Thoughts on my next gaming rig?

[Thor.]

Once you realize summer is coming, you'll soon regret that comment lol :teehee:

 

I still highly suggest the r290's they can be flashed to the r290x specs if you look online, much cheaper to.

Also i fixed microstuttering in Skyrim with two simple tweaks, amd crossfire afr mode for Skyrim and borderless mods.

 

No more fps micro stuttering for me at all, and not to mention afr is fixed as well, which unlocks full potential of crossfire in Skyrim. Make sure if you do use crossfire in skyrim to enable it as a profile in Catalyst for it to work properly. Also note to enable afr instead of default crossfire mode.

 

Note the borderless mod i used fixed Skyrim afr mode, in which enabled increases fps ten fold.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Thor.

[hoofhearted4]

Not to mention all the optimization will be for AMD Vishera architecture because of consoles.

People are looking way to much into this. Just because the consoles are using AMD CPUs and whatever GPUs and whatnot, doesnt mean that if you have such for PC your games will run that much better. power is power. Intel puts out more of it in comparing CPUs. idc what the new consoles have, if you have a good CPU youll run next gen games without noticing a difference between models.

 

im not trying to argue about Intel vs AMD. my PC has an Intel. my budget builds use AMD. im just saying all this "Well the consoles use X so if my PC uses X ill get an edge" talk is such bologna,

 

 

actually ive been laughing at any comment recently where people are worried about the new consoles affecting their PCs. yes the new consoles are an upgrade. their tech is great, but its not top of the line. any good gaming PC built in the last few years is gunna play any next gen game. every new PC game was already "next gen" Witcher, and Crysis and Metro were already harder to run games then any console next gen game will be. if your PC can run that youll be fine. the new consoles arent so powerful they are going to give good PCs a run.

[dave1029]

 

Not to mention all the optimization will be for AMD Vishera architecture because of consoles.

People are looking way to much into this. Just because the consoles are using AMD CPUs and whatever GPUs and whatnot, doesnt mean that if you have such for PC your games will run that much better. power is power. Intel puts out more of it in comparing CPUs. idc what the new consoles have, if you have a good CPU youll run next gen games without noticing a difference between models.

 

im not trying to argue about Intel vs AMD. my PC has an Intel. my budget builds use AMD. im just saying all this "Well the consoles use X so if my PC uses X ill get an edge" talk is such bologna,

 

 

actually ive been laughing at any comment recently where people are worried about the new consoles affecting their PCs. yes the new consoles are an upgrade. their tech is great, but its not top of the line. any good gaming PC built in the last few years is gunna play any next gen game. every new PC game was already "next gen" Witcher, and Crysis and Metro were already harder to run games then any console next gen game will be. if your PC can run that youll be fine. the new consoles arent so powerful they are going to give good PCs a run.

 

Power is not power. Optimization is everything. Look at X Rebirth. Secondly Intel "is more powerful" is not necessarily true. They are better at single threaded applications and games. AMD ties or beats Intel in multithreading- which is what next gen games are going to utilize.

[Thor.]

With the new consoles games will become more Multi threaded then single threaded in performance, taking advantage of multi threading more then just utilizing a single thread like the old days of pc gaming when consoles where not optimized for 8 core cpu's.

[Werne]

power is power. Intel puts out more of it in comparing CPUs.

Not necessarily.

 

You see, there's a myth going around that AMD CPUs get a performance boost on Linux up to a point where an octa-core AMD can outperform an Intel i7 in multi-threading, while per-core gap is reduced. It's tied to Intel's C++ compiler, and Intel was even forced to remove code from their compiler because it was designed to under-perform on non-Intel processors. Another of AMD's problems is that their Open64 compiler is designed for Linux only (primarily Red Hat) so they have no rivaling compiler on Windows.

 

There were also some cases where an AMD CPU would perform much better if identified as Genuine Intel instead of Authentic AMD in software compiled with Intel's compiler, so there's that too.

 

Back to the myth - a lot of proprietary Windows software is compiled using Intel's compiler, a lot of games and benchmarks included. On the other hand, Linux software is compiled using GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) which is equally optimized for both Intel and AMD, hence the "AMD performs faster under Linux than it does under Windows" myth.

 

Finally, here's the link where you can find a wall of text about Intel's compiler.

 

Is it true that AMD CPUs are being deliberately crippled through an Intel compiler? I got no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were.

 

 

 

EDIT: Something I overlooked when I wrote this post...

 

290x in crossfire? so you want a computer and a heater all in one

Heh, it's winter right now.

A single R9 290 or 290X reaches 94^oC alone in a well ventilated case, while it begins throttling only a few ^oC higher than that, at temperature it also tends to reach occasionally in single-card configuration. In Crossfire, the bottom card will heat up the upper card further, and you'll have non-stop throttling with 1/3 the performance of a single R9 290/290X.

