Some new CPU’s from Intel

So Intel has decided to make the lunch date for their new 5th gen Broadwell and 6th gen Skylake to be both in 2015 to 2016.

I always though 4th gen was pretty powerful with the 22nm chips, until I discovered what the 5th gen cpu can do with only 14nm with still a max of 4 cores. What tickles my curiosity is why they launched 2 generations of cpu’s in consecutive years.

The broadwell chips will be the more mainstream chips in desktop computing and had a delay in the manufacturing process, hence the release date being so close to the Skylake release date.

Intel boosted with their Skylake chips set in more laptops and tablets. With the new chips you can expect up to 8 hours of battery life, meaning more than one full HD movie with one charge. These chips with optimized security and gpu configuration for on-the-go usage will be a new found favorite for laptop and tablet users.

With a base clock speed of 3.0ghz on a 5th gen i7 chip, performance will literally be next level. The 14nm also ensure less heat is created so heat will be less of an issue. Cooler Master and Corsair will have to market their liquid coolers in a new way new. Although the Broadwell will have an unlocked version.

Broadwell won’t be coming to replace budget socketed desktop Haswell parts, though performance and HEDT parts should get the Broadwell treatment by mid-2015 as well. When it does come though it will see for the first time Iris graphics coming to socketed systems, which could give reason for AMD to worry, IGP graphics is its strongest and only niche it can compete well in at the moment.

Due to the initial 14nm production ramp up issues Broadwell is being rolled out quite late. By the time the new high end laptop Broadwell-H and desktop Broadwell-K parts come, Skylake (the next architectural refresh) will be just about ready to launch in the second half of 2015, giving mere months for some Broadwell parts before they potentially become outdated.

So while your 4th gen will still be good enough, the new gens will most certainly be something to look at, depending on your cpu. Some of the 4th gen k-chips will still outperform some 5th gen cpu’s. Only bad thing is that 6th gen cpu will be on a new 1151 socket. DDR4 ram will also only be supported on these boards. 5th gen will only go up to 1600mhz ddr3 but probably can be overclocked as I overclocked my 1333 ram to 1402(my motherboard stated it can only do 1333). Most high end motherboards will also handle the 5th gen so you are good to go to purchase one of those if you currently thinking of upgrade.

Bottom line is that where will always be something new from these guys. If you are not upgrading from 1st gen, then don’t wait for something better. Just go out and do it.

If you do need to upgrade and be set for the next 5 years, go for an unlocked 4th gen i7 cpu and a 4th and 5th gen board, for example the Asus Z97-k. Then later on replace the 4th with a decent 5th gen cpu.

Hope you guys learned something new with my post.

Cheers

Watercooling 101!

So from time to time I get the question; What do I think about water cooling?”

I work in a computer store where my boss, Dean know the level of intelligence of some clients. (Hi Dean!) More than often they come with really unintelligent questions. Water cooling is actually a legit question. About 5 to 10 years ago water cooling was definitely a way to go, due to the fact that manufacturers did not put the best cooling units on their components, but lately they have put more thought into it to increase performance. If you look at the more high-end gpu’s, you’ll see some pretty awesome cooling units. So this brings me to the question: To water cool, or not to water cool?

This discussion can go on for hours, but let’s put it in a nutshell. If your cpu and gpu does not reach temperatures of 80-90 degrees Celsius, then no. If you want a more quiet pc and you have a few bucks to spend then water cooing may work for you. Some closed loop systems offering a 2-year hassle free warranty might be ideal.

On the other hand if you are a high overclocking gaming enthusiast, then you cannot go wrong with water cooling. Open loop water cooling.

On the left is closed loop, and on the right is open loop. (Images just dragged of Google, so credit to those who uploaded it)

    

Open loop water cooling usually involves custom building your system and also probably losing the warranty on your components. But in return you get a insane looking build that will lower the heat up to 20%, depending on the components.

With the open loop system, you remove all the fans and noise so it will run much quieter. Most of the things you need will be available online. This will include the reservoir for the liquid, pumps, pipes, radiator and of course the blocks.

Like I said, most cooling units on the components it pretty sufficient, but most can be turned into water cooling. This involves removing current heat sinks and fans, then replace them with cooling blocks and brackets to fit the pipes to it.

The more important units will the pump. If the pump is not strong enough it will obviously not do a great job removing the heat from the units. Secondly is the radiator. The bigger and better the radiator, the better the fan can remove the heat. Consider the law of area over effect, with a bigger radiator, a single fan at 800 rpm can do the job. Of course this dependent of the units in your system.

