111 replies to this topic

[Vulpesveritas]

In general yes, though if you can wait two days the Radeon HD 7970 comes out at ~$500. isn't quite as fast as a 6990 but is far more power efficient and supports DirectX 11.1 and Eyefinity 3D. Also is easily overclocked to almost as fast as a 6990.

[Thorqemada]

Whatever you do - buy a real quality PSU and not cheap electronic trash - a good PSU is a keyfactor to a stable running system!
Even if you have a bad mainboard design and powersucking videocards the Quality PSU will save you!

My System:
Win 7 x64
AMD 975 x4
Gigabyte 990xa
2 x 4GB Kingston Blue DDR3-1600
ATI HD 6950 2GB
X-Fi Titanium
2 x 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3R
1 DVD-RW
ENERMAX Modu 82+ (625 Watt)

I use AMD since i switched from my Intel 486DX50 ISA / VLB-50MHz-System (replaced for a short time by an Intel DX2-100) to an AMD 486DX4 133 on a PCI Mainboard and found it faster than a Pentium 90 and never had a reason to switch back.
I use ATI since i had the Nvidia Geforce 1 and 2 and wanted to do an Upgrade to the Ultra and got 3 buggy cards in a row and eventually tried the first Radeon 256 and was ever happy with any of them i owned.
I use Kingston bcs it is all times good, reliable and never had any poblems like with Corsair, or NoNames.
Mainboards i made the best experiences with Asrock and Gigabyte.
ASUS is to varying in quality and MSI makes me allways trouble, every single Board i had.
You can go for onbardsound, but i prefer a dedicated Soundcard, its a one time investment and mainboardsound often has even more bad drivers than Creative and is more than once stealing (dont play) sounds/noises compared to the X-Fi Titanium for example.

Edited by Thorqemada, 07 January 2012 - 10:59 PM.

[Fyrwulf]

If you're going AMD, the Crosshair V is the way to go. Hell, get the Crosshair V Thunderbolt, which comes with a Killer M2100 wireless ethernet gaming card. Video card doesn't matter overmuch for this engine, so I'd suggest the upcoming 7970. You can get by with onboard sound on quality motherboards. An absolute must is a HOTAS, it's not really Mechwarrior without that control setup. As for monitor, if you're buying a new one you probably want at least 27" and a response time of 5ms or under.

[Vulpesveritas]

Well that really depends. The Asrock Fatal1ty 990FX motherboard has some of the best benchmarking scores and overall ability. Plus it's under $200. Depending on budget it may be a better option than the Crosshair V.

And yes a good PSU is very important. I recommend something Seasonic, Antec (built by seasonic), Silverstone (also built by seasonic), Rosewill (if 80+ bronze or better, their newer PSUs are decent quality.), or Kingwin.

RAM I recommend Gskill, I've never had an issue with their RAM and I like the new Ripjaws Z design aesthetic wise. Personal opinion on that of course, though Mushkin is good as well if you want fast RAM.

[guardiandashi]

my 2 cents

when choosing CPU you really need to consider generation, and performance/price

the truth is I REALLY want to justify amd processors, but the last time I looked the intels were seriously out performing amd, and intel was in a price amd out of existance kick so I picked up an intel I7-960 for ~$300 and the EVGA mb I am using was $250 for a 3way sli capable board using tripple channel ram and 24gb max

my system is about 1-1.5 years old at this point so nvidia GTX 460 was the hot $200 gpu at the time

personal preference says the amd vs intel cpu's there isn't a lot to say you HAVE to go with one or the other.

nvidia vs ati gpu's on the other hand every time I look I find that the ati card tends to have decient hardware... but they tend to have issues with the drivers to USE the hardware... nvidia seems to put out better more stable drivers and I like some of the secondary features they support in the drivers.

when picking my case I am usually a fan of the "basic" tower cases altho atm I am using a thermaltake "armor" series case

the power supply I am using is nothing really special but after the issues I had with my old tower I went for a "silent" power supply with a large (120mm+ fan) I have the tower sitting on my desk and at most it makes a low "hiss" sound mostly from the cpu fan

I am going to recommend a feature is a "high efficiency" powersupply in the 80-90%+ range 700w out @ 90% means the supply could pull as much as 770w wheras a 700 out @ 80% could pull as much as 875w

ram I am a fan of crucial, corsair, and patriot... I have heard good things about gskill and some other brands

[Vulpesveritas]

Well RAM isn't so important for MWO on the tri channel. Even playing Crysis 2 which runs the same game engine I've never used more than 3 Gb of system RAM. I figure 8 GB should be enough for gaming. and AMD sockets support dual channel 1866mhz ram, which has higher bandwidth than tri channel 1333mhz ram (unless you use XMP profiles, but its just as easy to change your BIOS settings on an AMD board to accept higher RAM.)

