Blakeyrat Is Building A New Gaming PC 2: Electric Boogaloo
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Any reason you didn't go for the liquid cooler?
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To me, "wireless" and "gaming PC" seems incompatible. But then, I play exclusively online multiplayer games (MMOs & League of Legends), and the inherent jitter in wireless, especially 2.4GHz in urban areas, is just unacceptable for me.
Nice part about the bank owning my house. I could pay someone to run wires through the crawl space and up in the walls all nice like so that I have Ethernet jacks in every major room that run back to the router which is nice and out of the way and clean.
Besides, I suck enough at online games as it is. I don't want "the lags" holding me back too. Though, then again, it might be a good excuse...
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Any reason you didn't go for the liquid cooler?
I was going to but then my friend vouched for this cooler, I realized with this cooler the fan's on the INSIDE so it ought to be quieter, and I had a little bitterness since a liquid cooler destroyed my old computer. (It was 3 years old, so.) Also this cooler is a lot cheaper. It won't cool as well, but it'll keep the i7 in a safe range even when it's going all-out and that's really all I need.
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To me, "wireless" and "gaming PC" seems incompatible. But then, I play exclusively online multiplayer games (MMOs & League of Legends), and the inherent jitter in wireless, especially 2.4GHz in urban areas, is just unacceptable for me.
I don't use 2.4 ghz, I use 5 ghz. What is this, 2004?
Also, I don't experience any network problems I can attribute to being on wireless. The computer's only about 20 feet from the wifi antenna anyway. My bigger problem is running the Xbox One through Internet Connection Sharing, oddly that seems to change the NAT type to "moderate" or sometimes even "strict" which makes joining games difficult. For poorly-written games. Like Evolve. Which is shit.
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To me, "wireless" and "gaming PC" seems incompatible.
~30 feet to the router, across half the living room, the hall, and the length of his bedroom, seems unwieldy. I'm still weighing options. He has a USB wireless-N adapter that works fairly well, all things considered, and generally gets ~10-12MBps except in the evenings it tends to drop connections intermittently, meaning Youtube pages stall or downloads fail, interrupted. I'm thinking of getting him a desktop card with a removable antenna and putting in a 5dBi antenna or something, as well as getting either a range extender or a router with multiple larger antennae.
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It won't cool as well, but it'll keep the i7 in a safe range even when it's going all-out and that's really all I need.
I have the 212 Evo, too, and it keeps my i5 to ~70C while running stress tests, although I haven't run any overnight ones, and it's not horribly loud even running full-tilt. I guess multiple case fans also help--I have a 140 in front, a 120 on top, and another 120 in the back of the case.
I'm actually considering an aftermarket GPU cooler, because I got a 650ti Boost with a single fan and it gets fairly loud when gaming. It's not jet engine bad but it's louder than I want to hear.
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I don't use 2.4 ghz, I use 5 ghz. What is this, 2004?
It is if you're using your cable company's router, which for me is some Arris POS with an internal antenna, which I'm also paying $13/mo rental on--get this, they jacked up the rental to $8 from $6, but they ALSO started charging me last year $5 more a month for wireless, which is part of the router, so I'm looking at replacing the whole shebang. I was considering the Moto 6141, but I'm currently looking at this because people seem to like it a bit better. Still need a router to go with that, although in the meantime I have a TP-link I could use.
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Well, I assumed you were more intelligent than the standard computer user, so I didn't make a "zomg you luser and your wireless network card" statement when you posted it.
And, the "gamers" I work with here think that a wireless connection with that $40 "N" mode 2.4GHz only router is a great idea. Hence, my bias. Not going to claim it makes great sense, or defend it at all costs. Just noting that I think it's a little weird to not be wired, personally.
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"wireless" and "gaming PC seems incompatible
For me, "Internet" and "Gaming" are incompatible, apart from downloading them in the first place. I've never really enjoyed any online gaming
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I was going to but then my friend vouched for this cooler, I realized with this cooler the fan's on the INSIDE so it ought to be quieter, and I had a little bitterness since a liquid cooler destroyed my old computer. (It was 3 years old, so.)
