Advices for Hard-Core Gaming System

[WickedCat]

Hey,

 

thank you for all of your answers and advices guys, I did not expect that much at all!

 

There is almost no loss by choosing an i5 2500k over an i7 2600k.

Although, the Hyper-Threading isn't supported on the i5, while it is on the i7.

Does it mean the i5 is less effective on multitasking ? (like playing a youtube playlist over a game)

 

The 560 GTX seems great to me, though the Radeon HD 6970 is a bit too expansive, also there is almost no noticeable differences between the 2.

 

....................................Radeon......................................NVidia

Core Clock....................940MHz.....................................80MHz

Shader Clock.................none (hah?)................................1760MHz

Stream Processors.........1536 Stream Processing Units....384 Processor Cores

Effective Memory Clock..1375MHz (5.5Gbps)...................4008MHz (even higher what the heck!!)

 

Those are the main differences, and don't think it is worth the extra $100.

 

Sorry for those who answered with AMD products, I'm confused when it comes to AMD and its numbers.

I know, it's a bit hard to explain but I tend to understand a little bit more Intel products (and still it's hard too ahah).

 

I will for sure buy a SSD, it has been proven that it increases the FPS even if some people still tend to say the contrary. Though I don't know how to make the SSD as a cache drive, all I know is I want to benefit from its efficiency to its maximum.

 

Some of you pointed out the monitor. It's true I did not say I wanted to change mine since I bought a TV monitor and plugged it to my computer unit.

This way I saved money by having a TV and a computer screen.

 

This is the monitor I bought Philips LCD TV 56 cm (22") HD Ready DVB-T with Digital Crystal Clear.

I can go with more resolutions than said in the product leaflet, like 1920 X 1080, I assume thanks to my Radeon 4850.

 

Although, I don't use my computer anylonger (laptop currently), because of the monitor issue.

The fact is that when I plugged the Philips TV monitor, the brightness on the screen was way too high for staying 80cm away from the screen. I changed the brightness, colors, saturation and gamma a little bit through the monitor and the ATI software but still the overall display remains unsatisfaying and not "computery".

The colors aren't proper at all, they are good only if I'm playing a video file.

It really hurts the eyes.

 

 

Thanks for your help folks!

Edited January 3, 2012 by WickedCat

[hoofhearted4]

Hey,

 

thank you for all of your answers and advices guys, I did not expect that much at all!

 

There is almost no loss by choosing an i5 2500k over an i7 2600k.

Although, the Hyper-Threading isn't supported on the i5, while it is on the i7.

Does it mean the i5 is less effective on multitasking ? (like playing a youtube playlist over a game)

 

The 560 GTX seems great to me, though the Radeon HD 6970 is a bit too expansive, also there is almost no noticeable differences between the 2.

 

....................................Radeon......................................NVidia

Core Clock....................940MHz.....................................80MHz

Shader Clock.................none (hah?)................................1760MHz

Stream Processors.........1536 Stream Processing Units....384 Processor Cores

Effective Memory Clock..1375MHz (5.5Gbps)...................4008MHz (even higher what the heck!!)

 

Those are the main differences, and don't think it is worth the extra $100.

 

Sorry for those who answered with AMD products, I'm confused when it comes to AMD and its numbers.

I know, it's a bit hard to explain but I tend to understand a little bit more Intel products (and still it's hard too ahah).

 

I will for sure buy a SSD, it has been proven that it increases the FPS even if some people still tend to say the contrary. Though I don't know how to make the SSD as a cache drive, all I know is I want to benefit from its efficiency to its maximum.

 

Some of you pointed out the monitor. It's true I did not say I wanted to change mine since I bought a TV monitor and plugged it to my computer unit.

This way I saved money by having a TV and a computer screen.

 

This is the monitor I bought Philips LCD TV 56 cm (22") HD Ready DVB-T with Digital Crystal Clear.

I can go with more resolutions than said in the product leaflet, like 1920 X 1080, I assume thanks to my Radeon 4850.

 

Although, I don't use my computer anylonger (laptop currently), because of the monitor issue.

The fact is that when I plugged the Philips TV monitor, the brightness on the screen was way too high for staying 80cm away from the screen. I changed the brightness, colors, saturation and gamma a little bit through the monitor and the ATI software but still the overall display remains unsatisfaying and not "computery".

The colors aren't proper at all, they are good only if I'm playing a video file.

It really hurts the eyes.

 

 

Thanks for your help folks!

