Post your setup!

[BTGBullseye]

From what I'm hearing in the gaming dev community, DX12 isn't going to be as prevalent as Vulkan in next-gen games and programs... DX12 is way more complicated, less powerful, has more overhead, and is limited entirely to Windows 10. (Vulkan has none of those issues, and overall outperforms DX12 by around 12% last I checked) Going by this alone, I recommend to everyone not to build their gaming rig around DX12. Add in the limitation of having to run always-on OS-level spyware called "Windows 10", and you can guess what my recommendations are for OS choices.

 

AMD doesn't actually beat Nvidia cards in any performance area, excluding price/performance ratio, (and sometimes not even then) and that one area of a totally unused API. (at least so far it's totally unused by anything except benchmarks)

 

Also, Nvidia next-gen GPUs will have Async Compute. http://wccftech.com/nvidia-async-compute-directx-12-oxide-games/

[Heliocentrical]

Does anyone here overclock? If so why? Does the performance really matter for the tasks you're doing? Are you at concerned of your PC's overall lifespan?

 

Also does the extra $20 justify buying an FX 8350 CPU for higher performance over buying an FX 8320 CPU? I've heard that the extra performance doesn't hurt to have. But does it matter? I'm asking out of curiosity. I have an FX 8320 CPU and this has always bugged me. The FX 8350 CPU just doesn't sound very cost effective for what you get out of it over an FX 8320 CPU.

[BTGBullseye]

Does anyone here overclock? If so why? Does the performance really matter for the tasks you're doing? Are you at concerned of your PC's overall lifespan?

I overclock GPUs when I can, because more FPS. That is really the only usage scenario I would consider overclocking for. (any other scenario and you're risking system stability and even complete hardware death for a negligible time savings on things that don't need it)

 

Also does the extra $20 justify buying an FX 8350 CPU for higher performance over buying an FX 8320 CPU? I've heard that the extra performance doesn't hurt to have. But does it matter? I'm asking out of curiosity. I have an FX 8320 CPU and this has always bugged me. The FX 8350 CPU just doesn't sound very cost effective for what you get out of it over an FX 8320 CPU.

I would say yes. It wouldn't be justified upgrading from one to the other, but as an initial purchase, it is worth it. 1/7 performance boost, 1/7.5 price increase.

 

When it comes to AMD CPU speeds, 1GHz is equivalent to 0.8GHz on an Intel. (4.0GHz AMD = 3.4GHz Intel) This is a fairly accurate aproximation, and has been this way since the introduction of the Core series of Intel processors.

[Luis]

So, about my upgrade. I got a used I5 4430, an ASUS Z87-K ATX mobo and 8 gigs of Corsair Vegeance 1333 mhz for $280. Considering just an i5 6500 would run me $400 in the local market, it's a great bang for the buck.. I'm still stuck with the HD 6750 but for CPU intensive games, it's a world of difference from the Core 2 DUo E7500. Planetside went from 6 FPS on 720p to full 60 FPS on low settings at 1080p, I'm able to crank some settings up but in firefights it dips to 30 so keeping it at low so it stays at 50-60 during intense combat. I'm planning on getting a GTX 960 or probably a 380 as this board has crossfire support which could be a possibility in the future. I planned to go for a 6500 and something like a 970 or 390 but that's now way out of the money I can spend on this so I'm glad I got a decent update

 

Edit: also, mimnimum and average FPS went up in games like Borderlands 2 and The Pre Sequel, I was able to crank up the draw distance and foliage distance and it looks way better, there's a lot less pop up which used to draw me away from the game a lot lol.

[Heliocentrical]

I have a question, if I wanted to upgrade from my FX-8320 what would be the most ideal CPU to upgrade to? The i5 4690K looks pretty good. But there's appears to be little benefit from getting an i7 4770k or an i7 4790k.

Edited August 14, 2016 by Guest (see edit history)

[BTGBullseye]

I have a question, if I wanted to upgrade from my FX-8320 what would be the most ideal CPU to upgrade to?

