Build a PC for Rome 2 / Hardware Recommendations and Advice Thread

[oppaiO_O]

my specs
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5800 @ 3.20GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM 2 Kingston Technology HyperX Blu 2 GB and 2 1 gb that came with pc<---bad?
power supply: Dynex 520 Watt Atx Power Supply
Graphics card: Force3D AMD ATI radeon HD 6450 2Gb DDR3
HDD: 500 gb

my pc is 5 years old the only changes I've done is more Ram, Graphics and Power like I've stated I do have some money to spend and am planning on getting the $1000+ pc but if changing one or two things will make it better then I'm all for that plus I kinda wanna wait till holiday season kicks in and prices drop, hopefully, cybermonday and all that

[Biggus Splenus]

HEat won't be a problem, I have that covered. Yeah, it is always the which one to go, you can't really go wrong with either one of them. In this price-range tought, I think AMD actually offers better performance compared to NVIDIA ones. This is the one I was looking atm to get, but I will wait a little bit to see how the prices stabilize. But I take it there isn't any specific problems with 290s and R2?

http://www.jimms.fi/tuote/CGAX-R9298O

Yea the 290 does perform consistently better or equal to the 780, so it's definitely a better buy at the moment I think too. They're great cards, it's only the power consumption that brings them down (though they are more powerful, so it's to be expected). It can consume a full 60W more than a 780 at full load.

Anandtech benchmarks of both for comparison

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1036?vs=1068

[SPARTAN VI]

@ Spartan - dual 760 perform much better than a single 780. Higher end cards do handle larger resolutions better, but at the moment a 4k monitor, or 21:9, or usually even 1440p monitors cost more than a high end graphics card, so it's not worth it right now. I still think a single 760 is the best buy someone can make at this moment.

Definitely faster, but the launch of Rome 2 was a good example of why I avoid dual card solutions. It didn't have xfire or SLI support, so when (then) I had crossfired HD 6950s, I was only able to use one. That doesn't deter me from seeking a (now) second GTX 770 as an upgrade path going forward as there's probably no better way to nearly double my performance at that price point.

[alQamar]

Hi Splenyi,

it think it is time to revamp the OP, if you like. We should consider new things like Devil's canyon CPUs and also reflect the cheaper prices of the retired 700er series and SSDs also introducing the 900er series into the higher builts. What do you think?

[Totalheadache]

This is versus my 580 @930 core. 970 running with no oc. (1920x1200)

Aliensvp 580 - 75fps 970 - 139.3fps
Res evil 6 580 - 9175 970 - 15882
Res evil 5 580 190.3fps 970 - 216.4fps
Rome2 580 - 45fps 970 - 86.2fps.

Not even started to oc it yet plus could stick it under water! Bargain card!

[SPARTAN VI]

This is versus my 580 @930 core. 970 running with no oc. (1920x1200)

Aliensvp 580 - 75fps 970 - 139.3fps
Res evil 6 580 - 9175 970 - 15882
Res evil 5 580 190.3fps 970 - 216.4fps
Rome2 580 - 45fps 970 - 86.2fps.

Not even started to oc it yet plus could stick it under water! Bargain card!

Wow, almost doubled in R2TW. Very nice!

[Totalheadache]

Wow, almost doubled in R2TW. Very nice!

Thks! I should have said those results were on ultra. I forget there was an extreme setting...oops.

[sander454]

Hi guys. Possibly stupid question but will GTX 970 work with my Asus P6X58 mobo? Just saw quite a few threads on different forums saying that people had to upgrade bios in order to get that card working and the last update that I found on asus website is from 2012 being a whoping 220mb. Could anyone confirm or point me where I should look for answer before I spend £300?
Thanks in advance

[Biggus Splenus]

Hi Splenyi,

it think it is time to revamp the OP, if you like. We should consider new things like Devil's canyon CPUs and also reflect the cheaper prices of the retired 700er series and SSDs also introducing the 900er series into the higher builts. What do you think?

Yea definitely, I've been meaning to do that for a while. I'll get on that soon, I'll post a draft, and we can work on improving it

Hi guys. Possibly stupid question but will GTX 970 work with my Asus P6X58 mobo? Just saw quite a few threads on different forums saying that people had to upgrade bios in order to get that card working and the last update that I found on asus website is from 2012 being a whoping 220mb. Could anyone confirm or point me where I should look for answer before I spend £300?
Thanks in advance

I couldn't see why it wouldn't work if you have the latest bios on the motherboard. But honestly, I think you'd be better off upgrading your motherboard and cpu, you'd probably get much more benefit out of that. What CPU and GPU do you currently have?

