PCSX2 and new hardware

[bomblord]

Ok, ~20%. That's a decent improvement, but it's still not worth it unless you get the unlocked one imo.

It's a mini ITX build I can't put a large cooler in it I have less than 150mm of clearance (a 150 would be pressing up against the glass on the case) for a fan and no options for closed loop water cooling. OC'ing is out of the question. If I have to have more power I'll need to go with the i7 at stock.

Thanks for the advice though.

[Blyss Sarania]

You can OC in a mini ITX build, trust me as I've done it.

Anyway, if you are building mini ITX I suggest you really be sure that's what you want. If it is, that's fine, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. But I inherited a Mini ITX rig from my friend and it was just a nightmare to work with. Any time I had to open it to do anything something got ***** up owing to the ridiculously small space you have to work in. Also, you will be strongly limited in the size of GPU you can use. Cable management is a nightmare. Water cooling is best for Mini ITX, that's what I had. Even with water I had heat problems again owing to the small space.

Anyway so yeah, if you are sure that's what you want then fine, I just thought I'd share my experience with Mini ITX. I just finished rebuilding my rig into a mid tower a few days ago and I'm much happier with it now.

[bomblord]

Which is what matters for PCSX2.

Yup but my old CPU seemed to do fine in everything I threw at it so I would be hard pressed to be worried about a slightly faster one lol.

[bomblord]

You can OC in a mini ITX build, trust me as I've done it.

Anyway, if you are building mini ITX I suggest you really be sure that's what you want. If it is, that's fine, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. But I inherited a Mini ITX rig from my friend and it was just a nightmare to work with. Any time I had to open it to do anything something got ***** up owing to the ridiculously small space you have to work in. Also, you will be strongly limited in the size of GPU you can use. Cable management is a nightmare. Water cooling is best for Mini ITX, that's what I had. Even with water I had heat problems again owing to the small space.

Anyway so yeah, if you are sure that's what you want then fine, I just thought I'd share my experience with Mini ITX. I just finished rebuilding my rig into a mid tower a few days ago and I'm much happier with it now.

It's definitely what I want my initial idea was to build something around the r9 nano and I already have the case. It's super freaking small I could probably get an OC out of it the problem really is I can't fit anything much larger than the stock cooler on it which limits my OC'ing options. They did have a water cooling setup (just had all the stuff for watercooling minus the watercoolers) but I went with the air cooled version after seeing reviews saying it was able to be kept at a low temp just fine.

Thanks for the advice.

[Blyss Sarania]

Yup but my old CPU seemed to do fine in everything I threw at it so I would be hard pressed to be worried about a slightly faster one lol.

Yes I wasn't saying it's not enough for PCSX2, just that the single threaded is what matters. Most of those benches in that image are on the iGPU as dogen pointed out. I'm not sure you will really gain much in everyday tasks and/or gaming. Whether it's worth it is kinda your call.

[Blyss Sarania]

It's definitely what I want my initial idea was to build something around the r9 nano and I already have the case. It's super freaking small I could probably get an OC out of it the problem really is I can't fit anything much larger than the stock cooler on it which limits my OC'ing options. They did have a water cooling setup (just had all the stuff for watercooling minus the watercoolers) but I went with the air cooled version after seeing reviews saying it was able to be kept at a low temp just fine.

Yeah space problems, I had issues even fitting a water cooler in my Mini ITX rig. They do have that cool factor of "look at my super overpowered tiny PC" for sure. But for me personally, it was just too much hassle. But that's just my thoughts on it as I said. I'd never build a Mini ITX for gaming. I would consider it for HTPC though. I kept the case I had ( http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mini-it.../elite130/ ). My friend had it entirely watercooled including the GPU. I only watercooled the CPU though.

Make sure you have a really good fan setup. Especially since you are air cooling, you wanna get that heat OUT of the case, not just out of the CPU. Otherwise you would have heat problems even at stock.

[bomblord]

Yeah space problems, I had issues even fitting a water cooler in my Mini ITX rig. They do have that cool factor of "look at my super overpowered tiny PC" for sure. But for me personally, it was just too much hassle. But that's just my thoughts on it as I said. I'd never build a Mini ITX for gaming. I would consider it for HTPC though. I kept the case I had ( http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mini-it.../elite130/ ). My friend had it entirely watercooled including the GPU. I only watercooled the CPU though.