The old cooler was something similar then? That is, something you buy as a single device, and not a custom built solution?
(I've got a Corsair H60 that's also around 2-3 years old. Perhaps it'd be a good time to check if people are having problems with it leaking...)
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Next up: doing the "put your motherboard in an oil-filled fishtank" thing. Don't have to worry about your liquid cooler leaking on your CPU when it's already submerged!
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MMOs
the inherent jitter in wireless
just unacceptable for me.
Eh? Speaking as an EVE player whose gaming desktop is on the family WLAN -- I don't see what you could be doing in a MMO where typical WLAN jitter could matter that much, as MMOs have relatively slow server tick rates out of sheer necessity (EVE uses 1s ticks, for instance).
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The only games I can think of that would suffer from WLAN jitter are FPSs, especially stuff like Counterstrike, where the best players run something like 2×1010fps just for that sliver of extra precision.
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For me, "Internet" and "Gaming" are incompatible
Totally. Solitaire is kind of a solitary activity.
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The only games I can think of that would suffer from WLAN jitter are FPSs, especially stuff like Counterstrike, where the best players run something like 2×1010fps just for that sliver of extra precision.
Pretty much -- your average Counterstrike server processes the world 60-100 times a second or so, and the amount of latency you have impacts how far "ahead" you have to aim at moving targets in the game. (I've seen Counterstrike players put up with steady 300ms pings -- but 100ms of P-P jitter atop a ~150ms average ping makes everything into a lagfest in that game.)
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Rubber-banding once as the healer in FFXIV/WOW/GW is pretty fatal to your party's high end raid chances (most of the time).
For a specific example, the Titan fight in FFXIV has a 100ms tick, and gives you less than 500ms of total response time (including latency) to get out of the "dodge or fail" attack. Unless both healers always successfully dodge that, the fight (which takes about 5-8 minutes if all goes well) is a wipe and restart.
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It is if you're using your cable company's router,
So don't do that? Why are we talking about this?
Just noting that I think it's a little weird to not be wired, personally.
I think you're out-of-date. I could see your argument in a really densely-populated area, but I live in a house by myself with hardly any other wifi networks in range, and there are zero problems going wifi-only. The difference in latency is about 10 times my reaction speed, so it doesn't matter for gaming.
Besides, the PC has a wired Intel network chip, so it's not like I'm limiting myself somehow. And the wifi chip includes Bluetooth, if I ever buy a device that uses that. You're complaining about me giving the computer MORE utility.
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The old cooler was something similar then?
Something similar to what?
That is, something you buy as a single device, and not a custom built solution?
I didn't have some "bespoke liquid cooling system with authentic artisanal brass tubes" if that's what you mean. It was off-the-shelf.
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Rubber-banding once as the healer in FFXIV/WOW/GW is pretty fatal to your party's high end raid chances (most of the time).
For a specific example, the Titan fight in FFXIV has a 100ms tick, and gives you less than 500ms of total response time (including latency) to get out of the "dodge or fail" attack. Unless both healers always successfully dodge that, the fight (which takes about 5-8 minutes if all goes well) is a wipe and restart.
Ah, those position-dependent boss effects -- not something I deal with that much, given how rare AoE stuff is overall in EVE, and that I'm more of a PvP guy myself.
My take (overall, not on the latency thing specifically) is that:
- The way healers work in most of the holy trinity's interpretations is screwed up to some extent -- the idea of a healer that can't tank should rightfully terrify you, because mutual support is the way to go for staying alive as a healer. (A well-fit and flown pair of Guardian-class logistics cruisers in EVE can tank somewhere around 1500-2000 applied DPS indefinitely, and that tank is N-scalable, atop the damage mitigation they're getting from their destroyer-sized signature radius and afterburner speed.)
- You don't know what healing is like until you have had to keep your fleet alive in the face of an actively gunned hostile dickstar. Add an enemy fleet atop it for more fun, of course. Good if you want to sweat bullets for a long time -- instead of 5 minutes, think 15-30 or more.
