building a new pc

[jayrc]

Hi all, I need some help on some basic components like hard drive, power supply, OS, cd/dvd drive, etc.

I'm going to wait till cod is released to get the big stuff after we get some feedback, so far I have the case and the cpu cooler. I would like to get some of the other stuff now so I don't have to put out all the money at once.

my build:

amd phenom II x4 965
msi fuzion mobo (in case I want to add more cards)
8 gb corsair ram
corsair tx 750 psu
coolermaster cpu cooler 212
win 7 64 bit
gtx 580
coolermaster elite 430 case
wd 640gb hdd
msi combo dvd drive
lots of fans

1. I'm looking at the wd hard drives, can't decide weather to get the 32 or 64 mb cache, rpm? I'll have 8gb memory, is the hard drive that important with that much ram?

2. what size power supply for the gtx 580

3. do I need win 7 pro to be able to run IL2 1946, freetrack, windows enabler, or can I use win 7 home

4. can I use a combo dvd rom/dvd+r+rw or do I need two separate drives

Can't wait till this sim is released:grin:

[leggit]

at least a 650 watt psu.

[engarde]

get yourself a big power supply, pay for quality and make sure its at least 700w. Dont ignore this one, as it feeds your system. Dont try to fill a swimming pool with a drinking straw is the analogy.

hard drive is just storage, seek times and rpm make some difference, but forget a drive for anything but an electronic bucket until solid state drives get to hundreds of Gb for a few dollars. I can get a terrabyte drive here for about $60, so its just beer money really.

AMD, Intel, meh. Theres always a price / performance trade off until it becomes obviously stupid to pay hundreds more for so very little. I like Intel, always have. Im sure AMD is just fine, and sometimes cheaper. Your budget will dictate your choices...

RAM = good. 8 Gb is plenty. You could cut back to 4Gb and still have things running well.

Make enquiries about dual video cards. You may get more out of a dual card system for somewhat cheaper than a single big card, plenty of tuning sites out there to get exact specs. The video card setup will likely be your biggest advantage with this sim, to get the jaw dropping goodies it will be able to dish up ;).

theres a site call tomshardware ive used for years, over a decade, never done me wrong. And NO im NOT affiliated. Just has good bar graph charts for simple comparisons.

VIDEO CARD. DUAL. GO ! NOW !

;)

[swiss]

CPU: 955 or 1090

PSU: Do yourself a favor and check for efficiency under standby-load.

W7: The pro has some nice additional options

DVD: Combo is ok

[Skarphol]

I'm throwing myself into this thread, as I am in allmost the same situation as the thread starter.
Will a higher number of cores on the CPU be better than a lower one in the same price region? Last time I upgraded I bought a quad core running on 2.8GHz, and I suspect that I would have come out better if I had bought a dual core at 3.2GHz instead back then in 2006. They had allmost the same price those days. Any thoughts on this?

Skarphol

[engarde]

I'm throwing myself into this thread, as I am in allmost the same situation as the thread starter.
Will a higher number of cores on the CPU be better than a lower one in the same price region? Last time I upgraded I bought a quad core running on 2.8GHz, and I suspect that I would have come out better if I had bought a dual core at 3.2GHz instead back then in 2006. They had allmost the same price those days. Any thoughts on this?

Skarphol

always remember that if the software is not optimised / at least programmed to run on multiple cores, then it will use only one and no, you wont get any advantage.

these days multiple core use is growing and regularly employed.

i cannot say for COD, perhaps its in some obscure release somewhere.

I suggest waiting, saving your money until the game comes out and you have concrete specs to build your system...

release dates can and do change.

computer equipment improves almost monthly.

dont shoot until you see the whites of the packaging you hold in your hand.

wait for it... waaaait for it....

[IbnSolmyr]

Hi all, I need some help on some basic components like hard drive, power supply, OS, cd/dvd drive, etc.

I'm going to wait till cod is released to get the big stuff after we get some feedback, so far I have the case and the cpu cooler. I would like to get some of the other stuff now so I don't have to put out all the money at once.

my build:

amd phenom II x4 965
msi fuzion mobo (in case I want to add more cards)
8 gb corsair ram
corsair tx 750 psu
coolermaster cpu cooler 212
win 7 64 bit
gtx 580
coolermaster elite 430 case
wd 640gb hdd
msi combo dvd drive
lots of fans

1. I'm looking at the wd hard drives, can't decide weather to get the 32 or 64 mb cache, rpm? I'll have 8gb memory, is the hard drive that important with that much ram?

