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

[paularsen]

Should be ok run the free tool gpu-z the 5700 is not a type of GPU but the series to estimate how it runs I need the model and your psu brand and wattage plz EDIT your posting not make a new to keep this thread compact.

GPU Z also identifies the card as Radeon HD 5700 Series.

[Shadow the Barbarian]

Any further recommendations with this build? Its the same as the "Great tier" but with a 500Gb HDD instead of 1Tb. I realized that doesn't save a whole lot of cash, but I doubt I'll ever come close to filling up even the 500Gb Drive, let alone a TB. And If I really do need more space at some point, I could add in another drive with the space available in this case.

Planning to run Windows 8 64bit as the OS, would this make one of the two GPUs a clearly better option? I'm still deciding between the two.

RAM: A friend who is giving me recommendations is really pressing for 6-8GB or RAM, is that really going to be necessary? Again does the OS affect this? With this build would going passed 4Gb of RAM change the necessary power supply, case, etc? Should I decided more is needed down the line if I go with 4GB, RAM is one of the easier components to upgrade / change out correct?

* This PC won't be just for Rome, but other games as well (Diablo 3, World of tanks, War Thunder, and Civilization 5) However Rome should be the most demanding game on the system.
CPU - i5 4670 - $220
GPU - HD 7870 - $220 or GTX 660 - $210
HSF - Hyper 212 Evo - $38
Mobo - ASUS H87-Pro - $120
RAM - Corsair 4GB - $45
SSD - SanDisk Ultra Plus 128GB - $110
HDD- WD Black 500Gb - $75
PSU - Seasonic S12II 520W - $85
Case - Corsair 400R - $110

---

Also, any recommendations on a disc drive to go with this set up / case?

[Shadow the Barbarian]

Going with the ASUS GTX 660, the cards cost basically the same and the ASUS is slightly better reviewed, and I feel a little safer with it being that it is the same brand as the motherboard I'll be purchasing.

Another question...is there an edit button anywhere on these forums, I would have liked to just add this to my previous post but I can't for the life of me find an "edit post" button

[alQamar]

Any further recommendations with this build? Its the same as the "Great tier" but with a 500Gb HDD instead of 1Tb. I realized that doesn't save a whole lot of cash, but I doubt I'll ever come close to filling up even the 500Gb Drive, let alone a TB. And If I really do need more space at some point, I could add in another drive with the space available in this case.

Planning to run Windows 8 64bit as the OS, would this make one of the two GPUs a clearly better option? I'm still deciding between the two.

RAM: A friend who is giving me recommendations is really pressing for 6-8GB or RAM, is that really going to be necessary? Again does the OS affect this? With this build would going passed 4Gb of RAM change the necessary power supply, case, etc? Should I decided more is needed down the line if I go with 4GB, RAM is one of the easier components to upgrade / change out correct?

* This PC won't be just for Rome, but other games as well (Diablo 3, World of tanks, War Thunder, and Civilization 5) However Rome should be the most demanding game on the system.
CPU - i5 4670 - $220
GPU - HD 7870 - $220 or GTX 660 - $210
HSF - Hyper 212 Evo - $38
Mobo - ASUS H87-Pro - $120
RAM - Corsair 4GB - $45
SSD - SanDisk Ultra Plus 128GB - $110
HDD- WD Black 500Gb - $75
PSU - Seasonic S12II 520W - $85
Case - Corsair 400R - $110

---

Also, any recommendations on a disc drive to go with this set up / case?

Your posting: 6 GB is nonsense as you will not get dual channel for all rams but only 4 of 6 GB while 2 GB is running in single channel (-50% % performance for that 2GB). With that board you should use only paired Ram 2 or 4 modules.
I would suggest the amd card for price /performance unless you cannot afford a 760 please check pricing. Most games cannot benefit from v8 GB RAM yet but Windows 8 does but the difference will only slightly affect the loading times not your fps.

@mods: I decided not to merge her here because the long quotations

[Raikou]

So my uncle needs an extension to a psu to run to his GPU but not sure exactly what he means by it. He has a dell and he said its so compact in the case its hard to add anything to it to run to the gpu. Is there such a thing as extensions to buy to run from the psu to the gpu?

[niko from Australia]

Just built my new pc.

Its a 4570k, msi g45 gaming mobo. Hyper 212 evo. 850w coolermaster silent pro modular power supply. 256gb Samsung pro ssd. 1tb black cavier hd. Gigabyte 770 4gb. All in a cm storm stryker running windows 8. Also picked up corsair k70 keyboard, a razer 2013 mouse and a benq xl2420t monitor.

