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

  1. #161

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    @Totalheadache
    Using the framerate limiter in MSI Afterburner made scrolling the campaign maps of Empire, Napoleon and S2 really smooth. Try it.

  2. #162

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by A Barbarian View Post
    @Totalheadache
    Using the framerate limiter in MSI Afterburner made scrolling the campaign maps of Empire, Napoleon and S2 really smooth. Try it.
    mmm interesting never tried it. thing is napoleon runs almost perfect for me re the campaign map, it was only Empire+shogun2 that was choppy.

    tbh am done with all total wars save Napoleon and then Rome2. maybe i'll get tempted to play a mod like third age again (that was bloody amazing).

    p.s new pc toys incoming think i might update the thread in the basement with some pics. trying out a new res+pump from Alphacool.

  3. #163

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    I am waiting for the 2nd 7970 which I ordered at the weekend when I found a way to make more room for the card. The one GPU fan is now almost right on top of the GPU which I thought wouldn't work at all because of the restricted airflow but some stress testing showed only a pretty small difference in temperatures which was surprising.

    I hope to do some testing related to the frame latency / micro stutters issue, especially regarding TW games ofc . That topic adds a whole new dimension to GPU performance since it shows that average/minimum framerates are only show half of the truth. Another read: hardwarecanucks.com nvidia-gtx-titan-vs-sli-crossfire

  4. #164
    Jopel's Avatar Ordinarius
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Last week my PB278Q arrived, somewhat early for Rome II but in all honesty my sole reason why I bought it
    www.yeshua-saves.nl

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  5. #165

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by A Barbarian View Post
    I am waiting for the 2nd 7970 which I ordered at the weekend when I found a way to make more room for the card. The one GPU fan is now almost right on top of the GPU which I thought wouldn't work at all because of the restricted airflow but some stress testing showed only a pretty small difference in temperatures which was surprising.

    I hope to do some testing related to the frame latency / micro stutters issue, especially regarding TW games ofc . That topic adds a whole new dimension to GPU performance since it shows that average/minimum framerates are only show half of the truth. Another read: hardwarecanucks.com nvidia-gtx-titan-vs-sli-crossfire
    can cleary see those "spikes" over the ideal 40...with the xfire setups. def shows single powerfull gpu has a more consistent framerate.

    thats said am sure your 7970's gonna be kick ass, just the odd game here and there not playing ball. tomb raider is def a game i would have loved to have played on a xfire setup completely maxed out..as it was I had to tweak a few settings.

  6. #166
    Biggus Splenus's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by Jopel View Post
    Last week my PB278Q arrived, somewhat early for Rome II but in all honesty my sole reason why I bought it
    I can tell by your signature that your a bit of an ASUS lover

    How has your experience been with other Z77 motherboards? I have generally figured the Sabertooth is not worth the money it costs, also how is the thermals with that board? Can it actually survive without installing the little fans on it?

    I'm getting a new board, and at the moment I'm considering MSI's mpower. I was looking at ASUS's sabertooth, but, well, its features just didn't seem to match its price. I am also still considering ASUS's Maximus V Gene, but I'm not a fan of mATX boards.

    Is there a reason you went with Sabertooth instead of Maximus V Gene?
    Last edited by Biggus Splenus; March 18, 2013 at 08:26 PM.
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  7. #167
    Jopel's Avatar Ordinarius
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by Splenyi View Post
    I can tell by your signature that your a bit of an ASUS lover

    How has your experience been with other Z77 motherboards? I have generally figured the Sabertooth is not worth the money it costs, also how is the thermals with that board? Can it actually survive without installing the little fans on it?

    I'm getting a new board, and at the moment I'm considering MSI's mpower. I was looking at ASUS's sabertooth, but, well, its features just didn't seem to match its price. I am also still considering ASUS's Maximus V Gene, but I'm not a fan of mATX boards.

