PC thread

[SwedishHeat]

Any recommendations for programs to deal with dual monitors? When I boot into a game it turns my secondary monitor black and locks me into using the primary monitor. I'd like to be able to keep my secondary monitor open while playing a game on my primary monitor.

I think the solution may be to play games in windowed mode, but I was also looking at other monitor management programs like Display Fusion. Anyone else deal with that situation?

 

[darthviper107]

Some games allow you to run in borderless window mode, that would do what you want.

 

[Vader AL]

Anyone have either the nvidia 780 or 780 ti reference card / blower style? Just wondering how loud they are. I've read everything about them but just wondered if anyone had any first hand knowledge of it.

 

[Kibagami]

Just get it. You'll never have to upgrade again.

 

[Vader AL]

Sad thing is I have the MSI 780 Ti Gaming one. It's sooo quiet and stays cool...but damn it's ugly in the case. And I want to SLI, I know it's overkill, and thought about selling it and getting 2 reference cards because....well...because they're pretty and two in SLI it doesn't matter if the MSI performs better. Sad I know...it's a sickness. Just milling these things over, not that I'll actually pull the trigger.

As long as the reference is semi-close to the quietness and coolness of the MSI (at which I'm amazed at how cool and quiet it stays).

Selling my 2 Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X OC GPU's.

 

[Kibagami]

By the way, what card do you have now? And what games do you plan on playing with that 780? I have an R9-290 (which is notorious for being loud) with a Haswell i5 and I play BF4 with that. Seems okay but that's just playing BF4 which takes your PC to the limit but also, noise tolerance is relative.

Also, let us know what kind of CPU you got; do you have water pump system?

 

[Vader AL]

No water pump, just air. 3D Mark 11 Extreme test with the msi 780 ti it only gets up to 62 degrees C at most but usually just 60 C and idles at 26/27 degrees C.

My 2 7970's in CF would idle at 42 degrees C and get up to 72 degrees C when under full load. Those were loud to me so I don't mind a little noise but the MSI I cannot hear over my 200 mm fans in the case even under full load...but again, they're ugly, ha ha. So thinking about the two evga reference ones and just wondering about them and if I get them in SLI i won't worry about the performance over the non-reference cards since it won't matter.

CPU is 3770k oc'd to 4.3.

 

[Kibagami]

No water pump, just air. 3D Mark 11 Extreme test with the msi 780 ti it only gets up to 62 degrees C at most but usually just 60 C and idles at 26/27 degrees C.

My 2 7970's in CF would idle at 42 degrees C and get up to 72 degrees C when under full load. Those were loud to me so I don't mind a little noise but the MSI I cannot hear over my 200 mm fans in the case even under full load...but again, they're ugly, ha ha. So thinking about the two evga reference ones and just wondering about them and if I get them in SLI i won't worry about the performance over the non-reference cards since it won't matter.

CPU is 3770k oc'd to 4.3.

So your main concern is looks and noise level?

 

[Vader AL]

It's like having a smoking hot chick that is ugly...the ugliness bothers me....I just want a chick who is still hot but not quite as hot but isn't ugly. And if I have two then the performance of one card over the other won't matter anyway. Again, silly I know.

Don't try and make sense of it. lol

But yes, the things I'm concerned about are the looks and the noise...i think the 7970's tainted me even though they were powerful.

and with the 780 ti or the 290's they all are powerful...just slight differences in the power. So I'll take a little less off the power to have the looks and sound levels good, I guess it's a happy median of all three things (4 if I add in heat)...the MSI is incredible at noise and performance (and heat) but lacks in style...badly...so that's what is bothering me, it's not a happy median for all three or 4 things.

or maybe I'll just get another MSI one, still not sure. Not in any hurry since just one card is enough.

 

[DeadLeaves]

Upgraded my GPU last week to a ASUS R9 290 DCU II and have had major dramas with black screen crashes.

Got a replacement and put it in tonight & had a few blue screen crashes with the new one too. Uninstalled the catalyst drivers that came with the card (13.25) and put the beta drivers on (14.1) & it seems to be stable. Not real happy at the moment, but the card works like a beauty in Tomb raider maxed out ( 57.4 fps average ). I need to install BF4 to see how it goes.

The crashes seem to happen in windows desktop under zero load, go figure. I think I've got it sorted now, but man, I had the buyers remorse for about a week.

 

[FQRizzo]

How big is your PSU?

 

[Kibagami]

Upgraded my GPU last week to a ASUS R9 290 DCU II and have had major dramas with black screen crashes.

Got a replacement and put it in tonight & had a few blue screen crashes with the new one too. Uninstalled the catalyst drivers that came with the card (13.25) and put the beta drivers on (14.1) & it seems to be stable. Not real happy at the moment, but the card works like a beauty in Tomb raider maxed out ( 57.4 fps average ). I need to install BF4 to see how it goes.

The crashes seem to happen in windows desktop under zero load, go figure. I think I've got it sorted now, but man, I had the buyers remorse for about a week.

DCU II? There's a 14.2 driver out. Get it.

 

[Vader AL]

What was your previous GPU? Nvidia or AMD? I had AMD and went to Nvidia and wiped everything as far as drivers, etc. but ended up having to set my bios back to default for it to work right.

But yeah like above, what PSU size do you have?

 

[Kibagami]

But seriously, going from NVIDIA to AMD; things are kinda buggy.

I have an R9 290. But never heard of that model you had.

 

[Vader AL]

True that...drove me crazy for a few hours...i was about to do a clean install of windows until i thought about resetting the bios.

 

[Kibagami]

True that...drove me crazy for a few hours...i was about to do a clean install of windows until i thought about resetting the bios.

I downloaded an app; that "cleaned" everything out but still ... the aftermath.

 

[DeadLeaves]

How big is your PSU?

Corsair TX850.

DCU II? There's a 14.2 driver out. Get it.

This one: https://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1575&products_id=26735

I've settled with the 14.1 drivers at the moment, it all seems good - finally.

What was your previous GPU? Nvidia or AMD? I had AMD and went to Nvidia and wiped everything as far as drivers, etc. but ended up having to set my bios back to default for it to work right.

But yeah like above, what PSU size do you have?

Previous was a Radeon 6970, but I got a new bigger SSD for my boot drive so it's a new Win7 install.

Anyway, I seem to have it sorted (fingers crossed ) Thanks for the replies guys!

 

[Kibagami]

This one: https://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1575&products_id=26735

I've settled with the 14.1 drivers at the moment, it all seems good - finally.

Looks pimp. But you might as well go 14.2! It's been more stable over the last couple of days, well at least for my intents and purposes! (BF4).

 

[DeadLeaves]

Oh, I will. But I'm in thinking I'll leave it until I run into problems again. You know, sleeping dogs and all.

 

[JonD7]

Upgraded my GPU last week to a ASUS R9 290 DCU II and have had major dramas with black screen crashes.

Got a replacement and put it in tonight & had a few blue screen crashes with the new one too. Uninstalled the catalyst drivers that came with the card (13.25) and put the beta drivers on (14.1) & it seems to be stable. Not real happy at the moment, but the card works like a beauty in Tomb raider maxed out ( 57.4 fps average ). I need to install BF4 to see how it goes.

The crashes seem to happen in windows desktop under zero load, go figure. I think I've got it sorted now, but man, I had the buyers remorse for about a week.

I'm having this exact same problem... I needed something to hold me over until I build a new PC next year.
So I went from an ATi(AMD) 5850 to a 770 and I can game for hours but as soon as it's idle, it'll shut off and restart.

I can't access the BIOS because my old motherboard only recognise' a PS/2 keyboard, which I don't have.