PC Building Guide and Discussion #11 (everything is expensive...)

[Bocephus86]

As always, appreciate the reply! I won't be so anal about watching speccy than.

I'm in the process of trying to sell my 1060 6gig (Gigabyte GTX); if/when i can make that happen, I'm going to bite the bullet on a 1080ti....

 

[God King Fudge]

Can someone talk to me about the Intel G4560? I currently have a low end processor and I'm looking to upgrade soon.

I keep seeing the G4560 listed as a good budget option. I'm not necessarily on a budget, but if I can pick up a new CPU and MOBO for 150-200, then I can pull the trigger much sooner.

It beats out my current processor on userbenchmark comparisons, by quite a bit. 49% faster single core, 17% quad and 16% multi. It's much newer and much more energy efficient. (http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-G4560-vs-AMD-A10-7850K-APU/3892vs2937)

How would this do as an upgrade? I only use this PC for gaming. I don't have any real problems running current stuff (currently playing Destiny 2 and Evil Within 2 on my current setup) but I definitely do run into some slows, especially like in Destiny 2 when a Public Event is going on and there's a lot of stuff going on at once.

 

[SniperHF]

Can someone talk to me about the Intel G4560? I currently have a low end processor and I'm looking to upgrade soon.

How would this do as an upgrade? I only use this PC for gaming. I don't have any real problems running current stuff (currently playing Destiny 2 and Evil Within 2 on my current setup) but I definitely do run into some slows, especially like in Destiny 2 when a Public Event is going on and there's a lot of stuff going on at once.

The G4560 is basically what used to be considered an i3 with a Pentium label. It has 2 cores with hyper threading. That means the 3rd and 4th "threads" aren't as fast as the first two unlike a true quad core CPU. But these types of CPUs still work quite well for gaming in most cases. The main reason it's considered a good budget option is it's $20-30 cheaper than its nearest competitor and often as fast anyway.

What kind of video card are you using?
The 7850k can definitely be part of your problem but it's hard to say how much without knowing what the video card is.

Also keep in mind for anything newer you'll need new RAM too, as it all runs on DDR4 now.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Whoa whoa whoa. What treachery is this?

https://www.techpowerup.com/238530/intel-announces-coffee-lake-amd-vega-multi-chip-modules

 

[God King Fudge]

The G4560 is basically what used to be considered an i3 with a Pentium label. It has 2 cores with hyper threading. That means the 3rd and 4th "threads" aren't as fast as the first two unlike a true quad core CPU. But these types of CPUs still work quite well for gaming in most cases. The main reason it's considered a good budget option is it's $20-30 cheaper than its nearest competitor and often as fast anyway.

What kind of video card are you using?
The 7850k can definitely be part of your problem but it's hard to say how much without knowing what the video card is.

Also keep in mind for anything newer you'll need new RAM too, as it all runs on DDR4 now.

I currently have a 1060 6GB. That's a bummer on the RAM since I just bought some recently, but it's DDR3. Is it a case of it will still support 3 but not be able to use it as well or a case of not being able to use it period?

Looking in further, what are your opinions on the Ryzen chips? The Ryzen 3 has pretty solid performance over theG4560 for only like 60 bucks more. I'm not trying to game at 4k/60 FPS. I just want my games to run smoothly. They do now for the most part but like I said, some of the newer stuff is showing some slowdown.

If the 4560 can work for like two years without being a big hindrance, then I'd still probably take that since it'd be the cheaper choice. If the Ryzen 3 would last me 3-4 years before I'd need to look at replacing, the extra cost would be worth just waiting until I get some cash built up.

 

[SniperHF]

The 1060 6GB is most definitely held back by the 7850k.

I currently have a 1060 6GB. That's a bummer on the RAM since I just bought some recently, but it's DDR3. Is it a case of it will still support 3 but not be able to use it as well or a case of not being able to use it period?

