New Rig for SOW:BofB What should i get
 

I apologize if there is a thread or forum for this question, which I haven't found...

Now that it looks as if SOW:BofB is VERY near release..my guess is February 2011...I am preparing to move forward and upgrade/build my new Rig.

I have the following components in mind...any thoughts on this plan or recommendations for alternative components will be appreciated:


MoBo:
P6T Delux V2 (Includes LGA 1366 X58 Socket)

CPU:
Core i7 Extreme Edition 970 (Six Core, 12 thread)


RAM:
Corsair CMX12GX3M3A2000C9 (3X 4Gb, DDR3, 2000Mhz, includes Dominator Airflow heatsink with DHX+)

VIDEO CARD
GTX480

SOFTWARE:
64-bit Windows 7

Keeping my current Samsung 24" 1920X1200 Monitor


Note: I never overclock, so that is not a concern. Also, I don"t think I want to mess with SLI in any way.

that would be a killer rig for sure, SOW will run excellent on that one, even without official word I can tell ya:grin: Nah seriously, this may be a bit overpowered, I think an AMD 6 core will do just fine for about 200 euros. Nvidia has some good graphics cards, but I´m more of a ATI guy so if I´m upgrading it will be the 6XXX series

Well,we don't know,but I doubt you will have any problems with that rig.Still,why not wait a little longer,it can't be long now before Oleg releases specs.

I would suggest waiting for the beginning of the 2011 when Intel's Sandy Bridge micro architecture CPU-s should become available to public. The new GPU flagships are behind the corner and should also be available by then.

What does this all mean? - You can save considerably on your current components if you buy them in two months time as the prices will drop. Or you could get the latest gear available for the more or less the same price.

Personally, and more importantly - I'd wait for the game specs to be come out. This way you won't miss with your purchase. ;)

Wait for Sandy Bridge and GTX 580 or ATI 6990
12GB RAM might be too much,I guess...
Don't forget a good PSU too.

A wealth of knowledge here, gnetlemen, thankyou as well ;)

I'm going to be building a new pc for BoB as well. But I wouldn't even thick about buying anything until we know the exact release date.

Technology is always improving so the longer you wait the more bang for your buck you will get.

Dude! If you want to run BOB flawlessly you should get at least the 6 core i7980X. Anything weaker will struggle with BOB.It is just a few more bucks! It is said there will be lots of planes flying at the same time in SOW. and more important : drop in another gtx480 if you plan to fly near buildings. But i'd wait for the gtx580. 2 of them.

As I understand it, the Core i7 970 is essentially the same as the 980, but a hundred bucks or so cheaper (maybe $850 versus $1000???), except that the 970 is 'locked' and cannot be overclocked. Both the 970 and 980 are 6 Core. I don't need the 'open' or'unlocked' structure of the 980, as I never will overclock.

If you do not overclock definitely wait for the 1155/P67/H67 Sandy Bridge motherboards.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Sneak...p-164172.shtml

So far it seems the only downside of Sandy Bridge is very poor Overclock options due to locking the PCI etc to same base bus speed as processor.

If you do not overclock Sandy Bridge will be ideal for you.

Are you sure about that? :) None of us have played the game yet.

I suspect any top spec Core i7 will probably do just fine but experiences will probably vary. I was saying somewhere else that Storm of War will probably look spectacular on a wide variety of computers but the absolute top level of detailing will probably be a whole other level that only the absolute top of the line computers will be able to take advantage of.

Good point if you want cost effectiveness.

As for the individual components and judging from the performance we've seen in the videos from the Igromir expo (running SoW on full detail at PCs below the minimum specs, with stutters no less but still running stable and smooth over water), i doubt your proposed rig will have any problems whatsoever.

If anything, i'd go for a more middle-range quad core i7 instead of the 6 core model as it seems a bit overkill to me personally. Not that i know anything about how much SoW will benefit from extra cores, just guessing here.

