Computer building guru for SH5 questions????
 

im considering building another computer. does anyone have any proven suggestions? all i want it to do is be able to run SH5 with the least amount of video lag such as 60 fps and up. i know this is a question that has a diverse answer or answers. but ive had the big time computer and spent 1000s of dollars on EVGA and Nvidia equipment and ive gotten rid of it due to real life situations. now im trying to do the somewhat bare minimum such as ASUS or MSI and AMD or INTEL Core Dou or something like that but i need concrete evidence for me to make my decisions on what im going to buy to run SH5 smoothly. it doesnt matter if you have AMD video or Nvidia, imo they are both great companies that both make good cards and products so i dont care about the AMD vs Nvidia crap so dont post stupid stuff like that. all i need to know is some computer configurations that you know works for SH5.


regards,
drakkhen20:salute:

its not necassary to write this sort of thing ****.

and good luck with your new machine:yep:

Here's what I have in my gaming setup:

AMD X1100T BE (6 core processor) OC'd to 4.1GHz
Corsair H100 CPU cooler using push-pull config with Artic Cooling 120mm fans (4 fans total)
Mushkin Redline DDR-3 2100MHz RAM (2 X 4GB)
Asus Crosshair Formula V motherboard
EVGA GTX590 video card
2 X OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 MAXIOPS SSDs in RAID 0 (soon to be 2 X OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSDs in RAID 0)
EVO Galaxy 1.2Kw power supply
Antec 1200 case with all fans except top fan replaced with Artic Cooling 120mm fans
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium
Win 7 Ultimate 64bit OS

It's a great setup. Can play any game I have at maximum settings. I'll be upgrading to the GXT690 when Asus releases their next Crosshair motherboard that supports PCI-X 3.0.

Was considering upgrading to AMD's new FX processors (Bulldozer) but I have more performance from my X1100T than those new FX chips can provide :nope: Bulldozer was basically all hype. Maybe AMD will get it right in their next series of FX chips :-?

It's also against the rules here.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/faq...._item_language

well i do apologize for the cursing. ill try to edit that out.

thank you for your responses. keep them coming.:up:

regards,
drakkhen20

That, TDW, looks like just the setup I want! Do I have to marry big money or "did it fall off the back of the truck?" I'm drooling on my shoes!

I build my own computers, been doing it for many, many years. I buy all my parts from newegg.com. The single most expensive part of that gaming rig was the video card ($500). I think total price of that build was right around $1800.

There are things I absolutely will not skimp on when it comes to my builds: the power supply, the video card, and the motherboard. Those are the key elements to a great foundation. The power supply for this build was $350 but worth every penny of it. You'd be amazed at how many problems people have with their systems is due to the power supply installed. A high quality power supply rules out all these common problems people experience. The motherboard dictates what the system will be capable of (now and future) and thus one should buy the best one they can afford. Everything else is easy to upgrade later on or as funds become available.

I usually build a new gaming rig every year to year and a half to stay up with the latest technology. I have a seperate savings account setup at my bank that I have automatic deductions sent to every paycheck that funds these builds. That way the money is already there when it comes time to build my new rig :cool: It also helps that I don't have those pesky annoyances of wife and children to deal with (proud bachelor here!) :yep:

:rotfl2:

Summer vacation @ #collegerules :)

How to make a lot of other members jealous. :wah: I remember the days of disposable income.

Take a look here it might help http://www.silenthuntermods.com/foru...p?topic=412.45 :up:

rather then suggest what you should buy i will recommend what you should get, then let the best deals on components lead you to the system that fits your needs and budget best.

- CPU
get a 4 or 6 core CPU and forget about dual cores, the way new games are being made they NEED to have a good CPU.

- Ram
get 8-12GB ram because the way new games are being made they NEED to have that much.

- HDD
any sata III hard drive with a large cache size will do

- Video Card
get a good quality video card with a MINIMUM of 1GB or more "onboard" ram, i look at the best and buy the 2nd or 3rd level down from there since it saves you a lot of money and last years new card still performs great for you. in other words if the best card out there is a Nvidia 500 or ATI 5000 then shop for a 400 or 4000 version

- Computer Case
just get something with a lot of mesh grill venting and not one with a lot of fans. fans = more noise where mesh grill venting = less fans needed for cooling and a quieter system. make sure whatever you get uses 120mm fans front and back since larger fans always equals more air and less noise. for all the reasons mentioned i like coolermaster cases myself.

ps - dont get those cases with the huge 250mm fan on the side cover, it hits most large grafics cards and takes up way too much room inside the case so you have trouble routing wires and if you have pCI cards they will hit the fan blades

- PSU
get a good high quality PSU something in the 650-750 watt range and dont skimkp on quality here, a cheap PSU can fry your whole system when it fails so dont try to save money on this component. i like the Corsair brand and can say they are high quality and reliable. this is the one i have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139021

Running SH5 at full whack will need something along the lines of the following:

8 Gig decent RAM (1333 mhz min, ideally 1600)

Quad core CPU & 64bit OS - the Core i5 2500k is the go-to CPU for the current gaming generation and should last quite a bit longer too. Also quite reasonable now the new Intel CPUs (which have only a very small boost over the last gen) are out.

A GPU with at LEAST 1 gig VRAM, preferably higher. I run a 1.3 gig Nvidia GTX 570 and it's a monster, and in my experience Nvidia are less hassle than ATI, and have better shadow rendering. The newer Nvidia cards also have access to a new AntiAliasing mode - FXAA - which should give a performance boost over other methods, and new Adaptive V-Sync. Anything from the 5xx series up should do you fine.

