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

[sander454]

Thanks for your thoughts AlQamar.

[herne_the _hunter]

Considering the G3258 overclocked with a GTX750.


If I can successfully clock the cpu to 4.4 or 4.5 gig
what real world settings would I expect?

[AqD]

Is my PC good enough to play at maximum unit size and high unit details (with low-quality shadow and no grass) on 1920x1080, with 4xAA and 8xAT, high settings in general?

- CPU: Intel i3-3240 (3.4GHz, dual core)
- GFX: nVIDIA GTX 760, 2GB
- RAM: 16GB
- HDD: will put R2TW on old SSD, RW 200MB/s.

Can R2TW take advantage of 4-cores? Would the officially-recommended i5 make it any better?

[Agamemnon]

I can't speak for very much here, but the i5 would be MUCH better. R2TW can take advantage of up to 4 cores.

[AqD]

How much better? like 50% for max unit scale?

[SPARTAN VI]

How much better? like 50% for max unit scale?

I wouldn't be able to give you an exact figure like that for R2TW, but this game is very cpu intensive. If you look at this CPU comparison benchmark of S2TW, you can see the difference between a Haswell i3 and i5 is about 61%, and the gap widens to 100% (i.e. double the average framerate) when it's overclocked. So if you can stretch the budget, you'd be much much better served with an i5.

[LestaT]

Is my PC good enough to play at maximum unit size and high unit details (with low-quality shadow and no grass) on 1920x1080, with 4xAA and 8xAT, high settings in general?

- CPU: Intel i3-3240 (3.4GHz, dual core)
- GFX: nVIDIA GTX 760, 2GB
- RAM: 16GB
- HDD: will put R2TW on old SSD, RW 200MB/s.

Can R2TW take advantage of 4-cores? Would the officially-recommended i5 make it any better?

Yes you can. I'm using i3-2100 and GT520 playing ultra unit size, high texture unit and everything else on low.

Of course it will lag like with full 40 vs 40 battle but normal full scale battle (20 vs 20) should be playable enough. Having SSD like you helped with faster loading. That said however since you're planning to have 760 then my guess it will be better to get i5. If you want to use i3 then 760 wont probably help much. Better save more and get 650 or 750.

[AqD]

Thanks!

My PC spec is not a planned one but the one I got for now.

I bought the game; It loads fast and benchmark keeps 60FPS (vsync, high graphics, ultra unit size), but sometimes it seems to have sudden slow down during battles, probably CPU related. Not too enjoyable playing that way as it's nowhere as smooth as M2TW was on my old laptop... It's after all vanilla not mods.

I'll seal it until PC upgrade next time. I should have chose the fastest i7 K-series CPU last year

[DecayWolf]

Hello guys, I've searched a quit lot before buying my GPU, a currelty R9 280x Toxic, people adviced me to go with a 280x for being a better cost benefit than a GTX 780, which overall seems to match on every aspect, but the AMD card counts with mantle and catalyst to give a extra little bump into the game.
Surely they didn't recommend me taking a toxic model, since they're most expensive...

I'm just wondering if I've done a good deal, or should've get a cheaper version of a 280x family, or perhaps get a gtx 780?

[SPARTAN VI]

Hello guys, I've searched a quit lot before buying my GPU, a currelty R9 280x Toxic, people adviced me to go with a 280x for being a better cost benefit than a GTX 780, which overall seems to match on every aspect, but the AMD card counts with mantle and catalyst to give a extra little bump into the game.
Surely they didn't recommend me taking a toxic model, since they're most expensive...

I'm just wondering if I've done a good deal, or should've get a cheaper version of a 280x family, or perhaps get a gtx 780?

That depends on how much you spent on it.

The R9 280x Toxic is an overclocked version on the R9 280x, which is a rebadged HD 7970. Its performance in R2TW is comparable to a GTX 770, with the edge going to the 280x toxic. When it was released the 280x was sitting pretty below the GTX 770s price point; it was an excellent value. Today, you can find GTX 770 2GB/4GB in the $250 USD range, so whether or not you got a good deal really depends on how much you spent on that 280x.

[DecayWolf]

I live in Brazil, prices may seems to be strange for your guys...
280x cost around 1k, 280x toxic 1.4k, gtx 780 1.5k gtx 770 is around 1.1 - 1.3k.

Next time I'll buy on amazon, though internal revenue tribute as they like, I'll also look something on China, too cheap there.

[SPARTAN VI]

I live in Brazil, prices may seems to be strange for your guys...
280x cost around 1k, 280x toxic 1.4k, gtx 780 1.5k gtx 770 is around 1.1 - 1.3k.

Next time I'll buy on amazon, though internal revenue tribute as they like, I'll also look something on China, too cheap there.

I don't know if 300-400 BRL is cause for splitting hairs over a difference of 6fps. The 280x toxic outperforms the GTX 770 by a good margin (18% on extreme) in R2TW, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over that purchase decision.

[Biggus Splenus]

Have you had a look at the new GTX 970? How much does it cost in your country compared to a 770 or 280X?

[alQamar]

Hi guys,

I am still refusing to buy a 970 because the coil noises some models have. Most of all the EVGA models are suffering. my GTX 670 does this too but it seems to be much more annoying on the 970. To bad. Likely because the problems EVGA is promoting their "900er series flagships" with a free 5 year warranty upgrade and a free aluminium backplate. That's a saving of a reasonable amount of money. But not if as long they did not release a new revision without the coil noises.

[SPARTAN VI]

I saw a few reviews of the Zotac GTX 970 AMP! Omega and Extreme, which were touted as being very quiet. They're non-reference design with excellent cooling. Take a look here: http://youtu.be/7GbfmIuL86k

[DecayWolf]

Have you had a look at the new GTX 970? How much does it cost in your country compared to a 770 or 280X?

About 1.700, but my next purchase would be on amazon, almost half the price after converted.

I'm really thinking about sell/trade my 280x
But I'll need to purchase a new CPU as well, still not sure about the i7 4790k or i5 4690k, the difference of prices are significant. Don't know if the hypertreading would worth the investment or not.
Anyways, I'll spend 4k on this Black Friday.
By the way, what you guys think about nzxt x61 krakken?

[alQamar]

I saw a few reviews of the Zotac GTX 970 AMP! Omega and Extreme, which were touted as being very quiet. They're non-reference design with excellent cooling. Take a look here: http://youtu.be/7GbfmIuL86k

They are all quiet Spartan, because the TDP is lower even lower than my 670, which is also quiet with a stock cooling. The noises I talk about is not about the fans / cooling but originated from the use of low quality parts (coils).

[SPARTAN VI]

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[Iain81]

I am looking for a new desktop and can't decide which of these two would be best for Rome Total War 2 any help would be appreciated.

AMD FX 8350 Black Edition 8 Core Processor 4.00GHz Piledriver Socket AM3+ with TURBO CLOCK @ 4.2GHz
1TB Hard Drive, 8GB DDR3 RAM
Corsair Carbide SPEC-03 Red Led Mid Tower Gaming Case
AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB Graphics Card
pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OS

- Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz
- 8GB RAM + 2TB HDD
- DVD Writer
- Nvidia GTX 760
- Windows 8.1 64bit

[Biggus Splenus]

The 2nd one, definitely. AMD CPUs run fairly poorly on Total War compared to Intel CPUs. For the graphics card you can go either way, Nvidia and AMD perform about the same in this price bracket, but here's a link to the benchmarks if you want to see the exact benefits in each game http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1043?vs=1038