I prefer AMD/ATI cards for 3 reasons:
1. They're faster at all given price points at the moment.
2. All the next-gen console systems are getting made for AMD graphics, so most games will be optimized for AMD graphics.
3. No worrying about my card burning out.

And while AMD doesn't have the best drivers every time coming out, they continually update them. Which often ends up meaning in the end they have better drivers, depending.

And yes generations are important. Per-clock performance on AMD is still behind by about a generation with STARS core (A-series APU). Bulldozer drops IPC by about 5-10%, however with 8 true integer cores per thread performance the 4 module / 8 core bulldozer performs on par with an Intel i7-2600k when all threads are in use (literally on par, +/- 2 frames per second in game,, +/- 5% in all benchmarks heavily multithreaded) Also, an AMD board will be better if you use multiple GPUs, as the 990x and 990fx chipsets give you two PCI-E 2.0 x16 lanes.

However, nothing AMD has can compete with the quad channel RAM sandy bridge E 2011 mobos, or even last gen i7 extreme tri channel RAM high end systems, but they are more expensive than intel 1156/1155 or AMD AM3+ motherboard systems with dual channel RAM. In effect, an AMD or Intel system will work about the same as each other at any real price point between the two, except you'll get a little better performance out of your CPU in multithread with AMD, and a little better at poorly threaded apps with Intel.

Though MWO is heavily threaded with 8 integer thread capability.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 08 January 2012 - 02:52 PM.

[RyannVonDoom]

Just put together some of my old system with new parts.

AMD FX-4100
MSI 970a-g45 mobo
16gb of 1600mhz ram
750w gamer
Are what I added to a 9800 GT video card and a couple of larger storage drives.. Need a SSD.. will be getting one here in a month or two.

[Vulpesveritas]

May I recommend passing on the SSD (if you already have an HDD. If not, then if you don't need so much storage then its a couple hundred dollar question of the same) unless you really really want to lower your boot/ load times and file transfer rate? I would recommend getting a better graphics card for the cost.

Course you may prefer file transfer rate over graphics. lol. your GPU will handle most anything out there, but you won't get quite as much eyecandy as with a newer card.

[RyannVonDoom]

Vulpesveritas, on 08 January 2012 - 06:32 PM, said:

May I recommend passing on the SSD (if you already have an HDD. If not, then if you don't need so much storage then its a couple hundred dollar question of the same) unless you really really want to lower your boot/ load times and file transfer rate? I would recommend getting a better graphics card for the cost.

Course you may prefer file transfer rate over graphics. lol. your GPU will handle most anything out there, but you won't get quite as much eyecandy as with a newer card.

That I know. I'd like the load times to be better and the 9800 will do until I upgrade later. The Mobo can handle all the am3+ or am3 CPUs.. so if I want to drop to he 1100t or the 8core processor I can. the 4100 and this 16gb of Ram is wonderful.. just need a small SSD, 80$ for a 60-80gb will be perfect for me.

Will go with an ATI since they put out quality products but are getting spanked by Nvidia.. means I can get more for less.

[Vulpesveritas]

*thumbs up*

Except one thing, AMD isn't getting spanked by Nvidia anymore with the Radeon HD 7970 which beat the GTX 580 by a minimum of 20% in all benchmarks, some scores were better by more than 60%. Plus when idleing on the desktop, it only consumes 3 watts. Maximum power usage is about 210 watts. Oh and it's supposed to be released at the same price as a Nvidea Geforce GTX 580 too. And at every other price point AMD is currently winning.

Oh and bench wise the 7970 can be overclocked to be as fast as a Radeon HD 6990. Figure I'd toss that in.

[Thorqemada]

Regarding to ATI vs Nvidia:
ATI cards have traditionally more brilliant colours on the screens than Nvidia cards - i am told its a different value of colour vibrance setting they use.

