Who's waiting to buy a new PC for SoW?
 

There seems to be many people like myself waiting and waiting (..and waiting)to buy a new PC for when Storm Of War:BoB is released, so....

What make/model of PC are we going to buy?

How much should we spend?

for myself i've been looking at a Dell for around £1000 - 1200 ?

ideas please!

Why a Dell?

Just search the components, build it and have more of it.


Ok my step for SoW BoB will definately be a directx 11 card from Nvidia (or a ati 6000, depends on...)

I will stick with my Intel q9550 4x 2,8 Ghz till the new sandy bridge come out in early 2011. They will be awesome.

Well said, but you got to know what you're doing or this can be much more expensive than a prebuilt Dell.

I'm also waiting for the development on the market and looking for a DX11 card.

I already have a shell built last year to tide me over (from which I will be retaining the monitor, Antec case and PSU, Zalman cooler and peripherals).

I will be swapping out the motherboard, CPU, RAM and Graphics Card for something meatier when I know what SoW will require to run smoothly on good settings.

Whatever the 'tier 2' hardware is at that time, most likely (I always go for one rung off the top for a good price/performance ratio).

Cheers, Spinner

I am.

I've got a 2.13 Quad core, with 4GB of ram Currently have a 9800GTS Video card, while I'm sure I will be able to "run" the game, I want it to really be beautiful.

I already have a homebuild racing seat, easily modifyable to a cockpit setup.
Planning on:

40" Monitor
Newest ATI card at the time
Upgrade to 16GB of RAM

No waiting here. I built a core i7 screamer 15 months ago. At this point, I will probably upgrade my GPU (my intention, but will leapfrog current hardware GTX4xxx/HD5xxx) and add another 6gb of RAM, but that's about it.

I expect my current system will run it ok, if not spectacularly.

Will wait until after release and see what feedback comes up regarding the needs of the game and how well it runs with different hardware, then make decisions.

Some serious amounts of ram that people are talking about - personally not sure how much is enough or when (if?) it will get to being 'overkill' for the game. I moved to Windows 7 64bit a few months back in preparation but still on 4Gig currently. Oleg said today that there won't be a dedicated 64-bit .exe intially - possibly in future.

I am going to rebuid my rig next year. I plan to get a SSD for windows Il-2 and Bob.

I just finished my current pc,

AMD Phenom II x6 1055T ( 3.2 Ghz )
M4A785TD-V EVO
ATI XFX 5770 XXX
GEIL DDR3 4GB
Corsair 650 Watt

Runs Rise of Flight like a dream along with all my other games.

yes, i go along with Spinner - one step down from the top for value!

and yes directx 11 is a must

Currently running 4gig of ram, with a 9800 card but only 2.4 duel core from 3 years ago, i have to turn the landscape detail down for RoF.

Only mentioned Dell as I bought a nice laptop for my wife from Dell, which has been problem free for 12 months....just had to pay for it now!

Always fancied building a PC...but i'm scared!

I will look to get my new PC about a month before SoW arrives so it's up and running for THE big event.

I bought a new rig from ibuypower and am very happy. It runs ROF and MS-FSX like butter with everything maxed. Great experince and no I don't work for them.

Don't be. It requires a bit of research but there is an abundance of information available on the subject, just search the internet. I built a pc a while ago and it is great fun, very rewarding and you will feel so much more in control, knowing exactly which components you are running and not just having a little pre-built box from Dell. I'd say definitely go for it. Join a pc forum though, and don't be afraid to ask for help.

As for me, I will probably push the clocks up a little higher on my i7 920, and keep my GTX260 until some time after SOW has been released.

I was going to wait for SoW but then RoF was about to release, so i decided to replace my trusty but aging AhtlonXP. I ended up not buying RoF due to the DRM after all, but i didn't regret getting a new PC in the end.

In April 2009 i got an i7 920 with 3GB of RAM, an Ati 4870 1GB and a 1.5TB 7200RPM seagate hard disk. A couple of months later i replaced my 17" CRT monitor and got a 16:10 22" dell with an IPS panel for best viewing angles and color fidelity.

My graphics card was defective and kicked the bucket next Christmas and i couldn't replace it due to the suppliers running inventory during the holiday season, so i went out and bought an Ati 4890 1GB with the aim of exchanging the replacement 4870 for a second hard disk when the warrantee would come through. I got a 1.5TB western digital, albeit running at a lower RPM, on which i installed Win7 x64 Pro in preparation for the new titles (DX10 support).

I don't think i'll buy or replace anything else for the time being. I always do what some of you already described, buying second best components to ensure maximum value for money. When the 6xxx series Ati cards hit the market and prices on the 5xxx series drop i might upgrade to a 5870 for DX11 support, but not earlier than that. I might also get a bit more RAM, but always multipliers of 3 to take advantage of the motherboard's/i7 tripple channel feature (so i wouldn't go from 3 to 4GB of RAM but from 3 to 6GB).

I might also swap my windows versions between my two hard disks, reinstalling XP on the slower western digital and win7 on the faster seagate, but it depends on how bored i will be transferring data back and forth. I make a habit of always partitioning my disks and put all my data on the second partition. This enables me to skip doing a full backup everytime i want to format my system partition and do an OS reinstall as the second partition is left untouched, so it shouldn't be much of a hassle.

