Building a gaming PC

[shinobi2u]

Sooooo I think I've officially killed my motherboard last night. Got some new RAM, installed it, powered on, and nothing was showing. Pulled the new RAM out, and left the older sticks in and was able to get back to the BIOS. Made some changes, added the RAM back, powered on - nothing. Removed it again, powered on - nothing.

Far as I can tell the board is still working, all the LEDs and fans turn on, the graphics card powers up, the RAM gets warm, however, nothing displays and the BIOS won't even boot up now (no beeps or anything displaying). I've tried removing the CMOS battery several times and letting it sit for a while before adding it back in, but no change.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Any recommendations on a new MB and processor if this one is shot?

 

[Luxorek]

Any thoughts or suggestions? Any recommendations on a new MB and processor if this one is shot?

If you want to overclock go for Intel i5-4690k [preferably with some CPU cooling] and MSI Z97-G43 [good for OC, will allow you to upgrade to newer Broadwell CPUs if you wish].

If you don't care much for OC then i5-4590 or i5-4460 with Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H /Intel B85, LGA1150/ will do nicely instead.

But who knows? Maybe your MoBo is not dead Did you try describing your case on some PC-centric forums [and I mean hardware, not gaming]? Maybe someone there will be able to help you.

 

[shinobi2u]

Soooo looks like I did kill my motherboard when I installed that RAM, at least the RAM slot portion. It won't post and just does the one long beep followed by two shorts beeps over and over. Pressing MemOK stops it for a couple seconds and it starts up again after that (both with and without any RAM installed). At least I've got some fun pieces to install when I get home here in a little (4790K and a Maximus VII Formula). Hopefully the RAM itself didn't get damaged and can be used, otherwise I'll have to take a trip out for some more.

 

[volsung]

So... I want to increase my storage and anticipating we're likely moving to another country I'd like to bring all my digital junk with me. This is the reason why so far I only upgraded my video card.

Right now this junk amounts to about 300 GB of stuff, including pictures, video, audio, documents, work material, etc. The rest is a bunch of games I can redownload or reinstall. So a good heuristic I learned from @Guy N'wah is to always consider what I think I need, and buy the next step up. Most people have enough with 1 TB and so by this logic I should get 2 TB. But since now I think I need 2, should I get 3 instead? Is it not worth it?

I'm looking at the WD Caviar Black 2 TB right now, and I'd like to order ASAP due to some travel plans this month.

Thoughts?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I'm using 2 TB WD disk now (WD2003FZEX). So far it's enough for me. The only downside - it's actually noisy unlike the 1 TB version.

I recommend however getting several disks. One for primary system and one for backup snapshots (it can be external). It's a good practice.

 

[GuyNwah]

So... I want to increase my storage and anticipating we're likely moving to another country I'd like to bring all my digital junk with me. This is the reason why so far I only upgraded my video card.

Right now this junk amounts to about 300 GB of stuff, including pictures, video, audio, documents, work material, etc. The rest is a bunch of games I can redownload or reinstall. So a good heuristic I learned from @Guy N'wah is to always consider what I think I need, and buy the next step up. Most people have enough with 1 TB and so by this logic I should get 2 TB. But since now I think I need 2, should I get 3 instead? Is it not worth it?

I'm looking at the WD Caviar Black 2 TB right now, and I'd like to order ASAP due to some travel plans this month.

Thoughts?

3GB and 4GB disks can be had very reasonably, so for transport it's a good idea to buy a reliable, low-power (which means sort of slow) drive that's as big as you can get.

The catch with sizes greater than 2GB is you can't use them with an MS-DOS label; they need a GPT label.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Yep, 2+ TB already require GPT, MBR won't do it. Here is a good overview: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPT

 

[volsung]

Thanks.

So at the moment if I purchase the 2 TB how should I proceed? I have a dual boot configuration with Win 7 on one drive and Debian on another.

I'm thinking I'll either:

1) leave everything as it is and add a third disk.
2) replace a current disk and reinstall linux.
3) replace a current disk and reinstall both.

Would it be easier for now if I just boot from a smaller disk and use the new one as extra storage area?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

It's surely easier to put it as an extra storage area (no need to reinstall anything), on the other hand more power will be used to run all 3 disks at once. Plus newer disks with advanced format and bigger cache supposedly should have better I/O rates. So it's really up to you. If you have more time, you can reinstall everything, but as a shortcut just adding a third disk will do.

About I/O. It's somewhat confusing with advanced format and XFS for me. I noticed that big files get good I/O, but a lot of small files seem to be even slower than before. It might be an XFS quirk. I also set sector size to 4 KB when creating an XFS partition, since it's recommended for advanced format drives, even hybrid ones (EXT4 doesn't have such explicit adjustable setting). But I really can't yet get to the bottom of somewhat sluggish I/O in some cases on that 2 TB drive.

 

[volsung]

OK I was convinced I wanted the 2 TB, so I bought the 3 TB. Thansk guys

 

[eskiMoe]

OK I was convinced I wanted the 2 TB, so I bought the 3 TB. Thansk guys

Smart move. Now if it fails you'll only lose a terabyte more data

Spoiler

I have a 4TB drive..

