New Desktop questions

[Malc]

The noise issue is slightly better now that I have put the PC down on the floor underneath my desk. Originally I had the PC at head height right in front of me on top of my desk, which made the fan noise even more prominent.

Now I just need to do a lot more gaming (never thought I'd say that) to ensure nothing is overheating. I am concerned about the case I have, as it was just a bog standard PC specialist case, but it was Intel approved... for gaming though is a different matter.

Should be covered under the 1 year parts warranty though if anything goes wrong.

[abigsmurf]

Graphics cards operate at around 80c . They literally do get boiling hot. It's only past about 95c where it's getting too hot. The better the circulation, the less work the fan will have to do. Make sure the rear of the case doesn't have restricted airflow and try to do it so that the hot side of the case isn't right up against a wall.

If you've an ATI the catalyist control center has the temp. You can run something like furmark to max it out in whilst still being able to see the temps.

It's worth noting that it's rare for graphics cards to suddenly crash when too hot, you usually get artifacts appearing on the screen (in the form of flickering lines, textures going green or pink or big blocks appearing).

[Malc]

I think this will be an appropriate place to ask whether or not my sytsem should be able to run Deus Ex Human Revolution at full spec? Bearing in mind I only play on a monitor of 1400x900 resolution (sometimes even lower if I can't actually read text in some games)?

I ask this as my GTX 560ti is similar performance wise to the 5850 which is what they are recommending on Steam. Are most recommended specs for PC games these days normally pretty spot on?

[speedlolita]

Recommended specs are always vague. Don't worry, your PC will play it easily.

[abigsmurf]

The closest game to it is actually FFXIV in terms of how it should run (same engine) there's a benchmark available to see how the engine runs on your PC (although being a benchmark it obviously is a bit more intense than you'd see in a game).

That aside, I'd be utterly amazed if it didn't run silky smooth at that resolution on that PC. It's a game designed for consoles first after all. It could include some intensive DX11 features like motion blur which are incredibly intensive but I doubt it.

At the moment the only games I can see where you wouldn't run it on max at around 60fps are The Witcher 2 (which'll still get 30fps+ if you turn off ubersampling) and Battlefield 3.

[Malc]

Finally got round to doing a Furmark burn in test and it got up to 99c after 15 minutes run at native resolution and 8xAA.

Should I be concerned as that's pretty bloody hot?

[speedlolita]

That's within reason. Furmark is a burn in test after all.

[abigsmurf]

99c is very hot but I'm guessing it's within the parameters for an Nvidia card. My 5850 goes into panic mode if it gets above 92 but it's still stable.

Furmark will work the graphics card far harder than any game is likely to. So long as you get no artifacts, it's fine.

[Malc]

Well playing the Crysis pre-alpha demo get's the GPU up to 93c.

It's amazing how many factors I didn't even consider when buying my PC, and only afterwards you realise them and they become a pain in the arse. Like how noisy my PC gets in any moderately intensive game, also how you get some of that noise transferred through my headphones directly into my ear is irritating to say the least.

[Brad]

<smug>I did factor these things in when I got my PC. I bought a case with dampening built in and room for 7 140mm fans to keep the noise down and a corsair H60 liquid cooling system that makes no more noticeable noise at full whack than it does idle.</>

I haven't bothered to check my gpu temperature though.

My current problem is intermittent freezing of my Microsoft Arc mouse (it's wireless).

PCs eh, such fun!

EDIT: @Malc - I think you can alleviate the audio thru headphones problem by using a cheap external USB sound box. I don't have specifics I'm afraid but the guys over at the hackintosh sites use these on PCs that don't have mac compatible built in audio cards.

[Malc]

I was considering noise cancelling headphones, but some fan noise comes down the actual wires I believe, so there's not really much point.

PC's are wonderful at how much faster they can render games and stuff, but it is incredibly annoying that I have spent nearly ?800 on a PC and I'm still going back to my ?200 console for it's sheer convenience. I stick a game in, it will always work and it's as quiet as a mouse!

I'm also not willing to pour even more money into a sound dampening case, noise cancelling headphones etc. So I guess i'll just use it for PC only games now, which are a rarity unfortunately.

[Malc]

Can anyone recommend me an after market cooler for my nvidia gtx 560ti?

Really annoyed at the loudness of the card when under load, and I figure if I can keep the cards temp low then the stock fans wont need to rev up to 3200rpm, therefore, reducing noise under load.