2. what size power supply for the gtx 580

3. do I need win 7 pro to be able to run IL2 1946, freetrack, windows enabler, or can I use win 7 home

4. can I use a combo dvd rom/dvd+r+rw or do I need two separate drives

Can't wait till this sim is released:grin:

1) You could get an SSD, for better use of your system and main softwares (so like CoD)

2) The GTX 580 needs a big power supply, but it's a bad idea to set your rig like that : a Phenom 2 X4 and one of the 2 most powerful GC, there is no sence : get an Intel architecture with a core i5 or i7 and save your money from 450 euros GC card, wich will not not be run at its maximum, cos it needs a big CPU capacity for that... Espacially for a simulation game ! Have a look at the Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC, wich is almost as good as the 580, and costs "only" 260 euros (best price i found)

4) Not really important, but combo will be good (save a bit of power needed)

Regards.

[IbnSolmyr]

"always remember that if the software is not optimised / at least programmed to run on multiple cores, then it will use only one and no, you wont get any advantage."

I'm pretty sure (and i hope hard) that CoD is programmed/optimized for multiple cores, at least 4 ! Intel "offers" the "TurboBoost Technology" wich is a plus in case of not.

About Sli, CrossFireX... It just becomes competitive solutions... You could think about it later, it will be more interesning than now. And don't foget PSU according, and that when you'll have a multiple GC config, you get a bigger electricity bill !

[Blackdog_kt]

More or less solid advice in this thread.

My opinions?

1)Motherboard: Your budget will determine your CPU price bracket and brand, which in turn will determine your motherboard. In that sense, while i can definitely say don't go cheap on the mobo, i can't offer anything more specific. Don't buy a mobo with features you are sure you won't use, but definitely don't go cheap on it either. In fact, if you are certain you don't need a certain feature it might be better to buy a mobo that lacks it but is overall better in its group, than spend your money on one that does. For example, if i have no intention of overclocking it's no use spending $200 on a mobo for overclockers when i can spend 150$ for one that offers the rest of the features i need and maybe done to a better standard as well.


In regards to the amount of cores, it depends on what you want to run. If a game supports multiple cores it pays to have as much as you can afford, if not it's better to go for less cores but higher clock speeds for the same amount of money. This used to be a big deciding point a couple of years ago but nowadays more and more games and applications feature some kind of multi-core support.

In regards to CoD specifically they said that it's going to make use of multiple cores, but we don't know exact details, so it's a balancing act between amount of cores and clock speeds for the money to cover all the possibilities. For example, it might use up to 4 cores. In such a case you'd be better off going for a quad at higher clock speeds than a hexa at lower ones, etc.


The rest of the stuff that remains pretty much a constant for a good, mid to high range gaming PC is

2) Cooling, no matter if you overclock or not: There's no need for overkill, but getting a case with good ergonomics is a must, even if it's not a fancy, brand-name one. A roomy case allows you to install extra fans if and when you need to. Plus you can have some spare slots for extra hard drives down the road, so that instead of plugging them in one next to the other and creating a hot spot (some of the high speed/high RPM drives can run a bit hot) you can have a blank slot between them to help with ventilation.

3) PSU: I had a 700W heroichi cougar until recently, it came with a 3 year warranty and saved me a few times from power fluctuations and downright outages. In the end it died (less than a month ago) but it did its job, making sure that nothing else was fried. I took it back to my vendor and using the warranty i picked up another 700w one, this time a Thermaltake since the guy was out of stock on Cougars.

I don't run dual graphics cards and i don't overclock, but there is a slight bit of gain to be had regardless: a PSU usually exhibits more energy loss the closer it operates to its peak. So, even if my total needs were around the 550W mark, it would be better for power consumption and bills in the long run to get a 700W PSU instead of a 600W one. This is important to me as my PC stays on for weeks on end sometimes, your mileage may vary however. In any case, a higher rating PSU will manage your energy consumption better and offer you some headroom for future expansion like a second graphics card or extra hard drives and so on.

