Chuffy's Flying Circus

Yes I'm afraid it is FrankenFez. He's on the mend though, just need to get his diabetes back under control now.

Sadly no pet insurance. He's a part of the family though so it wasn't much of a choice. He's healing up ok now thanks to his fashionable sock scarf! He looks a bit like frakenstein without it as he has a big scar on his neck.

So yeah, he had to have some broken teeth out, a hospital stay and a lump removed from his neck. Annoyingly this was not helped by his diabetes but he's on the mend.

Did set back my plans to get a replacement joystick by a bit though.

I did see the trailer and my poor wallet felt the taste of defeat as I picked up a copy. It was pretty much dead after spending about a grand on the cat last week though......

Sorry it's taking a while btw, it's a little different than what I'm used to. I'd be happy to work through it sat at the machine but there are a lot more variables. Mainly things that you need to turn off or just manually set as they are set to vary on load at stock and this makes oc'ing unstable.

Do you have a second machine you could skype me on whilst you attempt it?

Hi Conky,

Well the temps aren't bad, though four minutes is fairly short for a test. I tend to run mine for at least 30 mins (and a lot of overclockers run them for 24hrs!)

3.9Ghz at boost is also pretty good, though we'll need to turn boost off to overclock. Just remember that your cpu will be running at over 100% speed all the time. The temps will really only get going under load, but you will have a hotter idle as well.

I'll get back to you with details shortly.

Hi Conky,

Sorry I should have been more specific. When I said what is the max load temp your cpu I meant what temperature does your cpu get to when your pc is at 100% load.

Download Realtemp GT

https://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/ install and first check your idle temps. Then run the Benchmarking, it will run through several loops maxing your cpu and slowly drop it down to idle again so you can see the effectiveness of your cooler.

I'm guessing that you have the stock intel cooler as the fan is only part of the equation. A 120mm fan on a megahalems will get you much further than a stock cooler with a 120mm fan. You may need to replace your cooler to overclock. The recent intel coolers can barely keep a stock chip from overheating. The closed loop watercoolers are pretty good and reasonably cheap now.

Ok so, test your cpu under stress and check your full load temps, if they get close to the max your cpu can handle, stop immediately and let me know. Otherwise, just let me know what the max temps were and how well it cooled when the stress was reduced.

I'll have a look at putting some basic OC guidance together.

Quote from: CfC_Conky on August 22, 2015, 06:58:53 AM
Hello all,

BD, you current machine is a virtual clone of the one I 'retired' for my current rig.

Fitz,

I have an i7 4770 chip but I see mostly i5 chips in gaming computers, is there a difference? My current rig is out of warranty so I might be persuaded to try overclocking. Any advice?

Perhaps we should revive Killarigs  .

Pip, pip,
Conky

Hi Conky,

It can get complicated as there is a bit of a crossover but basically i7's generally have larger caches and quad core i7's will hyperthread to 8 threads whereas i5's top out at 4 threads. i7's tend to have higher clock speeds as well. You do pay for the extras though!

For the sort of gaming we do, the extra threads won't be of much use (though the i5 I chose is a quad core rather than dual). There isn't a huge amount out there that will really take advantage of more than 4 threads. If money is no object, go with the i7 but you can get a good i5 chip if you choose wisely.

With regards to overclocking, let me know the following:

Is it a K series chip? (i7 4770K)
What is your motherboard model
What is your current max load temp of the cpu
What sort of cpu cooler do you have

Let me know and I'll start looking at putting a little guide together.

Fitz

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34027260

Hawker Hunter performing at Shoreham, apparently crashes into some cars on the A27 after failing to pull off a loop.

No Worries, I'll be on call for pc building assistance

Hi BD,

I've had hit and miss service from Overclockers. I tend to use Ebuyer as I've never had a big problem with them and they replaced a DOA component for me with with no hassle. This is also where I got the prices from (They have just e-mailed me with limited offers on SSD's so if you're quick you could save a few quid or get some bigger drives as well).

