PC Discussion Thread II - All PC related discussion goes here.

[PuFu 4600]

Pufu, im looking at the i5/i7 2600K myself, but I read theres a smallish error (enough to make intel change something) with the cougar chipset, From what ive read, the sata 3gb/s sockets are overheating when transfering large files through the thing. New mobos out in April afaik

the faulty boards are not on the market anymore agaik, after intel had the anouncement public. not sure about the new batch of boards though. all i know is that from my local vendor, the 1155 mb are limited to bellow 5 atm, while before the intel press release there were quite a few

@steve: arma is my least concern when buying a new pc (my case upgrading the existing one) ;)

Edited March 4, 2011 by PuFu

[BittleRyan 10]

So here is the computer I am thinking about buying. I know this will be able to run arma, but will it be able to run on high/very high with 30+ FPS?

Memory: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Kingston HyperX)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2GB 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
Power Supply Upgrade: 800 Watts - XtremeGear Gaming Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready
Hard Drive: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Hard Drive)
Optical Drive: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)
Sound: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
LCD Monitor: 24" Widescreen 1920x1080 Sceptre X246W-1080P LCD (Viewable 23.6")(Black Color) w/ Built-in Speaker, DVI & Input
Speakers: 120 Watt Stereo Speakers (Black Color)
Network: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
Keyboard: Razer Arctosa Black USB Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: XtremeGear Optical USB 3 Buttons Gaming Mouse
External Wireless Network Card: Linksys WUSB600N IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n Draft USB 2.0 Wireless-N USB Network Adapter w/ Dual-Band Security Features
Flash Media Reader/Writer: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR)
USB Port: Add External USB 2.0 Hub (4x USB 2.0 Ports) (SILVER Color IR-4100-SL)
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit Edition)
Office Suite: Microsoft® Office® 2010 Home and Student (Word, Excel, PowerPoint + OneNote)

[larsiano 12]

So here is the computer I am thinking about buying. I know this will be able to run arma, but will it be able to run on high/very high with 30+ FPS?

Not without a CPU and mobo no :)

[BittleRyan 10]

Not without a CPU and mobo no :)

Did i really leave that out LOL.

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-960 3.20 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366

Motherboard: (3-Way SLI Support) GigaByte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Ultra Durableâ„¢3 Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 Dolby Audio, eSATA, GbLAN, USB3.0, 2 x SATA-III RAID, IEEE1394a, 4 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI

Edit: Just noticed there was a thread in the general section in arma 2 for this kind of stuff... Well I will post there I guess, as it is more relevant.

[vilas 477]

Ive heard for applications like Arma 2 the I5 is the best Preformance/Price ratio (that is in the Intel range at least).

but for people who think about buying PC now (like i do) there is lack of mobos (because of problems with socket 1155 as i remember)

so at the moment there is almost no mobos for i5 1155 or they are veeeery expensive 2 models in each shop

i read somewhere that it will last till April or May when fixed socket mobos will enter market

[sabre4809 0]

Did i really leave that out LOL.

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-960 3.20 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366

Really I think wait till Sandy bridge and the 1155 issues are sorted and then get an i5 2500 or i7 2600. Everything I've read has pointed that way, saying that Sandybridge really is a giant leap, and the very high end stuff isn't even here yet.

[bangtail 0]

SB isn't really a giant leap over the existing high end i7s, it's just comparable performance (AKA last years top end) done cheaper (with a few bells and whistles thrown in) with a higher OC overhead (for most applications, Intel's 6 core CPUs will still beat SB in highly threaded apps).

SB-E will likely be the real game changer but we won't see that until September at the earliest.

Edited March 8, 2011 by BangTail

[sabre4809 0]

i5 2500 kills the 960 in almost all bechmarks I've seen, clocks higher without turboboost, with turboboost the gap is even larger and drills it for dead in gaming performance.

For gaming and many many other applications, more than 4 threads is pointless. So really getting the 6 core 9xx i7s unless you specifically need what they offer is throwing money away, since 2500/2600 are so much cheaper.

