KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Elthy]

23 minutes ago, Camacha said:

In an overclocked system, they easily could. If you load the card more with settings that are on the edge, it could be enough to push it over. Also, you run into limits like available memory, which could mean a switch in behaviour.

That would just point out that the clocks are to high/voltage to low.

For stability testing i can recommend Battlefield 3. It is/was free on Origin and is that good in pointing out instabilitys that even manufacturer overclocked GTX 560 failed. I had to reduce the clocks if my 7970 from 1170mhz to 1100mhz when i started playing it.

[Camacha]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

That would just point out that the clocks are to high/voltage to low.

Typically, yes, but not necessarily. Different settings load different parts of the video card. One could cause the memory controller to give way, while another could pressure the GPU core chip or have another effect.

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

For stability testing i can recommend Battlefield 3. It is/was free on Origin and is that good in pointing out instabilitys that even manufacturer overclocked GTX 560 failed. I had to reduce the clocks if my 7970 from 1170mhz to 1100mhz when i started playing it.

Using Furmark and LinX would be another good option, not in small part because you can separate CPU and GPU pretty well when necessary.

[Elthy]

Isnt Furmark used for temperature, not stability?

[Camacha]

9 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Isnt Furmark used for temperature, not stability?

You check stability by pushing the system to the brink. It is effectively (pretty much) the same thing. You check whether the performance does not decrease (indicating throttling or failed ECC-checks) and check for visual artifacts while fully loading the system as much as you can. Furmark loads the system beyond what any game would do, so makes an excellent program to check the stability of an overclock.

[KocLobster]

Stability is very important to me, so I will have to give Furmark a try, assuming it's a free program.

I have read that the max voltage you can add is 87mV, and this is seen in all the GPU OCing programs I've tried (Afterburner/Precision/etc). I've also read that this is a perfectly safe thing to do. If you push it to hard, it will throttle or crash, after all, and you can just lower your settings.

 

One last thing. Why oh why did I get a 980, when they just put 1070/1080s on the market? I feel like that was a bad call. The 1070, for example, is better than the 980 (obviously), but cheaper too. I wish I would of known about this. I only made my component purchases a few weeks ago, had the 1070/1080 been made available at that point? Unfortunately, it doesn't make much sense to sell my 980 and buy a 1070 or 1080 at this point. It only would of been worth it if I bought it in the first place. That 1080 isn't much more expensive than what I paid for my MSI GeForce GTX 980 4G...

[Camacha]

10 minutes ago, KocLobster said:

Stability is very important to me, so I will have to give Furmark a try, assuming it's a free program.

I have read that the max voltage you can add is 87mV, and this is seen in all the GPU OCing programs I've tried (Afterburner/Precision/etc). I've also read that this is a perfectly safe thing to do. If you push it to hard, it will throttle or crash, after all, and you can just lower your settings.

The thing is, the more factors are in play, the more trouble you can get yourself in. There are no guarantees in overclocking.

- If you want perfect stability, do not overclock at all.
- If you want relatively carefree overclocking, experiment with the clocks. It is quite hard to damage a chip without changing the voltage and you can typically gain quite a lot. As long as temperatures are good, you should be good. There are also various clocks that interplay in different ways, so there is plenty to be tried and experimented. It is not a matter of maximizing them in order and leaving it at that. It really is a case of finding the sweet spot.
- If you want maximum performance, you add voltage to the mix. Voltage in itself can damage a chip if you go overboard. Higher voltage combined with higher temperatures can fry a chip, as they amplify each other's effects. This is why beginners are advised to leave it alone until you are a little more comfortable .

If voltages are limited by the manufacturer, it might be pretty hard to damage your chip, but as a rule of thumb, the safety is off when you start messing with that.

 

Quote

One last thing. Why oh why did I get a 980, when they just put 1070/1080s on the market? I feel like that was a bad call. The 1070, for example, is better than the 980 (obviously), but cheaper too. I wish I would of known about this. I only made my component purchases a few weeks ago, had the 1070/1080 been made available at that point? Unfortunately, it doesn't make much sense to sell my 980 and buy a 1070 or 1080 at this point. It only would of been worth it if I bought it in the first place. That 1080 isn't much more expensive than what I paid for my MSI GeForce GTX 980 4G...

