Dang you NS2 for making me build a new computer!! :D
eliotmat
Join Date: 2002-12-01 Member: 10350Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2002-12-01 Member: 10350Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Yeah, so I just ordered all the parts for a new custom "gaming" rig.
Why, NS2, did you have to drag me back into PC gaming?! If only I could have remained ignorant, and been left to my casual tablet gaming bliss.
I thought I was done with all this PC gaming nonsense.
Now, I'll have to turn back into "angry commander guy". It's kind of like becoming the Incredible Hulk, but instead of being all badass and destroying everything, I'll be sitting in front of my pc, yelling at people on the internet about not going to waypoints.
...sigh...
Why, NS2, did you have to drag me back into PC gaming?! If only I could have remained ignorant, and been left to my casual tablet gaming bliss.
I thought I was done with all this PC gaming nonsense.
Now, I'll have to turn back into "angry commander guy". It's kind of like becoming the Incredible Hulk, but instead of being all badass and destroying everything, I'll be sitting in front of my pc, yelling at people on the internet about not going to waypoints.
...sigh...
Comments
I am assembling a better computer that will make it more pleasurable to play this game in particular.
FYI pcpartpicker.com is an amazing resource.
But we'll be playing NS3 by then, with the brand new Dashing Spark engine, that will not run well on the i10.
Wow. I wish I knew about that site before I built my rig! lol.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BDcu
Hopefully I'll have the rest tomorrow and then I'll finally get to play NS properly.
I feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve waiting for the rest of the components!
Moral dilemma: So Amazon doubled part of my order, but didn't charge me on the extra components. Should I return the extra stuff or keep it?
As far as the PC, here are my specs. Nothing flashy, but I figure it'll do the job for a couple years, and allow me to upgrade when necessary.
CPU, RAM, and Video Card should be delivered today!
If they ask you to return the items, return them.
The bulldozer / zambezi parts are pretty terrible, to be frank. You could at the very, very least trade that zambezi 6100 for a vishera 6300 for about the same price. It's a newer architecture and will perform a little better. You could also go for an Ivy Bridge i3 instead for the same price, which would give you better single thread performance (useful for gaming) in exchange for lesser multi-threading (productivity) capabilities. If you live near a Microcenter, you can pick up a truly stellar deal on an Ivy Bridge i5 and motherboard combo that will give you the absolute best performance per dollar on the market right now.
That velociraptor 250GB pains me most of all, and is by far the most grievously inefficient use of your funds. Those 10k drives are a relic from an era before SSDs, which they cannot hold a candle to in performance while costing nearly as much. Given that it looks like you are on a pretty tight budget, I would return that overpriced hunk of junk in a heartbeat and replace it with a normal 7200RPM HDD for the time being, then upgrade your system with an SSD down the road when more funds are available. You sometimes find 1TB 7200RPM drives for $50, and you can pretty much always find 500GB models for that much. Any lower capacity than that isn't worth considering because of the GB/$ ratio.
I would then suggest taking the money saved from swapping HDDs to upgrade that poor video card. A 650 is pretty weak to be honest, it's going to bottleneck your system very quickly and isn't trivial to upgrade like RAM or storage. If my guesswork / napkin math on the prices you've paid is correct, with the savings from trading out HDDs you ought to be able to afford a 7850 that would knock the 650 out of the park:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150642
The rest of your parts look fine to me, I wouldn't worry about changing anything else unless you switch to an Intel CPU, in which case you'd obviously need to swap motherboards as well. If you post the prices you paid, it's possible we could find a few other areas to save you some money.
I hope this information is not too late to be useful.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I'd be happy to help you, or anyone else who needs some advice on building a new gaming rig.
If you bought that 620 from amazon, that's another ~$40-50 saved right there.
Get good top end parts now. You'll have a nice rig for 2-3 years (if there isn't a major jump) or sell parts after a year to upgrade. Also, you can take advantage of open box on cpu's, memory
What's the total build cost? You probably could get more for your money.
I've been out of the game for a while. First build attempt in 10 years. I am teh fail.
Thanks for the suggestions. Maybe I can return some of the stuff.
Other than the Video Card, I thought I did a good job pricing the stuff out.
