Having a lager number of cores helps out as well, because it allows the system to be somewhere else and keeps other applications away from the game increasing FPS, I get SH5 running at over 90+ FPS with forced AA 16x and max graphics.

My Phenom II x6 1100t is clocked at 3.4 Ghz with an old Nvidia GTX 570 blitzes most tasks with ease.
Fast RAM helps, mine is at 1633 Mhz and it does the job quite well.:D

My PC will start very quickly, about less than 20 seconds, but SSD's do have short life expectancy, my SSD died last year and I lost everything due to a random death of the drive.
Now I have two SSD's on a RAID, so if one dies, I have a backup. :O:

Sounds like you're looking mainly for smooth gameplay. I had 4gigs of memory and too many mods would crash it back to desktop but now have 8gigs and no more crashing for me. Loading times of course is mainly your harddrive but also your operating system can help out if caching is excellent. As another member pointed out to me with my Win 7 64bit and 4gigs of ram, adding another 4gigs would help show what the OS is capable of dealing with memory caching which I now see evidence of.

Stuttering is either cpu or gpu everytime. You mentioned your gpu but what about your cpu? I still have a dual core xeon running at a little over 4ghzs and it feeds my ati 7870 quite nicely on every game that I've played. Cpu will eventually become my weak point which will require me getting another motherboard, memory and I'll throw in the SSD harddrive aswell. But counting on just the SSD to smooth out your gameplay likely won't happen.

Well, my SSD is ordered and on the way home...
Not really expecting smoother gameplay anyway, but loading times for sure :yep:

My CPU is I7 quad core 2.9 Ghz actually, but i plan one day to get a new MB because mine is old, and btw to change for new sockets compatible latest powerfull CPU :rock:

I already have 16 Gb RAM...

Ghzs on cpu is really more important than cores. A quad core is more than capable of running many tasks at once, but! faster gpu's require faster ghzs cpu's to feed them.... not more cores.


I promise you, the 2.9Ghz is whats causing the breakup in smooth gameplay. Getting a faster gpu is going to require alot more Ghz on the cpu no matter how many cores you get. :up:

Yeah, and before i get new mother board, i'll probably overclock my I7 in the waiting...it's an I7 875K, so i know i can boost it.
Only problem, i can't do it myself...i have to find a guy here to do it for me. I don't want to melt my rig! :haha:

Overclocking is pretty simply but proper cooling is everything if you venture down that route. I mentioned my dual core running a little over 4ghz but that is with watercooling on my cpu and northbridge. Xeon cpu's hold closer tolerance on voltage fluctuations than others and require less voltage is the reason I went that route. My rig is over four years old and adding a faster gpu and more memory is the only requirements that I've faced sofar with playing newer games. :)

So, new SSD arrived, and is installed :rock:

At first, computer is working like flash :o but SH5 loading times aren't decreased by half...they are improved, but not like night and day.
Strangely, i find game more fluent for some parts :yep: and few things are working instantly when clicked.

All in all, it's an improvment, but maybe not worth the price :-?
Will see with further computer upgrade.

AMD is going to release their next series of processors, the Steamroller series, they are going to be a massive step up from what is available today but we must wait until next year.

The on-board graphics card is going to be a beast compared to any on-board today. The AMD A10 Kaveri chip will come off the shelf at 5 Ghz with a rumored graphics clock of over a Ghz, it is going to be released next year.

So I would wait for that.

My SSD did not change my SH5 loading times by a noticeable level but processing power changes things by a large margin.

If you want a new processor without waiting until next year, I would recommend the FX-8350, they cost about $199 AUD but they perform to s superb level, no complaints from anyone I know, also, read the comments from NewEgg.com

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113284

I also would not choose an Nvidia card, my Nvidia Gtx 570 has been problematic since I bot it in 2010 when it came out, it gets shockingly low FPS in every game but SH5 which runs at about 90 at max an about 50 at minimum while my processor is at about 19% on one core.
I have had better runs with AMD cards, my friends and relatives all go AMD due to less problems and better performance.