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Grimbli

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The one I linked in my post runs a desktop i7 and dual desktop GTX 1080s in SLI. You're not going to err any further on the side of too powerful - I don't think they make a stronger laptop, period.
Yeah, I'll check that out. I was looking for a 1080 but might not need two. The one I mentioned above is around $3500 after all options.
 
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DansAFK

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Can anyone tell me what they would make of this setup? Anything i'm missing or anything I could do cheaper? Not sure I can afford it all but I thought it is a good yard stick. thanks

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/1104253
If you want to buy the parts and build it yourself you could get some better branded components and a more powerful power supply.

Heres a example I just put together for you:

View: http://imgur.com/a/4kqAp


That build is using the parts I listed (minus the green cables for the powersupply and the nzxt Hue+ which would be another £150). I also added a 1tb hard drive to compliment the 500gb SSD.

Comes in at £1130.23

For performance among different games check this image out >> View: http://imgur.com/a/imvUd

You wanna be looking down the column labelled EVGA GTX 1060 SC , higher FPS is better smoother performance.

** Edit ** Specced a few more builds, this one comes in at £1174 and features a cube pc build with corsair liquid cooling instead of the nzxt solution. Heres some images of the build with a different gfx card brand that has LED's and 2 extra sticks of ram on the pictures.

View: http://imgur.com/OT4vfBf

View: http://imgur.com/a/KuG5V
 
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Callahad

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this is all great man, thanks very much. how tricky would it be to put together for someone that has never done it before?
 

DansAFK

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this is all great man, thanks very much. how tricky would it be to put together for someone that has never done it before?
Linus Tech Tips is a great source for all things PC on youtube. If you watch this video >
View: https://youtu.be/vbDiSMQ_L_k


It's not completely exhaustive but he shows how to put stuff together.

Once the main rig is all built, you will need to know how to boot from usb and install your operating system. This guide would probably work for you as well >>
View: https://youtu.be/NT0KFR09Svc

If your going to try building it yourself and you have any questions as you put stuff together I would just take pictures of what your questions are about and post on the forum to get help.
 
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Lienna

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Any thought on my 660 --> 1070 question on the last page (I'm aware that last post on the previous page probably doesn't get read).

Looking into purchasing some upgrades next weekend, so I'd like to know if I'd be okay just swapping the cards or if some other upgrades would be worth investing in?
 

BUTUZ

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Any thought on my 660 --> 1070 question on the last page (I'm aware that last post on the previous page probably doesn't get read).

Looking into purchasing some upgrades next weekend, so I'd like to know if I'd be okay just swapping the cards or if some other upgrades would be worth investing in?
Hey L.

Yes a 1070 will straight swap in place of you're 660. The newer cards are very energy efficient so unlike past upgrade generations, no need to upgrade the PSU or anything, 550w will be plenty.

Optionally, to get the most out of you're 1070 upgrade, if you could also overclock you're CPU a bit too that would be ideal, going from 3.5 to 4Ghz makes a noticeable difference in star citizen as it's fairly CPU speed bound.
 
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Lienna

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Awesome, thanks! That's what I thought but it's nice to have someone corroborate.

Do you know of a good link to teach me how to overclock, people keep saying it but I have absolutely no idea what I have to do to make it happen. I know I have a stupidly big CPU cooler so it should be fine to do, just never looked into the how!
 

DansAFK

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Hi all, I've just started my new job and I'm looking to treat myself come payday. I bought my current PC 4 years ago (exact list below) and all I've added since is a sad and an x52 +pedals. And a 4k monitor, though I only hope to go 2k for gaming... I'm considering buying a 1070, will that be able to swap out for the 660 in the rig below? Are there any other bits I need to swap out? From my research the 1070 has basically the same power draw as a 660 so that should be fine right?

MSI GeForce GTX 660 OC Twin Frozr 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail
Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003)
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX550M High Performance 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020001-UK)
Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black
Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AM3/AM2+/AM2)
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX)
LG GH24NS90 24x DVDąRW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

Apologies for any bad formatting/spelling. Did this on my phone while at the start of a visual migraine so I'm half blind!

Oh BTW I'm in the UK if that matters...

