Post your computer's Specs, and discuss improvements.

PB Forum :: Computers, Games & Technology
Post your computer's Specs, and discuss improvements.
Author Message
flag LindLTaylor
Posted: Dec 25, 2017 at 18:05 Quote
Are you trying to use the XMP profile, or are you manually adjusting clocks and timings?
flag Biscuitto
Posted: Dec 25, 2017 at 19:25 Quote
Anyone got a bit of advice with sound cards? I'm wanting to make use of the Amazon boxing day sales and pick up a card and headphones for like £60-80 each for messing about in ableton, gaming and films. Would be cool to have something that I can plug my guitar directly into the computer with, but I'm not even sure that's the same product? Some people use the phrases audio interface and soundcard independently and others interchangeably, so I'm not sure if certain ones are capable of what I'm asking for or I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely. I have spare PCI-E slots and power/space shouldn't be an issue at all. Unlikely to be used with speakers ever so just a couple of inputs/outputs should be spot on as far as I can think.

Additionally headphones - I'm after over ears, wireless would be good but by no means a necessity, microphone not needed, and performance over prettiness, can look fresh off a work site for all I care if they work well.

Any pointers to get me going in the right direction?
flag pdee
Posted: Dec 26, 2017 at 9:43 Quote
LindLTaylor wrote:
Are you trying to use the XMP profile, or are you manually adjusting clocks and timings?

XMP profile doesnt want to boot into anything above 2133.
flag ratcat
Posted: Dec 26, 2017 at 11:17 Quote
@biscuitto, i know it’s a bit late for the sales but here goes.

Firstly what motherboard are you using currently? Some boards have fantastic audigy chipsets already built in that rival many sound cards.

Any mid end audio headphones / earphones I would recommend looking at Sennheiser’s lineup. Sound quality and build is fantastic on all their products.

For your guitar, you would need a DAC. However most sub £150 units are known to have issues with clipping and the sound comes out too overdriven. I believe there is some good recommendations though on the ultimate-guitar forums for such things. I looked myself for my electric organ a while back. Most DAC units are USB external devices so connectivity should not be an issue.
flag ratcat
Posted: Dec 26, 2017 at 11:19 Quote
Double post.

@PDee, is the motherboard manually controlling voltage for the RAM? I know another common issue is the RAM setting itself to a lower speed due to poor power commitment from the board. Tom’s Hardware forums probably have an instructable to help you troubleshoot if you aren’t familiar with voltage and timings.
flag Biscuitto
Posted: Dec 26, 2017 at 12:30 Quote
rAtty-c wrote:
@biscuitto, i know it’s a bit late for the sales but here goes.

Firstly what motherboard are you using currently? Some boards have fantastic audigy chipsets already built in that rival many sound cards.

Any mid end audio headphones / earphones I would recommend looking at Sennheiser’s lineup. Sound quality and build is fantastic on all their products.

For your guitar, you would need a DAC. However most sub £150 units are known to have issues with clipping and the sound comes out too overdriven. I believe there is some good recommendations though on the ultimate-guitar forums for such things. I looked myself for my electric organ a while back. Most DAC units are USB external devices so connectivity should not be an issue.
No worries man, doesn't seem to be much good on just now anyways!

It's a gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H, the numbers claimed for SNR seem ok but still get a bit of noise and artefacts now and then in games but that could be down to something else.

I did use to have a few different sennheiser in ears, really great sound quality but I went through 3 pairs in less than a year each and I've had my current earphones for almost 4 now with not much sign of wear. Though that didn't really put me off as I was having a look at a few pairs, just didn't really see anything that stood out.

I have been looking into it literally all day today so I got a better idea of the vocab and what I'm looking for. The Creative Aurvana Live is dead cheap especially on their website just now and haven't read a bad word on them for the budget, seem like a good compromise of quality and soundstage. As for sound card the sound blaster Z seems good for the price point.

I did find the same for the guitar input, and some suggested solutions were incredibly costly so I was just gonna put it off for now, but I'll have a look at the UG forums! I could always just get a proper amp.
flag LindLTaylor
Posted: Dec 26, 2017 at 14:14 Quote
rAtty-c wrote:
@biscuitto, i know it’s a bit late for the sales but here goes.

Firstly what motherboard are you using currently? Some boards have fantastic audigy chipsets already built in that rival many sound cards.

Any mid end audio headphones / earphones I would recommend looking at Sennheiser’s lineup. Sound quality and build is fantastic on all their products.