 

[atc.710]

Here is my current plan for a budget gaming pc

option 1:
CPU: intel i3-4160 (3M Cache, 3.60 GHz) - 2 core, 4 threads
MoBo: MSI-H97 PC Mate

Option 2:
CPU: AMD FX-6300 Vishera 6-Core 3.5GHz
MoBo: GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+

RAM: 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance
HDD: Western Digital Blue 1 TB 7200 RPM
PSU: Corsair CX500
PC Case: Ressurected 6 year old mid-tower with 1 front & 1 rear fan (80 mm)
GPU: Notwithstanding
Total Price: US$450 (without GPU)

I have a few questions:
1. Which one will be better for STRICTLY gaming, the i3 or the 6300? (The price for both options are the same, in my case)
2. Is the Corsair CX500 a reliable PSU? I don't want this thing to blow up my hopes and dreams O_O
3. The GPU right now is a blank slate, I plan on waiting until April before buying one (hopefully a 960). Smart move?
4. Do you have a better recommendation for the parts at the same price point?
5. Will I have problems with cooling?

Thank you, callipygian PC master race <3

 

[GuyNwah]

Skip both the Core i3 and the AMD FX. The best bargain in budget CPUs is the Pentium G3258. But you'll want it on a Z97 motherboard, because it's a shame not to overclock it. Pentium G3258, ASRock Z97 Pro 3, Extreme 3, Pro 4, or Extreme 4, depending on the way you want the PCI-e and PCI slots configured.

PSU, there's nothing wrong with the Corsair CX500. If you can get a 520W Seasonic for a competitive price, they're better.

Waiting for the GPU is a good idea. There will be a lot of GPU models coming out over the coming months.

 

[atc.710]

I've been looking into the G3258 and its ridiculous price/performance + overclock ability,
Option 3:
Intel G3258
MSI Z97 PC MATE
Cooler Master Hyper 212

I have zero experience with overclocking though.
Additionally, will the G3258 create a bigger bottleneck compared to the i3 & FX6300 ? (especially in CPU-intensive games)
Lastly, is the MSI Z97 PC Mate a reliable MoBo for overclocking? Or Do you have some other recommendations?

 

[GuyNwah]

I've been looking into the G3258 and its ridiculous price/performance + overclock ability,
Option 3:
Intel G3258
MSI Z97 PC MATE
Cooler Master Hyper 212

I have zero experience with overclocking though.
Additionally, will the G3258 create a bigger bottleneck compared to the i3 & FX6300 ? (especially in CPU-intensive games)
Lastly, is the MSI Z97 PC Mate a reliable MoBo for overclocking? Or Do you have some other recommendations?

No, the G3258 is very unlikely to bottleneck anything that isn't explicitly written to run multiple CPU-bound threads. The MSI PC Mate is a good motherboard. These motherboards all make mild overclocking (for the G3258, somewhere between 4.0 and 4.4 GHz is "mild") very easy.

The Hyper 212 is a tall cooler and wants a wide case.

 

[atc.710]

Recent games (DA: Inquisition and Far Cry 4) can't run on anything below quad-core though... so i'm a bit scared about that

In any case, I'll go ask the warbear & Herr Geist for their opinions in the kiwi irc later
Thanks for now, @Guy N'wah =3

 

[volsung]

How can I diagnose whether a power supply is past is prime and should be replaced?

I have this issue with Age of Wonders 3 where my computer suddenly shuts down but it doesn't happen in other games, or with intensive parallel computing in Linux.

 

[GuyNwah]

Recent games (DA: Inquisition and Far Cry 4) can't run on anything below quad-core though... so i'm a bit scared about that

In any case, I'll go ask the warbear & Herr Geist for their opinions in the kiwi irc later
Thanks for now, @Guy N'wah =3

If they really check for four cores and refuse to start, you'll be wanting a Core i5 or an AMD A8 or A10. The Core i3 is two cores with four contexts, not four cores. The AMD A8, A10, and Athlon X4 are favorably priced four-core CPUs.

 

[eskiMoe]

How can I diagnose whether a power supply is past is prime and should be replaced?

I have this issue with Age of Wonders 3 where my computer suddenly shuts down but it doesn't happen in other games, or with intensive parallel computing in Linux.

I had a similar issue with my PC randomly rebooting in some games/apps but the cause was an unstable/defective GPU. Got a replacement and everything works like a charm now.

 

[volsung]

I had a similar issue with my PC randomly rebooting in some games/apps but the cause was an unstable/defective GPU. Got a replacement and everything works like a charm now.

But can it happen selectively with some programs and not with others? So far it's exclusively with AoW3. My current PSU is a not so stellar Thermaltake, now over 3 years old, so it might be time for a replacement.

Other noticeable problems I've had are crashes in Wasteland 2, resulting in corrupted graphics and artifacts and a crash to desktop. Same thing happened with my old video card.

Ironically my system performs very well in much more demanding games.