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

[Biggus Splenus]

I've updated the OP so you guys have some idea with what is to come. I'm open to any ideas that anyone has.

I haven't started the build lists just yet, I'm still working on that.

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

I've updated the OP so you guys have some idea with what is to come. I'm open to any ideas that anyone has.

I haven't started the build lists just yet, I'm still working on that.

I think you're doing a good job here Splenyi. Certainly helped me, and anyone that says your info is useless is a fool. I've taken your advice, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna do exactly what you've said, because I know my way around hardware too. So the rest of you can calm your farms.

[Biggus Splenus]

Almost all games are still 32 bit and therefore limited to 4GB

That is definitely the reason for a lot of games, but with others, they just don't need that much ram. Gaming is no where near the most demanding PC area, all of that excessive hardware is definitely not made for it, it's for professionals who do all the hugelly demanding 3D and 2D rendering, video editing , etc. It's for professional use, not hobby. People that have 7990, 690, Titans, high end card CFX/SLI, 16GB ram and over, Sandy Bridge E processors, ROP motherboards etc. in their gaming systems are just plane excessive and greedy, people that NEED 120fps on their penta-monitor setup with 3D mode at the highest settings on Crysis 3. It's ridiculous with the amount of money they spend, and then 2 years it would be obsolete (in their eyes, anyway), so they go spend another $1000

For god sake, buy your wife/girlfriend a present with that cash

[A Barbarian]

It's ridiculous with the amount of money they spend, and then 2 years it would be obsolete (in their eyes, anyway), so they go spend another $1000

For some people that's not really a lot of money and/or it's their main hobby where they can easily spend that kind of money, what's the problem? Don't always judge from your own perspective

Also, 16GB or more RAM can be used for a lot of stuff. Personally I use half of the 16GB as a RAM disc where I have my temp folders (fantastic speed for installations/unzipping/temporary windows stuff, automatic cleanup on reboot) and render MP4 videos on it (or record short gaming sequences in compressed form) in the background while I am gaming, so my HDDs/SSDs are less busy and the IOs don't interfere with my other stuff.

[gamerwill253]

Is this build fine? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BMva

[Biggus Splenus]

Is this build fine? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BMva

Right off the bat it seems very un-balanced.

Can you tell me exactly what you would be using this build for? Just so I have a good idea of what to optimise. And what is your budget too?

[gamerwill253]

Right off the bat it seems very un-balanced.

Can you tell me exactly what you would be using this build for? Just so I have a good idea of what to optimise. And what is your budget too?

Just all kinds of gaming for the upcoming releases of new games.

[Jedi]

For some people that's not really a lot of money and/or it's their main hobby where they can easily spend that kind of money, what's the problem? Don't always judge from your own perspective

Also, 16GB or more RAM can be used for a lot of stuff. Personally I use half of the 16GB as a RAM disc where I have my temp folders (fantastic speed for installations/unzipping/temporary windows stuff, automatic cleanup on reboot) and render MP4 videos on it (or record short gaming sequences in compressed form) in the background while I am gaming, so my HDDs/SSDs are less busy and the IOs don't interfere with my other stuff.

Ram disk is what i drool about.... No issues with Trim being chipset dependant and no need for using raid.I went with two m4's in raid and i just about get 1GB/sec bandwidth.The ram disk would probably make those speeds look pretty damm slow.The problem is overclocking with such huge amounts of ram does not play nice at all.And if your ram starts to degrade so does your storage medium so it can be a little unreliable in that situation.

It is a real pity as money aside i would take your arm and leg off to get Rome II on a ram disk and have 16GB spare.64GB of DDR3 is just unworkable on most budgets and Rome is probably going to be 30GB unzipped grr

[Chris Death]

That is definitely the reason for a lot of games, but with others, they just don't need that much ram. Gaming is no where near the most demanding PC area, all of that excessive hardware is definitely not made for it, it's for professionals who do all the hugelly demanding 3D and 2D rendering, video editing , etc. It's for professional use, not hobby. People that have 7990, 690, Titans, high end card CFX/SLI, 16GB ram and over, Sandy Bridge E processors, ROP motherboards etc. in their gaming systems are just plane excessive and greedy, people that NEED 120fps on their penta-monitor setup with 3D mode at the highest settings on Crysis 3. It's ridiculous with the amount of money they spend, and then 2 years it would be obsolete (in their eyes, anyway), so they go spend another $1000

For god sake, buy your wife/girlfriend a present with that cash

Sorry but same could be said about people who do spend money on a rig built for a specific game which has not yet been released thus not even
seen by them.

Also when you call such people greedy - don't you think it is an insult to those who just can't get into
building their own hardware together but trust in some brands or long year experience with certain
dealers.

There are even people who just don't understand that tech stuff but do also want to get a piece of the
cake.

There are people out there who do own enough money to not having to bother learning how to build a
pc on their own - calling them greedy for that is plane stupid and looks only like: "you won't do it my way? you're greedy then".

~S~ CD

[Biggus Splenus]

what's the problem? Don't always judge from your own perspective

I was only joking I'm only saying it because I can't afford that

Also, 16GB or more RAM can be used for a lot of stuff.

You're definitely right, a ram disk can be very useful, but it's not really a necessity in a budget gaming build. I personally have 16GB in 2 DIMMs, and once I happen to have some spare cash I'm going to double my Dominator Platinums to 32GB.

