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

[papanowel 120]

I though it would be the same price, Gigabyte is also making good MOBO.

[vilas 477]

MSI P67S-C43 (B3 ? mobo (i only say about availiable in cheapest shop in PL)

http://www.morele.net/komputery/podzespoly-komputerowe/plyty-glowne-42/200.00,499.99,,,,,,,,8173O501199,8187O360728/1/#product_list

???

edit, okay, i changed 1.65 V memory to 1.5 V memory

Edited October 5, 2012 by vilas

[spooky lynx 73]

460 PNL instead of 299 PLN, it makes difference , you all here say like i was living in US :P i live in poor corrupted country in which 20-25% of children are hungry (international humanitary organizations data) , 5% emigrated, 13% unemployed and usual man earns ca. 450-500 euro per month and , 150 Euro is for me big money etc.

i understand you want to say the best option for best performance but i live where i live , thanx to community i have 350 EU, without community i would not be even able to play Arma (at the moment after repairs of my 2006's PC Arma works for me for ca. 10 minutes, than freez, white screen, works again another 5-10 minutes , freeze, white screen) but at least Oxygen works :D

I live in nearly the same country but try to buy as powerful hardware as possible, because of one reason: you buy better hardware now -> you don't need to have upgrade for a longer period of time. It's better to spend one sum once in a 5 years than spend not so much less but once a 2-3 years.

[vilas 477]

I live in nearly the same country but try to buy as powerful hardware as possible, because of one reason: you buy better hardware now -> you don't need to have upgrade for a longer period of time. It's better to spend one sum once in a 5 years than spend not so much less but once a 2-3 years.

but you know ;) we talked some time ago, my flat bill and electricity power in home fee is much bigger than yours ;)

and of course i have other things to pay for (not only flat bills, not only food) but also some other things relate to life, so i simply won't be going far into PC when i have other things to pay, at the moment i can buy without problems AMD 6100, VGA 650 GTX etc.

i can save some money to buy in some period of time GTX 660, i5, but i can't save anything cause cost of living in capitol city is different, we earn in capitol city 10%-20% more than people who live in province, but we pay 30% more for all kind of services including city transport tickets which will raise again from Jan 2013 , including electricity and water which raised 15% since July etc. so even for egg (egg from chicken) people pay 80 groszy in Lomza, while in Warsaw in shop i pay 1.50 PLN (150 groszy) , for flat bill my auntie pays 100 Euro, she has 45 square metter flat on border of Warsaw, she pays 100 Euro including water, sewage, etc. , me and my girlfriend pay 125 (if you are owner) + (100 to owner for hire) Euro for 32 square metter flat without water bill +30 for electricity + some for water + gas, my mother pays for her much smaller flat bill 110 EU per month , while men in Ciechanow, Lomza, Bialystok pays 50 EU for 50 square metter flat (of course he has unemployment rate there high)

so i am calculating i am living in center of my country and almost in center of my city etc.

if i had my own flat (not need to hire it and pay to owner) a little far from "the city" like Targowek or like Wola or Brodno i would save 50-100 EU per month for sure ;) as Topas, he has to hire flat, 250-300 EU each month, how can you save anything when you earn 550 up to 600 ? till i won't win lottery i won't have my own flat (another way is to merry someone who has flat, not happened so far ) Warsaw is expensive city, not as Moscov, but i am born here and i have to live here cause there is my work and there are my friends, relatives, girlfriend family etc.

being not-owner of house makes you to pay for hire, cause since 1989 we have no state-given for free flats like before 89, the only way to avoid paying is having flat for own, which means ca. 70-100 000 EU to buy such flat in my city (credit for 40 years)

Edited October 5, 2012 by vilas
corrected word bigger

[DualJoe 10]

Villas I don't know if you intend to overclock, but I'm not liking what I'm hearing of the latest generation Intel. From what I hear they have some major cooling problems and therefore have much less headroom than the 2000-generation.

A buddy of mine bought one and he's hitting 60 degrees celsius at stock-clock and that is with watercooling.

As a side note about future proof buying, don't try and be future proof by buying more expensive now. No matter how good it is now it will most likely be blown away by cheap stuff in the future anyway. Or by some new tech. Just buy good enough and keep some money in reserve for future upgrades. I've bought a bulldozer 8120 with the intent to upgrade in a couple of years.

Also don't rule out AMD just because it's the popular thing to do. I have yet to see any real performance benefits in games in favor of intel. My GTX560TI and harddisks are my limiting factors. I can tell you it's plenty powerful for 3d-rendering and other multi-threaded stuff. I can do simultaneous hd-videoencoding plus sculpting and rendering my 17 million-vert terrain, browsing listening to music and watching multiple fullhd-videos, without a single stutter or lag. It even throttles down for arcade games like BF3 on ultra-settings.

Intel only seems to have some benefit if you're planning triple/quad sli.

EDIT

Oh I forgot to mention that I run linux, I only run windows for Arma, so I haven't really stress tested under Windows 7. Arma2 uses around 4 cores with only one maxing out around 75%.