Edited March 8, 2011 by SAbre4809

[bangtail 0]

Kills/drills it? Not so much when they are similarly clocked. Again, yesterday's performance at a great price.

The current SB is "mid-range". SB-E will be the real performance evolution (I hope).

I never said buying a 970/980 was a good idea at this point (it isn't unless you require maximum performance in threaded apps), simply that the 2600K is not much faster than a similarly clocked i7 (but the SBs are much stronger overclockers).

Edited March 8, 2011 by BangTail

[PuFu 4600]

the i5/i7 on SB are great yeah, but are not game changers by any means. I doubt the SB-E will be either, but that is left to be seen.

With no real competitor on the markert atm, Intel has not reason to push the boundaries at all.

Since the information about the AMD bulldozer is scarce (i haven't seen any covers/preview from CEBIT about it for one), i can't judge it. There are several decisions about core architecture that might or not work on the long run.

Buy the 6core 970 *which i also own* if you use your PC for a wider ranger of professional applications that can take advantage of the multi-core and the hyper-threading (rendering, animation, etc etc), and you just can't wait till Q4 2011 for new intel processors, or may for the new AMDs

Edited March 8, 2011 by PuFu

[bangtail 0]

the i5/i7 on SB are great yeah, but are not game changers by any means. I doubt the SB-E will be either, but that is left to be seen.

With no real competitor on the markert atm, Intel has not reason to push the boundaries at all.

Since the information about the AMD bulldozer is scarce (i haven't seen any covers/preview from CEBIT about it for one), i can't judge it. There are several decisions about core architecture that might or not work on the long run.

Buy the 6core 970 *which i also own* if you use your PC for a wider ranger of professional applications that can take advantage of the multi-core and the hyper-threading (rendering, animation, etc etc), and you just can't wait till Q4 2011 for new intel processors, or may for the new AMDs

What a lot of people don't understand (and I'm not talking about anyone specifically) is that as far as gaming goes, we already have way more power than most games demand (ArmA 2 being one of the few exceptions, at least CPU wise).

I don't see SB-E being more than 40% faster than the current EE line but there will be an 8 core variant which is great for those of us who use applications that can take advantage of the extra threads. On the gaming the front, you can get a great rig for ~$1400.00 or less these days.

[Luxurious 10]

Just purchased this game after playing the demo and have a few questions for the Arma II gurus out there.

Current setup so you don't have to go profile fishing:

Q6600 @3.4Ghz

sli 570gtx's 1.3GB memory variant

GA-EP45-UD3P rev1.3 (NOT an SLi board but running the "SLi fix"<--------very unsure of this as updating my video drivers forces me to update the SLi fix and I've had crashes and other issues so I really would like to eliminate it from the equation by getting a new SLi certified motherboard. I realize that Windows 7 doesn't care whether the board is SLi or Crossfire "supposedly" (from what I've read it just looks for a certificate or something) but you never know if there are other issues caused by something like this) and it is a seperate "boot" option so I have no idea what the SLi Fix has actually done.

I'm considering upgrading to a Sandy Bridge 2600k and overclocking it on water and I'm curious for any input from users who:

1) run this game - Arma II or Arma II Operation Arrowhead

2) have or have upgraded from Q6600 or other quad cores to 2600k and have seen a gain or are currently running a 2600k

3) are also running SLi of some variant, dual 4 or 5 series cards, and surround configuration

I realize at 5916x1200 or other high surround resolutions, the video card memory comes in to play a lot particularly with AA though I have that disabled in-game.

My in-game settings are set using the bezel corrected 5916x1200 and are as follows:

Visibility - 3600

Quality pref - Very high

Interface resolution - 5916x1200

3D Resolution - 5916x1200

Texture detail - Very high

Video memory - Very high

AF - High

AA - Disabled

Terrain detail - Very high

Objects detail - Very high

Shadow detail - High

HDR - 8bit Low

Post processing - Disabled

Interface size - Very small

Aspect ratio - Custom

Vertical sync - On

Vertical sync in-game on or off does not seem to affect the frame rate aside from the 60fps cap it imposes.