[Vulpesveritas]

ATI/AMD catalyst control center allows you to change your color settings manually just so you know.

[Catamount]

Wait, AMD was getting spanked by Nvidia?


Nvidia's TDP troubles with Fermi aside, they have nothing competitive in the sub-$200 market (for every card they have, AMD has a cheaper card that's just as fast), manage to only be competitive (not better by any means) at the mid-high end ($200-$350), and at the high end, have just lost to AMD. The 580 never made sense in the first place, financially, because it's 10-15 percent faster for about 40% more price than the 570 or 6970, basically leaving Nvidia's entire viable lineup at the 560ti (both of them) and 570, and now they've even given up the useless performance crown that means nearly nothing to the end-user.

If anything, Nvidia's in a bit of trouble right now gaming-wise, especially with Kepler far over the horizon.

Edited by Catamount, 08 January 2012 - 07:50 PM.

[Thorqemada]

Vulpesveritas, on 08 January 2012 - 07:49 PM, said:

ATI/AMD catalyst control center allows you to change your color settings manually just so you know.

I know but why would i - they have already the better setting.

[Vulpesveritas]

Catamount, on 08 January 2012 - 07:49 PM, said:

Wait, AMD was getting spanked by Nvidia?


Nvidia's TDP troubles with Fermi aside, they have nothing competitive in the sub-$200 market (for every card they have, AMD has a cheaper card that's just as fast), manage to only be competitive (not better by any means) at the mid-high end ($200-$350), and at the high end, have just lost to AMD. The 580 never made sense in the first place, financially, because it's 10-15 percent faster for about 40% more price than the 570 or 6970, basically leaving Nvidia's entire viable lineup at the 560ti (both of them) and 570, and now they've even given up the useless performance crown that means nearly nothing to the end-user.

If anything, Nvidia's in a bit of trouble right now gaming-wise, especially with Kepler far over the horizon.

^ this

Oh and let's not forget the heat differences with Fermi vs Radeon VLIW 5 and 4. Heck even with AMD's GCN Radeon CUs which preform far more energy efficiently even on scalar differences, given an average of being 40% faster than a 580 and still being 20% cooler. Not to mention said aforementioned difference in power consumption.

And even the 560 ti is kinda beat out by the 6950 in some respects, especially at high resolution. The 570 is really the only Nvidea choice which really holds a niche, which it won't after the Radeon HD 6970 comes down in price within the next month.

Simply put, Fermi fail v2, Price vs performance rather than sheer burnout.

Though they still do that too, just not as often as the 400 series. Gotta love ATI/AMD reliability.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 08 January 2012 - 07:58 PM.

[Ghostrider45]

Why build a PC get a top line unit ether an I3 are I5 add the best Video card you can get then add Ramm as much as it will take then go to your cable compeny an get there fastest modem they have and you shiod be set to run! wont cost you an arm an leg ether!!

[Vulpesveritas]

Umm, for a few reasons.
A: CryENGINE 3 supports 8 threads, so an FX-8000 series or i7 series processor will function quite a bit better.
B: Because prebuilt systems rarely have decent cooling, and rarely last past their warranty.
C: I can overclock my CPU on something I build
D: Games don't need more than 8GB RAM unless you're supermultitasking.
E: Because I like cooler looking cases.
F: Because a data transfer rate of 20 megs / second is plenty fast as it is.
G: I'm not paying any more for what I build than I would buying it outright, in some respects I get it cheaper since I overclock. Oh and it will last longer, most parts have a 3 year warranty compared to the standard 1 year manufacturers give you, oh and lets not forget i don't have to deal with crapware.

[RyannVonDoom]

I was thinking of grabbing a 6970, I'm not exactly on a big budget either.

(edit) any suggestions on which 6970 to get? MSI has always done me well as well has my 9800gt from EVGA.. I've not bought an ATI card since about 2003.

Edited by RyannVonDoom, 08 January 2012 - 09:20 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

a 6970 should work fine with MWO at 1080p with most enhancements on max at around 40 frames per second (expect lower for directX11). So no worries there.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 08 January 2012 - 09:24 PM.

[RyannVonDoom]

I'm used to 60fps or so with the 9800 on WOW.. =) SO *** 40FPS!!! lol


Any suggestions on brand? FRYS has been killing it with deals, and you said that the 6970 should be dropping in price within the next month?