• CIPWTTKT&GC v0x24 (v36): That Ain't Thermal Paste
    5,002 replies, posted
[QUOTE=B!N4RY;48058406]Why do you need a PC repair shop? Just order all your parts online from Newegg or a similar store. If you know how to build lego, then you know how to build computers. Things will only work if they fit perfectly. Not to mention there are billions of guides and videos online, you can't really go wrong.[/QUOTE] honestly computers are easier than legos everything goes in the right place and things generally won't easily fit if they aren't supposed to be there
[QUOTE=Sweet Berries;48058087]Im putting together a computer with friends, and they chose an intel core i5 4690K. Im curious why people would choose that over something like the AMD FX-8350? Are AMD processors just considered worse? It looks like the specs of the AMD CPU are better, and it costs less[/QUOTE] [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth]Specs like clock rate don't tell the whole story[/url], and for processors you'll just have to compare practical performance tests, in which, as posted above, AMD's current FX processors almost always perform poorly compared to Intel's competition. They also draw more power. But you're right in that they're less expensive, so if you don't care about power usage and you're really strapped for cash, an FX-8350 isn't a bad choice. But most of us will recommend a current i5 if you can at all afford it (without skimping on the graphics card too much), as they're [I]much[/I] faster than AMD FX, and will probably outlast your graphics card.
Once you realize that motherboards are far more flexible than it seems like they should be, you're golden. If you have any intention at all of upgrading in the future, do not buy a prebuilt. You'll end up having to replace everything over time because prebuilts use crappy cheap components, whereas buying good stuff now will last you a long time.
I do wonder if there are any companies out there that build their own work machines for their employees instead of ordering the latest shit off Dell or similar.
[QUOTE=Genericenemy;48058632]I do wonder if there are any companies out there that build their own work machines for their employees instead of ordering the latest shit off Dell or similar.[/QUOTE] Dell has some pretty nice "RMA" warranties for companies, also talking to a Dell sales rep can net you a discount. So it's only for specialized usage cases where custom built seems to be worth it in a corporate or industrial sense.
[QUOTE=Genericenemy;48058632]I do wonder if there are any companies out there that build their own work machines for their employees instead of ordering the latest shit off Dell or similar.[/QUOTE] Keep in mind how much even a single employee to build and perform maintenance on computers costs. In most cases that's just more than the markups on prebuilts.
[QUOTE=Sand Castle;48058357]actually kind of considering another mac mini, if i got one i'd max it out when buying though[/QUOTE] Whatever you do definitely don't bother with the 2014 mini.
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;48058741]Whatever you do definitely don't bother with the 2014 mini.[/QUOTE] is there anything particularly bad about them? i was just thinking i'd save up as much as i can and max it out. or pick up a base line imac
So after chasing down just which fine it was that was dying in my system, turned out it was both my CPU's old bequiet! silent wings and the rear corsair sp120. Because of this my system now has a Noctua NF-F12PWM on the exhaust and my old rear case fan on the cooler because it's all I had. It's also introduced me to a love hate relationship with Noctua. [I]Hard plastic and flat self tapping screws do not work you fucks.[/I] Almost stripped the fucking screw heads off making the thread. [editline]26th June 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Sand Castle;48058752]is there anything particularly bad about them? i was just thinking i'd save up as much as i can and max it out. or pick up a base line imac[/QUOTE] Stupid proprietary screws everywhere all over the 2014 making it near impossible to get to the internals if you want to change something or just look.
[QUOTE=Van-man;48058307]Seems like it needs a uppercase treatment, since the 'n' also bothers me. But I'm used to the IBM logo looking like it almost screamed "HEY I'M MADE BY IBM BITCH!!"[/QUOTE] The new logo needs help. [img]http://i.imgur.com/pzIPX6a.png[/img]
[QUOTE=Ezhik;48058857]The new logo needs help. [img]http://i.imgur.com/pzIPX6a.png[/img][/QUOTE] It looks better if you look at the official vectorized one. [img]http://i.imgur.com/bHSooA7.png[/img] It still looks wacky with the differing heights, but it doesn't look like it was made in paint.
