then you need a minimum of 20A on one 12v rail. Just be sure to balance your power leads if you don’t get a single rail power supply. Or buy a raid card that supports staggered spin up and still balance your rails .

3/6/2012 8:44:31 AM

@A Tanzarian: If you want the best data integrity and reliability for sensative documents, you wouldn't be putting all of these files in one location anyhow.. A fire would nullify your whole efforts... If you wanted to be realistic about being completely paranoid for data security... Just saying.

Having a 2nd location and constant backup is going to be the best solution for any data integrity needs. Actually, having a constant backup is going to save you more than not; people just put too much into a raid setup as their only means of data security. Need offline storage like media or external drives for good measure.

For home use, just stick with single parity raid; the chances of loosing two drives in a 4 drive raid setup is very very slim to none. Even then, you can probably tell warning signs like slowness in performance before drives go. If you are worried, then you can always have a hot spare in the system and have it auto build the raid if a drive goes offline/fails. Like I said before, Don't bother with a two drive parity setup unless you handle more than 6 drives.

Quote :

"a generous 100 W for the processor and motherboard, and 200 W startup load for up to 8 hard drives), and applied a 100% margin to account for degradation and because I don’t trust the ratings of consumer power supplies"

Oh ok... in lala land calculations... sure. 35w cpu + 6w mobo = 100w... And what do you mean you don't trust consumer power supplies? Good name brands that are 80+ certified are dead accurate in their power loads and efficiencies.

Even then, go read up on reviews of power supplies on proper review websites like JohnnyGuru that actually use proper testing machines to see how much wattage, amps they pull from the wall and what they supply to the end devices; then calculate their efficiencies across various loads, just like what 80+ certs do, but with much more transparency and loads more information.


@J33Pownr: True, but even then, a good power supply will allow for some overdraw for start ups for devices. Even then, we are talking about a 35w cpu, 6w mobo, 2-5w ram set; everything else out of that 400w psu will easily handle 8 hdd's, shit even more since it has 2x 18 Amp rails.

Shit, my OCZ 12v rails can soak in more amps than its rated for. I've been running stable pulling 900w from the wall on an 850w psu. The reason why I got it after reading a number of awesome reviews and JohnnyGuru recommended unit.

And besides, if A Tanzarian decides to upgrade to 8 hdd, he would have to get a raid card to add more hard drive support...



I'll probably be looking to build a SAS server in the next year for my storage needs for HD video. I'm hoping I can last another year with my 11TB + 4TB setup; probably look at doing a 10 or 14 drive setup using 3tb drives; maybe make it a 2P server. But that's assuming I'll have the funds to do this with either a proper job or my video gigs start ramping up.

3/6/2012 10:22:46 AM

^ all good points. BTW how big are your 1080p movie rips to fill 15TB? All my DVDs are ripped to about 1.5-2Gb each because higher file size didnt really help the picture. I am just getting into bluerays (< 30) and was just wondering how to plan expansion. When I look on avsforum those guys run ZERO compression and have tons of movies. I just dont see the need in storing 50GB of data for a comedy movies or anything really.

3/6/2012 1:51:31 PM

No no... I shoot HD videos. My projects can be as small as a few gigs, to 175GB. The wedding i just shot this weekend amassed only about 40gb from two cameras.

3/6/2012 2:19:14 PM

^^^

RAIDZ-2 will give me an orders-of-magnitude greater MTTDL than a RAIDZ-1 with either the same storage size or same number of disks. I know RAIDZ-2 is very conservative and that I'll be taking a performance hit using RAIDZ-2 with four disks. I've decided I'd rather have the MTTDL. I'll also be using a yet-to-be-determined internet-based backup (if anyone has a recommendation ), since I can't leave a back-up hard drive in my work desk anymore.

ZFS is software based. I won't need a RAID card to add more drives, only another SATA controller.

Yes, I know 100 W for the processor/motherboard is ridiculous. No, I don't trust the ratings on consumer power supplies--I don't trust manufacturers' quality assurance to ensure individual units will perform consistently across a lot or deliver rated load over a reasonable lifetime. The conditions power supplies are tested under for 80 Plus are not the conditions in my computer case. I'm not saying 80 Plus certifications are useless, but it has limits and doesn't tell the whole story.

