My Noob Questions Thread.

[Ginger Maestro]

Not sure I understand that at the moment. When you talk about lanes, are they what the GPU's fit into to work?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

I think I get it, so your saying SLI needs a min of 8x lanes, so the first two slots

1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8

I can run two cards in there because each has a minumum of 8 lanes?

If I just wanted to run one card, all that would be irrelevant?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

Brill, where would I put a sound and wireless card, into these PCI E slots or somewhere different?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

Do you already have the wireless card? And also what sound card do you have? There's an old version of pcie called PCI which your cards might be

I don't have a wireless card, I'm connected by Ethernet atm but I'm wanting to move it into my man cave.

God knows what it is, something rubbish no doubt. But I'll be building everything from brand spanking new shiny bits anyway.

 

[Ginger Maestro]

And I just plug a wireless dongle into a USB Port? Do I have to load the dongle with credit from a network provider?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

No haha, no credits needed. The wireless dongle goes into a USB port, yep. The dongle connects to ordinary wifi connections, so if you have a wireless router it'll connect to that signal

That sounds much easier.

Going back to GPU's, whats the diff between Direct X 11.2 and 12? a 970 supports 12, and a R9 290 11.2?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

SO 11.2 is perfectly, fine,?

R9 290 is like £50 cheaper.


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-239-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-259-MS

 

[Ginger Maestro]

TBH, Ill pay whatever I need to get the best value for money, but Im a tight ass and dont want to spend on things that are not necessary.

How can I tell if a GPU is going to be quieter and cooler?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

TDP?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

TDP for heat you say?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

Well the new nvidia 9xx series are much more power efficient and therefore cooler as they draw less power, so that can be assumed Also many of the 970s have semi passive or full passive modes i.e. one or both fans can be turned off automatically when the card isn't under a lot of load so there is 0db, 0 noise!

TDP yes, 9xx are much lower than R9 2xx

If there is no numbers in the specs for TDP, do we just assume that the lower the power needed then its cooler and quiter?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

Well pretty much, though of course it also matters what cooler is on the graphics card (i.e. from EVGA, Gigabyte, Asus or similar). These affect temperatures of course as all of the fan designs are different

If theres a fan on the GPU, Dont I need any more fans in the rig then?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

So these GPU's say a PSU of 450W required, would that suffice for the rest of the components aswell or would I need something larger.

At this time I dont plan on overclocking or adding another GPU because I dont feel I know enough about PC's as yet.

 

[Ginger Maestro]

Well whatever rig you get should run just fine on a 550W PSU assuming you go for one graphics card

That 450W estimate does take into account other components, yes, so 550W should see you through for years if you don't change the rig

YOUR BASKET
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
Total : £59.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

I was looking at that one and a corsair.

 

[Ginger Maestro]

Should I get a heat sink or a fan then?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

Definitely an aftermarket heatsink and fan for the cpu yes, or you could get an all in one water cooling unit.

Do a heat sink and fan come as one, or two different components?
Do I need one to use the other effectively?

 

[Ginger Maestro]

the base is now also supported in 1156 and 1366 formats.

That wouldn't support and 1150(do I call this chipset?) though would it?

Edit, my bad, it does support 1150, and I know that it is now a socket.

Dooooh

 

[Ginger Maestro]

I see all of these measurements you veteran builders/gamers take,

FPS,Temp, GHZ

How do I access those numbers in real time as you all seem to be doing?