11 replies to this topic

[homero_boxeador]

Hey guys,

I finally accepted I'm going to throw hours on this game and a macbook air won't do the job (yes, you read it right...). So, i've been reading and reading old discussions that helped me a lot on basic stuff to choose i think (it's been 10 years since i bought my last windows pc due to my work) BUT i would love some help with specific notes on what i can get here in buenos aires, in 2017... So, i've been playing with monopoly money in some websites and i got this:

- intel i7 kaby lake 7700 4.0ghz 8m lga1151
- gigabyte GA Z270-X gaming 7
- 2 x 4gb 2400mhz kingston hyperx fury
- GeForce GTX1060 3GB DDR5 Asus Dual
- 650W Sentey BX1 4284
- some WD caviar random new hdd model, probably 1tb (I understood solid state doesn't make much difference here).

q1. Do you think it's something that could work balanced?
q2. Could i trim the fat in any of the points?
q3. And given MWO relays so much in the CPU, it's still that 3gb graphics card ok or should i go with a 4gb radeon 570 instead? (which are more or less same expensive here)
q4. I read a lot of people using i5 instead of i7, would a cheaper i5 still do the work for me on this setup?

Please keep in mind: I'm spending usd1200 aprox... let's keep the talk on something similar or less as i'll be replacing a macbook for something about the same price.

Thanks!

Edited by DaNStille, 05 May 2017 - 06:32 AM.

[Flapdrol]

That "gaming 7" motherboard is probably very expensive and won't get you any extra performance over a normal board.

You also don't need a Z chipset if you don't plan to overclock a K cpu.

Another option you could consider is a 7700K in a B250 chipset motherboard, you won't be able to overclock but the K chip has a very high stock clock. You'll need an aftermarket cooler since the 7700K doesn't come with one.

Amd ryzen cpu's are not available? they'll not be as fast in this game as an intel but the 1600 has great price/performance and can be overclocked on the stock cooler with a basic chipset motherboard.

Edited by Flapdrol, 05 May 2017 - 07:11 AM.

[xWiredx]

Certainly an i5 7600K will do the trick. You should overclock it for the best results (meaning, depending on what cooler you were going to get, maybe upgrade a bit to a 240mm radiator AIO).

I would also get much faster RAM. The motherboard says it'll support up to 4133, so there's no sense in saving only a few dollars and not getting at least DDR4-3000 instead of DDR4-2400. 2400 will only make a tiny impact on performance, but realistically DDR4-2666 should be considered the bare minimum. DDR4-3000 is the point where any bottleneck from higher latency RAM starts to disappear for gaming.

Since the old "CW" maps (the large ones originally used for community warfare/faction warfare like Boreal Vault and Grim Portico) can take more than 3GB of VRAM at 1080p, I would recommend at least a 4GB card. I would go for the 6GB version of the GTX 1060 instead, though.

The case is kinda plain, and I think there would be enough in the budget for a low-end Corsair case if you're gonna go low-end. They make nice cases. I wouldn't trust whatever random PSU they get bundled with, and you don't need 650W, either.

Based on your build in the OP and my suggested changes, you'd probably look at something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($228.66 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.99 @ Corsair)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($209.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws 4 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.45 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB SC GAMING Video Card ($225.19 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair - 270R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.55 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12G 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($61.89 @ Newegg)
Total: $1022.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-05 11:23 EDT-0400

[homero_boxeador]

Flapdrol, on 05 May 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

You also don't need a Z chipset if you don't plan to overclock a K cpu.

Amd ryzen cpu's are not available? they'll not be as fast in this game as an intel but the 1600 has great price/performance and can be overclocked on the stock cooler with a basic chipset motherboard.

Great feedback thanks! > Nope, i'm not planning to overclock anything. At least 10 years ago that was almost a full time job that could end up in a melted cpu... the free time i have i want to be in the game, not working around it

You mentioned AMDs Ryzens, they are available here, but according to what i read AMD don't get along well with MWO... I'm building this rig to play, so I went straight to intel... then i read that MWO is using little or none of the multi-core juice and neither directx12 will be, so I'm still confused on whether a super fast 4 cores i5 will be ok or even better than a bit slower i7, weird.

xWiredx, on 05 May 2017 - 07:24 AM, said:

Certainly an i5 7600K will do the trick. You should overclock it for the best results (meaning, depending on what cooler you were going to get, maybe upgrade a bit to a 240mm radiator AIO).