 

deff get the 2500k over the 2600k. the 2500k can multitask just fine. its only when it comes to video editing and coding and stuff, where it lags behind the 2600k. it can still do it mind you, just not as good as the 2600k. save the money and get the 2500k.

 

and yes, there is a difference between the 560ti and the 6970. quite a big difference in performance. whether its worth it or not is an opinion.but it would be the difference between medium settings and high settings. 40 fps and 50 fps (depending on your settings of course)

 

not sure what you mean by AMD numbers? you mean for GPUs?.....in that case its nVidia, not Intel....but yea. there numbers are a little different. it takes a bit to learn what one has to offer over the other. mostly its just preference. if your comparing two GPUs of the same level.

[Vecna6667]

I finally got the list finalized. There are some sacrifices and I can tell you what changes can be made. So here it is:

 

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115078

MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157252

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231276

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161384

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697

Optical: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341016

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066

O.S.: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

 

Overall price is $791.91. The changes that can be made depend on what pieces of hardware you are willing to reuse. In the OP's situation, if he can reuse the PSU, the Case, the optical drive and the HDD, he can save approximately $305. That will allow him to substitute the i3-2100 for an i5-2500k and have enough for a 100 120GB SSD. He can than save up for a larger HDD later on when the prices get back to normal.

 

....................................Radeon......................................NVidia

Core Clock....................940MHz.....................................80MHz

Shader Clock.................none (hah?)................................1760MHz

Stream Processors.........1536 Stream Processing Units....384 Processor Cores

Effective Memory Clock..1375MHz (5.5Gbps)...................4008MHz (even higher what the heck!!)

 

AMD doesn't use the shader clock for their shaders(they use the core clock) and I never trust the memory clock speed as there is some math needed to determine the true clock speed. Once you see the benchmark between the Radeon 6970 and the GTX 560, you will quickly realise that the Radeon HD 6970 is the far superior card.

 

A sample of benchmarks for the Radeon HD 6970 when it first came out. New drivers have improve this card to even better performance since then so don't pay attention to the rating since it no longer applies:

 

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/xfx_radeon_hd_6970_review

 

Benchmarks for a GTX 560 TI that is quite a bit better than the GTX 560:

 

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/msi_ngtx560_ti_twin_frozr_oc_videocard_review

 

If you look around, you might find more benchmarks of the two cards. Don't look at listed specs alone, look for some benchmarks especially real world benchmarks(video games.)

Edited January 3, 2012 by Vecna6667

[PowderdToastMan]

Buying this kit would be a better and faster setup: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.644166

 

the processor is key for ultra settings and that i3 youve chosed aint gonna cut it. You can get the kit above and tack on a gpu of your choice for less than your current posted build and still be faster.

 

*edit*

 

also, that 500 watt power supply will bog a 6970 all day. you need at least 650.

[Vecna6667]

Buying this kit would be a better and faster setup: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.644166

 

the processor is key for ultra settings and that i3 youve chosed aint gonna cut it. You can get the kit above and tack on a gpu of your choice for less than your current posted build and still be faster.

 

*edit*

 

also, that 500 watt power supply will bog a 6970 all day. you need at least 650.

 

The main problem with that kit would be that there is no O.S. factored into the price. After the O.S. price is added in, he'll only have around $130 for a graphics card which is more important in today's games than a CPU. If your suggesting that he tries to re-image his O.S. to the new hard drive, he'll have to remove the audio, chipset, network, and other various drivers. It is way too much of a hassle to do and very easy to mess up even for techs as it involves editing the Registry. Much better to get a clean O.S. and install it. The only game that he will not be able to play at max settings is Battlefield 3. $800 is not enough for that game or for Crysis/Crysis Warhead.

 

I didn't use an HD 6970 in the suggested build. My point with the 6970 is that the OP was comparing two different classes of GPUs just by looking at the listed specs. Publications and websites like MaximumPC, Tomshardware.com, and HardOCP.com benchmark these cards to determine which ones are actually better at their price point. Many of these site will use video games that have a benchmark tool to get as close to real world application as possible. If he checks the sights for their benchmarks, the difference between the cards can be seen.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention, but I believe that using an i5-2500k or better on a system that uses a pure mechanical HDD for a boot drive is like putting a turbo charge engine in a Ford Tarus. The HDD will hold the i5 back.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Vecna6667

[WickedCat]

I don't want to buy a new HDD, optical, case or OS. I got it all already, I prefer saving the money to spend it elsewhere.

 

I have been browsing around on the GTX 560, and apparently it was trendy back in january-june 2011.

Though, now it might become outdated. This is my biggest fear.

