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

[SamueleD]

Hell of a system you got there. What all are you using it for?

If its just for gaming you've got some overkill components that wont be particularly useful but all and all its a great looking setup. Only recommendation would be to get a HDD.

You sure the 760 is gonna be enough for this?:

• To this I intend to order three 1920 x 1200 Desktops.

I mean, it's three monitors!

[baptistus]

To this I intend to order three 1920 x 1200 Desktops.

Rome 2 doesn't support multi monitors. But maybe you would like to play other games in multi monitors.

[Narf]

Thanks all. Would you say the same if Money is no problem?

[SamueleD]

Thanks all. Would you say the same if Money is no problem?

Yes, because wasting money is always bad
Anyway, I didn't understand the last point very well: do you intend to buy three computers like that one or do you intend to play on three 1920x1200 monitors?
And what do you intend to use this computer for, only gaming or also things like video/image editing, if I may ask?

[Epic28]

Ok for a 3 monitor display at 5760x1080 I think having more than 2GB will be standard to keep your performance up. And the 760 4GB is basically a waste of money as there is little benefit for a 4GB GK104 card over a 2GB GPU because of the bandwidth limits.

Instead of the 760 look for prices on the Radeon 7970 GHz Edition 3GB.

Best bet (not cheap), 770 4GB.

[Mimoxx]

Should i wait for the new i3 hASWELL I3 CPU? i think the best will be the Core i3-4340 3.6GHz, how much will cost ? how it will perform in r2 comparing with i5-4670 ? how many fps difference? can it be overclock? Core i3-4340 3.6GHz V core i5-4670 = ??????

[SamueleD]

Should i wait for the new i3 hASWELL I3 CPU? i think the best will be the Core i3-4340 3.6GHz, how much will cost ? how it will perform in r2 comparing with i5-4670 ? how many fps difference? can it be overclock? Core i3-4340 3.6GHz V core i5-4670 = ??????

If you can wait and you intend to go for an i3, waiting for Haswell i3 might be a good bet, since they will be faster than Ivy Bridge i3 and non of them can be overclocked.
I do not know how much they will cost nor how much the difference in fps will be. They will probably cost a bit more than their Ivy Bridge counterparts and will deliver playable fps for Rome II, even though I can't give numbers, and they won't be overclockable unfortunately.

[Mimoxx]

Yes price wise , since R2 seems to only use 2 core efficiently , i5 will be a waste!! My bet will let game out 1st than check how r2 uses the cpu

[SamueleD]

Yes price wise , since R2 seems to only use 2 core efficiently , i5 will be a waste!! My bet will let game out 1st than check how r2 uses the cpu

It actually uses up to 4 threads. An i5 with its 4 cores is what you need to get the best performance possible, but an i3 with its 2 cores/4 threads can still be an excellent choice for price/performance and will still perform pretty well.
Note: I'm talking about desktop CPUs

[alQamar]

It actually uses up to 4 threads. An i5 with its 4 cores is what you need to get the best performance possible, but an i3 with its 2 cores/4 threads can still be an excellent choice for price/performance and will still perform pretty well.
Note: I'm talking about desktop CPUs

It uses 16 threads when you have 4 cpu cores. Not 4 threads SamueleD

First post here because I have a particular question about my hardware and Rome 2. I build a new PC for Rome 2 and I was wondering if overclocking my CPU would be worth the effort. How much of a performance increase would be achievable with this configuration? I believe that my GPU is not the limiting factor here since it's quite high-end. So would an CPU-overclock do much for the performance of Rome 2?

CPU: i5-4670K
GPU: MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB
Mobo: GA-Z87X-UD3H
PSU: Hyper 212 EVO
Memory: Corsair D3 8GB 1600 Vengeance

It scales linear means if you can OC 15% you will have 15% more fps in melee close ups

[SamueleD]

It uses 16 threads when you have 4 cpu cores. Not 4 threads SamueleD

I meant CPU threads (physical or logical), not the ones you set in the pref file

It always gets a bit confusing

[Jedi]

I meant CPU threads (physical or logical), not the ones you set in the pref file

It always gets a bit confusing

Hmm yes and Qamar confuses me on this.How can the game use 16 threads when 1 core = 1 thread? The extra threading is just what Hyperthreading does it turns a 4c cpu into an 8 thread cpu by creating 4 more threads so i5 = 4 threads i7 = 8 threads and the six core i7 would be 12 threads.


So how can bumping up threads even make a difference? Surely it is pointless to go above 4 threads on an i5 cpu.And everyone keeps saying the game uses 4 cores as well.It uses four yes but is it not 2 heavy loaded cores and two cores at 20%? Thats partially in between two and four cores.Compared to a native four core engine which will load all four cores equally.Example is Chivalry on my 3570k i get all my cores at 65% while gaming.I consider this multicore optimization.If my CPU was not such a beast it might actually be 99% load on all four cores.Its just it only needs 65% of my cores to support 32 players.


