Computer Advice Needed
#423
Elite Member
Thread Starter
iTrader: (24)
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Key West
Posts: 6,110
Total Cats: 283
Hey guys. I just found out that one of my favorite games was ported to PC and expanded.
My tax return was great this year and I have my bills budgeted so...why not get a video card?
Any recommendations for something mild?
Specs here (lol): https://www.miataturbo.net/gaming-91...e2/#post984939
My tax return was great this year and I have my bills budgeted so...why not get a video card?
Any recommendations for something mild?
Specs here (lol): https://www.miataturbo.net/gaming-91...e2/#post984939
#424
Any input on if a modern i7 with integrated graphics would have enough power to stream HD content?
I want to replace our current HTPC with a Micro ATX board with a beefy processor and try to make as near silent as possible.
Essentially, SSD, 8gb RAM, i7 with integrated video/sound, and a no-fan power supply.
Basically would only stream content and cruise the intertubes.
Thoughts?
I want to replace our current HTPC with a Micro ATX board with a beefy processor and try to make as near silent as possible.
Essentially, SSD, 8gb RAM, i7 with integrated video/sound, and a no-fan power supply.
Basically would only stream content and cruise the intertubes.
Thoughts?
#425
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,455
Total Cats: 6,874
Seriously, the computational power required to perform >95% of all modern computing tasks is laughably small as compared to the resources offered by even the cheapest currently-available machines.
A $199 Atom-based netbook will happily send 1080 video to your TV. i7s are for mechanical engineers running SolidWorks and neckbearded gamers living in their parents' basement who base their sense of self-worth on how high of a framerate they are able to achieve in Call of Duty XVI.
#427
So, finally the GTX460 has run into a game it couldnt play more or less maxed out. War Thunder. With Watch Dogs coming out tuesday and GTA V coming out in november I think its time for an upgrade. The GTX660's are pretty damn cheap right now, are those going to cut it for another 3 years or should I step up to something 3 times the price?
Hmmm, PNY GTX770 on newegg for $310 + $20 mail in rebate, makes it only $60 more than the GTX660 I was looking at with WAY better performance. And of course comes with watch dogs, which I want anyways... BUT its the super homo gay 2gb edition.
Hmmm, PNY GTX770 on newegg for $310 + $20 mail in rebate, makes it only $60 more than the GTX660 I was looking at with WAY better performance. And of course comes with watch dogs, which I want anyways... BUT its the super homo gay 2gb edition.
Last edited by Leafy; 05-25-2014 at 01:01 PM.
#430
My 10 year old first-gen Pentium 4 is sufficient to stream HD video over the internet. (Not a joke, I am literally using a 10 year old P4 as my media-server PC.)
Seriously, the computational power required to perform >95% of all modern computing tasks is laughably small as compared to the resources offered by even the cheapest currently-available machines.
A $199 Atom-based netbook will happily send 1080 video to your TV. i7s are for mechanical engineers running SolidWorks and neckbearded gamers living in their parents' basement who base their sense of self-worth on how high of a framerate they are able to achieve in Call of Duty XVI.
Seriously, the computational power required to perform >95% of all modern computing tasks is laughably small as compared to the resources offered by even the cheapest currently-available machines.
A $199 Atom-based netbook will happily send 1080 video to your TV. i7s are for mechanical engineers running SolidWorks and neckbearded gamers living in their parents' basement who base their sense of self-worth on how high of a framerate they are able to achieve in Call of Duty XVI.
2GB isn't enough for most modern games @ 1080p with max effects and then you have 1440p 1600p 4k and any mix and match resolutions.
#434
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,455
Total Cats: 6,874
But seriously...
Photo editing is a joke, computationally. I run a fairly recent version of JASC Paint Shop Pro on my laptop, and that's a Core2Duo.
Video editing can get a bit intensive if you're doing a lot of DVE in software, like transitions that wrap one video source around a 3d solid in Adobe AfterEffects. But that's just offline render time. And we're taking about a few seconds per frame- this ain't the old days where a single transition took hours to render.
Here at WPIX, we have a variety of machines in the editing bays. A mix of Macs and PCs. None of the Macs are newer than G4, and there are some G3s still in use. The PCs are a mix of i3/i5/i7 machines.
#436
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,455
Total Cats: 6,874
Video editing /= transcoding.
All general-purpose CPUs suck at doing things like MPEG compression. Regardless of whether you have a latest-gen i7 or an old Core2, you're gonna be waiting a while if you wanna do that purely in software.
Over time, this will change. When I first started working with hard-disk-based playout systems in radio (mid 1990s), we had dedicated $3,000 sound cards made by Antec just to do the realtime encode / decode. Now that sort of thing runs as a background task.
Like I said, we edit on general-purpose PCs, in the uncompressed domain. When it comes time to compress, we have dedicated ingest machines equipped with AJA Kona video cards that do it in realtime.
All general-purpose CPUs suck at doing things like MPEG compression. Regardless of whether you have a latest-gen i7 or an old Core2, you're gonna be waiting a while if you wanna do that purely in software.
Over time, this will change. When I first started working with hard-disk-based playout systems in radio (mid 1990s), we had dedicated $3,000 sound cards made by Antec just to do the realtime encode / decode. Now that sort of thing runs as a background task.
Like I said, we edit on general-purpose PCs, in the uncompressed domain. When it comes time to compress, we have dedicated ingest machines equipped with AJA Kona video cards that do it in realtime.
#437
LOL my bad... "What about" was supposed to be in front of it.
You responded to it already though.
I guess its a situation where you get used to one thing and don't want to downgrade.
Like going from an SSD to HDD or GPU/i5-7 editing and having to go to a core2duo.
I lack patience though and probably need anger management.
You responded to it already though.
I guess its a situation where you get used to one thing and don't want to downgrade.
Like going from an SSD to HDD or GPU/i5-7 editing and having to go to a core2duo.
I lack patience though and probably need anger management.
#438
Elite Member
iTrader: (1)
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posts: 5,155
Total Cats: 407
Well since this is the current PC talk thread, I figured I would post this here.
I just upgraded my CPU/Mobo from an AMD Phenom II x4 955, which Ive been running on for like 4 years, to a Haswell i5-4670K.
So who gives a ****?
Well, here is an interesting comparison I did by logging framerate while launching a very big multi-stage rocket in Kerbal Space Program (A very CPU intensive game).
Now I just need to overclock it a bit
I just upgraded my CPU/Mobo from an AMD Phenom II x4 955, which Ive been running on for like 4 years, to a Haswell i5-4670K.
So who gives a ****?
Well, here is an interesting comparison I did by logging framerate while launching a very big multi-stage rocket in Kerbal Space Program (A very CPU intensive game).
Now I just need to overclock it a bit
#439
Did they slow the program down a bit? I dont remember having a frame rate that bad once they fixed the big rocket instability problems (you know, where the parts didnt really bolt together correctly and yeah). Like when science first became a thing I had some pretty monster brute force rockets just for slingling dudes into deep space to farm the science out there without having to put effort into orbital mechanics and I was over 60 frames at launch with the i7 3770k. Or is that i5 a lot slower than I thought it was.