21 replies to this topic

[jrock]

I've seen 100 posts on this so here goes 101...

I am completely out of the game with my current specs. I have a 2 year old slimline and between the design of the case and the power supply, it's a total non-starter for MW:O.

I'm also on a budget - I don't have $800 to blow on a new system.

So I think I've got this figured out. Russ said that the game runs fine on old Core 2 Quad machines so my plan is to buy a used Core 2 Quad for $250-ish off eBay and then pair that with a Radeon HD 7750 video card which is one of the best performing, lowest power consuming cards on the market which should mean it will fit it into just about any box from a power and size perspective. Retails currently for about $100.

So for $350 I can get into MWO. That's something I can work into my budget.

[WardenWolf]

That should do alright, so long as you make sure to get a system that works (reputable eBay seller, with a return policy if possible) and has 4GB of RAM. If it doesn't have that much RAM, it may not be a deal-breaker: RAM is cheap right now, so as long as there is space on the board for it you could add more later.

[Vulpesveritas]

WardenWolf, on 22 June 2012 - 08:53 AM, said:

That should do alright, so long as you make sure to get a system that works (reputable eBay seller, with a return policy if possible) and has 4GB of RAM. If it doesn't have that much RAM, it may not be a deal-breaker: RAM is cheap right now, so as long as there is space on the board for it you could add more later.

This.
Though this thread should have been in hardware instead of general discussion i think... But yes, your plan is a quite solid one.

[Mckjoseph]

You would be much better off say getting something like this

http://www.newegg.co...st=Combo.956692

343$

Then add in a decent graphics card like

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814125353

129.99$

Now while this is still 473$, The next phase of closed beta is July 10th I believe. You can buy the bundle put it together and then save a bit for a good card. Benefit is you have a legitimate gaming computer to not just run the game but on really good settings with no issues, and for about 100$ more then what you are spending on already out dated technology. Hope this helps!

[B B Wolfe]

WardenWolf, on 22 June 2012 - 08:53 AM, said:

That should do alright, so long as you make sure to get a system that works (reputable eBay seller, with a return policy if possible) and has 4GB of RAM. If it doesn't have that much RAM, it may not be a deal-breaker: RAM is cheap right now, so as long as there is space on the board for it you could add more later.

Definitely. Of note, there are several ram and SSD sales going on right now in a few different places. I'd check something like slickdeals to get a good listing of current deals. Thanks to that, I spec'ed a respectable, completely new box for about $350. Then I did some upgrades bumping it up to $500, but still...!


Edit the 2nd: Don't forget to add in the cost of things like the OS, if you're planning on being a law-abiding citizen. I got all the parts and then realized that unless MWO gets a Linux port, I'm in need of a copy of Windows.

Edited by B B Wolfe, 22 June 2012 - 09:13 AM.

[BigJim]

Same, I definitely need to upgrade, although to be fair, this huffing old P4 system still romps over fairly demanding games from a few years back like Deadspace 1/2, Cysis, and UE3 games etc..

I'm gonna go for a new mobo/proc/ram combo, I think I'll risk keeping my current GTX250 for the time-being. Will probably spend about £350 all in for a quad-core & 8bg of ram on a moderate to decent mobo.

Edited by BigJim, 22 June 2012 - 09:17 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

BigJim, on 22 June 2012 - 09:16 AM, said:

Same, I definitely need to upgrade, although to be fair, this huffing old P4 system still romps over fairly demanding games from a few years back like Deadspace 1/2, Cysis, and UE3 games etc..

I'm gonna go for a new mobo/proc/ram combo, I think I'll risk keeping my current GTX250 for the time-being. Will probably spend about £350 all in for a quad-core & 8bg of ram on a moderate to decent mobo.

You can do better than that.