Make sure you have a really good fan setup. Especially since you are air cooling, you wanna get that heat OUT of the case, not just out of the CPU. Otherwise you would have heat problems even at stock.

It has a really cool design that actually uses the GPU fans to assist the top mounted large fans to pull air straight outta the case. I'm not too worried about overheating in normal use. Thanks though.

That's pretty cool you were able to do that watercooled.

[Blyss Sarania]

It has a really cool design that actually uses the GPU fans to assist the top mounted large fans to pull air straight outta the case. I'm not too worried about overheating in normal use. Thanks though.

That's pretty cool you were able to do that watercooled.

I just used a simple AIO water cooler, the same one that is on my FX 6300. I had some issues in mounting it because of weird capacitor placement on my board. I had THOUGHT that was why my CPU ran hot, but it dropped about 15C when I switched to the mid tower so it was definitely the Mini ITX. But in my build, I only had one single fan - that being the radiator fan, which was front mounted and completely not optimal. But it was the best I could do in the space.

Anyway in this mid tower I have the radiator at back as exhaust and another 120mm in front as intake. I have a couple of top mounts as well but one is blocked by the radiator. I think adding another 120 there either intake or exhaust would cause too much turbulent airflow and actually make things worse. It's working well as is so I'm inclined not to screw with it.

GPU can definitely help in exhausting heat from the case. IDK what you mean that the case is designed around that, but it sounds pretty cool. But yeah any impeller style GPU cooler especially will move mad amounts of air out of the case, which is good.

[bomblord]

I just used a simple AIO water cooler, the same one that is on my FX 6300. I had some issues in mounting it because of weird capacitor placement on my board. I had THOUGHT that was why my CPU ran hot, but it dropped about 15C when I switched to the mid tower so it was definitely the Mini ITX. But in my build, I only had one single fan - that being the radiator fan, which was front mounted and completely not optimal. But it was the best I could do in the space.

Anyway in this mid tower I have the radiator at back as exhaust and another 120mm in front as intake. I have a couple of top mounts as well but one is blocked by the radiator. I think adding another 120 there either intake or exhaust would cause too much turbulent airflow and actually make things worse. It's working well as is so I'm inclined not to screw with it.

GPU can definitely help in exhausting heat from the case. IDK what you mean that the case is designed around that, but it sounds pretty cool. But yeah any impeller style GPU cooler especially will move mad amounts of air out of the case, which is good.

Seems odd a mini-ITX would cause a water cooled system to run hot sounds like the opposite of what should happen hmm.

The case is designed so the GPU sits at the very bottom of the case with 2 top mounted case fans. The GPU pushes the air up and the upward fans pull it out making it move air pretty efficiently.

[Blyss Sarania]

Seems odd a mini-ITX would cause a water cooled system to run hot sounds like the opposite of what should happen hmm.

The case is designed so the GPU sits at the very bottom of the case with 2 top mounted case fans. The GPU pushes the air up and the upward fans pull it out making it move air pretty efficiently.

The reason it made it hot is this:

Water cooling ofc works like this: You have a block on the CPU that water circulates through that takes heat from the CPU. It gets pumped to a radiator, and a fan blows over the radiator to carry the heat away from the water. The cooled water then returns to the CPU and the cycle repeats.

The problem is in my particular Mini ITX case, the ONLY 120mm mount is a front mount, and it's pretty heavily restricted by front panel stuff. Because of that, the fan couldn't push enough air across the radiator to cool the water effectively, so heat built up in the system and there you go. Since there was no intake fan or anything(or even a place for one) there was no way to create positive pressure in the case to overcome that limitation.

In this mid tower I have a front intake. And the radiator is rear mounted and not restricted at all. So it can move a lot more air across the radiator and remove it from the system. After switching cases, my temps under stress test dropped from 95C to ~80C. Big improvement. Still hotter than I'd like on water, though, but I think that comes from the weird capacitor issue making my block not make good contact with the CPU heat spreader.