Hardware & Technical Computer Build to run Elite Dangerous
- Thread starter Pazmeister
- Start date
Calibration won't make a bad display good. If a display cannot display a colour then it cannot and no amount of calibration can fix that. Resolution, what kind please clarify? 1080 or 4K or motion resolution. Motion resolution has always been a flaw of LCD screens period. When you talk about colour what do you mean colour-space, depth??? There are hardly any displays out there that can display 100% sRGB perish the the thought of xvYCC, Kodak ProPhoto RGB and deep-colour. So no IPS does not show what is there, there is no technology that can do that. LED/IPS LCD have always had the poorer blacks levels than plasma.
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panasonic-tx-p55vt65b-201304212862.htm
I'd would be really interested in any LCD display bar OLED that can even get close to these black levels?
BTW my plasma has been calibrated by an ISF certified professional from http://www.soundstage.uk.com once it had bedded in. For my IPS LCD monitor I use a Gretag Macbeth/Pantone Huey I'm not Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Bailey, Lichfield, Adams...
I have been messing about with photography and video when you were still a twinkle in your dads eye
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Woot?
Best displays for PCs you can buy (not in the experimental status) are IPS, precisely due to superior color accuracy. Aren't you confusing with the cheaper and faster TN displays?
Plasma is not a technology used in computer displays, only in TV. Fine for gaming, not general use.
Errr no IPS has not done a thing for the black-levels and contrast. B&W photography will better on plasma for that reason. So no Plasma is not just for gaming/fast motion video. Try messing around with B&W photography shadow detail on IPS LCD and then compare to a plasma
So the higher the better then, even if just for gaming. If that's the case I might as well put on the other few quid and get this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/611848-corsair-8gb-ddr3-2400mhz-vengeance-pro-kit-red-cmy8gx3m2a2400c11r
Assuming my chosen mobo can support it of course.
Edit:
I guess it can.
Any potential PSU issues with such fast RAM? 650w Corsair right now.
Edit: One other thing I'd like to get cleared up: if using dual screens, does that have much impact on the PSU?
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So the higher the better then, even if just for gaming. If that's the case I might as well put on the other few quid and get this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/611848-corsair-8gb-ddr3-2400mhz-vengeance-pro-kit-red-cmy8gx3m2a2400c11r
Assuming my chosen mobo can support it of course.
Edit:
I guess it can.
Any potential PSU issues with such fast RAM? 650w Corsair right now.
Edit: One other thing I'd like to get cleared up: if using dual screens, does that have much impact on the PSU?
RAM energy consumption is negligible in current desktops compare to everything else. Going from 1600 1.5v to 2400 1.65v might add a couple of watts if that.
Dual screens impact on average system power consumption but not on peak, so there is no impact whatsoever on the PSU requirements.
@ Arbanax - If you have no previous experience of building, you might be interested in buying a 'Motherboard bundle' from somewhere like overclockers.co.uk or CCL computers. (I'm sure others do them too)
A motherboard bundle usually consists of the motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler, & memory, which the supplier has chosen for compatibility & will pre-build & test, so all you have to do is fit it into the case. Ready overclocked bundles are available if you want the performance hike. Prices are usually attractive, too.
Of course, you still have to choose your case, PSU, hard drive(s) etc, but that's the 'easy' part.
PM me if you'd like any advice.
Hey Faerie I will take that into consideration.
My worry with going to a big OEM, is firstly customer service. In reading about the mess people get into after sales is shocking. When you pay as much money as you do and find some companies are all about the sales, and afterwards they don't appear to want to know...well you can see why I am thinking twice about buying from one. Also the second thing is building your own, means overcoming the fear of what is going on in the box and choosing the specifications down to the last bolt. That level of control appeals to me.
However over against this, is the fact so much (for someone with no experience of building a pc) appears can go wrong. Components for instance that come damaged or not working - can be difficult to return to some companies. Then there is just the simple thing of knowing where to plug everything into, let alone what to do when you switch the thing on and nothing happens. Its not like I can phone a friend ;-). I'd be afraid of something going bang, with no one on hand, or to hold my hand its difficult to see how I can get peace of mind save by going through an OEM, however reluctantly I might be.
