Hardware & Technical Would appreciate some comments.
- Thread starter Surfinjo
- Start date
In my opinion, watercooling only makes sense if you have trouble dissipating your heat out of the case. If the case has some space and a bit of airflow, then a good air cooler should be enough for a Quad Core, and it's hazzle-free.
Read a lot where anything over 16 gig of ram was a waste. Water cooling usually less noisey.
I have the Asus Maximus VII Ranger mobo, I like it. I also got the ROG front panel unit, which shows you a lot of system info. This YouTube clip explains it;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJlu1FGCpcc
https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessories/ROG_Front_Base/
I also have fitted 32GB RAM (which I find is ok), but a trick I have been doing for quite a while is to fit an HDD specifically for the use of the Swap File (or Page File, or Virtual Memory, whatever this weeks' name for it is!), and then configure it within Windows (it has to be a drive, not a partition on a multiple partition drive). It does not make the PC go any quicker, but it does stop it slowing down that much (as the Swap File is now on a drive just for its' use). Just make sure that the HDD you are using is at twice the size of the maximum amount of RAM the PC can take.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJlu1FGCpcc
https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessories/ROG_Front_Base/
I also have fitted 32GB RAM (which I find is ok), but a trick I have been doing for quite a while is to fit an HDD specifically for the use of the Swap File (or Page File, or Virtual Memory, whatever this weeks' name for it is!), and then configure it within Windows (it has to be a drive, not a partition on a multiple partition drive). It does not make the PC go any quicker, but it does stop it slowing down that much (as the Swap File is now on a drive just for its' use). Just make sure that the HDD you are using is at twice the size of the maximum amount of RAM the PC can take.
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Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
Other than for crash dumps, do you really need a page file with all that RAM?
ETA - water cooling is much more efficient than air, and much quieter. Bigger fans can spin slower. A radiator has a larger surface area than a heatsink, and water 'carries' more heat than air. Chilling water isn't so smart, dropping below ambient may lead to condensation. A lot of water cooling kit these days is really good, and nowhere near as Heath Robinson as it used to be (Rube Goldberg for American readers).
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I can see this...airflow is the key!
No, I don't, but 'Microsoft knows better than you', so Windows will complain if you disable the Swap File.
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Thanks for the responses.
I wasn't looking at water cooling initially, but had a look largely because the cooling head is light and leads away to the cooler. I've had problems with some passive coolers being top heavy. Research suggested that water cooling is more stable as well. Since I'm aiming at spending a load on the CPU alone, I was thinking it might be worth the extra.
I should also say that finding a decent place to fit the cooler is and issue. I really hoped to be able to continue using my current case. It isn't perfect, but it's more than adequate. The water cooler simply wouldn't have anywhere to go on it.
But your naysayer comments are great and interesting. I will take them on board and do some more research. Definitely not take that issue as concluded.
I hear the points about RAM. I'm thinking of aiming at max now simply because I can anticipate it being needed in the future. Buying the 32Gb later and dumping 16Gb seems sad. OK, I can perhaps just buy the additional 16Gb, but......
That front base looks pretty neat and could potentially be really useful. I'll check that out some more. Though it may be a later addition.
Incidentally, in another thread I said I intended to wait until the New Year before buying my next PC. Sadly, my current PC has finally given up the ghost. I'm certain it is the MB, because the BOOT repeatedly crashes. I have put in a different graphics card, PSU and 3 different OSs on 3 different SSDs plus tried removing RAM cards one at a time and each time the identical effect was seen.
Nothing lasts for ever.
Meanwhile I'm trying to get by with a 7 inch laptop running at 1.5Ghz. It was bought for portable office applications and simply can't cut anything that moves. Even browsing is a drag.
Still, I could be a lot worse off.
If anyone has anything more to add, suggestions, comments criticisms then please do so. It's not just useful for me, it may also be useful to other. Most of what I've picked up over the years was aimed at other people.
I wasn't looking at water cooling initially, but had a look largely because the cooling head is light and leads away to the cooler. I've had problems with some passive coolers being top heavy. Research suggested that water cooling is more stable as well. Since I'm aiming at spending a load on the CPU alone, I was thinking it might be worth the extra.
I should also say that finding a decent place to fit the cooler is and issue. I really hoped to be able to continue using my current case. It isn't perfect, but it's more than adequate. The water cooler simply wouldn't have anywhere to go on it.
But your naysayer comments are great and interesting. I will take them on board and do some more research. Definitely not take that issue as concluded.
I hear the points about RAM. I'm thinking of aiming at max now simply because I can anticipate it being needed in the future. Buying the 32Gb later and dumping 16Gb seems sad. OK, I can perhaps just buy the additional 16Gb, but......
That front base looks pretty neat and could potentially be really useful. I'll check that out some more. Though it may be a later addition.
