Gaming pc - evaluation

[Romanos IV]

Hey Basement people!

So I'm going to buy a new pc to replace my 2008 mac mini. I have a budget of 800 - 820 €. (current build is 815)

I am the pc to play games like N:TW, S2:TW and CK2 smoothly. Would this one play with high settings?

Cpu - INTEL CORE I5-3550 3.30GHZ

MotherBoard - ASROCK G31M-GS R2.0

RAM - KINGSTON KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX 8GB (2X4GB) PC3-12800 HYPERX

Graphics Card - ASUS ENGTX560 DC/2DI/1GD5 1GB PCI-E

Hdd - SEAGATE ST500DM002 500GB BARRACUDA 7200.12 SATA3

Power Supply - CORSAIR GAMING SERIES GS500 500W PSU 80+

I'm sorry links are in Greek, TINA.

I am a little concerned about the hard disc not being an SSD and about the motherboard, as well as the power supply.

Thanks in advance.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

motherboard is incompatible its an old socket 775 board

you need a Z77 board for best results with Ivy Bridge which is the CPu you selected. 560 is worthless now 660 Ti comes out later this month same general price point but inferior in all ways when it comes to performance.

memory is fine long as its 1.5v

power supply is okay but its pretty bare bones much better units are available but since im not fluent in your language and google translate surfing said sites sucks someone else will have to help you out further than that.

check and see if these folks here can ship to you or not
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php

if they can i can actually help you.

[Romanos IV]

Damn, now I'm being an idiot with the mobo.

Yes, I can buy from that site. If you can help, that will be great.

Are you sure 660 ti won't make the build substantially more expensive?

[Crazyeyesreaper]

660 Ti should be $300 USD, its performance is around AMD 7950 performance with an overclock the 660Ti will beat a stock 670.

whats your max price range? so i can work within a limit here.

do you need a full build or do you have parts on hand?

aka do you need Case, speakers monitor etc what do you have on hand or am i starting from scratch.

[Romanos IV]

I already have speakers, monitor, keyboard, mouse.

Other than that, I have nothing. I'll need a case and everything that goes in it.

My max price is 820 euros = 650 pounds

[Crazyeyesreaper]

K ill see what i can do.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

CPU: Intel Core i5-3450 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£154.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=6&subcat=567

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£82.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...atid=5&subcat=

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£44.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...atid=8&subcat=

Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£67.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...tid=14&subcat=

Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£36.98 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=2277&subcat=

Power Supply: Corsair 600W ATX12V Power Supply (£56.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...id=123&subcat=

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) (£83.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=SW-127-MS

Graphics Card: MSI HD 7870 Hawk 2048MB (£229.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=56&subcat=411

DVD Burner: Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA (£14.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=10&subcat=951

Total Cost: £774 including vat

im about $100 over, so check around other more local shops in your area and just match the parts to the above list as best you can. This is all i can do for you, at the moment, many other places in the UK are cheaper that overclockers.co.uk but dont ship to your area so take the above as a general blueprint. These are the parts i would recommend

If money must be cut, dropping the GPU to a 7850 would bring the cost down £30. PSU can be swapped out for £5, motherboard swap to entry lvl board can drop it a further £20
saving £55 bring the cost down to £700 range.

I refuse to budge on GPU or CPU the CPU already is handicapped do to lack of overclockability, the GPU on the otherhand overclocks amazingly well and when fully overclocked can take on the stock reference 925mhz core model HD 7970



now should NVIDIA actually release the GTX 660 and GTX 660 Ti that may cause me to pause and reconsider however as the GPUs are unavailable still this will have to suffice.

[Romanos IV]

Thanks very much!

Actually I have a family member who lives in the UK (and, presumably, can send me the thing himself) so could you give me a link to cheaper UK sites and I'll find the parts you suggest there.

Really appreciate your advice.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

cool so the forums lagged out and lost me entire post sweet. starting over again.
GPU original choice
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=56&subcat=411

Optional choice 1
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-p...l-dvi-hdmi-mdp

Best performance out of box choice 2
http://www.ebuyer.com/388867-powerco...0-2gbd5-2dhppv

The MSI card i posted up top is the best overall, the Vortex II is faster out the gate but the MSI can be overclocked to match it and exceed it not to mention MSI afterburner software would work great with an MSI card go figure but regardless the MSI card is still the best choice over all but its always good to have options. Just wish Nvidia had a GPU in this segment available that was from a previous power hungry generation.

As for cheapest prices.

