F@H **Official** SPAM Thread Episode III: Homestretch, 2012

[ShyguyXPC]

Well Figured a new Spam thread since the last one I started went on for over 5 months now (May 22), so was time for a new thread...

... Too many pages to flip through.

http://www.techimo.com/forum/distrib...22-2012-a.html




So, figured since we're sort of in the Home Stretch of the rest of the year, a new thread for the last couple months...


Let the Spammage commence.

[ShyguyXPC]

Looked up some reviews on the newer Trinity APU's, and a bit disappointed in their performance, really no better than the newer IB Core i3's, 3220 I think is the base IB i3?

Anyways, in most computational benchmarks the i3 just decimates the A10 5600K.

When it comes to gaming benches though, the Intel's don't stand a chance.


Now has me wondering whether to go i3 for the HTPC hardware?

and just pop in a decent GPU along side?

Thinking those 144 Core GT 440's I saw on Geeks if they still have them.

[SoloCamo]

LOL.... Here I was not realizing the old thread was locked and saying... "hasnt been an update in a while, sites really slowing down " until I realized lol.

8350 comes Friday

___

This said, as far as i3 vs a10 goes, it's a toss up. I would say i3 as it's much better power consumption wise and from raw processing power, it's clearly better. However, being that the Trinity has a good enough built in gpu as a package on the cheap, it's really not a bad choice at all either.

Realistically, for an HTPC either will more than enough. Power wise Intel + 440 is within what, 20 watts of each other vs just the APU?

[ShyguyXPC]

Yeah, the Intel would be 65W and the 440 (the 144 Core models I'm looking at), should be 75W or less, since it has no PCIe power connector.


was looking at the 2 on Geeks, couldn't figure out why one was 10 bucks more... both were 440 core models.

Seems the $10 more models clocks are running at over 800Mhz on the core, vs the 550-600-ish clocks of the other.


More cores, more clocks... $10 more, WIN WIN!!!

would be the one I'd go for.

Hell, if the Opty 165 wasn't such a bottleneck CPU, even OC'd, I'd consider a pair of 440's in SLI in the modded DFI board to run SLI.

these GT 440's, have 144 cores, 800+ Clock speeds, 1500+ Shader core, 192-bit memory bus.

the GTS 450, similar specs, but 192 Cores, and GDDR5 if I remember right, and that requires a PCIe power connector, plus its nearly 50% longer in length.


for the price, I might consider a Mini ITX mobo, Sandy/Ivy Pentium, and a GT 440 144 core card, for a Mini ITX HTPC, I already have the PSU and case, so that would already be taken care of.

and I think those 440's would fit in that Lian Li case since they are so short and single slot width.

[ShyguyXPC]

kind of leaning towards something like that, Intel 1155 based Dually, Mini ITX, Geforce GT 440 144 core, or similar card... at least 4GB RAM.

And either Windows 7 or 8.

But besides the HTPC functions, something like that would be a good lower end gaming PC, decent Wireless Keyboard, Mouse/Trackball, and Game Controller.

add to that, Steam and some games, and sit on my arse on the couch and game on the HDTV... thinking Skyrim would play nicely on that, at 720p.

[SoloCamo]

Yea, the whole couch thing is nice. Every few monthes I'll lift the tanker and bring it out on the main TV in the house.

40" Phillips 1080p, 240hz LCD. (rebranded samsung) - response time is ridiculously fast and the color clarity puts my Asus vh242 monitor to shame.

_

My GF bit the bullet and we just ordered parts for her pc.

Windows 7 64bit Home
Seagate 1tb 6gb/s - 7200rpm 64mb cache
Asrock A75 micro atx board
5800k Trinity
8gb DDR3 2133 G.Skill sniper - (which was cheaper than the DDR3 1866 of the same and I wanted to make sure the APU had a bit of breathing room)
Thermaltake Tr2 430w psu
Some Enermax case she liked and I can't recall..
Samsung DVD Burner/CD burner Sata Drive

Would normally be $540 shipped, but after promo's got it down to 470 shipped. Not a bad rig for the price

[ShyguyXPC]

nice!!!


Have to wait a few days to bite the bullet on some prices, but I think I may order at least one of those GT 440's from Geeks tonight. I spent $35 on a Sony DVD Player from Walmart today instead of the Bluray Player.

Don't really have much in BR Discs, and I noticed RCA sells a $50 Box that allows you to stream most of those same services you get on the players over Wifi, so if I need that down the road, I can just get one of those.

but $35 vs $78 or $88 for the Blu Ray Player.

