I need a micro motherboard for my Alienware Aurora.

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Pavel Pokidaylo

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Hi. I have an Alienware Aurora with an i7 920 CPU, Crossfire Sapphire 7950s, and 8 gig Gskill 1600xmp ram. I want to get a new CPU maybe the i5-4670k but my motherboard is old and doesn't support the new CPUs.
 
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johnvonmacz


Here ya go buddy:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X40 98.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($82.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus GRYPHON Z87 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($162.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $445.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-18...
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johnvonmacz

johnvonmacz

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Here ya go buddy:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X40 98.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($82.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus GRYPHON Z87 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($162.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $445.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-18 02:10 EDT-0400)

:)
 
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johnvonmacz

johnvonmacz

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A cheaper but good one.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $109.99
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-18 02:19 EDT-0400)

:)
 
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johnvonmacz

johnvonmacz

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Oh thanks bud! :)

The 770's in SLI totally beats 7950's in crossfire. At first, I'm thinking of crossfiring 7950's because of its awesome price but because of poor drivers AMD has, I decided to get 770's in SLI instead and I'm totally happy, Most games can go 120fps+ and never goes below 60fps :)
 
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Pavel Pokidaylo

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Yea I bought the first 7950 a few weeks before the 700 series was released. I ordered the second one this week but it came defective. The fans spin up but that's all it did lol. I sent it back for a replacement. I know the 770 is a better card but I can overclock my sapphire 7950 to 1150+ on the core without touching the voltage. I read on techpowerup that when they overclocked the 7950s they were at gtx 680 level. My computer is an Alienware Aurora and it's a decent case but its short so not much room to work with. I mean the GPUs will be really close to each other and the bottom GPU will be above the power supply.

After I sent back the broken 7950 I tried putting the working one into the bottom slot and it worked. I was playing Hitman for a few hours and I noticed the card reaching higher than normal temps. Usually, without overclocking, the card temps were 70 degrees when it was hot in my room and 59-65 degrees when it was cool in the room. When I was playing Hitman with the card in the bottom slot I noticed the temp reach 79 degrees after a few hours of playing. It was about the same temperature here in NY at the time and probably even hotter in my room but still. I'm concerned about the heat. With one card being right above the PSU and the other card right above the first card it may get too hot =/.
 
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Pavel Pokidaylo

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I also had to pay someone to rewire the whole computer because the wires coming up from the bottom would press up against the bottom cards fan. I ordered this Alienware with only one GPU so they didn't wire it in a way that would allow me to add a second card later on which pissed me off.
Why would they do that? I payed them good money and the thing is supposed to be made for Multi-GPU but they wired it in such a way that I would never be able to do it without rewiring the whole damn thing. The wiring was neat sure but still wtf...
 
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johnvonmacz

johnvonmacz

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Well we learn from experiences buddy. Now the lesson is, when you're getting a new rig, don't get a PREBUILT one like the overpriced Alienwares. With my 770's I can maxed out the Aliasing and still get 60+fps. Anyway what Crysis? I haven't tried the 3rd one but I played Crysis 2 with Blackfire graphics mod and Maldo textures + 4X MSAA and the highest it got is 104fps, it averages 78fps and the lowest it gets when in intense battle is 61fps which is really good.
 
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Pavel Pokidaylo

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I paid $1400 for the Alienware and before I bought it I checked how much it would cost me if I just ordered all the same parts and it came out to the same price. Then I would have to pay someone like 100 bucks to put it together and I wouldn't have warranty.
I've never had any problems with this rig and I really like the case. My only gripe is that it's short so having two video cards in it means one on top of the other and also above the power supply. And of course I didn't like having to pay someone to rewire it just so that I could put in another card. If I had payed extra money and ordered the rig with a second card in it it would have been wired for it. They shouldn't have wired it this way just because I only got it with one card. But besides that I really like it. I'll have to see how the cooling will be with the two cards in it before I can really complain about the height of the case though.

I was talking about Crysis 3. I played it on this rig with the 7950 in it. I played with all settings maxed except Shadows/Shading and AA. The shadows/shading really slowed it down and so did the higher levels of AA. I know the shading makes it look better but even without having it maxed the game still looked really good and ran at 60fps.

If you never go below 60fps playing with maxed AA that's very impressive. Even if it's 4XMSAA. 8XMSAA is just nuts.

My next rig will be custom built though. Simply because you have more freedom with it. When I ordered this Alienware I didn't know much about computers and it looked cool lol. I mean I still like it a lot but I would have really loved it if it were a little taller so that I could have more space for DUAL-GPU setup. But we'll see how it goes when the replacement card arrives this week. Hopefully they don't overheat :)
 
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Pavel Pokidaylo

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Also I have another question maybe you can answer it. Now I have the old i7 920 which is a first gen CPU and it's stock clocked. Crysis 3 seems to me to be a GPU oriented game because my GPU utilization is 100% in it. I believe that means that the CPU is NOT bottlenecking the GPU. However, in other games I'm pretty sure I see a bottleneck. I know that if my FPS is the same as my monitors refresh rate and the GPU usage is at 50% for example, it just means that the GPU doesn't need to work any harder. I also know that if my FPS is not equal to my monitors refresh rate but the GPU usage is at 100% it means that the GPU is not powerful enough to produce such FPS.