As for the RAM now, it depends on a few factors. For example, some CPU/mobo combinations require DDR3 RAM, others work with the cheaper DDR2. Also, some benefit from triple channel RAM while others work in dual channel mode.
Suffice to say, depending on the channel type supported you might want to make your total RAM a multiplication product of it: if it works in dual channel get 2 (2x1Gb sticks), 4 (2x2), 6 or 8 GB, if it works in triple channel get 3, 6 (2x3Gb sticks), or 9GB, etc.

I think anything higher than 6Gb is somewhat overkill for most current games. 4Gb is more or less the minimum adequate standard, 6Gb will let you run most games on top of the background processes and the OS efficiently. Unless you are into image editing or other professional software with high system requirements, i don't think you're going to see much use from 8GB within the next 6-12 months.


For optical drives, a combo DVD/CD-R is enough and they are dirt cheap anyway. Hard drive choices depend on what you want to do and how much stuff you have on your PC. I have two drives of 1TB each and they were almost full at one point, now my total free space hovers around the 600GB mark. They too are generally cheap nowadays, unless you go for massive speed and massive storage at the same time (eg, a 2TB drive with heaps of cache at 10000 RPM).
The ones i use are a seagate barracuda 7200RPM and a western digital 5500RPM. I use the slower WD one as storage (i also have the OS there when it would make sense to have it on the faster one, because i used to dual boot XP and win7, but that's another story), the faster one is where i install my games on.

Finally in regards to the OS, getting the pro version of win7 would be nice if you also run older stuff. As far as i remember, the home edition doesn't have some of the compatibility functions that the pro edition features. The ultimate edition is overkill, as its simply the same as the pro with the added ability to change between languages on the fly.

Hope it helps.

[swiss]

1) You could get an SSD, for better use of your system and main softwares (so like CoD)

2) The GTX 580 needs a big power supply, but it's a bad idea to set your rig like that : a Phenom 2 X4 and one of the 2 most powerful GC, there is no sence : get an Intel architecture with a core i5 or i7 and save your money from 450 euros GC card, wich will not not be run at its maximum, cos it needs a big CPU capacity for that... Espacially for a simulation game ! Have a look at the Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC, wich is almost as good as the 580, and costs "only" 260 euros (best price i found)

4) Not really important, but combo will be good (save a bit of power needed)

Regards.

Sure a 965 is bottlenecking the 580, so it's better too buy a super fast intel and get an average GPU instead.
What?


BTW: However when clocked at 3.0GHz and beyond, the Phenom II X4 really picked up the pace, and in many cases was able to outclass the Core i7.

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/cpu_scaling_with_the_radeon_hd_5970,24.html

[Zoom2136]

For power supply reviews see here:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/index.php

For GPU reviews see here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6950-1gb-geforce-gtx-560-ti-gaming-graphics-card,2857.html

I assume that you will mostly be running this sim (iL2 or COD) on your new PC. Consequently I would advise you to buy the faster CPU you can afford, even if it means buying a lesser video card/PSU (but don't skimp to much on the PSU, cause a blown PSU can cook some of you precious hardware...)

Flight sims a veyr CPU limited, so it make more sence to drop the bis $$$$ on this item...

Regards,

[Oldschool61]

1) You could get an SSD, for better use of your system and main softwares (so like CoD)

2) The GTX 580 needs a big power supply, but it's a bad idea to set your rig like that : a Phenom 2 X4 and one of the 2 most powerful GC, there is no sence : get an Intel architecture with a core i5 or i7 and save your money from 450 euros GC card, wich will not not be run at its maximum, cos it needs a big CPU capacity for that... Espacially for a simulation game ! Have a look at the Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC, wich is almost as good as the 580, and costs "only" 260 euros (best price i found)

4) Not really important, but combo will be good (save a bit of power needed)

Regards.

The Phenom II X4 9XX is MORE than capable of handling this game. ITs as fast as most if not all i5 cpu's and some i7 when overclocked.

[jayrc]

lots of great advice, thanks. any thoughts on the hard drives 32 v's 64 mb cache

[klem]

Hi all, I need some help on some basic components like hard drive, power supply, OS, cd/dvd drive, etc.

I'm going to wait till cod is released to get the big stuff after we get some feedback, so far I have the case and the cpu cooler. I would like to get some of the other stuff now so I don't have to put out all the money at once.....................

This may not be if use if you aren't putting out the money in one go but some PC suppliers can build you a system that is overclocked and guaranteed, giving you a massive increase in processing power for the cost of a larger cooler and the build/test/guarantee fee.