I lied, well unintentionally

I was sure that Kaby Lake CPUs didn't support DDR3 but apparently they do.
https://ark.intel.com/products/97143/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G4560-3M-Cache-3_50-GHz

But you absolutely must get a DDR3 motherboard, the vast majority out there will be for DDR4.
I only see 10 DDR3 supporting motherboards on newegg for the G4560 and most of them are open box.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...e=LGA_1151_motherboard-_-13-132-696-_-Product


However this creates another problem in that all of the DDR3 supporting LGA1151 motherboards are from the prior generation. So if you buy a motherboard and it has an old BIOS version installed, you might not be able to use your G4560 CPU out of the box as it's newer. Some motherboards can update the BIOS without a working CPU but many cannot.
It's possible the board you'll get will have the latest BIOS but there's no way to know.


the tl;dr version is, it's quite a bit more complicated to try and use DDR3. I wouldn't chance it unless you're tech savy and willing to accept the risk of having to return your motherboard and buy a new one with DDR4 anyway.


8GB RAM is generally enough still though, and with a cheaper DDR4 motherboard you could still get a G4650 + board + 8GB RAM for around $230
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220996&ignorebbr=1
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157734&ignorebbr=1
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117743&ignorebbr=1

 

[Kestrel]

Whoa whoa whoa. What treachery is this?

https://www.techpowerup.com/238530/intel-announces-coffee-lake-amd-vega-multi-chip-modules

What the hell?

 

[flyingkiwi]

Sweet Jesus I just found my exact z97 motherboard for sale online locally to replace my sorta broken one. Now I don't have to completely replace what is otherwise a still decent system.

 

[Commander Clueless]

What the hell?

That's what we in "the biz" call heresy.

 

[Kestrel]

That's what we in "the biz" call heresy.

The phrase I've been using is "Unholy Union"

 

[SniperHF]

You can get 3DMark for $4.50 on newegg:
3DMark Advanced Edition - Newegg.com

Last time they had a sale I bought it. Figured I've used their free versions for over a decade so they deserve a few bucks

 

[Kestrel]

Damn Newegg won't take my money. They say they can't process my PayPal payment, and after the day I had today, I can't be bothered to get up and get my credit card.

 

[Commander Clueless]

In another bizarre twist, looks like Intel is joining the GPU market.

Intel Hires Raja Koduri, to Develop Discrete GPUs, This Time for Real

 

[Commander Clueless]

Have to wonder about AMD's future.

Selling their integrated graphics advantage to Intel CPUs and then having Intel possibly joining the GPU market as a competitor to Radeon, and things are certainly looking interesting...

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

If anything, while they aren't the biggest hit for high end gaming GPUs, they definitely have hit their stride in the CPU, integrated graphics and console GPU market. If anything, the combination with Intel is a bigger win for AMD than Intel, as these things can sell well enough and give AMD an even bigger footing. It also opens the door for more options like this in the future. I see it as Intel saying "f*** it" when it comes to integrated graphics and to just use AMD's tech instead.

I see it like this for GPUs:

Nvidia = Highest end graphical power
AMD = Everything else

While I want AMD to be more competitive with their high end GPUs to force Nvidia to get better, AMD is in a good place right now in terms of revenue and partnerships.

 

[Commander Clueless]

AMD is currently in a great place, if not as much in the PC gaming market definitely in the productivity market with Ryzen/Vega and their future in the laptop market looks very bright with impressive Ryzen-based APUs. They are also the architects behind PlayStation/Xbox and the new One X looks promising. I'm just wondering about the somewhat distant future and whether we'll see AMD morph into a more specialized role in the industry.

Also, I'm not sure AMD has a stranglehold on bang-for-buck anymore after the mining craze hit. These days, NVIDIA tends to take the value cake across the board GPU wise...at least in Canada. Sometimes you can get lucky and find a 580 at a decent price.

It will be interesting to see what Intel can do in a suddenly more competitive looking GPU market, but I'm sure we'll have to wait a long time for that.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Also worth keeping in mind gaming, like what most of us in this thread use our PCs for, is only a small chunk of the market. AMD has already shifted to favour compute power and it's paying off.

Vega is a great example. Bad value for gaming, but beast cards everywhere else.

 

[flyingkiwi]

I'm so annoyed at the mining craze, it's exacerbating what is already a really expensive GPU market down here in Aus/NZ.

I'm torn between the 580 or 1060 to replace my 960 which has done its dash. Sometimes the 1060 is cheaper, sometimes the 580 is. But they're both still $400-500 cards for us. I'm going to Australia in a week or so, might pull the trigger if their prices are a bit cheaper than NZ.

