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

[SamueleD]

I'd say you got bad luck at the silicon lottery alQ, it happens. But if you could achieve a 4.4-4.5 OC with haswell (and it has been done) it would be as fast as ~4.9GHz Ivy Brigde (since it's +10% faster at the same clock). Can you OC an Ivy @5GHz?

[alQamar]

Hi Sam, your last question is quite irrelevant for the main problem. I browsed through a half dozend tech pages and all are content about the bad OC abilities of Haswell compared to Ivy and Sandy Bridge. So this is a global problem and not a silicon lottery as we once joked.

Intel made a bad job so far, at least partly, they might release an updated stepping to solve this issues, but that won't help any of those who bought Haswell already. I would like not to say it is not ANY worth to go for Haswell, as you can see in the benchmark. We have +12 % performance with lower clocking, lower TPD and finally we have the new AVX2 feature aswell. The prices for the old CPUs are not reasonable and splenyi is of course right it will be just a matter of time till Ivy and Sandy will disappear from the retailers.

Even I said this

We should not go with this hype and lean back to something that works better > Ivy Bridge.

I will not end up here with, "don't go for Haswell, pick Ivy" as I am a gentleman that agreed with splenyi it is no sense in the end to do so You can count on my word, but Haswell leaves me with a sweet bitter taste if I may say so. We can just hope for 2014 and their new "tock" generation and DDR4

4.4-4.5 OC with haswell (and it has been done)

With what measures and what coolers?

it would be as fast as ~4.9GHz Ivy Brigde (since it's +10% faster at the same clock)

Thats true.

By the way, alQamar, how are the temperatures?

No way to compare it, even I would be very curious about it. The machines do not have same coolers and are not in the same room, sorry.

[SamueleD]

Yes, sweet bitter indeed, the lower quality thermal paste inside the CPU was a damned ugly thing to do. There are brave people who removed the CPU lid and applied a better thermal paste, but I would never dare to do that...

[alQamar]

second that, I said that earlier comparing the risk to the open cores with AMD Athlon CPUs and Intel Pentium 3. That was a horrible design.
Do you know if those people where surgeons or watch makers? Would be interesting to know

I have finally finished my investigations as proposed splenyi. I need to report the broken page and they fixed it thankfully. I can give you now more and exact information about the performance of mobile GPUs compared to desktop GPUs
So again somehow I must have been on a bad rail some days ago: my quotations that a 780M is not equivalent to a 660 as stated in your OP are wrong *thankfully* otherwise it would be a real shame for the price.

It is like shown below and I am very sure on this now
ATTENTION: I am comparing NVIDIA reference data now, the difference in real life is much higher as the vendor do OC so much that the base clock of a 770 is nearly that high as the turbo clock was intended by Nvidia so infact the usual sold GTX 770 are about +8% faster than the reference design.

here are the plain figures
770 GTX (Desktop) / 780M (Laptop)
1536 1536 cores (+/- 0%)
144,6 105,3 GTexel/s (- 37%)
36,1 26,3 GPixel/s (- 37%)
224,3 160,0 memory throughput (- 40%)

conclusion:
The impact on the memory throughput is especially critical as this slows down way more on texture intensive game like TW than perhaps Civilisation V.
a GTX 780m (mobile) is technically the same core as a GTX 770 has got. Due to the limited power design and cooling in a laptop it is still slower than a GTX 770 and that much it is quite as fast as a 660Ti would be, so your OP is completely correct and can even be changed as you assumed a GTX 660 to be the reference. In fact the 780M, in particular for a laptop, is a very powerful card, as even a 660Ti would be able to run Shogun 2 and respective Rome 2 on ultra settings on a 1080p resolution. I think you might even crack the 60 fps limit on both when using the benefits of FXAA filtering.

[TribuneSPQR]

Hi again, even though my pc will play rome 2 real good, i am concerned on optimization, cus every total war game no matter what lags on massive battles, and am wondering o u think rome 2 will be the same, cus when u look the gameplay the battles are much smaller than the screens. so what i am asking, do u think they have solved the issue with this game?

[alQamar]

We know the answer: no they have not as this cannot been done easily.
They need a reworked engine of warscape not an optimized one.
Read the multicore utilisation thread.

[TribuneSPQR]

We know the answer: no they have not as this cannot been done easily.
They need a reworked engine of warscape not an optimized one.
Read the multicore utilisation thread.

ok thanks, so does this mean were stuck with large battles with unplayable lag no matter what, cus they have advertised rome 2 with having larger scale battles?

[SamueleD]

ok thanks, so does this mean were stuck with large battles with unplayable lag no matter what, cus they have advertised rome 2 with having larger scale battles?

