Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Tabs

I built a 4770K Haswell / GTX 770 system for a friend yesterday

Recommended Posts

Just wanted to post my initial impressions of the new stuff.

 

Friend is not a flight simmer but he's gonna let me come back over with FSX and our NGX and 777 this weekend to try it.

 

Specs of the machine we built:

 

Case: CoolerMaster HAF 922

Motherboard: Asus Z87-A

CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K Haswell

CPU Cooler - CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo

RAM: 16GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 (2 x 8GB)

GPU: EVGA GTX 770 2GB

SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB

Mass Storage HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA

Optical drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST SATA

WiFi card: Asus PCE-N15

OS: Windows 7 Pro x64

Total cost in parts was around $1600 from Newegg.

 

- Physical build went well - bit of advice if you get this mobo: attach the SATA cables to the mobo *before* installing the GPU - they sit right below it and it's a pain to do it once the card is in. Watch the gold heatsinks over the MOSFETs surrounding the CPU socket too - they're very easy to knock loose.

 

- This was my first experience with the new graphical UEFI BIOS thing and it took me a bit to understand it and become comfortable with it compared to the older DOS-like BIOS interfaces. I inadvertently set it to automatically OC the CPU at first and that resulted in some BSODs while trying to install Windows 7 from a USB stick. Figured it out and got it down to stock speeds and everything was solid after that. I suspec the CPU voltage was too low for the speeds it was trying to auto OC to. We didn't attempt any manual overclocking yet - I wanted to read up a bit more on how people are doing this on this platform and what's most successful first before really attempting it.

 

- The GTX 770 is a beast of a GPU. We ran some high end benchmark stuff like Uniengine Valley on it and it was scoring in the high 40 FPS range at 1080p even on the totally maxed out "Extreme HD" setting with the super high AA levels and stuff. Bringing AA down to a reasonable level easily had it over 60 FPS and basically looking just as good. My friend is primarily a strategy gamer and the card completely tore through stuff like the new SimCity game (which looks very cool and unique graphically by the way), StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm and Civilzation V. This is probably going to be my next GPU later this summer.

 

- The Samsung 840 Pro is a great SSD - extremely fast on a board like this that has the native SATA III 6.0 Gbps controller. The system boots in less than 5 seconds from the time the Windows splash animation starts following the POST.

I'll post back with my FSX findings once I get a chance to run it over there. (I'm planning to duplicate my own configuration as far as addons etc so that it's a valid comparison to my current machine) I also want to run a few of the CPU benchmarks that sites like HardOCP and Anand run - I'm very curious to see how this scores compared to a higher clocked Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge. That'll give us a pretty good idea of which route is best for FSX right now. I'm kinda suspecting the Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge pushed into the 4.8 GHz range probably beats it even if you can get it up to 4.5 or so.


Ryan Maziarz
devteam.jpg

For fastest support, please submit a ticket at http://support.precisionmanuals.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

C'mon, Ryan, that's torture:

 

Just wanted to post my initial impressions of the new stuff.

 

Friend is not a flight simmer but he's gonna let me come back over with FSX and our NGX and 777 this weekend to try it.

 

(...)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

 


Just wanted to post my initial impressions of the new stuff.

 

Thanks for doing this Ryan... (obviously) many here will like to hear your assessment of how well FSX runs and oc-ability.

 

I have a pair of 830s (840s hadn't been released)... aren't they great?  Just amazing how quick for Windows install.  And the reboot... a restart and I am back in Windows before my older system (skulltrail) even starts to POST.

 

That price is fantastic too... same same for just one cpu for that skulltrail (QX9775).   :fool:

 

I really like how you can update the bios with just a usb key and the push of a button.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My PC boots up from a cold and dark state to Windows in less than 20 seconds. Would never go back to a spinner drive. thanks for posting your initial impressions. I'll be very interested in the overclockability of that chip. Please share in future posts. Regards.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Looking forward to hearing your results. I have been holding off on a PC upgrade waiting for the Haswell chip. I would also like to hear reports from others before I make the leap. I have a very good system now but would like to make the move plus get a larger SSD. Hope all is well Ryan.