I don't care much for SSDs at present, as their price per GB is so much higher than ordinary hard disks. I can live with 10-20 seconds of extra loading time just fine. I also think that anything more than 6GB of RAM is pretty much overkill for the time being, unless someone is running multiple instances of high-end design programmes with built-in 64 bit support, like photoshop or autocad stuff.

Me!! Me!! Oh me!! ;)

I forgot, what is RoF?

Wait for Sandy Bridge.

Look for the Overclocker forums. Lurk on them for a while, do some searches and make some postings.

You'll get as good information as available, because these are the people on the cutting edge of performance all the time.

Most overclockers are very happy to share. You may even be able to work with a few of them and get a complete shopping list.

IMO >>> It is a waste of effort to try to pick out a system now. I'm going wait for the BOB SOW to be out for several months before I start doing anything about it. The entire community will be buzzing with all kinds of information about choosing hardware, etc.

Just my two cents on this

I just finished my new build :) It should handle anything I play for a while.

MOBO: ASUS Crosshair III Formula,
RAM: 8GB (2 x 4GB) G Skill DDR3 1333,
CPU: AMD 965 Phenom II - 3.4GHz Quad-Core,
Cooling: ZALMAN 9300AT (lapped w/fan removed),
HD: WD Black Edition, 500 GB for the OS and other programs plus 1TB for games,
GPU: EVGA GTX 470,
CD/DVD: LG with LightScribe,
Sound: Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro,
PSU: CORSAIR HX Series 850W,
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 590 with (3) 140mm fans and (1) 120mm fan,
OS: Windows 7, 64-bit,

only matters the power supply and the video card. off course, you cannot buy a c2d. you need 4 cores.

relieve me, a 5850 will be so poor for Storm Of War ! (shit, What I am going to do now?!!!):mad:

i buy my machine 2 years ago (i was thinking SOW release in early 2009)

OK guys.. had to register just to correct all the foolishness going on

wrong, you have an intel motherboard for the last 5 years intel motherboards have supported scaling in ram, yes you can run 4 sticks of 1 gig DDR3 and still have it in triple channel, or 5 sticks even, you will see a reduction in performance... (of .01%) in other words the loss in performance is so minuscule its not even measurable, if you want 4 gigs just buy another stick and plop it in, i see this posted ALLLLL the time its highly annoying it s like the greatest urban legend of RAM.. however if you have an AMD board then you must do it the way you said

powersupply is the most important to power your system and make sure your comp wont fry, however has next to 0 affect on the actual performance of your rig unless your doing extreme OC or your under the volt limit on the rail... for this reason i always recommend seasonic or corsair PSU, they use single rail for more volts and are overspeced on watts, if your using a single video card pick up a 600 or 650 corsair powesupply you cant go wrong, unless you want two video cards

no thanks

this is largely up to your resolution, a 5850 at ~1020 x 720 i guarantee you will run SOW max it will run anything max with a good CPU ect, pay attention to your screen res... ie multiply the two numbers if you have a 1600 x 1200 screen tats 1.92 million pixels, a 5850 would likely run sow very well at that resolution but likely wouldnt max it out.. however if you run a 2560 x 1600 screen now your pushing 4+ million pixels now you'll want more power, generally if your running 4 million pixels or over youll want a high end nvidia 480 / or a nw ati 6870 coming out less than two months.. if your under 2 million pixels the current ati cards should do fine or a nvidia 460 should also do beautifully, also the processor is very important in this case, i would recommend quad core definitely for SOW, if you want more CPU power dont buy a high end CPU you'll get more value for the money OC.. if you can't OC.. buy a pre-OC system.. easy even with the premium you'll pay to have a system built if its OC youll more than make that money back.. not sure if ibuypower does OCs, but lots of custom built companies will oc for you and even guarantee the OC and replace anything if it fry's check the warranty before purchase!!..(http://www.digitalstormonline.com/ they will OC a prebuilt for you and its absolutely guaranteed, if it blows they;; replace.. however its highly unlikely occurrence with current tech, and adequate cooling failed OCs are very rare.. how rare.. well with air cooling and a corsair PSU, and good motherboard less than 1% and that 1%)) however if you can I highly highly highly recommend building your own computer and OC, get a low end I7 920 or possibly something in the 800 line, with a decent motherboard its sooooo easy to OC, you'll get 3.4ghz easy just with stock cooler more than that custom air cooler also easy to use, the reason id recommend the I7 for first time OC is because its soooo fool proof, its basically impossible to blow anything up as long as your PSU and motherboard is decent, and its a really easy OC, a few clicks in BIOS and done, never touch it again, and yes you will get much higher frames with a OC I7 vs a stock.. probably in the neighborhood of 15-25 % higher FPS and also GHz does not = GHz.. when it comes to performance on different brand chips in other words and I7 at 3 ghz.. is about 1.5x faster than last gen intel or current gen amd.. so you can do math 6 core amd is about same speed as I7 4 core GHZ for GHZ so yes 6 core low end amd is very good choice even cheaper than I7 and aaaaalmost as fast if you OC, if your not OC skip it (6 core amd)

as for OC the GPU also must do lol, so easy to do also, just get into CCC in ati cards.. and click the button to release slide and add 100mhz to the GPU speed.. done) that will help alot so easy to do, and 5850 will OC like a beast recommended highly amd cards run nice and cool, if u decide to OC the GPU make sure it either A exhausts out the case.. or B you have at least 2 large or three small fans blowing inside the case

very nice build dont know monitor size but should do very well

lets see how to put this..?? WRRRRROOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !

why?
#1 your main bottleneck will be GPU if u wait for something should be the GPU
#2 sandybridge can't OC them their locked chips no OC for you looser, unless you pay extra 300 dollars.. heh yeah right,
#3 SOW will be out before sandybridge SOW CAN NOT WAIT

very nice!! haha listen to this guy here, if you want new monitor and want great viewing and no glare get IPS panelIPS panelIPS panelIPS panelIPS panelIPS panel!!! +100000 i have 7 of them.. sooo awseome!!!!!

yes will save money good advice, also people GPU are so easy to upgrade, its just plug wipe old drivers and install new drivers just must check power usage and required cables from PSU, and ventilation in case

if u cant afford good GPU its the preferred part of your system to ' save for later' if your newb.. just because so easy to upgrade dont have to worry about new sockets and disassembling stuff ect.. get the cheaper, when you can afford it sell old one on ebay and buy the new GPU

and yes directx 11 is good, not necessary.. but if your upgrading youd be pretty foolish to even consider a GPU without it, lots of great great low end choices even in DX11 liek amd 6500 or 6600 or 6700, even though thier new performance for price in most cases even matches last gen,

S!

I have been upgrading for just the shits and giggles, not really following any game or something. If I can and want to try out something then I do it. But for SoW I have a decent system I guess, as all other games I play (RoF, IL-2, Dawn of War II, EVE Online etc.) run smoothly at 1920x1200 with most/all maxed out.

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition (at stock speeds)
GPU: MSI n480GTX 1.5Gb (optionally AMD 5870HD 1Gb)
RAM: 2 x 4Gb 1333MHz DDR3
Mobo: AsRock 890FX Deluxe3
PSU: Corsair 650W
Screen: BenQ W2400D 24" 16:10 screen
Case: Antec NineHundred
OS: Windows7 Home Premium 64-bit

Possibly next upgrade will be SSD drive(s) when/if their prices drop a bit, hideously expensive at the moment, at least here :(

My Current liquid Cooled Rig:

Mobo: Asus Striker Extreme Rampage 11
Ram: Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 6GB DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600)
CPU: Intel Core i7 930 (Overclocked to 4.2Ghz)
GPU's: 2 X Geforce GTX285 in SLI
PSU: Coolermaster Real Power 850 W Power Supply (Modular)
Case: Coolermaster RC-1100 V2 Black Tower Computer Case
Radiator: XSPC RX360 Black High Performance Radiator
CPU Block: APOGEEXT - Swiftech Apogee XT CPU Block
Pump: Laing DDC Pro Pump with XSPC V3 Acrylic Top
Res: EK-Multioption RES X2 - 150 Advanced Capacity 160 ml
Hard Disk: 2 X 1.5TB Western Digital SATA 3Gb/s, 7200+rpm, 64MB Cache
DVDR: 2 X Sony DRU-870s
Monitor: 27" Dell Ultrasharp Widescreen LCD, IPS panel

Well, thanks for the correction :-P

So, how does it work? If i use 4x1Gb sticks, the 3 of them work in tripple channel and the last one works "on its own"? Or does it somehow "divide" the performance gains from the tripple channel sticks and have all four of them running at an in-between speed?

Also, i have another question. I have an i7 920 with the stock cooler, but i got it somewhat early (April 2009). I don't know if it's one of the D0 stepping chips that overclock better, or one of the older chips where you need to be a bit more careful.

Can i see that from the BIOS or a diagnostic tool, or do i need to open the case, disassemble the cooler and look at the actual CPU to see if anything is written on it?

I have never overclocked any of my PCs, but since i7 920 is considered so reliable i might give it a go. I have the stock cooler, an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard and a Heroichi Cougar 700W PSU. You think i could go to 3.4Ghz without any real problems?

Aren't you a well mannered and polite individual. But anyway:

A bunch of sim games I've seen (a bit older in architechture though) have been pretty CPU intensive. DCS, FSX, IL2 etc as far as I know have their FPS set more by the CPU than GPU at the end of the day.

So can someone confirm it might be different for SOW based on the news we've received so far or do I just have to wait and see. I wouldn't rush out to buy any GPU's until there is some more light on this.

I saw sandy bridge OC'd to 4,9GHz on air. If that costs 300$ extra I don't really care and I'd be interested to see some sources behind that claim. If it's CPU that creates the bottlenecks then CPU is on my shopping cart and I don't have the time or energy to do any liquid coolings to reach 4,5GHz+ and I want to get the smoothest experience possible with SOW.

no thier will be no in between speed, each stick will be running at full DDR3 speeds, however if you had two sticks only you would loose some performance.. you just need 3+ sticks and your good to go the motherboard uses the data from the 3 and the 1 and all 4 sticks will run in triple Chanel just sending the info all to the same controller and motherboard sorts the data.. like i said the motherboard now must do just a little more work to process the data, so maybe it sucks up an other watt and runs a 1C hotter,but no no loss in performance (only on intel motherboards) so yup all 4 gigs running at triple channel.. enjoy!

downlaod teh program CPU-Z..
http://www.filehippo.com/download_cp...6f39f3b0275a1/

there install will tell you wither CO or DO revision... CO OC too it just takes more power .. ie get hotter so with stock cooler wont go as far.. DO should gt to 3.4 on stock volts easily.. i have mine at 3.8 on stock volts, however i have a powerful air cooler