PC building is pretty simple and I seem to remember walking Woof and Bounder through basic overclocking as well so you should be fine doing a self build. Most bits can only go in one place anyway! As long as you read the manuals you'll be fine. Sometimes you have to be particular about which slots you use for the RAM and graphics cards as but the manual will make that clear.

Losing the case and psu will bring it nicely under budget, though you might want to look at upgrading the graphics card if you have some spare cash. Let me know and I'll see what the next level up would cost.

You might save a little re-using your old case and possibly the power supply. I didn't put in an optical drive but they are £20 tops and you can certainly use the one from your old machine. But most stuff now is downloaded anyway, cant remember the last disk I used. Also the hard drive, though I would recommend copying the OS to one SSD and putting your games on the other and using it as storage for everything else.

£600 actually gets you a pretty good machine!

The 4690 is a solid cpu and unlocked for overclocking
closed loop watercooling for the cpu
Decent RAM, 2 SSD's and a GTX 960

I do have a spare prolimatech megahalems that would save you £40 on the cpu cooling but it will be louder and not quite as good. Certainly more than enough for mild overclocking though.

If you can wait until Star Citizen or Oculus rift is released I'll have a GTX 660Ti going spare as well but it's a little dated now. More than enough for IL2 and RoF though.

Intel Core i5 4690K 3.5GHz Socket 1150 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor    Â£178.82

ASRock Z97 Anniversary Socket 1150 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard    Â£60.54
   
8GB (4GB x2 Kit) 2400MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL11 DIMM XMP HyperX Savage    Â£40.07

Cooler Master Seidon 120 Ver2 120mm Radiator/1x120mm Silencio Fan CPU Liquid Cooler £39.00

EVGA Supernova 750W Semi Modular 80+ Bronze Power Supply    Â£66.90
     
Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 2.5inch SSD    Â£39.99    x2  £79.97
     
Xenta Computer Case B138A    Â£19.98
     
Zotac GTX 960 2GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI 3 DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card £145.68

A little over budget at £630.97 but very close. Do I win a prize!!

Avoid integrated graphics like the plague!!!!

Are you able to salvage anything from your current machine? You might save a few quid that way. If you can post the components of your current machine, I can draw up a list of other bits you'll need. And is it just for IL2 or do you want to run RoF and BoS etc?

Quote from: BalDaddy on August 19, 2015, 11:59:39 AM
Has both units of your HOTAS gone tits-up Fitz?
My venerable X45 joystick is u/s but i have combined the throttle part with a Cyborg X which cost £20.00 which seems to function quite well if you grease her up well (bit like some old girlfriends really)

The main problem is the link between the stick and throttle is knacked, but there are a couple of other problems. I've had to adjust the dead zones on my stick and now pedals to such an extend that there is a huge dead zone in the middle and extremes of movement that it is pretty much impossible to fly with.

The throttle is in better condition but the actual throttle lever refuses to zero. It seems to start somewhere around 15-20% and means idling and stopping when on the ground is impossible without brakes. Sadly the brakes on the pedals are also now playing up meaning I nose over almost always on landing and regularly on taxi and take off.

If I get time at some point, I'll try taking it all to bits and giving it a good clean. Both HOTAS and pedals have gone through a lot of punishment for several years in a house with multiple cats and lived through years when I was still smoking so they are probably full of gunk. I've got nothing to lose at this point! If I was a bit more confident I think I'd try soldering the connecting cable from the throttle to stick directly as this has been a major PITA for a year or so.

Giving it credit though, it's lasted well considering! I've had cars that didn't last this long....

It's only 10pm!

I know my X52 has finally given up but it cost about £150 many years ago so it hasn't done too bad. But yes SC demands a different set up from a regular sim so I don't want to spend a lot now and then have to spend the same again or more not long afterwards. It does though mean I'm controller less for some time