I know there are a number of companies that do this and I am not promoting one company over another but here in the UK Scan.co.uk do a series called 3XS. I bought one in December and you can if you wish vary the content, e.g. a different GPU.

So you may like to think about that option. The attraction is that the overclock liberates the extra CPU power and it is at their risk. Just be aware that fully loaded (100% load on all cores - an extremely unlikely event) can lead to CPU overheat but that can be monitored and the overclock adjusted. Or you could go watercooled :)

[Voyager]

This is a very bad time to build. Intel did a recall last month on the Sandy Bridge motherboard chipsets, and the replacements aren't going to be out until April:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers-bug-in-6series-chipset-begins-recall

On top of that AMD's Bulldozer is going to be coming out "soon", which is the CPU where AMD is finally updating its CPU architecture to be comparable to Nephalim. The Phenom line isn't much more than a multi-core Athlon 64, which was OK when they were going against Core 2, but hasn't cut the mustard for a while now.

In short, wait until the Sandy Bridge chips are back on the market, and if you can, until the X68 are hitting the market. At worst it will drive down the prices of the hardware you're looking at. At best, AMD will have come out with their next gen CPUs and we'll have a price-war on our hands, which will mean you can get an awesome box for what you're looking at now.

As for power supplies, I'd recommend one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

And it comes in modular for if you're willing to pay an extra $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139016

The big deal about them is they have a unified +12V rail, with 60A of power on it. The +12V is what your video cards and CPUs run on. the 3.3V and 5V are for the fans, hard drives, and other powered peripherals, so unless you have the RAID of Doom, you don't really need that much on those lines. The low volt lines are easier to add amps too, so low end manufacturers tend to add most of their power there, to pad their numbers, which is how you end up with the 3D card makers having to recommend KW PSU's.

Went digging to confirm exactly what the power requirements are on 3D cards and SLI, and it looks like the 6 pin PCIe power hookups are rated for 75W, while the 8pin ones are rated for 150W, so you can use that to get the max expected power required by your 3D cards. For the CPU, I would start with it's TDP, and add some percentage margin. I'm thinking if the two 3D cards you're looking at have an 8+6 power pin config, then 720W on the 12V rail should be fine, but if it is an 8+8 pair, you will want 800W 12V power at least.

[Oldschool61]

This is a very bad time to build. Intel did a recall last month on the Sandy Bridge motherboard chipsets, and the replacements aren't going to be out until April:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers-bug-in-6series-chipset-begins-recall

On top of that AMD's Bulldozer is going to be coming out "soon", which is the CPU where AMD is finally updating its CPU architecture to be comparable to Nephalim. The Phenom line isn't much more than a multi-core Athlon 64, which was OK when they were going against Core 2, but hasn't cut the mustard for a while now.

In short, wait until the Sandy Bridge chips are back on the market, and if you can, until the X68 are hitting the market. At worst it will drive down the prices of the hardware you're looking at. At best, AMD will have come out with their next gen CPUs and we'll have a price-war on our hands, which will mean you can get an awesome box for what you're looking at now.

As for power supplies, I'd recommend one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

And it comes in modular for if you're willing to pay an extra $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139016

The big deal about them is they have a unified +12V rail, with 60A of power on it. The +12V is what your video cards and CPUs run on. the 3.3V and 5V are for the fans, hard drives, and other powered peripherals, so unless you have the RAID of Doom, you don't really need that much on those lines. The low volt lines are easier to add amps too, so low end manufacturers tend to add most of their power there, to pad their numbers, which is how you end up with the 3D card makers having to recommend KW PSU's.

Went digging to confirm exactly what the power requirements are on 3D cards and SLI, and it looks like the 6 pin PCIe power hookups are rated for 75W, while the 8pin ones are rated for 150W, so you can use that to get the max expected power required by your 3D cards. For the CPU, I would start with it's TDP, and add some percentage margin. I'm thinking if the two 3D cards you're looking at have an 8+6 power pin config, then 720W on the 12V rail should be fine, but if it is an 8+8 pair, you will want 800W 12V power at least.

I think everyone is going overboard with recommendations. Didnt Oleg say 2 years ago that a top of the line system in 2008-9 (2years ago) would run the sim fine??