MOBO
http://www.dabs.com/...3-atx-7XNH.html

CPU
http://www.dabs.com/...-125w-7Y46.html

RAM
http://www.dabs.com/...z-cl9-7Z4V.html

£242

Now from here you could go for a 7770 which will play the game at Medium settings pretty nicely for £109
http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphire-technology-ati-radeon-7770-hd-1120mhz-1gb-pci-express-3-0-hdmi--oc-7YHP.html?q=7770&src=16

Total £352.95

Or if you can stretch it get a 7850
http://www.dabs.com/...l?q=7850&src=16

Total £422.94

[Major Tom]

New PC from scratch for $350.... this has problem written all over it. The entire plan hinges on getting a reliable "Core 2 Quad for $250-ish off eBay", and hoping that it is functional, has an operating system, a monitor, cooling, PCI slots, and power supply for a discreet video card.
I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you are not wasting your $350 (personally I would try to save up a little more and try to get into a new PC from a reputable vendor)

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Major Tom, on 22 June 2012 - 09:32 AM, said:

New PC from scratch for $350.... this has problem written all over it. The entire plan hinges on getting a reliable "Core 2 Quad for $250-ish off eBay", and hoping that it is functional, has an operating system, a monitor, cooling, PCI slots, and power supply for a discreet video card.
I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you are not wasting your $350 (personally I would try to save up a little more and try to get into a new PC from a reputable vendor)

I think you misread the post, he's buying the CPU from ebay, not the box, not a monitor or anything else, just the CPU.

[Tzayad]

DV McKenna, on 22 June 2012 - 09:26 AM, said:

You can do better than that.

MOBO
http://www.dabs.com/...3-atx-7XNH.html

CPU
http://www.dabs.com/...-125w-7Y46.html

RAM
http://www.dabs.com/...z-cl9-7Z4V.html

£242

Now from here you could go for a 7770 which will play the game at Medium settings pretty nicely for £109
http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphire-technology-ati-radeon-7770-hd-1120mhz-1gb-pci-express-3-0-hdmi--oc-7YHP.html?q=7770&src=16

Total £352.95

Or if you can stretch it get a 7850
http://www.dabs.com/...l?q=7850&src=16

Total £422.94

657.977 USD. Thats quite a bit more than these people want to spend.

Edited by Tzayad, 22 June 2012 - 10:46 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Tzayad, on 22 June 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:

657.977 USD. Thats quite a bit more than these people want to spend.

Try reading the quote above those specs before replying. I was replying to a person looking to spend £350 not $ the system with the 7770 is £2.95 over budget that's all, the world does not just have american people in it

And here was me thinking the links to UK sites was simple enough to understand..

Edited by DV McKenna, 23 June 2012 - 07:52 AM.

[BigJim]

Thanks for the build suggestion DV, don't think I've been ignoring you all this time, I've been trying to do a bit of homework.
Tbh I posted that above without thinking much about it - I don't plan to keep the gts250 long-term, I just meant for the first week or two while people come back with real-world comparisons with whatever hardware config I've bought, to help me refine my choice.

Does that make sense?
I'm looking to pull the trigger on the new build either this weekend or early next week, and tbh I haven't researched & built a rig from scratch since the s939 Athlon 64 3200+/AsRock Dual 939-AM2 build I put together.. hell I can't even remember how long ago that was, probably 6 or 7 years..?
If it's cool with you, could I chuck a few options your way?


[Requirements]
Please be aware that that this will be a build primarily meant for gaming, with little to no care paid to productivity applications.
(I don't work in IT/graphics-heavy areas, so the rig I'm using now is more than adequate for my photoshop/audacity/etc usage. In admin the most demanding program you use is the company email client but for reasons other than hardware )

* The most intensive multi-tasking type application I would be looking to perform would be running say fraps or some similar screen-recording software while playing MWO for community purposes, although if building toward that pushes the build outside my budget, I'll sacrifice that aim for better in-game performance.

* Also be aware that I have a whole back catalogue of games I'll be playing too, going back to Mass Effect 2 and moving towards the present day - Once I have a rig to run them, I've got enough games of the current & last gen to last me a good year or two, not even taking MWO into account.

*Given that, real-world CryEngine 3 performance is more important to me than some possible future benefits if/when games use the architectures in new & fun ways.