CPU: Intel Core i5-3550 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£159.98 @ Dabs)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£77.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£39.36 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£67.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£36.98 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair 600W ATX12V Power Supply (£53.52 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer (£13.31 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) (£72.96 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £521.82

I suggest looking into shipping info etc, as it may be cheaper to go through OCuk due to shipping etc, also dont underestimate how much it would cost a family member to ship things to you, people tend to forget how big a computer is how much it weighs athus by extention how much it costs to SHIP the damn thing if not a company,
Example: Newegg in the states to ship a case its free or $10-12 usually to ship that same case to a friend of mine cheapest possible method was $33 3x the price. so keep that in mind I cant say for sure what shipping will be or whos cheaper but regardless this is all i can do for you for now.

[Stildawn]

CPU is overkill. I haven't check on prices myself. But Ivy is not required for what you want (or for anything really). A sandy would do fine, most of the AMD's would also perform excellently at a much lower price. Some people spout future proofing, but really in my experience going full out doesn't future proof that much especially not to make up for the huge price.

Just so you know though so your not super pissed off when you get this PC. NTW etc still run a bit nasty. Its the games fault not your hardware.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

so your aware Stildawn since your giving advice without checking pricing

Sandy Bridge is more expensive in the shops on average compared to Ivy Bridge at least from where the OP is ordering from,

AMD cpus suck when it comes to Shogun 2, Skyrim and a few others where it holds back performance, (granted this is due to the games not the CPU but regardless) In terms of performance in Games Ivy Bridge is worth the price,

Its around a 5% improvement over Sandy and its cheaper, Sandy Bridge on Average depending on resolution is 9-23% faster than AMD Bulldozer lineup,

and 700 pounds is hardly all out.

Hes at roughly the $1000 mark USD, which is the sweet spot for cost to performance.

and straight up having come from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge ive seen a 10-25% increase in minimum FPS vs sandy bridge with overclocks to the same speeds the gap widens, But having played with AMD cpus and owned the best they have and clocked them till they died they really are not that great, Bulldozer is roughly the same as Thuban from a few years back now, in single thread its worse multi thread its better, in gaming its about equal but regardless it still lags behind by 10-15% on average.

I honestly just cant recommend AMD unless looking at a rig under the USD 700 mark in which case they have a few nice procs that fit the bill, but anything past that Its Intel or bust as your just pissing money away. so essentially if he was looking at 400 pounds or less it would make sense to go AMD, even then its a weird toss up as the i3 2100 can still hold its own gaming wise against the FX 8150 which is nearly double the price.

at 1920x1200 with games just as Skyrim, Battlefield 3, Metro 2033, Shogun 2, and many more tested Sandybridge 2500k is 16% faster than Bulldozer, Ivy extends that by another 2-5% for an 18-23% gap, and thats AMDs best vs Intels middle of the road. Lower end Bulldozer chips perform worse than Phenom II line, but sadly Phenom II IMC is so slow it actually limits high end GPU performance in a fair number of titles.

It breaks my fanboy heart to say it but AMD when it comes to CPUs and Gaming just doesnt really have the performance Intel offers, which depresses me as i used AMD nearly exclusively since the Athlon XP days.

Granted i cheaped out on the CPU and didnt select the K model aka the K series offers overclocking but requires a good cooler, i just dont see it fitting in the budget as for the majority of games the GPU is the limiting factor, CPU just has to have enough grunt to handle the minimum FPS when it matters most.

Eitherway 3450 or 3550 ivy bridge where he should be for a machine that should last a few years his pick im tired and im gonna sleep

[Stildawn]

Yeah I know all that dude. I didn't have time to check, but where I live Ivy is more expensive, and those games wont make a noticeable difference, and saving money is saving money, regardless of budget.

I also wouldn't recommend AMD on the same lines as you said above, but it is an option and are much cheaper, I also don't know what your doing wrong but I have used AMD's with those games above as well as Intel, and while yes there is a difference, its hardly what I would call major (and I doubt people who ain't looking for it would even notice), is it worth the extra cost? That would be opinion really.

The sad fact is that software is behind hardware. On all fronts. And while it does vary between different games etc the actual practical difference is slight, especially in regards to comparing CPU's.

I'd say now a days the most noticeable difference in hardware is in the GPU department.

Not saying your build was bad though. Lol.

I regularly build my mates real budget gaming rigs (I got one around NZD$550 once lol), and while yes my rig out performs them, on a LAN day, its hardly noticeable and they constantly mock me for my expensive machine (though I do do a lot more with mine than they do with theirs).

(benchmarks aside)

[Romanos IV]

The above posts cleared some things up for me; you've already figured by now, but I'm not interested in overclocking (at this point, at least). The only downside is that they seem to only have small cases, but I might be wrong.