I'd also choose an Ati graphics card just because the current nVidia offerings use up a lot of power, generate a lot of heat and as a consequence need high speed, noisy fans to keep temperatures where they need to be, all for a very small performance increase in most applications that don't go overboard on tesselation. Meaning, Ati will give the same or better performance over a wider range of different applications for less money.

I've always had nVidia cards up till getting my i7 rig last year, at which point i switched to Ati, so it's not like i have a grudge against them. It just doesn't make sense to me at this point in time to buy and install a very expensive mini-heater in my PC case with all the trouble that comes with it, for a marginal 5% or so boost in frame rates and maybe 20-25% in specific full-tesselation titles like a few first person shooters that i don't play.

As for RAM, 3GB is the minimum requirement for SoW, that's pretty much the only part of the specs we do know officially. I'd say get 6GB, 3 sticks of 2GB actually to take advantage of the tripple channel feature in i7 boards. More than 6-8Gb seems again like overkill and wasted money (before you can ever take full advantage of it, you might be on your next upgrade that uses a different kind of stick altogether, like DDR5 for example)

Since RAM is relatively cheap compared to other stuff, you could get one of the dual GPU 5xxx series Ati cards with the left-over cash, a simulator specific peripheral you might need, an extra hard disk, or a solid state disk to put your operating system on, and so on. You might even be able to sell your old monitor and get a new IPS one for the added color quality. The options are endless and you can tailor your PC to be a very well rounded machine for reasonable amounts of money, as long as you shop one step below the top of the line components.

Hey, at this level 850$ or 1000$ is really not a difference!! If you have 850$ you also have 1000$! BUY the i7980X! I'm 100% sure i will get the 980X or maybe a very good sandy for XMAS. That's why i saved up my money. I Also plan to drop in a 3rd gtx480 into my babe. With 980X and 3 GTXs BOB will run WITHOUT any issue. I understand you dont plan to OC but nowdays overclocking is VERY easy. 10-15 seconds in BIOS and you can get the 980X to 4.2Ghz. Also if you dont plan to OC why do you buy the p6T Deluxe V2??? It is made for OC and Crossfire/SLI. Buy a cheaper board and drop the difference into CPU.

...but the absolute top level of detailing will probably be a whole other level that only the absolute top of the line computers will be able to take advantage of.[/QUOTE]

That's what Im talking about. Most of us want to play this game with everything
MAXED OUT to get the best visual experience. Therefore i dont hesitate to drop in a 3rd or even 4th gtx480 into my rig. You will need a VERY powerful system to get the most joy out of this game... Get the latest and BEST hardware so you wont be disappointed.

IIRC Oleg several times compared BoB release with Il-2 release regarding system requirements. In 2001 no hardware could run Il-2 maxed at hi-res at 50+ fps.

I have an impression that we would not be able to run BoB at 100% maxed out settings (100% AI complexity, 100% ground units, etc.) at 50+ fps for 3-5 years after release on mid-range hardware ($800-1200 setups). My 2005 $1200 setup could not run 4 year old Il-2 maxed out at 50+ fps at 1680 res low above cities for example.

So wait if you can or be prepared to upgrade next summer or winter again :) I upgraded for BoB last spring and ready for next upgrade when I feel I am not satisfied with BoB performance.

PS. 3.2 GHz clock speed may not be enough for BoB regardless of number of cores. Some games just require high clock speed (e.g. Arma2). Say ArmA 2 starts to kick only at 3.8 Ghz at my quad core i7 860 and not playable at 3.3 Ghz. And in some complex Warfare missions with many AI fps drops to 8-10 due to lack of processing power (not video). Video is not an issue in sims unless you run triple monitors I think.

We really have no way of knowing this at this time. Although SOW will be multi-threaded it is fully possible that 4 cores will be sufficient to do the job. Anything more may be of no benefit - it may even be that clock speed for the individual cores may be more of a factor. We don't know!

Also, I'd be surprised if any current games even use more than 3 cores.

Ditto on the graphics....this is the area where I'd be most cautious. I think there are subtle indications (speculation yes..) that nVidia may be the way to go with SOW.