I would also get much faster RAM. The motherboard says it'll support up to 4133, so there's no sense in saving only a few dollars and not getting at least DDR4-3000 instead of DDR4-2400. 2400 will only make a tiny impact on performance, but realistically DDR4-2666 should be considered the bare minimum. DDR4-3000 is the point where any bottleneck from higher latency RAM starts to disappear for gaming.

Since the old "CW" maps (the large ones originally used for community warfare/faction warfare like Boreal Vault and Grim Portico) can take more than 3GB of VRAM at 1080p, I would recommend at least a 4GB card. I would go for the 6GB version of the GTX 1060 instead, though.

The case is kinda plain, and I think there would be enough in the budget for a low-end Corsair case if you're gonna go low-end. They make nice cases. I wouldn't trust whatever random PSU they get bundled with, and you don't need 650W, either.

Based on your build in the OP and my suggested changes, you'd probably look at something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($228.66 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.99 @ Corsair)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($209.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws 4 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.45 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB SC GAMING Video Card ($225.19 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair - 270R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.55 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12G 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($61.89 @ Newegg)
Total: $1022.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-05 11:23 EDT-0400

Thanks xWiredx, i see the RAM speed bottleneck now! I'll see what i can get here (not too many options in my market...) Talking about market availability, that i5 7600k is not available here, just the regular 3.5ghz i5 7600. Do you think the regular one is too slow for MWO?
The case issue... to me it's just a box to protect the stuff from dust and move some fresh air, don't want anything neither particularly fancy nor lights or badass design, but i do want enough power and fresh air. Silent yes, would be great!

And I will go with a 6gb or at least 4gb vram card also. I'll what i can get and then post a new setup based on that .

Based on your comments guys I'll what i can get here and post again with a new setup, thanks for the help!

Edited by DaNStille, 06 May 2017 - 08:44 AM.

[MovinTarget]

If you really need to scrimp on cost, the 1050Ti cards are fine, even good on this game at half the price...

[Tarl Cabot]

Get the K version. Ya can still get a decent OC with Air cooled heatsinks and usually without tweaking voltage. It is easier nowadays that it was many moons ago, since ya usually dealing with just the multiplier and not the BCK/FSB frequency.

[Click]

xWiredx, on 05 May 2017 - 07:24 AM, said:

Certainly an i5 7600K will do the trick. You should overclock it for the best results (meaning, depending on what cooler you were going to get, maybe upgrade a bit to a 240mm radiator AIO).

I would also get much faster RAM. The motherboard says it'll support up to 4133, so there's no sense in saving only a few dollars and not getting at least DDR4-3000 instead of DDR4-2400. 2400 will only make a tiny impact on performance, but realistically DDR4-2666 should be considered the bare minimum. DDR4-3000 is the point where any bottleneck from higher latency RAM starts to disappear for gaming.

Since the old "CW" maps (the large ones originally used for community warfare/faction warfare like Boreal Vault and Grim Portico) can take more than 3GB of VRAM at 1080p, I would recommend at least a 4GB card. I would go for the 6GB version of the GTX 1060 instead, though.

The case is kinda plain, and I think there would be enough in the budget for a low-end Corsair case if you're gonna go low-end. They make nice cases. I wouldn't trust whatever random PSU they get bundled with, and you don't need 650W, either.

Based on your build in the OP and my suggested changes, you'd probably look at something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($228.66 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.99 @ Corsair)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($209.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws 4 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.45 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB SC GAMING Video Card ($225.19 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair - 270R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.55 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12G 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($61.89 @ Newegg)
Total: $1022.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-05 11:23 EDT-0400

Makes no sense to spend more on a CPU cooler than you do on RAM. Get an aircooler instead and up the ram kit to a 2x8gb. A simple Cryorig H7 will do the trick. Also it makes no sense not to buy an SSD when youre making a pc with that budget, dont know if you ever used one but trust me, its worth the money. I recommend the Samsung Evo 250gb for its quality and 5yr warranty, its about $90 IIRC. About the HDD, avoid Caviars Blue and Green at all cost, they are garbage. Just pick literally anything else.

You can cut down further on cost by going for a cheaper case, a Zalman T4/T5 has all the essentials and it costs like $30. Though IMO cases are all about personal taste so just pick whatever you like.