Tree infested areas with buildings/fences/livestock/troops I'm getting in the low to mid 30's (fine), dips in the 20's occasionally (awful).

Desert areas with buildings/fences/livestock/troops the fps are from 40-60.

The SLi meter... anyone know how to decipher the behavior of this thing? Its usually about half the screen height from the center out and very rarely goes nearly all the way to the top and bottom of the screen like its not doing anything accept occasionally.

Task manager when running the game shows 1 core @80-90% utilization and the other 3 cores @ 70-80% utilization.

Sorry, don't mean to be long winded. I realize Surround resolutions are generally VRAM and video card bottlenecked and this game is suppose to be CPU limited with higher overclocks helping a great deal from what I hear. Is the CPU bottleneck issue only on single montior setups?

What kind of performance are you guys getting with this game and with what setups/clocks/vram.

-----------------

I also have a question about the HUD ingame. You can set triplehead=1 and that brings all the elements in to the center monitor however the left-most side of the HUD is cutoff behind my bezel . I see in the .profile you can adjust the topLeftHUD, bottom right, etc... but I've had no luck with with changing these.

Moving the Top left to the right pushes the whole HUD to the right and then cuts off the right side and the subsequent change to the bottom right corner to bring it back in pushes the left side back under the bezel. I've only made very small changes to these numbers like .01 increments trying to mess with it but can't make any ground on the issue.

Any ideas with this?

Also, does anyone know how to add comments in the profile? I'd like to comment the default lines out so I still have them and make changes to a copy.

-----------------------

Another question I've come across is about the TrackClip Pro for the TrackIR. How long is the cord? Can't find anywhere with this information even in reviews. Maybe that's because its long and a non-issue but I'd like to know.

Thanks!

[bangtail 0]

No need for water on 2600K and you will see a considerable performance difference.

I don't use multi monitors myself but I do have some experience with them and you will run into memory limitiations with 1.3 GB of RAM at that res.

Trackclip pro cord is about 4 feet long.

Edited April 2, 2011 by BangTail

[PuFu 4600]

i got a i7 970 6 core oced @4ghz, on corsair h70, and the average temp is 20 degrees celsius, and never goes above 40 in full load, even when using for long time rendering purposes

[bangtail 0]

The H70 is an excellent solution. I am using them myself and I used the H50 beforehand.

[PuFu 4600]

The H70 is an excellent solution. I am using them myself and I used the H50 beforehand.

bangtail, out of curiosity, why the fuck do you need 2 identical PCs (more or less) :rolleyes: Do you work in the bulk industry? :p

[bangtail 0]

Hahaha, well one is for gaming and one is for editing, music and video (and ArmA 2 server)

I've always kept them separate, if I'm playing Lotro for example, I can work on the other one while waiting for a raid to start or whatever.

The 2nd one is also a server for movies etc for the HTPC and I wouldn't want that on my gaming rig.

It's definitely overkill ;)

Edited April 2, 2011 by BangTail

[Luxurious 10]

No need for water on 2600K and you will see a considerable performance difference.

I don't use multi monitors myself but I do have some experience with them and you will run into memory limitiations with 1.3 GB of RAM at that res.

Trackclip pro cord is about 4 feet long.

I already have the water system setup so replacing the board/proc in the current PC is just easier sticking with water on the CPU and who knows, maybe I'll get a decent chip and get 5Ghz with enough cooling to suffice :)

Trackclip pro cord is 4' long? Wow... what were they thinking? Should be at least 10' IMO. If you had (and I don't, mind you) a VR room setup with your computer a ways away from you, who wants the added bulk of an additional USB extension plug mucking things up. That's just a bad design choice.

What is your experience with multi-monitor setups, BangTail? My brother has a 3x gtx470 setup and his frames on core i7 are lower than mine. I realize this can be attributed to 2-way vs. 3-way driver optimization however he has an additional 1GB of VRAM over all so something doesn't add up.

