Looking for advice on spec'ing a new system.

[Jujuuk68]

And one of the primary reasons is to play CLOD, so here' seemed as good a place to ask.

Now, obviously, I can read off the box/steam recommended systems, but reading these forums, the product has been through a "difficult" birth, but now seems to be shaping up into a product worth buying.

I also am looking to get into ROF, as well as MS Flight, sooner rahter than later, and playing older mmorpgs games such as WOW, SWTOR, and Railworks. (I rpesently do play WOW and Railworks.)

I am upgrading from a 6yr old home built AMD Athlon 3500+, with (fitted in last 18m) a 4670 fx card and 2g memory.

What I am after, is a system that should allow me to play most games to very high spec, and futureproofs me.

I am at a quandry as to go for the i5 2500k or the i5 3570 (I shall be buying a pre overclocked system). The later i5 doesn't seem to offer much benefit over the former, aside a very modest speed increase. I have discounte dthe need for an i7 as gaming doesn't apparently require the hyperthreading these chips offer.

I only plan on running a single fx card for the forseeable future, and cannot decide if I should buy without for the moment, to see how I get on, and spend more later on a fx card. Will my card run CLOD? OR should I just go for a better card fromt he off?

If going for the better card, I was thinking of in terms of futureproofing, possibly going as high as a gtx670? This with one of those cpu's should get this game looking about as good as possible? Or is a 560 or 580 all thats needed? I will really only be looking to run a single monitor at this time, at 1920 x 1080 resolution. (I am using a 24 inch).

I would possibly consider buying a bundle and building myself, and if so, what psx size should I be looking at? People tell me its about the quality rahter the numbers on the box, and a 500-600w box should be suficient. I also will be possilby reusing my sata 3 compatible 2tb hd, (but this is running xp) -

Will I have to reinstall everything if I buy windows 7, or can I upgrade just by plugging in and reinstalling the Win7 over the top? Alternatively, if I choose to just "buy a box", how would I get all my software on my old HD to run with Win7 on the new HD?

Any views on this? For example, my localish pc shop is doing a bundle with the oc i5 3570, 8g ram 500g hd and a 7750 fx card for £699, with 560ti and 1tb hd £799 and gfx670 + 2tb hd and better psx) for £999. If the more expensive option will crack the notoriously difficult to run CLOD, I might well go for it, if not, then the lesser system, and wait a year or so for fx cards/coding improvement.

I look forward ot the advice of people who already play the game, for their assistance.

[JTDawg]

Hey m8, First off your vid card will really struggle, if it plays at all. I'm running 2 x 6870 xfx black ed. So vid card go upgrade to 1 that has 2 gigs , 2. 2 gigs of ram won't be nearly enough. (bare min of 6 gigs) I'm running 16 gigs crucial balistic tracers 1600s. 3. I'm a amd guy with phenom 2x6 1100 (so wait for a intel guy to chime in) 4. power supply 500 to 600 , I think bare min a 750 or 850, an also make sure certified ,for sli or crossfire, for down the road for this game ,And the games coming out over the next several years.
But even look into 1000 watts 5. Win 7 64 bit not 32 6. and as far as win 7 goes i,m learning it my self but without knowing if your running 32 bit xp or 64 ??? home prem an ultima both support xp also xp is a dying breed i know its hard but let it go Hope this helps some cya

[vranac]

Hi!
You are very well informed.
I will recommend 2500K over 3570K because new Ivy bridge CPU's are hotter than Sandy bridge counterparts, and they have less overclocking margin.
Intel put cheap thermal grease between chip and IHS probably because AMD
don't have competitive product in this moment.On Sandy bridge there is soldier.

http://translate.google.com/translat...11_532119.html

About GPU, yes gtx670 is futureproof and a good buy, but gtx560 Ti runs CloD very well with almost everything maxed out.I saw some nice price drops for gtx570 recently.
Quality 600W PSU is more than enough (Seasonic, Corsair...).
Assuming that buying OC'ed PC is more expensive than building it by yourself,
if you have done that before I'll recommend you second solution.
OC'ing i5 is very easy.

You can install Win 7 on the top and use both systems.

Good luck!

[Jujuuk68]

Hi - thanks for the reply -

I did go for the 3570 over the 2500, simply because at the oc I was looking at - iro 4.3, temps seem ok to most of the oc'ing community - seems over 4.5 the chips really start to get warm... and at a roughly 10% faster chip, 4.3 is still as fast/faster than a 2500 at 4.7 or less, and whilst some chips get to 5, I'm not an oc'er myself, so I figured 4.3 was enough for me.

and once I'd set down that path, the 670 specced pc was not much more expensive than one with a 560ti. And the job of buying a pc from one of the "little guys", was that the pc had win7 pre installed, but with no bloatware other than a demo file on the desktop that plays as a instore demo - and the cabling was beautifully tidy inside,and the spec of stuff like the psu was of a good quality - advertised as just a 600, but actually a coolermaster 650gx.

So, ordering my CLOD from UBI shop tonight, and hopefully will be flying with you guys shortly. Thanks for answering my questions...