[Adept Richard III-gamma]

This could also be right up your alley, lil bit of savings without much performance sacrificed. And all parts are from Newegg. Personally i hate waiting on parts from different vendors.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/7stknn

@944.87

[Dragoon20005]

DaNStille, on 06 May 2017 - 08:42 AM, said:

Great feedback thanks! > Nope, i'm not planning to overclock anything. At least 10 years ago that was almost a full time job that could end up in a melted cpu... the free time i have i want to be in the game, not working around it

You mentioned AMDs Ryzens, they are available here, but according to what i read AMD don't get along well with MWO... I'm building this rig to play, so I went straight to intel... then i read that MWO is using little or none of the multi-core juice and neither directx12 will be, so I'm still confused on whether a super fast 4 cores i5 will be ok or even better than a bit slower i7, weird.



Thanks xWiredx, i see the RAM speed bottleneck now! I'll see what i can get here (not too many options in my market...) Talking about market availability, that i5 7600k is not available here, just the regular 3.5ghz i5 7600. Do you think the regular one is too slow for MWO?
The case issue... to me it's just a box to protect the stuff from dust and move some fresh air, don't want anything neither particularly fancy nor lights or badass design, but i do want enough power and fresh air. Silent yes, would be great!

And I will go with a 6gb or at least 4gb vram card also. I'll what i can get and then post a new setup based on that .

Based on your comments guys I'll what i can get here and post again with a new setup, thanks for the help!

Yes the team in PGI didnt do a proper job of programming the game.

their lack of testing with various PC configs shows already that even PC with supposedly high spec like i7 can struggle during the fierce fire fight.

you will surprised that the FX8350 which was the previous flagship CPU for many years back was still viable for the graphically demanding game like Crysis 3 which uses Cryengine 3. But in MWO it just runs like poo.

But FX was known to have pretty low IPC and was an ageing platform.

So we dont suggest getting the FX as the gaming PC.

But now that Ryzen has since launch and benchmarks have been released

AMD has proven that the Ryzen CPUs can either be the multi tasking CPU in the case of the Ryzen 7 series.

But the sweet spot is the Ryzen 5 CPUs which are priced towards the mainstream market and performance shows they can match the i5 in many cases

The GTX 1060 in many cases a bad value card when the RX 480 and now the RX 580 which is the refreshed Polaris are able to outperform the GTX 1060 6GB in most games not only just AMD backed games.

what make Ryzen also a viable build is the B350 boards are also OCable boards unlike the Intel side which requires a Z series or X series board to OC which will bring the cost up

but looking at the prices of the X370 boards, they are at least 20% cheaper than the cheapest Z270 counterpart.

another draw back is the i5 7600K and i7 7700K need an aftermarket cooler as they dont come bundled with any cooler

the Ryzen 1600 has a box cooler

here is one build you can look at

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($218.55 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Biostar - X370GT5 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($123.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team - T-Force / Night Hawk 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($82.67 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.45 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Gigabyte - Radeon RX 580 8GB Gaming 8G Video Card ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair - SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $927.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-07 10:30 EDT-0400

[xWiredx]

Click, on 06 May 2017 - 04:20 PM, said:

Makes no sense to spend more on a CPU cooler than you do on RAM. \

I was going roughly off of what OP was putting in his build, and since RAM is so cheap and I as working under the pretext that overclocking was going to happen (because in MWO, overclocking generally needs to happen), it makes perfect sense.

The WD drives are pretty much the same quality-wise at the consumer level, and PCPartPicker didn't have the proper Hitachi drives unfortunately, so I picked just whatever was there. Realistically, a Hitachi Deskstar 7K-series drive with 64MB of cache is an excellent HDD choice and I wouldn't really go with a WD when comparing reliability (even though they're both under the WD corporate umbrella).

I completely agree, the board is unnecessary. Again, my build was just to echo OPs ideas with improvements where recommended. First, I'd go with ASUS instead of Gigabyte any day. I -hate- my Gigabyte X99 board, but ASUS boards carried a decent premium at launch and I decided (foolishly) to listen to all of those people that say Gigabyte is just as good. It's not.

Since OP isn't going to overclock (for what reason, I don't know, you don't melt CPUs like used to happen back in the day so there's little reason not to), a 7700K would be best, and with really any 200-series board. The problem is most of the non-Z boards don't like RAM overclocks even when advertising that they support them. An entry-level ASUS Z270 board will cost less and be better all around.