 

Which is why I asked you which aftermarket cooling you're using for the cards - you need aftermarket cooling even without CF if you want optimal functionality, it's practically mandatory in CF. Two Arctic Cooling Accelero III coolers cost 150$, and two R9 290s with those cost 250$ more than a single R9 290X, that way you have a much quieter operation and lower temperatures so those cards can actually work, with about ~3% lower performance than with R9 290X cards (on stock, they can be easily overclocked with aftermarket cooling).

 

With stock cooling, they will not work right, and that's something I can guarantee you.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Werne

[dave1029]

 

power is power. Intel puts out more of it in comparing CPUs.

Not necessarily.

 

You see, there's a myth going around that AMD CPUs get a performance boost on Linux up to a point where an octa-core AMD can outperform an Intel i7 in multi-threading, while per-core gap is reduced. It's tied to Intel's C++ compiler, and Intel was even forced to remove code from their compiler because it was designed to under-perform on non-Intel processors. Another of AMD's problems is that their Open64 compiler is designed for Linux only (primarily Red Hat) so they have no rivaling compiler on Windows.

 

There were also some cases where an AMD CPU would perform much better if identified as Genuine Intel instead of Authentic AMD in software compiled with Intel's compiler, so there's that too.

 

Back to the myth - a lot of proprietary Windows software is compiled using Intel's compiler, a lot of games and benchmarks included. On the other hand, Linux software is compiled using GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) which is equally optimized for both Intel and AMD, hence the "AMD performs faster under Linux than it does under Windows" myth.

 

Finally, here's the link where you can find a wall of text about Intel's compiler.

 

Is it true that AMD CPUs are being deliberately crippled through an Intel compiler? I got no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were.

 

 

 

EDIT: Something I overlooked when I wrote this post...

 

290x in crossfire? so you want a computer and a heater all in one

Heh, it's winter right now.

A single R9 290 or 290X reaches 94^oC alone in a well ventilated case, while it begins throttling only a few ^oC higher than that, at temperature it also tends to reach occasionally in single-card configuration. In Crossfire, the bottom card will heat up the upper card further, and you'll have non-stop throttling with 1/3 the performance of a single R9 290/290X.

 

Which is why I asked you which aftermarket cooling you're using for the cards - you need aftermarket cooling even without CF if you want optimal functionality, it's practically mandatory in CF. Two Arctic Cooling Accelero III coolers cost 150$, and two R9 290s with those cost 250$ more than a single R9 290X, that way you have a much quieter operation and lower temperatures so those cards can actually work, with about ~3% lower performance than with R9 290X cards (on stock, they can be easily overclocked with aftermarket cooling).

 

With stock cooling, they will not work right, and that's something I can guarantee you.

 

I have a good cooling case. It was expensive. I'll just crank up the fans on those. I currently have a 7970 and it doesn't even get into the 60's under max load.

[Thor.]

That's normal working temperatures of the 7970's. That's what sets amd apart, at least when it came to the 7900 series, they ran really cool.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Thor.

[dave1029]

That's normal working temperatures of the 7970's. That's what sets amd apart, at least when it came to the 7900 series, they ran really cool.

Really? I always heard they ran hot.

[Rennn]

 

That's normal working temperatures of the 7970's. That's what sets amd apart, at least when it came to the 7900 series, they ran really cool.

Really? I always heard they ran hot.

 

 

They do run hot, at least compared to Nvidia cards. I'm not totally sure what Thor was getting at. AMD cards are meant to operate under a bit higher temperatures though.

[Rennn]

 

Power is not power. Optimization is everything. Look at X Rebirth. Secondly Intel "is more powerful" is not necessarily true. They are better at single threaded applications and games. AMD ties or beats Intel in multithreading- which is what next gen games are going to utilize.

 

 

I'm not so sure about that. Granted, I have a weak CPU (Phenom II 955 x4 at 3.2Ghz), but even multithreaded it doesn't compete with Intel equivalents at the price range. For reference, I suggest looking at Dragon Age: Origins. It uses three cores and receives a 40% performance increase with three cores compared against two. In other words, it's the most dependent on CPU power and multithreading of any game I've seen. An i3 at 2.5Ghz can outperform my Phenom II even in a game as reliant on multithreading as DAO, according to the benchmarks.

 

Furthermore, a great many AMD octa-core processors are really just quad-cores with the AMD equivalent of hyperthreading. I'm doubtful that they're going to hold up very well next-gen. (The XBone is already running some games at 720p again, simply abysmal). The PS4 and Xbone are clearly budget platforms this time around, it's more likely Microsoft and Sony went AMD solely to cut costs.

 

I'm actually much more impressed with AMD's new video cards compared to their CPUs.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Rennn