My Noob Questions Thread.

Yep, been in the business for years, I have some of their stuff in two PCs and it runs perfectly no problems - funnily enough my brother just had to RMA his Vengeance Pro Corsair!
 
Ill consider them.

Whats the difference between the motherboards?

2 way SLI
3 way CrossFire

That means it can support dual and triple GPU's?


I dont really understand the expansion dept
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x4
3 x PCI Express x1 slots
1 x PCI slots
 
Ginger Maestro said:
Ill consider them.

Whats the difference between the motherboards?

2 way SLI
3 way CrossFire

That means it can support dual and triple GPU's?


I dont really understand the expansion dept
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x4
3 x PCI Express x1 slots
1 x PCI slots
Click to expand...

Ok, so crossfire is for AMD cards and SLI for Nvidia cards. If you go for a 970 you'll be able to put two 970s in. Crossfire can run with 4 PCIE lanes (x4) but SLI has a minimum of x8 (8 lanes), so therefore Nvidia cards can run in the first two x16 slots but AMD in the first three x16 slots. The amount of lanes dictates the max bandwidth allowed through the PCIE slot, ideally for more than one GPU you want x8 minimum per card, so I don't suggest you go tri-Crossfire with x4
 
Put simply, you can use 2 nvidia graphics cards and 3 amd graphics cards but I would advise against using 3 amd cards as the last one will be bottlenecked a bit

When you put the graphics card into a slot, the slot has a specific amount of "lanes" (for example x4, x8 and x16). This is the "running at" in the specification you quoted. The more lanes allocated to a slot, the more bandwidth allowed through it
 
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?
 
Yes, exactly. However, when you put two cards in, I think the first slot will downput to x8, so both slots will be running at x8 if both slots are filled with graphics cards. This doesn't matter however :)
 
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
 
Shivy011 said:
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
Click to expand...

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 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Sound on motherboard now-a-days is a lot better, normally enough to not need a dedicated sound card. However if you're using a analogue headset they can make a much bigger difference. But most sound cards on-board are very good.

Some deals for you to think about if you're speccing yourself:

Superflower PSU & Case = Free shipping using SFCASE code.
Intel cashback is currently on, so Intel CPU's and SSD's have from £10-60 off.
Gigabyte-BK boards comes with 5 years warranty, and within that period a free upgrade to the next chipset within 3 years (So a free Giagbyte motherboard for Skylake chipset).

As a pointer in the right direction:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK - Devil's Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£30 Saving + Gigabyte Free Upgrade + £30 Intel Cashback ** £372.98
1 x Corsair Obsidian 450D High Airflow Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011049-WW) £91.99
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £79.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 750W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11T3K2/8) £61.99
Total : £696.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Free motherboard upgrade & £30 off from Intel.
Free shipping due to the case and Superflower PSU (Both highly recommended, 750W will do SLI 970's).
Recommended SSD, and Fast RAM that Haswell likes.
 
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ThaReaperGuy said:
Sound on motherboard now-a-days is a lot better, normally enough to not need a dedicated sound card. However if you're using a analogue headset they can make a much bigger difference. But most sound cards on-board are very good.
Click to expand...

+1 I don't think you'll need a sound card any more, current on-board sound is excellent!

WiFi can be sorted through a USB dongle, easier than a card and easier to use
 
Ginger Maestro said:
And I just plug a wireless dongle into a USB Port? Do I have to load the dongle with credit from a network provider?
Click to expand...

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
 
Shivy011 said:
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
Click to expand...

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 said:
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?
Click to expand...

Direct X 12 isn't out, I think the main aim of that is to reduce CPU bottlenecks like mantle so I wouldn't worry much about that :)
 
Hmm, well if you have the budget I'd go for a 970, as it runs quieter, cooler, and is newer with newer technology. One of these is perfectly fine;

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 WindForce OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N970WF3OC-4GD) £263.99
1 x GALAX GeForce GTX 970 EX OC "Black Edition" 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (97NQH6DNB4TX) £259.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (04G-P4-2974-KR) £251.99
1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (ZT-90101-10P) £239.99
Total : £1,029.46 (includes shipping : £11.25).



However 290 is still an excellent card
 
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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?
 
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