[Tacoma74]

If you don't plan on using SATA II drives in your system than there are still some P67 motherboards up on ebay. Or you could just wait until late March/April when the revised versions come around. I don't care how "overboard" you think it is, a Sandy Bridge based system will eat that Phenom II X4 in anything you throw at it. If it's performance/system longevity you want then that's the way to go. And don't waste your time with the 2600k... 2500k all the way! I hardly see 2mb L3 Cache and hyperthreading worth $100. This along with a 580 and you'll be good for several years.

[Oldschool61]

If you don't plan on using SATA II drives in your system than there are still some P67 motherboards up on ebay. Or you could just wait until late March/April when the revised versions come around. I don't care how "overboard" you think it is, a Sandy Bridge based system will eat that Phenom II X4 in anything you throw at it. If it's performance/system longevity you want then that's the way to go. And don't waste your time with the 2600k... 2500k all the way! I hardly see 2mb L3 Cache and hyperthreading worth $100. This along with a 580 and you'll be good for several years.

Most smart builders wouldnt waste all there money on a machine like what you say as its more than needed and too much money. I can build a system for under $500 that would play CoD fine. Your idea is to spend >$1000 to get the same gameplay.

[Tacoma74]

Most smart builders wouldnt waste all there money on a machine like what you say as its more than needed and too much money. I can build a system for under $500 that would play CoD fine. Your idea is to spend >$1000 to get the same gameplay.

Yeah, but how long is that rig going to last these days? Sure you can throw a cheap AMD based system together for little to nothing these days, but guaranteed you're not going to get as much out of it. AMD is cheap for a reason, because they've always been a step behind. Call me a fanboy, but Intel is the way to go. And as far as price difference goes, a 2500k isn't that bad really, even right now. I say wait a few months for the price to come down a bit more and that's the way to go. If you've got the money go for it. Thats what I'm doing, and I'm sure alot of other people as well.

[swiss]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/297666-10-will-athon-bottleneck

[Biggs [CV]]

I just built a new system in January.

Amd Phenom 2 Quad core @ 3.4
MSI motherboard
8 GIG of ripjaws 1600 mhz ram
1000 Watt PSU
ATI 6870 GPU
New 650 gig Hard drive
LG dvd R/W drive
Win 7 Ultimate
Plus a new full tower with 8 fans to keep her cool.

Spent around $1200 on it. Thing runs great. It runs Black Ops nice and smooth. And I'm sure it'll run Cliffs of Dover just as well.

Get the best parts you can afford and build a good system that will last you 3-5 years without any upgrades.

[Igo kyu]

Get the best parts you can afford and build a good system that will last you 3-5 years without any upgrades.
Upgrades are at least half of the fun. They get you to five or six years without replacing the whole system.

Where the heck are the e.g. 2200 * x monitors? I have 1600 * 1200, 1920 * 1080 seems like a downgrade, 2560 * x is way too expensive.[/I]

[Tree_UK]

This is a very bad time to build. Intel did a recall last month on the Sandy Bridge motherboard chipsets, and the replacements aren't going to be out until April:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers-bug-in-6series-chipset-begins-recall

On top of that AMD's Bulldozer is going to be coming out "soon", which is the CPU where AMD is finally updating its CPU architecture to be comparable to Nephalim. The Phenom line isn't much more than a multi-core Athlon 64, which was OK when they were going against Core 2, but hasn't cut the mustard for a while now.

In short, wait until the Sandy Bridge chips are back on the market, and if you can, until the X68 are hitting the market. At worst it will drive down the prices of the hardware you're looking at. At best, AMD will have come out with their next gen CPUs and we'll have a price-war on our hands, which will mean you can get an awesome box for what you're looking at now.

As for power supplies, I'd recommend one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

And it comes in modular for if you're willing to pay an extra $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139016

The big deal about them is they have a unified +12V rail, with 60A of power on it. The +12V is what your video cards and CPUs run on. the 3.3V and 5V are for the fans, hard drives, and other powered peripherals, so unless you have the RAID of Doom, you don't really need that much on those lines. The low volt lines are easier to add amps too, so low end manufacturers tend to add most of their power there, to pad their numbers, which is how you end up with the 3D card makers having to recommend KW PSU's.