If i move to frostbite 2.0 upwards and the incoming games from Ubisoft and BF4,Mass Effect 4 i can expect scaling right up to 6 or 8 cores.Infact BF3 benchmarks clearly show that when you have more than four cores like a six core 3930k having too many threads going (12) was actually worse for the cpu's performance and made it close to a 4770k.Once you disable hyperthreading the load starts to scale better on the natural amount of real cores and fps jumps by maybe twenty percent.


http://chipreviews.com/main-feature/...battlefield-3/

[alQamar]

Yep you are right of course.

[alQamar]

I explained you in the benchmark thread already We have threads on the CPU (logical > hyperthreading) and physical (amount of cores) but Total War has "internal" threads in the Warscape engine.
Splenyi made a small mistake saying TW

It actually uses up to 4 threads

in case of the Total War engine, as it could even handle 32 threads on a 6core CPU with HT and 16 on a 4 core CPU with HT.

He intended to use this word "4 threads" for physical CPU cores. That is confusive. That's why I do not speak about threads often when it comes to CPUs.

No matter you like it or not: TW Warscape will be 21% more performant on an i5 than on a technically same dual core CPU.

Even we do not have the best optimisation for quad core CPUs saying the game is not made for quad core (multicore) means you likely drop 21% performance for this statement because Rome 2 or Shogun 2 does not make your 4 cores busy enough. Make your own conclusions now mate


In programming logic a "thread" is nothing less or more than an additional task within a single process. That's why it is so important to adjust it in Shogun 2 and gains performance. As the automatic solution do not work.

And that is the reason why we should avoid to say "threads" when speaking about CPUs. Refer my task manager to know how many threads (different tasks of a program) and processes (different programs) are running. This is the correct meaning of "threads".

[SamueleD]

I explained you in the benchmark thread already We have threads on the CPU (logical > hyperthreading) and physical (amount of cores) but Total War has "internal" threads in the Warscape engine.
Splenyi made a small mistake saying TW in case of the Total War engine, as it could even handle 32 threads on a 6core CPU with HT and 16 on a 4 core CPU with HT.

He intended to use this word "4 threads" for physical CPU cores. That is confusive. That's why I do not speak about threads often when it comes to CPUs.

No matter you like it or not: TW Warscape will be 21% more performant on an i5 than on a technically same dual core CPU.

Even we do not have the best optimisation for quad core CPUs saying the game is not made for quad core (multicore) means you likely drop 21% performance for this statement because Rome 2 or Shogun 2 does not make your 4 cores busy enough. Make your own conclusions now mate


In programming logic a "thread" is nothing less or more than an additional task within a single process. That's why it is so important to adjust it in Shogun 2 and gains performance. As the automatic solution do not work.

And that is the reason why we should avoid to say "threads" when speaking about CPUs. Refer my task manager to know how many threads (different tasks of a program) and processes (different programs) are running. This is the correct meaning of "threads".

Yes, you are perfectly right alQ. But I have to say this, it's a bit Intel's fault for this confusion: they have a technology that makes each physical core behave as two virtual/logical cores and call it Hyperthreading even though it has little to do with actual programming threads, and on their CPU database they explain a CPU with HT by saying it has, for example, 2 cores and 4 threads or 4 cores and 8 threads, and so on, and that is why I always end up saying threads when what I actually mean is virtual/logical cores, which is they way they are called in the Task Manager, for example.

So from here on I'll say a CPU with HT has X physical cores that work as 2X virtual/logical ones, so we can avoid all this confusion.

Oh, and by checking my CPU-Z report I've found that logical cores 0 and 1 are both on physical core 0, and logical cores 2 and 3 are both on physical core 1, etc., when HT is enabled, which would explain the bad performance if, in a HT CPU with 4 physical cores, TW just starts loading (logical) core 0, then 1, then 2, then 3, because it would actually end up using 2 physical cores instead of 4! Luckily your settings tweak seems to solve this in some way.
I think they might have done it for how the Turbo works: the Turbo speed applies to the physical cores only, so if you use only one physical core the CPU uses the highest Turbo value, with two physical cores it uses a little less, etc. so by using the least possible number of physical cores they make the CPU use the highest Turbo values. Which is utterly stupid, because using two actually physical cores at 2.3GHz instead of two logical cores on the same physical core at 2.4GHz, is probably faster.

I thought it was a bit of a slow clock speed but it is a very good cpu as far as I can tell, but I don't want to ruin it by over clocking it (its 4 years old). I suppose i can a bit though because my system is liquid cooled, and never gets over 25 degrees C even during a stress test.

then you have nothing to be afraid of, you have sooooo much thermal headroom, just look up your CPU maximum safe temperatures and stay within them. You could easily reach 4GHz without even coming close to overheating it, if the CPU takes that speed!
And yes, the CPU, no matter how powerful, always ends up bottlenecking the GPU in TW, unless your GPU is veeery crappy and extremely old, but yours, even if a bit old, is still decent, as you can tell from your fps, and it's also within the game recommended specs (even though they are pretty vague).

[General George S. Patton]

I was wondering if it would be worth upgrading my GPU for Rome 2 and games in general.