I am pretty sure you were explicitly told this in this thread. Elthy posted just an hour after your post.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Camacha

[KocLobster]

23 minutes ago, Camacha said:

I am pretty sure you were explicitly told this in this thread. Elthy posted just an hour after your post.

Unfortunately, I never ended up seeing those posts. I don't know why, but this is the first time I've read those posts or realized I was being quoted. I wish I wasn't such an idiot.

23 minutes ago, Camacha said:

The thing is, the more factors are in play, the more trouble you can get yourself in. There are no guarantees in overclocking.

- If you want perfect stability, do not overclock at all.
- If you want relatively carefree overclocking, experiment with the clocks. It is quite hard to damage a chip without changing the voltage and you can typically gain quite a lot. As long as temperatures are good, you should be good. There are also various clocks that interplay in different ways, so there is plenty to be tried and experimented. It is not a matter of maximizing them in order and leaving it at that. It really is a case of finding the sweet spot.
- If you want maximum performance, you add voltage to the mix. Voltage in itself can damage a chip if you go overboard. Higher voltage combined with higher temperatures can fry a chip, as they amplify each other's effects. This is why beginners are advised to leave it alone until you are a little more comfortable .

If voltages are limited by the manufacturer, it might be pretty hard to damage your chip, but as a rule of thumb, the safety is off when you start messing with that.

Appreciate the clarification. I've decided not to bother with any extra voltage on my GPU, but I'm going to leave my CPU OC'd the way it is. I feel like it should be quite safe where it's at. This was one of many pages I was looking at for OCing (I know it's a reddit page, but the information seemed sound), and it made me think that voltage in itself shouldn't damage a chip; only if the voltage causes the temperature to get too high would it cause damage:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1vpljk/a_basic_crash_course_in_overclocking_facts/

 

 

I wish I would of caught those posts, I did not even know the 1070/1080 even existed until a few days ago. I don't think there is anything I can really do about it at this point. I don't really have enough money to buy another video card outright, I would have to sell my current 980 first. This would suck and would leave me without my rig for a little while. At the end of September, I will have a lot more money and can buy a new card then. Looking at the 1070 specs, it absolutely seems worth it, especially if I can get a decent price for my 980 (although with the 1070/1080s out now, I may have a harder time getting a good price). Likely, I will go with the 1080, it isn't that much more expensive. At the end of September, will there be a new badass card about to hit the market, though? Maybe at that point these to cards will be irrelevant?

I guess I am forced to wait until the end of September before I can upgrade my video card. In the meantime, I still have a totally badass gaming rig, and I love it.

Edited July 6, 2016 by KocLobster

[Camacha]

5 hours ago, KocLobster said:

Appreciate the clarification. I've decided not to bother with any extra voltage on my GPU, but I'm going to leave my CPU OC'd the way it is. I feel like it should be quite safe where it's at. This was one of many pages I was looking at for OCing (I know it's a reddit page, but the information seemed sound), and it made me think that voltage in itself shouldn't damage a chip; only if the voltage causes the temperature to get too high would it cause damage:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1vpljk/a_basic_crash_course_in_overclocking_facts/

It can be confusing at first, but if you look closely you come to realize it is actually basic physics. Both voltage and heat cause atoms to move around more easily. That is, of course, simplifying things quite a bit, but it is basically what it boils down to. Moving atoms are factual damage - you have a chip that internally is shaped differently than before and intended. Any powered chip will have some level of atom displacement, but when used within the design limits it will take longer than the economical lifespan of a chip to run into any kind of trouble. However, if you increase voltage, effects become stronger. As we know from electroplating, they can occur at low temperatures. Add voltage and speed up the process. The temperature increase is negligible in a large body of fluid. However, as we all know, reactions tend to happen faster and more readily when temperatures are higher. Both effects amplify each other this way.