Edited October 5, 2012 by DualJoe

[vilas 477]

but benchmarks say that i5 has some FPS more than 8100 AMD, it is 60% more expensive as CPU (but in whole PC it is 10% more) but it gives 15-25% FPS income in FPS in different games tested by benchmark-makers, and sometimes difference between 27 and 32 FPS is you know... very visible, cause this 25-29 is this barrier for our eyes to see smooth movement

and Arma is my PC priority, i do not need stronger PC for anything else cause other games i play very rare (as in 2006/7 when i bought current PC only due to end of OFP)

but i plan 24 or 27 inch LCD, so i need strong setup to have 1920*1080 instead of 1280*1024 now

i planned AMD 6100 in begining only because of it's 95 W, less to cool

i5 3750 is 77 W , so less electricity, less temp, less noise for fan (i like silence)

so CPU which you refer was not even under my consideration cause it is 125W (3 bulbs in room, right ? and PC works countless hours which imply kWh cost by year, 48W more (i5 and 8100) * average 8 h/daily*350 days/y = 134 kWh per year= maybe not too much money but in few years difference between i5 and 125W AMD is zeroed, at least in my country prices, after few years this different vanishes, so if i count PC for several years, than this 77W vs 125W is important too, plus of course to cool it cooler takes it's cents )

overclocked AMD to reach level of i5 would burn 140 Watts probably, right ?

maybe it is not big money but after several years it can be difference between i5 and strong and overclocked AMD that is zeroed,

count yourself kWh in your country, maybe it is penny not worth mentioning, maybe, but looking from some years perspective this can be difference in price between those CPUs

Edited October 5, 2012 by vilas

[DualJoe 10]

You're free to choose what you want, I won't stop you, but you won't get 15% more fps. So if the price difference is minimal, I'd understand going with intel.

As I said, I have not seen a single test where an i5 gets a better fps in games (including arma) then my cheap fx8120 or just about any cpu that can fill the gpu. Both i5 and bulldozer are severe overkill for Arma2 and you'll be lucky to even reach 50% total cpu usage.

Don't know my exact power-consumption, can't measure it. However I do run a silent air-cooled system (apart from the GPU dammit) and I only did a very quick multiplier increase (no voltage) running 4100 Ghz now and only with very long 100% usage do I get up to 60 degrees. Seeing how my friends Intel is running hotter at a lower clock with watercooling, I very much doubt I'm using 125 more watts of power.

I do admit I wanted multi-threaded horse-power over game-power, also with linux the bulldozers aren't all that bad compared to intel. However I've since discovered that most claims about bulldozer being terrible at games are plain rubbish.

[vilas 477]

have you seen benchmark of website using Arma2 OA for tests ?

http://pclab.pl/art50465-10.html

look at FPS 27 on AMD and 41 on i5, i don't plan OC, i am interested in basic power of cpu without OCing it

+

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/07/27/amd-fx-8120-review/7

this review

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/07/27/amd-fx-8120-review/6

woow , another one using Arma2 OA as benchmark

look at i5 3570 vs ... i wanted to buy AMD 6100, its not even present there

Edited October 6, 2012 by vilas

[DualJoe 10]

Ok, fair enough, I hadn't seen those tests no, very odd results.

I've only compared with people with the same videocard (GTX560TI no idea how that compares to the one on that site) that I have on this forum with the same settings only different cpu and I had the exact same framerate. I don't know what settings they use on that site, but I know I'm running double the framerates easily compared to the ones they've posted and I'm not even close to their overclock and I have VSync on. (Does setting a multiplier instead of turbo-core even count as overclocking?) What kind of monster-test did they make to get 27 average?

Even I would think twice if I saw those kinds of differences. Damn, just how weak is my GTX560TI if it can only go up to about 75% cpu usage with arma on a single core and the 7 others sitting idly by.

EDIT

Hang on a second.

What's up with the weird arma2 settings of the last one? Stressing the cpu by putting everything on very high even Video memory? Texture and Object Detail on very high and video memory not on default has been called silly more than once by numerous bistudio devs. How's that gonna stress the cpu? That's why I hate review sites, they do so many weird things I can't make sense of their results anymore. Wish they'd just post the mission so I could run the benchmark myself, with realistic settings.

Edited October 6, 2012 by DualJoe

[Tonci87 163]

Intel>AMD

Seriously

[DiFool 0]

Maybe more cores are supported by Arma3 and thus will give a 8core bulldozer an advantage over an e.g. I5 4core Intel. Who knows?

No matter what you buy you will never be able to play Arma2 with highest settings and max view distance. :)

I'm fully pleased with my system (see below) and it's been expensive enough.

[kklownboy 43]

i can play on the desert map with all max and 10k VD? But i can also play with all max (6xAA) and 3k on all maps but Cherno, in places...HD7970.

The top of the line Kit right now will play A2OA Max @ 1080p. VD and clutter will always be a issue. Guess the issue is wanting 120fps on a 120hz Display...