Asus P6T Rev V2.. ONE OF THE BEST boards to OC I7.. in fact i have a comp with the same board and an I7 i can easily show you how to do it

your PSU although called "cougar" is really a re-branded HEC PSU, HEC makes good PSUs not the best but especially for not getting to wild with the OC i dont forsee any problems
yeah everything loos great the one thing that need to know what typr of case.. IE how man fans.. unfortunate the intel stock cooler just blows hot air around in case so id recommend at least 2 big or three small fans, either way.. you should be able to hit 3.4 without adjusting volts and keep temps low.. but if you get yourself a 60-80 dollar air cooler youll get to 4.2 ill bet ((DO) maybe 3.8 CO)

Intel press release, the new sandybridge will have special UNLOCKED revisions, normal revisions wont OC, locked on chip, intel saw all the 920 OC and realized how much moeny were loosing decided to put a stop to it. but next amd revision will have unlocked cores.. i own ALOT of amd stock right now haha

Thanks for the tips so far.

After running CPU-Z it turns out my CPU is a C0/C1 revision, so i can't go that high :(
The case is not anything spectacular but it's roomy and has space for a couple of extra fans, so i think that i could create some proper air circulation if i wanted to overclock.

The good thing is that even this way, it looks like i can safely get it over 3Ghz without spending too much. I don't think i'd run it as high as 4Ghz even if i had a D0 CPU. We have really hot summers where i live and the PC is in a small room without air-conditioning, if the PC doesn't fry during the summer i will from all the heat build up :-P
I think 3.5Ghz would be good enough for me.

I guess that i could spend 100 Euros on an aftermarket cooler and 1-2 case fans and go for it if SoW happens to give me trouble. On the other hand, i could maybe sell my C0 revision CPU and get a D0 one :grin:

ok well in your situation, if you dont want to OC too high i wouldn't spend anything yet.. stock fan will most likely do just fine at the very least to 3.2 maybe you could add one case fan for very cheap probably less than 10 dollars shipped, then you just screw it on and plug it on the asus board where their is 3 or 4 pins and says fan1 or fan2

but i dont see any reason why you cant OC now, i just personally wouldnt want to run a hot case for long periods of time has a small chance to cause a problem, sounds like all you need to do is get OC

heres tools youll want/ need

intelburn
http://downloads.guru3d.com/IntelBur....html#download

core temp
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

CPUZ (already have)

heres where to start
first thing you must know is if anything goes wrong , which is to be expected, you may see blue screen, or may lock up... perfectly normal nothing is harmed, just reboot and the bios will automatically reset stock timings so you can boot again into bios..
hope you know how to get into bios... looking like this

[QUOTE]
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/cpu/c...ios-best-s.jpg

heres a resource for you in case you want to learn about your BIOS
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...1&limitstart=9

also i need to know what is your ram stock speed? it is likely that even your ram is running slower than it should you often have to go into bios in order to get it to run at the advertised speed

for instance you buy ddr1600 and when you install it its running at 1066 speed, most will never even realize it

once you got the ram speed to me i can tell you what to change (advertised ram speed not actual)

Been happy with the new rig for about a month now:

Antec 1200 case
Gigabyte motherboard: GA-X58A-UD3R GA-X58A-UD3R
12 gigs Corsair RAM
Corsair 1200 psu
i7 980x processor
GTX 480 GPU (just one for now)

I'm surprised how quiet it runs with all those fans - even when it's working hard with the 3D graphics program - sounds like a Harley purring on the freeway at 100 mph.

Been saving up for this for a long time and paid a heavy emotional price when the wife found out I transferred a few thousand dollars to our personal account to pay for it. She hasn't divorced me yet but she doesn't bring meals when I'm online any more either :(

that is a beast! lol although i personally would downgrade for free meal delivery

in the program real temp...check your cpu temperatures the numbers on left should be around 35C write it down just for reference

restart comp after the asus express gate screen passes, just tap the delete key until bios pops up

on the top press arrow key right to get to "AI tweaker"

scroll down arrow key to each selection i say and hit enter and select change then hit enter again

CPU ratio 19.00x

SpeedStep: Enabled

BLCK: 180

DRAM: put here the closest number below what your advertised ram speed is aka if its 1600 choose setting at or below that

CPU volts: try 1.25v to start (may have to raise or lower we will know later

QPI/DRAM volts 1.35v

DRAM BUS VOLT: 1.64v

CPU speed spectrum: disable
PCIE speed Spectrum: disable

thats it your done go over to exit at to and exit and save changes select

now you will boot up into computer : fingers crossed* everything should look good.. check your CPU temps in the program real temp...
see what they are and make note at this point im hoping their still low

now open up real temp so you cn see it out of the way monitor your temps.. if temps get to high the comp will auto shut down.. Buttt you should abort mission just in case if they get high like 80.. i doubt it will happen though with light OC

now you have your temp screen open run intel burn for a few minutes to see if were getting any errors, 5x iterations?)

monitor your temps

when finished everything still looking good, run the intel burn again for much longer maybe an hour or for fun you can install prime 95 and run that too for a few hours just to double check everything,

at this point if no errors occured .. you can go back into bios and either play with higher settings on the CPU x or BLCK x.. you can even try OC the ram (select higher than stock timings under DRAM: should work) or you can lower your CPU volts down to 1.2 or 1.225 from 1.25v which should use less power and keep her running cooler

run some benchmarks for fun, and let me know please post some screen shots for me!