Sorry if all that sounds a little demanding, it's only in the interest of being as clear as possible (no one likes making a recommendation based on vague & wooly objectives).



[Options]

CPU: Ok, so £125-£150, that's putting me in the territory of lower end ivy/sandy quad i5's like the 3.1 or 3.3ghz chips, and a whole bunch of confusing AMD multi-core chips I've never heard of.
I admit the wider range makes this less certain ground for me.

I see you're suggesting a 6x core Bulldozer 6200 @ £120. Tbh if I go AMD, I had been considering the Phenom II X4 965 Black Ed, at apx £100, but looking now, the general benchmarks look much better, easily £20's worth.


* However, how would you say the 6200 compared against those low-end Sandy/Ivys i5's? Given I'm more interested in game performance than anything else? (I'm thinking of the skt LGA1155 chips which hover around the £150 mark, doubt I could afford any higher)

* Also, I see Dabs & Overclockers are selling the 8x Core 8120 Black Ed 3.10Ghz for the same price this week (£140/£130 respectively. In the case of Overlockers, they also guarantee it's overclock to 3.6ghz).
Slightly slower clock than the 6200 but more cores - Am I right in thinking that once we go over 4x cores the clock speed becomes more important for this game engine, making the 6200 better in this case?


Mobo: Again, this is geared toward gaming so I'm willing to sacrifice more esoteric functions in order to spend more on the GPU.
I like your suggestion, but if I do go AMD, would a cheaper board such as the Asus M5A97 AMD 970 make a noticeable difference in gaming performance?
I see it has a slightly slower data bus speed & uses the 970 chipset, but tbh I cannot make an informed judgement if that makes £30's worth of difference that would be better spent going on the GPU.


GPU: Once I check the benches I'm sure I'll be in complete agreement with you re; the choice of GPU.
But with any luck, I'll be able to wait a week or two after Aug the 7th to ask folk who are running similar rigs to mine what results they get, & I can then make a slightly better judgements than, to be fair, anyone could be expected to right now.
But yeah, I'm aware that my current GFX card is woefully inadequate for MWO.

Anyway, sorry to be a pain but I don't tend to upgrade everything at once very often so it's a really big deal to me when I do.
Cheers mate & all the best - Jimmeh.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

BigJim, on 27 June 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

CPU: Ok, so £125-£150, that's putting me in the territory of lower end ivy/sandy quad i5's like the 3.1 or 3.3ghz chips, and a whole bunch of confusing AMD multi-core chips I've never heard of.
I admit the wider range makes this less certain ground for me.

I see you're suggesting a 6x core Bulldozer 6200 @ £120. Tbh if I go AMD, I had been considering the Phenom II X4 965 Black Ed, at apx £100, but looking now, the general benchmarks look much better, easily £20's worth.


* However, how would you say the 6200 compared against those low-end Sandy/Ivys i5's? Given I'm more interested in game performance than anything else? (I'm thinking of the skt LGA1155 chips which hover around the £150 mark, doubt I could afford any higher)

* Also, I see Dabs & Overclockers are selling the 8x Core 8120 Black Ed 3.10Ghz for the same price this week (£140/£130 respectively. In the case of Overlockers, they also guarantee it's overclock to 3.6ghz).
Slightly slower clock than the 6200 but more cores - Am I right in thinking that once we go over 4x cores the clock speed becomes more important for this game engine, making the 6200 better in this case?

The 965 will give you slightly better performance for slightly more cost and power draw, that said if you can get the 8120 at that price i would, ( i own an 8120) runs anything and everything, and mine is overclocked to 4ghz with a decent aftermarket cooler. It should hit 3.6 with the AMD stock cooler no problem (personally get an aftermarket cooler before you overclock), and i have had mine up to 4.5ghz stable with a corsair H80.

If you can afford an I5 the pure difference between the 2500 and 2500k is that you won't be overclocking the 2500, if you can stretch the extra £16 or so it would be better to get the 2500k.