In Brazil, the power grid can be kind of sketchy (after working tech support for many BR companies for almost 4 years, I can say this with confidence) so I'd still recommend a Seasonic PSU over anything else. This can also be something to consider with the motherboard - you may still want to look at the power phase setup on it to ensure it will be strong enough to stand up to any weird power delivery issues.

[homero_boxeador]

xWiredx, on 07 May 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

In Brazil, the power grid can be kind of sketchy (after working tech support for many BR companies for almost 4 years, I can say this with confidence) so I'd still recommend a Seasonic PSU over anything else. This can also be something to consider with the motherboard - you may still want to look at the power phase setup on it to ensure it will be strong enough to stand up to any weird power delivery issues.

I don't know in brazil but "sketchy" is almost a bad translation for "argentinean" infrastructure... that's why I though about a
650watts psu. Had some Senteys in the past, they are not a fancy option but in the results robust to me. Same with Caviar Blue Hdd, i had of those for 10 years with no failures, don't know if the quality got down that much now but anyway, is a gaming rig i won't be throwing work there.

If I dare to explore the AMD world I've found this two options (is not that easy to found all the stuff you want in a same store here and I won't be building it myself...), what do you think is best?:

#1:
Ryzen 1700X
Asus prime b350m-a
16gb 2666mhz ram
eVGA GTX1060x 6gb

#2:
Ryzen 1700X
Gigabyte GA-AB350M-D3H
16gb 2400mhz ram
Asus ROG Strix R470 4gb

on the Intel side i've found:

#1

- Gigabyte GA-Z270M-D3H

- Intel Core I5 7600K Kaby Lake
- 2x DDR4 2400 Mhz (8Gb) Crucial CL17 (they dont have faster ones, maybe i can get 3000mhz as someone mentioned)

- 1 Tb WD SATA III Blue 64Mb Buffer
- Gigabyte GTX1060 Windforce OC 6Gb
- Cooler CPU Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Do you AMD Zen could be a thing in the future? I mean, here they are not that much cheaper, maybe 10/20% less. Do you think these guys could update their engine in the future to use any of this new CPUs power or is that practically impossible and they'll stick with current architecture using a few cores at full throttle? BTW anyone knows anything about how things are going to be with mechwarrior 5? Thanks guys

[xWiredx]

DaNStille, on 14 May 2017 - 01:24 PM, said:

I don't know in brazil but "sketchy" is almost a bad translation for "argentinean" infrastructure... that's why I though about a
650watts psu. Had some Senteys in the past, they are not a fancy option but in the results robust to me. Same with Caviar Blue Hdd, i had of those for 10 years with no failures, don't know if the quality got down that much now but anyway, is a gaming rig i won't be throwing work there.

If I dare to explore the AMD world I've found this two options (is not that easy to found all the stuff you want in a same store here and I won't be building it myself...), what do you think is best?:

#1:
Ryzen 1700X
Asus prime b350m-a
16gb 2666mhz ram
eVGA GTX1060x 6gb

#2:
Ryzen 1700X
Gigabyte GA-AB350M-D3H
16gb 2400mhz ram
Asus ROG Strix R470 4gb

on the Intel side i've found:

#1

- Gigabyte GA-Z270M-D3H

- Intel Core I5 7600K Kaby Lake
- 2x DDR4 2400 Mhz (8Gb) Crucial CL17 (they dont have faster ones, maybe i can get 3000mhz as someone mentioned)

- 1 Tb WD SATA III Blue 64Mb Buffer
- Gigabyte GTX1060 Windforce OC 6Gb
- Cooler CPU Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Do you AMD Zen could be a thing in the future? I mean, here they are not that much cheaper, maybe 10/20% less. Do you think these guys could update their engine in the future to use any of this new CPUs power or is that practically impossible and they'll stick with current architecture using a few cores at full throttle? BTW anyone knows anything about how things are going to be with mechwarrior 5? Thanks guys

Indeed, "sketchy" and "argentinian" are somewhat close. Maybe over the past few years when the Brazil economy was doing better things were improved, but a decade ago I know a lot of datacenters had problems with "dirty" power killing server components prematurely.

Zen chips are just fine, but Intel will still give the best results (the 7700K specifically). Don't count on PGI to make any updates that drastically improve performance on Zen.

When it comes to PSUs, the design and quality of components is more important than total output. Seasonic and Super Flower PSUs tend to be the best, so get something that was OEMed from one of them and make sure the PSU delivers the needed amount of energy. Somewhere between 550-650W will be fine.