 

I am making my point mentioning the NVidia cards, but don't bother radeon or nvidia i haven't decided yet, I'm talking about price/time.

 

What about the GTX 590 ?

The main issue is it's over 750$.

So buying:

• - a (pretty good) mobo: ~170$
  
• - 8GB Ram (not 4, I don't want 2009 settings): ~45$
  
• - i5 2500k: 220$
  
• - the ssd to perfectly smooth everything (OS+Games): 200$

Total: ~1.400$ (1.080€)

 

That's huge.

 

If I can't even rely on a GPU that will merely play any next game on ultra, then there is no point of cashing out in a mid-range card.

 

But,

are the 3GB of the GTX 590 useful in terms of FPS?

Will they all be used, or a 2GB GPU will do the trick just as fine as a 3GB GPU ?

Maybe the 3GB on the 590 is a marketing argument, though it would be basically the same as 2GB on the next games. (I'm just making an assumption, I need your help on that)

 

Also, I will never use more than 1 single monitor. I'm not into the EyeFinity thingy.

 

Thanks for your infos

Edited January 4, 2012 by WickedCat

[Vecna6667]

I don't want to buy a new HDD, optical, case or OS. I got it all already, I prefer saving the money to spend it elsewhere.

 

I have been browsing around on the GTX 560, and apparently it was trendy back in january-june 2011.

Though, now it might become outdated. This is my biggest fear.

 

I am making my point mentioning the NVidia cards, but don't bother radeon or nvidia i haven't decided yet, I'm talking about price/time.

 

What about the GTX 590 ?

The main issue is it's over 750$.

So buying:

• - a (pretty good) mobo: ~170$
  
• - 8GB Ram (not 4, I don't want 2009 settings): ~45$
  
• - i5 2500k: 220$
  
• - the ssd to perfectly smooth everything (OS+Games): 200$

Total: ~1.400$ (1.080€)

 

That's huge.

 

If I can't even rely on a GPU that will merely play any next game on ultra, then there is no point of cashing out in a mid-range card.

 

But,

are the 3GB of the GTX 590 useful in terms of FPS?

Will they all be used, or a 2GB GPU will do the trick just as fine as a 3GB GPU ?

Maybe the 3GB on the 590 is a marketing argument, though it would be basically the same as 2GB on the next games. (I'm just making an assumption, I need your help on that)

 

Also, I will never use more than 1 single monitor. I'm not into the EyeFinity thingy.

 

Thanks for your infos

 

The GTX 590 is a dual GPU card using two severely downclocked GTX 580. If you aren't custom building machines for friends and neighbors, I would avoid multi-gpu setups because you will have to go into setting custom profiles for SLI (AMD Crossfire won't see custom application profiles until at least the 12.1 drivers leave beta.) The reason it has 3GB of VRAM is because it has 2 GPUs and each GPU gets 1.5GB of VRAM. The Radeon HD 6990, another dual gpu card, has 4GB of VRAM.

 

Video RAM(VRAM) is used to keep the performance hit that games at Higher Resolutions tend to take. It also helps when forcing graphic tweaks to the games like Ambient Occlusion and Transparence Antialiasing to name a couple. For 1920 x 1080 with the default video card settings, 1GB of VRAM is enough. As to what kind of tweaks can be used to enhance graphics while keep the performance hit to a minimum, check out sites like hardocp.com and GeForce.com to name a few.

 

I'm going to assume that you got a new clean O.S. that you haven't installed yet. So with the savings for HDD, Case, Optical Drive, and taking the O.S. out of the equation, you now have $315 to use. Switch out the i3-2100 for the i5-2500k, will leave you with aroung $225. Now comes the tricky part. If you still want an SSD, do you want it as a boot drive or as a cache drive? If you go with boot drive, a 120GB SSD will cost around $175(looking at Corsair's Force Series 3 and Force Series GT.) You'll have room for the O.S. and 1 or 2 main games(the other older games can go on the Hard Drive. You'll find an application called Steam Mover very useful. The $50 dollars left gives you the ability to switch out the HD 6850 for a HD 6870.

 

Now, if you go with a cache drive(I did list a Z68 motherboard,) a 30GB SSD will cost $60. I've yet to experiment with Intel's SRT, but I do know that both the SSD and HDD need to be connected to the SATA ports controlled by the Intel control and that the settings need to be set to RAID(over ACHI and IDE) in the bios. You're going to have to Read the Manual to see how to install SRT(I've heard that it has to be before the O.S., I've heard after the O.S. and no one has been clear. I didn't check youtube on the subject so you can search there.) The $165 dollars left gives you even more options to upgrade to but the GTX 560 TI hits the sweet spot performance to price.