[sander454]

I'm running i7 950 socket 1366 with 2 hd6870 in crossfire so I think that new gpu would be great however I do believe that my cpu still have enougj juice to run for few next years (and I don't have enough money for new mobo+cpu+memory combo)

[alQamar]

I'm running i7 950 socket 1366 with 2 hd6870 in crossfire so I think that new gpu would be great however I do believe that my cpu still have enougj juice to run for few next years (and I don't have enough money for new mobo+cpu+memory combo)

the only issue you could face in buying a new GPU is that the firmware (BIOS) of the GPU is not compatible with non UEFI BIOSes. Generally they should be compatible backwards. However a BIOS upgrade on your mainboard won't turn a non UEFI BIOS into a UEFI one. In case you are using an Asus board with a UEFI compliant BIOS you should enable the CSM feature in the options.

In my case I had to upgrade my 670 GTX firmware to get a full UEFI compliant support with my Asus Z77 board so I finally could disable CSM and run my Windows 8.1 in full supported UEFI mode.
This all might be very confusing but I think you should be safe to buy a new GPU as you intended and drop the old crossfire, even without a BIOS upgrade. It is not very hard to upgrade the BIOS on a recent motherboard you have, though. About the DL the BIOS is not 220 MB sized for sure. You might talk about AI Suite which includes many optional and consuming features, including a windows based BIOS updater.

[oppaiO_O]

what is a good monitor to play total war games? I would like to buy a big one since I'm kinda hoping the words would also get big plus unit card on 20+ battles will be nicely spcaced out and not all bunch together was thinking of buying an ASUS seeing as the gpu and mobo are ASUS as well I think they'll work better? also how long will the top tier built will last me before I need to start upgrading things? will it be good for a couple of years will it play any and all upcoming total wars on ultra?
any and all recommendations are welcomed

[SPARTAN VI]

what is a good monitor to play total war games? I would like to buy a big one since I'm kinda hoping the words would also get big plus unit card on 20+ battles will be nicely spcaced out and not all bunch together was thinking of buying an ASUS seeing as the gpu and mobo are ASUS as well I think they'll work better? also how long will the top tier built will last me before I need to start upgrading things? will it be good for a couple of years will it play any and all upcoming total wars on ultra?
any and all recommendations are welcomed

I really like the prospect of playing Total War on an ultra-wide monitor (e.g. 2560x1080 / 21:9 ratio). An IPS panel with a 2560x1080 resolution is high on my wishlist. Here are some that I'm looking at:

1. Asus PB298Q
2. LG 29UM65
3. LG 25UM64-S

Your question about future proofing is asked probably hundreds of times daily and are usually met with a "crystal ball" reference. CA has said that TW: Attila will run fine on machines that already play R2TW well, so I can't imagine performance changing that much between the two. You probably can't go wrong with something in the mid-high range of GPUs e.g. AMD R9 280x or higher, Nvidia GTX 770 or higher.

[Meneldil]

Hey guys. I'm currently trying to find out what I could improve on my PC to make Rome 2 run smoother.

This is my gig:

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30 GHz
4 Gb Ram DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Right now, even though ShogunII worked fine on ultra, I seem to be having problems with RomeII. First of all, the game always downgrades my settings, and even then, loading times take forever. What's the thing I'd need to upgrade first?

[SPARTAN VI]

Hey guys. I'm currently trying to find out what I could improve on my PC to make Rome 2 run smoother.

This is my gig:

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30 GHz
4 Gb Ram DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Right now, even though ShogunII worked fine on ultra, I seem to be having problems with RomeII. First of all, the game always downgrades my settings, and even then, loading times take forever. What's the thing I'd need to upgrade first?

The loading times are somewhat CPU dependent, but mostly on dependent on memory and hard disk performance. When you start up Total War, it's generally pulling all that data from your hard drive, which is probably the weak link. Once the game is already loaded, it's going to access and swap resources that are loaded in RAM and your hard drive; you'll usually notice this when you're in transition from the battle/campaign maps. A solid state drive was the single best way I improved my load times. I used to have a hybrid solid state / hard drive (SSHD), and when I swapped it for a SSD (EVO 840), my load times for R2TW were cut in half.

As for GPU performance, whats the setting profile it's setting? I'm running a GTX 770 2GB at 1920x1080 with a mix of ultra/extreme settings to keep myself around 50-60fps in-game. I'd imagine a GTX 560 Ti would be comfortable in the Very High range at the same resolution.

