PC vs eGPU

[trento]

What I meant was if you buy a mobo say with things like USB3.1 already installed, then you don't need to plug a USB3.1 card to it. If the mobo already have Wireless then you don't need to plug a wireless card to it. Plug so many extras inside ugly sia

Which AIO so cheap? I tot even those single 120mm radiator CPU WC from CM already $1XX+ liao. I think some people just want to leave everything on air, it's up to him lo.

Anyways I think you can plug 2 bottom fans cos you don't have a PSU at the bottom tin tey I can only place one bottom fan because the other slot tio taken by the PSU already (NZXT Phantom 530)

Which existing mobo can support Skylake? Haven't heard of any or maybe I wasn't that well informed but given that current mobos are LGA1150 which will be 1 pin less from Skylake's LGA1151... Don't think can support leh.

for wifi, i use a usb thumbdrive. it works well but im not a high performance internet user. tat gets out of the way so its tidy enuf.

besides cm seidon, there's Deepcool Maelstrom. only about $60. but i think only can find at the dealer. it's just an option for him to consider besides air cooling.

maybe u can look at Air 540 if bottom fans are a need.

yea, confused myself about Broadwell and Skylake. thanks for the clarification. still, a pentium and H81 as a stop gap doesn't hurt the wallet too much.

 

[Toby88]

Imo, consumers will always be at the mercy of manufacturers and developer. Anyway, more vRAM will definitely be needed as AAA games are constantly push the envelope for more graphical prowess, more eye candy.

Future-proofing is always taken out of its intended context. To me, it is always about reading up and doing upgrades intelligently and diligently.

 

[avsquare]

for wifi, i use a usb thumbdrive. it works well but im not a high performance internet user. tat gets out of the way so its tidy enuf.

besides cm seidon, there's Deepcool Maelstrom. only about $60. but i think only can find at the dealer. it's just an option for him to consider besides air cooling.

maybe u can look at Air 540 if bottom fans are a need.

yea, confused myself about Broadwell and Skylake. thanks for the clarification. still, a pentium and H81 as a stop gap doesn't hurt the wallet too much.

The Air 540 is nice because it push the PSU away to another place allowing twin high perf fans to be planted at the bottom to blast at the GPUs but...

Not enough HDD bays I need to plug 1x optical drive, 1 SSD and 3 HDDs inside

 

[trento]

The Air 540 is nice because it push the PSU away to another place allowing twin high perf fans to be planted at the bottom to blast at the GPUs but...

Not enough HDD bays I need to plug 1x optical drive, 1 SSD and 3 HDDs inside

i think can fit 3 hdd. there's 2 5.25" bays and 2 3.5" bays. suppose one of the 5.25 can use some adaptor to fit a hdd.

 

[avsquare]

i think can fit 3 hdd. there's 2 5.25" bays and 2 3.5" bays. suppose one of the 5.25 can use some adaptor to fit a hdd.

Hmm.. that seems like an option.

But I noticed that it doesn't have bottom fan mounts in the tech specs tho?

 

[avsquare]

Yes a long radiator can be fitted on the top of the chassis. Sadly, it doesn't include dust filters, hence my hesitance. Currently, I'm looking to fit 3 140mm fans on the front panel as intake, and a 140mm fan on the back as exhaust.

Below is my current configuration,

Intel Core i5-4590 (or a 4690)
Asus Z97 Pro AC (or H97 Pro Gamer / Z97A / Z97E with TP-Link T8E Wireless-AC adapter)
Cooler Master Hyper 212X
Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP 8GB (4GB x 2)
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 970
Seasonic X650 or Super Flower Leadex Gold 650 (or a 550?)
Fractal Design Define S
2 of Fractal Design Dynamic GP14 fan

What do you think of this build? How are you using / will you use the USB 3.1 ports on your Z97A 3.1?

The thing is your top radiator is exhaust, not intake, so why the concern about dust?

USB3.1 is definitely the future, when external drives like those "passports" come in USB3.1 it will definitely make transfers of movies/animes etc faster.

PSU costs doesn't have much of a difference IMO. You can get a 550, should be enough. The rating probably matter more vs getting a 650W.

 

[Blackmel]

The thing is your top radiator is exhaust, not intake, so why the concern about dust?

USB3.1 is definitely the future, when external drives like those "passports" come in USB3.1 it will definitely make transfers of movies/animes etc faster.