The biggest thing that stands out is $140 for that video card, which is pretty much outright robbery. If you do nothing else, I would try and return that and pick up the 7850 I linked earlier for $20 more. I would also still recommend upgrading your CPU if you can afford to, but you're talking about an extra $40 or so there since you didn't pay as much for the bulldozer as I suspected.
Do you live near a microcenter? If so you can get a far superior i5 3570k and accompanying motherboard for around $180 total vs. the $170 you're paying currently. It's an amazing deal, but the downside is that it's in-store only.
And don't feel too bad, I was pretty rusty when I built my current machine and made some non-optimal purchasing decisions too.
About the video card you recommended, the only reason I didn't go with the 7850 is that I heard the ATI drivers are really bad. I felt safer going with NVIDIA. Are the driver issues overblown? Would downgrading to a 1gb card from 2gb have any downside?
Unfortunately, I do not live near a Microcenter....
Thanks for your advice! Also, let me know what servers you frequent. maybe we can get a game in together. After all, I built this computer so I can play NS2!
Regarding gfx memory downgrade, ye it matters for higher resolutions but should be no difference for 1080p in Ns2. And driver issues are overblown, yes. Both nvidia and amd have their fair share of driver issues now and again, i run amd drivers. 0 problem so far unless we count the shitty crossfire support for games.
And AMD drivers are fine. I haven't had any issues outside of Rage. The "the drivers are bad" thing isn't true. They have rare occassional issues in OpenGL games like Rage, but that's about it, and OpenGL games are incredibly rare. Their Linux drivers are actually bad, but unless you use Linux for gaming it's a non-issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_bridge#List_of_Sandy_Bridge_processors
i7 2600k release date: 2011-01-09
Hmmmm. :-?
Anyway yeah, you should be okay with the 1GB model. The VRAM tends to only make a difference at the highest resolutions, with detailed textures or anti-aliasing, which your 650 just isn't powerful enough to handle anyway - the 2GB of VRAM on that card is essentially wasted. It wouldn't hurt to get the 2GB model of the 7850, but I'd say upgrading the CPU would be a higher priority. I'm an nvidia fan personally, but there's really no reason an AMD card wouldn't work just fine for you. They've actually released some pretty major driver revisions that have put the AMD cards back on top of the performance charts in a few categories where before they were struggling. A 1GB 7850 would just give you the most bang for your buck in that price range.
Multi-core CPUs do actually help with gaming, but only to an extent. In most cases your performance is still going to be limited by the fastest single thread, which is why Intel is currently superior for gaming. There tends to be one big primary thread that cannot be broken down past a certain point, so while offloading secondary tasks to other cores can allow that primary thread to get the full attention of a single core, that's still your weak link that effectively determines the strength of the chain. So for the time being, a dual core CPU which nevertheless has strong single thread performance (such as the i3 I mentioned earlier) can still be a better choice for gaming than a CPU which can handle many threads, but doesn't really excel at any single one (like the bulldozers). So to make an analogy, an 18-wheel semi truck may be able to carry a heavy distributed load, but if speed is your chief concern then a high end motorcycle might suit you better.
As far as overclocking goes, it can help you squeeze more performance out of your CPU, but you need to make sure your cooling is up to the task. I notice you purchased some Arctic Silver, but you didn't buy a 3rd party HSF. You definitely do not want to try overclocking on the stock cooler. A coolermaster hyper212+ or EVO is probably your best option for an inexpensive but fairly capable CPU cooler:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002G1YPH0/?tag=pcpapi-20
The good news is, you can put that upgrade off until later and just run stock speeds on the stock cooler for the time being. If you decide to go the i3 route then it's a moot point because those are locked and can't be OC'ed, but would give you better base performance to begin with.
I usually frequent the |DFA| servers (surprise), I'd be happy to play a few games with you once you're up and running and help show you the ropes.
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/89178/tigerdirect.com-amd-fx8320-black-edition-3.5ghz-socket-am3-eightcore-processor
Here's a 7850 1GB for $155 after promo code and rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202004
(also comes with Bioshock Infinite and the new Tomb Raider for free)
And a 2GB 7850 for $180 with the same free games:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161406