Attila Computer & Hardware Recommendations

[craziii]

to get the lowest prices on hardware, keep an eye on the build a pc sales sub reddit. you will save alot http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/ it is where I got the superb 200$ deal a few months ago. for the lazy this http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-...&c=152&sort=a8 is another great website to use. 30$ more for 30% or more(in some cases, way more) performance. it is a no brainer.

I honestly don't know how Tom's does it. my 280x, before I upgraded to 290 had a ton of trouble with ultra in 1080p in maintaining playable fps when I fight alot of orcs all at once or/and turn/move really fast(when you ride a caragor) my fps dips to below 20 at times. even if they are just temporary dips, it still annoyed me to no end. if these 2gb cards can only do 40 fps now, how bad will they be in a year? 2 years? being relevant right now =/= recommendation. especially with a price tag of 210$

never recommend cards that is just good enough right now as they would be trash in 6 months or a year later. especially with something like 290 that is only 30$ more.

[Achilleslastand]

I was thinking of upgrading my HD 7870 to this....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150697

My only concern is my PSU which is a Thermaltake Smart Series M750 being enough as my CPU is an FX8350.
Your thoughts?

[Shapur e Sassani]

I have asus n56jn gaming laptop
can it play Attila well?

[craziii]

I was thinking of upgrading my HD 7870 to this....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150697

My only concern is my PSU which is a Thermaltake Smart Series M750 being enough as my CPU is an FX8350.
Your thoughts?

my psu is a 650 watt, a 750 watt is more than good enough. but why upgrade though? 7870 is good enough, wait till the end of spring. 380x is rumored to be 50% improvement over 290x. that is 50%. I would 100% wait a few months if were you. in a few months you might be able to pay 550$ for 380x that would probably be your gpu till the next gen of consoles are release in 10 years time if you stay in 1080p.

@shap it is a 840m http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-....105681.0.html this is what I found with a google. scroll down for game benchmarks. doesn't look good bro. playing well isn't gonna happen.

[Shapur e Sassani]

I have asus n56jn gaming laptop
can it play Attila well?

will it work with mine?

[craziii]

will it work with mine?

it is a 840m http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-....105681.0.html this is what I found with a google. scroll down for game benchmarks. doesn't look good bro. playing well isn't gonna happen.

u have the 840m right?

[Shapur e Sassani]

it is a 840m http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-....105681.0.html this is what I found with a google. scroll down for game benchmarks. doesn't look good bro. playing well isn't gonna happen.

u have the 840m right?

Yes! But it's a gaming laptop!
Isn't there any ways to increase the graphic?
would it work better if it was geforce gtx850m ?

[craziii]

Yes! But it's a gaming laptop!
Isn't there any ways to increase the graphic?
would it work better if it was geforce gtx850m ?

you should give up on all games if that is all you got. you would not enjoy them anyway. and that is not a gaming laptop even back when you just bought it.

[Shapur e Sassani]

you should give up on all games if that is all you got. you would not enjoy them anyway. and that is not a gaming laptop even back when you just bought it.

But it runs Rome 2 without any problems with extreme graphics -_-

[SPARTAN VI]

But it runs Rome 2 without any problems with extreme graphics -_-

At what resolution? The GT 840M in your notebook does not pack a whole lot of a punch:

Total War: Rome II 2013
low 1024x768: ~ 59 fps average
med. 1366x768: ~ 47 fps average
high 1366x768: ~ 40 fps average
ultra 1920x1080: ~ 10 fps average

It can barely eek out 10fps at 1080P with ultra settings. How are you doing extreme? Granted the above figures, I'd say you would be able to mix medium/high settings with Attila at 1920x1080 and average 30fps. Shoot for 1080P, then scale your settings back until you get a playable framerate. Personally, I refuse to go below 60fps, but that's not going to be an option for you.

P.S. Laptops that are advertised as "gaming" laptops doesn't necessarily mean that they'll play games at the highest settings. When compared to a non-gaming laptop, you'd be lucky to get a game like R2TW to launch at all on a non-gaming laptop. It really comes down to its hardware, not how it's marketed or advertised.