    Is there a reason you went with Sabertooth instead of Maximus V Gene?
    And lover of Corsair The main reason why I went with Sabertooth instead of Maximus (or any ROG-mobo) was the clean and mean look
    It actually does its job fine without the little fans on it (looks ugly with them installed), although it gets some degrees higher.
    I never got any experience with other Z77's (I went from a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 with PHII 955 to this).

    You aren't gonna waith for Haswell and/or Z87? I was thinking of getting a new board and CPU some months before october
    www.yeshua-saves.nl

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  8. #168
    Biggus Splenus's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Well, we are alike I love ASUS and Corsair too, and if a competitor has a better solution to them, well, it needs to be a lot better for me to even consider getting it over their own (which never happens anyway, ASUS and Corsair are stupendous ). The Sabertooth is definitely very clean looking, but I'm not sure if that makes up for the Maximus' superiority. The Sabertooth does have a few convenience features that Maximus doesn't, like the USB 3.0 header, I love the horizontal ones.

    I'm not sure if I'll be waiting for Haswell I already bought a H100i, and I'm not sure if that will fit the new 1550 socket. If I find out that it will any time soon, then I'll wait, if it doesn't, then I'll make a PC with the best of 1155

    Still waiting for DDR4 and GDDR6 over here though.... apparently both are less than 2 years off from release (warning, this is Splenyi speculation, reader discretion is advised)
    Last edited by Biggus Splenus; March 19, 2013 at 08:56 AM.
    | R5 3600, RTX 2060, MSI B450I, 32GB 3200MHz CL16 DDR4, AX760i, NH-U12S |

  9. #169

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/5793/i...yte-and-msi/15


    Go to the bottom and check out the DPC latency.Im guessing they used DPC latency checker tool or Latencymon to test.

    In my honest opinion the lowest DPC is the best motherboard providing it has all the PCI/PCIE slots you need.Im using the V Pro and its awesome... Apart from the bios above 1504 is shocking.It is hands down THE worst bios ever known to man.
    Last edited by Jedi; March 19, 2013 at 08:57 AM.
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  10. #170
    Biggus Splenus's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Wow, ASRock keep amazing me with how far they have come.
    | R5 3600, RTX 2060, MSI B450I, 32GB 3200MHz CL16 DDR4, AX760i, NH-U12S |

  11. #171
    Jopel's Avatar Ordinarius
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by Splenyi View Post
    Well, we are alike I love ASUS and Corsair too, and if a competitor has a better solution to them, well, it needs to be a lot better for me to even consider getting it over their own (which never happens anyway, ASUS and Corsair are stupendous ). The Sabertooth is definitely very clean looking, but I'm not sure if that makes up for the Maximus' superiority. The Sabertooth does have a few convenience features that Maximus doesn't, like the USB 3.0 header, I love the horizontal ones.

    I'm not sure if I'll be waiting for Haswell I already bought a H100i, and I'm not sure if that will fit the new 1550 socket. If I find out that it will any time soon, then I'll wait, if it doesn't, then I'll make a PC with the best of 1155

    Still waiting for DDR4 and GDDR6 over here though.... apparently both are less than 2 years off from release (warning, this is Splenyi speculation, reader discretion is advised)
    The H100i will be compatible with the new socket, since 1150 will have the same space as the 1155
    Well the difference between ddr3 and ddr4 will have (besides the synthetic tests of course) not that much difference in r/l the first years my guess.
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  12. #172

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Ok, got my 2nd 7970 for crossfire for my 2560x1440 screen and it kinda sucks for Shogun 2 but is great with almost everything else. Empire runs super smooth in 2560 x 4xSSAA (limited the fps to 40). Skyrim @ 2560 @ 4xSSAA @ 60fps looks sick but requires >3GB VRAM with all the HD mods I have, lol. Witcher 2 also runs perfect with highest settings including ubersampling @ 2560, but again only smooth with framerate limiter.

