Customized computer?

[Kraco]

I have also been considering a mechanical keyboard, and likely my next keyboard will be such, although I'm finding hard time justifying getting one as long as this current bulk keyboard is working. However, cheap and mechanical is not a combination I'm so sure of. If you go to a store and test them, the noise they make is really spectacular. That's why I'd be likely to go not for the cheapest but the mid-range ones that can have some sort of noise dampening. Plus I'd choose switches without the intentional click sound.

I used to scoff at Bill's backlighting, but I have turned my coat on that subject and think it might actually be a useful feature. Lots of mechnical keyboards have no extra keys and the media keys, if present, are behind Fn. Of course there are exceptions like the Logitech G710+, which boasts a bunch of extra keys, like you'd expect from Logitech. Although to use the macro keys, you'd need Logitech's bloatware.

In short, I can't give you any suggestions, since I haven't been looking at the keyboards with the mind of an acute buyer. I have just read reviews here and there out of academic interest.

[Animeniax]

I researched mechanical keyboards a few months ago and came to the conclusion they weren't worth the price (cheapest decent one I could find was around $70). They tended to have average reviews, probably because the people reviewing them were the discerning tech crowd. Supposedly they help with reaction time via the feedback they offer, but I think that's questionable. The click-clack is a bit obnoxious, unless you wear headphones most of the time.

[Kraco]

Ho... The reviews I have read have been mostly very positive. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the reviews had been written by existing owners of mechanical keyboards, so they would have swallowed all the drawbacks a long time ago. I'm not much of a gamer, a competitive gamer even less, so reaction time differences would be a very marginal reason for me. But if you try a decent mechanical in a store, the feeling of the keyboard is clearly superior to the bulk rubber dome keyboards. I won't even mention the infernal flat keyboards normally used in laptops, but also sometimes sold separately for desktops for God knows what reason.

But yeah, I would definitely not buy the worst examples of the click-clack syndrome. It would drive me crazy.

[Animeniax]

Like I said, the type of people who would buy a mechanical keyboard and then post a review about it are a biased self-selected sample of the community, so you can't really rely on their reviews. You should read reviews of people who thought of the benefit to price ratio of a mechanical keyboard to the other keyboards.

When you say they are superior, how do you mean that? Do they feel better under your hands, do they allow you to type faster with more accuracy, does it provide quicker response in games?

[Kraco]

Tactile feeling, like they call it in those reviews. How it feels to press down a button and how easily you discern when it's pressed enough. Simply if the force needed for the press is just the right one. It does lead to increased accuracy and reaction times as well if the switches suit your tastes. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't fall into that category, though. After all, there are people who insist on using a flat laptop style keyboard even with their desktops, so it's clearly a matter of personal differences. I don't write particularly fast and definitely not using all of my fingers, so my writing speed would only be affected by lessened need to correct errors.

I'm not really an elitist and I was in the benning dubious when I started to read about mechanical keyboards, especially since there was a period of several years when they weren't even made at all (for casual consumer market, anyway) and thus people used ancient IBM keyboards that used to be mechanical. That sounded like pure idiocy. But when I happened to notice some keyboards on display in a store and tried them out of curiosity, I immediately realised it's not all empty talk and nerdy bias. But yeah, I wouldn't recommend them unless you have a chance to test them somewhere. They are expensive for dust collectors.

[Buffalobiian]

Mechanical keyboards type the best. The key travel makes the biggest difference as it leads to increased feedback to your fingers/brain to tell you you actually pressed something. I've also found the gentle curve (vertical curve) of the keyboard with differing, staggered heights for each row of keys to be more ergonomical. Slanting a flat keyboard isn't quite the same.

The keys you find on older, thick notebooks aren't bad. They've got less travel, bit it's enough. My biggest problem with those is that due to their large, flat keys my fingers can get caught on the corners as I drift from one key to the next (doesn't happen with the more elevated, pyramidal-shaped mechanical keys).

The there's the mac-style, tiled keys. They're flat and thin. If you need portability/low profile, go for it. I see no real reason otherwise.

While differences exist and it's always good to use what's the most comfortable, I personally don't differentiate between the first two categories much (though I will try tp avoid the 3rd for a desktop keyboard). Even though I'm a touch typist, I hardly think at my max typing speed.

