111 replies to this topic

[Will Hung]

I just want AMD to start leapfrogging over Intel again (like the "old days") so the prices for both of their products would go down some, and I'd have a choice in all price and performance points. I'll buy the best bang-for-buck that I can afford, Intel or AMD, or even some other brand.

[Fiachdubh]

OK also trying to put a system together at the moment to see if it is managable pricewise and would appreciate input on a few points. I want to get the parts and build a machine with future upgrading in mind (when I can afford it) so as long as it runs MWO flawlessly with graphics on high I dont mind cutting corners on the CPU, motherboard and graphics card if they can stay competitive for several years to come, mostly be running games that are already out anyway and yes I am a fan of AMD.

Currently I am looking at:

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 -Socket AM3+ ATX €133

AMD FX 8120 Black Edition 3.1GHz 8MB AM3+ €199
AMD Black Edition FX 6100 3.3GHz 8MB AM3+ €160
AMD Black Edition FX 4100 3.6GHz 4MB AM3+ €112
Is the 8 core worth the big price jump from 4? How much extra 'future proofing' will I get from it?

Sapphire RADEON HD 6870 - 1GB- PCI-E €170
Can I get away with 1gb considering they are double the price for 2gb?

So thats at least €823 (with case, PSU, memory and cooling) before taking HDD, optical drive, monitor and periphials into account.
Would I get away with sticking to the lower end of the budget? Probably wait until closer to launch if prices are expected to come down on the more expensive components.

€823 = $1088 = £692

Edited by Fiachdubh, 27 January 2012 - 05:54 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Fiachdubh, on 27 January 2012 - 05:34 PM, said:

OK also trying to put a system together at the moment to see if it is managable pricewise and would appreciate input on a few points. I want to get the parts and build a machine with future upgrading in mind (when I can afford it) so as long as it runs MWO flawlessly with graphics on high I dont mind cutting corners on the CPU, motherboard and graphics card if they can stay competitive for several years to come, mostly be running games that are already out anyway and yes I am a fan of AMD.

Currently I am looking at:

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 -Socket AM3+ ATX €133

AMD FX 8120 Black Edition 3.1GHz 8MB AM3+ €199
AMD Black Edition FX 6100 3.3GHz 8MB AM3+ €160
AMD Black Edition FX 4100 3.6GHz 4MB AM3+ €112
Is the 8 core worth the big price jump from 4? How much extra 'future proofing' will I get from it?

Sapphire RADEON HD 6870 - 1GB- PCI-E €170
Can I get away with 1gb considering they are double the price for 2gb?

So thats at least €823 (with case, PSU, memory and cooling) before taking HDD, optical drive, monitor and periphials into account.
Would I get away with sticking to the lower end of the budget? Probably wait until closer to launch if prices are expected to come down on the more expensive components.

€823 = $1088 = £692

Depends on your overall budget, as has been stated several times it is probably the most important thing to mention when asking for help.

MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) - £84
Intel Core I5 2500k- £160
8 GB Corsair XMS3 (cheap cheerful) - £36
XFX 6870 -£134
1 TB Western Digital Caviar -£86

Bulk of your system for £500, leaving you £192 for PSU,coolers,Soundcard,Windows.

The I5 will be a better chip than the 41,61 AMD options and is only marginally more expensive.

If your really interested in future upgrades on a budget find a way of going with the AMD 8120, so that you wont have to upgrade your CPU for the next 5 years and instead can spend the money elsewhere like GPU, Ram.

Your other option ofc to save money, would be re-use old parts if your currently have a desktop, ie CD-drive, HDD, Windows, Monitors,Keyboards. Spend your money on the more important hardware (PSU,CPU,MOBO,GPU.) and then upgrade the other less essential parts as money permits.

Edited by DV^McKenna, 28 January 2012 - 03:31 AM.

[Fiachdubh]

Thanks, some stuff to think about there. Budget is tricky, have the money to buy any system I want problem is if returning to college it is going to be getting pretty tight in three or four years hence looking to balance cheapness with longevity. Will see what the price situation is closer to launch. My trusty old laptop will be hitting the 5 year mark come summer so probably need replacing over next few years anyway.
Current system is an:
AMD Turion 64 dual core TL-56 (1.8Ghz), 2Gbs DDR2 RAM, GeForce Go 7600 256mb.

Edited by Fiachdubh, 28 January 2012 - 06:30 AM.

