29 replies to this topic

[Honey Badger]

Opinions please! Want to run this game at 30-40 FPS on med or high detail at 1920x1200 or somewhat lower as necessary.

Trying to keep this build around $600 to $800. After reading the recommended specs, devs give impression that quad core CPU is important. Wondering if the ivy bridge CPU dual Core with hyper threading works well for this game. A lot of folks here seem to had satisfactory results with AMD builds but ultimately, a Intel build while somewhat pricier probably has more potential for expandability, especially if you go with a Z77 mobo. Intent of this build is to keep the mobo price around $100 and the CPU around $100 - $125. Also will have a 128GB SSD and will likely have 8GB DDR3 1600 or 1866 ram depending on AMD or Intel route.

This build will will likely have a GT550 ti or Radeon 6650 (1GB DDR5). Hoping to keep the GPU around $100 - $125.

Appreciate the input. Thanks!

Edited by Honey Badger, 18 September 2012 - 07:33 AM.

[Get Some]

This 2-year-old build gets an easy 45 fps @ 1080p with max medium settings in the current iteration of MWO. (woops, max settings are 20 fps)  I'll toss in the prices since some of the parts are off market now.
AMD Phenom II 840 3.2Ghz ( http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103921 ) -- $60
MSI 785GM Mobo ( http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813130247 ) -- $55
Radeon 6850 1GB ( http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102908 ) -- $150
4GB DDR3 RAM of some flavor -- $100
Point being, you need to spend money on a video card, and you need to spend money on RAM.  In the current market, I would consider going as low as a Radeon 7770, but no cheaper on video.  Find the cheapest motherboard from a good manufacturer (Asus, MSI) that meets your needs.  Slap in a run-of-the-mill quad core for your platform, and cram on all the RAM that you can.  If you manage to spend $600 when you are done, you've probably indulged more than necessary.
Edit---
This looks like a good deal:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103886
And either of these should get you started:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813128521
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813128440
I like those mid-range IGP boards because years later I can retire them to HTPC service without buying a graphics card.

Edited by Get Some, 18 September 2012 - 07:29 AM.

[RecklessFable]

The SSD is an interesting choice in a budget build. Do you have other spare drives for data laying around? 128GB gets eaten up quickly.

What monitor will you be using? A single 1080 requires less than running dual.

That being said, I run windowed on a 1920x1200 monitor with other stuff going on a secondary monitor at 1600x1200. My card is a GTX 560Ti. My framerate doesn't always rock doing that with most games. It was fine with SWTOR though.

[Honey Badger]

I'll want to get a decent case and PSU so I can keep rebuilding as needed in the future so I'll likely break the $600 barrier. Used to do PC builds back in early 2000s but got lazy and started buying Dells. Prolly about the time I got frustrated with cheating on Diablo 1 & 2. ;-)

Getting back into MMOs like this, finding my Dell laptop just isn't meant for this. So here I am. It does seem a little like riding a bike. A little research on the web and the info available today, prolly not a hard thing to do.

Anyways thanks again for opinions!

[Honey Badger]

No old HDs around. SSDs are cheap right now IMO and I don't keep a lot on my PC. So the SSD is mainly to run the OS and the game client. I usually concentrate on one or two games at a time so I don't require a lot space. If I do I'll add a 1TB drive later.

As for monitor, laptop at home is hooked up to a 24" widescreen Dell. Anyone get the impression I've been using my Dell credit a lot in the past. ;-)

Edited by Honey Badger, 18 September 2012 - 07:34 AM.

[Blood Legacy]

You are better off staying in the higher end of a video card series (i.e. radeon 6800 card vs the 6650 you mentioned) I would go with a either a 6870 or a 7850 or Nvidia equivalent.

You can get a solid Phenom II x4 in your CPU price range that will way out perform the core i3, and the am3+ socket boards are very upgradeable. (AMD has been pretty good about forward and backward socket compatibility lately.) with AM3+ you could easily upgrade to a bulldozer series chip in the future.

Get Some hit the nail on the head. This game is very GPU intensive but doesnt hit the cpu too hard. Faster memory and a better GPU will be money well spent.