Went digging to confirm exactly what the power requirements are on 3D cards and SLI, and it looks like the 6 pin PCIe power hookups are rated for 75W, while the 8pin ones are rated for 150W, so you can use that to get the max expected power required by your 3D cards. For the CPU, I would start with it's TDP, and add some percentage margin. I'm thinking if the two 3D cards you're looking at have an 8+6 power pin config, then 720W on the 12V rail should be fine, but if it is an 8+8 pair, you will want 800W 12V power at least.

+1, very good advice

[Tree_UK]

I think everyone is going overboard with recommendations. Didnt Oleg say 2 years ago that a top of the line system in 2008-9 (2years ago) would run the sim fine??

That was very wishful thinking on Oleg's part, they are having to take a lot out of the game at the moment (optimising) to get the thing to run. Just like with Il2-sturm Cliffs Of Dover is going to utilize CPU power far more than GPU. Personaly I would wait until the issues are resolved with the Sandy bridge CPU, get a pre overclocked bundle to 4.8Ghz, this game is going to need everything you can throw at it.

[Biggs [CV]]

they are having to take a lot out of the game at the moment (optimising) to get the thing to run. Just like with Il2-sturm Cliffs Of Dover is going to utilize CPU power far more than GPU.

Source? I have yet to read that they are taking stuff out of the game, nor have I read that COD is more CPU intensive than GPU.

[speculum jockey]

;227210']Source? I have yet to read that they are taking stuff out of the game, nor have I read that COD is more CPU intensive than GPU.

I'm paraphrasing Luthier, "Dynamic weather fis not enabled by default, although you can enable it in the FMB and bring your PC to a hault".

[Biggs [CV]]

I'm paraphrasing Luthier, "Dynamic weather fis not enabled by default, although you can enable it in the FMB and bring your PC to a hault".
The fact that you can enable it means its still in the game.
Tree said they are "Taking things out of the game."

[WTE_Galway]

;227210']Source? I have yet to read that they are taking stuff out of the game, nor have I read that COD is more CPU intensive than GPU.

Well resource heavy features are added and removed from games before release depending on the current state of PC technology. That is just how its always done.

Similarly every single flightsim ever made has been CPU locked once you get to much "stuff" in the air, whilst very rarely are they GPU locked.

Its generally hard or impossible to CPU lock a first person shooter but in a flightsim you can generally can just put 50 or so more bombers in the air and watch the FPS plummet.

There is no reason to assume that CoD is magically any different.

[WTE_Galway]

On the subject of power supplies and what all those connectors actually do ...

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#peripheral

[engarde]

lots of great advice, thanks. any thoughts on the hard drives 32 v's 64 mb cache

it will be slightly sharper for reads and writes, but honestly, it wont make enough difference to account for.

hard drives are on a technology brink now.

solid state drives, which dont have a spinning metal disk, instead its just like a big ram storage area, are becoming more popular and cheaper.

THAT, is the change you should be looking for. The cache size is meaningless these days, its just not significant enough to put cash on. Ignore it.

keep your money, become familiar with solid state drive sizes vs cost, dont spend anything until the game actually comes out.

[kendo65]

;227210']Source? I have yet to read that they are taking stuff out of the game, nor have I read that COD is more CPU intensive than GPU.

Re: taking things out - Luthier did say as much some time back. Along the lines that they had built a 2013 game and were having to scale back features to get it to work with 2011 systems.

There is also the dynamic campaign and DX11 which are more 'not being put in' (initially) rather than 'taken out'.

Haven't heard anything on CPU V GPU either. Il-2 was, but COD may be more evenly balanced with the extra eye candy? Expect we'll have to wait and see.

[Hecke]

the lines that they had built a 2013 game and were having to scale back features to get it to work with 2011 systems.


He wrote that on Facebook btw.

[meshuggahs]

Just remember kids, it's easier to upgrade you GPU/add another one than swap the whole mb/processor/memory deal!

I'm personally waiting for the sandy bridge mobos in april, since the sweet spot in cost/performance/overclocking is there at the moment.
Maybe even wait till may/june and see how bulldozers perform and are priced.

1156 & AM3 are just dead ends for future upgrades. :(

[Voyager]

At this point, I wouldn't even be considering the upgradeablity of the motherboard. The last time I successfully upgraded a CPU without replacing the MB was Thunderbird.

My most recent upgrade, I was going to swap out an early Core 2 with 4GB Ram for a Wolfdale and more 8GB ram, and a 64 Bit OS. Didn't work at all, and I ended up doing what was effectively a full backbone replace, for a Core 2, after Nephalim was out. It would have cost me the same to just go for an I5.

