Planning a new system

Worst advise ever.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

Yes.

Shop says "lieferbar in 2-3 weeks". We'll see.

Yesterday I had my first blue screen on my W7 gaming rig. In idle. The first since many, many years... The system is silently falling apart. Its getting time to switch. The symptoms are mounting in numbers.

I indeed plan with the Noctua ND15. I am only worried about the weight of over 1 kg, mounted to a relatively small square on the MB, that the pressure will lead to microfractions in the mainboard over time. Alternatives are the Black Rock Pro 3 by BeQuiet! nd the new Alpenföhn monster, forgot the name for this moment.

For German readers, here is a very good indepth analysis and comparison of the pros and cons of air cooling versus AIO versus all custom water-cooling. Beware, it takes some time to read from A to Z. I take it that for maximum overclocking, watercooling indeed is a must. But I do not plan with that, most likely will leave things to the default frequency. If I would have chosen water, it would have been an AIO. I have no interest in the high spending and fiddling around with a custom water cooling.

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/luftkuehlung-wasserkuehlung-uebersicht-kaufberatung/

A single HD exchange frame, so to change HDs like a car radio piushed in and out, will come handy.

The only thing that makes me growl in anger is that I ust go Windows 10 now, no real alternative. Will chose enterprise 64, so that I can at least delay those udates a little bit at least. I do not wnat to serve as their Betatester for zero day desasters of which MS has created quite some in the past two years. The system will become and serve exclusively as a game console/launcher, all other computer tasks are on my second rig with Linux, so privacy violations by Microsoft can only hurt my Steam account. Bad enough.

 

Windows 10 is pretty good, it's they're best OS in a while at least. The updates are damned annoying though. It just seems to update as it sees fit and even when I tell it not to update on a reboot it does it anyway and I'd swear to god it does those updates as slow as possible just to piss me off.

 

For normal working conditions within the normal default frequency range of the CPU, a good air cooler should be able to keep up with a AIO in noise and effect. For overclocking to the maximums possible, and CPU thus creating plenty of heat and consuming enormously much more power, a custom water cooling probably cannot be avoided. In all cases proper airflow inside the tower must be taken care of, since the mainboard has components that create heat as well, so do the RAM bars. You want a slight overpressure inside the tower, vents must be such that more air gets sucked in on th front and bottom than the rear vent presses out (dust prevention is a side effect, if you have filters on the vents). My chosen chassis has by default a 2-1 vent design, can get more attached if needed.

---

A good, reliable and silent PSU is mandatory, sinc ehere is the smallest chance to tune for more silence. Nill, to be precise. I go with a 750W by BeQuite!, that may be overpowered if not overclocking, but I like to have the reserve in the backhand, if needed in the future (graphics board, OC). My current system has a 700W.

RAM bars must not be more than 2666, the CPU cannot handle faster ones. They work, but you pay additional coins for a plus in performance that will not materialise.

I will have a Samsung 256GB SSD for the OS, and a WD Red 2TB HD for the installed software. Plus that exchange frame.

Gainward recently released a 1080TI with 11GB. I need to check that one out, I have had two Gainward boards in the past, and was most satisfied with them. So far, I have the 1080TI by Asus and EVGA in my crosshairs. Noise level and temps are the key criteria for me, and longevity, of course. a graphcis board costing twice as much than an office PC, shall not break after just three years or so.

 

I completely disagree. Following the W10 drama in insider and tech blogs since I decided to seal off my W7 two years ago and never ever letting it contact a Microsft server again, i hear nothing but #### about it from IT admins and pros that do this stuff for their living. And privacy essentially is non-existing. Even the enterprise with all related settings set to as tight as possible phone home almost 2000 sets of variables all the time. And we are not talking about Alexa stuff. Thats why I have migrated to Linux for all other cpmter tasks, and only leave game launching to Windows these days. Windows dies, it dies slowly, but it dies, that simple it is. The market data numbers say it. The IT admins say it. Even Nadalla recently had to indirectly admit that they have lost (or never had had in the first) one third of their global W10 user numbers that were claimed by Microsoft before. W7 withdraws only creepingly slow from the market and still is at almost 50%, (48%) on the PC market, with W10 after two years currently stagnating at a bit more than half of that only. That is the slowest Windows adoption rate any Windows version ever has shown up with. IT admins HATE it, it gives them nothing but overtime hours and additional problems and needs to find workarounds. Regarding all existing computer devices, Android is up and away anyway, in America I read that schools and universities adopt more Google or Apple devices by now than Microsoft devices (MS just has announced to give up their W10 Mobile for Smartphones, and their Surface tablet business is a mess due to the crappy quality of this garbage thing that is glued together and effectively cannot be repaired while having many vulnerabilities), thats why they have indicated they want to withdraw from that field as well. And some weeks ago Microsoft admitted defeat by Linux by having publicy announced they give up their 20+ years of hostile resistance to Linux, now want to support development for it and in general want to embrace it to death. Of course they got a very frosty answer from the Linux reply, the worst must be feared if one would allow Microsoft to get a foothold in Linux so that they one day could start to dictate the conditions. The MS headqarters in Redmont are said to run mainly under Linux, and Bill gates just days ago admitted he has replaced his Microsoft for a Android smartphone.