I don't recommend an SSD. They have great performance and have come down alot in price recently but the cost to benefit is still not there. You can get a much larger 10k RPM sata III drive that will have similar performance for less money. If you get two and set up a raid array it will actually outperform SSD and you get even more space. (velociraptor FTW)

I build and sell custom rigs and I have built my own systems since 2000 both Intel and AMD and you can put together a very solid budget gaming rig for the kind of money you are talking. I've had the following setup for over a year and I get solid 40-50 fps in MWO on 1920x1080 medium settings while running a second 1920x1080 monitor for web browsing, voip, and other things:

MSI 990fx AMD motherboard military class.
AMD Phenom II x4 975 Black Edition Overclocked to 4 Ghz (stock 3.6Ghz)
8 GB Corsair DDR3-1600 RAM
2x Sapphire Radeon 5850 HDs in Crossfire (a single 6850 doesn't quite match this but is close and they have gotten very cheap since the 7000 series cards came out)
WD Velociraptor 250GB Sata III 6.0Gb/s hard drive (for games)
1 TB WD Caviar Black hard drive (for storage)
850W Corsair modular power supply
In Win Dragon Rider ATX case

I upgrade one part at a time so not sure of my total amount spent but its in the neighborhood of $700 (all bought from newegg)

[Shismar]

I am actually using a AMD Phenom II x4 965 with a NVidia Ti550 and SSD and the game runs well at around 30 FPS on a tweaked higher quality setting 1920x1080. Win 7 64bit, 8 gig RAM and the works.

I would still recommend a better video card, the Ti550 is a bit pricey for what it delivers.

[Snailio]

Honey Badger,

I think you are better off buying used if you are building on a budget. Stick with a used Intel system and you will be right on budget, and your performance will be better than any AMD system you could build right now. I would recommend the following:

Motherboard: X58

CPU: i7 920 or 930 (you want to go with D0 stepping here, all 930 chips are D0 but only the 920 SBLEJ chips are D0)

This mb/cpu combo will cost around $230-240. I checked prices on Ebay and there are x58 boards with SATA3 and USB 3.0 going for around $100. The 920 and 930s are selling around $130. This would give you a quad core plus hyperthreading. The D0 stepping cpu's are better on heat and voltage use (helpful if you want to overclock), and there does not appear to be a price premium over the older C0 stepping 920s. The x58 motherboards have the option for triple channel memory, but testing has showed no appreciable performance difference over a dual channel configuration. And yes, you can run a dual channel configuration on a triple channel motherboard, so dont waste money on buying additional memory to fill it.

This option, performance wise, will be immensely better than both the stock Phenom II x4 965 and the core i3-3220.

[Joe3142]

Out of the Phenom and i3.... the Phenom would blow the i3 out of the water anyday...
For the graphics the 550ti is probably the better option.

[Snailio]

Joe,

That simply is not true. Benchmarks dont back that statement up, and neither do recommendations.

AMD Phenom II x4 965, Passmark: 4203 http://www.cpubenchm...henom+II+X4+965


Intel i3-3220, Passmark: 4595 http://www.cpubenchm...220+%40+3.30GHz

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

i do just fine with a 955 and 5770, op. I suspect I'd need a substantially more powerful videocard to hit the bottleneck for this game too. especially since with a water cooling block i can tap that nice 4ghz spot older phenom II's hate to go- even the c3's.

[Justin Xang Allard]

RecklessFable, on 18 September 2012 - 07:21 AM, said:

The SSD is an interesting choice in a budget build. Do you have other spare drives for data laying around? 128GB gets eaten up quickly.

What monitor will you be using? A single 1080 requires less than running dual.

That being said, I run windowed on a 1920x1200 monitor with other stuff going on a secondary monitor at 1600x1200. My card is a GTX 560Ti. My framerate doesn't always rock doing that with most games. It was fine with SWTOR though.

if your just putting your operating system on the ssd with a few games it will be fine. thats what i did. use a spare drive for everything else ......

[Endrick]

These guys are running a pretty spectacular deal this month.

AMD FX 6100 3.3 ghz 6 core processor + motherboard = $119 ($109 after rebate).

I'd say start here.

Add the motherboard to your cart to see the discount.


http://www.microcenter.com/product/375766/FX_6100_Black_Edition_33GHz_Six-Core_Socket_AM3_Boxed_Processor

http://www.microcent...AMD_Motherboard


Their prices on everything else aren't bad either. Add a 8GB memory, a 500 GB hard drive, a case/power supply, a DVD burner, and a 550 TI vid card, this whole build hits just under $400 after rebates.

http://www.microcent...Memory_Modules)

http://www.microcent...0W_Power_Supply

http://www.microcent...S_-_Refurbished

http://www.microcent...r_Support_-_OEM

http://www.microcent..._x16_Video_Card

They've got a brick and mortar store pretty close to here I visit all the time.

Edited by Endrick, 18 September 2012 - 04:15 PM.