[speculum jockey]

Now I'm not an expert oin the workings of the typical multi-core CPU, but Luthier and Oleg said there was support for multiple CPU's.

Now you have a 4 core processor. Lets say that Windows seven is being a big of a hog and is eating an entire core. You have three left, shouldn't those three remaining processors have enough processing power to keep 100+ AI aircraft and all the different ground objects in the air?

I'm sort of having a hard time comprehending something other than industry video rendering software or military level sims using more processing power than 3 x 2.5-3.5GHZ CPU's can offer.

Can someone school me here?

[Tacoma74]

Now I'm not an expert oin the workings of the typical multi-core CPU, but Luthier and Oleg said there was support for multiple CPU's.

Now you have a 4 core processor. Lets say that Windows seven is being a big of a hog and is eating an entire core. You have three left, shouldn't those three remaining processors have enough processing power to keep 100+ AI aircraft and all the different ground objects in the air?

I'm sort of having a hard time comprehending something other than industry video rendering software or military level sims using more processing power than 3 x 2.5-3.5GHZ CPU's can offer.

Can someone school me here?

Well the question is, how many cores is CoD going to utilize? It's quite probable that it is only coded to run with 2 cores, just like most games. It becomes very hard, and time consuming coding a game to utilize more than that (I think it was Mazex that was talking about this awhile ago). But still a quad core is better than a dual. While the game is running all out on those 2 cores, the other 2 will be running Windows in the background. Thats the way i look at it at least...

[Les]

I'm pretty sure Luthier wrote somewhere that the new engine does or can use multiple cores, but is only utilizing two at the moment. Don't quote me on that though, I just remember reading it here somewhere and getting the impression their going multi-core wasn't going to improve things much. It does still mean though (if the new angine uses anything more than one core) that using a quad-core processor would be better than using a dual core.

In regards to multi-core programming, I'm no expert either, so apart from the obvious thing of having your operating system or other applications running on one core while IL-2 runs on another (or others), I can only go by what others have said about the difficulty of programming an application to use multiple cores. And, apparently, for games, it's not that easy.

My basic understanding of it is that the dynamic, inter-related nature of the information that has to be processed when playing a game is different to the sort of straightforward processing that's required when doing something that just requires breaking up one task into chunks and processing them separately. So, you can't just do something like set a core to work out what the planes are doing and another to work out the weather, as they have to communicate their respective states to each other before they know what they should do next. Whereas if the processing is done in a more traditional, linear way, whereby the data doesnt have to be split off to separate cores then recompiled, the programming can also be more straightforward, incorporating that interconnectedness of elements, at the cost of your application remaining dependent on the sheer speed of your processor core/s, not their number.

I hope that makes sense, and that it's not all totally wrong, it's just my limited understanding of it, for whatever that's worth.

And at the risk of stretching things too far, while I'm here. There's a term called 'parallel processing' that's sort of related to this. In crude terms, having all cores of your CPU working on one task is parallel processing. But when it comes to parallel processing, your GPU in your video card is actually something in the order of a hundred times faster at parallel processing than any CPU. NVidia has been pushing this aspect of their video-cards lately, calling them General Purpose GPU's (GPGPU's). And with selected applications, ie video-rendering, it is indeed faster to have your video-card doing the parallel processing than your CPU's. The difference, again, though, is that parallel processing requires the application's code to be written in such a way that the data you're dealing with can be split, processed and recompiled, and that's generally not how game-engine code is written. So, in the end, and to put it very simplistically, it's sort of like, the GPU and CPU hardware has been advanced to the point where they can do things that weren't possible before, but the programming tools to take advantage of them haven't.

Again, sorry to all the experts who actually know about this stuff, was just offering my opinion.

[WTE_Galway]

Well the question is, how many cores is CoD going to utilize? It's quite probable that it is only coded to run with 2 cores, just like most games. It becomes very hard, and time consuming coding a game to utilize more than that (I think it was Mazex that was talking about this awhile ago). But still a quad core is better than a dual. While the game is running all out on those 2 cores, the other 2 will be running Windows in the background. Thats the way i look at it at least...

With ILR2 the trackIR process likes to be allocated its own core.

Otherwise head tracking can freeze whenever the game gets busy (for example during a dogfight), which is annoying to say the least.