    Without framerate limiter like MSI-Afterburner or Radeon Pro there are a lot of frame latency issues. But with the limiter almost all games run super smooth. When I have more time I will post some graphs. Framerate limiting also reduces unnecessary GPU load and therefore reduces power consumption and noise. It might introduce some input lag but that's not important for me since I don't play any competetive online shooters (anymore) and prefer maximum visual fidelity over high framrates (e.g. i prefer 30 fps with SSAA over 60 fps with MSAA).

    The problem with Shogun 2 is, that I can't get any framerate limiter to work with it and therefore scrolling the campaign map is pretty choppy. GPU load is also often under 60% even on the campaign map. Maybe the crossfire profile for S2 is crap or there are some driver problems. I will investigate that further.

    Overall I can pretty much recommend a 7970 crossfire configuration, but mostly only when you can apply some framerate limiting in order reduce the frame latency issues. Power usage with a 2500k@4.2Ghz with maybe about 2 cores having load and 2x7970 @ 1000Mhz @ 1100mv is about 600W (including everything, even the monitor) on the wall socket.

  13. #173
    Biggus Splenus's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    600W on the wall socket is a lot better than I though. By the sounds of it, you have 2 MSI 7970 Lightning cards? What power supply do you have?

    One 7970 would be enough for the highest S2 settings I would think, so maybe you can try disabling the CFX and see how that goes?
    | R5 3600, RTX 2060, MSI B450I, 32GB 3200MHz CL16 DDR4, AX760i, NH-U12S |

  14. #174

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Well, I like to run S2 with SSAA, so one card doesn't quite cut it at 2560x1440.

    600W is during normal play without stressing GPU + CPU at the same time to the max. Next I will see how high it gets with the CPU encoding MP4s in the background which is a common thing I do while gaming. The PSU is a Seasonic 860 Platinum. It was way overkill for a single 7970 but fits nicely with crossfire + OC 2500k.

    The GPUs are a ASUS 7970 DCII-Top (with custom air cooler as pictured before) and a basic Gigabyte 7970 OC. Both cards run up to 1150 Mhz but I don't think I will use that much power often. I rather use lower clocks and framerate limiting to reduce heat + noise. Luckily the Gigabyte also didn't show any coil whine (at least not with the Resident Evil 5 bench @ 300fps). While idle I almost can't hear the Gigabyte in my noise dampened Fractal R3 (the ASUS runs passive in 2D) and when I game, I usually wear headphones, so noise is still ok.

    What really sucks is, that since a couple of months almost all AMD cards are voltage locked. You can't even lower the voltage anymore to run the card cooler. I do that all the time with the ASUS. Some older games like COH for example only need 1 card at 800Mhz and then I can lower the voltate to 925mv (from the 1176mv default). That way I can save probably 30-40W or more.
    Last edited by A Barbarian; March 21, 2013 at 06:14 AM.

  15. #175

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by A Barbarian View Post
    Well, I like to run S2 with SSAA, so one card doesn't quite cut it at 2560x1440.

    600W is during normal play without stressing GPU + CPU at the same time to the max. Next I will see how high it gets with the CPU encoding MP4s in the background which is a common thing I do while gaming. The PSU is a Seasonic 860 Platinum. It was way overkill for a single 7970 but fits nicely with crossfire + OC 2500k.

    The GPUs are a ASUS 7970 DCII-Top (with custom air cooler as pictured before) and a basic Gigabyte 7970 OC. Both cards run up to 1150 Mhz but I don't think I will use that much power often. I rather use lower clocks and framerate limiting to reduce heat + noise. Luckily the Gigabyte also didn't show any coil whine (at least not with the Resident Evil 5 bench @ 300fps). While idle I almost can't hear the Gigabyte in my noise dampened Fractal R3 (the ASUS runs passive in 2D) and when I game, I usually wear headphones, so noise is still ok.