Current system
Intel core i7 (quad core) 920 2.67ghz
18gb ram (16 usable)
64bit Windows 7
vertex 4 ssd
Nvidia 560 gpu
No idea what the M/O and MIO board are, but they are alienware


Thanks in advance

[Jedi]

I was wondering if it would be worth upgrading my GPU for Rome 2 and games in general.

Current system
Intel core i7 (quad core) 920 2.67ghz
18gb ram (16 usable)
64bit Windows 7
vertex 4 ssd
Nvidia 560 gpu
No idea what the M/O and MIO board are, but they are alienware


Thanks in advance

CPU is good, i7 920 is still powerful but needs to be overclocked to 4GHZ.Your painfully low clock speed will bottleneck most new graphics cards.Either overclock or invest in a Haswell based strong single threaded 4 core cpu like the i7 4770k or i5 4670k.Ram is good lots of ram to disable page fille and cut down on SSD writes and access times, Your SSD is good but your GPU is weak.


And as that PC is alienware god knows how weak the PSU is on that computer.I generally frown upon Alienware and prefer someone to build themselves or from a retailer who uses strong PSU's and overclocked CPU's for futureproofing.The motherboard is also key for overclocking on older intel cpus and again alienware will have used the cheapest for most profit.Check the PSU,see if you can put on a new cpu cooler and overclock.



If it works, fine upgrade to a 770 if the PSU allows, if not your going to have to buy a new computer im afraid.That is if you want to play on high/ultra i still think your good for medium or at worst low settings.You can get a good price on a overclocked haswell system with a gtx 770 and 8gb of fast ram.£900 should cover it as the 750w quality psu's and motherboards and 2400mhz ddr kits are all around £150 each which is pretty good value.

[General George S. Patton]

CPU is good, i7 920 is still powerful but needs to be overclocked to 4GHZ.Your painfully low clock speed will bottleneck most new graphics cards.Either overclock or invest in a Haswell based strong single threaded 4 core cpu like the i7 4770k or i5 4670k.Ram is good lots of ram to disable page fille and cut down on SSD writes and access times, Your SSD is good but your GPU is weak.


And as that PC is alienware god knows how weak the PSU is on that computer.I generally frown upon Alienware and prefer someone to build themselves or from a retailer who uses strong PSU's and overclocked CPU's for futureproofing.The motherboard is also key for overclocking on older intel cpus and again alienware will have used the cheapest for most profit.Check the PSU,see if you can put on a new cpu cooler and overclock.



If it works, fine upgrade to a 770 if the PSU allows, if not your going to have to buy a new computer im afraid.That is if you want to play on high/ultra i still think your good for medium or at worst low settings.You can get a good price on a overclocked haswell system with a gtx 770 and 8gb of fast ram.£900 should cover it as the 750w quality psu's and motherboards and 2400mhz ddr kits are all around £150 each which is pretty good value.

Thanks for the reply, I would like to build my own computer and have the money for it, but I start college Sept 3rd (ya i know it sucks right?) and I feel the money would be better spend else ware. When I bought the alienware I didn't know to much about computers.

As for its current performance, I can play any warscape total war game ultra, with about half the aa and stuff, but with non of the things checked, and shogun 2 gives me about 50-80fps until the battlefield fills with smoke then it drops to 20-30. I can play bf3 mostly all ultra, and same with warband. (i can hardly play rome thought, mostly i suspect because of my low cpu clock rate

I thought it was a bit of a slow clock speed but it is a very good cpu as far as I can tell, but I don't want to ruin it by over clocking it (its 4 years old). I suppose i can a bit though because my system is liquid cooled, and never gets over 25 degrees C even during a stress test.

Any way i can tell if my CPU is bottlenecking my GPU? I currently think my GPU is the bottleneck, and was thinking of getting a 770 or 780 but was wondering if the 800 series was just around the corner?


Thanks for the help

[Jedi]

Ok Qamar im still a little confused lol but you mean the following is true.Lets not talk about how many cores on cpu or how many threads anymore.Shogun II still does not use all four cores 70% this is still true fact yes or no?


And my second question is, ok the threads setting in shogun 2 is internal warscape threads i did not know this before so i can go up to 16 on my 3570k? How much performance and extra load and fps do i get from default 4 settings i used before? I have to reinstall Shogun II soon with my new computers this month.Im buying the 6 core 4930k on sept 10th hopefully!!

[Biggus Splenus]

@ Patton - BF3 is really well optimised, and warband has very dated graphics, so playing those on ultra isn't really a surprise.

You will not damage your CPU any faster if its overclocked well, but having a 920 and not overclocking it is a waste. Also, what do you use to check the CPU temps, because that reading would likely be the temp of your CPU waterblock, not the CPU itself.

A GTX 780 is totally not worth the money (speaking from experience as you know). A 770 is much better value, but still no where near as good as a 760. PS. 2 760s out perform a single 780, plus their cheaper. So you could get one 760 now, and if you fell like an upgrade, get a second.

The 800 cards will be nearly a year away, Nvidia always do yearly release cycles. AMDs 9000 cards are right around the corner though.