Upgrade - A year later in my computer building life

[Nietzsche-san]

I know you're going to have a hard time believing me but I think the Creative T12 sounds better than the T20 partly because the frequencies go lower (more base) and lower high frequency as well which I find softer on the ears. I'm talking about the wired ones because I never tried the wireless ones. I think the wired ones were on amazon.com for $50 (or the Dell website). Yeah, smaller, less expensive and somewhat less powerful but in my opinion, still superior. (I have both the T20 and T12.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16836116047

So these puppies? Well, will they serve me as well as the Klipsch will in the long run?

 

[fastamdman]

Didnt read through this entire thread but here is my 2 cents. As for a hard drive, buy it at a store like bestbuy as they have had 1TB drives at 55 dollars lately.

As for the monitor grab the ASUS VS series. Just type that into google, pic whatever fits your price/size budget .

For speakers, I use the default asus speakers or surround sound personally. I have the klipsch promedia ultra 5.1 setup *with better speakers spliced in *

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Didnt read through this entire thread but here is my 2 cents. As for a hard drive, buy it at a store like bestbuy as they have had 1TB drives at 55 dollars lately.

As for the monitor grab the ASUS VS series. Just type that into google, pic whatever fits your price/size budget .

For speakers, I use the default asus speakers or surround sound personally. I have the klipsch promedia ultra 5.1 setup *with better speakers spliced in *

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236175

My only concern is the backlight and overkill contrast ratio might backfire as we discussed in the thread earlier.

And why would default speakers, in your opinion, produce better quality for price than the Klipsch?

 

[mfenn]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236175

My only concern is the backlight and overkill contrast ratio might backfire as we discussed in the thread earlier.

Actually, the best deal right now is the LG IPS236V at Best Buy for $180. $180 IPS panels don't come around very often, so I suggest grabbing that immediately.

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Actually, the best deal right now is the LG IPS236V at Best Buy for $180. $180 IPS panels don't come around very often, so I suggest grabbing that immediately.

That looks sexy. Do you suggest waiting til Cyber Monday, or gettin' dat bitch nowwwww.

 

[coolpurplefan]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16836116047

So these puppies? Well, will they serve me as well as the Klipsch will in the long run?

Yes.

Even though I read some good comments in general about Klipsch, I also read sometimes they're defective.

 

[mfenn]

That looks sexy. Do you suggest waiting til Cyber Monday, or gettin' dat bitch nowwwww.

Get it now. The chances of you getting an IPS for a similar price are low, even on BF or CM.

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Yes.

Even though I read some good comments in general about Klipsch, I also read sometimes they're defective.

Why do I have the strangest feeling you're being paid to sponsor Logitech gear? Your signature makes my spidey sense go wee wee wee lawlz.

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Get it now. The chances of you getting an IPS for a similar price are low, even on BF or CM.

Shizniz just ordered. Thank you for the find, my friend, I'm sure I'll be very pleased Great advice as always!

 

[coolpurplefan]

Why do I have the strangest feeling you're being paid to sponsor Logitech gear? Your signature makes my spidey sense go wee wee wee lawlz.

I'm somewhat "anal" about sound but in my own particular way. I tried various speakers including Bose in stores but was not always convinced. The T12 is just one of those speaker pairs that just speaks to me, if you will.

I understand people have varying opinions however. One salesman at Futureshop for example was acting like he was almost tortured by the fact I wanted to buy the T20 (before I bought the T12). He told me he had the experience of knowing the difference and practically had to argue with him to leave with the T20s. The T12s were originally just for a second computer but that other computer ended up being my main computer for certain things anyway so the T12s remained on that one.

If I wanted to put out a disclaimer however it is that I have not tried every speaker out there. And my ears have never been "adapted" to a 3 speaker setup. But I have tried JBL Duet speakers which I find are somewhat acceptable if you can get them used at a cheap price. Otherwise, the T12 in my opinion are at the sweetspot in terms of price and performance.

If you wanted to spend more then I guess you could spend hours and hours researching Audioengine A2, M-Audio (several models) etc.

I'm not paid by any company. Just voicing my opinion because I know others out there probably have felt the frustration of "crappy speakers" for a long time. I endured it for much too long for unknown reasons. I guess I just didn't want to spend the money.

 

[mfenn]

Shizniz just ordered. Thank you for the find, my friend, I'm sure I'll be very pleased Great advice as always!

No prob. I'm sure you'll like it.

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Coolpurple fan, I internalized your advice but still went with the Klipsch. The quality reassurance and my satisfaction verify my choice. I am in love with these speakers; my only complaint is that I can crank them to the max without destroying my entire block. More than this, Klipsch randomly sent me an awesome T-shirt of my favorite color and a perfect size....it's scary they knew this. Haha.