(just for fun you can run the intel burn before you OC and measure the improvement you get.. fun fun!!!!

I know that story all too well and these days I'm better at making sure the exact prices of the upgrades are not known, as I have to agree they tend to get a bit ridiculous sometimes. Especially if you don't appereciate the number of polygons on the screen with smooth FPS like wives rarely do. :rolleyes:

I tried to google for press releases on the subject but could not find anything with info about prices. I found that H67 has locked multipliers for frequency but that's about it. Can you send me a link.. especially if it has more proce details.

Any thoughts on the GPU / CPU split of SOW or are we still on guessing game with no clues from Oleg about that?

Edit: Did the techpowerup guy really get banned or is that just some witty tweak in the profile?

The OC issues with Sandy Bridge seem to be related to the PCI and memory clock being locked to the CPU clock.

In reality very few people overclock.

yep he's banned, I think he posted what some thought was a joke, but no-one was really certain :confused:

Not upgrading for a while. Overclocked Q9550, 5870 and 8GB ram should run SoW pretty well. If it doesn't I'll get me an E0 and overclock some more. :)

WHY was 'techpowerup' banned?

He might have been a bit rude at times, but just barely compared to what I've seen in some of the other posts in this forum (slander, name calling, etc.)...and they weren't banned, although I thought they deserved to be!

I was interested in some of his tech comments and I'm sure that others were.

:confused:

Hi everybody, i want to apologize for being rude, i am sorry was told banning for rude behavior and racism, but i want trying to be racist i swear sorry was just concerned, anyway forget it ill just stick to tech advice

I have bought many new pc:s for SoW:BoB, and will continue doing so until it gets released ;)

why the heck was he banned again?


For:

looks like a typo, probably supposed be:

???

Well, the post that got him banned was way over the the top and had potential to do harm to 1C. Usually when a site bans someone, they ban the person, not just the name.

I will give him some credit in that he came back and apologized.

Splitter

lmao...classic. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...deathmetal.gif

I'd like to think that if your last pc isn't more than a couple months old, you won't need to buy another before it's finally released.

This post made me laugh ...

5 aliases under same IP will do it too.

Only 5?? :grin:

LMAO, I think I'm on my third setup myself planninig a forth.:grin:

I think I have been saying whenever SoW comes out, I will buy a new PC for the last 2 or 3 years I think.

Any of you guys gonna go triple screen? It looks pretty cool for some sims, mainly driving ones. But I hope it's cool in SoW but don't know if I'll have the horsepower to run it smoothly.

who still has the same Ip after 24hrs?

Er, anyone who has a Static I.P. address? It's not that uncommon.

Computer for SOW
 

Well this is my second build for SOW...

First build ( May 2008 ) which I am writing this on:

ULTRA Aluminus Case, (2 std case fans + one added)
Intel Q6700 CPU OC'd from 2.66 to 3.33 MHz
EVGA 2 X 9800 GTX GPU in SLI
OCZ 800 Mhz OC'd to 1000Mhz DDR2 Dual channel 8 Gigs memory
EVGA 780i Mobo
OCZ Ventetta 2 Cooler
OCZ Memory cooler

New build (not yet completed, will be a week from now :grin:):

Antec 1200 Case, (7 slow/quiet 120mm fans + Antec big boy + controller)
Intel 980x CPU (Plan to OC to 4 Ghz)
EVGA GTX 480 GPU
Mushkin 1600 Mhz DDR3 Triple channel 6-8-6-24, 12 Gigs memory
EVGA X58 FTW3 E768 Mobo
Prolimatech's Megahalem Cooler (sounds like its from the Bible or something...)
Newer model OCZ Memory cooler

There were two major errors in the first build:

- Two 512 Mb 9800gtx cards in SLI does not make 1 gig of video memory !
and 1 gig is now considered a high end minimum. Unless you have a big screen (2560 X 1600), SLI (or Crossfire) will not help you much with most flight sims (well maybe for AA). CPU limited and all that...

- The ULTRA case has only two case fans, and that is not enough to overclock on air, unless you like the sound of a vacuum cleaner. More fans, less speed = good cooling and less noise. 8 slow fans is better, the sound is less irritating than the shrill noise of 2 or 3 high speed fans.

The best thing is overclocking, that gives a real change in FPS, in proportion to the overclock actually. OC by 25 %, get 25% increase. Simple. As long as you have enough of a graphics card. A GTX 480 should do the trick :-P.

The combination of an OC'd 980X, 6-8-6 1600Mhz memory and a GTX 480 should prove effective... :cool:

But SOW will be 32 bit (for now) so that's 8 Gigs of memory too many...
Will it be DX11 ?, that's for the GTX 480...
I sure as hell hope it will be multicore (the 980x has 6...).

Hardware is so far ahead of software its getting ridiculous...I expect that rig will still not be fully used 3 years from now, and then it will be a new generation of everything that will not get used for another few years...

Anyway its all great fun ! :-P

Louisv

Wow all you guys think you need the best computer on Earth to run SoW.
I have an HP Compaq with 2 gigs of ram and an ASUS ENGT240 which only cost $100.Runs Rise of Flight like it's nothin,Bad Company 2 like a beast,FSX like it's not even there.DCS:Black Shark clocks at around 20-30FPS.CoDs 4,WaW,MW2 run like a beast as well.Not even mentioning the $70 500GB hard drive.
The overall value of my box is around $750,not alot at all.
Oh yeah it also uses an ''Old now'' Core2 Duo.Avging at 2.83GHz.

