The Power PC Thread [f*ck off consoles]

[Silent_Scone]

Mate, in all honesty even when you're going balls deep on the volts (within safe for 24/7 regions), the VRMs don't really get hot enough on the newer boards to warrant dumping all that heat into the loop...It's a nice touch though. Looks great.

 

[Addicted]

Yay another Asus board :]

Gotta say, they really do win recently with their designs - got a Maximus VI Formula and it looks awesome. (And of course the features on board are also really good).

Had a horrific mess to deal with a few days ago - new AMD drivers came out with Optimization for Watch Dogs - I thought brilliant I'll run the AMD Uninstall utility to properly clear out the drivers so I can have a fresh go with them.

What a mistake. It chose to uninstall ALL AMD drivers, and it seems this board has some AMD USB drivers (or it just likes destroying USB drivers in general), or the tool just went full r****d. The mobo has no PS/2, so I was struggling what to do as keyboard and mouse were not working, not even in Safe Mode, restoring Last Known Configuration etc (especially considering I had come home at lunch to work from home). Luckily had Teamviewer installed so remoted in from another PC and tried all that I could, reinstalling the default USB driver, installing chipset drivers and everything - nothing at all worked. I have to say though, System Restore *_ACTUALLY_* worked, it's the first time ever for me as I usually disable it - but thank god I didn't think time. An hour or so later and I was back.

The fun didn't stop though, decided to just install the drivers by uninstalling old ones, and installing the new ones. Did that and then Catalyst Control Center didn't work - thought FFS what now. Checked the errors in Event Viewer and it was moaning about invalid XML so checked the files at fault (had to do this a few times) - it seems when installing it had corrupted some files, so I got a tool to extract files from the MSI and did it manually. It then also complained about an Install checklist, but luckily my server has an AMD APU, so copied that across too and finally got it working again (I needed it so I can turn on/off my crossfire 290's).

TL;DR: Tried to install new GPU drivers by cleaning first, ended up with a f**ked computer for an hour and then had to bodge them anyway.

GG AMD, tossers. :[

 

[Wilkeh]

Blimey mate what a ball ache!

Nvidia just has a little checkbox when installing new drivers for "perform a clean install" and it does it all for you

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

I must say I just update over old drivers and have never had problems. I'm on the same install of windows from 2010 and in that time have had nvidia and AMD cards. Currently on a single 290 and not had any problems.

 

[SharkyUK]

I've just read that it's products bought within 90 days I believe

Yep, although if you registered for the 6GB programme they were/are(?) willing to accept people as long as you have the extended warranty already.

Here's a bit more information...

http://eu.evga.com/support/stepup/

You've pretty much covered the important aspects and, yes, the 6GB Step-Up is only for the non-ti versions judging from the list of available Step-Up products. I wasn't going to upgrade anyway. I'm awaiting nVidia's new hardware...

 

[Sargara]

I just posted this in the Watch Dogs thread but I reckon it deserves a mention here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...wngrade-graphics-files-in-watch-dogs-pc-code/

If performance issues were the problem and reason for the final downgrade, then it’s safe to say that the earlier version shouldn’t have been demoed to begin with. If parity was the ultimate goal, same thing applies. So either way, the fundamental problem here is that games are being advertised one way and delivered another. Even with perfectly legitimate reasons for a downgrade, this smacks of false advertising even if that wasn’t the intention.

TLDR: Ubisoft show off impressive footage at E3 2012; final game doesnt look as good; modder finds the missing graphic settings deliberately hidden, buried in the game still.

Have all recent multiplat titles deliberately been held back to avoid showing up their console counterparts?

 

[Silent_Scone]

I managed to get AMDs Roy Taylor to send me an 8GB Vapor-X 290X for free. Turns out he went to my school lol.

Unfortunately it also turns out there is serious lacking of 4K 60Hz support with the drivers over DP1.2.

Gone back to the TI's...

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

Surely you'd need more than one of those cards to utilise 8GB VRAM

 

[Silent_Scone]

Aye, I bought a second. DSR'd it today though. SST panel support at 4K is ropey on AMD drivers. Won't even do 60hz

 

[Addicted]

First world problems

 

[Silent_Scone]

Quite yes

4K is pretty awesome on Ti's though. Just drop the AA and no problems thus far

 

[Amberlamps]

Anywhere have Haswell refresh cpu's in stock here yet? Got some money burning a hole in my paypal pocket and feeling a mobo/cpu upgrade coming on.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Tomb Raider at 4K anyone?

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/HA6jZvQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PSWglO7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uH4Gb77.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ylNhvYM.jpg

 

[SharkyUK]

I managed to get AMDs Roy Taylor to send me an 8GB Vapor-X 290X for free. Turns out he went to my school lol.

Sorry to hear that, mate... he should be PAYING you nevermind offering freebies. TI's or go home... Do you know anybody at nVidia? My contacts aren't so generous LOL!

Tomb Raider at 4K anyone?

Looking at those screenshots, as impressively high-res as they are, it does make me appreciate what a good job the dev's made of the console Definitive edition. Obviously nowhere near the resolution of your PC behemoth but nevertheless some nice effects and lighting. Anyway, this is a PC thread so no more talk of inferior platforms...