But Szala, your strategy of going for the absolute best (most expensive) on every level could well not be the best one - in that the extra expenditure over a more modest i7 say could be wasted. We really do need to learn a little more about how the game will respond to more cores versus clock speed, and just how CPU V GPU dependent it will be.

Apparently Intel has high hopes for Sandy Bridge!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/san...-i7,11464.html

Unless you need to upgrade now, I'ld put off the upgrade.

Cheers!

Another vote for:
Wait

Unless you have to build now, wait until we know more. We don't yet know if BoB needs 6 cores to run at max (it might) - you may for example be better with a 4 core i7 or and AMD cpu, then spending more on the GC - with the amount you're spending, I'd think of going better than the 480, either 580 or 6xxx series, but again you need to wait to see what BoB wants.

3-4 graphics cards? Come on :-P

I mean, it's your money but isn't that a bit extreme? Going to all that trouble just to run one title at full detail a few months earlier? All you gain is seeing some features a few months earlier, that's all.

I never do SLI/crossfire for this very simple reason...today's double GPU solutions cost more and perform less than the single GPU of 6 months in the future.

I agree with what the other people are saying...the way PCs evolve today, you could buy a $2500 rig and it could be surpassed before you even have the chance to stress it to the maximum. If it doesn't get the chance to get used and stressed to its limits, it's wasted money plain and simple. What would i do in your position? Get the best foundation for a good PC by buying a good case, PSU and CPU, ie the things that don't get rendered obsolete every 6 months. Then, use mid-range components for the things that might need more frequent upgrades.

That's actually exactly how i'm set up right now...i have two 1.5 TB disks, an Asus P6T Deluxe, 3GB of RAM and a 700W power supply. I run a stock i7 920 with an Ati 4890 1Gb. All in all, i've spent about 1500 Euros on this rig over a few months (high quality IPS monitor included in the price). I could have gone for dual 4890x2 or 12GB of RAM but i didn't.
I wait for the 6xxx series cards to hit the market and nVidia to regain some lost ground that will force Ati to further drop the prices. Then i'm going to buy a 5970 or something like that for a mere $200 and have the same performance as someone who built a rig the same time as i did, but decided to spend $500 on dual 4890x2 right off the bat. In a similar fashion, when i7 prices drop due to the release of sandy bridge CPUs, i can exchange my 920 for a high end six-core at half the price it costs now.

Yes. Why would I pay a premium price "now" for hardware to play a game that is not yet released? I could wait until it is released and pay less for the same hardware. Or I could spend the same amount of money in the future that I would spend now and get BETTER hardware.

I won't be upgrading the day the game comes out. I'll wait until other people report back on how their rigs, their new hardware, runs the game.

Most of the time when I upgrade, I end up saving a lot of money by just buying the things that will get me the most increase in performance right now. I have been burned in the past by buying video cards and CPU's that the game I was intending to play could not take advantage of. Oh, eventually something else comes out that justifies the excess hardware, but by that time the hardware in my system could have been bought for 60% of what I paid.

Think about it, the hardware companies WANT you to buy the bleeding edge components to play the latest software, that's why they often work with the development companies. Development companies walk the line between providing a product that can be used by the bulk of gamers right now (medium and low settings) and the gamers that must have the latest and greatest hardware (bleeding edge expensive hardware). There is a push/pull there between hardware companies and developers that I just don't want to be involved in with my wallet.

It's gonna suck if you spend $400 extra for a CPU with maximum cores right now when the games won't use those extra cores for a year or two. Been in a similar situation myself and it didn't feel good.

I mean, unless you have money to burn and in that case, who am I to tell you what to do with your money? :)

Splitter

And not forgetting that complexity and driver related bugs grows fast when you go more than two cards in SLI or Crossfire.
Really not worth it .
We probably will be able to play with everything maxed out in 3-5 years like someone here posted before.