Incidentally, in another thread I said I intended to wait until the New Year before buying my next PC. Sadly, my current PC has finally given up the ghost. I'm certain it is the MB, because the BOOT repeatedly crashes. I have put in a different graphics card, PSU and 3 different OSs on 3 different SSDs plus tried removing RAM cards one at a time and each time the identical effect was seen.
Nothing lasts for ever.
Meanwhile I'm trying to get by with a 7 inch laptop running at 1.5Ghz. It was bought for portable office applications and simply can't cut anything that moves. Even browsing is a drag.
Still, I could be a lot worse off.
If anyone has anything more to add, suggestions, comments criticisms then please do so. It's not just useful for me, it may also be useful to other. Most of what I've picked up over the years was aimed at other people.
Out of curiosity, what PSU and GPU are you going for? And at what res? Is this just for ED or other games and stuff? Sorry to sound nosey but I'm researching a Skylake build myself and will probably go for that MB (though I've just read/watched this and it's very tempting but will be silly money!).
Also, have you considered one of these?
p.s. that MB is currently a whopping £4 cheaper on amazon (but every little helps!).
http://www.techspot.com/article/1043-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/page1.html - suggests that anything over 8GB is a waste.
Also, have you considered one of these?
p.s. that MB is currently a whopping £4 cheaper on amazon (but every little helps!).
http://www.techspot.com/article/1043-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/page1.html - suggests that anything over 8GB is a waste.
The PSU is 750W Corsair modular.
The Video card, for now will be an Asus GTX 760.
My previous intention was buy my new rig next year when hopefuly the final specs of the Occulous Rift were announced, then buy the Video cards appropriate for that. If for some reason I don't fancy the Occulous, say it's just too expensive, I might look at multiple cards and think of a set up along the lines of a projection set up along these lines: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=140668&page=2
It's all very much in the thinking stage. Until we see what next years technology will be it's going to be difficult to decide and besides, I don't have a lot of funds left for now.
I can't access the overclock page at this time, probably down for some maintenance. I'll try tomorrow. Deciding on what you want to aim for is always a pain, not sooner do you get something than something better comes along. But I suppose you just need to such it in as they say.
Hear what you say about RAM. But my thinking is to get the max now because I'll probably want it later.
Personally, I turn swap off on Windows, I don't see an upside of having it, but there is plenty that can go wrong if it's activated. Windows tends to build a huge filecache and page programs out to swap. Plus, you get more I/O on your storage.
The crash dumps are not that important on consumer windows, because most software isn't open source (you therefore cannot debug it yourself) and the consumer would not have an expensive support agreement with the vendors that would require sending in crash dumps for analysis.
My recommendation for swap space sizing:
Maximum memory allocated by highest workload + appropriate safety margings - installed physical RAM. If it's positive, add that number in SWAP to avoid running OOM. Also, place swap on storage that accomodates a high number of random IOPS, preferably on a disk that is not used elsewhere (e.g. dedicated SSD).
Regarding RAM:
Right now 8GB UDIMMs (those with ECC offer higher densities) are more or less the limit because manufacturers have problems achieving higher densities due to information bleeding over from one bit to another. For a dual channel CPU, I recommend starting out with 16GB or installing 32GB right away, for 4-channels it's 32GB and 64GB is more for enthusiasts.
Don't use low density RAM because you'll throw it away once you upgrade. Upgrading may be a hazzle because you have to find modules that are certified for use with the previous modules, and those might not be around in the market anymore.
I don't recommend running 8GB RAM on windows, because windows doesn't support memory overcommit and memory compression, which means that it needs a lot more RAM for the same workload (OS overhead not counted) than Linux and OSX. On my old 8GB RAM machine, I had to turn on swap for some applications and games.
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My previous intention was buy my new rig next year when hopefuly the final specs of the Occulous Rift were announced, then buy the Video cards appropriate for that. If for some reason I don't fancy the Occulous, say it's just too expensive, I might look at multiple cards and think of a set up along the lines of a projection set up along these lines: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=140668&page=2
It's all very much in the thinking stage. Until we see what next years technology will be it's going to be difficult to decide and besides, I don't have a lot of funds left for now.
I can't access the overclock page at this time, probably down for some maintenance. I'll try tomorrow. Deciding on what you want to aim for is always a pain, not sooner do you get something than something better comes along. But I suppose you just need to such it in as they say.
Hear what you say about RAM. But my thinking is to get the max now because I'll probably want it later.
Yeah I'm also thinking VR, for me the Vive currently has the edge but I'll wait til reviews come out and maybe get a chance to try one. On the graphics side I have so many questions in my head it's unreal. I'd really like a 34" ultrawide but they are silly money. Both AMD and Nvidia will have next gen cards out next year, can I wait? (answer: no!).
The Overclockers link is for a Samsung 950 Pro 256GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD. Crazy performance.
