13 replies to this topic

[BigJim]

First off a massive thanks to _DV McKenna_ and _Pandy_ for taking the time & effort (particularly 'Kenna) in helping me narrow down my list of components for my MWO "sod everything but the FPS®" rig.


After fully digesting their posts, I've put together 4 sample builds, based on the AMD Phenom II 965, the Bulldozer FX 8120, and the entry-level i3 & i5. (dual & quad, respectively).

I *think* I know which build I'm going to go with, but before I say anything I'd like to just put these out there and get some feedback from people with similar rigs to report back Crysis 2 performance (since this is our nearest benchmark) and any other sensible advice as well please.

I know there are a million other HW threads, but for a completely new build I hope you won't blame me for triple & quadruple-checking my reasoning.

* (HDDs/Cables/Fans not included here as I have those, but I'll have to get a few extras inc mouse & headset hence why I can't go all the way up to £500)
Also noting that in the UK the 488 versions of the Geforce 560ti are as much as a 570, which is why I've not included that option.



As you can see, as the CPU gets more expensive the GPU has to come down correspondingly, so this is why it's such a fine balancing act at this, admittedly low budget.

Any takers?



Just as a reminder, the stated recommended specs are;

CPU: Core i3-2500 AMD Athlon II X4 650
GPU: GeForce GTX 285 Radeon HD 5830
RAM: 8 GB OS: Windows 7 SP-1 64-Bit


Ps: I've ring-fenced £40 for the cheapest semi-decent case I can find, because after Christmas I plan to mod this 2003 G5 case to take ATX

http://img.photobuck...5emptycase1.jpg

[Catamount]

As compared to each other, each of those builds has merit.

I'd go with the 2nd build from the top, personally. It leaves you most covered on the GPU side of things, and while the CPU is aging (but still very viable; I'm using a 965 myself), the AM3+ motherboard leaves open the option for a simply drop-in CPU upgrade down the road that the Intel option lacks, including access to Piledriver (and for all we know, Steamroller).

Also, judging by Crysis 2, Cryengine 3 dislikes dual core CPUs. Regardless of performance, it only seems to run decently on quad core chips, such that even slower quad core chips can outperform faster dual cores (I can bring up that chart again on DX9 CPU performance in Crysis 2, but I take it we've all seen it by now given how often it's brought up)


Don't bite the bullet just yet though. Those are well thought-out builds, but I'm still going to take a crack at beating them


Edit: here you go


This will outperform those systems by giving a more powerful GPU (mostly achieved by taking the cheaper motherboard and CPU from each AMD build, and then dropping down to a PSU that's a little less overkill) MSI HD 7870 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
(£199.99) £239.99
(£199.99) AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £99.95
(£83.29) £99.95
(£83.29) Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99) Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-500CXUKV2) £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66) Kingston HyperX RED Limited Edition 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3B1RK2/8GX) £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)

Sub Total : £411.59

Shipping : £10.00

VAT : £84.32

Total : £505.91


That's from http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

Edited by Catamount, 29 June 2012 - 06:34 AM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Option 2. As cat said, plus you can overclock.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Option 1 or 2 will rock MWO fine and you can always double up your vid cards on option one, down the road that is.

[WardenWolf]

I would go for the Core i5 option probably, with the Phenom II option a good backup. Don't bother with the Bulldozer option, and from what the Devs have said I think going with the Core i3 (dual-core) would be shooting yourself in the foot on a new computer.

[Vulpesveritas]

The problem with the i5 build is you're shooting yourself in the foot with the graphics card, as the graphics card is far more important than the CPU for framerates in CryENGINE 3. I'll post graphs later if you need me to. Lol. Or someone else can.

[BigJim]

*EDIT* 3x more posts since I started typing this, damn I'm getting slow @ typing (<- see? getting quicker!)





Christ that's a nice suggestion Cat, tbh I didn't dare look so high up the GPU food-chain but yes that's a very nice build there!
I forgot to mention, I'm not looking for SLI/XFire (if I did have the money much later to get an identical GPU, replacing a £60 mainboard is hardly a big deal), so the cheaper mobo is a very viable option.


I'm glad you both picked up on #2, I think #'s 3 & 4 were having to make too much sacrifice in order to get that free Intel case-sticker ( ), when we've already got a chip that beats the rec'd specs & the devs have said that the game is more GPU-bound.

#1 Also looks good, but people on here have advised me that I'd see little Cry3 performance difference between the 2 AMD chips in gaming terms, making the extra money worth putting into the GPU (and I can always upgrade to AM3+ chips later if the game uses those full 8-cores in future updates).

My limited understanding is that the amd chips here (956 & FX-8) can be roughly compared to a decent i3 in one-track-mind type tasks, but would come out on top when proggies (such as Cry3) want to make use of 4x or 8x cores, yes? (~30% hyper-threading notwithstanding)


Tbh I'm glad someone called me out on the PSU; I have a 550w generic psu in this Prescott P4 machine so I assumed I'd have to go up a bit more as the cores increase, as well as a well respected manufacturer, and online calculators I've used have varied from 450 watt to 750 watt requirements making it a bit tricky to finalise.
If you're sure a good quality 500w psu will suffice then I'm sold mate!
I don't want to burn power just for the hell of it.