I'm sorry this is so long it's just a complicated thing lol.

Anyway, here's my question. In Crysis 3 I constantly see GPU usage at or near 100%. But there are many games where I only see at or near 100% GPU usage some of the time. And most of the time it's not at 100%. A lot of times it will be around 50%. So just because I see constant 100% usage in Crysis 3 does not mean that my rig is free of bottlenecks?
 
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johnvonmacz

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If you see 100% gpu usage, that only means the GPU does most of the job but that doesn't mean the cpu is not bottlenecking it. A 100% usage just also means that it's a really intensive game. Some games are not that demanding that's why they only reach 50% the other reason why they only get 50% usage is because the game is well optimized. Anyway, to ensure that no bottlenecks will occur, it's always better to pair a current gen cpu to a current gpu. Also, I'll pirate Crysis 3 and let you know my performance result :)
 
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johnvonmacz

johnvonmacz

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I played Crysis 3 for like 5 hours. And just for benchmarking sake, I turned up all the settings to Very High, 16X AF, And 8X MSAA. Man, Crysis 3 is a damn-stressful game to play. Well, The highest it got is 101fps and then drops to 33fps on some parts but yeah, it averages to 72fps. But if I turn the AA to FXAA, I get better results, HIGH: 130FPS LOW: 62FPS AVERAGE: 86FPS.

Anyway regarding your rig, Expect to get your cards run a bit hot because your case can only fit micro-atx, and because its micro-atx, Dual-cards are too close to each other and close to each other means it can get hot. Now, if you can ditch your case and get a new one, you can just get an ATX board + you don't have to worry about your card getting hot compared to Micro atx because ATX has an extra space so dual card setups can breath more and run cooler than having micro-atx. As for Crossfire 7950's, I believe you can get a bit better performance in Crysis 3 if you crossfire because Crysis 3 is an AMD optimized game. :)
 
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johnvonmacz

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I have that one and Have no problem playing that game on Maxed out settings, Maxed MSAA, everything with Advance PhysX on. It runs constantly at 60+fps. It's only Crysis 3 that kinda pushed my rig, though I can still maxed it out no problem.
 
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johnvonmacz

johnvonmacz

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If you can afford an i7-4770k and pair it with your 7950's in crossfire, you will have a good time in gaming :D If you play lots of Crysis 3 and Metro last light, i7's really benefits because of it's extra logical cores.
 
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johnvonmacz

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MSAA doesn't necessarily need a faster CPU but you still need it to prevent bottleneck, a powerful GPU with high VRAM still matters. That thought was long time ago. Ever since Crysis 3 was released, it gave us gamers a warning or kind of a hint that from now on and in the future, more and more games will use more than 4 cores. I say it's totally worth it.
 
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Pavel Pokidaylo

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According the info here on Toms, on the bet CPU for the money page, they say they don't recommend anything above 220 dollars for gaming. So basically the i5 4570k or w.e. After that there are rapid diminishing returns in price/performance. But they do say that the i7s have that Hyper Threading Technology which can be a benefit in some games. Goddamnit now you're making me want more powerful stuff. Now I want the i7 and 2 770s like you have lol. Although I doubt I'll be getting the 770s since I just got these 7950s. But maybe I could spend 100 bucks more and get the i7 over the i5.

If I'm going to stick with this Aurora case I'll have to buy a new Micro Mobo if I want to upgrade the CPU. The thing is that thing has a feature that lets me control the lights on the case and it has the thermal controller that lets me control the fans and stuff. I've read that if I buy a different motherboard those things won't work. I guess they are not super important but still.

First things first though, I'm going to get the second card and see how the temps are with both of them under load. If the temps are to my liking I'll probably just stick with this case but if they get too high I'll probably need to buy another case. I need to start making more money so I can buy more powerful hardware lol.
 
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johnvonmacz

johnvonmacz

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I think the best you can do for now is to stick with your 7950's, they are still powerful card especially when crossfired. How many fans do you have in your case? Cuz from what I know, you can plug in the fans at the motherboard itself so you can control it via software or through BIOS. Lastly, do you live near microcenter? Because i7's there are pretty cheap. The other option you have is to get the last year model Ivy Bridge i7-3770K the performance between this and haswell is so close, plus Ivy's motherboard's are now cheaper so you can get a really full-featured excellent motherboard.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($168.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $418.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-20 14:40 EDT-0400)
 
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