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

**SamueleD** · August 03, 2013, 04:47 AM

Originally Posted by Swede_9

Does anyone have a clue if my Macbook Pro 13", mid 2012, be able to run Rome II if i bootcamp it?
Specs:
Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR 3
Graphic card: Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB

Yes, it should be able to run it, but only on low, medium at best.

Edit: It will also get hot as hell.

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 12:28 PM

Hi everyone, I am here to share my impressions about my latest hardware purchases.

The first buy was needed as the Intel Cooler got a little bit noisy for my taste after 8 months of continous operation.
The second buy replacing my Arctic Freezer Xtreme was not needed at all, as temps and noise level were good enough, but I was curious how the new Freezer i30 performs.

Heavy load: Running prime v2.76 64bit for 15 mins. This kind of heavy load normally never happen in games, and only on some rare intensive applications.
Average temp: the average of all max temps measured.

Today I replaced the stock Intel cooler for my custom-built NAS cooling an i3 3220T versus an Arctic Freezer 11 LP in a Lian Li Micro ITX Aluminum Case (fanless)

Ambient Temp: 28°C

Temperatures i3 stock cooler LP
Core 1: 66 °C
Core 2: 61 °C
CPU Package: 66 °C
Average Temp under load: 64,3 °C

Temperatures Arctic Freezer 11 LP
Core 1: 61 °C
Core 2: 59 °C
CPU Package: 61 °C
Average Temp under load: 60,3 °C
Advantage -4 °C under load

Conclusion: mounting was very very easy like usually for Arctic Cooler products. Cooling is well and the cooler is very compact and quiet. Only standard RAM height allowed.

I also replaced my Arctic Freezer Xtreme Rev. 2.0 cooling an i7 2600K @ 4.5 GHz versus an Arctic Freezer i30 hosted in a Bitfenix Survivor Core Case.

Ambient Temp: 28°C

Temperatures Arctic Freezer Xtreme Rev 2.0
Core 1: 76 °C
Core 2: 82 °C
Core 3: 83 °C
Core 4: 80 °C
CPU Package: 82 °C
Average Temp under load: 80,2 °C

Temperatures Arctic Freezer i30
Core 1: 70 °C
Core 2: 78 °C
Core 3: 76 °C
Core 4: 73 °C
CPU Case: 78 °C
Average Temp under load: 75 °C
Advantage -5,2 °C under load

Conclusion: mounting procedure was horrible. Never had so many hassle with a cooler since the Arctic Cooling Copper Silent TC!

Dispite the very good cooling results I cannot recommend this cooler anymore for anyone that is not very skilled with mounting.

- The high end thermal grease has to be applied yourself. It is a little bit too much in the injector, and I used it all and need to clean up again.
- You need to mount a backplate under the mainboard that is fixed with an adhesive (which does not stick enough).

Usually all cases have a spare on the back side to reach this area. However I forgot about that and disassembled my whole mainboard for nuts.
- The mounting on the upper side is very complicated as there are plastic spacekeepers that should be fixed with a double sided adhesive on the mainboard but that did not work and is very fiddly.

This cooler really got me into a rage like a german berzerker in Rome 1, and I felt blessed when it was finally fixed the right and proper way after nearly 1 hour!

- Only standard RAM height allowed. I rotated the cooler by 45° so the hot air is being blown out on the top instead of the rear of the of the case, what makes sense physically.
But this blocks one row of your RAM bank. You can still use it with standard RAM modules but cannot access this row later. So you need to install the RAM in row 1 first then mounting the cooler.

Well folks, that was the story how I ruined my Saturday for a ridiculous save of -5,2°C, while my body temperature raised in my rage by about 10 °C literally on this hot summer day

What a mess

Anyone that is not eager to try this yourself, I can still recommend the Arctic Freezer 13 Pro which is very easy to install with no backplate, applied high end thermal grease and installed for a pro in 8 mins.

**cogidubnus** · August 03, 2013, 02:18 PM

Thanks for the info, i could get a Sapphire 11202-10-20G AMD Radeon HD 7750 1GB DDR5 Low Profile, For my optiplex but being only 1 gig i imagine i will struggle with high settings. Is it advisable or possible to (get someone) to put everything in a new case and add a better card such as the nvidia 650 boost. With a budget of around £400 i seem to have very limited options with a low profile pc! Not sure how much tat sort of thing costs, Thanks for any help.

**polymathin** · August 03, 2013, 03:01 PM

Hey all, I just have a quick question.