For anyone else who may see this, this German site has very good prices, without the difficulties in shipping from the UK. And Google Translate works pretty well with it. I could find everything else, fortunately.



Btw, could you tell me a more or less equivalent motherboard to the one you recommend me, from this site? I couldn't find a match.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...TX-Retail.html

I get what your saying stildawn but you have to understand

ive run Phenom II 965 and 940BE's as my main CPUs for sometime also been able to play with Bulldozer personally as well as compare data to the reviewers at techpowerup! legitreviews and others.
when a Phenom II 965 at 4GHz with a 6970 offers the same frame rate as a 5850 in a game theres a problem

simple put with 6950 single card i was getting around 60fps in Bad Company 2 at the time a simple swap to 2500k at STOCK jumped me up to 90fps in Crossfire with 2x 6950s the Phenom II put out 90-110 fps which is just slightly faster than the 2500k and a single GPU thats pretty poor overall $100 increase on the CPU side of things gave better gains than another $300 GPU lol thats what forced my switch, then with the 2500k with crossfire i was hitting 140+ thats a 30-50 fps jump in multi gpu and 30 fps jump single GPU now does this happen in all games hell no.

But in games like Shogun 2 CPU = minimum FPS AMD doesn't cut it in that situation
Considering the CA track record with optimizing CPU code im gonna guess Rome 2 isnt going to be much better. since every previous total war has been CPU limited in one way or another.
Skyrim with mods for fantastic graphics AMD once again proves weak, do in part to poor coding once again and shadows being rendered by the CPU causing a bottleneck AI also plays a factor as the game isnt really using any more cores than Oblivion did back in 2006 so IPC (intructioners per clock) and clock speed both have a huge impact in games and AMD while they can scale the clock speed the IPC is so much lower it just doesnt do enough to negate the issue.

Shogun 2, CPU matters and im sorry to say in the CPU test and in melee battles especially with the now 40 vs 40 being possible once melee is joined AMD sucks balls end of story, GPU matters yes but my 7970 still sits at 70% usage with my 3770k at 4.6ghz do to as you mentioned poor coding do to software being behind hardware we have to brute force performance, in which case AMD just doesnt cut it,

were talking 11-18 fps on the Best AMD can offer CPU wise vs 30-40 on Intel in the same price range, thats nothing to sneeze at, in most budget builds amd is fine never said they werent but $1000 rig should be using a $99 pos CPU that can't last theres no reason to do so, Built many AMD rigs but there performance is still stuck in 2009 its 2012.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...Scaling/2.html

check for yourself a heavily overclocked 7870 can rival a stock generic 7970 in a good number of games, theres always a drop but in the OPs case this degree of difference wont be what he sees but it will still exist to an extent, granted most is Resolution dependant but the simply fact is a 2500k stock is still 20% faster than anything AMD has at 1920x1200 on average, 2560 and higher yea it starts to become entirely moot as the GPU is limited but then again at max settings a single GPU still has a hard time offering playable frame rates these days with the eye candy turned on. Which brings in multi gpu setups which im sad to say on AMD are truly slower, by a large margin. Any hardware reviewer will tell you the same.

Its not all doom and gloom tho AMD cpus are still a fantastic choice especially for budget boxes the IGP in the Llano and Trinity APUs offer damn good performance for the price and have enough grunt to very well with mid range GPUs, but for the most part right now

Clock speed and power usage = fail, CPU l1 l2 and l3 cache performance is dismal hurting the design, sadly Phenom II chips are better in many tasks but the extremely low memory bandwidth kills multi GPU performance and in reality is the reason Intel chips offer better single GPU numbers most of the time, its why Llano in games like F1 2010 can pull in 20 more FPS than a 1090T with the same GPU its straight up memory performance that does it.

Im not knocking the CPU itself just AMD newer chips are more server workload oriented which is fine but doesnt help the majority of users today nor do the massive core counts or insane clock speeds with the current issues, I just cant recommend a $140-250 AMD cpu when an i3 2100 is better for gaming, if looking at an Overclocking perspective AMD has it licked when it comes to the budget range due to Intel locking overclocking to certain chips etc.

now if im looking at a Laptop.... in that situation id go AMD the APUs just take the cake for performance in that situation for what most users will be doing. Regardless im not on your info, there really is nothing wrong with AMD just for the games Romanos IV will be playing and what this forum is all about means going AMD would be a waste of money.

Regardless i need to cut my rambling incoherent post short i have to start posting tech news.