BTW these games are all set to max settings too.

20FPS is not exactly smooth framerates. Besides, you're full of it.

You probably won't need the best computer on earth to run SoW either, but let's just see shall we?

I kind of agree. Lot's of very expensive stuff without any tangible way to know if it's going to be used effectively or just end up sitting there.

I think a mid-range i7 CPU with 4 cores or even the "low-end" i7 920 overclocked and pushing between 3 and 3.5 GHz, plus 4-6GB of memory will be fine. As for graphics cards, it depends on what you want. I have no problem waiting 6 months to a year for DX11 cards to get cheaper. If SoW comes out in the meantime, my Ati 4890 1GB still supports DX10. I doubt there will be heavy use of DX11 specific functions like tesselation on the initial release version to make me want to get a DX11 card before they drop in price.

Louisv has a point. Hardware is way ahead of software, so why go for top of the line hardware if we can't bring the medium range line of components to their knees? On one hand, people want to get a capable rig with some amount of future proofing, a PC that will last a couple of years without major upgrades. On the other hand, if you go too far with top-end components you might find yourself in a position where something newer comes out and as is often the case, it happens to be incompatible with what you have (different sockets, need for specific components and so on). It's a fine balance between the two.

Just like people with a core 2 quad couldn't simply upgrade to an i7 without buying a new motherboard and DDR3 RAM, there might come a point where you can't upgrade from an i7 to the next CPU without changing most of your components.
If and when this happens i think it's better to be in the middle of the scale of the previous platform, so that you haven't spent an enormous amount on building a PC you never managed to use to its full capacity before it became obsolete.

Absolute performance is a very poor benchmark in my opinion. What more accurately reflects the consumer's needs is having a PC that can run most or all current games at high detail and some of them at maximum, plus a small performance margin or capability for future minor upgrades to make sure you won't need to do a major upgrade sooner than 1-2 years, but not so powerful that it runs everything at 50% load and then gets superseded.
That would just mean the other 50% of processing power that you never used before upgrading to a different CPU is money thrown to the wind. Most importantly it's money that could have gone to an upgrade towards a mid-range component of the next platform, which could do as well as the top-end component of the previous platform for less money. The only catch here is waiting a bit for the new models to penetrate the market and trends to stabilize...a person getting the fastest core 2 quad 6 months before the i7 was released would probably wish he'd gotten a mid-range core 2 quad for less and keep the spare change to go towards an i7 when it hit the shelves.

As an example with abritrary numbers, if an i7 920 is priced at 200-250 Euros, can be safely overclocked to 3.8 GHz or more and runs SoW maxed at 80% load, while the i7 980 is priced at 600-800 Euros and runs SoW at the same detail level (max) at 50% load, it's better to get the 920, keep those 400 Euros and use them after a year or two to buy a complete set of new motheboard, new RAM and a mid-range new CPU from the next series. That is, unless you want to be running photoshop on a second monitor during the dogfights in order to edit the screenshots with your favorite parts of the fight at the same time that they happen :-P

Most importantly, today we have quite a lot of things that can break the line of continuity. If it's not the new CPU requiring a different socket and motherboard or RAM type, it will be the new OS requiring a different video card to make use of the latest DirectX version and so on. So, for people who do upgrade it's better to do a series of small upgrades when the price of the component is low and that usually happens when it's either a low or mid-range model of the best line of products, or when it's the top-end model of the second best line of components.

Of course, others may have a different opinion on this, they may really need monster PCs for other reasons (eg, graphics and video editing professionals) or they simply decided to spend 1500-2000 Euros on a PC and not upgrade for the next 5-6 years no matter what. In that case, when going only for maximum system longevity with minimum upgrades, it does make sense to get the absolute best you can afford. The money spent will end up being the same over the course of time as someone who follows the method of incremental cost effective upgrades, maybe even less.

What throws a spanner in the works in this method however is potential failures. What happens if i break the bank on a monster PC, don't upgrade anything at all and after 4 years it's still going strong but my graphics card gets fried one day? There's nothing compatible with my motherboard to replace it without changing everything else is what usually happens, which leaves me wishing that i'd spent the same amount of money incrementally over the years so as to be up to date with the current hardware standard and have available spare parts to buy ;)

Just food for thought and how most people i know tend to do things. Your mileage may vary and after all, it's your own wallets. :cool:

for $750 you'll get:

- MSI 890GXM-G65 mobo
- X4 955 BE C3
- 260GTX OC(said to have 96% performance of GTX280)
- 4 Gigs of DDR3
- BQ 550W PSU
- 500GB HDD


Thats my build [in fact, I built this for IL2 only, lol]and I spent pretty much exactly that amount.

SoW will probably require a new CPU (or cooler if I decide to OC) and new GPU(no maybe here).
And if the prices of SSD's drop...

"Problem" is that most people aint content with playble frames anymore. Alot of them actually think they can see the differance between 50 fps and 150 fps + they just have to crank everything to max, even though 36x AA doesnt look one bit differant to 16x AA (generally speaking). Alot of them also seems to forget there are other things that causes lagg/stutter etc. than "bad" equipment (crappy coding/internetconnection/hardrives full of p*rn etc) when playing online so they upgrade every singel year with every new release of a game/GPU/CPU that hits the shelfse= giant waste of money.


