Will my PC Run this? What CPU/GPU to get? What settings? System Specifications.

[Leon86 13]

go for the 1.5V ram, the 1.65 might damage the cpu.

Where I live the 2500K is only 2 euros more expensive than the 2500, in that case I'd get the K, even if you dont overclock. Resale value is much better and it has more powerfull integrated graphics.

[nikiforos 450]

1.65 V can damage the cpu?

Im looking in different locations and the only thing I can find is 1.65 voltage. I dont think they are stupid to sell something that can harm the CPU as standard. Corsair rungs at 1.65 as well.

[SteveJA 12]

How about this?

G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C8 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit

1333Hz RAM Speed, CAS 8-8-8-24 Timings, 1.5 -1.65v VDIMM, Supports Intel i5 processors, Lifetime Warranty

The G.SKILL Dual channel packages are tuned to perfectly match the latest Intel® Core i5 Processors and Chipsets to ensure extreme performance

I know its 1.5 - 1.65, but surely if its designed for the I5 chips it poses no threat?

---------- Post added at 10:25 ---------- Previous post was at 09:55 ----------

Fuck it heres my Rig as it stands

CPU - I5 2500k

RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws-X 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz

MOBO - Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3-B3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard - B3 Revision

GPU - Sapphire ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express

HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 64MB Cache Hard Disk Drive

SATA 6 Gb/s 126MB/s <4.2ms 7200rpm - OEM

That adds up to just around £588 Hows that then?

Edited April 6, 2011 by SteveJA360

[Leon86 13]

Nearly all of the kits run at 1.5V, even the ones advertised at 1.65V. They'll run on 1333 instead of 1600.

Running 1600 is technically overclocking I believe, so you'll have to set it manually and test for stability with HCI memtest or prime95. Dont put the voltages higher than needed, 1.55 might work fine on 1600.

and make sure your memory is on the QVL. or just get kingston valueram 1333 if you're too lazy to look :)

Rig looks good, should be very fast. I'm not sure about the harddisk, unless it's particularly cheap. A samsung spinpoint f3 1TB is a faster and bigger disk, probably cheaper as well.

Edited April 6, 2011 by Leon86

[SteveJA 12]

I shall look into it, thanks for the heads up!

About the HDD i dont understand how the Samsung is a better disk.

Samsung ~ £40

1TB

Rpm - 7200

Cashe - 32mb

Seek Time - 8.9ms

SATA 2

Western ~ £50

640Gb

Rpm - 7200

Cashe 64Mb

Seek Time - 4.2ms

SATA 3

Ahh noticed this though

Samsung -

Data Transfer Rate / Media to/from Buffer(Max.)250 MB/sec

Data Transfer Rate / Buffer to/from Host(Max.)300 MB/sec

Western

Drive Transfer Rate126 MBps

Edited April 6, 2011 by SteveJA360

[Leon86 13]

32MB cache is enough for a home-use harddisk. It has no influence on read performance. Seektime is meaningless as every manufacturer tests differently.

The samsung has a higher top-speed, 145 MB/s, because of higher data density. When having semi-random acces the data is closer together so that'll be faster on the samsung as well.

If you'd run a file server the wd might be at an advantage due to better random writes (higher cache).

Sata3 aka sata600 is completely useless on a normal harddisk. Sata 2 goes up to 270MB/s, these disks dont even get close to those speeds. The only disks that go slightly over it are the 3TB 7200 rpm models, but even there its pretty much useless.

[flattermann 12]

if you got 40 extra quids you could buy 2 samsungs and Raid0 them, that would nearly double the speed in the end

[EDcase 87]

Has anyone tried using an SDHC card to run ARMA?

[CorsairFlyer 10]

Hey :)

About my new PC (for playing A2, FSX, etc.) which Video Card should I get ?

â—‹ ASUS EAH6970 DCII ( http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=jX64GujNeYxnA4sd )

â—‹ ASUS ENGTX570 DCII ( http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=VYgqC64S2N4G9395 )

â—‹ MSi N570GTX Twin Frozr II ( http://fr.msi.com/modele/n570gtx-twin-frozr-ii-oc )

Anybody have any advice ? :(

Thanx. :D

[Posta 10]

Hey :)

About my new PC (for playing A2, FSX, etc.) which Video Card should I get ?

â—‹ ASUS EAH6970 DCII ( http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=jX64GujNeYxnA4sd )

â—‹ ASUS ENGTX570 DCII ( http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=VYgqC64S2N4G9395 )

â—‹ MSi N570GTX Twin Frozr II ( http://fr.msi.com/modele/n570gtx-twin-frozr-ii-oc )

Anybody have any advice ? :(

Thanx. :D

I'm happy with my HD 6970. But I don't know what's best for Arma 2.

[flattermann 12]

Has anyone tried using an SDHC card to run ARMA?

IDK, the read access times / speed might be a little low. The cheapest and most effective way could be creating a ramdisk for ArmA2.