I have simplified things a bit, but if anyone feels I have simplified them too much or I am flat-out wrong, I do not mind being corrected

 

Quote

I wish I would of caught those posts, I did not even know the 1070/1080 even existed until a few days ago. I don't think there is anything I can really do about it at this point. I don't really have enough money to buy another video card outright, I would have to sell my current 980 first. This would suck and would leave me without my rig for a little while. At the end of September, I will have a lot more money and can buy a new card then. Looking at the 1070 specs, it absolutely seems worth it, especially if I can get a decent price for my 980 (although with the 1070/1080s out now, I may have a harder time getting a good price). Likely, I will go with the 1080, it isn't that much more expensive. At the end of September, will there be a new badass card about to hit the market, though? Maybe at that point these to cards will be irrelevant?

I guess I am forced to wait until the end of September before I can upgrade my video card. In the meantime, I still have a totally badass gaming rig, and I love it.

Leave it. I know you feel like you do not have the latest and greatest, but in computer land, combating that feeling is an expensive affair. You need to realize what you do have and that the GTX980 is still a very quick card. Well above what most people have and, in fact, more than almost anyone. Even though the card has been superseded, you still belong to a pretty exclusive performance club. Enjoy your card and save your money until it is not quick enough for your purposes any more - or when something a lot quicker finally arrived. It will be much more satisfying to spend that money in two or three years. No one would want to touch one of those silly slow power hungry GTX1080 cards any more at that point

All the parts in your PC will be outdated sooner or later. Within a year, Intel will release the next generation CPUs. New SSDs will be released with terrifying speeds. Memory will have numbers we do not dare to dream about. Yet I am sitting here with a PC that was outdated three months after I bought it (which I knew, I just really needed a new PC) and still am very happy with the actual performance. I do not get to brag about it, but I loathe to spend a month's pay every year on bragging rights. I felt exactly how you felt at first, but that wears off in a month or so. Enjoy your amazing hardware. Not very many people have what you have.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Camacha

[KocLobster]

1 hour ago, Camacha said:

Leave it. I know you feel like you do not have the latest and greatest, but in computer land, combating that feeling is an expensive affair. You need to realize what you do have and that the GTX980 is still a very quick card. Well above what most people have and, in fact, more than almost anyone. Even though the card has been superseded, you still belong to a pretty exclusive performance club. Enjoy your card and save your money until it is not quick enough for your purposes any more - or when something a lot quicker finally arrived. It will be much more satisfying to spend that money in two or three years. No one would want to touch one of those silly slow power hungry GTX1080 cards any more at that point

All the parts in your PC will be outdated sooner or later. Within a year, Intel will release the next generation CPUs. New SSDs will be released with terrifying speeds. Memory will have numbers we do not dare to dream about. Yet I am sitting here with a PC that was outdated three months after I bought it (which I knew, I just really needed a new PC) and still am very happy with the actual performance. I do not get to brag about it, but I loathe to spend a month's pay every year on bragging rights. I felt exactly how you felt at first, but that wears off in a month or so. Enjoy your amazing hardware. Not very many people have what you have.

Everytime I come to the KSP forums, I am always wrong. Once again, someone has brought something to my attention that I did not see myself, and it makes a lot of sense to me. You are right, of course, and you make a great point. I was telling myself that because they just came out with something new mere weeks after I bought my system, and because it was the GFX (its gotta be the best!) that I would be wrong not to upgrade to the 1080 in ~3 months. While I'm not really vein enough to gloat or brag about my system (you'll never see my system specs in my signature, for example), I do take pleasure in having the absolute most current components, GFX especially (without spending thousands).

Maybe if I start with the 10x0, I'll just snowball to buying new components for everything every few months? That could be an expensive road. I guess we'll see what happens between now and ~3 months from now. To be sure, I'll have the money, but I may not care at that point about upgrading, knowing that I'll probably see no observable difference between the 980 and 10x0.

[Toonu]

Hi, I've been thinkign about new pc for long time and now I made some plans. Can someone tell me if it is good/compatible and some suggestions to it please(like some better companies with better HDDs or others...)?  I will be much thankful...

Thanks

Ave!

