General computer talk/advice

One of the feet on my keyboard was starting to atrophy so I just cut it off.
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HD 7950 sucks a lot of power, and your PSU is only 400w, and not even an 80+ certified PSU. How is your home not on fire yet?

 

ah, got out my old HP laptop, 183 "Important" updates are now installing, and god it reminds me as to what a joy this ATI Radeon X1600 is, the sheer nature of the beast, with barely enough power for smooth scrolling at native resolution on the "Max Battery" with very little power consumption, then Balanced is simply a lower sped Max Performance which is a bit slower and a sizeable margin quieter, you can scroll at 60FPS! (yay). then comes "Max Performance" where the GPU reveals its un-abated self, no power management to slow the chip down now, with the full voltage pumping through the old 90NM silicone the chip can reach 480MHZ Overclocked! from 425MHZ stock. Oh this is chip perfection, it simply works fantastic with little power draw when you dont need power but has the power to run games of the time (<2006) at medium-high settings, and also by some miracle the sims 3 runs pretty well too!

 

Hum what? It is certified. http://m.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00105016.html
It's one of the best 400w PSU you can buy in France. Recommended by most French forums. And my PC only consume about 350w.

 

From a quick Google it seems to be an 80+ bronze psu. So it's probably an OK psu, I am not familiar with the brand though.
For me I would want to be running a 500w psu in a gaming system with a high end gpu just to give some headroom and room for upgrades. But the system should only be using around 350w at load as a guestimation so it should probably be fine.

EDIT:
Ok, I am now not quite sure what it is. According to the link you posted it's 80+ bronze. But the testing report shows the PSU as only being 80+ certified with a white 80+ logo on the psu. So I can't tell if it is 80+ or 80+ bronze rated.


The fact that the 12v rail runs at 8v when at mid to full load is somewhat curious (according to testing report) . Don't know if that is normal or not though.

https://media.ldlc.com/bo/file/fich...c_com_ldlc-bg-400_ecos 1240_1_430w_report.pdf

 

It is not normal no. That line should be regulated to a +/-5%tolerance under both minimum and maximum load, anything else is an instant dismissal of ATX compliance

 

Hmmm... Strange

 

... That's not my PSU. Ldlc is a French web site who sold PC parts, one of the best selling web site in France.
It's using Seasonic parts. Again, it's one of the best 400w Psu you can buy here.
I can't find test or proof in English... Since it's only sold in France. They also build laptops, monitors, computer cases...
They are well known for making high quality hardware at good prices.
http://m.ldlc.com

There's 3 big pc parts seller in France. Topachat, Matériel.net and LDLC.

 

But that is the page you linked to in your comment. The spec sheet is linked in the product description.

 

Uh. OK. The image did not looks like mine.
I don't know much on PSU. I bought what people recommended me to buy.

 

Ryzen 3 is out, and it looks pretty promising, most benchmarks of the Ryzen 3 1300x @3.9GHz takes the lead in some benchmarks, with Intel in the dust. High IPC utilizing games (like beam), on the other hand, favour Intel still.

 

Beam is fine on ryzen. It's IPC isn't far behind Intel and at 3.9ghz is plenty strong for the most demanding vehicles.
Biggest issue on FX wasn't even the IPC, was just windows mismanaging affinity to account for shared fpu

 

They might have screwed up the link in their product description. Either way, if yours has an 80+ bronze sticker on it, it should be fine.

 

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to upgrade to Ryzen 3 over anything else due to the price/performance... A 1300x and a 1050ti will be a great combo.

Maybe I'll be able to flog my old CPU, Motherboard and RAM for like £120 after I get the new shiz.

 

What do you think of this build ? :
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Ulrichou86/saved/#view=RXm4D3

 

Which one? The Ryzen build?
If so, I'd change the GPU unless you're getting this build in 1 year+, because every card is out of stock and inflates due to cryptomining. I don't know much about Ryzen yet, so I can't help you there.

 

Personally I would probably axe the CPU cooler and go for something much cheaper, I don't see the value proposition of spending that much on CPU cooling. You may even be able to buy a faster processor and an air cooler for less than the 1600x plus that liquid cooler.

However I would recommend keeping that CPU, then transferring the money into GPU power. That will get you the most fps per dollar. Ofc if you intend on running super heavy CPU stuff rather than games put it towards the CPU. Or put it in your pocket for later, that works too

 

Don't know when, not soon for sure, Yeah with those Bitcoins mining stuff GPU are a pain to find at a good price ^^ That was just for the price range. I really want to try Ryzen, I'm not sure but this one I think is the equivalent to a high end I5/middle end i7.

Yeah totally, I would like to overclock as much as I can the CPU, if you have suggestions on CPU cooler ^^. I don't know much on GPU, so if you also have suggestions for it. I don't want to spend more than 1k on this "Rebuild", so you know the budget. I would prefer sticking with Amd GPU, because, a long story whatever.

I just want a build that will be easy to upgrade and last a few years ^^

Thanks for your help!

 

Intel coffee lake is using LGA1151, too! Which means I can upgrade to a 6 core 8th generation I5, instead of a 4 core 7th gen I5!

 

Oops

 

To be honest, any medium-high end air cooler that supports your CPU will give you best bang for buck. You can try and buy a cooler that will allow you to squeeze every last drop out of the CPU, but you still don't know how the silicone lottery will treat you and you really are at diminishing returns.

A 120mm CPU liquid cooler would probably be a fairly good bet if you really do want to push things without extortionate pricing. But I don't know the liquid cooling market well enough to give good recommendations. I guess anyone with a good warranty and reputation will net you a good product. Just look around at reviews.

Unless you are building a show piece PC or a super high end rig an expensive CPU cooler is not really the way to go.

For example, for the price of liquid cooling your CPU on the cheapest 120mm liquid cooler you can find, you would be a lot of the way towards getting a Ryzen R7 1700 instead of the 1600x. The 1700 would be faster with a small overclock on a cheap cooler than the 1600x would be with a much higher end cooler. The difference between the CPU cooler in the build you linked and a Hyper 212 Evo would actually get you the 1700 plus pocket change. Which I would say is a far better deal.

So as boring and cliche as it is, a Hyper 212 Evo will give you good value for money.

If you want something a little more interesting just look around at other brands of 12cm air coolers, the Hyper 212 gets mentioned a lot but I have no doubt that everyone else has products just as competent at the same or similar price points. There are some really good performance comparisons out there on websites like toms hardware that do group tests.