The question is so incredibly vague as to leave me with no possible answer. It may not seem vague to you, but I need a LOT more information than just what CPU you're moving away from to determine what is an ideal CPU for your needs and means.

 

The i5 4690K looks pretty good and there's appears to be little benefit from getting an i7 4770k or an i7 4790k.

The difference is around a 95% performance increase on multithreaded processing. (the i7's are essentially hyperthreaded versions of the i5)

 

Would you mind telling what you intend to do with your system, and what your budget is? (that way I can give you an appropriate answer)

[Heliocentrical]

I'm interested in making my own videos similar to what Ross does with his game dungeon so that would fall under the categories video editing, rendering and recording gameplay footage I believe. Though Ross has got an FX 8350 so I don't know how much I would benefit from getting an i5 4690k. Maybe I should focus on getting an SSD instead. I'm honestly not to sure what I should be focusing on hardware wise.

[BTGBullseye]

I would definitely recommend starting by getting at least a pair of SSDs. (1 for reading the original footage from, and the other for writing the edited video to) DO NOT get TLC based SSDs. The best for this usage scenario would be Synchronous MLC, (usually about 25-50% extra on the pricetag over Asynchronous) but Asynchronous MLC should be fine. (the most common consumer NAND type) If you want to go for the absolute best, get SLC, and pay between 10x & 20x for the same storage space. (if you can even find the stuff, it's rather rare nowadays) Also, I highly recommend the Mushkin brand. (they have a long history of extremely high reliability memory and SSD products, and have some of the best quality control in the world)

 

After that, I would actually suggest looking into whether or not the software you're using is capable of utilizing your GPU's hardware transcoding capabilities, and if it doesn't, look into getting a program that does. (this can reduce a 2 hour conversion down to as little as 30 minutes in some situations, if you have a decent dedicated GPU) The best can use both the GPU and CPU at the same time. (there are also free audio transcoding programs out there that can use this, and usually halves [or better] the time required for conversion of audio)

 

Next, I would recommend switching to an Intel platform, simply because you can get native DDR4 support, and overall much better performance on average. Go for 5th gen processors though, not the 4th gen that you were considering. (the 5th gen has some small updates to the commands it uses, which improve video processing significantly)

 

If you really want to get the best video editing rig possible, you'll need to tell me your budget, and then I can make a theoretical build for you.

[Heliocentrical]

Yeah I really can't afford an Intel DDR4 platform. I have around $100 to spend so basically enough to get a component for my already made FX-8320 PC.

 

So would 2 120gb Mushkin SSDs be better than 1 Crucial MX200 250GB SSD? That's the other SSD I was looking at but I can only afford one at that price.

 

Are there any beginners guides that you could recommend for me to follow? I've never done this kind of setup before and I don't know exactly what I'm doing. I'm not even sure what kind of software I should be looking into getting.

[BTGBullseye]

You can get a decent 256GB Mushkin for $80 on Newegg... (or a 240GB with better performance for the same price)

 

You can get a pair of 120GB Mushkin ECO2 SSDs for $50 apiece and free shipping. (my recommended) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226678

 

Larger capacities are cheaper per GB, so always look for the largest capacity you can afford.

 

Just use them as standard data drives, nothing installed on them. Put the source video that you intend to edit on one drive, and set the output from the editor to the other drive.

 

As for guides, I never did video editing myself, so have no firsthand experience with the process. Try searching for forums that deal specifically with video editing, and go from there.

[Heliocentrical]

Can I wipe my 500gb Windows 7 HDD and reinstall Windows 7 on one of the SSDs so I could use my 500gb HDD for extra storage or is that a bad idea? I'm not sure why it would be but I wanted to check to be sure.

[BTGBullseye]

You could, but then you'll be compromising the video transcoding speeds. (Windows and your video editing program are going to be reading/writing from their install locations a lot, and it can reduce the drive IO bandwidth available to read/write the video files) This wouldn't be a huge drop in performance though.

