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Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
OK, don't forget to tell!
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Also, I apparently freed 1.44GiB of disk space, after a restart of course. I'm just glad it fits on my 40GiB VHD is all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
I don't really need a passive build. Since I tend to have a table fan or the AC running anyway, I don't need a PC to be dead silent. So long as its own fans don't overpower the noise the room normally has, it's fine. Come to think of it, I normally can't hear my laptop's fan spinning unless I'm playing a modern video game, and even then, it doesn't sound like a jet engine.
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Yeah, you're probably right about that. The whole passive goal is more of an enthusiast theme for me though, than a practical noise-saver. :P
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
You can really tell that Broadwell is extremely mobile-focused, given that they're really late to the party, and all we have got are beefed-up, doubled-up not-quite-mobile parts with unusually good integrated graphics for Intel.
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Skylake's iGPUs are taking up arms with better performance too, though! And despite having leaps and bounds better graphics than Sandy Bridge they still have that 5-10% perf. increase over Haswell. So I'd say Intel worked pretty hard on their release this time around. It also means I can wait out getting a GPU until I feel like buying one for those super-cool shaders in Minecraft, lol.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
Me, I think I'm going with an i5-4460 or i5-4590, one stick of 8 GB DDR3 RAM since the benefits are relatively small, especially when not playing video games on integrated graphics, a GTX 960, and a 2 TB 7200 RPM HDD. 7200 RPM desktop HDDs seem to be pretty competent as far as Windows 7 boot times are concerned, and they are tolerable, compared to what you'd get with a 5400 RPM laptop drive. I'm actually considering just getting a WD Black 2TB as the only system drive, since SSDs suddenly felt very unnecessary. At least, for desktops.
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I wonder why? WD Blacks are really good drives, if you're looking for boot perf., definitely go with them. :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
I'd probably go with an Asus H97M-E and the Asus STRIX GTX 960. I like pairing $200 CPUs with a $200 graphics card, and keep the costs of the other components to a minimum while maintaining sufficient quality and functionality.
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That's a pretty smart baseline rule, IMO. I just can't help but geek out at some of the higher-end stuff, which is why I'm buying them! It's just too cool.
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Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
The RAM module I have in mind right now is a 8 GB Crucial DDR3-1600 stick. Barebones, but it works, and it's dense and cheap.
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Go with Kingston, they're cool too you know. ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
Thinking of just using the integrated audio, too.
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Any reason why you wouldn't? :o
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
A Corsair Carbide 100R is more than good enough for me - looks nice enough without looking gaudy or cheap, and the windowed version should be nice for looking into the system. The free 120mm intake fan couldn't hurt, too, or the fact that this case still has all the modern sensibilities - tool-less drive bays for 3.5" and 5.25" drives and bottom-mounted PSUs, anyone? Or not having to accidentally risk a blood sacrifice while building a PC? Places to hide cables? :)
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I was happy my Cougar Solution has good cable management too, despite being only $50. Things tucked so nicely in there, if I sleeved the cables it would be 100%. :D
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twiggy
(Post 8877656)
Right now, I'm just on the fence about the power supply. Obviously, nobody wants to get a gutless wonder, or a horribly inefficient unit. The nicer PSUs with 5-year warranties, semi-modular cables, and 80+ Gold certifications are so much more expensive than their cheaper counterparts, though. I'm still iffy about the prospects of getting a Corsair VS550 or a CX600M as the power supply. They aren't exactly the best power supplies around, but they should at least last through the warranty period of three years. (I could get the Corsair CS550M...but it's not in stock.)
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If I were you I'd get a fully-modular SeaSonic PSU. Those should be high enough quality for your needs, and... you don't wanna mess with something that'd break in 3 years anyway.
One of my subscribers to my
Pwenet build has this
extreme real-deal passive build he's making, and it helped me decide to just drop this build for now, get the good stuff I want, and when I pick it back up
do it right. Paid employment means I can finance custom metal cuts, among other things, which may possibly entail a totally custom case – something that would be really awesome to do. I'm going to have to study on how heat flows, though, so I don't make some nonsensical case that just looks alright. xD
I'm kinda bummed out that I largely missed Haswell for desktops. I mean, yeah, I could buy for a little while here, but it's going to be last gen so soon from now, you know? The only Haswell chip I worked with was a mobile Celeron, which, needless to say... got the hammer. :P I'm just disappointed in the design of my H97 board, but for $90 what did I expect really... I want a Z-series board regardless of whether I'm overclocking or not. Though I'll probably want to do those things still, so maybe I do need it, eh? RAM overclocking is really a thing for me.
I'm certainly not set on DDR4 RAM and what module/style I wanna go with, but as far as DDR3 goes... HyperX Savage all the way. It covers 1600MHz at a nice CAS 9 latency, and 2400MHz at CL11. I dunno what I'd buy for 3GHz DDR3 honestly, but I really like Kingston :P (I'm really bothered by RAM frequencies not sitting on a zero or two.) Though as far as storage goes, I am set on setting up a NAS before I go dumping HDDs into towers or anything. I'm a lot more comfortable having all of my terminals run off of SSDs, and having shared storage over the network... which I've found the
need for as of recently. My little external drive that I have to constantly switch back and forth between PCs isn't cutting it anymore.
Cases are always a big heat-of-the-moment hunt for me. I have to get one that looks just like I want it to. So far I'm happy with a couple Cougar case models, and though I have looked at a lot of the "mainstream" cases I often feel like the case defines the personality of the PC, so I want it to be original, at least somewhat, you know?
For GPUs, a 750 Ti is likely enough for me, buuut... I want a 4GiB GTX 960, so I can SLI when it's old and rusty. xD That's ample performance for my light needs for a long time when you think about it. Doing Minecraft on Linux and taking advantage of dem open-source Nvidia drivers like a boss. As far as a PSU goes, I'll probably pick something mainstream, and SeaSonic too. For my passive build I was going to get a pricy-af 400W 80+ Platinum fanless PSU, but thankfully that can wait, haha.
Say, should I go Micro ATX with my Skylake PC?