[Sidewinder619]

Well I hope this title is like Blizzard games - able to be played on a wide variety of systems. I currently have an Athlon dual core 4400, 8 gigs of DDR2, and a GTX 295 - hopefully this will suffice as I am NOT upgrading just to play MWO

[Vulpesveritas]

Sidewinder619, on 29 January 2012 - 07:03 PM, said:

Well I hope this title is like Blizzard games - able to be played on a wide variety of systems. I currently have an Athlon dual core 4400, 8 gigs of DDR2, and a GTX 295 - hopefully this will suffice as I am NOT upgrading just to play MWO

You won't see the best framerates, but you should be able to play the game at medium settings at 1080p and possibly at high graphics settings at 720p at 30-40 fps comparing to what Crysis 2, the only title currently running this engine plays at.

Of course you could try Crysis 2 and find out beforehand. But given it is more graphics card limited, and I have a low end integrated GPU (mobility radeon HD 4250) and get an average of 28 frames per second, I would assume you would be able to play.

[Catamount]

Sidewinder619, on 29 January 2012 - 07:03 PM, said:

Well I hope this title is like Blizzard games - able to be played on a wide variety of systems. I currently have an Athlon dual core 4400, 8 gigs of DDR2, and a GTX 295 - hopefully this will suffice as I am NOT upgrading just to play MWO

I assume you mean an Athlon 64 X2 4400?

The RAM and GPU are fine, but for whatever reason Cryengine 3 loves CPU power. Playing the game on an Athlon 64 X2 4400 is going to be a really sketchy proposition at best, since even much newer, faster dual core CPUs still have trouble playing the game, even acceptably:

http://www.techspot....ance/page8.html

Crysis 2 is very clearly quad-threaded (based on where the Phenom II X6 sits), and seems to require something with at least the total processing power of a Phenom II x4 to not get horribly bottlenecked.


It is possible that this is a coding glitch in Crysis 2 specifically, since this graph is not scaling with CPU power (the E8500 is a more powerful chip than the Q6600, even in quad-threaded apps, yet does vastly worse), so MWO may not suffer this CPU-scaling problem of not being able to work on even very fast dual cores, but it also might.


If you have troulbe playing the game, I'd recommend getting an AM2 Phenom II X4 940. I know you said you didn't want to upgrade, but they can be gotten, used, for only about $50, and since that Athlon 64 X2 CPU is getting really long in the tooth, and is going to be seriously bottlenecking any game.

Edited by Catamount, 30 January 2012 - 07:36 AM.

[Flawless]

Its time to update what I've done.
I went amd with the 6 core fx processor at 3.3 ghz
Gigabyte motherboard 970 am3+
16 gigs of 1600 ddr3 memory(corsair)
Sapphire 7770 1ghz oc
And a thermaltake 750 w power supply

The graphics card was a bit of a mistake. I was looking at the 6 870 but the 7770 came out
that day and I saw the much higher core clock and memory clock at the same price. The memory interface was not listed or was the core processor numbers....
I was under the impression it would be 256 but its not :/
Im going to see how it runs since its already on its way here but im a bit dissatisfied already.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Flawless, on 16 February 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

Its time to update what I've done.
I went amd with the 6 core fx processor at 3.3 ghz
Gigabyte motherboard 970 am3+
16 gigs of 1600 ddr3 memory(corsair)
Sapphire 7770 1ghz oc
And a thermaltake 750 w power supply

The graphics card was a bit of a mistake. I was looking at the 6 870 but the 7770 came out
that day and I saw the much higher core clock and memory clock at the same price. The memory interface was not listed or was the core processor numbers....
I was under the impression it would be 256 but its not :/
Im going to see how it runs since its already on its way here but im a bit dissatisfied already.

Thats what happens when you do not do a little research first.
And why on earth have you wasted money on 16GB of ram? :/

[Flawless]

The extra 8 gig was a free for me. Lol. I only bought 8 at 44.00 us.

[Fresh Meat]

just return it, don't even open the box.

[Vulpesveritas]

Flawless, on 16 February 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

Its time to update what I've done.
I went amd with the 6 core fx processor at 3.3 ghz
Gigabyte motherboard 970 am3+
16 gigs of 1600 ddr3 memory(corsair)
Sapphire 7770 1ghz oc
And a thermaltake 750 w power supply

The graphics card was a bit of a mistake. I was looking at the 6 870 but the 7770 came out
that day and I saw the much higher core clock and memory clock at the same price. The memory interface was not listed or was the core processor numbers....
I was under the impression it would be 256 but its not :/
Im going to see how it runs since its already on its way here but im a bit dissatisfied already.

again with they why 16GB Ram? Anyhow, the 7770 is a mixed bag. At the moment, it has performance between a 6850 and 6870, it's 28nm and can be easily OC'd, and has lower power consumption. The main plus side is that you'll get better drivers as time moves on up until you upgrade again, as AMD tends to have faster driver updates for it's newer cards.
Also, your PSU is a bit overkill, but otherwise is fine there save that you wasted a bit of money on that too