Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Build now or wait until after new year
Ok guys, my pc has sort of a minor problem. The onboard LAN is basically extremely jacked up which limits what I can do on the internet, for example I can not stream on my pc or do much uploading, visit certain websites (banking for example).
It is specifically the LAN port, and I've purchased multiple network cards and they fail after about a month. Wireless usb thumb cards do not work at all.
So I can utilize my laptop for all the internet stuff, and game effectively on my rig, but I need a new MOBO. The computer is perfect for my kids though, and my daughter gets this one.
I'm mainly looking at as to whether a better CPU is coming out between now the new year. If something is coming out next April, a bit to long to wait. Mind you I'm looking at top of the line such as the new I5-4670 or the I7-4770. If there is and AMD that is comparable I could go that route as well, but haven't read anything noting that AMD is preferred for a gaming RIG.
Comments
I am not sure what NIC cards you are buying if they all fail after a month. I have a wireless NIC in my 2nd PC, which is used daily, and it has been almost 2 years and still going strong.
If you have multiple NIC cards that fail after a month then you have some PC problems for sure. Or your buying cheapo $5 brand NICs that arent worth the $5 you paid for them.
If the latter is the case go ahead and buy a decent quality NIC card, $30-$40, and try that. If the onboard is going out and a quality NIC is all you need then that is a cheap fix compared to a new PC.
I've tried all, like I said, a new PC is going to happen regardless as my daughter has been asking since my son is utilizing his.
Its a specific motherboard problem and I acknowledge that, its a minor issue that I can easily work around, just not worth investing anymore into getting it to work.
cpu are at their limits. Well, only Quantum cpu will come out which will be not for gaming but mainly used in industry. Only GPU have some space left to expand more.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.? -Albert Einstein
"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent" - Qui-gon Jinn. After many years of reading Internet forums, there's no doubt that neither does the ability to write.
So if you notice that I'm no longer answering your nonsense, stop trying... because you just joined my block list.
It kills of your network cards? And the built in goes really slow?
Does not sounds great at all. What do windows error log tells you? It might be a IRQ or DMA issue that slows you down, those are rare nowadays but not unheard of.
As for dying cards, that is likely due to the PSU. Network cards are rather sensitive and if the power ain't stable they would likely be the first thing to go. If that is the case it is very bad news indeed since a bad PSU could kill of any other part of the computer as well. Oh, yes... How is the electricity in your building?
What do you have for PSU? And what hardware do you have in the machine? Do you get bluescreens from time to time and how does the computer handle graphic heavy games?
If I were you and I didn't have an awesome PSU (it might be the motherboard that is messing as well after all) I would consider at least buying a really good PSU now, you can always move that to your next rig later.
We are now just starting to receive info on Intel's 14nm CPUs along with very robust motherboards. That should be appearing at the end of the month. Its best to wait until new years. The performance gain will only be about 5%, but you will also have access to quad channel DDR4 and probably better clocked DDR4 Dims.
In that case I would go ahead and build one. There is always something coming around the corner. New CPU, New GPU, faster RAM, ect. are pretty much all "coming soon" today, and will be next year, and the year after that.
There is no downside to waiting tho if you want. But for general home use and gaming the next big thing wont matter much anyways. CPUs are not having major improvements in any case, I still use a 2500k and have zero reason to think about replacing it.
As far as a GPU goes a mid / top end card you buy today will be good for years, even when the new and shiny ones come out in 6 months.
And if you are having PC issues with things going out on the motherboard you will most likely be replacing a PC sooner rather than later if you dont address the underlying issue. With the NIC cards going bad after a few weeks I would be particularly worried. Those generally dont just go out after a month. Something is killing them, most probable is the PSU, which is eventually going to take down the whole PC.
There is zero issue other than the network card. I get zero blue screens, I'm running a i5-3570k @4.5 with a 680 and a rosewill gold rated 750 (may even be a platinum, but don't quite remember, and newegg is one of those sites I have issues looking at) and have been for the last 2+ years as this machine was built back in April of 2012. The motherboard is an MSI and the issue relies exclusively on it.