Finally, nice job on that card!
It's pretty clearly superior to the gtx750 from the reviews I can find & I think is well worth "skimping" on the Mobo & PSU (not that they're poor quality, just lower-range than I'd originally earmarked).


Damn, I really, really like that build. I'd hoped to get around the £480/£490 mark to leave me a few quids over for a nice Logi g500 or something.
But I'm going to have to spend today & tomorrow trying to "rearrange" ( ) my finances to make room because if (and It's a BIG if) I can afford the bit extra money I'm sold on Cat's build. <3

But yes, if I can't stretch to Cat's build then #2 it is.
Thanks everyone.

Edited by BigJim, 29 June 2012 - 08:25 AM.

[Garth Erlam]

People have covered most of what I would have said (avoid dual-cores especially) - I'd say though that anything above a 560ti is unnecessary. 560ti/6950 GPU's cover virtually any game, maxed, at 1080p. So anything above that is slightly above the curve.

[Catamount]

BigJim, for power there's a real easy way to figure non overclocked systems:

Either CPU TDP + GPU TDP + 100W (that's a bare minimum for the system to be good and reliable), or figured slightly differently, with a bit more headroom, you can also do (CPU TDP + GPU TDP) * 1.5. I prefer the latter, but both are fine rules of thumb, and both faster and more consistent than going through a power calculator that uses god only knows what standard for figure things.

The biggest gaming draw I've seen for that particular 7870 is 160W (as Guru3D measures it), and the 965 is, of course, 125W, so your system will run reliably with a (160 + 125) * 1.5 = 427.5W PSU, and even at 428W, you'd still have some headroom, quite a bit, actually, since realistic gaming loads will probably be more like 250W, and should never exceed 300W.

So a good 500-550W PSU is more than you need.

Vulpes has a good buying guide up right now for power supplies, and I'm going to add a guide on how to shop for power supplies later to that, but for now, that one I linked is a good choice among what Overclockers.co.uk has in stock.


Also, if 10-20 quid is really what's stopping you, just wait a few weeks and save up a few more pennies!

[BigJim]

Thanks Garth; I couldn't have dreamed for someone in a better position to advise could I!?

My experience going from an 8-man DM map to a 32-man ONS map back in UT2k4 makes my ears ***** up at "slightly above the curve", excellent news! (I haven't bought a "new" GPU since x1950xt's were major news, I inherited this gts250)

I do wish to see MWO maxed out (and if I were a Dev I'd want people to see it that way too), so being able to keep high settings & high frames when we start to get really bi-ig maps floats my boat.


@Cat; Thanks mate, not just for the confirmation but the info to back it up; Not that I doubted your pick, but it does settle you form worrying it's gonna go pop one day!
My old Tagan 440w took my A64 3200+ system down with it years back & since then I'm proper tweaker-paranoid that I'll misjudge.

I did read vulp's PSU guide, but tbh I understand insane made-up Battlemech technology far better than real life high-end electronics.



Yeah Cat I'm basically just going to go with the full Cat-Bang build as laid out in your post & then do a lot of ebay & amazon scrounging for a deal on mouse/headset, etc..
Thanks again everyone, <3 you all.


*EDIT* Once this is done, then I can dare to get my Elite pack, the build is what's been keeping me from just jumping in as soon as they were announced

Edited by BigJim, 29 June 2012 - 10:14 AM.

[Skrapheap]

Catamount you can do it that way, or you can cheat a little: eXtreme Power Supply Calculator. This tool not only calculates for the CPU and GPU, but also HDDS, all fans, opticals drives, and includes a function for capacitor aging.

[BigJim]

That's the one that gave me the ~450/470 watt result yesterday.
When the other gave me +700 watts, I didn't dare trust either.

[Stray Ion]

Please PIN this thread.

[Catamount]

BigJim, on 29 June 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

That's the one that gave me the ~450/470 watt result yesterday.
When the other gave me +700 watts, I didn't dare trust either.

That's why I prefer to do it myself. I already have far too many kinds of computing tools to hold my hand through things I should be doing myself (Wolfram Alpha... how I rely on you so...).

If I want to evaluate my PSU, I'd rather do it myself and not only know the result is correct, but know where it came from. I don't know what the hell kind of assumptions PSU calculators are making! Are they assuming realistic CPU+GPU gaming load? Max GPU+CPU (Prime95+Furmark)? Max CPU+GPU + idle on all other equipment? Realistic gaming load + all other equipment idle? Every scrap of equipment going 100% full bore (as in, Prime95 + Furmark + HDD thrashing+ DVD ripping + fully loaded RAM)? For that matter, what are they assuming for GPU TDP? Are they going with manufacturer numbers? Actual measured TDPs? If it's the latter, who measured them?


IMHO, sometimes it's best just to do the work yourself, because then you know exactly what you're getting, just like when building a computer instead of buying it!