[QUOTE=B!N4RY;48058406]Why do you need a PC repair shop? Just order all your parts online from Newegg or a similar store. If you know how to build lego, then you know how to build computers. Things will only work if they fit perfectly. Not to mention there are billions of guides and videos online, you can't really go wrong.[/QUOTE] [img]http://www.ifitjams.com/images/f4-11.jpg[/img] [B]CRRRRRRRRRRRK[/B]
[QUOTE=Giraffen93;48059353][img]http://www.ifitjams.com/images/f4-11.jpg[/img] [B]CRRRRRRRRRRRK[/B][/QUOTE] I'm not gonna lie, I was legitimately quite terrified when I had to lock in a LGA CPU for the first time :v:
[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;48059453]At least you didn't have to be careful you didn't break pins on LGA478 or AMD cpus :v: I'd rather much deal with LGA then AMD's sockets.[/QUOTE] Let's also not forget about this iconic trademark with current AMD CPUs [t]http://i.imgur.com/O8jel.jpg[/t]
mid-2000's amd cpu's were scary as shit to mount, those creaked so bad
[QUOTE=butre;48053358][thumb]http://imgkk.com/i/hpj-.png[/thumb] youtube's what to watch section is becoming increasingly useless[/QUOTE] [thumb]http://imgkk.com/i/eiwh.png[/thumb] it's getting worse
Woo! Finally have internet again! After two hours trying to do it online, four days waiting for phone calls that never happened, an hour driving to the Comcast office and back, and two calls to get it activated (the robot was actually more effective than their technician somehow), I finally have my delicious 25/5 cable.
[QUOTE=B!N4RY;48059441]I'm not gonna lie, I was legitimately quite terrified when I had to lock in a LGA CPU for the first time :v:[/QUOTE] At least you don't have to take it out again when you upgrade your RAM. I've never been as stressed out as when I had to remove my backplate-mounted CPU cooler to replace my DIMMs last weekend (the cooler is super-low profile, but covers the entire motherboard. Great buy.). It took me three hours to change them, and at the end I was all like "Oh yeah, I should reapply the thermal paste". Cue me managing to slather the old goo everywhere, forcing me to get the CPU out of the socket to clean the sides of the heat spreader. Mini-ITX builds suck when you actually want to tinker.
[QUOTE=Giraffen93;48059353][img]http://www.ifitjams.com/images/f4-11.jpg[/img] [B]CRRRRRRRRRRRK[/B][/QUOTE] This is one the reasons I very rarely ever take my i5 outside of its socket, the sounds make me cringe so hard.
[QUOTE=Cold;48058548]What makes you think the specs are better?[/QUOTE] Well it has 8 cores and more gigahertz I mean, to the average person it does seem like a no-brainer that the AMD would be more powerful I mean, 8 times 4 gigahertz? that's 32 gigahertz god damn!1
Man that's fucked, my old apartment charged my girlfriend and I a third of our security deposit for cleaning up a mess a broken pipe caused. Except we were in no way responsible for the broken pipe. And told (albeit verbally) to clean up everything but that. Suing their ass.
[QUOTE=Giraffen93;48059353][img]http://www.ifitjams.com/images/f4-11.jpg[/img] [B]CRRRRRRRRRRRK[/B][/QUOTE] That's the worst part of everything. Ever.
[QUOTE=B!N4RY;48059461]Let's also not forget about this iconic trademark with current AMD CPUs [t]http://i.imgur.com/O8jel.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] Happened to my friend's Phenom II. I legitimately thought I broke the motherboard, but we put the new heatsink on and it was fine. :v: That being said, actually removing the processor from the heatsink was a complete bitch.
[QUOTE=paul simon;48059771]Well it has 8 cores and more gigahertz I mean, to the average person it does seem like a no-brainer that the AMD would be more powerful[/QUOTE] Modern processors are too complex for a simple count of how many "cores" they have to be meaningful. Let's look at the smallest part that cannot be subdivided and still be a full processor core, for AMD's and Intel's current desktop microarchitecture. An Intel Haswell "core" contains: 1 instruction fetch unit (256 bits/clock) 4 instruction decoders (1 complex, 3 simple) 8 execution ports 4 integer ALUs, 2 FPUs, 2 vector units, 4 load/store units, and several miscellaneous processing units 1x 32KiB L1D cache (64B/c, 4c latency), 1x 32KiB L1I cache (64B/c, 4c latency), 1x 1536B uop cache, 1x 256KiB L2 cache (64B/c, 11c latency) Pipeline length: 19 stages, 14 if uop cached A Haswell "core" can physically run two threads simultaneously, sharing resources. This is disabled on many processors (most Core i5, Pentium and Celeron processors). An AMD Bulldozer "module" contains: 1 instruction fetch unit (256 bits/clock) 4 instruction decoders (all identical) 6 execution ports 4 integer ALUs, 2 FPUs, 2 vector units, 4 load/store units 2x 16KiB L1D cache (32B/c?, 4c latency), 2x 64KiB L1I cache (32B/c?, 4c latency), 1x 2MiB L2 cache (32B/c?, 21c latency) Pipeline length: 20+ stages (AMD has categorically refused to specifically say how much) A Bulldozer "module" is sold as two physical cores. You can disable the ability to run a second thread on the module in software; this sometimes helps performance in very linear