W10 best Windows ever? Its far worse than Vista, W8 and W-Millenium together. And it explodes in slow motion right intoNadalla'S face.

Yesterday I have read the first time ever about that they plan somethign new, a new operaiton system codenamed Andromeda. that also is a message. Originally W10 was mant to be the last OS ever done by Microosft as a genuin new developement, and then it shoukd just be maintained and get rolling udates for all time to come. They announced this already at th start of Windows 8, that long this is known already. If now they suddenly pull a new OS plan out of the hat, this tells me that this is an emergency plan they quickly throw together out of despair. Which again mans they internally have accepted that W10 is a disaster, by sale snumbers as well as by the enormous image loss and damaged reutation. The superaggressive campaign to force W7 or to trick them against their will into installing W10, has not been forgotten, nor forgiven. It has also been noted that several of their lingtimed and most experienced experts for Windows have either been fired, or voluntarily fled from the Windows patching laboratory. At the same time the funding for Windows development has been cut, and the number of heads at work has been reduced. Now you know why the oatches so often are so faulty and sometimes do so enormous damages. Early btis year there was a clauclation in I think the WP or the Boston Globe, showing that enterises and business may have sufferd dmaages in the high three digit millions due to problems and losses caused by erratical or non.working Windows 10 networks in tueri company offices. One day of failed IT networks, translates into loss of money for business, that simple it is. And different from orivate onsumers, comoanies akready get a premium treatnent by MS and can force them easier to accept soecial conditions and priviliged treatment. We players are at the very end of the food chain.

A lot of damage done by Microsoft and Nadalla. Out of sheer arrogance, selfrightousness, and too much greed. Don't cry for them.

Do like I do, read frequently the one or the other techsite or tech blog written and visited by pros who do this stuff for their living. Then you get a better , more complete picture. Greg Keyzer, Günther Born, Woody Leonhard all are good guys, and they know the stuff. There are those who have the experience and knowledge, and the links and networks to other wise guys. Just want to know, and you can start learning immediately.

 

Didn't want to quote as way too much text but sorry, just about everything above is wrong. In the context of water cooling I believe the discussion centres around AIO closed loop coolers.

See here for comparisons of Noctua vs closed loop coolers, pay specific attention to noise under load:
http://www.relaxedtech.com/reviews/noctua/nh-d15-versus-closed-loop-liquid-coolers/2

A quick google search of "Noctua ND15 vs water cooling" will help underline this.

Saying not to get faster RAM is probably the worst thing in there above

see here:
https://www.techspot.com/amp/article/1171-ddr4-4000-mhz-performance/page3.html

No it doesn't make a huge difference most of the time but it does make a difference with CPU intensive stuff (Sim racing is CPU intensive? Who knew that AI needs CPU processing)

Also what happens when the next CPU supports 3200Mhz ram and you only bought 2666? The price difference is very negligible between those two. I have also back to back tested my 1600Mhz quad channel kit at 2133 in AC and found a large improvement to minimum frame rate all else being equal

Case need negative air preassure, of course it does, but this isn't 1995 where we get optional 80mm fans if we are lucky, prety much every case is designed correctly to move air bottom front to top rear with large, generally 120mm fans which move a heap of cfm at low rpm.

There is a reason both intel and AMD's reference coolers are downward blowing, they are designed to cool components around the CPU socket. Removing all direct airflow which is what you do with a watercooler when the fans are moved to the top/front/side of the case needs to be compensated for.

I speak from both personal trial and error experience as well as over 17 years working in IT experience both small retail building gaming systems and now large enterprise.

 

As to the above related to Windows "dying" and the diminishing market share please use some common sense instead of regurgitating click bait news on the net. Windows market share "collapsed and continued to decline" once iOS and android started being counted in the OS market share statistics

 

I do not plan to buy a new CPU in the forseeable years. I kept my current system since 2010, only changed the gfx board once! And then, if needed, I can not only add RAM bars, but also replace the existing ones.