Money saved to be used toward a Mini ITX HTPC setup.


Thinking I might just go for one of the Sandy Celeron's and the one Foxconn H67 Mini ITX board, would be about $100 for those 2, $60 for the GT 440, and I already have everything else except a copy of Windows 7 with Windows Media Center..

I am HATING the idea of MS to NOT include WMC in Windows 8 basic version, and its ONLY available on Win8 Pro, as an add on package for free.

Why in gods name would you limit it to ONLY that version, and not any others?

Windows 8 is aimed to be more streamlined, for tablets, as well as HTPC type systems, and you ditch tossing in WMC on the basic cheaper version?

Hell, even the RT version supposedly doesn't have it.


So, NO Windows 8 for the HTPC I guess. Not shelling out $140 for the Pro version just for that one feature, when everything else I need is in the Basic, except that function.

Will just spend $100 on Win7 64 Home Premium, same as I have now.

But for now, just looking at the GPU, CPU and Mobo.

Can toss in a larger HDD later on.

But may spring for one of those as well, Newegg has some Refurbished 300GB Velociraptors for $69 this week.

Would still rather have an SSD and decent 500GB or larger drive in the PC though.

[ShyguyXPC]

Well, pushed the button on the 800MHz Clocked GT 440 from Geeks, the lower 500-ish model was almost out of stock, not sure why, since the other one is nearly 250MHz Higher in clocks, and $10 more.

But from what little I could dig up on the 440's, looks like the OEM versions are the original variants of the 440's, and the retail models may just be gimped OEM versions spec'd similar to the GT 430.

Can never understand what Nvidia's thinking was on the GT 440, why the 144 cores were never retail, as it is, we've been privileged enough to have Nvidia Screw us consumers over consistently for 3 generations on those cards.


The Base GT 430, the GT 440 Retail in GDDR3 and GDDR5 flavors, the GT 620/630 variant cards.

the OEM GT 630 is an actually remakedly better card, 192 core count.


Versus the 96 core count of the Retail 630. (the 620 is the same card, just with a 64-bit bus instead).

Then you have the 3 Flavors of OEM GT 640

GeForce GT 640 (OEM) | GeForce

GeForce GT 640 (OEM) | Specifications | GeForce

And Retail GT 640: GeForce GT 640 | Specifications | GeForce

And then even more confusion the OEM GT 645: GeForce GT 645 (OEM) | Specifications | GeForce

Fewer cores than the GT 640, 192-bit memory and lower clock speeds, with GDDR5, meanwhile some of the 640's are higher spec'd except for the GDDR3 and 128-bit bus.

Just confusing as hell, and with the lower cards, the 620/630, their STILL the same Fermi chips from the GT 430/440 cards.




Anyways, that single 440 with 144 cores, and 800MHz or so Clock speed should easily surpass a Geforce 9800GTX/GTX+ in performance, if not close to the GTS 450

The card I bought, its specs:

NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 1.5GB DDR3 PCI Express (PCIe) DVI/VGA GT 440

vs GTS 450 specs: nVidia GeForce GTS 450 Video Card - Reviews, Specifications, and Pictures - GPUReview.com

GT 440 with higher memory bus, add to that 1.5GB RAM, should do GREAT in games and apps needing higher memory and AA/HDR/Shadow eye candy stuff.


GT 440 also has 192-bit memory bus, vs the GTS 450's 128-bit.


Based on the Clock speeds, Memory bus, the 440 should be as good as the 450, if not slightly better, depends on what the shader cores are clocked at, but shouldn't take much to ramp those up a bit, depending on what its power consumption is.


anyways, will make a great budget range gaming card for a small system.

[ShyguyXPC]

returning the DVD Player tomorrow, seems the damn thing I bought doesn't have any HDMI on it, all Component or Composite connections.

there was 2 Sony models on display, one for $39 the other $35.

assumed since every other Disc Player they had, whether Blu Ray or DVD, had HDMI, and these were Sony Devices, assumed they had one, but guess not.

So back it goes, check out the $39 model, if it does, get that, if not, forget it, and just have to wait till next paycheck for a new one, or the HTPC which ever comes first, since I already bought the GPU for it.

[RobRich]

Are there certain Windows apps you need for your HTPC? If not, you might try looking into MythTV or XBMC on Linux. Both are also available in out-of-the-box Ubuntu distros: Mythbuntu and XBMCbuntu.