[Lionheart11]

My sis is two years old now and i have no plans to upgrade it for poorly optermised gaming software.

i5@4ghz
16 GB
660ti 2GB
64 bit win 7
1980x1020 res

Im used to running everything extreme but R2 only gave a ave of 30fps

[SPARTAN VI]

I'd say 30fps is playable for strategy games, especially TW where you're able to slow/pause to give orders. I'm just a 60fps snob.

[Biggus Splenus]

To which games are you referring? I see Watch Dogs, Shadows of Mordor, and Evil Within gobble up VRAM, but none of these require 4GB of VRAM to play.

Yeah, the GTX 970 3.5GB fiasco... I'm just going to say that "VRAMGate" isn't the big deal so many people are making it out to be. The 970 is still an amazing value.

I'm not making recommendations, I'm just weighing in on the GTX 960.

I think the whole 970 VRAM problem is a very big deal. You can't advertise a product as one thing, and give the customers something less. Nvidia is a great company, and their history is equally great, but I don't think they should be excused for this just because 3.5GB is an equally excessive amount of VRAM (so therefore shouldn't matter). I think if you advertise it as 4GB, then the customer should get 4GB, it's that simple. But it's good that Nvidia is offering refunds.

In any case, 2GB is still plenty of VRAM for vast majority of PC games, especially the popular ones that people actually play regularly (eg. WoW, LoL, DotA2, MC, CoD, CS, TF2, WoT, BF4, I don't know what else )

[SPARTAN VI]

I think the whole 970 VRAM problem is a very big deal. You can't advertise a product as one thing, and give the customers something less. Nvidia is a great company, and their history is equally great, but I don't think they should be excused for this just because 3.5GB is an equally excessive amount of VRAM (so therefore shouldn't matter). I think if you advertise it as 4GB, then the customer should get 4GB, it's that simple. But it's good that Nvidia is offering refunds.

I meant that the VRAMgate drama wasn't a big deal from the performance perspective, hence the link to the performance aftermath review. Ethically, I absolutely agree that the misrepresentation of the 970s specs, whether intentional or not, is inexcusable. I do not believe their story that the engineers didn't communicate to marketing. Even if that were the case, how do they explain the silence days/weeks after launch leading up to the discovery? Do their engineers not have eyes? Do they not see their own marketing materials out in the wild? Or did they notice and stay silent hoping no one would? I can't imagine a scenario where nvidia is being completely honest.

However, this doesn't take away from the glowing review and the real world figures; the GTX 970 is still a top performer with 3.5GB just like when we thought it had 4GB. I'm hoping (admittedly far-fetched) that this shinanigans will dump the GTX 970 demand, which would open up an easy/economical upgrade path for me.

In any case, 2GB is still plenty of VRAM for vast majority of PC games, especially the popular ones that people actually play regularly (eg. WoW, LoL, DotA2, MC, CoD, CS, TF2, WoT, BF4, I don't know what else )

QFT

[SingingAntelope]

Would it be possible or worth while to mix and match on the different tier computers listed on the first page, for example trade certain components, for example Very good and good, to reduce costs? Or remove some components such as an SSD (Which from what I've gathered, isn't totally essential but is a nice addition to have)?

[SPARTAN VI]

Would it be possible or worth while to mix and match on the different tier computers listed on the first page, for example trade certain components, for example Very good and good, to reduce costs? Or remove some components such as an SSD (Which from what I've gathered, isn't totally essential but is a nice addition to have)?

Absolutely, you must be mindful of obvious hardware incompatibility (e.g. an Intel Core i5 4690K will not fit on an AMD AM3+ motherboard). I'd suggest you use http://pcpartpicker.com to build out your machine and export it here so we can review it. That website does a little hardware compatibility validation, but it wont catch everything.

But more to your point, I would absolutely dump something like a SSD in order to swing some more of my budget toward a better GPU/CPU.

(edit) Please note that the rigs listed on the first page are out of date. The hardware there is outdated and/or much cheaper currently.

[alQamar]

Glad to see some many good people are contributing here, sorry I was absent in the last days but I catched up the posts from time to time.
7 days to go for Attila, prices have been dropped again and it seems this will be the cheapest release of all TW titles - in terms of pricing I hope not in terms in quality.