With RAM I'll go for a faster high-end 2x8GB rather than a slower, cheap 2x16GB as I like to mess around with overclocking.
I just hope that you spend less time researching new components than I do as it's starting to take over my life
i run just a tiny 5mb swap file, Windows is happy because it has one, but it's small enough to be written/read very quickly. disabling it altogether is, as you say, not a good idea
Thanks for the great info Zelos1983. Much appreciated.
The RAM I'm looking is this: Crucial CT8G4DFD8213. Internal memory: 8 GB, Internal memory type: DDR4, Memory clock speed: 2133 MHz; CL15, Unbuffered, NON-ECC, Dual Ranked
The MB I'm looking at seems to use non-ECC
I understand that users report that the RAM modules have been successfully boosted to 2600Mhz which is still quite a bit below the max of 3600Mhz.
Sadly, here in the UK, it seems these are the fastest available. http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/memory/ddr4--ddr3--ddr2--ddr--sdram--crucial
In the US faster is available, the fastest would seem to exceed the max of the ROG Hero MB so a compatible might be: http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/bls2k4g4d240fsb
There are other places to buy RAM of course, but as you will no doubt know, these are tricky things and paying a bundle for stuff that is u/s is not a barrel of laughs. That's why I wanted to stick with reliable sources.
If you can suggest any better, I will be really grateful and I'm sure many others here will be as well.
addition. If I may, I've noticed some memory modules seem to come with what appear to be packages attached. Do these serve any purpose other than appearance?
The RAM I'm looking is this: Crucial CT8G4DFD8213. Internal memory: 8 GB, Internal memory type: DDR4, Memory clock speed: 2133 MHz; CL15, Unbuffered, NON-ECC, Dual Ranked
The MB I'm looking at seems to use non-ECC
I understand that users report that the RAM modules have been successfully boosted to 2600Mhz which is still quite a bit below the max of 3600Mhz.
Sadly, here in the UK, it seems these are the fastest available. http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/memory/ddr4--ddr3--ddr2--ddr--sdram--crucial
In the US faster is available, the fastest would seem to exceed the max of the ROG Hero MB so a compatible might be: http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/bls2k4g4d240fsb
There are other places to buy RAM of course, but as you will no doubt know, these are tricky things and paying a bundle for stuff that is u/s is not a barrel of laughs. That's why I wanted to stick with reliable sources.
If you can suggest any better, I will be really grateful and I'm sure many others here will be as well.
addition. If I may, I've noticed some memory modules seem to come with what appear to be packages attached. Do these serve any purpose other than appearance?
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Yeah I'm also thinking VR, for me the Vive currently has the edge but I'll wait til reviews come out and maybe get a chance to try one. On the graphics side I have so many questions in my head it's unreal. I'd really like a 34" ultrawide but they are silly money. Both AMD and Nvidia will have next gen cards out next year, can I wait? (answer: no!).
The Overclockers link is for a Samsung 950 Pro 256GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD. Crazy performance.
With RAM I'll go for a faster high-end 2x8GB rather than a slower, cheap 2x16GB as I like to mess around with overclocking.
I just hope that you spend less time researching new components than I do as it's starting to take over my life
Agreed about the costs of decent sized screens.
This projector set up uses some pretty expensive kit and looks amazing, (even without the little girls showing their appreciation). https://forums.frontier.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=62904
If I go for a projector set-up myself, I will probably think about rather more modest projectors. The higher priced ones use bright, halogen type illumination. Not only expensive to buy but outrageously expensive to replace, given their 2000 hour life. LED will be a lot dimmer, so drawing curtains and such. Provided you can get over the creepy image of a special room set aside for pleasure, which is permanently dark of course.
The big draw-back of a projector set up is the space, frankly. That's where Occulous will come into its own.
Addition. Faster memory access is a must of couse. Thanks for the info on the internal SSD.
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These guys got a 3677Mhz clock: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/asus_rog_z170_maximus_viii_hero_review/5
Really they are there to cool the memory sticks when overclocking (i.e. higher voltages applied). Some of the sticks have 'fins' sticking out of the top to take the heat away. But of course there is also an element of making the sticks look cool
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These guys got a 3677Mhz clock: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/asus_rog_z170_maximus_viii_hero_review/5
Really they are there to cool the memory sticks when overclocking (i.e. higher voltages applied). Some of the sticks have 'fins' sticking out of the top to take the heat away. But of course there is also an element of making the sticks look cool
Thanks. Great info.
I see where I went wrong now, the 3600Mhz memory is available. Was just looking in the wrong place.
Quite expensive though.
If I really want to get the better gear I may need to reduce the amount of RAM I can afford. http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/memory-pc/ddr4memory/
Alternatively, I could look at slower RAM with 2 x 16Gb modules. http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/.../ddr4pc4-256003200mhz/cmk16gx4m2b3200c16.html
Any thoughts?