---------- Post added at 11:21 ---------- Previous post was at 11:09 ----------

.... Both i5 and bulldozer are severe overkill for Arma2 and you'll be lucky to even reach 50% total cpu usage.

...

....

My Bloomfield gets over 50% on three cores depending on the mission and resolution on my display. One core is in the high 20s/low 30s, the others are 47% to 100% . Tho the low core did hit 80% for a bit.

[gruntsaez92 1]

alright so my specs are:

Processor: AMD FX-4100

Quad-Core Processor

3.60 GHz

Installed memory(RAM): 16.0 GB

System Type: 64-bit

Video Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series

I get at most 30 FPS in-game(online).

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=93750;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Windowed=0;

Resolution_W=1920;

Resolution_H=1080;

refresh=60;

winX=16;

winY=32;

winW=1901;

winH=1004;

winDefW=1901;

winDefH=1004;

Render_W=1920;

Render_H=1080;

FSAA=0;

postFX=5;

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=2147483647;

nonlocalVRAM=2147483647;

vsync=0;

AToC=0;

FXAA=0;

PPAA=3;

PPAA_Level=3;

serverLongitude=-1747632;

serverLatitude=-2907680;

IDK if this helps any but this is what im running for my video settings. i also run evrythin on very high or high, any suggestions as to how to get higher FPS will be greatly appreciated :)

[DualJoe 10]

You could post a screenshot of your ingame settings with viewdistance and such.

No idea how a 7900 compares to a GTX560 with 1 Gig Vram, but the only time I get down to 30 fps is when I use vsync in combination with screencapture which forces 30 fps. Hell even running the benchmarks on linux via WINE gets me around 30 fps average.

And that's with a fx8120 with turbo turned off and multiplier adjusted to about 4Ghz and on a 1920x1200 resolution screen.

Would be nice to have a set of test missions to compare performance against. I believe PVP-scene has some gpu-test missions, but those don't stress the cpu at all.

[sesdelta38 10]

Hello all. I'm once interested in building a gaming PC.

I was hoping to build one with a Core i5 cpu and an Ati Radeon 7770. Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Also, is an ssd a needed feature?

[Bee8190 10]

Hello all. I'm once interested in building a gaming PC.

I was hoping to build one with a Core i5 cpu and an Ati Radeon 7770. Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Also, is an ssd a needed feature?

If you can tell us your budget and when you'd like to build one, I'll be happy to help.

SSD - became vital part of modern PC's just as CPU and GFX. It's not a ''mandatory'' but it's good to have one :)

[papanowel 120]

SSD is a must have.

For 100$ more you can buy a Gforce 660 instead of the 7770.

[sesdelta38 10]

If you can tell us your budget and when you'd like to build one, I'll be happy to help.

SSD - became vital part of modern PC's just as CPU and GFX. It's not a ''mandatory'' but it's good to have one :)

Well, I'm a 17-year old looking for employment, so I'm gonna be paying for most of it myself. Around $1,000 is gonna be my budget when I get employed somewhere.

[Bee8190 10]

Well, I'm a 17-year old looking for employment, so I'm gonna be paying for most of it myself. Around $1,000 is gonna be my budget when I get employed somewhere.

Yup one large will get you nice gaming PC, even if monitor is not included. However since HW pricing changes all the time, again, let us know when you about to order the parts. Meanwhile, best of luck to you :)

[sesdelta38 10]

Yup one large will get you nice gaming PC, even if monitor is not included. However since HW pricing changes all the time, again, let us know when you about to order the parts. Meanwhile, best of luck to you :)

While I'm getting the parts when I have a job, I want to get that list out of the way.

All I know right now is that the cpu I'm gonna get is a Core i5.

[spooky lynx 73]

I got a Panasonic SC-HT855 DVD home theatre system for free some days ago, but don't know how to connect it to my PC to have 5.1 speakers. Is there any ability to do this? May anybody help me?

[jefferspang 2]

Hi, I'm planning on getting a PC with Intel Core i5 2550 (4x3.4GHz), nVidia GTX 670 2GB and 16GB RAM, may I know how well will ArmAII will perform on it? (in terms of an estimated FPS on high settings).

[xeno426 10]

I doubt you'll need 16GB of RAM. Unless you're running something like CAD, you'll do fine with 8GB.

[jefferspang 2]

I doubt you'll need 16GB of RAM. Unless you're running something like CAD, you'll do fine with 8GB.

I'm actually buying this PC to run AutoCAD and Revit Architecture etc.. I just wanted how ArmAII will run on the above

[xeno426 10]

I'm actually buying this PC to run AutoCAD and Revit Architecture etc.. I just wanted how ArmAII will run on the above

Lol, you're the first person I've given that advice to that actually is going to run AutoCAD. :D

My primary concern then is that your processor may be too slow. You should be able to run ArmA2 fine, but you may want to get a faster processor to future proof yourself for ArmA3. I'm getting an i5 3570K (the K means it's unlocked and can be overclocked). Cost may be your primary factor here, though.