Don't buy a PC that's based on running the Alpha. It lags even super rigs. Just buy a PC that runs modern games at a high standard and you will have no worries--I am sure--when NS2 beta arrives.
<!--quoteo(post=1793115:date=Aug 9 2010, 04:57 PM:name=QuadLMGkill)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (QuadLMGkill @ Aug 9 2010, 04:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1793115"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't buy a PC that's based on running the Alpha. It lags even super rigs. Just buy a PC that runs modern games at a high standard and you will have no worries--I am sure--when NS2 beta arrives.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No I will buy around 1000EUR PC. I don't think just NS2 Alpha but NS2 (and NS1) will be the game I will be playing most.
If it was any other game I would be looking best possible hardware (within 1000eur budget) to that game.
And I'm also keeping in my mind that NS2 will improve a lot before v1.0 (performance boost, multithreading??, other new tehcnology support).
But this is NS2 forum and I am big fan of Natural Selection games so I am looking best possible 1000EUR computer for this game.
Lot of misinformation floating around in this thread.
Right now Nvidia's GTX460 is the card to get for price/performance. On the CPU side, either a cheap Phenom II X6 or a Core i5 750, both of which hit the sweet spots.
As far as memory, the speed is irrelevant. Memory performance is NOT a bottleneck on a modern computer, and has very little to do with overall application performance in most situations, especially gamers. Just pick up 6-8GB of DDR3 in either 1333 or 1600 speeds. Obviously the higher the better, but we're talking a difference of a percent, if that, in performance.
Just make sure that if you are upgrading, you aren't doing this just for NS2, since we're still in alpha XD. If you plan on upping your game in other games, though, I say go right ahead.
just wait with a new pc... its not worth buying a new machine yet... new gfx and cpu generations coming, so prices and performance boards will change soon!
<!--quoteo(post=1793126:date=Aug 9 2010, 06:33 PM:name=derWalter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (derWalter @ Aug 9 2010, 06:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1793126"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->just wait with a new pc... its not worth buying a new machine yet... new gfx and cpu generations coming, so prices and performance boards will change soon!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How long to wait? There will be new generations coming all the time. When's the next one coming?
The only new thing coming out will be ATI's Southern Island lineup in "Q3 2010", if you believe the rumors. My best guess would be Oct/Nov timeline. However, there are few concrete details of what will actually be releasing. No word on Nvidia as of yet.
On the CPU side, AMD won't have Bulldozer until probably Q2 2011, likely later. Intel will have Sandy Bridge out in Q1 2011.
If you really need a new upgrade for your games, might as well do it now since there's not much coming for a while.
SpoogeThunderbolt missile in your cheeriosJoin Date: 2002-01-25Member: 67Members
Whatever brands you choose, don't make the mistake of going cheap with your PSU. You will get what you pay for in both stability and protection of your investment.
Intel with their I7 is the best you can get if you can afford it. And ATI 4850 and up (5xxx series would be even better).
It's better to spend a little more but have something is worth and is gonna last longer before next upgrade.
When the I7 came up, I just built 4 of those, with ATIs 4890 and they work smoothly. My next upgrade is gonna happen in around 6 months because the job I do, but not for gaming. :)
Before everyone goes "Oh no, buy an i7 860 you'll be set" you have to consider if you're going to go crossfire/sli in the future. If so, an i7 8xx or i5 just is going to limit you. Yes, the i7s are great processors and I myself have an i7 920, but unless you're doing other things such as encoding or ripping or heavy data processing, an i7 is nowhere near a worthy investment at this point for gaming where you won't see a noticeable difference between the i7 series and an equivalent and much cheaper AMD processor. If anything, I'd worry more about Graphics card than anything else out there. If crossfiring or SLIing is important, you can definitely plan ahead but make sure you get a motherboard that supports them. I think AMD processors support crossfire stock so that's always a plus, so if you go nvidia and don't check the board and have SLI as an option cross it off now because most on AMDs side don't support it native.
As for ram speeds, currently if you're going DDR3 it really won't make a difference, and my best advice is to get speeds that are native to your motherboard, since OCing for memory speeds is the worst plan you can have for longevity.
First, verify that the motherboard you'll buy supports perfectly the video card you want, not all have a good performance with nVidia or ATI cards, so you'll need to find the perfect combination. Some motherboards work better with nVidia and others with ATI. Go search for reviews on this.
I have an motherboard with an integrated ATI (an ugly) video, but I installed an nVidia 9800 GT on it and works perfectly. Yeah, lucky me.