Edited April 6, 2011 by Flattermann

[SteveJA 12]

After more revision and review reading this is the best Spec i can find for under £600

CPU - I5 2500k (which will be OC to arouind 4Ghz)

RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws-X 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz

MOBO - Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard - B3 Revision

GPU - Sapphire ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti Super Overclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI Express (same price, massive boost in performance)

HDD - Samsung Spin Point F3 SATAII 1TB 32MB Cache Hard Drive <8.9ms 7200rpm - OEM

= ~£577

Edited April 7, 2011 by SteveJA360

[Leon86 13]

slight boost in performance, will need more power and might be more noisy though.

[SteveJA 12]

After speaking to a chap from novatech, a 600w PSU will be fine unless i wanted to upgrade my GPU in the future.

The 560GTX stock beats the ATI 6950 in performance (Small Gain)

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti Super Overclocked runs at 950Mhz instead of the 800Mhz of the 6950 and ~850-900 of stock 560s

Fortunatly the noise isn't a major issue since i always wear a headset and the PC is tucked away nicely (yes with good airflow :)

Edited April 7, 2011 by SteveJA360

[Leon86 13]

Your pc isn't even going to approach 600W. You're looking at 300W tops ingame even if you heavily overclock the cpu. Might go over it with linpack+furmark, but who wants to run that.

So yeah, a 600W psu should be enough, but dont be afraid to put a lower-specced seasonic or other A-brand psu in if it's a nice one, like an X-560 or something.

Edited April 7, 2011 by Leon86

[mr.g-c 6]

After speaking to a chap from novatech, a 600w PSU will be fine unless i wanted to upgrade my GPU in the future.

The 560GTX stock beats the ATI 6950 in performance (Small Gain)

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti Super Overclocked runs at 950Mhz instead of the 800Mhz of the 6950 and ~850-900 of stock 560s

Fortunatly the noise isn't a major issue since i always wear a headset and the PC is tucked away nicely (yes with good airflow :)

Here was a test of couple OC'ed 560TI's

http://www.tomshardware.de/geforce-gtx-560-ti-Vergleichstest-Grafikkarten-overclocking-GF114,testberichte-240727-20.html

I linked the page with power-consumption, temperature and fan-noise.

The Gigabyte SOC is a noisy thing. I would not buy it.

[Leon86 13]

noise is tested with furmark, that's more than 50W extra. Pretty pointless.

[cjph 0]

I use a 2Gb 6950 and am very happy with it (purchased through Novatech ironically). Don't forget there is the potential ability to unlock to the equivalent of the 6970 shaders and possible overclock to the same clock speeds.

cj

[flattermann 12]

right, i've flashed my 6950 recently and it runs stable (gets a little hotter though):

As you can see, the flashing also overclocked to 6970 speeds. I am very happy with this card too, even though some people say nvidia would always be the better choice in ArmA. I don't know, got no problems.

[PuFu 4591]

As you can see, the flashing also overclocked to 6970 speeds. I am very happy with this card too, even though some people say nvidia would always be the better choice in ArmA. I don't know, got no problems.

That is hardly true. It depends on such a huge number of factors that there is one cannot compare the two. The difference between nvidia and ati is driver related in 99% of the cases.

If any, i heard that ATI cards run better than nvidia.

[dimitri18 10]

well I have $340 to spend on upgrading my PC what should I upgrade?

E8400

9800GT 1GB

4GBDDR2

Win7 32bit

400w PSU

the only games I will be playing pretty much for the new 2 years are Arma 2:PR BF3 and RO2:HOS. so please keep that in mind thanks

[bangtail 0]

That is hardly true. It depends on such a huge number of factors that there is one cannot compare the two. The difference between nvidia and ati is driver related in 99% of the cases.

If any, i heard that ATI cards run better than nvidia.

Absolutely untrue, they both make great hardware but AMD's drivers can be a real PITA. Nvidia has a much better feature set and better developer relations.

Single GPU wise, AMD and Nvidia are both great for ArmA 2. As far as multi gpu goes, I would avoid AMD.

Edited April 7, 2011 by BangTail

[Leon86 13]

@dimitri

that's a hard one, upgrade the cpu your gpu will be relatively slow and vice versa. To upgrade both on that budget wouldn't give you a big performance boost.

I'd start by borrowing the win7 64bit dvd from someone. You can use your own serial key, afaik it's not bound to 32 or 64 bit, just to the "home premium/prof/enterprise etc". bit.

If you play mainly multiplayer I'd get a gpu upgrade and maybe get a decent cooler so you can overclock the e8400 a bit.

[dimitri18 10]

@Leon

I should upgrade to 64bit and new GPU

I was thinking about 560 GTX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125369 and 630W PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182200. whats your thoughts on GPU? btw I will only play MP. I hate bots

[Posta 10]

well I have $340 to spend on upgrading my PC what should I upgrade?

E8400

9800GT 1GB

4GBDDR2

Win7 32bit

400w PSU

the only games I will be playing pretty much for the new 2 years are Arma 2:PR BF3 and RO2:HOS. so please keep that in mind thanks

GPU for the win. E8400 is still pretty good. I have one in my second computer. Generally games are more GPU hungry than CPU. Arma 2, may differ a little from the rest though. But still, GPU!