 

If you decide against an SSD for now, you can use the $225 to get the GTX 570 or the Radeon HD 6970, but I would go for a GTX 560 TI or a Radeon HD 6950 and a higher quality motherboard(I always try to keep the motherboard and CPU as close together in price.)

Edited January 4, 2012 by Vecna6667

[PowderdToastMan]

Buying this kit would be a better and faster setup: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.644166

 

the processor is key for ultra settings and that i3 youve chosed aint gonna cut it. You can get the kit above and tack on a gpu of your choice for less than your current posted build and still be faster.

 

*edit*

 

also, that 500 watt power supply will bog a 6970 all day. you need at least 650.

 

The main problem with that kit would be that there is no O.S. factored into the price. After the O.S. price is added in, he'll only have around $130 for a graphics card which is more important in today's games than a CPU. If your suggesting that he tries to re-image his O.S. to the new hard drive, he'll have to remove the audio, chipset, network, and other various drivers. It is way too much of a hassle to do and very easy to mess up even for techs as it involves editing the Registry. Much better to get a clean O.S. and install it. The only game that he will not be able to play at max settings is Battlefield 3. $800 is not enough for that game or for Crysis/Crysis Warhead.

 

I didn't use an HD 6970 in the suggested build. My point with the 6970 is that the OP was comparing two different classes of GPUs just by looking at the listed specs. Publications and websites like MaximumPC, Tomshardware.com, and HardOCP.com benchmark these cards to determine which ones are actually better at their price point. Many of these site will use video games that have a benchmark tool to get as close to real world application as possible. If he checks the sights for their benchmarks, the difference between the cards can be seen.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention, but I believe that using an i5-2500k or better on a system that uses a pure mechanical HDD for a boot drive is like putting a turbo charge engine in a Ford Tarus. The HDD will hold the i5 back.

 

 

You say 130$ for gpu?

 

You can get a 6850 for 130$.

 

I have a 15-2500k + radeon 6850 and i play all my games including skyrim on ultra settings on 1080p with 50-60fps with all my fade settings maxed out.

 

getting that I3 and a better gpu is a poor investment in my opinion.

[Vagrant0]

$800 and "Hard core gamer" should not be uttered in the same breath. The reality is this... To play new games on highest settings, you'll need higher end hardware. Even at around $1000-1200 you're only getting mid-range parts for a build designed to last a few years. To get a high-end system, you're looking at about twice that amount, or 4 times that amount if you aren't living in the US. The reason is this:

 

Graphics cards are not the only thing you have to make an investment in. Motherboard, processor, RAM, and even HDD can play a significant impact in overall performance, especially when you have settings turned up. As a scene becomes more graphically complex, the processor usually has to track the positions of more objects, record those positions in RAM, and load new assets from the HDD. If you're bottlenecking in one of the other places, the most a high-end graphics card can do is allow you to load higher resolution textures or give you extra frames where you can see the bugginess.

 

Having extra RAM doesn't help if the processor isn't good enough to manage it. Having a SSD doesn't help if your motherboard and processor can't utilize the speed of the data.

 

Online games, in particular L2, can also be dependent on both connection and processor speed in regards to any stuttering you may see. My own experiences with L2 on an older rig were mostly good, except when I came to cities where I would have to wait as long as 5-10 minutes between movements because of sheer processor load. I could still see everyone moving fine around me, but would get no response from my own character due to the number of objects being tracked. If lowering your current graphics settings don't help much, then it isn't your graphics card that is necessarily the problem.

[hoofhearted4]

yea as Venca said, you arent going to get the best on a smaller budget....the worst thing you can do is try to build a PC to fit your expectations on a budget....what you need to do is find out what you want to get. an SSD ($200) a worthwhile mobo ($200) a CPU ($200) a good GPU ($400) RAM ($50), thats almost $1100 right there. find that number, and save for it. dont cut corners and try to meet your budget, cause youll just end up spending more in the long run. it sounds shitty. and you may have to wait a little longer, but it will be worth it knowing you didn short come yourself.

 

 

also on the IRT subject. i do believe you can have your cache drive and your boot drive be the same. idk if you have to partition it or something (can you even partition an SSD) but i watched this video and the way the guy talked about it, it sounded like you could do both:

 

 

 

 

 

 

maybe im wrong, but i hope not, cause i would really hate to have to buy two SSDs (boot and cache)

 

 

also he wouldnt need a new OS if hes keeping his old HDD.

Edited January 4, 2012 by hoofhearted4