And im very happy.

[Biggus Splenus]

The problem stated above will not be solved by the new AMD or Nvidia series. If they would have done gpu supported battle engine (so gpu assists cpu in some calculations aka cuda and sorts) this damn limit would be vanished and we finally would get a remarkable performance advance with new gpus.

That would be great!

The problem is that Nvidia has CUDA, AMD has OpenCL. I don't think it is even possible for an application to utilize both, it's either one, the other, or none. If game developers did do it though, you're right, the improvement would be gigantic.

I think Adobe is going to utilize OpenCL for their next suite, so anyone who uses any of their programs regularly/professionally, definitely consider an AMD card.

[SamueleD]

Hey,

Just wondering whether overclocking an i7 2600k really gains that much of an fps boost compared to upgrading the gpu?

For example, based on my experience with Shogun 2...I have to cut back on many ultra settings and the unit size to maintain a smooth experience, but even then my fps goes into the teens when approx 4000 men are in melee. I know TW games are CPU intensive games but I've never really looked into overclocking before and I'm a bit nervous of causing more harm than good lol... I mean as an estimate, how many fps could I look to gain by OCing the processor?

my current rig is below:

i7 2600k not OC
8gb ram
GTX 560 OC edition

i've just ordered a new GTX 770 (EVGA SC ACX) which is mainly in preparation for Rome 2, so I'm hoping this will get me decent fps including when melee occurs/zooming in etc.

any advice would be appreciated

In TW the graphics card allows you to increase the quality of the image, the CPU, on the other hand, is what determines how many soldiers you can have on the battlefield without lag, and your fps in melee blobs (there is a reason why the Shogun 2 CPU benchmark is a big melee fight).
Upgrading to the 770 will allow you to get better quality and effects for the same fps, but it won't help in reducing the lag when you close up on a big melee fight, for that you need improved CPU power, which you can get either by picking a new CPU or overclocking, in your case overclocking is the best choice.
The increase in fps by OC can go from moderate to substantial, depending on how much you OC and how low your fps were. If you already score 30 fps in the CPU bench, getting to 40 won't be that noticeable, but if you score 15, getting to 25 will be a lot more noticeable.
Your CPU should have pretty big room for overclocking, so I think that you will see a nice improvement, even if I can't quantify it.

Now, on the more practical side: overclocking is a potentially risky thing, but only if you get int the bios set vcore to 4V and don't expect your CPU to explode, even if you are a oc noob, if you do your homework and follow the golden rule of "don't touch anything unless you know that it does", you won't get into trouble, the worst that can happen is that you don't oc as much as it would be possible because you don't know the finer tweaks.
So, whether you are an expert or a noob, the first thing to do when you want to overclock your CPU is to inform yourself, this is the page of your CPU http://ark.intel.com/products/52214 on the Intel database, it gives you an idea of its features and usually tells you what's the max temperature at which your CPU should run, then you need to google or look on overclocking sites and look for a guide on overclocking your CPU family (possibly with a motherboard of your own brand, but not necessarily), http://www.overclock.net/ is a good place to start, it can give you an idea of what you can expect to OC to and at what voltage.
Much also depends on what you are using to cool down your CPU: the stock cooler won't allow for much OC, an aftermarket air cooler will provide good results, a liquid cooler will provide the best results, usually the best thing for price/performance is an aftermarket air cooler.

After you have applied the OC there are some tweaks you should apply to the preference file of Shogun 2, that might also work on Rome II: since you CPU is a quad-core with Hyper-Threading, to avoid performance losses you should set this setting:
number_of_threads 0; # number_of_threads <int>, Set the number of threads <= 0 - automatic, >0 = explicit number #

to either:
number_of_threads 8; # number_of_threads <int>, Set the number of threads <= 0 - automatic, >0 = explicit number #

or:
number_of_threads 16; # number_of_threads <int>, Set the number of threads <= 0 - automatic, >0 = explicit number #

[RDH376]

@SamueleD

Thankyou for the very helpful advice


Think I'll do some research and give overclocking a go. Hope the GTX 770 doesn't disappoint as well, most I've spent on a graphics card

@alQamar

Also thanks to you for the highly informative post

[Totalheadache]

tbh still not sure whether running hyper-threading off/on is going to make a big difference, if any. well for my cpu (corei7920) or whether changing that preferences file works.

i'll do some tests when Rome2 is out to back it up...

p.s good info there on ocing samuel. and what i do know re hyper-threading is some peeps over @guru found it better to overclock with it off. i have always kept it on.

[Neige]

AFAIK hyper-threading is useless for gaming.