Hey Lienna, sorry I missed your post.

First, based on your specs with a gtx 1070 in the power draw would be :
Load Wattage:287 W
Recommended PSU Wattage: 337 W
As calculated from the coolermaster psu calculator website. Your psu is decent quality and even with the gtx 1070 included the wattage doesn't exceed what it's providing so you should be fine.

The cpu shouldn't bottleneck the performance of your new GPU and a GTX 1070 is such a good choice. If I could afford one I would get one as well :)

The board will support the upgrade and it should just be a simple remove the old card put the new one in (remove the screw at the rear of the chassis holding the card in then press the little tab down at the back under the card. This will unlock it from the slot then you just lift it out. The gtx 1070 stock card is listed on google is about 1 inch longer than a stock gtx 660 so maybe double check that there's enough clearance in your case at the rear of the card to accommodate something a inch longer. Length varies by manufacturer however, I once had the misfortune of buying a card that was way too long and had to take a dremel to the drive cage to make room for it xD

Other than that your good to go. Another worthwhile upgrade for you would maybe be to add an additional 2 x 4gb ram. roughly £40 upgrade but I hear it can make a bit of a difference in star citizen.

When you do get round to upgrading your motherboard / cpu to one of the newer generations the overclocking process is greatly simplified by a lot of the manufacturers. Asus z170 boards have a TPU switch on the board, set it to 1 or 2 depending on air or water cooling and it automatically calculates a optimum 15% overclock for everything. You don't have to do anything other than let it reboot a few times automatically. Gigabyte boards do something similar too. Older boards there are guides but it can get a little complicated and you will already see a large fps increase just from the gtx 1070 alone I think.
 
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marcsand2

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Not really an option as my truck won't run a pc. I know they're inefficient, but my only option for mobile gaming.
Take a laptop with some graphical power. When my rig broke down, I had to fall back on my company laptop. It is a 4th generation i7 quadcore with a NVIDIA Quadro K3100M. The processor is good enough, but the GPU is way under powered. It makes dogfight almost impossible.
 

DansAFK

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this is all great man, thanks very much. how tricky would it be to put together for someone that has never done it before?
Got it down to £1087 with a GTX 1070 or £1278 with a GTX 1080. Both without keyboard/mouse/monitor

upload_2016-9-18_21-30-10.png
 

Callahad

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Got it down to £1087 with a GTX 1070 or £1278 with a GTX 1080. Both without keyboard/mouse/monitor

View attachment 3838
really appreciate this man but I think if I try and build a PC myself i'll end up with a toaster. I was looking at this pre built one today, http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/hades-pre-built-gaming-pc-p-155.html delivers really quick and would save the hassle, what do you think? it's not top end stuff but I reckon it would play most titles full settings
 

Grimbli

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really appreciate this man but I think if I try and build a PC myself i'll end up with a toaster. I was looking at this pre built one today, http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/hades-pre-built-gaming-pc-p-155.html delivers really quick and would save the hassle, what do you think? it's not top end stuff but I reckon it would play most titles full settings
If you've ever replaced RAM or screwed one object to another you can build your own PC. It's surprisingly easy, I did one a few years ago.
 
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Lienna

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Hey Lienna, sorry I missed your post.
The gtx 1070 stock card is listed on google is about 1 inch longer than a stock gtx 660 so maybe double check that there's enough clearance in your case at the rear of the card to accommodate something a inch longer. Length varies by manufacturer however, I once had the misfortune of buying a card that was way too long and had to take a dremel to the drive cage to make room for it xD

Other than that your good to go. Another worthwhile upgrade for you would maybe be to add an additional 2 x 4gb ram. roughly £40 upgrade but I hear it can make a bit of a difference in star citizen.
Will grab some RAM at the same time, being on 8gb does seem a bit retro these days.

So I checked my case (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/zalman-z9-plus-tower-case-with-fan-controller-black-ca-037-za.html) it has clearance for a 290mm graphics cards, I then looked at some of the 1070 variants on amazon and spotted them at 30cm so it wouldn't fit!! but then I looked on overclockers and the same card is on as 279, which would (just) fit!