[SingingAntelope]

Absolutely, you must be mindful of obvious hardware incompatibility (e.g. an Intel Core i5 4690K will not fit on an AMD AM3+ motherboard). I'd suggest you use http://pcpartpicker.com to build out your machine and export it here so we can review it. That website does a little hardware compatibility validation, but it wont catch everything.

But more to your point, I would absolutely dump something like a SSD in order to swing some more of my budget toward a better GPU/CPU.

(edit) Please note that the rigs listed on the first page are out of date. The hardware there is outdated and/or much cheaper currently.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/pMkzjX

Well this is what I have made so far, any advice on what I could cut the price down on or anything I need to improve??

[SPARTAN VI]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/pMkzjX

Well this is what I have made so far, any advice on what I could cut the price down on or anything I need to improve??

I'm looking it over right now. I'm guessing you have a £600 budget since you're just below that with this current build. If you have more to work with, please let me know.

The first thing I see is a GT 630 for your graphics card (GPU), which isn't going to power very many modern games, and even the ones it does run probably wont run well. I'd suggest you dump the sound card, since motherboards often have integrated Realtek audio anyway, and move that £26 toward to GPU budget. I'd also dump the Arctic Cooling heatsink fan (HSF), your i3 is retail and will come with a HSF (versus OEM processors that do not include HSF). Again, we'll move that £11 toward your GPU budget. That gives us about £105 to work with on your GPU, which puts us between a GTX 750 Ti and a R7 260x. I'd go with the GTX 750 Ti for R2TW, which can pull off very high settings in R2TW at 1080P and average 30-40fps.

Link to entire build: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Hn7ZvK

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor (£92.49 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£40.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£26.71 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Hitachi Travelstar 5K1000 1TB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£102.98 @ Dabs)
Case: Aerocool DS Cube Red Edition Silent Cube MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£55.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Antec 550W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.32 @ More Computers)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer (£16.30 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: BenQ GL2023A 60Hz 19.5" Monitor (£65.11 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-N53 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£22.98 @ Amazon UK)
Speakers: Lenovo M0520 2W 2ch Speakers (£13.20 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £598.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

I'll take a closer look at your other individual components in a moment, but the above setup will chew through R2TW at very high settings, and probably get very similar settings for Attila.

[SPARTAN VI]

Here's what I've picked out for you at the same budget:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£89.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£35.42 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.60 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.45 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270X 2GB TurboDuo Video Card (£122.16 @ More Computers)
Case: Aerocool DS Cube Red Edition Silent Cube MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£55.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£56.99 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.50 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: BenQ GL2023A 60Hz 19.5" Monitor (£65.11 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TRENDnet TEW-726EC 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£20.30 @ Dabs)
Speakers: Logitech Z213 2.1 Multimedia Speakers (£24.36)
OS: Windows 8.1 Upgrade (£46.95)
Total: £591.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

• CPU: I decided to go with something that's faster yet less expensive, but has a little more power draw. So I traded the i3 4130T for the i3 4160.
• Motherboard: Same features as the Asus board, decent overclocker, and a few £ cheaper.
• Memory: Faster and about the same price as the DDR3-1333, but should allow for a little more OC headroom.
• Storage: Faster, same capacity, and less expensive than the HDD you selected.
• Videocard: The R9 270x 2GB is possible by trimming some fat off the OS price, and it spanks the GTX 750 Ti.
• Case: This is probably the most subjective item. It's really your choice, but you can actually shift about £20-30 toward your GPU if you select a less expensive/flashy case.
• Powersupply: I went for something that's modular with a little more juice should you decide to upgrade to more power hungry components down the line.
• Optical drive: Cheaper and same/better performance than the Asus drive.
• OS: There are usually deals for OS's in the $30-50 USD range by purchasing the upgrade or student version. You don't even need a prior Windows install to use the upgrade.
• Wireless NIC: Cheaper and same performance as the Asus NIC.
• Speakers: Got rid of the Lenovo cans. These should put out a nice round sound for you music and games.

There's actually an even better rig already spec'd out on the partpicker front page, but it doesn't have all the OS, speakers, WiFi NIC, DVD/CD drive, and monitor goodies you were looking for: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/gcT...l-gaming-build