In the interim since my post I did solve the FPS issue in all situations save for one. I started by lowering all settings to Very Low or Disabled with View Distance at 500, etc. Then I raised View Distance up slowly watching the FPS. Got to 10000 and still the frames didn't change at all, locked around 152ish FPS. Then I adjusted settings individually to see which had the largest performance impact. Terrain Detail by far, for my setup, had the largest perf hit with difference from Very Low to Very High being 45 fps. Object detail was a close second with Very Low to Very High dinging in at ~25 fps. This lowered the overall frames to ~65.

All other settings besides Post processing, Anti-Aliasing (set to Disabled) and HDR set to Normal (8-bit) honestly had no effect on lowering FPS. Shadows from Very Low to Very High was only 2-3 FPS difference. None of the other settings had any effect on FPS.

Something I'd missed from the demo was the new addition of the Triple 12:3 aspect ratio in the menu and I wasn't using that before. Now with that set correctly I'm getting 45-60 FPS in all the boot camp missions accept for one.

What's up with the Night Ops boot camp mission? Everything runs at 45-60 FPS but this one. It runs between 15-20fps and its unbearable. You'd think with everything black and dark the cards would have significantly less to render and yet the FPS are unbearable. Game optimization issue? Driver issue? SLi issue? (running 266.58) though the previous drivers for the 570 had the exact same issue. Not sure what's going on here, have you guys got any ideal?

Also, I think I'm going to hold off on the Sandy Bridge upgrade because of the SB-E release later in the year. I'll just save up more till then and maybe the hex-core SB with be reasonably enough priced to go that route. Really like to go from quad core to something more substantial seeing as this game obviously uses all cores on the current platform (utlization around 80% on all cores).

Edited April 3, 2011 by Luxurious

[RedDragon 10]

Also, I think I'm going to hold off on the Sandy Bridge upgrade because of the SB-E release later in the year. I'll just save up more till then and maybe the hex-core SB with be reasonably enough priced to go that route. Really like to go from quad core to something more substantial seeing as this game obviously uses all cores on the current platform (utlization around 80% on all cores).

In your situation I would advise waiting for AMD's K11 Architecture nicknamed "Bulldozer". LGA 1155 is an interim solution until we witness the LGA 2011 Platform presumably with the X79 Chipset and that will not occur till Q3/Q4.

The H70 is an excellent solution. I am using them myself and I used the H50 beforehand.

The H70 is merely a Push-Pull configuration of the H50. You can achieve the same/similar results if you implement a Push-Pull configuration on the H50. There was absolutely no need to upgrade to a H70.

The 2nd one is also a server for movies etc for the HTPC and I wouldn't want that on my gaming rig.

It's definitely overkill ;)

It definitely is in the most utmost of sense "Overkill". However it could easily serve as a Backup Personal Computer which is why in some cases "Overkill" can be useful.

Edited April 4, 2011 by RedDragon

[bangtail 0]

Trackclip pro cord is 4' long? Wow... what were they thinking? Should be at least 10' IMO. If you had (and I don't, mind you) a VR room setup with your computer a ways away from you, who wants the added bulk of an additional USB extension plug mucking things up. That's just a bad design choice.

Yah, it constantly falls off my Monitor as it is stretched. It really should have been longer.

What is your experience with multi-monitor setups, BangTail? My brother has a 3x gtx470 setup and his frames on core i7 are lower than mine. I realize this can be attributed to 2-way vs. 3-way driver optimization however he has an additional 1GB of VRAM over all so something doesn't add up.

I had 3 monitors but didn't like them so I switched back to one. I found it to be more trouble than it was worth (not unlike 3D). Some games don't like it and I find the bevels extremely annoying. The FPS hit at 3 monitor resolutions was too high for my liking. I won't go over 2560 at this point without a lot more CPU/GPU power.

In the interim since my post I did solve the FPS issue in all situations save for one. I started by lowering all settings to Very Low or Disabled with View Distance at 500, etc. Then I raised View Distance up slowly watching the FPS. Got to 10000 and still the frames didn't change at all, locked around 152ish FPS. Then I adjusted settings individually to see which had the largest performance impact. Terrain Detail by far, for my setup, had the largest perf hit with difference from Very Low to Very High being 45 fps. Object detail was a close second with Very Low to Very High dinging in at ~25 fps. This lowered the overall frames to ~65.