I didn't notice the network issues until roughly 5 months after the build in which I starting doing things that I noticed it, and when compared to my wife laptop or son's rig showed definite issues in my system. I immediately tried to utilize multiple thumb drives that were used in other computers (such as my son's) for wireless and it would not work, buying a a NIC to plug in proved useful for a while and it died.
I decided I wanted to stream and could not effectively, further looking into it revealed that the network issue was not allowing any upload bandwidth to pass through, so I purchased another NIC , and was functional for just over a month. It died on Thursday. My initial plan was to wait until the end of the year to purchase a new one, but I'd prefer to utilize this thing now, but there really is no rush on my part as if better tech is out around the new year I'll wait, otherwise I'll get it now.
Specifically the built in does perfect on download speed, the upload is dead though. Literally about 0.20-0.30. I can download at 35+. When I put in the NIC, it becomes what I pay for (35down/5up).
With that nice of a system you may just can swap out a motherboard and be done with it. Spending $60-$100 and replacing it is an option.
If you just dont want to fool with it and can wait until end of this year / early next year then wait it out. That system is not bad at all, you will not see a big upgrade to the CPU regardless of if you build now or in 6 months. A new GPU sooner or later is a given no matter what system, but thats to be expected.
That PC should kick ass for gaming, a new mobo is what I would spend money on.
I suspect that you've misdiagnosed the problem. Are you on a wired connection or wireless?
Then again, if you need an additional computer, go ahead and get one. There's nothing all that important coming in the near future unless you're willing to pay a fortune to get a 6+ core processor from Intel, so go ahead and buy something now. The next thing coming that I'd regard as worth waiting for is monitors with adaptive sync around the end of the year, and monitors are readily purchased independently of the rest of the computer.
It wired. I fail to see any other diagnoses other than what I've stated, as I've tried everything else. As stated nothing is wrong except the NIC card or built in adapter.
My son's computer which is directly next to mine is wired as well and his is getting the upload speed of 5 or better. Even if I put his into wireless mode it still streams decently.
But thanks for the updates on the reasoning to upgrade now or later, I'll do that and just build another system in the next week or so as nothing important is coming out to update to.
Now with that Quizzical, is the tri-display setup all graphics card intensive, or should I be looking at more of an I7 over the I5 in that regards as I intend to do that with this next setup as well.
Joshua Halls
Co Owner-Lead Programmer The Repopulation
I'm more inclined to suspect a problem with your ethernet cable or router. For three separate NICs to independently fail in the same peculiar one-directional way is vanishingly unlikely. Even if it were bad power delivery killing parts, it wouldn't partially damage them in the same way. The only other plausible single-part failure culprit that I can think of is something in the chipset failing both when passing data to the onboard LAN and to the expansion slots--and if that were the cause, I'd think it would make the video card malfunction, too.
Try checking both of those causes. If you've got a different computer that connects without incident, try switching the ethernet cables and router ports between them. If that fixes the problem on your computer, then the ethernet cable is probably the issue. You can probably also try connecting your computer directly to the modem and skipping the router entirely, and see if that fixes the problem. If neither of those fix it, I'd try transferring data back and forth between two computers on your LAN and seeing what happens.
-----
As to your question, are you looking to spread a game window across three monitors, or only have a game on one monitor while the others show something else? The former means you need a powerful video card to drive an ultra high resolution, but monitors not displaying a game put an inconsequential load on the video card.
What's coming soon is Haswell-E, which really only makes sense to wait for if you're willing to spend $1000+ for the CPU, motherboard, and memory alone, without the rest of the system.
The first 14 nm chips will be Broadwell, but it's the ultra low power dual core variant of it. That's a big deal if you want an Ultrabook (then again, if you want an Ultrabook, you don't care about performance), but that's about the only use for the chips. Quad core 14 nm chips might well be a year away, and even when they do come, there's no guarantee that they'll be any faster than Haswell that you can buy today.
Yeah, nothing huge is on the way that will significantly alter gaming desktops in the next year or so. There isn't a lot to be gained by waiting right now.