As to the RCA STB media player, skip it IMO. You can get an entry-level Roku box for around $50. Stepping up to the ~$100 price point, you can get the Vizio Co-Star.

http://www.vizio.com/costar/overview

I currently have a Roku 2 XS that works great, but I am seriously thinking about ordering the Vizio player for the den television. The Co-Star is a Google TV device, meaning it is essentially an Android set-top box. Ya' get a touchpad remote with integrated keyboard, support for many of the mainstream media services, lots of apps, an usable web browser with Flash media support, and more. It is not going to do much for those into PC gaming, but otherwise, it is pretty much an $100 HTPC solution IMO.

[ShyguyXPC]

got that covered, have XBMC for Windows, XBMCBuntu ISO downloaded and Even OpenElec 2.0 downloaded.

So have the Media OS's and apps covered, but need Windows for the light/moderate gaming aspect.

Nothing really high end, maybe Skyrim or Just Cause 2 type games, where I can "Sit back" and play on the TV, but mostly would be using the Media Player streaming services part of the PC or browsing the web stuff, along with a Blu ray player installed in the unit.

Yeah, saw the Roku 2 and some of those at Walmart as well, also saw the Vizio unit, which I did like, but $100 for the dedicated unit on top of the cost of the DVD player, wasn't really considering. Figured for $100-150 I could build a more flexible and usable HTPC, since I already have 50% of the stuff, just need the CPU, Mobo, dedicated GPU that will fit my case (Especially since the Sandy Bridge Celeron Dual Cores I'm looking at don't have integrated Graphics), Need a Decent sized HDD, I'm looking at the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB they have on newegg for $69.99 this week after promo code, but still a bit high for my wallet right now.

I could get an SSD and decent sized HDD, but those would cost more than the XT, and the XT is just a good over all balance of both tech in one drive.

for the time being though I still have the spare 80GB Velociraptor to use for an OS and few apps.

Biggest dent in the wallet will be another copy of Windows 7 64-bit.

Although I could get Windows 8 Basic, and just do a dual boot into XBMCbuntu, which could always be an option as well.

Save a few bucks going that route, as I need to get the wireless peripherals for the setup as well, looking at one of Logitech's Wireless Trackballs, and a MS Wireless Keyboard, and then any number of RF or BT Wireless game controllers.

[ShyguyXPC]

though down the road, maybe in the spring after tax season I may pick up one of those Vizio Co-Stars, do like the GoogleTV/android aspect of it, and from my experience the Vizio products aren't THAT bad, for the price, their actually pretty decent.

[ShyguyXPC]

Is it just me, or is it Overclocking Frying the brain cells over at OCN?

Much like Gas fumes destroying brain cells for some Gear heads?


Geforce GT 440 OEM 144 Core Performance/Scores


Seriously, WTF don't they get from my initial post, and the follow up post..

I THINK I F*CKING KNOW THAT BY NOW, but damn, they have to add the lamest comments and replies, its like they don't read.

And this has been much of my little bit of experience over there with threads I've started...

[SoloCamo]

Is it just me, or is it Overclocking Frying the brain cells over at OCN?

Much like Gas fumes destroying brain cells for some Gear heads?


Geforce GT 440 OEM 144 Core Performance/Scores


Seriously, WTF don't they get from my initial post, and the follow up post..

I THINK I F*CKING KNOW THAT BY NOW, but damn, they have to add the lamest comments and replies, its like they don't read.

And this has been much of my little bit of experience over there with threads I've started...

Yea, I've been posting over there a bit and there are unfortunately a lot of dead heads so to speak. Or ignorant people and trolls.

You can find one or two people that know what they are talking about and rest seem out there or just posting just to post.

_

8350 should be waiting for me when I get home from work today!

Can't wait to run 3dmark 11 and see if I can break 9-10k atleast lol.

Only reason I choose an 8350 over an 8320 is because my mobo isn't guaranteed to OC that well.. Sure the PD's use less juice, but I didn't want to risk it and hope that I'll be able to OC. Made that mistake with the 8120 (though I'm glad I did and saved the money as PD is a much more worthy chip)

With a turbo of 4.2 on the 8350, I'm hoping for 4.5ghz and I'll be happy as a clam. If not, even 4.3 or 4.4 is fine too.

Now I can't decide on what to do with my 8120.... Selling it will maybe fetch 100 bucks or so as i'm sure ebay is full of them right now... Might just search geeks.com for a cheap am3+ board and underclock it to save on heat... then pickup 4gb ddr3 or something and throw XP on it. Hrmm, for like 60-70 bucks that doesn't sound like a bad deal at all....

Hrmm... Actually,

Pickup...
4gb DDR3
cheap gpu for HD
am3+ mobo

Then throw in my spare;

XP install
OCZ 700w psu
Seagate 200gb 7200rpm sata

But hrmm.... A case..

