13 replies to this topic

[BigJim]

F/k yeah!

I've seen loads of threads where people ask for advice on builds for the game, but rarely do i see one where they come back with said build & show us all how it's going..

So in that vein I thought I'd have a go.
This thread is where I put forward my choice of builds - Bear in mind that I haven't built a pc from scratch since 2005, so was/am well out of the game, knowledge-wise.


The components for my MWO-spesh' build arrived today, while I was checking all the bits were present & correct this thread popped into my head & I thought I'd take a couple of pics to share.

I think that I'll take a few pics during the build too just in case it helps inspire anyone else who's thinking of putting a comp together for the game rather than buying some off the shelf pre-build bobber-jobber [/...shudder...]

Anyway, onwards;




Phenom II x4 965 Black Ed, with budget mobo (no SLI, and little scope for O/Cing not that I require either any time soon). Plus-points are it's cheap, and eminently capable of doing what I want from it.

I know AMD have taken a bit of a bashing on the forum lately, but for some reason Amazon had this cpu at a clear 50-60 pounds cheaper than an i3, not counting the generally cheaper mobo so I could put that money saved into my favourite part of the build..;

1x 2GB HD7870 OC. This is what will give the best performance in CryEngine 3 I think, I honestly doubt that an i3 would have benefited me at all given that this build is all about MWO.


My current prezza-core Pentium 4 more than handles all the other tasks I use my machine for, so the extra oomph of the intel would have been wasted money, I was able to secure the CPU *and* Mobo for the price of an entry-level i3 on it's own.

Was going to go with a Corsair builder 500w psu, but they were out of stock at the place I went to, and for a fiver more I could take a 600w. I would have spent more than an additional fiver just in additional shipping had I gone elsewhere so it's probably a fair choice considering I'll be throwing in a couple more sata HDDs (not ssd) later on.




This was a surprise; Never seen this brand of ram before, but they were significantly reduced in price so I took a punt, knowing I can always RMA if they turn out to be duff. 2x 4gb @1600.
3x 120mm fans, one for exhaust @ the top-rear, one intake at the front & one intake on the side door.
the case can take about 3x more but I didn't want to build a wind-tunnel machine to test the aerodynamic properties of fighter-jets or recreate 80's Saab adverts.




Cables; The case comes with 2x sata cables so I wanted two more. A few fan cables too, the idea is to use the mobo's fan socket to control all my cooling fans - Apparently this cheap little thing lets me run from the CPU's 3-pin fan outlet to 3x more 3-pin fans, and the black splitter should let me add one more, making all 4 fans sync with the CPU fan-speed with a minimum of messing about. In theory. We'll see.




Case. For some reason this came bundled with a rottweiler. The things they think of these days!
Unfortunately I had to supply my own pig's ear to keep him happy though. More expenses.

Rightio then, gonna start bolting it all together tomorrow, spend a few days D/Ling drivers, bios updates (if needed) and various other gubbinsey-jobs.

This P4 is up on ebay at the moment & will be gone by sunday evening to try & offset some of the cost, so I better not hang about posting silly forum-posts up all weekend!
Wish me luck all.

[Aznpersuasion89]

Nice, I'm still waiting for my cpu and gpu. Everything I get from Cali, 2 days shipping. Last two things....new jersey. Made me sad. I hope all goes well for you. I too will probably follow suit and make a build thread.

[Romulus Stahl]

Have fun, it is much easier now than it was in 2005 (bios's have come a long way) looks like the pup is enjoying a pig ear (mine like them as well).

Edited by Romulus Stahl, 13 July 2012 - 01:20 PM.

[Bluey]

Human: My pretty important and expensive stuff !!!
Dog: Nom om nom om *no s.... were given at that day*

[silentD11]

Ugh, don't buy AMD at the moment. Though Phenom II still makes more sense than bulldozer so good on you there.

Also you don't really need much OC with a black CPU, it's MP unlocked. My 940 does 4.2 all day, but it's on custom built liquid.