Synthetic benchmarks will show the 2500k is better than the 8120, however and i have said this many times, end users will notice no noticeable difference between an 8120 and a 2500k.

This game will support quad core, its unlikely to utilize anything above that effectively (altho engine support is there).

The motherboard you have picked there will be fine for day to day use no bells and whistles but it does the job.

The 7770 fit within your original budget as best IMO. If you save money elsewhere or decide to spend more then obviously that will change and other options become viable.

Edited by DV McKenna, 27 June 2012 - 11:13 AM.

[BigJim]

Thanks mate, I appreciate you taking the time to help lay it out for me.

DV McKenna, on 27 June 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

The 965 will give you slightly better performance for slightly more cost and power draw, that said if you can get the 8120 at that price i would, ( i own an 8120) runs anything and everything, and mine is overclocked to 4ghz with a decent aftermarket cooler. It should hit 3.6 with the AMD stock cooler no problem (personally get an aftermarket cooler before you overclock), and i have had mine up to 4.5ghz stable with a corsair H80.

Right, so can I take that to mean for the purpose of playing MWO the x4 965 at £100 would outperform the £120 FX-6200, *and* the £130 FX-8120 clocked up to 3.6?

If so that would be a phenomenal result, because @£100 it gives me a lot more headroom to go bonkers with the GPU.
If However you really think the FX-8120 would perform better in MWO than the quad 965 then it's still damn good at that price, and probably the chip I will get.

Quote

If you can afford an I5 the pure difference between the 2500 and 2500k is that you won't be overclocking the 2500, if you can stretch the extra £16 or so it would be better to get the 2500k.

Synthetic benchmarks will show the 2500k is better than the 8120, however and i have said this many times, end users will notice no noticeable difference between an 8120 and a 2500k. [emphasis mine]

Cool, that decides it then, going AMD & having £50-£60 more to spend on the GPU makes the i5 a gonner.

Quote

The motherboard you have picked there will be fine for day to day use no bells and whistles but it does the job.

Thanks for that. However I wasn't trying to say "hey! this is just as good", more "do you think this is as good if we only consider the gaming?"
Basically I was trying to dig down to whether the chipset difference & slightly slower data bus speed would have a significant difference.

Quote

The 7770 fit within your original budget as best IMO. If you save money elsewhere or decide to spend more then obviously that will change and other options become viable.

Excellent. I definitely intend to try & put as much into the GPU as possible; I'm probably going to try & beat the HD 7770, maybe an HD 6870 @£120?
I'm also looking at the Nvidia cards about £150ish, like the gtx 560Ti, that's if I can save a bit on the other bits, as you rightly say.


Ok, so that's the important parts chosen, unless someone can point me to something better.
As this is essentially a second system, I can go about adding the rest of the bumph.
This would give us a build looking a bit like this, give or take a bit of tweaking;

(Added PSU, ram & basic case, drives/cables/fans not an issue I've got loads)

CPU
AMD FX-8120 Bulldozer clocked @3.6ghz
£132.00

Mobo
Asus M5A97 PRO AMD 970
£76.00

GPU
MSI HD 6870 OC 1024MB GDDR4
£120

RAM
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
£43.00

PSU
OcUK Rage GT 700W PSU 80+ Dual Rail "80 Plus" Efficient Power Supply [PSUPC700GTB]
£60.00

Case
Something-Something
£40.00

Total £471.00

Yay?

[Pandy]

BigJim, on 27 June 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

Please be aware that that this will be a build primarily meant for gaming, with little to no care paid to productivity applications.
(I don't work in IT/graphics-heavy areas, so the rig I'm using now is more than adequate for my photoshop/audacity/etc usage. In admin the most demanding program you use is the company email client but for reasons other than hardware )

Noted

BigJim, on 27 June 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

* The most intensive multi-tasking type application I would be looking to perform would be running say fraps or some similar screen-recording software while playing MWO for community purposes, although if building toward that pushes the build outside my budget, I'll sacrifice that aim for better in-game performance.