Intel says their i7 8700K supports not more than 2666, and just this morning I had an email exchange with the chosen shop, asking them why they had 3000-bars offered as default. They said it indeed was a mistake and correct it down to 2666 as default.

As to your link to RAM bar speeds, I take note of what they claim, but I would like to see an explanation. When Intel says their CPU supports not more than 2666, and Asus said the same, how/why could there be these differences then? And at what cost? System instability? Or are we talking about overclocked systems? I mean these effects cannot fall just down from the sky. I also wonder to what degree it also depends on the mainboard. - Price-wise, the difference is not monumental, you are right. I just wonder, and want to know. Especially about hidden hooks. I absolutely HATE hidden hooks. System instability, for example. So...?!

On coolers, you said "everything above is wrong". But I argued for the Noctua and that good aircoolers are not inferior to AIO coolers, and your tables show that the Noctua indeed is the most silent and second coolest in the test versus those AIOs, and the editor recommends it, too. Did I miss your point, or misunderstand something?

 

As a matter of fact I strictly separate such statistics that cover ALL comouter deivces (so throw smartphones and tablets in the sam epot with PCs and notebooks), and PC'S only. Or better, the source sof these statisticsm that are based on globla network traffic analysis usually, differ between these two settings. Its two very different statistical scenarios, you are right. But I did not mess them up. If mobile devices re not counted, all Windows version together sitll hold a majority of the market share, with W7 holding around 48% and W10 around I think 25%. If you count mobiles as well, then Android is the dominant player with over 40%, and all windows versions I think around 28%. Telling by memory, don't nail me for one co9unter more or less on these numbers. And then there is browsers, for which they do these statistics as well, like for OS. Here too Microsoft has taken a dive, Edge and all still running versions of Explorer together had slightly over 50% of market shares in January 2016, 21 months ago. Last september, this numbers has plummeted to 19 or 18%. The big boos is Chrome, which is safe regarding malware threats since it gets faster and more often updated than any other browser, but privacy-related is a compete disaster - the user new clothings are total nakedness, even if he tries to shut down according options. That is no wonder since it is the inherent business model of Google to not allow privacy to the user. if they would allow it, they could pack their things together and leave, their fiscal model would not work anymore.

 

Sorry, don't mean to sound offensive but there is way to much incorrect information going on. Anything over 2666Mhz for the 8 series CPU's is classed as overclocked. The intel memory controller is very robust though and happily accepts much higher memory speeds, the overclock itself is factory set by the manufacturer of the ram very much like factory overclocks on video cards, there is absolutely no worry about reliability or voiding warranty as its fully supported. Settings for the memory is set in the XMP profile, pretty much all motherboards will read this and run what the manufacturer of the RAM intended. The faster the RAM the faster the CPU can access data from it, so when that operation is needed you see a speed improvement, generally most games wont take too much advantage of this as are mostly GPU bound but sims require a fair amount of CPU so there is a good benefit to be had. Codemasters F1 games from memory also soo fairly large improvements from RAM speeds.

Cooling a CPU using either a big air cooler like a Noctua or a watercooler like a corsair 110i is still a mater of airflow mostly
With a Noctua you get low noise and very good cooling, hence my original recommendation. Water would give you the same CPU temperature but increased surrounding component temperature and a fair amount more noise as you will add a pump and the fans to maintain the same low temperature as a good air cooler will need to spin faster. Of course you could build a hard core custom water cooler loop but would be heaps more expensive and still not as quiet

 

I don't know the politics of windows and other OS's, all I can say is from my own personal experience win 10 is my favourite OS since XP. Vista and Millennium where half stop OS's that I didn't really see any point in, Windows 8 was a disaster by forcing a touch interaction on a desktop and hiding everything behind dumbed down front ends that made everything twice as hard to use. I hated it and the way it did everything. It's not surprising MS have lost market share, new players on the scene, a completely new audience in mobile users, new technology like chromebooks.

I think in reality all Microsoft really lost out on was the new users that came through the mobile market. Everyone that used to use windows that I know, still use windows.

 

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
Market share is certainly not declining, looks very much like its been steadily growing as expected. Linux on the other hand did have a strange jump over a period of 2-3 months, statistically I believe it would be an anomaly, it looks to have began its decline back to normality

 

No offence taken I enjoy your replies even if they raise "controversy". The mistake indeed most likely is on my wrong understanding. For whatver a reason until right now I lived under the impression that there was a hardware barrier on clock speeds for RAM bars that cannot be tricked out (OC). Don't ask me where I got this understanding, its just what so far I believed to know. You mean it can be "overclocked", well if that is possible, that explains it. The RAM bars considered are Corsair, with their aluminujm coverings. Do you think that if I take these with 3000 instead 2666, thats the maximum on offer by this shop, temprature still will be no problem on them? I do not eant to start with active coolers on RAM bars as well.