Would want this thing to be dead silent. Bah, this is sounding like another money pit.

[Carld]

About the GT 440 cards on Geeks.

wow, do they have SLI support? Anyway the price is right, but even with the 144 CUDA cores, they won't do much. The GT 440 I have with the 96 cores takes 1 day and 6 hours to do a 8018 WU on Folding@home, assuming the WU doesn't fail before completing, and that has happened a few times on the GT 440. That's a 5700 point WU. The 48 extra cores won't make much difference, I don't think. It's interesting that the 144 core models have, at least, SLI connectors.

I looked at many of the other cards.. That HD 6870 with somehow only 960 cores, could easily do 1,000,000,000 keys/sec in RC5-72.

[Carld]

As for normal TV, like hulu HD and youtube and older games, along with SWTOR (friend gave me a collectors editon), the GT 440 seems to work pretty good. SWTOR was very playable, well probably since noone plays it to load them on the screen. I didn't try WoW or BF3 with the GT 440 either.

[ShyguyXPC]

Yea, I've been posting over there a bit and there are unfortunately a lot of dead heads so to speak. Or ignorant people and trolls.

You can find one or two people that know what they are talking about and rest seem out there or just posting just to post.

_

8350 should be waiting for me when I get home from work today!

Can't wait to run 3dmark 11 and see if I can break 9-10k atleast lol.

Only reason I choose an 8350 over an 8320 is because my mobo isn't guaranteed to OC that well.. Sure the PD's use less juice, but I didn't want to risk it and hope that I'll be able to OC. Made that mistake with the 8120 (though I'm glad I did and saved the money as PD is a much more worthy chip)

With a turbo of 4.2 on the 8350, I'm hoping for 4.5ghz and I'll be happy as a clam. If not, even 4.3 or 4.4 is fine too.

Now I can't decide on what to do with my 8120.... Selling it will maybe fetch 100 bucks or so as i'm sure ebay is full of them right now... Might just search geeks.com for a cheap am3+ board and underclock it to save on heat... then pickup 4gb ddr3 or something and throw XP on it. Hrmm, for like 60-70 bucks that doesn't sound like a bad deal at all....

Hrmm... Actually,

Pickup...
4gb DDR3
cheap gpu for HD
am3+ mobo

Then throw in my spare;

XP install
OCZ 700w psu
Seagate 200gb 7200rpm sata

But hrmm.... A case..

Would want this thing to be dead silent. Bah, this is sounding like another money pit.

Did you get the latest newegg ad, it has a promo code for some patriot 1600 8gb kit for $25.99 after code.

[ShyguyXPC]

About the GT 440 cards on Geeks.

wow, do they have SLI support? Anyway the price is right, but even with the 144 CUDA cores, they won't do much. The GT 440 I have with the 96 cores takes 1 day and 6 hours to do a 8018 WU on Folding@home, assuming the WU doesn't fail before completing, and that has happened a few times on the GT 440. That's a 5700 point WU. The 48 extra cores won't make much difference, I don't think. It's interesting that the 144 core models have, at least, SLI connectors.

I looked at many of the other cards.. That HD 6870 with somehow only 960 cores, could easily do 1,000,000,000 keys/sec in RC5-72.

As for normal TV, like hulu HD and youtube and older games, along with SWTOR (friend gave me a collectors editon), the GT 440 seems to work pretty good. SWTOR was very playable, well probably since noone plays it to load them on the screen. I didn't try WoW or BF3 with the GT 440 either.

Yeah, the cards support sli via the bridge connector, don't expect to fold much on it, but for lower end games is more or less what I got it for, and will fit in my lian li case, plus the price was right as well.

[SoloCamo]

Did you get the latest newegg ad, it has a promo code for some patriot 1600 8gb kit for $25.99 after code.

Thanks, will have to check the email when I get home as I may bump up my bro's pc to 8gb (not like he even uses the 6670 I got him for any games, that was a damn waste of money )

Not a bad price at all. My gf paid 40 bucks for 2x 4gb ddr3 2133 of g.skill sniper... Ram prices are low and I hope it stays that way a long while..

[ShyguyXPC]

yeah, its this kit Newegg.com - Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PV38G160C9K

with promo code: EMCJNHD22

not sure how long the code lasts, didn't say in the add or on the site, but I almost bought that as well, but the 4GB 1333 Stick I have now will be fine for my HTPC hardware, and if I'm getting an H61/67 board, OCing is pretty much out of the question, so its wasted for my stuff.