I will look into the whole thing of bundles, it does seem that building your own should cost less, but it doesn't appear to from what I can deduce. Shame there are no computer building courses.
Does anyone have any positive experiences with good OEM's. I've not heard brilliant things about Overclockers, and SCAN (some call them scam for that reason) also Chillblast got some negative press. But I think that might not be as bad as the other two. I'd heard some good noises about Novatech, also Dino computers seem to be positive. Anyone recommend anyone else?
Ab
PC Specialist are another option - prebuilt and built-to-spec. Their service/prices etc seem pretty good.
I'd recommend ARIA
I've been buying from them about 10 or 11 years now and not had any problems with them at all and they tend to be very competitive on prices.
Everyone I've referred to them and has bought from them have had the same experience, good prices, fast delivery and pretty much 0 problems (one friend has a HDD die after a few months but that's not really Aria's fault, most probably a manufacturing issue)
They do systems, mobo cpu and memory bundles as well as individual components.
If you price up individual components they do turn out cheaper but not massively
I've been buying from them about 10 or 11 years now and not had any problems with them at all and they tend to be very competitive on prices.
Everyone I've referred to them and has bought from them have had the same experience, good prices, fast delivery and pretty much 0 problems (one friend has a HDD die after a few months but that's not really Aria's fault, most probably a manufacturing issue)
They do systems, mobo cpu and memory bundles as well as individual components.
If you price up individual components they do turn out cheaper but not massively
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For a prebuild the Gladiator Sabre machine seems decent spec for the price.
£882.00 inc. VAT
Specification:
• CPU: 4th Generation Intel Core (Haswell) i5-4570 Quad-Core Processor 3.2 GHz (3.6 GHz Turbo)
• Graphics: AMD R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
• RAM: 8GB (2x4096MB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual-Channel Memory (32GB Max. Supported)
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard
• Cooler: Standard Integrated Fan
• HD Audio: Onboard 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
• Case: Corsair Graphite Series 230T Compact Mid Tower Case with Red LED Fans
• PSU: 500W 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply
• Optical Drive: LiteOn DVDRW Dual Layer DVD Rewriter (m-Disk Support) 24x DVD±R
• SSD: 120GB Samsung Evo SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Solid State Drive
• HDD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Hard Drive
• Operating System: No Pre-installed OS or software - GLADIATOR Recommends Windows 64-bit
• Included Full 12 Month Collect & Returns Warranty
You need to acquire an OS though
£882.00 inc. VAT
Specification:
• CPU: 4th Generation Intel Core (Haswell) i5-4570 Quad-Core Processor 3.2 GHz (3.6 GHz Turbo)
• Graphics: AMD R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
• RAM: 8GB (2x4096MB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual-Channel Memory (32GB Max. Supported)
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard
• Cooler: Standard Integrated Fan
• HD Audio: Onboard 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
• Case: Corsair Graphite Series 230T Compact Mid Tower Case with Red LED Fans
• PSU: 500W 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply
• Optical Drive: LiteOn DVDRW Dual Layer DVD Rewriter (m-Disk Support) 24x DVD±R
• SSD: 120GB Samsung Evo SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Solid State Drive
• HDD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Hard Drive
• Operating System: No Pre-installed OS or software - GLADIATOR Recommends Windows 64-bit
• Included Full 12 Month Collect & Returns Warranty
You need to acquire an OS though
Is there a way to find out how close to the PSU's ceiling your system is operating at? Thanks for the info about RAM.
Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
As another said, not on your PSU.
Stop. Before. You. Buy.
You want two screens, which is great. At work I love it. I can have lots of things open and see them all.
Where is the join?
It's in the middle, so any game you play will have the screens' bezels sitting right in the middle of the action.
