1st PC build advice/help needed.

ohbilly

Thanks it was quite fun building it and now I am trying to decide now if I should use the Asus HD 6450 I have or just the onboard graphics?

Also pricing up memory

There are holes to route the wires to the back of the motherboard but the wires on the power supply are quite awkward so I have done the best I can and it looks cleaner than it did in that picture

The top of the case has a lot of holes so I plan on using cable ties and the velcro strips I just bought to hold up the other wires out of the way of the board.

Lum

What spec is the onboard graphics? Intel HD4000?

Do you play any modern fancy 3D games or just flash-based stuff like Farmville?

And yes getting that ATX12V cable routed to the top left corner is a pain if you don't plan it in advance.

ohbilly

Under device manager it says Intel HD Graphics 4600

I like to rip/encode dvd's and apart from emulators I don't play any other games

Lum

Doesn't look like there's much in it:

http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=1438&gid2=812&compare=intel-hd-graphics-4600-desktop-vs-radeon-hd-6450-1gb-ddr3-sapphire-edition

The 6450 will be a bit quicker at 3D games and at video encoding*. It also comes with it's own dedicated memory wheras the Intel will be gobbling up some of your system memory. It's unlikely to make much difference to emulators, assuming you're emulating 8bit and 16bit systems (SNES, NES etc.) might make a difference if you're emulating N64, GC, Wii etc.

The downside is an extra 18W of power consumption in your system.

It's actually quite a tough call.

*Assuming you are using GPU based video encoding. Most encoders out there are CPU based in which case the difference will be pretty much zero unless memory is an issue.

ohbilly

See what you mean.

Aside from the additional 18w it seems like it could be worth using the dedicated graphics card. Out of curiosity what would you suggest?

Lum

What I want out of a PC is somewhat different to what you want (if you saw my build picture you'd see a pair of crossfire'd ATI 6950s both of which have been modded to become 6970s) so it's tough for me to give a sensible recommendation.

How much RAM do you have in total? How much is that Intel HD4600 keeping for itself? Does your video encoder have the ability to offload to the GPU?

ohbilly

Hope i've done this correctly

Total memory:
6.00 GB (5.89 GB usable)

And under display adapters:
Toral available graphics memory: 1792MB
Dedicated Video Memory: 32MB
Shared System Memory: 1760MB

Not sure how to find out if it offloads to GPU

Thanks for the help btw

Lum

well this just got even harder to give a definite answer.

You'll get roughly 1.7GB of extra system memory if you put the dedicated card in, but you also probably don't need your onboard graphics using that much memory, could most likely go into the BIOS and reduce it to something like 256MB and still be fine.

Huge amounts of video memory is only really useful for storing textures, which you need for gaming, not for day to day use and video encoding.

What video encoder do you use?

ohbilly

Normally handbrake to create MKV videos but there is others that I sometimes need to use but can't recall the names.

I use VLC to play them or XBMC.

Lum

Well this makes it even more fun. Handbrake has the option to do GPU encoding but by default does not, so it depends on how you set it up.

At this point the only way to get a clear answer would be to benchmark all three options, sorry!