[BigJim]

Tbh I know that side by side, an AMD chip is probably less powerful overall than the equivalent Intel chip of the same "level" so to speak (very ugly hacky comparison there for obvious reasons), but given the amount of money I had to spend, and the limited benefits that a more powerful CPU will bring to MWO specifically, the 965BE is pretty much all I need. Does that sorta' make sense?

Sure I'd have loved an i5, but budgeting for that that would have put me in 6870 territory for the GPU.

Looking to the future with this build I know I'll be upgrading my cpu and mobo long before I wish to replace the GPU so my preference was to go as high as possible on the graphics end & choose the cheapest cpu which would still give me good performance for CryEngine 3.

I'm working on the assumption the 7870 will last a good 3, maybe 4 years, and even if I only get 2, 2.5 years outta the AMD combo that's still brilliant for like £120ish for the CPU and mobo.

Edited by BigJim, 13 July 2012 - 03:51 PM.

[Scilya]

nothing wrong with phenom and thuban chips!
just get a 500 MHz overclock on it not that it needs it of course
http://www.anandtech...duct/102?vs=288

[BigJim]

Scilya, on 13 July 2012 - 11:14 PM, said:

nothing wrong with phenom and thuban chips!
just get a 500 MHz overclock on it not that it needs it of course
http://www.anandtech...duct/102?vs=288

Indeed mate - Those comparisons are what drew me to the chip (and thanks Vulp for suggesting it in the first place)

[Vincent Vascaul]

You my friend are making a sexy little gaming rig. Don't let anyone make you feel bad for going AMD I still use them all the time and I have had three 2600K's two 2500K's a 2700K , i3's first gen i5's and I just got my first Sandy bridge Extreme chipset and I still never hesitate to go AMD in my builds. Cant wait to see it put together!

[BigJim]

Cheers fella!
Sexiest bit about it is the case tbh - I can't believe how nice this "budget" thermaltake box is..

It's sat right behind me now, I'm taking my time to *really* do a good job on the cable management, organising my drives, etc..
Will chuck some build-pics up when it's up & running, not that most of the regs on this forum would need anything so gauche but hopefully it might encourage a few more to take the ole' DIY approach.

The most annoying thing is, until I get a new router, I'm stuck with XP because there's no Win-7 drivers for my old one!
I failed to think of that, so I'm gonna be shopping for a decent DSL router this week too.

[Vulpesveritas]

uber cheapo; http://www.newegg.co...N82E16833704039
cheapo; http://www.newegg.co...N82E16833704050
Mid end: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16833320088
Good: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16833704136

[BigJim]

Thanks Vulps, star mate!

It's 4am right now so I'll go over those in the morning - Much appreciated fox-dude.

[Vulpesveritas]

yeah. Not sure if TP link is available across the pond, but all their units I've seen have good reviews.

[BigJim]

Cheers Vulp - I hadn't clocked TP link before now, but yes they're available and not too expensive by any means.

My current XP setup uses a BT Voyager 105 (basically just a re-badged Askey DSL usb-modem rather than a real router) which while old fashioned, works well because I'm in a rural area and wireless *anything* tends to suffer really badly.

(honestly, it's a scandal how poor high-speed internet coverage is in the UK, google it sometime if you want to feel sorry for us Brits)

In addition, I have to manually connect it to the internet via dial-up networking in Windows which to me is actually a plus-point because I nearly always prefer manual control over anything on my computer over things that work in the background without you knowing or paying attention.



Right now everyone else in my household uses lappys or netbooks with those horrible little toy USB-stick modems with SIM cards that are no better than a 3G mobile phone, so advanced wireless sharing capabilities are wasted on me - Nor do I use any internet-connected TVs, consoles or anything else other than my desktop machine, so as long as my router allows fully-wired networking (Phone line > Router > Ethernet to back of PC) I'm happy as Larry.

Thanks again mate, your taking the time to put forward realistic options for people who are out of the game like me, is more appreciated than you know.

Edited by BigJim, 17 July 2012 - 02:40 AM.