 

[Silent_Scone]

wut? What's the next gen edition look like then? ...At 30 frames per second. lol

 

[Silent_Scone]

Also the 290x 8GB is up for sale with a steal price of £400. Brand new £200 under list price

 

[Cliotoby]

What screens do you all use?

So much want for this screen:



Bit pricey....... Rather two large Asus screens for that price.

 

[Cliotoby]

Also the 290x 8GB is up for sale with a steal price of £400. Brand new £200 under list price

Where?

 

[Silent_Scone]

eBay

 

[Silent_Scone]

Second one coming tomorrow...

 

[Nickson]

Serious awesomeness there Mike!

 

[Silent_Scone]

Certainly helps at 4K...

Although if you ask some people 3GB is more than enough for that resolution...*yawn*

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

What is it?? Titan of some sort?

 

[SharkyUK]

Certainly helps at 4K...

Although if you ask some people 3GB is more than enough for that resolution...*yawn*

More than 3GB?!?!? NEVER! 640kb is all you'll ever need...

The sooner we see 8GB, 12GB and 16GB cards in the mainstream the better Might be a wee while though.

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

I can't imagine that the next generation of cards will have anything short of 6-8GB VRAM available on the flagship cards.

 

[Cliotoby]

Still having trouble overclocking my 4670k. Even at 4.0 GHz its unstable. Had the voltage anywhere between 1.2 and 1.4 volts, ram speeds at 1600mhz and it just wont work properly. Thought I had a stable clock at 4.5GHz with near enough full ram speeds but then it blue screened last night after a week of on and off use. I s**t you not my i5 750 performed better than this. I also have a Motherboard which no one seems to own. May get shot of it.

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

Sounds like you're doing something wrong if it's not stable at 4ghz. I don't have a Haswell chip but I nearly bought one and read a lot of articles on i5 vs i7 etc. I like your last sentence as I opted not to buy Haswell and stick with my i5 760 at 4ghz

 

[Silent_Scone]

More than 3GB?!?!? NEVER! 640kb is all you'll ever need...

The sooner we see 8GB, 12GB and 16GB cards in the mainstream the better Might be a wee while though.

I got attacked by Kingpin and other Ti owners for saying it. They're convinced it's my machine...

Exactly same setup just different GPUS...stuttering now completely gone with top settings in games. Buyers denial ftl.

It's fine if you're not at 4k obviously. Or maybe not 1600p

 

[Silent_Scone]

Two always better than one

Your Ti is packed and ready here Nick . Just adding to today's manifest

 

[Nickson]

Two always better than one

Your Ti is packed and ready here Nick . Just adding to today's manifest

That looks absolutely awesome.

Ahh you legend, thanks mate!

Both of the 680's have sold now, I've sent one but the other is awaiting its replacement before it goes anywhere

Also.. How useful are you finding the quick disconnects? Do they introduce much air or leak when disconnecting at all?
I'm not enjoying the thought of having to drain my loop to plumb the Ti in.. Then again when the second one inevitably arrives :rasp:

 

[Silent_Scone]

I've had no problems with air leaking into them tbh mate. I tend not to worry too much about that as it finds it's way out at the res . All good here on that front...but as to how I'm finding them, they're a god send. I can't imagine a loop with out them in all honesty. Takes me 2 seconds to take my GPUs out now. Also have them on the bay res and pumps, CPU and 1080 Nova

 

[Nickson]

Had a little present from Silent_Scone arrive last week.

He hates me for this, but I swapped the plexi cooler for a full cover acetal one (plexi didn't sit well with my CPU block ).

Got it plumbed in.

Just wow. What a simply awesome card this really is.

Was running 2 x 680's in SLi on air for a few months. Not only is there a significant reduction in noise and heat, gameplay hasn't been massively affected.
Sure, the Ti is slower than the 680's, but I can't imagine by much!

Also, to anyone mulling over going over to the dark side of WC'ing.

I ran the 780Ti on air for a day or so whilst I waited for the acetal block to arrive. Reached a max of 85c in FarCry 3, quite toasty indeed.
Under water that now barely reaches 50c, and that is after a few hours worth of gaming.

Extremely happy.

Just waiting for a second one now.. I may have already bought the waterblock, backplate and EK multi card bridge for that setup.. :rasp:

 

[Silent_Scone]

They fly on water

 

[Diagro]

Nice..

my 2 x 290x have life still

The 780ti is just too expensive for my bank lol

 

[Cookie]

Anyone got a spare GTX670 (the Gigabyte Windforce one in particular)?

I want/need to go three monitor now I'm about to have the space for more monitors.

 

[Dink]

are the Samsung 840 evo ssd's any good?

as I've just bought one to go in my mini-itx pc (might aswell with a 15% off ebay voucher)

 

[SharkyUK]

are the Samsung 840 evo ssd's any good?

as I've just bought one to go in my mini-itx pc (might aswell with a 15% off ebay voucher)

Yes mate - no problems there whatsoever

 

[Silent_Scone]

I've got 4 of the original 840 Pros, awesome SSDS

 

[Gareth]

I've got 2 Pros in my desktop and 2 Evos (one of which is the 1TB one) in my Microserver. Great drives.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Part of the Hydro club now Gareth lol.

Did you hear they dropped Swiftech recently? All Hydro products will be EK from here on in.