    What really sucks is, that since a couple of months almost all AMD cards are voltage locked. You can't even lower the voltage anymore to run the card cooler. I do that all the time with the ASUS. Some older games like COH for example only need 1 card at 800Mhz and then I can lower the voltate to 925mv (from the 1176mv default). That way I can save probably 30-40W or more.
    i can manage around 150fps @1920x1200 res with a 580 with the res evil 5 bench so nice score you got there.

    my new pump is nice but fried my hdd...so waiting on a replacement. finally gave me an excuse to get an ssd...there goes my gpu budget still not gonna upgrade that for awhile..

  16. #176

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    @Totalheadache
    Performance is great, but as a 'watercooler' you really wouldn't like to look at the mess inside my case with all the fans blowing in all kind of different directions, lol. But somehow with all the holes even a dampened case has, the temperatures are still ok.

  17. #177

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by A Barbarian View Post
    @Totalheadache
    Performance is great, but as a 'watercooler' you really wouldn't like to look at the mess inside my case with all the fans blowing in all kind of different directions, lol. But somehow with all the holes even a dampened case has, the temperatures are still ok.
    golden rule is always double-check and rem sods law. at first glance i was sure no water was on hdd but it had crept under the pcb, when i used a hairdryer could see it blow out.

    still at least i am now going to install an ssd. lost my napoleon saves.. fingers x can get all up and running soon.

  18. #178

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Good luck!

  19. #179

    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    Quote Originally Posted by Splenyi View Post
    Well, we are alike I love ASUS and Corsair too, and if a competitor has a better solution to them, well, it needs to be a lot better for me to even consider getting it over their own (which never happens anyway, ASUS and Corsair are stupendous ). The Sabertooth is definitely very clean looking, but I'm not sure if that makes up for the Maximus' superiority. The Sabertooth does have a few convenience features that Maximus doesn't, like the USB 3.0 header, I love the horizontal ones.

    I'm not sure if I'll be waiting for Haswell I already bought a H100i, and I'm not sure if that will fit the new 1550 socket. If I find out that it will any time soon, then I'll wait, if it doesn't, then I'll make a PC with the best of 1155

    Still waiting for DDR4 and GDDR6 over here though.... apparently both are less than 2 years off from release (warning, this is Splenyi speculation, reader discretion is
    advised)
    I'd be careful with the Sabertooth, in terms of value for money I've heard it's not very good, I've also heard it has heat issues, and finally, ASUS has gone down the tubes in terms of warranty and RMA process.

    As for the H100i, Corsair has a good history of customer support. The brackets will probably be the same, and if they aren't, I'm sure Corsair will release an adapter.

    And RAM is fast enough as it is. What I want is wider bus width, 64-bit applications, and NVRAM. Magnoresistive RAM looks really promising as the future, as well as IBM's Millepede Memory. (1 terabit per square inch of non-volatile memory could be absolutely huge.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Totalheadache View Post
    golden rule is always double-check and rem sods law. at first glance i was sure no water was on hdd but it had crept under the pcb, when i used a hairdryer could see it blow out.

    still at least i am now going to install an ssd. lost my napoleon saves.. fingers x can get all up and running soon.
    That's my biggest fear with liquid cooling. Sucks to lose everything but have you tried swapping the head? You might be able to recover the data if it's important to you. Anyways, you'll enjoy the SSD. They aren't very economical but they make for great boot times.
    Last edited by Bolkonsky; March 21, 2013 at 11:42 AM.
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  20. #180
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    Default Re: Building YOUR Own PC for YOU and "In Anticipation" for Rome 2

    heres my system at the moment

    an ati hd 5850 1gb, i5 2300 cpu @2.8 ghz along with 8 gb ram,

    do i really need to upgrade anything for rome II ?

    i know my pc is kind of mediocre but ive ran crysis 3, shogun 2 and battlefield 3 with everything at full settings and MSAA at X4 with the frame rate getting to about 40-50 fps and playing beautifully and if i can play all those games with excellent results then do i really need to upgrade anything ??
    If you work to earn a living, why then do you work yourself to death?

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