Also, with an nVidia card you don't need to install Physx, it comes with the driver (latest ones). And of course is fully compatible and tested. Anyway, I did not see anyone with Physx problems using ATI, so you can go for any of them.
What I found on all this years (today is my 41 birthday) is that both cards are equally good, is just a question of taste. Some likes ATI, a lot more likes nVidia (<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/" target="_blank">Steam hardware results</a>).
What you must do is find the correct combination of motherboard and video card. That's all.
EDIT: Forget one thing, never go for an nVidia GTS, and if you can use only GTX.
<!--quoteo(post=1780301:date=Jul 18 2010, 01:58 AM:name=abYsss)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (abYsss @ Jul 18 2010, 01:58 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1780301"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would definitely go with an ATI, right now the cards of Nvidia are inferior in every single way (Price, Power Consumption, high loudness, they become warm very quickly, they are only a bit faster but you have to pay much more). The Ati HD 5850 is the one you should get, the price-performance ratio is currently unbeaten.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I might have agreed with you a few months ago, but with the new <a href="http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/evga_gtx_470_sc_review" target="_blank">nVidia GTX 470 SC</a> things have changed. I just snagged one for a great price (thanks to Slickdeals) and I agree with everything written in the review I linked. There are other online reviews that basically mirror what MaximumPC had to say. This card is way quieter than my GF 9800GTX+, especially when under load. The 5850 does beat the GTX 470 in power consumption, but not by a huge amount. No doubt the 5850 is a good card and a few months ago I would have definitely bought one if I was upgrading at that time but the GTX 470 SC should absolutely be considered IMO.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->On the other side i7 is superior to Phenom, however costs quite a bit more, I'd go with i7, You can use a good processor for a very long time so it's worth the investment. Get the i7 860, best thing you can do right now, the cost effectiveness is really good too.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I need to somewhat disagree here as well. The <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115213&cm_re=i7_870-_-19-115-213-_-Product" target="_blank">Core i7-870</a> can be had for the same price as the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115214&cm_re=i7_860-_-19-115-214-_-Product" target="_blank">Core i7-860</a>. Might as well get the slight bump in speed for the same price. But I do agree that I would choose the Core i7 procs over the Phenom's any day. Also, Newegg has a nice combo right now for the i7-870 with an Asus mobo (with USB 3.0 and SATA 6) and you get $30 off the pair.
I've used ATI a few times, every time it's been an upgrade from an Nvidia card. My current card is a 5850 - an upgrade from the Nvidia GTX 260 card (far too big/hot/noisy).
However, theres something I just dont like about ATI cards that I can't put my finger on. Technically, the card is far superior, and sure it handles graphics at a much higher framrate. But, here's the catch for me - with the same settings, or even higher ones, things just don't look quite right imo, especially when moving. It took me about a week after upgrading from Nvidia to stop getting annoyed with tiny little graphical elements that were slightly strange, especially in older games that used e.g. the Source engine. Certainly, tweaking settings alot helped, but it just sort of masked the problems.
I think the problem with ATI is that despite it's current superiority at the high end of the market (as others have said, Nvidia's new 460 range provide solid competition for the mid-range ATI's), I just don't think they're very good at drivers, which is why alot of people use custom ones. This driver unsatisfaction has happened repeatedly when I've switched to ATI, but never when I've gone back to Nvidia, and it's been going on for a long time now. Nvidia seemed to have nailed this part of their business, but for some reason ATI never seem to get it right in my experience.
I think the next card I get will be back to an Nvidia. I've always alternated between the two because after a while when the Nvidia card gets outdated, an ATI is always really tempting, as the performance and reviews always make it look great. Maybe it's just a personal thing, although I think it'slike refresh rates on TV's - some people dislike certain frequencies and notice it when watching the screen, others see absolutely nothing wrong and notice nothing. Horses for courses.
Regarding AMD vs Intel, absolutely no question about it. Intel wins by a massive margin. AMD is only worth getting if the budget is tight (I have an AMD).
If you're looking for raw performance per cost, Tom's Hardware does excellent reviews and shows the best performance for the price ranges per month.
Of course, if you snag an awesome deal on a particular day or something, these don't count since often times the margins are pretty close. But it's a great starting point and helps you get a frame of mind for what they think is awesome at which price. Pick a price range that works for you and go!
Here's the CPU one for July: <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-core-i5-athlon-ii,2675.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-g...on-ii,2675.html</a>
Phenom II or i5 wins hands down for value:performance.
As amazing as the i7's are, I don't see them as the holy grail of CPUs. Sure they are the "fastest" but only marginally when it comes to games. They only time they show tremendous improvements is in synthetic benchmarks and encoding.