* Also be aware that I have a whole back catalogue of games I'll be playing too, going back to Mass Effect 2 and moving towards the present day - Once I have a rig to run them, I've got enough games of the current & last gen to last me a good year or two, not even taking MWO into account.

*Given that, real-world CryEngine 3 performance is more important to me than some possible future benefits if/when games use the architectures in new & fun ways.

Sorry if all that sounds a little demanding, it's only in the interest of being as clear as possible (no one likes making a recommendation based on vague & wooly objectives).

With the requirements that you've thrown in there, the good old saying, "The Bigger, the Better" comes to mind. I had kinda the same requirements for my system build due to my activities on Youtube, and I ran with it. I came ahead with an i5-3550k (Don't quote me), with 8GB of Ram, plus my existing EVGA Geforce 560 Ti 2GB VRAM. Things a beast and I manage to record video (unlocked) on Battlefield 3 at about 45 FPS average on the highest possible settings.

My older machine was a Quad 2 Core 2.5Ghz with 4GB of Ram and my 560 Ti. It managed at about 20 fps unclocked. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just a factor that I had to go with a lower quality just to get them 20 fps. When it comes to recording video for gaming, it lacked the performance I desired and I wanted the best possible quality I can afford.

BigJim, on 27 June 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

CPU: * However, how would you say the 6200 compared against those low-end Sandy/Ivys i5's? Given I'm more interested in game performance than anything else? (I'm thinking of the skt LGA1155 chips which hover around the £150 mark, doubt I could afford any higher)

I wanted to make note of the bolded/underlined area above. The Sandy Bridges are good bang for the buck. You're only going to see a 15% performance differents between the 2nd/3rd Gen i5s, so if your working with a budget, then Sandy Bridge is where it's at. I happened to wait till the Ivy's were out before I started building my new machine and one thing I would say; I am extremely happy with my processor.

The video card is also a very important aspect of a gaming machine/recording platform. Same theory applies here as it did with the processor. The EVGA Geforce 560 Ti 2GB works great for me, however I'm actually looking at getting myself duel 660s when they finally come out. I will say my EVGA Geforce 450 GTS 1GB worked out fine for video recording, and honestly, the upgrade to the 560 wasn't worth the amount of money for it. It only gave me about 10fps more when it came to video recording. Not worth it in the recording aspect, well worth it when it comes to general gaming thou (15-30 fps increase.)

Just make sure you get yourself 8GB of Ram for your video editing/rendering and gaming. Memory is cheap, don't cut yourself short here.

Overall, looking back, the processor is extremely important with the video card being secondary (important, but not the same level as the processor.) I would invest into the processor/mobo because better video cards can be picked up later. Might be one of those things to sit on your current card (if it's good enough,) and save up for a 650/660 card (coming out Q3 of this year.) I don't have much experience with the AMD/ATI side of things, I'm just speaking from experience with my older/current machines.

Hope this helps,

Edited by Pandy, 27 June 2012 - 05:02 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

BigJim, on 27 June 2012 - 04:18 PM, said:

Thanks mate, I appreciate you taking the time to help lay it out for me.




Right, so can I take that to mean for the purpose of playing MWO the x4 965 at £100 would outperform the £120 FX-6200, *and* the £130 FX-8120 clocked up to 3.6?

If so that would be a phenomenal result, because @£100 it gives me a lot more headroom to go bonkers with the GPU.
If However you really think the FX-8120 would perform better in MWO than the quad 965 then it's still damn good at that price, and probably the chip I will get.

I can't find any crysis 2 benchmarks that compare the 2 together, but i am fairly certain the 965 and 8120 will perform very close together.
The closest i can find is a comparision of an 8150 vs the 965 http://www.anandtech...duct/102?vs=434 and you'll be able to see in the gaming aspect at the bottom, they are very close together and thats with the 8150 not 8120.

Quote

Mobo: Again, this is geared toward gaming so I'm willing to sacrifice more esoteric functions in order to spend more on the GPU.
[I like your suggestion, but if I do go AMD, would a cheaper board such as the Asus M5A97 AMD 970 make a noticeable difference in gaming performance?

