building a new pc

[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]

Originally Posted by 'Biggs [CV

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]

Originally Posted by 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/i...-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/Produc...82E16817139006

And it comes in modular for if you're willing to pay an extra $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139016

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

Originally Posted by Oldschool61

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]]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

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.

Originally Posted by Biggs [CV]

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]]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

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]

Originally Posted by Biggs [CV]

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/psucon...tml#peripheral

[engarde]

Originally Posted by jayrc

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.