Ram disks are the fastest storage possible, but seem to be less reliable then SSD or HDD (apparently). You could probably only get a max of 24GB storage on one with a modern build though (32GB max on 1155 chip set; 24GB for ram disk, 8GB for general RAM), so it should only be used for specific tasks, and probably a good idea not to have it as a dedicated one, just set it up when you need it.

[A Barbarian]

Ram disks are the fastest storage possible, but seem to be less reliable then SSD or HDD (apparently).

Less reliable in which way? Regarding failure likelihood, they are probably more reliable than HDDs since they don't have any mechanical moving parts and probably also compared to SSDs since their design is already more established and tested. The only possible weakness could be the RAM driver used since that's a somewhat complex piece of software.

I'm going to double my Dominator Platinums to 32GB.

Make sure you have Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8 since Windows 7 Home Premium only supports 16GB which is pretty stupid.

[Biggus Splenus]

@Chris Death - see previous post.

[magpie]

Hi all, I hope I did not come across as to negative about building a new PC.In my previous post.
A tutorial would always be an excellent asset to forum member,s.
Maybe it could have a more general title rather than targeting a future game with unknown qualities?
Myself I am still using my old build, Although I am using an 850 W PSU. 8 Gb of DDR2 Ram an old trusty Intel dual core at 3.5 and a 2 Gb graphic,s card.plus 24 inch Dell screen.
All on an Asus board. Old fashioned I know but it keeps me going.

[Totalheadache]

Hi all, I hope I did not come across as to negative about building a new PC.In my previous post.
A tutorial would always be an excellent asset to forum member,s.
Maybe it could have a more general title rather than targeting a future game with unknown qualities?
Myself I am still using my old build, Although I am using an 850 W PSU. 8 Gb of DDR2 Ram an old trusty Intel dual core at 3.5 and a 2 Gb graphic,s card.plus 24 inch Dell screen.
All on an Asus board. Old fashioned I know but it keeps me going.

depends on the gpu as 24inch needs a fair bit of muscle for tw's (dells tend to be very nice btw).
dual core - upgrade time! although that said total wars only make use of 1-2 cores......

@splenyi if you are unsure about psu's check reviews of gpu's here...

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_categ...ideocards.html

hilbert has been reviewing cards for yrs and always includes what kind of psu you need esp if you are ocing as well. and that's one thing you should stress when building your own....ocing cpu does make a nice chunk of difference but you need a good aftermarket cooler.

again these tend to be very easy to install nowadays..

[Biggus Splenus]

Less reliable in which way?

I hear corruption is more common, but never ran into this myself.

Make sure you have Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8 since Windows 7 Home Premium only supports 16GB which is pretty stupid.

Getting Windows 8

64GB of DDR3 is just unworkable on most budgets

I wouldn't ever go with 2011 chip set, 1155 all the way!

Rome is probably going to be 30GB unzipped grr

Depends. If CA go all retarded on us and use about 30 unnecessary atlas files like in NTW, total space about 8GB after patches etc., then our dream of a Rome 2 installed on a RAM drive can be waved good bye

@ magpie - do you happen to have a budget for a brand new system? I think about $800 could beat the system you currently have. I'm not sure if your old PSU will work on a new system, can someone confirm this form me? I'm not sure.

[A Barbarian]

@totalheadache
You were mentioning a water cooler recommendation for an overclocked CPU in another thread. Which one would that be? One of the reasons I am still with air is my suspicion (because I don't have any personal experience with water yet) that the minimum noise level of water might be higher than with air since in addition to the fans (which air has as well) you always have the pump. Also the radiators usually seem to have denser fins and thus require more airflow to be effective.

@Splenyi
I think it would be good to put a warning into the 1st post with the recommended configurations that it can't be a guide about the optimal components for Rome 2 since the exact requirements and possible incompatibilities (graphics drivers, SLI/Xfire problems,...) will only be known after Rome 2 has been released. You could also mention that the Shogun 2 engine can't make good use of multiple cores but prefers strong single core performance which favors Intel CPUs (which are also more expensive than the AMD counterparts with the same amount of cores and frequency) at the moment but that this might change with Rome 2. This would also protect you from some angry people complaining that the recommended build performs poorly in Rome 2

[Biggus Splenus]

@totalheadache - I was just curious, because I've never built a PC with older and new parts.

@barbarian - I did write that about Rome 2 about the time you posted that but I will add what you said about multi-core support and the possibility of it being in Rome 2.

[Numidian Mercenary]

What about overclocking? Sounds like fun - but would it be a waste of time on a modern build?

[A Barbarian]

If you can actually use the extra power from overclocking it can be quite worthwhile. Also, with the right components and tools, overclocking can be easier than ever nowadays. But in order to get a decent (>10%) performance boost, you usually should plan ahead and get the right components for it (PSU, coolers, right Mobo chipset/Model, right CPU/GPU, ...).

[Numidian Mercenary]

@Splenyi: Nice layout on the OP

If you can actually use the extra power from overclocking it can be quite worthwhile. Also, with the right components and tools, overclocking can be easier than ever nowadays. But in order to get a decent (>10%) performance boost, you usually should plan ahead and get the right components for it (PSU, coolers, right Mobo chipset/Model, right CPU/GPU, ...).

That's cool. The technical aspects of actually doing overclocking sound interesting although I guess it's a question of whether it will make a noticeable difference running Rome 2 and other applications. Guess I won't know until I work out which specific components I'm going to buy.