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Strangelove
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  • 3 weeks later...

well that sucked.  Opened the case today and noticed the fan on my Hyper 212 evo (heatsink) wasn't running. Speedfan was showing cpu temps of 33, my motherboard sets to 45 at lowest for target temp.  So I play a game for a couple of hours trying to get the temp up, see if it'll kick on then -- temp goes up a little, but no fan still.  Say screw it and plug it into a chassis fan header -- nada.  So I have a dead heatsink fan.  Then I remember I had bought a 120 mm fan to replace a dying case fan.  Quick swap, I have a running fan again.  It's only a 3 pin, so no PWM. I'll order a proper 4 pin soon.  Any brand suggestions? I hear Noctua a lot, or Scythe.  

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On my HTPC I'm outputting both video and audio over the same HDMI cable, but that's from an Intel integrated gfx chip so I don't know whether it would also work on an actual gfx card.

 

Since writing this I had occasion to plug my gaming PC into the TV again, and I can confirm that my GTX 470 does support audio output.  It's only 2 channel though, and doesn't support DTS or Dolby.

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My GTX 570 outputs sound with aplomb. I think it's standard on most nVidia cards these days.

 

Edit: Definitely stereo-only. That's fine, since my soundbar is 2-channel as well. If I want 7.1, I'll use my headset. The fact that headsets can do 7.1 Dolby surround-sound is fucking amazing. 

Edited by Mr. GOH!
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I should also note that any software that can output in DTS or Dolby should be fine, it will just take control of the audio device and output the bitstream, whether or not the device would have any clue how encode it that way.

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So for GPUs any "these guys cards are always top notch" and "these guys stuff tends to suck"? I'm talking the likes of EVGA, MSI, Gainward etc not as in Nvidia/AMD (it's a bit of a forgone conclusion I'll be getting a Nvidia card, probably a 760 I'm thinking).

Some choices:

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Components/cat/Graphics-Cards-Nvidia/subcat/NVIDIA-GTX-760-Series?sort=price+ascending&page=1

 

Same question for motherboards (Intel).

 

Actually, what's the current socket thingy ma bobby. Last I remember it was LLA775 or something like that.

 

edit: I googled. LGA 775. My memory ain't too bad. Also yeah I'm upgrading from a Core2Quad.

 

edit2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yHBz3K0yKg

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Arma 3 just crashed which makes me think I should upgrade too but since my mobo PCI Express slots are only 2.0 and all newer cards are running off 3.0, I feel like its not worth it unless I upgrade my entire computer. Oh bother. So much for a cheap upgrade since I'll have to replace my CPU, Mobo and GPU. Not sure whats the story with my RAM and I've been eying modular PSU as well so there is another pretty penny. I like my case and I have the parts to repair the stupid shit I've done to it but it would feel wrong to have all these good parts laying to waste... I guess I could sell it to my friend. It would be a hefty upgrade for him I think.

In short... I have a PC build inbound. Good thing PS4 has no gaems. Planning a June build date. In the mean time, I'll just lower my settings to standard or something. :|

 

Edit: Aiming for this build with some modifications.

 

Cheaper mobo, GTX 760 will drop it by maybe $200. Since I don't need HDD/SSD or a disk drive, it'll be a further ~$200. Of course I could always go to AMD CPUs which will drop the price waaay down but I'm not sure if I want to go that route (It would in essence give me something like this). Tough call.

Edited by MaliciousH
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Yeah? At the level I want to play at, it has been running piss poor (>30 FPS to 20 FPS). Besides, 3-4 years for a GPU seems about right. Looking into it some more, I can get away with just a new GPU. The PCI-E thing wasn't as a big deal as I thought it was. Maybe <5% performance hit, if even. A GTX 760 could go for $250, so not too bad.

 

Or I could just roll with my GPU, console style, and roll with it for 7-8 years.

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What processor / mobo are you running?

 

You could just do a gpu upgrade like you said, but if your CPU is pretty old (775 socket intel, c2d/c2q you may run into CPU bottlenecks, meaning you'll get less performance out of a new gpu than you paid for.

 

Food for thought.

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From what I've read (and from what Malicious stated), using 2.0 for a 3.0 card isn't going to be a huge hit to performance. Somewhere in the single digits percentage-wise. Unfortunately for me, if I want to upgrade my RAM I am going to need a new mobo. I'm still using DDR2.

 

A question of my own: how much is my Phenom II X4 840 3.2 GHz going to bottleneck my gaming? More or less than 6GB of DDR2 RAM? I'm in a tough spot right now when it comes to upgrading because of my motherboard.

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