Catch me up on current tech

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:07 am

A long time ago I was caught by surprise when the still new AGP tech was replaced by PCI-e...

I am going to start upgrading my PC by bits and pieces. I have a growing problem with reboots and trouble starting it up every day... the current process is boot it once, wait for it to lock up within 30 seconds, power down, give it 20 seconds because it isn't going to boot, power down again, this time go into safe mode, and then, finally, it will reboot correctly.

I will reload Win7, because I haven't done so in over 3 years, see if that fixes it. Doubt it, but we will see.

So I am going to start with the video card. When the problems began months ago it was with "video driver stopped responding but has recovered." Even if the problem isn't the video card, I need an upgrade anyway and if needs be it can be put into a brand new system. If you recall from elsewhere, I can't even upgrade the video drivers to the current version because it breaks the card completely. Maybe that's obsolescence, maybe that is something broken in the card.

So.

Is PCI-e still the current standard? That's what my current mobo takes. I will be replacing a GeForce GTX 560T on an ASUS P8Z68-V mobo.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:12 am

Yeah. I got this. Works fine with my GeForce 780 TI-OC.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8)
(The PCIEX16 and PCIEX8 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
* The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
* The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1_2/3 slots. The PCIEX1_2/3 slots will become unavailable when a PCIe x4 expansion card is installed.
* When installing a x8 or above card in the PCIEX4 slot, make sure to set PCIE Slot Configuration in BIOS Setup to x4. (Refer to Chapter 2, "BIOS Setup," "Peripherals," for more information.)

3 x PCI Express x1 slots
(The PCIEX4 and PCI Express x1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

1 x PCI slot

It's not a top of the line board but it's a nicer one.

Edited By Malcolm on 1406560409

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:28 am

You bought a $700 graphics card?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:34 am

GORDON wrote:You bought a $700 graphics card?

Its value in that link and the price at which I acquired it are two distinct numbers.

Edited By Malcolm on 1406561652

Post by **Cakedaddy** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:57 am

I had that EXACT problem with my PC in the past. Went on for months. Reboot, launch some stuff to initiate the lock up, reboot, run stable. All the time. Video card errors showing up in logs. I was running two cards in SLI. Long story short, I narrowed it down to one of the video cards went bad. I removed it from my system and the problem went a way. So, ya. Replace your video card.

I think PCIe is the current standard, but, I think there's a new slot showing up that allows 4 card crossfire/sli. It's really short. But, I could be wrong. I had a new enough card that I didn't care about them last time I bought new hardware.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:58 am

Unless you do heavy vid processing, 1 solid card should be enough.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:39 pm

Nah, I am not going SLI. Used to be you could only have one monitor in that config... is that still true?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:45 pm

GORDON wrote:Nah, I am not going SLI. Used to be you could only have one monitor in that config... is that still true?

You can run up to 3 displays with Crossfire SLI.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:50 pm

Interesting.

While we are on the subject, is the i7 still the flagchip (see what I did there?) intel CPU?

Edited By GORDON on 1406566224

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:01 pm

GORDON wrote:Interesting.

While we are on the subject, is the i7 still the flagchip (see what I did there?) intel CPU?

Yeah.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:03 pm

Solid State Drives: Do they plug into your SATA ports, or what?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:15 pm

GORDON wrote:Solid State Drives: Do they plug into your SATA ports, or what?

Yeah. Even my 3.5" bays take 2.5" SSDs.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:22 pm

I was newegg searching for them and it was bringing up stuff that looked like PCIe slot drives. Just wondered.

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:24 pm

GORDON wrote:I was newegg searching for them and it was bringing up stuff that looked like PCIe slot drives. Just wondered.

Those are faster, but the SATA ones will be fine for you.

I've been using the Samsung Evo drives lately. Although my failure rate has been higher than I like. Out of about 25 drives, 2 have gone bad already.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:46 pm

Twin Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 240GB SATA SSDs. No troubles.

Post by **Cakedaddy** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:27 pm

I have read that SSDs have short life spans, so I avoid them. I can handle a few extra seconds load time. I do buy Caviar Black drives though to get better throughput.

SLI and Crossfire are competing techs. SLI is Nvidia, Crossfire is ATI, fyi.

They fixed the 'one monitor only' thing a long time ago. I don't know what the upper limit is now. The 3 monitor thing is so that your game spans three monitors. Like having extra extra wide screen. All three monitors have to be the same though. Well, they did the last time I was researching it. My video card, by itself, supports 3 monitors. 2 DVI one HDMI. They would call the HDMI a slave monitor, or something like that. Not sure what it meant. Didn't have/use a 3rd monitor. But to have your game span three monitors, they all have to be DVI, which means a second card. But I think you can have as many displays as you have ports on multiple cards, if you want.

Yes, i7.

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:31 pm

Any SSD will last 5 years fine. Both my failures were in warranty.

Regular HD's, I have no patience for whatsoever. My current laptop has 3 SSDs. Boot/programs, data, and games.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:42 pm

SLI and Crossfire are competing techs. SLI is Nvidia, Crossfire is ATI, fyi.

Forgot the slash.

Regular HD's, I have no patience for whatsoever.

Aye, HDDs are strictly for audio/video storage.

Post by **Cakedaddy** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:54 pm

My PC boots in less than 30 seconds. My games launch just as fast as everyone else's. I have always opted for more space than a few seconds saved during loading.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 3:00 pm

Cakedaddy wrote:My PC boots in less than 30 seconds. My games launch just as fast as everyone else's. I have always opted for more space than a few seconds saved during loading.

Mine will go in less than 10. I just don't need the space in terms of immediate retrieval. Have held myself back from getting the 480GB SSD twice for that reason.

Edited By Malcolm on 1406574067