Its pretty much a useless time and money consuming hobby to uppgrade, iv been there myselfe altough to my defence my last upgrade was secondhand stuff. :)

No.
If you have 50 average you'll experience some major drops in framerate - very noticeable.

If your system puts out 150, you can be pretty sure fps never drop below 50, therefore you won't even notice.
;)

And, btw: 30fps, that's almost unplayable.

The most significant PC upgrade i have tested is the SSD hard disk system. People with amazingly powerfull PC's are restricted for the most slow component: hard disk. The loading times of IL2 or Rise of Flight are just reduced by two or even four. Always consider a SSD in yor new builds. I don't think they are expensive: a 128gb SSD for 200€ is cheap if you compare with the huge boost you got on your system. The SSD is very important for us, because flight sims use to have thousands of little files, and the acces to these files for a SSD is much better than a normal hard disk.

SSD, all the way.

Feel free to buy the newest and best, not my problem ;), but like i said there are other things that can cause the game to slow down other than "your" 6 months old and "out of date gpu". ;)

Same debate as the one with people claiming they just have to have a 120 Mhz screen because 60 Mhz causes stutters and flickering and gives them a headache and cant refresh fast enough for theire highly developed brain/eyesight.

Look at today, now everyone just have to have a gpu thats capeble of DX11 and tesselation. (for what one might ask)

I am waiting to see the specifications of the BOB to finish my PC.
At this moment I have some pieces, and the rest will depend on the requirements.
I'm poor (at least, not all rich as some of you... :() and what I'm thinking more or less is:
Box: Lian-Li PC-7 Plus Series (I have it)
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H rev 2.0 (I have it)
Ram: 4Gb 1333 G.Skill Rip Jaws gaming series
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition. (I can´t take more at this time...Money is limited)
CPU Cooling: I´m thinking about Coolit ECO Advanced liquid cooling kit...
GPU: HD 5770 or HD5830.. depend on pricelist diference...
PSU: 900W
Win 7 64 Bits

I hope it can move BoB decently...
What do you think?? ;)

Personally i would get the GTX 460 instead, a bit more money, but not that much.

And looking at your current specs a 900W psu is a massive overkill, I run a Q9550 with a GTX295 on a Corsair 650W psu so anything over that is really a waste of money.

If it is like u say, tight with money i would wait with the liquide cooling, buy a 650/750W psu and get either 1-2 GTX 460/or better or a slightly better cpu with for ex. a noctua aircooling without having to blow more cash, u might even save a buck or 2.

It's not because I want the newest, hippest and best on the market.
All I want is a reliable, future update compatible, best bang for the buck system.
Check my specs, they're everything but high-end.

But: I really cant live with framedrops to 5 or even 1fps. Makes me go crazy! :evil:

Ok... 900W is because I found this at same price than 700W PSU...
The GTX 460... I´ll keep that in mind... if money support it. ;)
Liquid cooling is only an option... but nothing sure.
Thank you for your opinion.:grin:

Didnt mean u in perticullar, just talking about how some people reason in general.

One hot tip though, turn of fraps when u play, waching the counter jump up and down makes anyone crazy and im convinced it causes a placebo effect making people "see" stuff that aint there. ;)


Anyhow, this is something that can be debated ad noseum, everyone see`s things differantly and nothing can change that, im just glad im easy to please when it comes to gaming, cheaper that way :)

Honestly?

1st: You can't tell at the moment because SoW is not out yet, therefore you don't know what you will be able to afford at the time.
(Unless you're fortuneteller, but then again you wouldn't have the money issue - given you're good, lol)

2nd: Your are burning money.

You don't need:

- Gaming Ram, VR will do the same job and keeps certain problems away

- 900W PSU: WTF??? For what? A 750W will be enough for 480SLI. I'd say 550-650 and you're fine.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/19404/10

- liquid cooling: pls explain? They are loud, more expensive, consume more power and are not so much better than aircoolers.

- W7, some money to be saved here, maybe not so legal but... ;)


Edit: I see others replied faster. :)

I noticed the jumping before I even knew how to check the fps with the IL2 internal mode.

;)

Well:
This gaming RAM is at least cheaper than some normal... almost in the shop I see it... but... you know if there are some problem with this RAM??
The Coolit ECO kit is the cheapest liquid cooling kit I´ve seen in the market with good reviews for OC, but I repeat... this is a option I´m evaluating... Not sure.
About W7... I´m poor but LEGAL.:) You Start saying this and when BoB releases... then you may think... well...some money to be saved here, maybe not so legal but...
I hope not your case...:grin:

I would never put OM in the same box as Microsoft. ;)

I did indeed (illegally) download IL2 when I first heard about it - that was 10month ago - I though WW2 Prop Sim? 10 years old? Probably sux anyway. I was proven wrong. I already invested a lower 4digit sum in PC hardware and peripherals due to it - and I own a hardcopy of IL2 by now.

CoolIT: The Domino is/was one level over the ECO right?
Read on: http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...id=2485&page=5
4ghz +/-.2 sound realistic for the 955, you can stick with air.

What advantage do you expect from the gaming ram compared to value ram?


I can assure you: I have no problem spending money for something I like and think it's worth it.
SoW is one of those things.