The problem is that a lot of these settings only have a significant effect under certain conditions. VD can drop your FPS like a bag of dirt depending on what's going on within the scenario. It's finding the 'happy' medium which can take a little while with ArmA 2 and involves a fair bit of testing.

All other settings besides Post processing, Anti-Aliasing (set to Disabled) and HDR set to Normal (8-bit) honestly had no effect on lowering FPS. Shadows from Very Low to Very High was only 2-3 FPS difference. None of the other settings had any effect on FPS.

Shadows should always be set on high or Vhigh as this causes the GPU to render them as opposed to the CPU (at lower settings). I always have post off, it makes the game look like 'Fable'.

What's up with the Night Ops boot camp mission? Everything runs at 45-60 FPS but this one. It runs between 15-20fps and its unbearable. You'd think with everything black and dark the cards would have significantly less to render and yet the FPS are unbearable. Game optimization issue? Driver issue? SLi issue? (running 266.58) though the previous drivers for the 570 had the exact same issue. Not sure what's going on here, have you guys got any ideal?

I doubt it's an SLI issue. SLI works remarkably well in ArmA 2. More likely it's some error in the mission but I'll have to take a look at it as I am not familiar.

Also, I think I'm going to hold off on the Sandy Bridge upgrade because of the SB-E release later in the year. I'll just save up more till then and maybe the hex-core SB with be reasonably enough priced to go that route. Really like to go from quad core to something more substantial seeing as this game obviously uses all cores on the current platform (utlization around 80% on all cores).

Same, I'm only interested in SB-E. The SB line were nice but they were essentially last years i7s at a better price point. I probably won't even look at Bulldozer unless it is some kind of epiphany (which I doubt it will be when compared to SB-E).

Cheers,

/10chars

Edited April 6, 2011 by BangTail

[RedDragon 10]

Same, I'm only interested in SB-E. The SB line were nice but they were essentially last years i7s at a better price point. I probably won't even look at Bulldozer unless it is some kind of epiphany (which I doubt it will be when compared to SB-E).

I would say that the current Sandy Bridge LGA1155 setup is the equivalent of what the the LGA1156 was to LGA1366 and LGA775. However Ironically both LGA1155 and LGA1156 suffered through several incidents not the least of which is the Sandy Bridge recall which cost $1 Billion + USD.

On to the subject of the Bulldozer. The release date for Bulldozer is on June 12th. We are privy to certain leached benchmarks and a minimum trickle/limited trickle of information. However from what I have seen I would say that LGA2011 has a worthwhile competitor if that data proves valid.

On a different note it also appears that the LGA 1356 socket's development/deployment was superseded in favor of LGA 2011. If this is correct then LGA 2011 will phase out LGA 1366 in favor of LGA 2011 and not LGA 1356 as we had originally supposed. This apparently seems to be confirmed by the Leaked Intel Desktop Roadmap for X79.

Edited April 5, 2011 by RedDragon

[4 IN 1 0]

I am using a GTX 260+ now and it starts to show age, I am now looking for a replacement, what will be the current gen equivalent for this card?

[PuFu 4600]

I am using a GTX 260+ now and it starts to show age, I am now looking for a replacement, what will be the current gen equivalent for this card?

nVidia GTX 560 TI

AMD 6850 HD

[ben_s 11]

nVidia GTX 560 TI

AMD 6850 HD

For the 560, the question should've been "what will burn the biggest hole in my wallet" :rolleyes:

How does the 560 performance compare to 460? Does anyone have any stats or anything?

( I know I could go google, but I was already in this reply box. :p )

[4 IN 1 0]

another problem, my PC are now having random shuttering, the PC will have a 1 to 2 smooth run followed by a shutter, and may sometime resulted in BSOD, since i enabled auto restart after system fail(which is now disabled) I still cant get to see whats going on

what will be the major reason for this to happen?