[SamueleD]

@Totalheadache
Yeah, I think that if you have paid for a CPU with HT there is no point in disabling it.
From alQamar test it seems that, in a quad core, HT lowers the performance a bit in Shogun 2, but that can be avoided by setting the thread limit in the preference file to either 8 or 16. In a dual core with HT, on the other hand setting the same setting to 4 or 8 (4 was the best in my case), gives big performance boosts over default, from 10% to 20%.

@Neige Noire
It depends, on a quad core it's useless for gaming, and that's why there is no build with an i7 in the OP, but on a dual core HT is very useful, and that's where i3 comes in.

[alQamar]

That's either wrong hyperthreading is not useless at all it depends on the game civ 5 uses it very well for example

[SamueleD]

That's either wrong hyperthreading is not useless at all it depends on the game civ 5 uses it very well for example

Yeah and I've heard that also the latest Battlefield can use more than four.
Right now the list of games that can make use of more than 4 threads/cores isn't long and TW is not on it, but it will probably expand in the future.
If you plan on playing games that can use more than 4 threads, then an i7 or an AMD 8 core might not be such a bad idea.

[Raikou]

So school is starting very soon (less than a month) and I need to make a decision on a new laptop that will be able to run Rome 2. I know i've been asking in here already but wanted to double check as I wasnt really given a concrete answer on if the GPU will handle Rome 2 fine


I'd like to play ultra unit sizes with medium-high details

the GPU's to choose from are:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M with 2GB DDR5

Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M with 3GB DDR5

Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB DDR5

Now if possible I'd like to stick with the 765M but I'm under the impression from previous posts it won't be able to handle ultra unit sizes (40vs40 armies) on medium-high settings so if that's the case could either of the other 2 ?

[alQamar]

Hi Raikou the 780M is the same chip as a GTX 770 but slower, comparable to a 660Ti. The 780M would be able to handle all settings enabled at ultra settings and 1080p.
The number of units is more limited by the CPU and as we have even a huge bottleneck on a high end 4770k with about 4,2 GHz you cannot expect a laptop to run it. The GPU limits your graphic abilities and the CPU your number of units and how fluent a battle would be. see posting #1601 and #1605.

I think a 765M would allow you medium-high settings easily.

[Raikou]

Hi Raikou the 780M is the same chip as a GTX 770 but slower, comparable to a 660Ti. The 780M would be able to handle all settings enabled at ultra settings and 1080p.
The number of units is more limited by the CPU and as we have even a huge bottleneck on a high end 4770k with about 4,2 GHz you cannot expect a laptop to run it. The GPU limits your graphic abilities and the CPU your number of units and how fluent a battle would be. see posting #1601 and #1605.

I think a 765M would allow you medium-high settings easily.

That's just sad then I can hardly believe an i7-4770k would lag with a 40vs40 battle

they all come with
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz)

[TinyB555]

Hi guys,

I'm pretty sure my laptop isn't going to be able to run Rome II but just thought I'd check:

Processor: AMD A6-3410MX APU 1.6Ghz
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6940M
Ram: 6GB

Using Windows 7.

Here's hoping!

[alQamar]

That's just sad then I can hardly believe an i7-4770k would lag with a 40vs40 battle

they all come with
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz)

It does believe me.

Hi guys,

I'm pretty sure my laptop isn't going to be able to run Rome II but just thought I'd check:

Processor: AMD A6-3410MX APU 1.6Ghz
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6940M
Ram: 6GB

Using Windows 7.

Here's hoping!

That will be a hard task think of minimum settings and normal unit size.

Hi Guys,

Been following this thread for a few weeks now, planning a new PC build for Rome 2.
Just wondering what my performance would be like with the following components:

MSI z87-45 Motherboard

Intel i5-4670k (overclocked to 4.3ghz)

MSI Twin Frozr GTX 770 (oc.d to 1220)

Just wondering if its worth just getting the 770 or waiting for a 780. I'm just gaming in 1080p but would like to have everything turned up. And also, do you think 60fps in RTS is necessary??

No it is not vital in any game unless you are pro gamer and earn money gaming.
The 770 is fairly enough for one screen @1080p

[TinyB555]

Hi guys,

I'm pretty sure my laptop isn't going to be able to run Rome II but just thought I'd check:

Processor: AMD A6-3410MX APU 1.6Ghz
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6940M
Ram: 6GB

Using Windows 7.

Here's hoping!

Posted this the other day and AlQumar said that it would be a hard task of minimum settings and normal unit size. I really want to play Rome 2 and so am tempted to get it anyway but not sure if it will actually work, what do people think?