3/6/2012 2:29:28 PM

Speakers mounted, just need to finish off the center channel stand:




Rears:




CPU: Intel C2Q (EO) Q9550 @ 3.56ghz 1.28V (8.5x419mhz) 5:6
GPU: eVGA NVIDIA GTX 480 @ 840/1760/4000 (24/7) @ 1.125V
LCD: BenQ FP241W 24" P-MVA LCD (1920x1200)
Mobo: BioStar T-Power i45 AA512
Sound: Auzentech X-Fi Prelude + Onkyo TX-SR500 (LPCM) + Polk Audio Monitor Series II Speakers
RAM: OCZ Reaper 4x2Gb DDR2 @ 1005mhz 5-5-5-15
PSU: Corsair HX 750W 80+ Silver (62A)
UPS: Cyberpower CP1200AVR (720W)
Cooling: Antec 900 + Zalman VF3000F 480 + Tuniq Tower 120 (lapped) + 4x Silverstone FM121 120mm (110CFM)




[Edited on March 6, 2012 at 3:14 PM. Reason : _]

3/6/2012 3:10:26 PM

Well according to a number of sources about ZFS, you shouldn't be taking any performance hit with Raidz2 over z1.

Honestly, if you were looking for data security, I'd recommend a proper raid card for this function. Specially once you hit a certain amount of drives. CPU and memory can only provide enough power/bandwidth. I'm just thinking out loud and honestly haven't see the performance numbers between ZFS software vs a proper raid card.

Quote :

"No, I don't trust the ratings on consumer power supplies--I don't trust manufacturers' quality assurance to ensure individual units will perform consistently across a lot or deliver rated load over a reasonable lifetime. "

... this is why you buy quality name brands that use quality parts and components.

Power distro and electronics isn't some voodoo taboo science that people don't know what the hell they are doing. Its just a lot of math, science and smart people/engineers figuring this shit out. This isn't 1952; manufacturing technology, quality of materials and even different/new materials have changed and really allow for much tighter calibrations, control and tolerances.

And like I said before, this is why you go read some damn reviews on some damn review websites. Not that fucking complicated. Fuck.

And besides, your shit isn't exactly commercial level loads. Any power supply would work. The only power supply I've had blown on me in the last 10 years have been shitty ones like rosewill crap. Even my 8 year old Ultra shitbox 600w pc still works and that's been running a p4 since... fuck forever.

Quote :

"The conditions power supplies are tested under for 80 Plus are not the conditions in my computer case."

WTF?!?! Is your case in the middle of a desert? Have you read 80 plus certs? They are office conditions that simulate the average working location of where a power supply would be located. They generally test it at 23-25C; office temps, but a number of the big name manufacturers will test their equipment in what they call a hot box to make sure the units are able to function in up to 90% humidity and up to 40C. Antec is known to do this and I'm pretty sure the other big names follow suit.

Even then, a lot of the electrical components have gotten really good these days to handle a much wider environmental conditions from 10-90% humidity and a wide range of temps.

Commercial: 0 C to 70 C; Industrial: -40 C to 85 C; Military: -55 C to 125 C.

Almost everyone specs their shit at 100,000 Hours at Full Load or more for their MTBF. Even then, the component that usually goes first is the caps, where you can either replace or recondition... if it comes to that point.

3/6/2012 3:12:22 PM

The whole military spec hardware should be able to withstand an EMP

3/6/2012 3:37:33 PM

From what I found on the freeNAS forums and Oracle blogs, RAIDZ performs better than RAIDZ-2 with less than 6 disks. ZFS performance is supposedly comparable to (but less than) hardware RAID, the payoff being you're not tied to a particular hardware RAID controller that may or may not be around in a few years when you need to replace it.

----

I live in Hawaii and don't have air conditioning. The only time ambient temperatures in my house reach 23 C is at night during the winter (sometimes).

80 Plus certifications are performed with the power supply sitting on a benchtop (not in a case) at an ambient temperature of 23 C. The entire 80 Plus certification test can last as little as 45 minutes.

80 Plus also does not test voltage rails individually. For example, the 12 V rails on the FSP in your original post was only tested up to 12.3 A, not the 18 A listed on the nameplate. The SeaSonic I posted was tested up to 42.7 A, not the nameplate 53 A.

I don't disagree that I'm looking at an oversized power supply. I just put limited stock in 80 Plus certifications and testing performed by review websites. There's more to product quality [assurance] than can be determined from a single test of a single sample.

As I mentioned before (prompted by your comments), I'll probably go with a smaller, cheaper power supply with only 6 SATA power connections.

Thanks again for your help, especially with the green drives.

3/6/2012 6:49:02 PM

Quote :

"I live in Hawaii and don't have air conditioning. The only time ambient temperatures in my house reach 23 C is at night during the winter (sometimes)."

Well... that would be a very vital piece of information for your original post... Because most people who build these type of computers and systems are usually in an office/home environment with proper AC.

