Desktop Computers

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
12,510
12,402
Since Microcenter has shit for choices on monitors I think I'm going to go with that monoprice IPS, no idea what I'm going to do with this gift card now.
 

Funkor

Molten Core Raider
733
618
I am thinking on buyinghttp://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=4487#ovand an i7 4770k has anyone heard anything bad about this board? Have any experience with it?
Looks like it has a supported Memory list of stuff they've certified to work with the board. Not sure if you already have RAM in mind yet or not but I've had issues with an ASRock board where I used RAM not on the supported list and ended up having to down-clock it slightly to keep the computer from crashing. Personal anecdote with a different manufacturer I know, but I always look for these lists whenever I check out motherboards from now on just in case.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
27,054
41,431
General consensus on Gigabyte boards is to stay away. They do/did some shady shit with their power supply in the past, not sure if its still a problem but Go MSI/Asus/ASRock instead.
 

a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,765
Hehe "needs" yeah I don't have many needs, I have a lot of wants, I will poke through that. I was just curious if you had a personal recommendation.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
27,054
41,431
I personally have the MSI and AsRock boards in both my PCs and both are great. but they are the budget models, usually I stay around $135 for motherboards. I find those extreme overclocking and other useless features bloated. Also I dont do SLI or Crossfire, and do not plan to. I tend to go with one good card over a few. I dont game on multiple monitors or 1444p so I dont need SLI or Crossfire. Basically Im more of a budget type PC user as I do not have ton of money to spend on this crap.

What I would do is decide what you want out of your system and go from there.

What resolution do I want to game on?

Will I be OCing like a freak?

Will I be doing watercooling and custom shit?
 

jeffvader

it's only castles burning
402
33
The audio should come through just fine using the HDMI port from your 570
thank you for the reply, yes, it does come through the gpu fine. i cross posted this on tom's hardware and someone said i need to use optical from the motherboard because the hdmi from the motherboard is off when i use an add on gpu. but i need to use hdmi because i am running out to a receiver connected to a plasma tv.

this seems silly to me, unless i'm taking advantage of the motherboard audio through the gpu which i doubt is the case. i would be surprised that more people aren't running into the same problem...
 

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
thank you for the reply, yes, it does come through the gpu fine. i cross posted this on tom's hardware and someone said i need to use optical from the motherboard because the hdmi from the motherboard is off when i use an add on gpu. but i need to use hdmi because i am running out to a receiver connected to a plasma tv.

this seems silly to me, unless i'm taking advantage of the motherboard audio through the gpu which i doubt is the case. i would be surprised that more people aren't running into the same problem...
Your motherboards audio is the only audio you have, unless you added in a secondary sound card. The HDMI port on your video card is going to pass the exact same audio through it as the HDMI port on your motherboard. The difference in those two ports is basically just which video processor is being used, the audio will be the same regardless. And I'd assume you want to use the video from your dedicated video card GPU, not the integrated graphics. You basically can't use both HDMI ports simultaneously because they are 2 different graphics processors, and you wouldn't have both active and displaying the same thing simultaneously. The integrated GPU basically gets disabled when a dedicated GPU is being used.
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,714
3,211
So what upgrades happen to a motherboard over the years if the chipset has stayed the same?

I have a ASRock mobo with a i5-2500k processor, and I was thinking about upgrading the processor. Since it's still 1150 chipset, and the newer processors are still the same chipset, I thought it'd be cool to say a few bucks and just use the same mobo.

Is this a bad thing? Is there a reason to get an upgraded motherboard if the chipset is still the same?
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
27,054
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Why would you upgrade that proc? That thing is still a beast and overclocks like one too. The later iterations of the i5 pretty much worked on the on board graphics, only slightl increasing processing power. Oh and the i5 2500K uses 1155 not 1150.
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,714
3,211
Why would you upgrade that proc? That thing is still a beast and overclocks like one too. The later iterations of the i5 pretty much worked on the on board graphics, only slightl increasing processing power. Oh and the i5 2500K uses 1155 not 1150.
*shrug* was just a thought. haha. Maybe I should try and OC it and see what happens!
 

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
Overclocking that 2500k will probably give you the same(if not better) performance boost in games as upgrading to a newer 3rd or 4th gen i5

That being said, all of those possible options are going to be single-percent performance increases, like, low single percent in gaming.

Heres a Tomb Raider benchmark for example, at 1900x1200 on an AMD 7970
CPU_03.png


Basically makes no difference which i5 or i7 processor you have, just as long as you don't go AMD or drop down to an i3.

And here's battlefield 4, a game with a reputation for being a little more CPU dependent than the average game
CPU_01.png


CPU just doesn't mean much in gaming anymore, as long as it isn't something really old
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,714
3,211
Good to know. Thanks a lot joeboo. My Radeon 6950 2gb needs upgrading it seems long before my processor will.
smile.png
 

jeffvader

it's only castles burning
402
33
The HDMI port on your video card is going to pass the exact same audio through it as the HDMI port on your motherboard.
thank you, that is what i was looking for. i guess it's just one of those obvious things everything takes for granted because i couldn't find that anywhere. thanks again.
 

jeffvader

it's only castles burning
402
33
Your motherboards audio is the only audio you have, unless you added in a secondary sound card. The HDMI port on your video card is going to pass the exact same audio through it as the HDMI port on your motherboard. The difference in those two ports is basically just which video processor is being used, the audio will be the same regardless. And I'd assume you want to use the video from your dedicated video card GPU, not the integrated graphics. You basically can't use both HDMI ports simultaneously because they are 2 different graphics processors, and you wouldn't have both active and displaying the same thing simultaneously. The integrated GPU basically gets disabled when a dedicated GPU is being used.
edited because i got a reply on tom's saying that if i use the gpu hdmi then i get the gpu sound and not the motherboard. here's the thread:link

is that mod crazy?

sorry double - meant to edit last post :/
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,714
3,211
I think the point still stands... the GPU doesn't have a sound processor. HDMI through your GPU, or HDMI through your motherboard, is going to be the same sound. It's all coming from your motherboards sound processor.
 

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
After reading some more, it looks like I was a little off. The GPU does have it's own onboard audio to transmit audio via HDMI, but since both the motherboard HDMI and the video card HDMI are transmitting the same 100% digital signal, the end result will be the same regardless. And, only 1 or the other will work at any given time more than likely. If you want to be able to push sound to two different sources simultaneously (say, your monitor and a stereo system), you'll need to not use HDMI for both. You could use 1 HDMI, and then 1 optical from the motherboard, or 1 HDMI and then 1 3.5mm headphone/speaker jack, or even pull sound via USB if you have USB computer speakers, but I don't think multiple HDMI streams will ever work concurrently.

Your overall best quality sound(if you have a really nice stereo receiver) is going to be analog from a dedicated sound card. The quality of analog on your built-in motherboard sound is probably no better than using digital via HDMI. But beyond that, all digital(HDMI) is the same, there's no varying quality when you're using a digital signal, it's all just numbers regardless.