Any advice on whiche to trust (guess OC?) and is it best to order from them so that if it doesn't fit I can yell at them for providing the wrong measurements or should I be fine grabbing from a cheaper source like amazon?

FYI these are the links I looked at:https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-geforce-gtx-1070-gaming-z-8g-8192mb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-32b-ms.html
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GeForce-GTX-1070-GAMING/dp/B01GRCYPE6/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1474286936&sr=1-1&keywords=gtx+1070

Just thinking about it the amazon produce size is probably for the box right? Suddenly I feel dumb! So I sort of answered my own question here, but thanks again for everyone's help, looking at spending ~£500 on upgrading a PC I originally got for ~600, very excited!
 

mromutt

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Will grab some RAM at the same time, being on 8gb does seem a bit retro these days.

So I checked my case (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/zalman-z9-plus-tower-case-with-fan-controller-black-ca-037-za.html) it has clearance for a 290mm graphics cards, I then looked at some of the 1070 variants on amazon and spotted them at 30cm so it wouldn't fit!! but then I looked on overclockers and the same card is on as 279, which would (just) fit!

Any advice on whiche to trust (guess OC?) and is it best to order from them so that if it doesn't fit I can yell at them for providing the wrong measurements or should I be fine grabbing from a cheaper source like amazon?

FYI these are the links I looked at:https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-geforce-gtx-1070-gaming-z-8g-8192mb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-32b-ms.html
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GeForce-GTX-1070-GAMING/dp/B01GRCYPE6/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1474286936&sr=1-1&keywords=gtx+1070

Just thinking about it the amazon produce size is probably for the box right? Suddenly I feel dumb! So I sort of answered my own question here, but thanks again for everyone's help, looking at spending ~£500 on upgrading a PC I originally got for ~600, very excited!
from the makers site it says 279 x 140 x 42 mm (heres the site for you) :)
 

DansAFK

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I think you can trust the manufacturers and overclockers website, im guessing amazon are just giving the packaging measurements and not the card itself. My case I had to take a dremel to was a zalman z11 plus :D A lot of cases nower days let you remove the drive cages to allow for longer graphics cards, but not zalman... oooh no :D lol

To be fair my first aftermarket cooler was a zalman and I loved it to bits. The case was pretty awesome too apart from my uber long card :p
 

Lienna

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So I got my 1070 and some extra ram. Plugged the ram in yesterday and spent the eve playing Diablo 3. All good.

Today I installed the 1070 and now my pc won't boot! Yay! I don't get to bios, it seems to power up, fans start, leds light, then after 10-20 seconds the power cuts out, then after 2-3 seconds it tries to boot again. I've put my old card back in and it's now happening with that too!

Any thoughts would be welcome.
 

marcsand2

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Sounds like PSU. Remove/disconnect all components except CPU one pair of RAM and keyboard, boot. Even without GPU it should start without rebooting. If it still reboots, try a spare PSU.
 

DansAFK

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So I got my 1070 and some extra ram. Plugged the ram in yesterday and spent the eve playing Diablo 3. All good.

Today I installed the 1070 and now my pc won't boot! Yay! I don't get to bios, it seems to power up, fans start, leds light, then after 10-20 seconds the power cuts out, then after 2-3 seconds it tries to boot again. I've put my old card back in and it's now happening with that too!

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Oh noes! Sounds like a silly question but did you plug the 2 x 6 pin power connection from the PSU into your graphics card? Would look like the ones on this picture, plugging into the end of the card.

Failing that, if you have a integrated on board graphics card try disabling that from the BIOS and selecting use PCI-E x 16


** EDIT ** Googled your motherboard and it appears someone had exactly the same issues when installing a GTX 980 TI. They had to disable "onboard integrated graphics" in bios, they also did a bios update to the latest version then reset their bios settings to defaults which eventually got it to boot and see the card ok.

I double checked the latest bios version on the website and it's from 2014 with no mention of updated graphics card support, so that could be a dead end to be honest. Id go with disabling integrated graphics and restarting, if that doesn't work I would perhaps set bios back to defaults and try another reboot.
(Note: If you screw your bios settings up while messing you can reset them by removing the battery on the board or bridging the bios reset pins on the board.)


 
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