I'm leaning towards the 580 because I'm more likely to buy a freesync monitor, but I'm really not sure. I just want it to max 1080, have the option of 1440, and work well with my 4690k and not need replacing with the rest of my system in a few years.

 

[SniperHF]

I don't think the Intel dedicated GPU thing amounts to much. Maybe Intel acquires AMD's graphics division. But otherwise I think it ends up a compute platform not a gaming device. It's a growing space in the server market.

 

[Sarcastic]

Looking for a bit of PC help support if possible. My computer has been freezing at random points with no clear connection of why. Sometimes I'm just browsing on Chrome when the whole thing tries to load, fails and then freezes for a few minutes. Other times I'm watching Twitch and it'll give the loading icon before fully freezing up. If I'm playing multiplayer games, then the whole thing just drops from the internet but still plays on for a bit before freezing. Would this be a graphics card, hard drive, or processor issue? Current build in the following link:

System Builder - Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core, GeForce GTX 760 2GB DirectCU II, 200R ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker Canada

Wouldn't mind suggestions for upgrades either at this point if I do need to swap in new parts.

 

[SniperHF]

@Sarcastic

It could be literally anything, even a software problem. If there's no error message to go off I'd just be stabbing in the dark.

The first thing I would do is go spelunking in the Windows Event viewer.
What Is the Windows Event Viewer, and How Can I Use It?

The log for Application and System are where most messages end up. You can compare the timestamp on the events to the last time you're computer had a conniption, that way you don't have to search ALL the events.



There's always Memtest86
MemTest86 - Download now!

I'd run it up to 24 hours (or at least overnight) until you either hit an error message or it passes.

If you have more than one memory module you could always pop one out, run on it alone and see if the other module was the source of the fault. Then do the same for the other module.



Testing a GPU is harder in the sense that your onboard won't cut it for most gaming, but you could just run on the onboard graphics for desktop stuff and see if it still happens. I'm inclined to think it's not the graphics card so I'd try other things first.


Hard drives can completely cause a system halt, Download seatools (your specs had a seagate hdd) and run the tests:
https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/

Get Seatools for DOS, running it in windows is possible but not the best way to test, you'll need an optical drive or to create a bootable USB drive out of an ISO. There are 3 tests I usually run but the names escape me. I think it's the short, long, and there's a seagate specific test.


If you have another hard drive laying around, Install the OS clean on that drive and see what your system does.

 

[Sarcastic]

I haven't had freezes lately so I can't track down the exact last time it happened. Got a lot of Bonjour errors but I doubt that's part of it. I'll bring that up the next time it happens.

Ran the Seagate tests and the Short Drive Self Test failed. Guess that's where my issues might be. Don't think I can run the repair since I don't have a drive to burn the files.

 

[SniperHF]

You can use RUFUS to put an ISO as a bootable USB if you have a thumb drive.
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Ran the Seagate tests and the Short Drive Self Test failed. Guess that's where my issues might be. Don't think I can run the repair since I don't have a drive to burn the files.

I usually stop trusting a drive if it fails a test, so even with the repair I wouldn't be confident in it.

If I had only a mechanical drive that might be failing, I'd take the opportunity to upgrade to an SSD. Get yourself a 240GB+ drive, or more if you have the budget/need the capacity. Even using the failing drive as a secondary could cause problems though, so I would disable it.

You could just get a new mechanical drive but solid state drives are well worth the speed increase and it would be something you could carry to a new system if you needed to replace other parts.

 

[Sarcastic]

I've actually been meaning to post in this thread asking about general upgrades and stuff. I pretty much just game with my machine these days but want to have the option to do video/editing stuff in future if my job/careers lead in that direction. Do you have any graphic card recommendations, and I guess in this case now hard drive ones? I probably want more space for my drives. I could probably budget something like $300-700 for upgrades at the moment (would just chew into my potential hockey games but who am I kidding, the Canucks are garbage anyway).

 

[flyingkiwi]

Just found the 140w PicoPSU I bought on a whim a couple years ago when I was toying with the idea of a PS2 case mod.

I halted the project because I couldn't decide what to put in it. An ITX board would just squeeze in but I'm sure there are other options out there. I'd get a raspberry pi but unfortunately I'm not really into coding. I could also spend a bit more and rehouse a more powerful NUC.

The only other spare part I have is some leftover laptop ram.

Any other ideas?