[Meneldil]

The loading times are somewhat CPU dependent, but mostly on dependent on memory and hard disk performance. When you start up Total War, it's generally pulling all that data from your hard drive, which is probably the weak link. Once the game is already loaded, it's going to access and swap resources that are loaded in RAM and your hard drive; you'll usually notice this when you're in transition from the battle/campaign maps. A solid state drive was the single best way I improved my load times. I used to have a hybrid solid state / hard drive (SSHD), and when I swapped it for a SSD (EVO 840), my load times for R2TW were cut in half.

As for GPU performance, whats the setting profile it's setting? I'm running a GTX 770 2GB at 1920x1080 with a mix of ultra/extreme settings to keep myself around 50-60fps in-game. I'd imagine a GTX 560 Ti would be comfortable in the Very High range at the same resolution.

Just ran the benchmark. Most options on high, with AA on and 1920*1080. Average FPS was 46. The game looks like though, in all honesty. Legionnaries' faces look like a big blob, trees are horrendous. I feel that I need both a SSD and a new graphic card, but can only afford one of those. Oh well.

[SPARTAN VI]

Just ran the benchmark. Most options on high, with AA on and 1920*1080. Average FPS was 46. The game looks like though, in all honesty. Legionnaries' faces look like a big blob, trees are horrendous. I feel that I need both a SSD and a new graphic card, but can only afford one of those. Oh well.

Try running the various benchmarks and compare your results to what we have documented here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...TW-performance

Your i5 should score just above the AMD scores we have there.

[LestaT]

Just ran the benchmark. Most options on high, with AA on and 1920*1080. Average FPS was 46. The game looks like though, in all honesty. Legionnaries' faces look like a big blob, trees are horrendous. I feel that I need both a SSD and a new graphic card, but can only afford one of those. Oh well.

If you want pretty upgrade your GPU (770 or 970). If you want fast get an SSD.

[sander454]

the only issue you could face in buying a new GPU is that the firmware (BIOS) of the GPU is not compatible with non UEFI BIOSes. Generally they should be compatible backwards. However a BIOS upgrade on your mainboard won't turn a non UEFI BIOS into a UEFI one. In case you are using an Asus board with a UEFI compliant BIOS you should enable the CSM feature in the options.

In my case I had to upgrade my 670 GTX firmware to get a full UEFI compliant support with my Asus Z77 board so I finally could disable CSM and run my Windows 8.1 in full supported UEFI mode.
This all might be very confusing but I think you should be safe to buy a new GPU as you intended and drop the old crossfire, even without a BIOS upgrade. It is not very hard to upgrade the BIOS on a recent motherboard you have, though. About the DL the BIOS is not 220 MB sized for sure. You might talk about AI Suite which includes many optional and consuming features, including a windows based BIOS updater.

So I get the MSI GTX970 and everything working as intended. What a great card. Now I barely hear my PC outside the room and temp inside my case dropped down dramatically (my crossfire reguraly went up to 98C and now usually are 62C). Performance wise I can just say WOW - big noticable improvement in gaming Rome 2 and Civ 5 are now working much smoother and faster. They also looks much prettier as well.
I recomend this card to anyone who is planning to upgrade in next couple of months because it's really worth it.

Last question to you guys - I have Win 7 home edition however I can upgrade it to Win 8.1 Pro.
Is it worth to do it? I'm fully aware that some games needs workaround to play them but they are mostly older titles and I don't mind some DYI with them. The main selling point for me is that I will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 next year for either free or just a small fee. I also read that after you past metro icons under the hood Win 8.1 is big improvement over Win 7.

[alQamar]

Hi Sander, as a MS Windows certified professional I cannot suggest you to upgrade to Win 8.1 at the moment. Sure it will take some time, till Win X (10) will be released but an upgrade would be much more worth and make more sense then.
Win 8 unfortunately qualified itself as an interim OS, like Windows ME was to XP. You should wait for Windows 10 and upgrade then. I am currently part of the public beta.
The pro version of 8.1 would not be needed anyway other than you need the features like Domain Join Support, Hyper-V virtualization or transparent Drive Encryption using Bitlocker, and some more stuff beneath. Just for a gaming OS 8.1 and 7 are likewise good OSes.
There are rumours that Win 7 will not get all the features of Direct X 12 once it is released. Win X should be released by then and will get all the features (like 8.1) DX 12 should again improve your gaming experience and performance with your current 970. (this should apply to all users btw)
I don't have a sure forecast but for Win 8, the upgrade license costs for Win XP / Vista / 7 were the same. I don't think that Microsoft will change this policy. So upgrading to 8 to get a free (very unlikely, even often demanded by the community) or discounted upgrade to 10 is not a good choice.

In addition to that the current upgrade policy of Win 8.1 is horrible, as you need to install 8.1 twice or Win 7 when you need to reset your harddisk. Another reason to wait for 10 and hope they improve this drawback.