No, it means that we'll get larger lag-less battles, probably, but, as always, there will always be a point after which any CPU will lag.
So I'd expect something a bit larger than previous games, but nothing revolutionary, they need a new engine for that.

[TribuneSPQR]

No, it means that we'll get larger lag-less battles, probably, but, as always, there will always be a point after which any CPU will lag.
So I'd expect something a bit larger than previous games, but nothing revolutionary, they need a new engine for that.

Cool, yeah they will need to do a total re work on the engine to fix the cpu core issue.

[alQamar]

ok thanks, so does this mean were stuck with large battles with unplayable lag no matter what, cus they have advertised rome 2 with having larger scale battles?

To be honest Rome 2 is still a pig in a poke. That's exactly why I refuse to order it. They just revealed we will not have more than 20 units per stack and this was my hope they need to improve it. But they didn't. "Larger scale battles" now cropped to the fact can control 2 full stack armies, which is still a step forward. I think of reinforcements in particular so they did not lie, however they don't reveal facts and comparisons about performance in Rome 2 (yet)

[Sebt1890]

Does the kind of Thermal Paste I use make a difference?

I used the one that I got with my Phanteks. Would it help more if I bought an aftermarket one?

[alQamar]

The thermal grease and its quality may be most likely compared with tires. Same as them it ensures the contact. Also a correct apply of the grease is important to let the cooler effectively working. I camnot answer your questions, as I cannot estimate your grease quality. That's why I use coolers with good grease applied already. Silver oxide is a good base for a good grease. That's why some aftermarket greases are quite expensive. I don't have a comparison at hand but arctic silver V is a good one. Once I bought va bigger tube to reapply it on my play station 3 gpu and cpu and also on my graphics card gpu. It helped lots but you loose warranty of course so this is only a step to choose for old hardware outside warranty or of less value.
Edit:
Here is an old comparison but also modern cpus have tdp around 90 watts
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...eleitpasten/4/

[Micon]

Guys, what do you think about this psu? Cooler master silent pro gold 550 psu. I have read that it is haswell certified, but is it any good?

[alQamar]

Get a corsair or seasonic instead they have a better quality. Refer OP please. Hope the pricing is ok for you

[Micon]

Here in Norway we are fairly limited on Seasonic Psu`s bellow the 600watt range. The one suggested for the enthusiast build is not available. Any good haswell compatible replacements? My build is based on the enthusiast build in the op.

[alQamar]

Please state your current rig and psu so I can advise you properly.

[Biggus Splenus]

@ Micon - that psu is made by enchanced electronics, which are good, and that series of PSUs has also been very well reviewed

[Micon]

case: Nanoxia deep silence 1 silver.
PSU: ?
Motherboard: ASuS Z87-A 1150 ATX
CPU: Intel core I5 4670K 3.4GHZ 6MB S-1150
RAM: Corsair 8gb ddr3 vengeance lp pc3-12800 1600mhz cl9 (2x4gb)
HDD: WD Black 3.5" 1tb 7200rpm Sata/600 64Mb
SSD: Samsung 840 series 120gb.
Optical drive: Asus drw-24f1st DVD R/RW/ Ram DL 24x Sata black - Bulk
GPU: Gigabyte Geforce GTX 760 OC V2 2gb. (good reviews on Newegg)
Pci-E adapter: D-link DWA-566 802.11A/B/G/N Dual band wlan Pci-e. (Anything better on the market that fit?) Is a powerline a better option?
HSF: Hyper 212 Evo.
What do you think? Is everything compatible?
EDIT: forgot SSD.
What is this thing? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106033

[alQamar]

looks perfect ^^
with some minor changes I suggest:
- You don't need the intel network adapter as a Realtek or Intel networking with 1Gbit speed is already on board.
- There should be an ASUS Z87 board with WiFI onboard, otherwise a stick would also fit (AVM WLAN Stick N)
- I would not take the 128 GB Samsung drive. The Samsung 840 120 GB is much slower than other drives of that size and slower than a Samsung 840 pro with 128 GB or 256 GB. Take a OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB instead which has same warranty time as Samsung (5y) but is much faster.

- GPU... often said but a personal choice. Just bought someone an EVGA 760 SC with a stock cooler as they are fairly good enough and the base clock is already higher than designed turbo... cost about 238 €, sold out at EVGA currently at an amazing price of 209 €. Warranty upgrades available as usual.

http://www.evga.de/products/moreInfo...0Family&uc=EUR
http://www.evga.de/support/warranty/extended.asp

I am convinced meawhile the plus performace is not worth the plus in price for the custom cooler, as I have also tested a 770 SC yesterday. But that's just my 2 cents.

[Micon]

Aye, rolling without power supply is a good idea . I am worried about the inconsisty of wireless internet. I am considering a Powerline, is it a good idea? And did you mean that the 120, or the 128 pro was bad?