OK it seems the domino is over ECO... but cheaper.
I dont expect a significant increase of performance with this ram comparing with VR... but thinking in future OC if this have better features (heat sink and timing) better performance...

huh? they basically say: the domino is a piece of shit.

Most Ram heatsinks generally don't work at all(well, they do: as heat keeper), they look cool though...

S!

Seems that if you look at the comments from Oleg regarding FM/DM/CEM etc. is that they have hundreds of things monitored. Then SoW would possibly be more CPU dependant than GPU. Any of today's GPUs can dish out very good performance in DirectX 9/10 and now 11 too. Iit is to be seen how well SoW code has been compiled and optimized to really use several cores of a CPU for calculations.

HUHH!!! sorry...
I understood wrong... :)

I thought I was being really clever last january, and bought an intel i7-860, 6 gig Ram, Terabyte harddrive 1920x1080 Dell xps studio blah blah.

Then I found out it had a really bad graphics card, and bought an ATI 5770.
By the time SoW comes out, that'll be rubbish. But that's the way it goes. Mine has so far cost me about £1200.
I should've stuck to the one I pinched from work. Cost me nowt.
There is no ideal solution.
Save some money, and run it with what you've got.

that techpowerup guy lasted long then.

personally i'm going to properly start saving now, and give it about 6months+ after release before upgrading. try and hold out as long as i can to get more grunt for my £££, because i won't be upgrading for a few years after that. tend to go for one ridiculous splurge and leave it as long as possible. probably adds up to as much as doing a few hundred quid upgrade every 6-12 months.

as long as i can play on low settings with this machine. it eats up il2, can play RoF with reasonably high settings at 1600x1200... so i should be ok for a bit. i hope. maybe.

I was playing ROF yesterday,after 6 months.I started the game,at 1920x1200,settings in high mostly,post processing off and for my surprise had very low fps in combat scenes and over cities.That's the first time this happens since I build my current rig.(a E8400@3,60 GHz ; GTX 460;4Gb RAM;asus P5Q.
Imediatly think about SOW and if it could take advantage of 6cores like ROF can do.
(my problem seems to be my only two cores and low vídeo RAM)

Are you using Win 7 by any chance? I recall reading something on the ROF site about Win 7 having issues with dual core processors in ROF.

At least the ROF people were blaming Microsoft - sounded to me like the problem may (?) have something to do with their coding too!?

Anyway, just a thought.

edit: see http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewto...p?f=276&t=6471

Hi lbuchele,

How much video memory have you got in your GTX460?

I have a similar computer (E8500@3.6GHz) but with a 9800GTX card and had planned to pick up a GTX460 as a video upgrade.

I've been trying to find a Q9550 somewhere as a stop-gap upgrade to make ROF play smoothly on my PC. (Very hard to find one at a reasonable price!)


Cheers!

The GTX 460 has only 868MB RAM what I think is too little by today standards.
I had no idea of the Win 7 problem with ROF and dual cores.
My NeXT system will be Sandy Bridge based probably.

Correcting:I don´t own a GTX 460 , I have a GTX 260 868Mb.
(I don´t really know where my mind was)

I'm seeing one on Amazon.co.uk, and a 9650 (without fan) for less.

I updated my previous post in this thread with a link to the ROF site where they describe problems with running ROF on dual core Win7 systems:

"We are sorry about that but it is not our fault. Win7 have new CPU-thread management politics which is causing much problems for high-loaded multi-thread applications (like RoF) on 2-core systems. We have some attempts to contact with Microsoft - it was useless. So unfortunally we can't do anything here.
4-core systems have no such problems with Win7."

As the owner of a dual core Win7 system myself it is raising some questions about how SOW will run?

Difficult to know just how much the ROF people are passing the buck here?

I will say though that on my recent switchover from XP to Win7 64 the small overclock that ran perfectly on XP caused endless blue screens with Win 7, and I finally had to revert to stock settings!

What looks promising is the scalability of ROF from 4 to 6 cores.
Since SOW is newer than ROF probably ( no guarantee) it will benefits from 6 core CPU?
(just wild guessing,of course)

I've always been in the camp of holding off major upgrades untill you really need them. After getting the A-10 Beta I decided to upgrade from my e8500(@3.6Ghz) to a q9400 CPU. (Don't know why I didn't go for a quad core when I bult my PC???)

Now with my new quad core purring along at 3.6Ghz there is a noticable improvement with ROF and A10 seems to have a few less stutters.

Hopefully this will keep me happy till SOW gets released. Then I'll get a more modern graphics card and see what the performance is like before upgrading further.

Cheers!

He he... I haven't bought a new PC in at least four years because I've been waiting for the specs for SoW...

+1
two and a half years here...

I had an o/c, stable under stress and tested for temp etc until it started blue-screening when the hot weather came along in Aug. I actually had to bump *up* the memory clock to get it going again. Maybe your o/c will work again now it's cooler? Its odd it crashes under Win7 and not XP although Win7 does probably put more strain on the machine.

dduff

I've only been waiting 12 months to upgrade!

My PC is now 3 years old...yikes....

Even my wife said last week don't you need to upgrade by now?...I almost fell over!

The only thing i'm sure of for a new PC is spending about £1200 with a 24 inch screen..

I have updated my bios recently and have now tried the oc again. So far working ok, but will see how things go in the next week or so.