code. Overall, an Intel core is about the same as an AMD module on raw processing bandwidth. However, there are several other factors. Bulldozer features the same narrow L1D$ as Haswell, but has a slower and less responsive L2$. So whenever it stalls on a read from L2 cache, it wastes about twice as many clock cycles as Haswell. The L3 cache is even worse - 65 cycles latency versus 25 on Intel. The other inefficiency is on branch mispredict. On very old processors, whenever a core hit a branch instruction (if X then Y else Z), it would stall until the result was computed, then continue from there. Modern (meaning post-1990 or so, can't remember exactly when we got this on desktops) CPUs will take a guess as to which way the branch will go, and keep the pipeline going while it computes the actual result. If it guessed right (which it can usually do about 95% of the time), it just keeps on going. If it guessed wrong, it wipes out every instruction that it was running in the meantime, and starts over. On Haswell, that's between 14 and 19 stages being flushed. On Bulldozer, that's 20-30. The longer pipeline made it somewhat easier for them to hit such high clock speeds, but it had the cost of a higher penalty for mispredicting a branch instruction - and from studies, Bulldozer's branch predictor is actually worse than Intel's. [B]All told, I'd estimate a Bulldozer-based chip needs to be clocked about 30% higher than a Haswell-based one in order to get similar performance.[/B] The final issue is power efficiency. Intel has a major advantage in fabrication technology, and so their processors need far less power for similar performance, and they don't need to push their power consumption as high to get good clock speeds. AMD, meanwhile, is way behind on fab tech, so they're less efficient at similar clock speeds, and they've been pushing their cores to the absolute limit to try to match Intel on compute performance. Power consumption goes up exponentially with increased clock speeds, so AMD chips suck down far more power than Intel ones (200W vs 90W for some comparable chips). The overall amount of electricity is negligible in the grand scheme of things, at least for a home user, but every watt of power it uses becomes a watt of heat, and that heat has to be removed. More heat means more fans, and more fans means more noise. So it's a simple, inescapable fact that an AMD-based computer will be louder than a comparable Intel-based computer.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;48060234]Do you think its worth doubling my net speed from 50 to 100mbit, its only £5/m extra.[/QUOTE] The better question is, are there any strings attached? If not, why wouldn't you?
[QUOTE=gman003-main;48060100] The other inefficiency is on branch mispredict. On very old processors, whenever a core hit a branch instruction (if X then Y else Z), it would stall until the result was computed, then continue from there. Modern (meaning post-1990 or so, can't remember exactly when we got this on desktops) CPUs will take a guess as to which way the branch will go, and keep the pipeline going while it computes the actual result. If it guessed right (which it can usually do about 95% of the time), it just keeps on going. If it guessed wrong, it wipes out every instruction that it was running in the meantime, and starts over. On Haswell, that's between 14 and 19 stages being flushed. On Bulldozer, that's 20-30. The longer pipeline made it somewhat easier for them to hit such high clock speeds, but it had the cost of a higher penalty for mispredicting a branch instruction - and from studies, Bulldozer's branch predictor is actually worse than Intel's.[/QUOTE] Flashbacks to Netburst.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;48060298]No strings attached. I just don't know if I could make use of it. No website or service saturates my 50 meg connection.[/QUOTE] I'm guessing you'd still be staying with the same provider? If their network really is that terrible P2P is the only thing that would help I'm guessing. Or more download connections, if they do some sort of evil connection-throttling thing.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;48060298]No strings attached. I just don't know if I could make use of it. No website or service saturates my 50 meg connection.[/QUOTE] I don't always use my full 60 mb either, but when you do, its really nice to have, like when downloading Steam games or an ISO.
[QUOTE=LimEJET;48060283]Flashbacks to Netburst.[/QUOTE] It's not quite that bad, fortunately. Netburst's minimum mispredict penalty was in the same 20-30 range, but the maximum was ridiculously higher, hundreds of cycles in some cases (I'm actually not sure why that is, but I've seen that figure cited in so many places it has to be true). But yeah, AMD failed to learn from Intel's failures with Netburst.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;48060397]I didn't know Steam servers ever transferred anything quicker than 3mbit :v:[/QUOTE] The Minneapolis servers do, I've seen it cap around 8 MB/s. I'm not sure about the UK obviously. :v:
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