Talking about comfort, I did move to type-2 due to their lower noise output. The space-bar sounding like a cash register at 3am isn't a nice.

[oyabun]

When speaking about brands, which of them should I go with? This is the first time I'm gonna buy a mech keyboard and I can't really decide what to choose. On a personal note, I want a silent mech keyboard although that can be waive depending on the overall look and feature of the keyboard. I only know one silent type which is the Razer Ultimate silent edition. But I'm not sure if it has an extra USB and audio port on the side like the Razer Black Widow 2013 ultimate edition. Are there anymore Silent type mechs?

[Xelbair]

So i finally built my new machine.

Radeon Sapphire HD7970
I7 k3770
16GB ram DDR3 1600MHz
128 SSD drive - samsung 840 pro
2TB drive + old 1TB drive
Asus Maximus V Formula motherboard
Coolermaster Silencio 650 chassis

I've built the machine on monday, installed all soft on next day, and started cleaning my old one for my father.. then yesterday i've finished installing stuff on older one.

Photos(sorry for crappy quality, but i've only had my cellphone at hand):
IMAG0173.jpg
inside the chassis - i've moved the cable running above the video card to the back of the chassis so it looks more clean.

IMAG0175.jpg

IMAG0174.jpg
PC placed under the desk - i've spent 2h fighting with cables to make it look like this..

[Kraco]

inside the chassis - i've moved the cable running above the video card to the back of the chassis so it looks more clean.

You should move as many cables as possible to the cable space in the back. Not only it makes the inside look cleaner, but it also helps wirh the airflow. I put also my HDs with the cables facing the other way.

I don't know if your case is similar to mine in the way that you could remove completely that upper HD cage, only leaving the smaller, lower one in place. Since you don't have too many HDs in, if that's a possibility, you should go for it. I did that, and I bet it helps the airflow immensely.

Very cool machine judging by the components in any case. It ought to serve you long.

[Buffalobiian]

I am most impressed by the long powerboard at the back of the desk.

I don't happen to have one of those, so I've got 4 powerboards linked up instead.

I agree with Kraco, if you can squeeze your HDDs into that lower bay and completely remove the top rack it'll give you more room to play with. Nice choice of components, and happy gaming.

[LaZie]

Just upgraded my PC from an AMD Phenom II 965 BE @ 4.0 GHz to an i5 3570k @ 4.4 GHz coupled with a new mobo and 8gb DDR3 ram and it is leaps and bounds faster than my previous computer.

[Kraco]

Just upgraded my PC from an AMD Phenom II 965 BE @ 4.0 GHz to an i5 3570k @ 4.4 GHz coupled with a new mobo and 8gb DDR3 ram and it is leaps and bounds faster than my previous computer.

A new mobo, you say? I guess it could have been a bit hard to jam the Intel CPU into the AMD socket, so it was probably a good choice to change the mobo.

I never ended up overclocking my 3570k, even though I got the "k" version so that I could. But my case hasn't got enough cooling to really allow much in the way of generating extra heat. I reckon I'd need to add another exhaust fan (I only have one at the moment, slowed down by the CPU water cooler's radiator to boot), and right now I value less noise over more GHz. Not that I'd need the extra speed anyway. In games my GPU is the bottleneck, no doubt, and the rare video encoding I do wouldn't justify anything.

[LaZie]

Managed to get my 3570k up to 4.7GHz @ 1.21v. Max it hit when priming was 78c. I think I'll stop there as it shouldn't hit that high when gaming. Unless I decide to "delid", it was worth the upgrade.

[Buffalobiian]

Managed to get my 3570k up to 4.7GHz @ 1.21v. Max it hit when priming was 78c. I think I'll stop there as it shouldn't hit that high when gaming. Unless I decide to "delid", it was worth the upgrade.

I find that my temps are highest when I run both prime AND a video-card benchmark so that every heat-producing component in my tower is fired up. The CPU's temps are at least 10C higher than when prime is running alone. My set-up is ultra-low noise and minimal ventilation though with the graphics card dumping hot air into the chassis instead of outside it, so it may not impact on yours that much.