[Wun]

Currently there is no price point where AMD makes more sense than intel, unless you want a cheap laptop. An i3 2100 matches or beats a Phenom II or any FX CPU. AMD has no competitor for the i5 2500 and 3570. Read industry reviews and intel meets or beats AMD price/performance with the Pentium G600, Pentium G800 and the i3-2100. AMD announced they were not going to compete with intel in the gaming CPU market for a while because they know they are beat. Intel took a risk with rapid socket and architecture changes and it paid off. I dont think AMD can match them without doing the same thing, making current AMD motherboards obsolete.

Skip the SSD and buy a better CPU and GPU. The SSD only affects load times, once you are in-game it does almost nothing. Its alot of money for not much benefit. Once you hit the $1000 range, then an SSD makes sense.

[Ricwin]

Intel always have the performance crown for gaming. But lack the finesse for anything else. If i were to build a new gaming rig, I would go intel/ If i needed anything else, such as a mobile system; it would be AMD hands down.

Currently I use an FX-6100. Running all 6 cores at 4.78GHz it has the ability to eat up any task thrown at it. Granted its not a real hex core, but its SMT technology does its job very well. (combined with an Asus 970 motherboard and 8Gb DDR3 1600)
Also have an SSD for the OS and a few select games. Loading times and general performance are both greatly increase over conventional hard disk drives.
Weakest part of the system is the single 5770. For most games, its fine. But I do intend to upgrade soon. Considering the 8870 if its released early next year.

However, without having access to the MWO beta, I cant tell you how well this system handles the game.


Its a damn shame everything is so much cheaper in the US than here in the UK.
I paid more like £240 for the CPU, Mobo and Ram in December last year. Thats nearly $400.

Edited by Ricwin, 18 September 2012 - 05:18 PM.

[Lev]

Look at deals over the next few weeks. I was able to buy a dell outlet for less than $500 with coupon. i7, 8gig RAM, crappy dual vid cards (6450s) but just upgraded video card for $100 and boom. i7 for your $600!

[logicPwn]

You're better off putting more money in the GPU then anything. CPU won't determine to much but can bottleneck you because it maxing out. You want at least a dual core with HT or a true quad core with or without HT.

Here is my suggestion for you CPU + MOBO + GPU combo for less then $350
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/hT8F

Edited by tlokzz, 18 September 2012 - 06:01 PM.

[Honey Badger]

Appreciate all the advice. Leaning towards a AMD build of some sort. Probably will spend $150-$200 on a good video card. My original idea was to spend roughly $100 per major component, but its obvious that the GPU needs to not be lacking for MWO and other games (looking forward to World of Warplanes). I think of it I have an old WD essentials external HD that just sits, so I may steal the HD out of it and still stick with the small 128GB SSD. And because of where my PC is, I'm probably going with a micro-ATX case with a 500W PSU. Limits my mobo choices, but not badly. Also probably make the leap into a simple water cooling system. So case and cooling-wise probably being a little extravagant for the price point I'm trying to stay in. Hopefully it gives me a framework I can use down the road swapping the guts out as needed. :-)

Edited by Honey Badger, 19 September 2012 - 06:27 AM.

[logicPwn]

Honey Badger, on 19 September 2012 - 05:51 AM, said:

Appreciate all the advice. Leaning towards a AMD build of some sort. Probably will spend $150-$200 on a good video card. My original idea was to spend roughly $100 per major component, but its obvious that the GPU needs to not be lacking for MWO and other games (looking forward to World of Warplanes). I think of it I have an old WD essentials external HD that just sits, so I may steal the HD out of it and still stick with the small 128GB SSD. And because of where my PC is, I'm probably going with a micro-ATX case with a 500W PSU. Limits my mobo choices, but not badly. Also probably make the leap into a simple water cooling system. So case and cooling-wise probably being a little extravagant for the price point I'm trying to stay in. Hopefully it gives me a framework I can use down the road swapping the guts out as needed. :-)

I would definitely grab the nice sized SSD. No real reason for water cooling unless you're going to do a full loop. The Corsair H80 and H100 are nice but there are fan coolers for a third of the price that do the same job. I wouldn't recommend any kind of aftermarket cooler unless you want to overclock.

[Honey Badger]

tlokzz, on 19 September 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

No real reason for water cooling unless you're going to do a full loop. The Corsair H80 and H100 are nice but there are fan coolers for a third of the price that do the same job. I wouldn't recommend any kind of aftermarket cooler unless you want to overclock.

It's gonna be an AMD system. I am gonna OC it! :-)