PSU costs doesn't have much of a difference IMO. You can get a 550, should be enough. The rating probably matter more vs getting a 650W.

Morning! Pardon, had to be away.

With the radiator on the top panel, would I need to remove the ModuVent covers for efficient exhaust? It seems it'll be overly busy if I don't.

I'm leaning towards the Noctua after viewing installation of various air coolers. Definitely lightyears ahead of any other manufacturers. AIO coolers are also installation friendly with their pre-applied thermal compound.

In the past, a wired keyboard and mouse combo is required for the initial setup. Is this still a requirement?

Coming from the Mac environment where everything is built-in, it's amusing to gather various components otherwise taken for granted. Humbling.

As of now,

Intel Core i5-4590 (or a 4690)
Asus Z97 Pro AC (or H97 Pro Gamer / Z97A / Z97E with TP-Link T8E Wireless-AC adapter)
Noctua NH-U12S or (NH-U14S)
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (4GB x 2 or Corsair Vengeance Low Profile)
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 970
Seasonic X650 or Super Flower Leadex Gold 650 (or a 550?)
Fractal Design Define S
2 of Fractal Design Dynamic GP14 fan

 

[trento]

just be mindful of preapplied paste. had a few experiences it didn't spread off well, leading to high cpu temp. remounted and reapplied. problem solved.

if u dun intend to sli, can get 550w psu.

heard some not so good comments on Samsung ssd from this forum.

 

[devilwahaha]

Morning! Pardon, had to be away.

With the radiator on the top panel, would I need to remove the ModuVent covers for efficient exhaust? It seems it'll be overly busy if I don't.

I'm leaning towards the Noctua after viewing installation of various air coolers. Definitely lightyears ahead of any other manufacturers. AIO coolers are also installation friendly with their pre-applied thermal compound.

In the past, a wired keyboard and mouse combo is required for the initial setup. Is this still a requirement?

Coming from the Mac environment where everything is built-in, it's amusing to gather various components otherwise taken for granted. Humbling.

As of now,

Intel Core i5-4590 (or a 4690)
Asus Z97 Pro AC (or H97 Pro Gamer / Z97A / Z97E with TP-Link T8E Wireless-AC adapter)
Noctua NH-U12S or (NH-U14S)
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (4GB x 2 or Corsair Vengeance Low Profile)
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 970
Seasonic X650 or Super Flower Leadex Gold 650 (or a 550?)
Fractal Design Define S
2 of Fractal Design Dynamic GP14 fan

Go with the Z97AC, its a lot less trouble and very much easier to navigate the motherboard when installing without an extra PCIE card sticking out.

Heatsinks at this level is pretty much like cheap sports rim, just get whichever one you like the looks of, it doesnt really affect your performance

550W is plenty for your system. Also if you're going for the Z97AC board, do get a unlocked K chip CPU too to squeeze out that extra horsepower.

 

[trento]

Ah, no wonder a number of reviewers remove the pre-applied paste.

Yes, I might go with the 4690K since I'll have a Z97 board. Will this be a stronger point to having a better heatsink, besides aesthetics?

Will I need a wired keyboard+mouse for the initial setup?

Thanks again trento & devilwahaha!

u have any budget for kb n mouse? gaming ones can be quite ex. Logitech has good wireless gaming kb n mouse but they cost a bomb.

 

[devilwahaha]

Ah, no wonder a number of reviewers remove the pre-applied paste.

Yes, I might go with the 4690K since I'll have a Z97 board. Will this be a stronger point to having a better heatsink, besides aesthetics?

Will I need a wired keyboard+mouse for the initial setup?

Thanks again trento & devilwahaha!

Since your budget permits, you can consider picking up a cheap AIO watercooler for your 4690K and push it to the limits.

The stock cooler is sufficient for up to about 4-4.4GHz depending on your luck(my 3570K runs in the 80s on 4.4GHz with stock cooler currently), past that point AIO wc units provide much more headroom in a compact size, aircooled heatsinks needs to be very big to come close in dissipation(hence performance).

You can install windows and drivers with just either a mouse or keyboard, doesnt have to be wired as long as you can get it detected. Stuff like logitech mouse/keyboard with the 2.4GHz dongle works because they only need native USB driver, bluetooth type most likely wont cos no desktop mobo has native bluetooth I think.