[Animeniax]

I have an ATI 6970 (6950 unlocked). Does anyone know if the Geforce GTX 770 is enough of a performance difference to be worth the upgrade? I typically upgrade every 2-3 years and it's been that long since I installed the 6970. I'd like to be able to play Metro Last Light in all its glory so a new vidcard would go towards that.

[Kraco]

I have an ATI 6970 (6950 unlocked). Does anyone know if the Geforce GTX 770 is enough of a performance difference to be worth the upgrade? I typically upgrade every 2-3 years and it's been that long since I installed the 6970. I'd like to be able to play Metro Last Light in all its glory so a new vidcard would go towards that.

It's consistently twice as powerful as 6970, so yeah, it leaves 6970 to eat the dust. It ought to run any game at max settings (provided the game itself doesn't have issues not related to video cards, which Last Light might have).

GTX 770 is apparently a factory tweaked GTX 680 with just a little more power.

My info is from Guru3D. Obviously you should check it or your preferred site before jumping to conclusions based only on what I said. Not to mention it's quite an expensive card, yet still not from the upcoming generation technology wise.

[Animeniax]

It's consistently twice as powerful as 6970, so yeah, it leaves 6970 to eat the dust. It ought to run any game at max settings (provided the game itself doesn't have issues not related to video cards, which Last Light might have).

I went with the GTX770 on my new i7-4770 system.

On my older system I installed a Corsair H110 on my i7-930 (long backstory, but it was either that or spend another $50 for another cooler, so might as well use the H110 since I can't return it). I removed the cooling block to replace the stock TIM with some MX-4.

Since then, my system wouldn't resume from sleep and the power supply would do this weird cycling thing where it powered on then off twice before the system would boot, and I'd get an error that the overclock settings failed and needed to be reapplied in the BIOS. I cleaned off and reapplied the TIM and tried some other things, same problem. Then I checked the pins on the socket on the motherboard and found that some of the pins were bent and touching each other. I used a piece of index card and a small screwdriver to bend the pins back into place (a pain in the ass, need a magnifying glass and a very small screwdriver). Now it boots normally and everything works fine. Cooling performance of the H110 on the i7-930 is nothing special, worse than the Xigmatek Dark Knight II I had on there before. It's also not much quieter since you have two fans on the radiator instead of the one fan on the HSF.

Lesson is to be careful when installing/removing the CPU from the socket, as you can easily bend the pins and ruin the motherboard or get weird behavior from your PC.

[Buffalobiian]

Since you've had both an aftermarket air cooler as well as the pre-packaged water cooler (aka Corsair H110), what can you say about the noise of the pump, Ani?

[Animeniax]

No noise from the pump, though with the 6 other system fans it's hard to tell. One of the fans in particular is old and makes a lot of noise and the PSU fan isn't quiet either. I need to replace the noisy fan and the PSU.

The thing with AIO pre-packaged water coolers (from what I've read and experienced) is that their performance isn't going to be better than a high-end HSF. Like I said, the Dark Knight II did a better job of cooling my oc'd i7-930. If I could do it over, I'd have bought a second DKII instead of the H110 and gotten better cooling and saved $60.

[Kraco]

If the case has super cooling otherwise, the difference might indeed not exist or even be negative. But if the case has less cooling, then the fact the water cooler pushes the heat right out of the case ought to make a difference. At least according to my own experience. I have the same water cooler model in my current build that I also had in my previous build, although the CPU is different. The case isn't much different, basically just a slightly updated model. However, the previous build had all the fans from my pre-water cooler days, whereas this current one has reduced fans. There are no heat problems, which I largely credit to the water cooling not leaving the CPU's heat hanging inside the case.

As we all know, Bill likes to bake bread inside his computer case (that is, keep is as hot as the components can stand), so I could see water cooling being an option. At the same time I have to note that you should choose the cooler carefully, because they do produce distinct sound. Unfortunately, I guess due to liquid circulating inside a closed loop (unless you build a real custom water cooling), the noise can be uneven and most of all it varies between the individual coolers. So, when you get your cooler, if luck favours you, it might be very nicely silent, but if you haven't sacrificed enough at Fortuna's altar, you might get one with strange extra noise. My luck wasn't perfect. But then again, I didn't even study the models of different manufacturers too much, which probably was a mistake.