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Thread ID: 67499 2006-03-29 22:29:00 Questions about my pc mejobloggs (264) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
441848 2006-03-29 22:29:00 3500+
MSI 6800 GS
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
1gb geil value ram
1hdd for OS (and page file thing), 1hdd for everything else
Tsunami case

There are a few things I am not sure about.

Playing AOE3, I get down to ~7fps in battles. Graphics are on High, but not Max. No AA/AF. Is that right? It seems rather unplayable to me :(

I read a bit about my case:
www.xbitlabs.com
"The 400watt power supply only gives 17amps on the +12v rail"

What? Is that going to be a problem? I wanted the pc so that I could upgrade regularly, but if I want to upgrade to anything more powerful, would I have to get a different psu? If so, can you reccomend a powerful, reliable and quite psu?

Oddly enough, I have had to get the motherboard replaced, because there was a sound fault with it. And it looks like I might have to do it again. This time, instead of the MSI motherboard (which also has an extremely noisy fan on it), would it be better to get one of these:
ASUS A8N-E
ASUS A8N-SLI
(I am not after SLI, but I heard that SLI motherboards where better quality)
Or anthing else from here: www.playtech.co.nz


Also, sometimes the hdd or something starts making a racket, and then goes quite again. Could this be vibration? Can it be stopped? 		mejobloggs (264)
441849 2006-03-29 23:00:00 Can't answer your questions, but it's generally accepted that having your pagefile on a seperate drive where possible is a better idea. Greg (193)
441850 2006-03-29 23:08:00 Ok, so I should have the pagefile on the drive that has all the programs/data installed, instead of the OS drive? mejobloggs (264)
441851 2006-03-29 23:58:00 I have an Asus A8N-E and it has been going swimmingly. Would recommend it anytime. :2cents: Tukapa (62)
441852 2006-03-30 00:07:00 Noise-wise, there are many quieter solutions for VGA and CPU fans. Zalman's well known, but there are certainly many others.
http://www.zalman.co.kr

Enermax makes some nice quiet power supplies, with plenty of extra power. Someone in this forum posted this very nice web site to calculate power requirements
extreme.outervision.com

"Gel-mounting" system fans in theory will reduce noise. Ascent sells
www.ascent.co.nz

Big slow fans are usually quieter than fast small fans. Nicer fan controllers will automatically increase system fan speed to match temperature.

If money's no object, water cooling a PC *may* reduce the noise (some water-cooled kits actually increase the noise, typically for "extreme" over-clocked PC's)

If there are indeed two physically seperate hard drives, not just two partitions on one hard drive, move the page file to the non boot/system partition is considered a good idea.

For the full benefit, it's also a good idea to make sure both drives are on separate channels (not a problem with SATA)

Of course, a paging file gets used when you're trying to access more RAM than is physically installed in the PC. On some PC's, the pagefile is recreated on boot; in this case, it should speed up the boot process also. 		kingdragonfly (309)
441853 2006-03-30 00:18:00 Thanks for answers so far.

kingdragonfly, I don't have a problem with the 400w, only the "17amps on the +12v rail" business, and that calculator doesn't seem to calcualte anything to do with that.

I will look at moving the pagefil to the non-OS hdd (it is a seperate physical hdd, not just a partition). And yes, I do have SATA.

On that psu calculator page:
"The total Watts is important but the Total Amperage Available on the +12V Rail(s) is the most important, followed by the +5V amperage and then the +3.3V amperage. Because of the increased power consumption of the new high-power video cards the recommended minimum for +12V is 24A, for SLI 35A. "

So yeah, it looks like if I wanted to upgrade a lot, I would have to look at a new psu. (Unless all the new stuff that comes out requires less power)

I have 2x120mm fans on my case, and a 90mm side fan. Only problem is the motherboard has a 40mm fan that spins at 7500rpm ALL the time, and makes a racket. 		mejobloggs (264)
441854 2006-03-30 02:22:00 Ascent sells this 40mm fan which *might* be quieter. Also the Zalman FanMate 2 may help, just make sure you monitor the temperature.
www.ascent.co.nz
www.ascent.co.nz 		kingdragonfly (309)
441855 2006-03-30 02:55:00 Playing AOE3, I get down to ~7fps in battles. Graphics are on High, but not Max. No AA/AF.
"The 400watt power supply only gives 17amps on the +12v rail"

Is that going to be a problem?
ASUS A8N-E
ASUS A8N-SLI
What res do you play at? Try a lower resolutuion, I know lots of people like to play ay 1600 or whatever but personally I like 1024, its enough and gives a better result with lower end cards.

Yes 17a is not enough. For a single card you want 26a and SLI or Crossfire 37a.

ASUS is terrific, I have an ASUS SLI board paired with an ATI card. Any ASUS board - doesn't have to be SLI... 		pctek (84)
441856 2006-03-30 03:59:00 Okay, your issues are not power related, otherwise you would get lock up or system reboots, not poor frame rates. I would therefore check card drivers & mobo chipset drivers.
AO3 is intensive during battles, are other games frame rates so poor?.
As PCtel states, check what res you are using. Also AA & AF can be globally activated via drivers or via the game, check both.
I have 6600GT, 2HDD & 2 Optical + 3 fans and no issues with 350w.
As for PF, because default setting are dynamic & it increases/decreases with demand, have the PF on the same drive as O/S tends to fragment the file, therefore poeple state better to have on separate drive, however it will also get fragmented on any drive that creates deletes files, therefore you have 2 options.
1)- Fix the size 1 &1/2 size of ram min to 3 x ram max
2)- create partition on any drive @ 4Gb and create PF there like I do. 		SolMiester (139)
441857 2006-03-30 06:24:00 Will try your suggestions.

I game on 1280x1024. I will have to check to see if global AA/AF is on. 		mejobloggs (264)
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