[

 

From Corsair if I was buying now I would be going for these: Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz Vengeance LPX Black
Man. sku: CMK16GX4M2B3200C16

Good Windows 10 Market share graph from a few months after release till now:
https://www.netmarketshare.com/repo...10&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=201&qpnp=24&qptimeframe=M

Fact is if you want updated security and DX12 for games you need Win10. Also you can not officially run anything but Win10 on 7 series Intel CPU's or above anyway, Microsoft does not support it

 

Yep, I had a discussion with aLinux man some days ago about this. He is always very enthusiastic on claiming the dawn on Linux is coming. Well, I hear that since twenty years. I am thankful it did not materialise, since then itn would be under much heavier attack like the other OS, and thus would less safe. However, malware against Linux and malware agaunst Windows but distrubuted by unaffected Linux servers and systems, is a problem. Thats why I have switched to using a malware scanner on my Linux as well - one that in the last test two years ago (there are not many such tests) has scored high both in Linux AND Windows).

I could imagien that they had a sttistical influx by some Android data, which technically is a Linux version.

Earlier this year it was shown in such statistics that Linux in the past two years gas sightlyl ost a bit, while there was a signficant migraiton away from Windows. Point is Linux was not able to catch these losses by Windows, but as I said: even lost a little bit. The migants mainky went to Google, and some to Apple. But Google is the big winner in Micorsoft's drain.

These statistics alys have to be taken with caution, of course for even if they are done "objecgtively" on grounds of data traffic monitoring, the range to which the observing analyst can civer the whole web in his observation, varies. Companies doing these statistics who have a greater reach on the web, are having an advantage, obviously.

 

I see that many stick with W7. And believe it or not, almost all my people that I know (thise whose system I maintain anyway) have at leats gone to dual boot or two systems. As a matter of fact I knwm people in my personal social environment that tried W10, which were not many - but nobody stayed with it, they either move don to somethign else, or went back to W7. I simpy do not know anyone personally running W10. I maintain the comuters for my oarents, their friends, and some neighburs down my street, currently seven systems. I have convined them all for their needs to follow my exmaple and adopt Linux Mint. No gamers amongst these people, however. They all are happy, and asked why I did not do it earlier. Everything works faster, and more stable for them, and I have FAR LESS work to do and know the machines arem uch safer both regarding malware attacks and privacy.

Ordinary households, most public administration, non gamers, simply do not need Windows. There are better solutions. Windows is only needed for gamers, and people who need to use some specialised branch-typical software for their profession that is not avialable under Linux and cannot b set up in a VM. VM is no solution-for-all, you need to have quite some knoweldge on what you are doing with it.

Wine is absolutely not recommended, for it opens the system to Windows infections even if you run Linux as OS. The system can then distribute Windows malware even after Wine god shut down again. Gamers on Linux often say "Wine!" It is simply bad advise, from a security point of view. And what is worse, most Linx people have no security software installed, even have not the inbuild default firewall of Linux activated, in some Linux distros it is not on by default, Mint as an example). . They so have chance to come aware that they carry and distribute malware to Windows receivers.

 

True. You can get W7 running on Skylake and later, but it is a mess and sometimes doe snto work. And no updates by MS. Which is not necessarily a abd thing. I have kept my W7 isilated since two years. But then, i had eagles eyes on security relevant settings and scanners, and did not use it for anything else but launching games. Only that: launchign games. No email, no surfing, no working, no nothing: all that I do under Linux, on a different machine. My issues now are technical and due to age of components, they are not due to malware attacks.

I once planned to run W7 on new hardware, but test-installations on Skylake hardware showed to become a PITA. Already creating a bootable medium accepted by the platform, proved to be an act of arts. No, it s not worth it, I agree.

 

I completely agree on all of this, and did so from beginning on. Why do you try to convince me? Maybe mistake me for somebody else?

---

Time is out, I need to go, thanks for today, all replies are really appreciated, thank you. I keep this updated. Maybe some other people in the future may find something useful in this.

 

Forgot to mention a couple of things here. WD Red drives are NAS drives and are not suitable/designed for software install/general use. WD mechanical drives for that are Blue (mainstream) and Black (performance)
All 1080Ti cards have 11GB ram