Toonu

Yeah..and the link :D...http://pcpartpicker.com/list/gQZVqs And ignore 3 fans, I just put there more for later decision..

Edited July 7, 2016 by Toonu

[Elthy]

Isnt the RX 480 avaiable for 200$, too (4Gb version)?

[Toonu]

Is that much better? Anyway I use other prices...european...and its 2x more expensive than 660....

Edited July 7, 2016 by Toonu

[HafCoJoe]

2 hours ago, Toonu said:

Hi, I've been thinkign about new pc for long time and now I made some plans. Can someone tell me if it is good/compatible and some suggestions to it please(like some better companies with better HDDs or others...)?  I will be much thankful...

Thanks

Ave!

Toonu

Yeah..and the link :D...http://pcpartpicker.com/list/gQZVqs And ignore 3 fans, I just put there more for later decision..

That build looks great  - I ran an i5-6500 with a 970 for a year and I can say it's a powerful CPU. I recently upgraded to a 6700k myself but that's because I'm going into video editing and need the extra power for that. 

[Camacha]

10 minutes ago, Avera9eJoe said:

That build looks great  - I ran an i5-6500 with a 970 for a year

How did you do that? The thing came out in Q3 2015. Technically, we are in Q3, but just barely.

[HafCoJoe]

Just now, Camacha said:

How did you do that? The thing came out in Q3 2015. Technically, we are in Q3, but just barely.

Ach I spoke fast - I got an i5-6500 around new years last year. So that's actually about 7 months . I had a GTX 660 and an AMD CPU before that but after my MoBo died I swapped to an intel MoBo and processor, as well as a 970.

[Camacha]

3 minutes ago, Avera9eJoe said:

Ach I spoke fast - I got an i5-6500 around new years last year. So that's actually about 7 months . I had a GTX 660 and an AMD CPU before that but after my MoBo died I swapped to an intel MoBo and processor, as well as a 970.

Nobody expects the Duna Inquisition! Nothing gets past us and we will point out even your smallest mistakes to you

[HafCoJoe]

Just now, Camacha said:

Nobody expects the Duna Inquisition! Nothing gets past us and we will point out even your smallest mistakes to you

D:

lol

Edited July 7, 2016 by Avera9eJoe

[Toonu]

Yeah, I really need upgrade PC, even KSP have low fps when I instaled EVE or scatterer, I m sad I havent realistic earth.  No, just joking, but its true I have problems with this mods...one of reasons to upgrade, because games are more and more eating hardware specs.

[Elthy]

1 hour ago, Toonu said:

Is that much better? Anyway I use other prices...european...and its 2x more expensive than 660....

The RX 480 is 40-50% faster than the GTX 960. And whats the GTX 660 you mention here? Its totaly outdated.

Also that CPU cooler looks similar to a stock cooler, i doubt its worth its money.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Elthy

[Toonu]

Lol, typo....GTX 960 GV-N960OC-4GD, not GTX 660. Sorry....  50% faster, but 2x more expensive...

[worir4]

If you want, you could wait a week or two for the GTX 1060 to come out. I think it is just over 210 dollars. Other than that i would recommend the RX 480. I just got mine and it is awesome, I can play most games on 1440p now. I upgraded from a HD 7870 which is about the same as the 960 i think.

[Toonu]

Yeah I saw new 1060, its amazing....but expensive too  There are very very very lower pays than in Europe or Us....

EDIT: And now I see it cost monthly pay....

Edited July 7, 2016 by Toonu

[Toonu]

I have one more question if I can....

What dependencies have GPU on computer? Except socket like PCI E x16/x8/etc and power supply pins?

Does anything like frequencies of memory or graphic core affect anything? Like xMHz GPU core is incopatible with xGHZ CPU?

Because I really thinked about instead of buying new PC just change GPU which is bit outdated...

Thanks

Ave!

Toonu

[Elthy]

Not realy, but you shoulndt buy a GPU which doesnt match the rest of your system when it comes to performance to avoid bottlenecks. Whats your other hardware?

[Toonu]

I will probably buy rather the pc I descibed there before,but the money ahhh..