The solution is easy - BUY THREE!
But that way lies madness. And bankruptcy. Actually more the last one.
Thanks for the reply. To be honest, the whole dual screen thing is mainly to have one thing on one screen and something else on another; I have my PC connected up to my larger TV screen. Track IR will take care of looking around the environment.
Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
Having two or more monitors is a big productivity jump. At modern resolutions it's easy to have two full-scale A4 documents on one, your e-mail on another, and The Ashes on a third.
I've been ignoring the third quite a bit lately.
Excel, or your spreadsheet programme of choice, is much, much better over massive screen real estate.
It works well if you are in game on one and need another programme on the other.
But, trust me, you'll think "hey, if I had Elite over both I could see more of my cockpit, I wonder if that would work..." then "that bezel is annoying, if I bought another monitor..."
I've been ignoring the third quite a bit lately.
Excel, or your spreadsheet programme of choice, is much, much better over massive screen real estate.
It works well if you are in game on one and need another programme on the other.
But, trust me, you'll think "hey, if I had Elite over both I could see more of my cockpit, I wonder if that would work..." then "that bezel is annoying, if I bought another monitor..."
Well. While configuring a system there are calculators available (a good one).
For measuring actual real life power consumption in a system you would need a specialized device, like kill-a-watt. There are also systems that can be used to load test PSUs, but AFAIK those are expensive stuff, not really needed for home user
.Absolutely. If I were to go multi-screen, then I'd go for three. As you said, the last thing you want is a big black bar down the middle of your view.
The Ashes... yep, the least said the better!!
Well. While configuring a system there are calculators available (a good one).
For measuring actual real life power consumption in a system you would need a specialized device, like kill-a-watt. There are also systems that can be used to load test PSUs, but AFAIK those are expensive stuff, not really needed for home user
Thanks for that. Well according to the calculator, even my new setup will barely make my PSU break a sweat.
Your 650W corsair (very good PSUs, btw
) is enough to deal with anything but quite extreme multiple GPU systems. For example it should suffice to handle a dual gtx 770 system with a Haswell CPU at stock.Your 650W corsair (very good PSUs, btw
Good to hear. That calculator is very useful; it's now in my bookmarks menu.
I mean pixels across and down. I'm not sure I understand what you mean about 'not showing what is there'. If a graphics card renders an image that contains a range of visible information, outputs it as a frame to the processor of the screeen then the screen will do it's best (within the limitations of it's refresh rate, brightness and colour range) to display this information. Suggesting that there is no technology out there that is capably of showing 'what is there' seems like a non-sensical statement. Does a game engine spend a whole lot of time rendering what is effectively 'non-information' from a visual perspective? Is there a whole bunch of IR/UV information being rendered that only Riddick might be able to see?
I get the feeling that the capabilities of a Plasma vs LCD may be a little esoteric - unless I'm missing something which is always possible.
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panasonic-tx-p55vt65b-201304212862.htm
I'd would be really interested in any LCD display bar OLED that can even get close to these black levels?
BTW my plasma has been calibrated by an ISF certified professional from http://www.soundstage.uk.com once it had bedded in. For my IPS LCD monitor I use a Gretag Macbeth/Pantone Huey I'm not Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Bailey, Lichfield, Adams...
I have been messing about with photography and video when you were still a twinkle in your dads eye
Why are black levels the be all and end all of a display? Personally I'd rather sacrifice a little black 'depth' for a far higher resolution especially considering the added realestate that it grants your editing space. It's all very well that you've been dabbling with photography and video since I was a twinkle (althought I suspect that you underestimate my age) but the technology is not THAT old so whilst you may have had a fair amount of experience, I'm not sure my age (or lack thereof) has much to do with it. I'm not sure that any photographer would even consider using a plasma screen for editing over a decent IPS even if the blacks are that little bit better - It always cracks me up when I go to see a client and he's sitting in his office with a 40" TV sat on his desk but his desktop is still only displaying at 1080p - everything is MASSIVE.