Here's a crazy idea! Why not just wait until the full game is released and try it with your current hardware? Yes, I know it sounds crazy but what's the point of upgrading before you even have the game? I thought I had pre-release jitters, geeez...

I agree....simply because the game was running well on an i5 with gtx-460 (albeit with 2 gb ram) at (apparently) high settings....well, who's to say it won't run well on a less-powerful set-up with moderate settings? (which may still look awesome?)
unless of course you wish to make the best of any upcoming sales. If so, future-proof as much possible (if possible) ;)

"Sandy Bridge represents the largest increase in computing performance in our history"

wow .. you do not normally see Intel saying things like that

Pick whatever is state of the art in Q1 2012. That way you'll be sure to be able to handle "Battle over Moscow" as well.

(typical single missions in Il-2:FB required a rig which was a little over two times faster than the original Il-2 system requirements - if the engine upgrades don't push up the resource needs, then the mission builders will).

That said I could do with advice regarding the fastest RAM currently available and other performance configurations. I don't keep track of these things anymore.

Currently that would be something like triple channel 2133mhz DDR3 installed in banks of 3.

Latencies are less relevant these days ... the 2133 ram is often CAS 9 or so. The clock is so fast the latency becomes less relevant.

But you need a 1366 motherboard for triple channel.

Not sure if Sandy bridge will change that. Possibly SB will be all triple channel, no idea.

As the thread originator, Thanks to all the thread participants thus far. Very informative, both technically and philosophically (Upgrade philosophy).

[As an aside, to shed some light on my personal perspective, I'm on the far side of 67. So, when I do an upgrade, there is always the possibility that the upgrade will be my Last...if you get my drift. Sooo, postponing some aspect of upgrading in anticipation of a forthcoming Advance in 6-12 months might well mean that I'll never get to see/experience the Maximum thrill which current cutting edge state-of-the art might allow]

But, back to the the main thread subject matter, I wonder why Oleg/1C can't now provide some very specific information on minimum necessary and maximum usable/desirable specs. Surely by this point they know how their engine will, or will not, use multiple Core technology. Will dual core be a minimum for effective BOB performance, even if not 'required' ? Will quad-core be the 'main' approach??? Will Six-core, up to 12 thread be a total waste in Oleg's opinion? Will RAM of 6GB, let's say, be the max that Oleg can see being usable for BOB on release?

It just seems that by this point, with BOB Release seemingly likely within the next 4-6 months, Oleg and his team certainly must for some time have been using some Top-of-the-Line, Cutting Edge computers for development and now Beta testing...if only to see how far they can push their engine/performance...or could push it in the near future. This would seem the opposite end of development/testing from their effort to determine just how low they might go for "Minimum specs" statement on the release package.

I can see why early in development, or even a couple of years ago, they would have been reluctant to commit to any 'recommended' specs....but now...Why not?

[Again, as a personal aside, I will not upgrade until at least I have a BOB installation DVD in my hand. I can then read the manual, and the forums, for a week while my Rig is being upgraded. I'd just like to be prepared now, in advance, for making the upgrade component choices. Someone suggested waiting to try BOB on my current rig to see if I might be satisfied...and therefore discover that I might need NO significant upgrade. No way, Jose. I have a Core 2 dual core, 8800GTX/768Mb, 4Gb RAM with only Vista usable 3GB. Surprisingly it runs IL2 (and Rise of Flight) superbly at moderate, though acceptable graphics settings and intensity...for a 3 1/2 year old Rig. At that time it was absolutely cutting edge, and expensive...but I've gotten more than my money's worth. However, now there is No possibility of it running SOW:BofB to my satisfaction.]

Thanks for listening... :)

Doolittle, I have seen my future and it is you :). 67 and still gaming, good on you!

Splitter

As far as I know Oleg does not have top end hardware in his office and the game is not fully assembled yet. Thus, system reqs are not known.

The only 2 things his devs mentioned are
- 4 cores will be better than 2 as they will have physics, graphics and sound data handled by different cores (and the 4th one left for system, and other overhead). Personally I doubt that 2 extra cores of 6core proc can be fully loaded before next engine revision.