 

[devilwahaha]

Oh, I'll settle for a budget wired logitech keyboard+mouse like the MK120. I'll mostly be gaming on a gamepad, either the existing wired XBOX 360 controller for Windows or when available, a native Dualshock4 or XBOX One controller for Windows.

Again, I'll be spending limited time on this PC and playing selected titles. As long as the inputs work, I'm happy. I do have the bluetooth enabled Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse, but realise without proper drivers, they will not work on Windows.

Also, I asked about wired keyboard because if I'm correct, in the past a wired keyboard was needed to perform the initial setup of initial POST, installation of OS and update. Is this still true?

Any thoughts? Thank you so much trento!

Ha! I'll probably let the motherboard do the overclocking with its five way optimization. As for coolers, I chanced upon startup Cryorig. The H5 looks especially good and the installation is as efficient as Noctua while being less expensive. Any experience with Cryorig?

Am I right to say the stock cooler is efficient in cooling at the cost of greater noise level?

Ah, that means to perform the initial setup, I will need either a wired or a wireless (by means of 2.4Ghz wireless) keyboard and mouse. Maybe I'll get an inexpensive wireless variant to avoid the clutter.

The Asus Z97 Pro AC does include Bluetooth along with its AC-wireless capability. Again left wondering if an external solution would be better. But as you've pointed out, there'll be more clutter and will create another point of failure.

Folks, I'm truly appreciative your guidance and can't wait to read more!

Stay safe and have a wonderful weekend!

Keyboard used to be the only way to do initial setup but BIOS nowdays actually support mouse input

The bluetooth on the Z97AC most likely wont work until you've installed the drivers in Windows so there's that. I'm sure your apple keyboard and mouse can work with Windows since it's such a popular peripheral with a hugeeee user base.

For either wired or wireless keyboard/mouse, you cant go wrong with Logitech. Their stuff from $10+ keyboard/mouse combo to flagships are all ridiculously good.

Good luck in your hunt for a gaming rig

 

[avsquare]

Morning! Pardon, had to be away.

With the radiator on the top panel, would I need to remove the ModuVent covers for efficient exhaust? It seems it'll be overly busy if I don't.

I'm leaning towards the Noctua after viewing installation of various air coolers. Definitely lightyears ahead of any other manufacturers. AIO coolers are also installation friendly with their pre-applied thermal compound.

In the past, a wired keyboard and mouse combo is required for the initial setup. Is this still a requirement?

Nope, the radiators are meant to work as it is. It isn't that much of a hassle really. I haven't used any AIO coolers previously and I've just installed one over the weekend, it's pretty the same as your tower radiators. Install the backplate, install the standoffs. The only thing extra is you have to plug the radiator on top. Then fix in the cooler contact with the 4 screws that's all.

Mobos these days will recognize your USB KB/M so no worries on that.

Ha! I'll probably let the motherboard do the overclocking with its five way optimization.

Oh no please don't, I've read the AI suite thing farks up quite a few people. I've tried it myself and it doesn't give any impressive results as well. The best joke about the thing is that the 5 way optimization thing says "RAM improvement +60% and I was like wow that would meant my RAM will be clocked to over 3MHz. Nope it's a BS lie, the % was calculated from ASUS's own base clock of 1333MHz LMAO. That adds up to 2132.8MHz which IS exactly what my sticks are primarily clocked for (they are 2133MHz sticks by default)

And it tells me that CPU performance will be +10% to 4.4GHz. **** you, that's my CPU's DEFAULT Turbo Boost speed

And more than likely ASUS suite will be over conservative and feed more voltage than required to the CPU so no. I'd rather clock it via BIOS manually

 

[kandinsky]

Again, I'll be spending limited time on this PC and playing selected titles. As long as the inputs work, I'm happy. I do have the bluetooth enabled Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse, but realise without proper drivers, they will not work on Windows.

You can always try installing bootcamp drivers to see if it works for you.

http://www.jaustinhughey.com/installing-bootcamp-keyboard-drivers-on-a-non-apple-pc-windows-78/
http://www.trackpadmagic.com/magic-mouse/download
http://www.shoutpedia.com/install-a...ith-natural-scrolling-and-battery-percentage/

I'm using a wired apple keyboard on my desktop. Some of the top row keys aren't recognized (Esc - F6) at all, but that's due to the non-standard mapping that Apple uses I think.

 

[Blackmel]

Thank you so much devilwahaha, avsquare and kandinsky!

Scratching this for the moment. If Murphy doesn't do me in, I'm going full X99!