Honestly, if I were you, stick with 80+ gold standard rated PSU's, their efficiencies are going to translate better for your higher heat/humidity even though higher heat/humidity will reduce the power draw below 80+ across the board.

But again, ANY and I mean ANY quality made modern power supply from a name brand manufacturer will handle your environment as most quality components will handle at least a 10-90%+ humidity and up to 85C or higher temps. Almost everyone uses 105C spec'ed components; there are a few 125C, but not sure for power distro applications on a consumer level.

Most normal components are rated at 2000 hours @ 105C (using very complicated science and math equations to calculate Mean Time to Failure) is expected to handle around 88,000 hours @ 65C and over 330,000 hours @ 45C at their rated load capacity. There are 5000 hours @105C and even ones that handle 125C, but I'm not exactly sure who uses military spec parts in power supplies on a consumer level. Even in your setting, I highly doubt you will hit above 50C in operational use since you won't be drawing at full load 24/7 and provided that you have enough air where your pc will be sitting.

Honestly, I would recommend doing something about cooling your drives before worrying about your power supply. Heat will kill your drives faster than the PSU, specially stacking four on top of each other in a confined case with humidity. You're just asking to have all your drives fail at once and I've had drives fail on me after 1-3 months of use because the drives didn't have proper cooling... and that was in cases in an office setting with AC...


When I was doing IT stuff at NSCU, we had racks of new Dell servers with over 60 drives in it. After 6 months we had 10 drives fail with more failures after that; it became a problem since the "server room" didn't turn the AC on fast enough. We ended up buying a separate AC floor mount AC unit from Home Depot and routed the ducts to cool the small room, but even then, it wasn't enough. We ended up having to buy a 2nd, larger unit in sync to cool the drives and stop failures.

The room was probably about as hot as Hawaii gets in the summer time and I could only speculate the temps the drives were subjected to in the server racks.

[Edited on March 7, 2012 at 9:09 AM. Reason : ]

3/7/2012 8:59:34 AM

Man Ivy Bridge AND Kepler hitting in April.

3/14/2012 10:17:45 AM

yeah... gonna be CRAZY... still waiting to see some kepler benchmarks. The Kepler Samaritan Demo is sick.

Already got 3 friends in my clan who are preparing to upgrade to the 680's. I'm waiting for them to do this so I can snag their 580 water blocks for uber cheap for my 570's.

3/14/2012 6:58:58 PM

is this worth it for $575? guy says he built it a few months ago but needs the cash now. looked up the vid card and it alone costs $220 new...

Quote :

"-Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K -MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card -GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard -Coolmax M-500B ATX12V & EPS12V Power Supply -G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL -CD drive/light-scribe/DVD burner -plenty of fans for proper cooling -eMachines E211H 21.5in Flat Panel LCD Monitor (1080p) -eMachines keyboard -Windows 7 Ultimate -two Altec Lansing speakers "

3/27/2012 11:17:27 AM

Depends on what you want to do with it. The parts are close to what he is asking so if you don't want to build one, sure its priced well. It should play older games fine and newer ones at medium/high detail on that monitor. If you want to play newer games at ultra settings with AA then I would build a new one and get a bigger better monitor, though that would cost more.

3/27/2012 1:56:41 PM

i already have my own monitor...i'd sell this one off or find another use for it - laptop perhaps.

i'd be using this for gaming but i have an xbox for mw3. this is just for simple PC games like L4d2 and stuff which causes my current setup to freeze often and reboot and crash the game. i'm sure it's a video card issue but the latest drivers have been doing it repeatedly. maybe i should go back to old drivers...dunno...

my current setup:

Quote :

"Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz Memory: 8190MB RAM Hard Drive: 300 GB Velociraptor main + TBs of backup Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4870 Monitor: Dell 27" and Acer side 24" LCDs Sound Card: X-Fi sucks, using onboard sound Keyboard: Logitech G11 sucks with KVM, using cheap K120 logitech Mouse: Logitech G5 Mouse Surface: Steelseries Operation System: Windows 7 Ultimate Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard Computer Case: Antec P180"

[Edited on March 27, 2012 at 2:14 PM. Reason : .]

3/27/2012 2:13:39 PM

In that case its a huge step up. I would just add 4Gb more for $47 (while its cheap)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 and have a solid PC. Grab a large aircooler while your at newegg and rock 4+Ghz on that 27" monitor.

This thread totally makes me want new equipment daily.

3/27/2012 3:14:59 PM

I'll be the one to say that 1GB on that 560 is pretty low for onboard video ram these days especially at 1080p.

3/27/2012 3:39:31 PM

fuck...bursting my bubble

3/27/2012 4:16:43 PM