When playing at high resolutions (1920x1200), in games that are CPU limited (like Source engine and UE3 games), even the golden oldie Q6600 at stock isn't that far behind the i7 920, maybe 25-30fps less. And when your getting over 100fps It's pretty much all gravy.
But if you can afford to get an i7, get one. Just don't feel that not getting one is going to lessen your gaming experience tremendously.
<!--quoteo(post=1793290:date=Aug 10 2010, 11:37 AM:name=MaLaKa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MaLaKa @ Aug 10 2010, 11:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1793290"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Phenom II or i5 wins hands down for value:performance.
As amazing as the i7's are, I don't see them as the holy grail of CPUs. Sure they are the "fastest" but only marginally when it comes to games. They only time they show tremendous improvements is in synthetic benchmarks and encoding.
When playing at high resolutions (1920x1200), in games that are CPU limited (like Source engine and UE3 games), even the golden oldie Q6600 at stock isn't that far behind the i7 920, maybe 25-30fps less. And when your getting over 100fps It's pretty much all gravy.
But if you can afford to get an i7, get one. Just don't feel that not getting one is going to lessen your gaming experience tremendously.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually i5 is better for games then i7. Check this i5-750 vs i7-920 on games. <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/2832/16" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/show/2832/16</a>
For OP; DONT waste your money on i7 if you are getting the CPU for just gaming. Get i5 or Amd Phenom x4. If you really wanna go for "bang for the buck" you can always overclock your CPU.
<!--quoteo(post=1793241:date=Aug 9 2010, 10:00 PM:name=PaiSand)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PaiSand @ Aug 9 2010, 10:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1793241"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What I found on all this years (today is my 41 birthday) ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
No I will buy around 1000EUR PC. I don't think just NS2 Alpha but NS2 (and NS1) will be the game I will be playing most.
If it was any other game I would be looking best possible hardware (within 1000eur budget) to that game.
And I'm also keeping in my mind that NS2 will improve a lot before v1.0 (performance boost, multithreading??, other new tehcnology support).
But this is NS2 forum and I am big fan of Natural Selection games so I am looking best possible 1000EUR computer for this game.
Right now Nvidia's GTX460 is the card to get for price/performance. On the CPU side, either a cheap Phenom II X6 or a Core i5 750, both of which hit the sweet spots.
As far as memory, the speed is irrelevant. Memory performance is NOT a bottleneck on a modern computer, and has very little to do with overall application performance in most situations, especially gamers. Just pick up 6-8GB of DDR3 in either 1333 or 1600 speeds. Obviously the higher the better, but we're talking a difference of a percent, if that, in performance.
Just make sure that if you are upgrading, you aren't doing this just for NS2, since we're still in alpha XD. If you plan on upping your game in other games, though, I say go right ahead.
How long to wait? There will be new generations coming all the time. When's the next one coming?
On the CPU side, AMD won't have Bulldozer until probably Q2 2011, likely later. Intel will have Sandy Bridge out in Q1 2011.
If you really need a new upgrade for your games, might as well do it now since there's not much coming for a while.
It's better to spend a little more but have something is worth and is gonna last longer before next upgrade.
When the I7 came up, I just built 4 of those, with ATIs 4890 and they work smoothly. My next upgrade is gonna happen in around 6 months because the job I do, but not for gaming. :)
The Geforce 460 is one of the best price/Performance card, either that for an ATi 4770 or 4850.
As for ram speeds, currently if you're going DDR3 it really won't make a difference, and my best advice is to get speeds that are native to your motherboard, since OCing for memory speeds is the worst plan you can have for longevity.
ATI Graphics
Intel CPU's
Corsair RAM
ASUS Motherboard.
<i><b>E.O.D</b></i>
I have an motherboard with an integrated ATI (an ugly) video, but I installed an nVidia 9800 GT on it and works perfectly. Yeah, lucky me.
Also, with an nVidia card you don't need to install Physx, it comes with the driver (latest ones). And of course is fully compatible and tested. Anyway, I did not see anyone with Physx problems using ATI, so you can go for any of them.
What I found on all this years (today is my 41 birthday) is that both cards are equally good, is just a question of taste. Some likes ATI, a lot more likes nVidia (<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/" target="_blank">Steam hardware results</a>).
What you must do is find the correct combination of motherboard and video card. That's all.
EDIT:
Forget one thing, never go for an nVidia GTS, and if you can use only GTX.
Motherboards, Prices of GFX cards, CPUs etc.
NS2 and Fusion probably start at the same days or weeks imao.
I dream November 2010 or close days.
