Project Log

[Redek]

Objective; New / overhauled rig for gaming. VR ready. Looking to maximise performance on the budget and to facilitate good times. Also wish to 'future proof' as far as is practical.
Timescale; hopefully not that long.
Budget; £400 now. £300 / month thereafter.
Current rig:
Intel i5 2500k @3.3Ghz
A corsair CPU cooler
Asus Pz68 pro gen 3 motherboard
AMD Radeon HD 7950, 'twn frozr' 3GB
8 GB ram, i think it's DDR3
850 watt PSU
SSD 250GB Crucial


I'm running two monitors currently. One of them 1080p, 23 inch.

Current issues; when running certain games with both monitors running, the 1080p monitor will eventually, most of the time, get scrambled graphics. I can see, on the other monitor before this happens, the picture quality getting weaker.

Naturally, I'm looking to improve performance as much as possible in the short term, and wish to have a more or less new rig within 6 months. I built this one in 2012/13, I think.

I'm looking at 500GB SSD as the first investment. And I'm tempted to pick up a high end keyboard at the same time.

Advice or input very welcome.

 

[Redek]

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[ALXAndy]

/came in expecting to see a picture of a log.

 

[Redek]

picture of cpuid inc. trying to get a handle on the cpu settings

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[Redek]

Prior to the above, 'By all cores' in Asus bios was set to 44



Right side pic of AB was what I was using to o/c the gpu for a while. The 1080p monitor is unstable when under heavy load.

Going to download a benchmark programme for the gpu and also try out prime 95. These screenshots are not very good.

/came in expecting to see a picture of a log.

 

[ALXAndy]

haha exactly Would be funny to do that. Call it Project Log and actually hollow out a lump of wood and fit a pc in it

 

[Redek]

A rig built into a lump of wood could be legit awesome, at least to look at

 

[LewisRaz]

Hollowed out log with a solid glass front panel. Now that would be sweet! Not that your build wont be...

 

[Redek]

After thinking about some advice, I'm considering more in depth about how to improve current performance with what the hardware I already own.

When I have the time and energy to focus this weekend I hope to comprehensively benchmark the cpu and gpu, as well as overclock.

I really want to get a decent keyboard though, the one I've got is poor.

After bench marking it's possible I'll be in the market for a 1070 gpu, cos that's where I'll get the most performance boost for the gaming I want to do.

 

[Redek]

Graphics issue mentioned in first post has been resolved; ram was inserted incorrectly.

Have taken several parts out and air dusted. Also added an additional fan.

Have tried to overlcock the cpu from asus bios, but the measurements are not what I expected to see in cpu - z.

On benchamrking cpu in cpu-z -

CPU single thread : 1404
Multi : 5414
Multi thread ratio : 3.86

 

[Redek]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/153428909@N08/shares/pb2SJ6

 

[Redek]

 

[Redek]

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/153428909@N08/32978704413/in/dateposted/" title="cpu-z"><img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2882/32978704413_38e8739913_b.jpg" width="650" height="975" alt="cpu-z"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Redek]

cpu-z by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

 

[Redek]

 

[Redek]

While running some demanding software (not a game) graphics problem happened again. So got around to running some tests. CPU first, GPU after. Whilst fiddling with the fan speeds the graphics problem happened again.

Have just realised the pics are not how I expected them, but im not doing them again.

 

[Redek]

CPU with standard Asus overclocking applied
1 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

This applies while all following tests done

 

[Redek]

CPU1 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

CPO by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

CPO3 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

CPU - test1 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

GPU1 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

GPU2 before bench by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

GPU test1 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

I cranked up the fans to 100% at first. I'm wondering if power supply issues come into it. Running 800W corsair

I did get some error messages about power supply previously. Most recently when plugging in a mech keypad.

Cables are untidy and I wonder if this comes into it too.


So I'm concluding for now, the graphics problem is coming from the gpu, but it might not be happenening for one simple reason. Some of the parts might be very tired and might need better optimising if I want to rely on this setup for the future

 

[Redek]

IMG_20170412_112406 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr

 

[Redek]

IMG_20170412_120632 by Ed Rowan, on Flickr