Anything else is fluff. Bear in mind also that your monitor resolution will affect performance. I run a setup very similar to the above (slightly older CPU) @ 1900 x 1200 and it copes just fine. :up:

Edit: Webster's spot on about the PSU and case-fans etc as well. Don't waste money on cheap coolers, buy a proper one! Prolimatech do some awesome ones, I use an old Megahalem but their newer range is excellent too.

Thanks, TDW, for the great response! It really got the juices flowing and now I plan to follow suit. Though I've never built a computer before I have a very knowledgable retired IT specialist in my small Mexican mountain town who has helped me with a couple of prior problems and has said he'll standby to assist if needed. And then of, of course, there's the internet.

Thanks for fanning the flames........It's time to be rid of my current dinosaur so I can really play the game as it should be played.

A quick question; Would you make any changes to your above quoted list for one who is contemplating starting very soon to follow that example.

The satisfaction you'll get from building your own computer is great. You know how it works since you put it together. It's just one of those simple joys that I really enjoy.

If your funds are tight I would get the best power supply you can afford and the best motherboard you can afford (I prefer Asus motherboards as I've never had a problem with them). The rest of the items you can add to your system as funds become available.

As far as Intel vs AMD for processors Intel will do more per clock (higher IPC) but for the value you get you can't go wrong with AMD (plus I love the underdog). The new Bulldozer series of chips (FX series) are a waste of money. Stick with the 955BE, 965BE, or the X1100T for the CPU. You can pick up the 955BE and 965BE for cheap now (plus they are great overclockers - I had my 965BE running at 4GHz on air!). A good 500 series nVidia video card will probably be more than you'll ever need (I use my GPU for more than games - I also write programs that run on the GPU via nVidia's CUDA technology).

Again, thanks for the helping hand. If it doesn't explode in an orange fireball when I plug it in I'll PM you as to how it worked!

@tdw,
you and me sound like on the same level as building computers. now heres some questions... i had two 570s SLIed in my last build. so this build im actually thinking about doing a single gpu setup this go round. so your saying that the 500 such as a 560 will do just fine? and how do you feel about the asus z77 notherboards because it looks like i can get some good deals on those. how do you feel about the i5s and 3 cuz i had a i7 so i dont know how i feel about back stepping to those. thanks for your replies.

Two 570s SLI'd will kill any single 500 series card except the 590. Compare the 600 series cards to your SLI'd 500 series...it's quite interesting the results. I'm holding out on buying the 690 because my current motherboard only supports PCI-X 2.0 spec and in order to use the full potential of the 690 you need PCI-X 3.0 spec. The 590 is a great card - I've had mine for over a year and am very happy with it. If you're going to go single GPU from an SLI setup of 500 series or less I would definitely go with the GTX680. If the GTX680 is too pricey next in line for me would be my current card, GTX590.

The Asus z77 motherboards are killer if you're building an Intel setup. The z77s will fully utilize SSDs to their full potential. My current motherboard is only letting my RAID 0'd OCZs max out at 584MB/s whereas the same RAID0 setup on a z77 is cranking out over 1000MB/s :huh:

The I7 is an amazing processor. I have a 2.8GHz I7 in my Qosmio laptop. It smokes my AMD X6 1100T BE. The 1100T is OC'd at 4.1GHz currently and the I7 in my laptop still outperforms it at 2.8GHz. You can never go backwards in computer hardware! You must always go forwards. If you have an I7 why would you want to step backwards into an I5 or an I3? Why is the I7 so much better? Mostly because it has a higher IPC (instructions per clock). This means it's able to crunch more numbers (do more work) per clock than the AMDs (hence why the I7 in my laptop outperforms my 1100T in my gaming system even though the 1100T is clocked 1.3GHz higher).

There are more factors as to why the I7 is superior to AMDs line of processors but they mainly deal with the processor's architecture (pipeline depth, number of ALUs, branch prediction, cache size, types of cache used, etc.). I may sound like an Intel fanboy but I'm not - I love AMD because of the value I get for the money spent. AMD realized that they couldn't do the same amount of work per clock as Intel (IPC) so they did what they had to do - increase the GHz of their processors to stay 'competitive'.

Have you ever read any documents on processor architecture? It's quite fascinating reading, well at least to me it is. How many of you know that the processor has it's own microcode contained in it (akin to BIOS)? I've always wanted to read out this microcode from the CPU but I've never found anything that references how to access this 'memory' :hmmm:

hmm, that may be the direction ill go but it can be quite pricy in the terms of just wanting to run sh5 smoothly. thats practicly the only pc games ill play now(wife and kid not a bacholar here) because i get carried away. i do believe a computer with a i7 860 2nd gen. with a 570 superclocked and 8 gigs of ram should be able to run SH5 as i had no problems with the computer i sold. im waiting on buying SSDrives because the money vs space even with RAID doesnt balance out. 80 bucks and you get a 1T these days. im defintly going to research some more on that setup above. money will be an issue and when i say i got rid of my computer that means i have to build one to whole which means keyboard,mouse,speakers,monitor/s, and tower. so it will be hard convincing my wife of this as thats why i had to sell my computer before and it almost drove us to a divorce, but as of now ive grown a little older and more responsible with my time so we'll see.:up: i was actually considering a whole AMD setup because of the price and thats what i want to know is basing it between Intel/Nvidia Vcard and AMD/AMD Vcard. so what would it take to run SH5 with AMD products?:06:

I run an AMD setup (CPU) with an nVidia card. I would think a good quality Asus AMD motherboard with an AMD 965BE or an X1100T CPU and a good 500 series video card would suit you well. Somebody from here upgraded their video card (was either a 200 or 400 series) to a 500 series (570?) and they were absolutely thrilled with it.

Something else to think about:

If you sign up to be a preferred member with Newegg.com you can get 12 months no interest financing on orders over $500. This can greatly help with the purchase of a new system :yep: I always take advantage of this - give me 12 months to pay with no interest - sure!