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Guys this topic is about building a PC. Kindly fuck off somewhere else to talk about your shitty MMO's boss strategies. There's a "reply in new topic" button RIGHT THERE.
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By the way, ever considered snagging some of this if you wanted to run a network cable to your router?
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No. Like I've said about 3 times now, I'm fine with my PC being on wireless. And that conduit looks terrible. I don't want my living room looking like a badly-designed 1980s office building.
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shrug Yeah, newer tech is "better" at providing a stable wireless connection than older tech, and gets latency that's closer to wired.
But the problem in online games where it matters isn't latency (for values below Milwaukee PC latency). It's jitter -- the consistency of latency. And even though you have a -35dBm signal strength because you're right across the room from your router, when some dickweed out on the street tries to wardrive your access point, and the AP has to downshift to handle the beacon frames from a -90dBm signal, you're going to see a variation (sharp, sudden, upward spike) in latency. That's jitter. Other sources of jitter may include non-WiFi interference, link saturation (which will occur on wired links as well), or upstream jitter from your ISP (again, wired/wireless won't make a difference here). I just prefer, for my own connection, to keep the sources of jitter to a minimum.
For that matter, I don't even use my wireless to stream Twitch/Netflix/etc out to my laptop that's hooked up to the TV in the living room. Because, especially with livestreams such as Twitch, the jitter causes buffering, which causes me to get disappoint, and $DIETY forbid that I have to get up off my couch to switch quality rates on the stream.
Anyway, my last post on the matter here, sorry.
Congrats on the new PC, hope the build goes well :)
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But the problem in online games where it matters isn't latency (for values below Milwaukee PC latency). It's jitter -- the consistency of latency.
Look, when it becomes a problem, I'll fucking fix it. Goddamned, you're annoying. It's not networking to you, it's religion.
Anyway, my last post on the matter here, sorry.
Good, mine too.
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So don't do that?
It's a great idea, and it's on my list, along with a shitload of other things, and there's only so much money.
Why are we talking about this?
You are quite literally the last person on this forum who should be questioning why people are bitching about stuff.
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PvP is fundamentally different from PvE here. I don't really PvP ever. In a PvE environment, long fights may be more problematic than in PvP because you'll be retrying them.
At least in WoW, tanks are less significant in PvP than in PvE because you can't taunt (=attract enemy fire) in PvP.
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Making progress.
Took some extra time and tried to make the cabling as neat as possible. Case came with tons of zip ties to help me out.
Today installed the GPU, PSU and plugged-in all the case -> motherboard stuffs (USB, front audio, power/reset buttons, etc)
No drives yet.
EDIT: added the wifi card, power plug to GPU. All finished except drives now.
EDIT: DVD and SSD drives installed. Tomorrow I just need to hook up SATA and drive power, then it's ready for OS install. Packed it away in the box to cat-proof it before I took a photo, doh.
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Heatsink fan in push instead of pull? It doesn't really matter much but I wonder why.
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Because there's a pull fan about 4" behind it? What fucking difference does it make? It's the exact same volume of air either way.
Goddamned, between you and Mr. Jitter. It's a fucking computer, it's not a magic incantation.
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The thing that pops to my mind after looking at the picture, looking at Josh's post, and adding my knowledge of the default settings for case fans is this:
Generally I've seen those case fans installed as "blow air out of the case" -- airflow heading out of the case. To me, that heatsink fan looks like that arrow pointing toward the front of the case might be an airflow indicator arrow (hard to tell for sure with the picture, even at full size). So, to me, I would be paranoid and double check that the airflow direction on the heatsink fan and the airflow direction on the case fan are the same. Otherwise, the cooling may not work as specified/expected.
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From the shape of the fan's fins and the position of the label, I think I have that fan facing the correct way. Obviously I'll plug this in once with the case off so I can feel the airflow and make sure it's right; this isn't the first time I've build a gaming PC. I also need to ensure the case fans run at all, since they plug into the motherboard with 3-pin connectors and the motherboard appears to be expecting 4-pin connectors.