Unless im going blind, the difference between the 2 boards is £6, so for that extra £6 you will have the faster bus speed but also 2x PCI-E 16x slots so whatever GPU you take now, if you pick up a decent size case, and PSU, you have the option of xfire/SLI later too boost your graphics power.

Quote

Excellent. I definitely intend to try & put as much into the GPU as possible; I'm probably going to try & beat the HD 7770, maybe an HD 6870 @£120?
I'm also looking at the Nvidia cards about £150ish, like the gtx 560Ti, that's if I can save a bit on the other bits, as you rightly say.

All 3 of those are good cards, however be careful when looking at 560TI's, they come in 2 flavours.
Standard 384 core version, which are expensive when compared next to the 448 core version performance ( which can overclock into GTX 580 territory) but as always you will need a good power supply.

the 384 runs around £150, the 448 £189.

[BigJim]

DV McKenna, on 27 June 2012 - 11:37 PM, said:

I can't find any crysis 2 benchmarks that compare the 2 together, but i am fairly certain the 965 and 8120 will perform very close together.
The closest i can find is a comparision of an 8150 vs the 965 http://www.anandtech...duct/102?vs=434 and you'll be able to see in the gaming aspect at the bottom, they are very close together and thats with the 8150 not 8120.

Nice one, good find & thanks for looking - I hadn't found any either, hoped maybe you had some ninja insiders on the payroll.

Skipping to the bottom of that comparison, we can see that on the games they chose, there was very little difference with particular productivity type tasks favouring one or the other.
Since it's sheer FPS I'm after that is a nice thing to see.

Pandy, on 27 June 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

~ the good old saying, "The Bigger, the Better" comes to mind.
I had kinda the same requirements for my system build due to my activities on Youtube, and I ran with it.
I came ahead with an i5-3550k (Don't quote me), with 8GB of Ram, plus my existing EVGA Geforce 560 Ti 2GB VRAM.
Things a beast and I manage to record video (unlocked) on Battlefield 3 at about 45 FPS average on the highest possible settings.

My older machine was a Quad 2 Core 2.5Ghz with 4GB of Ram and my 560 Ti. It managed at about 20 fps unclocked. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just a factor that I had to go with a lower quality just to get them 20 fps. When it comes to recording video for gaming, it lacked the performance I desired and I wanted the best possible quality I can afford.

The Sandy Bridges are good bang for the buck. You're only going to see a 15% performance differents between the 2nd/3rd Gen i5s, so if your working with a budget, then Sandy Bridge is where it's at. I happened to wait till the Ivy's were out before I started building my new machine and one thing I would say; I am extremely happy with my processor.

Thanks for the background on your recording setup, provided some good context for me to think over.

Rightio, so you're able to show a provable difference between the "beef" of the processor for video recording duties, although tbh I'm beginning to think an i5 is out of my range, if I'm going to press to £150+ for a vid card.

Given your experiences with recording & the comments on making sure I get a sufficiently powerful CPU to handle it, I may have to forgo that aim as I simply can't go into the realms of £150+ on the CPU *and* get a GFX card above the £120 mark, which ideally I would like to do given the devs have stated the game is more GPU-bound.

(I'm currently running a 512mb gts250, which runs Crysis 1 quite well @ medium on this john Prescott P4, but is below the minimum stated specs even for low settings in MWO. So keeping it for this purpose isn't gonna happen unfortunately, meaning my earlier idea of sitting on the fence & waiting is out).


So, taking recording out of the eqution, if there's little game-performance difference between a low end i5 & the 2 AMD offerings, then AMD it is.

The Phenom II 965 @£100 still seems a steal & unless someone wants to jump out of the monitor & ***-slap some sense into me, I'll probably go with the Phenom II 965, saving £30/£60 over the FX-8120 & i5 respectively so that I can plump for a >£150 graphics card. (see below the difference this makes)

So, assuming I used the saving to get a better card like these, do you think the idea of economising on the processor (dropping the more expensive FX-8120 to get a cheaper 965) and using the saving to up the GFX card is a sensible one - again given that I'm willing to sacrifice the recording?