Also, I am in love with the IPS monitor. No backlight bleeding or ghosting anywhere; Skyrim and Battlefield look amazing! As for the latter, however, I now have problems running it stably. As I begin a match, I won't run into any framerate problems, but when shit starts hitting the fans, the framerate goes to shit. I have a good GPU by today's standards in terms of power (I understand its power consumption lacks compared to 560tis and whatnot). My CPU is also quite decent, to my knowledge. I'm currently overclocking it using the Smart6 Gigabyte software and cranking it to 3.2ghz, but want to throw it into the highest stock overclock setting, 3.8ghz. But I feel I must get a new heatsink before I venture into this realm; moreover, I think I should do it manually, learn how my computer works even more in-depth, and not copout by using some program. Do any of you agree?

So, basically my question is two-fold: 1. Will overclocking my CPU improve my BF3 framerate, since I believe the game to be very CPU reliant? 2. Should I follow my own advice about overclocking and start edumacating myself? If so, should I create a new thread or would one of you not mind using this thread? I will read stickies and guides, of course, but private assistance helps clarify these directions.


Thank you for all your help so far! I hope to hear from some of you soon!

 

[mfenn]

Hmm, an i5 760 should handle BF3 without too much issues, though it depends on what the framerate "going to shit" means in terms of actual numbers (use FRAPS). Here's a simple experiment that you can do to determine if you're CPU limited or GPU limited:

1. Start FRAPS and have it write the framerates out to a file.
2. Run the game as normal for maybe 20-30 minutes.
3. Paste the framerates into a spreadsheet, calculate the average and minimum framerates.
4. Clear out the FRAPS framerate file, go back into the game and reduce all graphics quality and resolution settings to the minimum.
5. Play the game for another 20-30 minutes, try to pick similar maps, etc.
6. Do the same calculations on this new set of framerates.

If the framerates improved by lowering the details, you are GPU-limited at normal settings. If they didn't improve, you are CPU-limited.

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Hmm, an i5 760 should handle BF3 without too much issues, though it depends on what the framerate "going to shit" means in terms of actual numbers (use FRAPS). Here's a simple experiment that you can do to determine if you're CPU limited or GPU limited:

1. Start FRAPS and have it write the framerates out to a file.
2. Run the game as normal for maybe 20-30 minutes.
3. Paste the framerates into a spreadsheet, calculate the average and minimum framerates.
4. Clear out the FRAPS framerate file, go back into the game and reduce all graphics quality and resolution settings to the minimum.
5. Play the game for another 20-30 minutes, try to pick similar maps, etc.
6. Do the same calculations on this new set of framerates.

If the framerates improved by lowering the details, you are GPU-limited at normal settings. If they didn't improve, you are CPU-limited.

Okay, I recorded them using the program, but also had the top left corner frame telling me what the FPS was - Under medium settings, my framerate obviously improved, but even under full ultra max settings, I could still play stably at 30-32 fps. The problem lies in "hiccups," what I previously called "goes to shit." What will happen is sometimes in the midst of chaotic battles, but sometimes just in the revival/customize class/weapons before respawn screen, my frames would literally hiccup, drop to 1-5 fps, then after maybe 10-15 seconds return to normal.

So by your test, I would be GPU-limited...however, I don't mind 30 FPS; it's the hiccups that warrant my skepticism as to what exactly is the problem. They are infrequent, but frequent enough to mess with the experience.

 

[mfenn]

Drops like that are generally due to a few things:
- Background processes using too much CPU/GPU power
- Driver and/or game bugs
- "Tweaking" programs that poll the hardware for information (GPU-Z, HWMonitor, etc.)
- Insufficient RAM, thus causing paging to disk

Check out those issues before going out and buying a new GPU/CPU.

 

[Nietzsche-san]

Drops like that are generally due to a few things:
- Background processes using too much CPU/GPU power
- Driver and/or game bugs
- "Tweaking" programs that poll the hardware for information (GPU-Z, HWMonitor, etc.)
- Insufficient RAM, thus causing paging to disk

Check out those issues before going out and buying a new GPU/CPU.

Okay, I made sure to keep everything else besides the game closed, and it definitely improved the situation, although it happened for a few seconds. Soo, problem, for the most part, besides my system slowly aging, is solved! Gracias!

How soon do you think until I might need to start replacing parts? I see there's a lot of new types of RAM out, pretty cheap, too; also, my motherboard was discontinued a while ago - this isn't a good sign, is it? Haha.

 

[mfenn]

Your system uses DDR3, so you can get any of the low-priced 8GB DDR3 kits for $40 or so. You should probably even be able to get the 8GB version of your Ripjaws kit and have 12GB for a very low price since the UD3 has 4 DIMM slots.