For your guitar, you would need a DAC. However most sub £150 units are known to have issues with clipping and the sound comes out too overdriven. I believe there is some good recommendations though on the ultimate-guitar forums for such things. I looked myself for my electric organ a while back. Most DAC units are USB external devices so connectivity should not be an issue.

As far as DACs go, I almost got myself a Fiio E10k when I got my TASCAM TH-02s. I still have a working SB-Z though so there wasn't really any point.
flag ratcat
Posted: Dec 26, 2017 at 16:31 Quote
As it was Christmas yesterday I’ve been getting offered peoples old pc crap all day.

Couple old shite dell’s coming my way (fun to tinker with if nothing else) and I thought I hit the jackpot when someone offered me a 771/775 mod Xeon desktop machine! Then my brother proceeds to get given an i5-3470 and a 1050Ti Blank Stare


Ah well it means I can steal his i3-4170 and GTX680 til my Ryzen system gets done.


I’m going to have to get some pictures of the current rig ‘Wilson’ for you all, it’s a hilarious looking thing! Might cut a side window into the case just because I can haha.
flag Stayslacking
O+
Posted: Dec 26, 2017 at 16:39 Quote
I highly recommend audiotechnica. I have the ath ad700x open back cans, as well as the m50x closed back model. The m50x has definitely become my daily driver, you can swap cable lengths, they fold up nice for traveling, very comfy, and reasonably priced. As for the sound card, there’s always the chance that you might pick up cross-talk with your computers other components. For that reason I picked up an ASUS LGA-pro mobo with a higher end audio chipset built in. Sound is flawless when I run my headphones through my NAD amp
flag Biscuitto
Posted: Dec 27, 2017 at 11:57 Quote
I ended up ordering the SBZ and the CALs, the headphones are relatively inexpensive so not a big deal if they're not to my taste. It was actually mostly between the CALs and M40x (from what I was reading these were a little more suitable for me than the M50X) at the end but the CALs apparently have a slightly better sense of space

I need to get myself to a reputation where people just give me stuff I like lol
flag pdee
Posted: Dec 27, 2017 at 18:34 Quote
rAtty-c wrote:
Double post.

@PDee, is the motherboard manually controlling voltage for the RAM? I know another common issue is the RAM setting itself to a lower speed due to poor power commitment from the board. Tom’s Hardware forums probably have an instructable to help you troubleshoot if you aren’t familiar with voltage and timings.

No clue. Still doing some reading lol. My current semester of college got extended so I'll probably wait until it finishes and I complete all my tasks before I start messing around. this is the only computer I have right now so I need it to be stable and functional.
flag ratcat
Posted: Dec 28, 2017 at 11:41 Quote
To all my canadian amigo's out there.

Does anybody have a power supply they could donate to my friend? Shipping costs of course would be covered by yours truly!

It would be most helpful, they are tech minded and can easily fit it but their funds are tight and are kind of stuck without a machine of course!

Thanks guys, have a good new year!
flag debonis
Posted: Dec 28, 2017 at 13:30 Quote
Only PSU I have is an old 400w Server PSU, large and flat, wouldn't fit in a case and different connectors.
flag Tier1
Posted: Dec 29, 2017 at 15:02 Quote
rAtty-c wrote:
To all my canadian amigo's out there.

Does anybody have a power supply they could donate to my friend? Shipping costs of course would be covered by yours truly!

It would be most helpful, they are tech minded and can easily fit it but their funds are tight and are kind of stuck without a machine of course!

Thanks guys, have a good new year!

Whereabouts in Canada? It's a big country just saying.

I think I might have something.... an old 20 pin molex PSU for a Pentium 4, 350W IIRC but I can check, I also had like 4GB of DDR2-667.

BTW for anyone wondering about my virtualization and homelab situation. I'm doing a bare metal install of linux and using GRUB2 instead of messing around with VM's. Also I have Win10 Home which I didn't realize I have to upgrade to Win10 Pro (US$99) to get Hyper-V.

If it doesn't work out I'm gonna try VMWare Player first and *maybe* upgrade to VMWare Workstation Pro if I find I need it.
flag Charge262
Posted: Jan 22, 2018 at 13:16 Quote
Just did my first platform swap since 2012.

From Z77 i5 3570k, to Z370 i7 8700k.

Also, new RAM (needed DDR4), new SSD (M.2) and some new Peripherals (Corsair K70 RGB Mechanical MX silent, Corsair RGB Mousepad)

Can't believe the difference so far. Kept my GTX970 for now, but will probably change that later this year.

 


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