We might see a generational bump in GPUs sooner than later, but it won't be a revolutionary "OMG I SHOULD HAVE WAITED!!" jump, it will probably be a typical 10-15% speed bump of more or less existing technology that lets retailers jump prices back up to full MSRP.
Broadwell, when it finally arrives for desktops, could be somewhat meaningful, but really nothing Intel has put out since Nahelem/Sandy Bridge has really pushed the envelope much, because gaming hasn't been significantly CPU-restricted for a while now. The CPU changes in Broadwell won't mean a lot for desktops, and probably the most meaningful change will be the jump to DDR4 (which won't be significant speed-wise either). Broadwell for Desktops could be a long while yet, and DDR3 will remain relevant and competitive gaming-wise for the next few years at least.
I've tried multiple modems: At&t, and two separate time warner cable ones. Two different routers have been also used. I've also tried different Ethernet cables just incase multiple times, different ports, connecting directly into modems, etc. Mind you this has happened at two separate homes in different cities to further rule out some sort location based problem that wouldn't make a bit of sense since all the other computers suffer no issue at all.
I understand the issue is near impossible, unfortunately its an issue and only affects certain websites and uploading. Transferring between computers is also affected greatly and its easier for one to transfer to mine than from mine. I'm in concurrence that it is some on board issue.
As for your answer, gaming on multiple displays.
@JoshuaHalls,
Yeah I've done that as that was one of the first things I did assuming I had some software issue.
All new PC builds should wait until mid next year...yes.
why? two things are happening which have unpredictable results.
Oculus Rift
Steam Machines (which understand is still in beta)
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
What has OR got to do with what PC you buy.. its just a USB device and HDMI cable..
Steam Machines will have no impact on the current PC market.. people might have them as an additional gaming rig in the living room if they are cheap but thats about it.
Unless your son's computer is an exact duplicate of your hardware, you're not necessarily getting useful information other than the external hardware it's connected to is working for them. I do know that routers can wreak havoc with NIC cards... in that I mean, compatibility issues. I remember buying a new computer and putting it on the same network as the other computers. It's internet connection was total crap. All the other computers were just fine. Bought a different router, and poof, all was good in the world again. So perhaps your replacement NIC cards are not liking the router that you have. Have you tried connecting your computer to someone else's network setup and seeing if it works? If it runs like crap on an entirely different setup than yours, it's easier to point to your internal hardware. If it runs just fine, it's likely your internal hardware doesn't like your network hardware (router). It happens more times than you may think.
That why I've said its been two different routers and three different modems including different cities (1 router/1 modem and 1 router/2 modems).
Now, before I go build this thing, I see DDR4 is coming out, but I see no support via motherboards, will that be a bios update for current released boards, or will I need to wait on a board as well.
That sounds really strange, it can't be the IRQ if you don't have an error logged in windows. The built in card could always be broken but it doesn't explain why it kills 2 cards in so short time.
I guess taking out the broken card, deleting the drivers and sticking it in again wont work? Because it could just be a Windows crap error.
I don't really see how the motherboard could fry 2 cards as long as it get the right power but it is of course possible (but unlikely).
God this website is utter crap... DDOS attacks galore if you ask me.
If your motherboard doesn't accept DDR4 now, it will never accept DDR4. It has to be built for it.
No, you can't put DDR4 in a DDR3 socket. There seems to be a few articles saying that the other way around is possible though but I wouldn't trust that for sure yet.
On the off chance that:
1) Oculus Rift requires changes to other hardware (not just software or even drivers) to be properly utilized, and
2) is popular enough for GPU vendors to bother to make such changes,
it will still be three years between when GPU vendors realize that such changes are needed and cards with the required changes are available at retail. So while there's probably nothing to wait on, if you are going to wait, you'll be waiting 3 years.
As for Steam, if you buy a PC today and then a year from now wish you had Steam OS, you can install Steam OS on the PC that you buy today. You can probably even dual-boot to have both operating systems, if you don't want to ditch Windows entirely. So no, that's not something to wait for unless you're trying to save money by not having Windows, and even then, you could just grab some other distribution of Linux today instead.