- 3Gb ram will be minimum requirement.

I think your current rig will run BoB on low settings at least in QMB.

Thanks!

It is worth remembering, though that Il-2's system requirements climbed by about 30% during the beta stage.

I remember as I had a 350mhz machine that could no longer run it. It is also a good idea to recognise that Oleg's sims run on incredibly slow machines, but require a lot of resources to 'run well'.

OMG, this is mad people's forum :)

First of all: any high end cpu/gpu of today (like the one originally posted) will perfectly run original release of BoB. Be sure.

Second: if the reason of getting a new pc is BoB, why not buying it as soon as it is released and tenths or hundreds of reviews will be available? You save money and you get best value for them.

Third: there are kids dying of starvation. Don't spend thousands of dollars for an extra frame in a game. Even if you donate to UNICEF, it's STILL a wrong luxury to aim for 123 FPS instead of poor 120 FPS...

Possibly there is a language problem...but nevertheless I have to point out that it's my money...If I want to light a cigar with a Hundred dollar bill, it's my choice.....
... I'll judge what "luxury" is 'right' for me, as will others judge for themselves.
...
Signed..."Cranky Old Man" :)

P.S. I'll probably only leave this post up for a day or so, then delete.


EDITED:

Wow! This is like when I humbly try to tell my wife that some exercise could be both fun and good for the health ;)

+ 1000:grin: too recognisable

"But it's for the children...."

LOVED YOUR POST! lol. But you forgot "Get off my lawn" :).

A George Carlin routine also comes to mind but is not fit for posting here.

Rome is burning, grab a marshmallow.

Splitter

You are right and forgive my impulse please :)

There is another reason to wait. Once Sandy Bridge is released in 6 or 8 weeks the prices of the current i3/i5 motherboards and processors will suddenly drop substantially.

Sandy bridge is likely to be officially released at CES Las Vegas in early January:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardwar...te-announced/1

If all the rumors are right,considering that the CPU is the key for good performance in SOW and Intel claiming that Sandy Bridge is the biggest performance jump in ALL it's history...
Well I'll wait for SB for sure.
GPU will be the GTX 580 or ATI 6990 if it's drivers are OK for SOW (this card will be a REAL monster,be sure)

Maybe something like this overclocked SB i7-2700K (K means unlocked) will run SOW ok ;)

http://www.liquidnitrogenoverclockin...otherboard.jpg

I couldn't agree more. Oleg must have some idea of what will be needed and if he doesn't he's leaving things a bit late for a near future release. A guide should be possible for decent framerate expectations and settings, even if it's only what he has been developing on, and an equipment estimate for high or max settings at reasonable framerates should be possible and helpful to people like me with a budget limit which sets boundaries anyway (I accept that I may not be able to afford a max settings rig).

My situation is one of a limited budget burning a hole in my pocket which will get eaten by less important domestic issues (IMHO :) ) if I don't use it. Someone mentioned starving children. I have two in their mid-late twenties and they are still starving (apparently) :-(

I could wait for Sandy Bridge but I don't doubt I couldn't afford it and I don't believe that it will knock the i7 970+ CPUs down to the current 950 price level I can afford. They will stay high for some time. Also the GPU landscape is fairly well established for the near future with ATI 5970s, and probably 6970s, and NVidia 580s being outside my budget. So I may as well go now. I have been offered an i7 950, 6Gb, SSD, 4.2GHz overclock bundle by Scan (overclock is under guarantee) which should futureproof me for a while. I am only now trying to decide on the GPU which will probably be a 5870 if SoW hasn't been written for Tesselation etc. Why buy something I don't need? I run a Flight simming rig (IL-2, SoW, FSX). And I don't need the 6000s 3D. My current choice is between cheaper but slower 6870 (optimised for Tesselation) or more costly but faster 5870.

Come on Oleg - give us a clue!

BTW, there is another thread running about system specs
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=16401