With the open loop system the color management can also be custom build 100% to your taste, with copper units to black and white and even acrylic. Color of the fluid can vary from neon colors with a UV light or any color of your choice. Of course most units will be copper unless indicated that it is nickle. Copper is mainly used to improve heat dissipation and the fact that it is less visible inside a case. With the gpu, there is two different back plates to choose from. The more half plate that just covers the main heat generating part of the gpu, and then the full plate that covers the whole pcb, These boards are created in reference with the gpu manufacturers to fit most boards.

Also when buying the components for the water cooling try to get the same brand, as the brackets will all sync with each other and with that you cannot damage any units, due to the fact that the threads just stop at their limit and you cannot go past it.

So in the end, custom open loop water cooling will be the way to go if you overclock and after-market air coolers just doesn’t cut it. Keep in mind an operation like this can go up to R 5000 on a full water cooling system. But in return you get a super cool, super quiet pc, jealous friends and some cred when you go to lan parties.

Like I said before, when customizing units you will lose the warranty most probably so do enough research with the experts before starting a project like this.

Anyway people, I hope you enjoyed my blog and if so, please hit the like button below.

I hope you all have a great day tomorrow, as I am at work and my boss Dean have his day off.

Overclocking 101 for dummies

By the looks of the topic most of you expect me how explain the best way to overclock and software to use and concerns.

So the only thing you need to know is DO NOT OVERCLOCK!

I have done some research on overclocking and the voltage settings, but let me tell you my story.

A few nights ago I decided to test my overclocking skills because my PC is kinda old, so I used a overclocking program that came with my motherboard. It was an Ashrock, which is pretty good, seeing that Ashrock motherboards is in almost every Playstation and xBox and Gigabyte also uses Ashrock.

So mhz by mhz I worked my way to the top. I knew my 775 chip will not get to 4.5mhz but I still tried. At the end my ram speed reached 1406 instead of 1000. My cpu went from 2.2 to 2.38. Funny enough my windows didn’t pick up the difference, even after I have done the windows rating score. But it showed the ram being better. Next thing I went into by bios and change it there.

The cpu configuration was set to auto, so I changed it to manual and the same frequency and voltage as I used in the overclocking program. I saved and exit and boom! My pc was dead.

After about 30 seconds of just staring at the “no input detected” sign I realized what I did, although I didn’t want to accept that I killed my baby. So I took out my bios and drained the power to reset all bios settings and I left it for a while. After that I pressed the button and my pc started up! I was so happy. Immediately I went into my bios and changed everything back to normal. All should be good right? I wished!

After I restart with the default settings it started up. Then right before the windows loading screen, a white dash just sat there, flickering and taunting on my screen. Meaning either a hdd is not plugged in or one of them shorted..

Funny enough both drives is showing in my bios so now it is back to the google drawing board to figure out what to do.

So bottom line, if your computer works and it plays all the games within reason of your specs, then don’t overclock.

If you know exactly what you are doing and only what a few better specs then overclock. Otherwise just don’t. Manufacturers release parts at certain specs for a reason.

This will be my last overclocking attempt. My next chip will straight be an i5 4690k chip, set at 4.0 mhz and as I promised my girlfriend, I will not overclock my chip.

If any of you have advise on my scenario, please I am in need of help!

Super Computer unwired

Okay so we all know and heard about these famous supercomputers and we all want one. But what defines a “supercomputer”? What is it used for, and most importantly, why don’t I have one?? In this article I will use the Titan as reference. So supercomputers was basically first used in the 1960’s and is a very complexed machine. It uses multiple processors to analyze and calculate mathematical data. Big time data! The speed of supercomputers is measured in FLOPS (for FLoating-pointOperations Per Second) floating point means instructions. “It would take 60,000 years for 1,000 people working at a rate of one calculation per second to complete the number of calculations that Titan can process in a single second,” explained National Geographic. Still can’t imagine it? That is almost like if each person in the world solve 3 million math problems per second. The supercomputer does all that in one second. Today supercomputers are used to accurately determine the weater, create medicine in a emergency and also, (this is so awesome); simulations of the early moments of the universe and also: the detonation of nuclear devices! Now don’t go and think to buy yourself one as they can cost anything from $60 billion to $100 billion, with an electricity bill of $9 billion per year. So why am I not using a supercomputer? Well to start, my casing would be as big as a basketball field. If I don’t use earplugs I risk permanent ear damage in a couple of minutes by the noise created by 40 000 processors doing quadrillions of processors per second. After that I would need steel pipes running with icy water and 24/7 aircon to cool the machine, or risk them melting in front of your eyes. Specwise we are looking at over 18000 16-core processors, more than 18000 GPU’s (no match for your 980gtx in tri-sli) and about 750 million gigs of ram. couple that with 40 000 terabytes of space and you got yourself a supercomputer mate! But if you not in the market for such a piece of beast, save a few billion and invest in a high-end gaming pc. I hope you guys enjoyed my blog. Don’t forget to follow! Cheers