The Ati HD 5850 is the one you should get, the price-performance ratio is currently unbeaten.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I might have agreed with you a few months ago, but with the new <a href="http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/evga_gtx_470_sc_review" target="_blank">nVidia GTX 470 SC</a> things have changed. I just snagged one for a great price (thanks to Slickdeals) and I agree with everything written in the review I linked. There are other online reviews that basically mirror what MaximumPC had to say. This card is way quieter than my GF 9800GTX+, especially when under load. The 5850 does beat the GTX 470 in power consumption, but not by a huge amount. No doubt the 5850 is a good card and a few months ago I would have definitely bought one if I was upgrading at that time but the GTX 470 SC should absolutely be considered IMO.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->On the other side i7 is superior to Phenom, however costs quite a bit more, I'd go with i7, You can use a good processor for a very long time so it's worth the investment.
Get the i7 860, best thing you can do right now, the cost effectiveness is really good too.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I need to somewhat disagree here as well. The <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115213&cm_re=i7_870-_-19-115-213-_-Product" target="_blank">Core i7-870</a> can be had for the same price as the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115214&cm_re=i7_860-_-19-115-214-_-Product" target="_blank">Core i7-860</a>. Might as well get the slight bump in speed for the same price. But I do agree that I would choose the Core i7 procs over the Phenom's any day. Also, Newegg has a nice combo right now for the i7-870 with an Asus mobo (with USB 3.0 and SATA 6) and you get $30 off the pair.
However, theres something I just dont like about ATI cards that I can't put my finger on. Technically, the card is far superior, and sure it handles graphics at a much higher framrate. But, here's the catch for me - with the same settings, or even higher ones, things just don't look quite right imo, especially when moving. It took me about a week after upgrading from Nvidia to stop getting annoyed with tiny little graphical elements that were slightly strange, especially in older games that used e.g. the Source engine. Certainly, tweaking settings alot helped, but it just sort of masked the problems.
I think the problem with ATI is that despite it's current superiority at the high end of the market (as others have said, Nvidia's new 460 range provide solid competition for the mid-range ATI's), I just don't think they're very good at drivers, which is why alot of people use custom ones. This driver unsatisfaction has happened repeatedly when I've switched to ATI, but never when I've gone back to Nvidia, and it's been going on for a long time now. Nvidia seemed to have nailed this part of their business, but for some reason ATI never seem to get it right in my experience.
I think the next card I get will be back to an Nvidia. I've always alternated between the two because after a while when the Nvidia card gets outdated, an ATI is always really tempting, as the performance and reviews always make it look great. Maybe it's just a personal thing, although I think it'slike refresh rates on TV's - some people dislike certain frequencies and notice it when watching the screen, others see absolutely nothing wrong and notice nothing. Horses for courses.
Regarding AMD vs Intel, absolutely no question about it. Intel wins by a massive margin. AMD is only worth getting if the budget is tight (I have an AMD).
Of course, if you snag an awesome deal on a particular day or something, these don't count since often times the margins are pretty close. But it's a great starting point and helps you get a frame of mind for what they think is awesome at which price. Pick a price range that works for you and go!
Here's the CPU one for July:
<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-core-i5-athlon-ii,2675.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-g...on-ii,2675.html</a>
As amazing as the i7's are, I don't see them as the holy grail of CPUs. Sure they are the "fastest" but only marginally when it comes to games. They only time they show tremendous improvements is in synthetic benchmarks and encoding.
When playing at high resolutions (1920x1200), in games that are CPU limited (like Source engine and UE3 games), even the golden oldie Q6600 at stock isn't that far behind the i7 920, maybe 25-30fps less. And when your getting over 100fps It's pretty much all gravy.
But if you can afford to get an i7, get one. Just don't feel that not getting one is going to lessen your gaming experience tremendously.
As amazing as the i7's are, I don't see them as the holy grail of CPUs. Sure they are the "fastest" but only marginally when it comes to games. They only time they show tremendous improvements is in synthetic benchmarks and encoding.
When playing at high resolutions (1920x1200), in games that are CPU limited (like Source engine and UE3 games), even the golden oldie Q6600 at stock isn't that far behind the i7 920, maybe 25-30fps less. And when your getting over 100fps It's pretty much all gravy.
But if you can afford to get an i7, get one. Just don't feel that not getting one is going to lessen your gaming experience tremendously.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually i5 is better for games then i7. Check this i5-750 vs i7-920 on games. <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/2832/16" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/show/2832/16</a>
For OP; DONT waste your money on i7 if you are getting the CPU for just gaming. Get i5 or Amd Phenom x4. If you really wanna go for "bang for the buck" you can always overclock your CPU.
Happy birthday! :)