5Take Care, Will Clark

My computer: Intel 14900K, Motherboard ROR Maximus Z790 Formula, PSU Dark Power 1600, Ram DDR5 (7200) Vengeance 32GB CL38, ASUS 4090, Keyboard Logitech ASUS, Mouse ROCCAT LEADR Wireless, Corsair M.2 SSD 4TB x2, Headset Astro A50 Wireless, Microphone Elgato Wave 3, Stream Deck Elgato XL, GoXLR, Loopdeck Live, Chair Steelcase Gesture with Headrest, Case: Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL ROG White, Custom Built water cooling, Ek Lian li xl distro plate, Fittings EK & Bitspower, Monitor LG C1 48 OLED, Desk Speakers Audio Engine A5+ White.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to go back over there to run FSX yet.

 

I did do a bunch of reading though and I found a guy who's been running identical CPU benchmarks at one of the overclocking forums using SB, IB, and Haswell at different overclocks.

 

His conclusion is basically this:

 

4770K @ 4.5 = 3770K @ 4.8 = 2700K @ 5.0

He got nearly identical scores in standard CPU benchmarks the review sites use like Cinebench when testing with those CPUs at those frequencies. Combine that with the HardOCP review that says approximately 70% of the 4770Ks can hit 4.5 stable out of the box with good cooling (ie no deliding) and it sort of seems like Haswell might be ok here for FSX. I still would like to see actual results though from FSX.


Ryan Maziarz
devteam.jpg

For fastest support, please submit a ticket at http://support.precisionmanuals.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think I've been reading up on that same guys benchmarks Ryan.

 

Quite a few others indicating the same things too. I think with this Haswell gen it's more the Motherboard features generating sales, i.e. more native Sata 6GB's ports. That's what I'm after for my build.

 

Ideally I'd like to run Ram at 2400Mhz though. From what I'm reading that may be difficult when overclocking.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Very nice. I'm at 4.3 GHz currently with my i7 4770K, but I will try for higher later. 4.3 GHz was completely effortless - just bump the voltage to 1.2V, set the multiplier and you're good to go. I've just run Aida64 stress test overnight and it was stable - temps were jumping between 60 and 65C.

 

With a Carenado plane, at OrbX Anacortes with all options checked and Autogen at Extremely Dense, I'm getting 21-25 FPS, vs ~8 FPS on my old Phenom II X4 @ 3.7 GHz. Even if I don't overclock further, I'm very happy with those results. An additional 200 MHz would only give me about 1 FPS anyway.


Asus Prime X370 Pro / Ryzen 7 3800X / 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz / Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 Ti
MSFS / XP

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My PC boots up from a cold and dark state to Windows in less than 20 seconds. Would never go back to a spinner drive. thanks for posting your initial impressions. I'll be very interested in the overclockability of that chip. Please share in future posts. Regards.

 

I have a gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77

 

It has some intel IRT tech on it that will use a SSD drive ( up to 60GB ) as a cache for your spinning drive.

 

Power on to fully booted in 42 seconds ( win 7 64 bit on 1TB WD Black 7200RPM )

not too shabby for a spinner ...

 

at any rate it was a pretty cheap way to increase performance without the $$$ for a large SSD drive.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

 


With a Carenado plane, at OrbX Anacortes with all options checked and Autogen at Extremely Dense, I'm getting 21-25 FPS

 

Only 21-25 fps. My expectation from the newest most powerful CPUs were higher. And a Carenado plane isn't hard on fps. Did you have everything maxed out in FSX ? I had hoped for demanding planes like PMDG NGX 737 to stay stable 30 fps.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I did do a bunch of reading though and I found a guy who's been running identical CPU benchmarks at one of the overclocking forums using SB, IB, and Haswell at different overclocks.

 

 

Ryan, I would like to read through this, will you post a link to this guy's thread.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I always use the most severe scenario I can think of when assessing hardware performance in FSX. I'll fly an approach into KJFK using the PMDG NGX with Aerosoft Manhattan scenery and REX weather tweaked up for good measure. My rig will dip into the high teens for a bit but usually stays around 22-25 FPS in that scenario, still perfectly flyable. Properly tweaking the config file and the NVIDIA graphics settings is the key IMO. Going from the native 3.9 GHZ to 4.5 was a sizable improvement during my testing. A 4-5 FPS gain may not sound like much to many people but in the above scenario it makes the difference between a smooth sim and stutters.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...