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The thing that pops to my mind after looking at the picture, looking at Josh's post, and adding my knowledge of the default settings for case fans is this:
Generally I've seen those case fans installed as "blow air out of the case" -- airflow heading out of the case. To me, that heatsink fan looks like that arrow pointing toward the front of the case might be an airflow indicator arrow (hard to tell for sure with the picture, even at full size). So, to me, I would be paranoid and double check that the airflow direction on the heatsink fan and the airflow direction on the case fan are the same. Otherwise, the cooling may not work as specified/expected.
That does indeed look like it may be the case.
Of course, what jumps out to me in the picture is the rather empty power port on the graphics card.
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Of course, what jumps out to me in the picture is the rather empty power port on the graphics card.
Jebus you people, just because I didn't take a photo of it doesn't mean I missed it. I've build gaming PCs before. (Although admittedly not in a few years.) (But I've installed a GPU only like 8 months ago, and it took an additional power plug, and we talked about it in this very forum.)
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You're in a community of pedantic dickweeds.
If you can dish it, be prepared to take it.
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You're a pedantic dickweeds in a community of pedantic dickweeds.
FTFY..... of course that also applies to both of us to. so......
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FTFY..... of course that also applies to both of us to. so......
He's the one complaining, so there's no problem.
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I also need to ensure the case fans run at all, since they plug into the motherboard with 3-pin connectors and the motherboard appears to be expecting 4-pin connectors.
That doesn't matter. You could plug a 2-pin fan in to them and it would run fine. Not like they are three phase powered or anything.
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well maybe.....
usually having an open collector on that fourth pin (which is a sensor pin for reporting fan RPM i think) would be no issue but the motherboard firmware could be so stupid that it reads open collector as "i'm turning all the speeds" and so reduces power trying to lower the speed until the fan stops.
i had a BIOSTAR motherboard that did that when i activated it's inteligent fan monitoring thingie. all the two pin case fans shut down only the three pin fans ever turned (this was before four pin fans were a thing)
I presume a similar thing could happen today.... because i've seen the code behind some of that BIOS firmware.... (shudder)
EDIT: added a bit my fingers missed earlier
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It's done. It works.
(Note pedantic dickweeds: the first RAM stick wasn't seated correctly, I fixed it. Also like I said on Twitter when I posted this, that is one fancy-ass BIOS. Even the mouse works.)
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It's done. It works.
We will now accept your thanks for pointing out all the things you did wrong so that you could fix them before you ruined something due to your novice efforts.
You're welcome.
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Even the mouse works.
I found out that mine has a fucking Web browser built in. I'm kinda torn between "wow that's cool" and "WTF is the point of that".
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I found out that mine has a fucking Web browser built in. I'm kinda torn between "wow that's cool" and "WTF is the point of that".
I could see the point of a web server in a BIOS (for remote administration, stuff like that) but a browser?
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that is one fancy-ass BIOS. Even the mouse works.)
I've had that for over a year. Nothing to brag about there.
Edit: Just checked. Asus has had it for a few years, so ...
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that is one fancy-ass BIOS. Even the mouse works.
Yeah, the big names have been doing that for a while. The Gigabyte mobo I bought last year does that too, although this looks nicer--and the mouse functionality was borked on my mobo, too.
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I found out that mine has a fucking Web browser built in. I'm kinda torn between "wow that's cool" and "WTF is the point of that".
Just a web browser? Hell, half of them are building mini Linux systems into them these days; the HP laptop I bought in 2010 could fast-boot into a Linux that was basically just enough to run Firefox, but it booted in single-digit seconds.
No video acceleration, though, so it looked like ass.
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I could see the point of a web server in a BIOS (for remote administration, stuff like that) but a browser?
Googling BSOD error codes?
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I've had that for over a year.
And therefore it is not fancy? Is that what you're saying, or...?
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