Right now I am running a AMD Phenom 2 X4 970 3.50 GHZ and a Nvidia 560 TI. Which one of these two would be more pertinent to upgrade to run Rome 2 at moderately high settings?

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 03:04 PM

Originally Posted by polymathin

Hey all, I just have a quick question.

Right now I am running a AMD Phenom 2 X4 970 3.50 GHZ and a Nvidia 560 TI. Which one of these two would be more pertinent to upgrade to run Rome 2 at moderately high settings?

None of them. Should work with this rig.

Originally Posted by cogidubnus

Thanks for the info, i could get a Sapphire 11202-10-20G AMD Radeon HD 7750 1GB DDR5 Low Profile, For my optiplex but being only 1 gig i imagine i will struggle with high settings. Is it advisable or possible to (get someone) to put everything in a new case and add a better card such as the nvidia 650 boost. With a budget of around £400 i seem to have very limited options with a low profile pc! Not sure how much tat sort of thing costs, Thanks for any help.

Well can you post me your current rig via PM and make photos of the psu please.

**cogidubnus** · August 03, 2013, 03:16 PM

Thanks, will do tommorrow.

**polymathin** · August 03, 2013, 03:19 PM

[QUOTE=alQamar;13093888]None of them. Should work with this rig.

Thanks alQuamar, If I wanted to run on ultra what would you suggest? Better CPU or GPU.

**troianus** · August 03, 2013, 03:42 PM

Hi all,

choosing from 2 ASUS laptops:
1. i7, 17.3",1600x900, GeForce GTX760M 2GB
2. i7, 17.3",1920x1080, NVIDIA GeForce GT750M

What would give me better R2 gaming experience. Slightly better graphic card or higher screen resolution? Which one would you choose?

Thanks in advance.

**atila9000** · August 03, 2013, 03:08 PM

here is my dxdiag. soon, i will upgrade my pc to windows 8, do you think ill be able to run the game?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by atila9000

here is my dxdiag. soon, i will upgrade my pc to windows 8, do you think ill be able to run the game?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

This was answered already. Refer posting #1747

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 03:38 PM

Make a shogun 2 CPU and also gpu dx 11 high settings benchmark

**polymathin** · August 03, 2013, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by alQamar

Make a shogun 2 CPU and also gpu dx 11 high settings benchmark

I got a 32.0 fps on DX11 high setting benchmark.

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 03:46 PM

The first clearly as the slower graphics card has even to handle a higher resolution it will be impact too much. The other resolution is not standard but high enough for gaming.
The 750m is really slow regardless the aimed resolution.

**troianus** · August 03, 2013, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by alQamar

The first clearly as the slower graphics card has even to handle a higher resolution it will be impact too much. The other resolution is not standard but high enough for gaming.
The 750m is really slow regardless the aimed resolution.

Thanks alQamar!

**polymathin** · August 03, 2013, 04:03 PM

14.9391

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 03:55 PM

And cpu bench?

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 04:10 PM

The cpu test is run kn 1280x1020 ! The gpu test on 1080p
If you would run cpu bench on 1080p as well you would have 9 fps so the cpu is your bottleneck here clearly not the gpu. If you have a small budget go for a i3 haswell with 3.4GHz. See op.
So you need to change mainboard and cpu only to play at 30-40 fps on ultra settings.

**chadwicknight** · August 03, 2013, 04:23 PM

Sorry for the newbie questions.

Is it ok to buy a monitor with higher resolution than 1920x1080 for your pre-build Tier - High Enthusiast ? I am thinking of some of these ips monsters out there like Dell U-2713hm or Hp ZR30w.

Also should we stick to 60hz or go for 120hz?

Any specific monitor you would advise for this pre-build spec?

Thanks!

**alQamar** · August 03, 2013, 04:27 PM

Technically the benefits are smaller than disadvantages. All games, Blue ray video, Internet video steams are designed for 1080p so a higher resolution than that would be contraproductive and may cause (readability) issues for a lot of games and UIs.
Interpolation on full screen will cause a blurry experience.

Same problem when you try to run a legacy windows game on a 1080p screen.

**Alexmcm13** · August 03, 2013, 10:41 PM

So, I just went and bought a FX-8350 4Ghz 8 core processor, a Radeon 7870 2gb, 8 extra gigs of RAM, a new case, an ASUS M5A97 mobo, and a Corsair H50 liquid cooling system. Hopefully this new rig of mine will tackle Rome 2 with no problem.

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