If you guys still think it's a poor move to take the 965 over the FX-8 (such as problems upgrading to AM3+), then I'll go FX-8.
Plan?

Quote

Unless im going blind, the difference between the 2 boards is £6, so for that extra £6 you will have the faster bus speed but also 2x PCI-E 16x slots so whatever GPU you take now, if you pick up a decent size case, and PSU, you have the option of xfire/SLI later too boost your graphics power.

I think you might be right there mate, tbh we're talking marginal price differences here so I'll go with the best I can afford given the budget.

Quote

All 3 of those are good cards, however be careful when looking at 560TI's, they come in 2 flavours.
Standard 384 core version, which are expensive when compared next to the 448 core version performance ( which can overclock into GTX 580 territory) but as always you will need a good power supply.

the 384 runs around £150, the 448 £189.

Point taken; so the non-448 is still more powerful than my other 2 options, but not quite as good value per-pound as it were, and the 448-core can clock to almost rival a min-£300 card..

This is the whole point of my um'ing & ah-ing over the rest of the components; £30 here & there can make a big difference in the end.
I just wish there was a simple overarching hierarchy of price v performance, that would make things so easy.

If I save that £30 on the processor (going down from the FX-8120 to the X4-956) it means I can go from £150 up to £180/190 on the card.

That gives me options of; (ranked in order of preference)
1) gtx 650ti (448) - £190
2) gtx 650ti - £160
3) HD 6870 - £120
4) HD 7770 - £100

Now assuming I do skimp of the CPU & can go over £150, it opens up a couple more options which up till now haven't been mentioned.

* gtx 750 - £200 min (This would be ideal, but relies on my finding a real saving elsewhere)
* HD 7850 - £190 min (Not sure on this series, is it directly superior to the HD 7770 series for gaming?)
* HD 6950 - £170 (Ought to be superior to the 6870, but again, no experience to base this on)

Now of course, ideally I'd go with a GTX 750 (unlikely though), if not, try & stretch to as good a card as possible.
Failing that, how do you think these 3 cards fit into the list above?



Thanks again for spending the time to advise me - I know that comparing HW can be time consuming (it's taken me 3hrs to put this single post together!

I'm gonna go & play around in excel & hopefully put a final build plan forward (inc RAM/PSU/etc) once the 2 or 3 options above are sorted.
Cheers all - J.

Edited by BigJim, 28 June 2012 - 01:10 PM.

[Bullseye69]

JRock, on 22 June 2012 - 08:43 AM, said:

I've seen 100 posts on this so here goes 101...

I am completely out of the game with my current specs. I have a 2 year old slimline and between the design of the case and the power supply, it's a total non-starter for MW:O.

I'm also on a budget - I don't have $800 to blow on a new system.

So I think I've got this figured out. Russ said that the game runs fine on old Core 2 Quad machines so my plan is to buy a used Core 2 Quad for $250-ish off eBay and then pair that with a Radeon HD 7750 video card which is one of the best performing, lowest power consuming cards on the market which should mean it will fit it into just about any box from a power and size perspective. Retails currently for about $100.

So for $350 I can get into MWO. That's something I can work into my budget.

Spend the extra get a hd 7770 you will not regret it, it is a better and more powerful card, you will need 500 power supply to be on safe side.

I have this and overclocked it to 1125mhz no problem.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814127664

Edited by Bullseye69, 30 June 2012 - 01:47 AM.

[MajorLeeHung]

I built a core I7 2600k with 16gigs ram 80gig ssd nvidia 460 with a 24inch HD monitor for 800. yall need to do more research!

[jrock]

Bullseye69, on 30 June 2012 - 01:46 AM, said:

Spend the extra get a hd 7770 you will not regret it, it is a better and more powerful card, you will need 500 power supply to be on safe side.

I have this and overclocked it to 1125mhz no problem.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814127664

If the #1 concern is keeping costs down then how does adding a power supply to the equation help?