 

Of course, you would gain the speed of having all of those programs and the OS on an SSD, which can massively improve overall system speeds compared to using an HDD. (I personally would never go back to HDD from SSD if I had a choice)

[Heliocentrical]

What exactly are the benefits of using two SSDs as opposed to just one? I still don't quite understand that.

[BTGBullseye]

If you use just one, then it's reading and writing from the same drive. Effectively it reduces the transfer speed of the files. With 2 drives, it can use the maximum read speed on one drive, while simultaneously using the maximum write speed on the other.

 

2 SSDs, faster video transcoding. 1 SSD, better space for the price. The difference in conversion speeds are guaranteed to be entirely dependant on the program and other system hardware if you use 2 SSDs. A single SSD may or may not be the bottleneck in the transcode process, depending on the program and other system hardware.

 

Get the 2 SSDs if you want to guarantee maximum possible performance for this specific use. If you intend to use your system for other things primarilly, and just dabble in the video editing, then I'd recommend saving up about $40 extra, and get a 512GB SSD. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226765

[Heliocentrical]

I think I understand now. So basically each SSD would be used for a single task but that task would be able to run at the SSD's maximum speed. Whereas if I had 1 SSD that was used for both reading and writing tasks along with storing other stuff it's speed would become bottlenecked by those other things.

 

As for video editing software I think I'll go with Lightworks since there's a free version of it. Now so that I don't bottleneck one of my SSDs I would want to install Lightworks on my HDD like I would normally correct?

 

This is all quite fascinating. I really didn't know much in regards to storage and tasks until I gave a thought as to how it all works and this all makes perfect sense now that I'm thinking about it.

[BTGBullseye]

Yes, but if what I'm reading about Lightworks is right, your CPU is going to be your bottleneck if you have a decent GPU already. A single large SSD will probly do you nicely if you decide on using Lightworks.

[Heliocentrical]

Well I already have an R9 280. What about Blender? Interestingly enough I found out that Blender can do video editing and I already installed it for 3D modeling purposes so if I use Blender I wouldn't need to install another program.

 

Another question I was wondering is could I record raw gameplay to the SSD that I'm going to be editing the source files on? Raw gameplay footage would be the source files that I'm editing.

[Luis]

So I finally made my full upgrade. I bought everything used but well taken care of. I said in previous posts I wanted to make my PC VR-Ready and I did so to some extent. I got the CPU, MOBO and RAM for $280 all together which was not a bad deal even though they're last gen components and got a MSI Gaming X 1070 for $500, which is not bad locally. Brand new Zotac 1070s go for that price ion local stores while the same MSI card brand new goes for $540 and it was only used for a month.

 

I got a an ASUS z87-K, 8 GB of Corsair 1600 Mhz RAM and a Core i5 4430 which runs at 3 GHz and 3.2 in Turbo. According to the SteamVR thingy I'm all set. I'm not sure about the processor being all that futureproof for heavy, AAA VR but I just figured I can buy an i7 4770 or 4790 for cheap when this one falls short and take advantage of the OC capabilities of this motherboard and will have a decent performance boost. and will be all set for 2 or 3 years.

 

 

 

Now I wanna upgrade my monitor because I have a fairly basic 1080p VGA screen. I wanna get a 21:9 but they're really expensive, specially the higher rez ones but I guess I'll have to save The performance right now is mind blowing compared to my HD 6750. GTA V runs at 100 and something FPS on ultra, same with Borderlands. I really don't play many exigent games (although I've limited myself to due to my system, except for running Metro 2033 on my Core 2 duo ) so the plan was really, really futureproofing myself with this build for at least 4 years, that's the least I expect out of the graphics card. Planetside 2 looks gorgeous as well and plays amazingly, it's another world compared to running it on minimum at 1080p with the 6750.

[BTGBullseye]

Grats! Looks nice!

[Heliocentrical]

Which I5 processor is best for the money? In the future I want a definite upgrade from my FX-8320 and the I5-4460 looks promising. The I5 4460 is only $50 more than the FX-8320 and according to these benchmarks completely knocks the FX 8320 out of the water. Any thoughts?

 

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4460-vs-AMD-FX-8320

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117302