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

[weedkiller 10]

To be fair I cant see you having issues running arma on that spec anyway, ive seen lower end systems play super smooth without ssd or ramdrive, from a plain n simple ide 7200 rpm seagate, if you are getting hardware lagging then id say you have other issues in the system.

[Derbysieger 11]

Sure you can play arma 'smooth' with a normal HDD. But with a SSD or a ramdisk it's smoother. You can have a higher VD without texture problems for example. In my experience 25fps on a SSD plays smoother than 30fps on a HDD. I had my arma 2 installed on a normal 7200rpm HDD and I have seen Arma 2 on other computers that don't have a SSD or a ramdisk. There definitely is a difference.

[Hagar 10]

How does this look for ArmA 3? I saw they released the system requirements for ArmA 3 already, and I thought requiring a I5 Quad Core was a little crazy, although since they are aiming to be done this game next summer it may not be. I'm sure we'll get into Octacores by then. Now I know this meets system requirements in some areas, and is over in most, but do you think it's over enough to run the game well? I would prefer to run the game at medium graphics or better with at least 40-50 FPS. I know at this point, unless a dev answers, it's all speculation, but I'm curious what others think.

Antec Thee Hundred Case

Asus M5A99X Motherboard

1TB 6Gb/S Hard Drive

AMD Phenom II CPU

750W Power Supply

8Gb of Ram

AMD Radeon 6770

Fan

[larsiano 12]

Arma3 has its own forum section, maybe you can better ask there ;)

[Derbysieger 11]

If you don't need a new PC now, wait until we know more about arma 3.

One thing though: a 750W PSU is way too much for this kind of system. 500-600W is enough. My overclocked rig hardly consumes 390W while running benchmarks (~310W while playing arma 2).

[Tonci87 163]

@hagar I think you should wait with the purchase until you have more cash to get a better CPU. I bought myself a i7 2600k just a few weeks ago (old mobo died) and I think it will be good enough for Arma 3

[maddogx 13]

@hagar I think you should wait with the purchase until you have more cash to get a better CPU. I bought myself a i7 2600k just a few weeks ago (old mobo died) and I think it will be good enough for Arma 3

Looks like you and I suffered the same fate and had the same reaction. :D

May I ask what board you have and what clock speed you're running the CPU at? Also, which CPU fan you're using.

[Tonci87 163]

I bought myself the

ASUS P8P67 Pro Rev 3.1 (excellent for overclocking and I love the EFI Bios)

and a Cythe Mugen 2 Rev B CPU Fan (30-35°C in Idle, up to 45°C when playing something, totally noiseless. I had to lower the value for minimum CPU Fan RPM in the BIOS to not get a CPU_FAn Alert when I turn the PC on. The minimum RPM is now 400)

I didn´t overclock the core yet, there is just no need for it (yet).

CPU clocks go from 1600Mhz in idle mode up to 3800 Mhz if its really needed.

With the nice new Mainboard I just need to flip a switch to get the CPU on stable 4500 Mhz or more

That should be more than enough for Arma 3

[allamawitharifle 10]

Looking to upgrade my RAM... I have an Abit Ip35 motherboard which says "4 X 240-pin DIMM sockets support max. memory capacity 8GB. Supports Dual channel DDR2 800/667 un-buffered Non-ECC memory" under the memory section. So I take it the following RAM selections will all work fine in this mobo?

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/17793/Kingston-memory-4GB-Kit--2x2GB--HyperX-800MHz

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/DDR2/800MHz/4GB+Corsair+Memory+%282x2GB%29+XMS2+DDR2+PC2-6400+%28800%29+Dual+Channel+Desktop+?productId=36960

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/DDR2/800MHz/4GB+Mushkin+Silverline+%23996760+%282x2GB%29+DDR2+800MHz+5-5-5-18+?productId=42036

Which of them three would be the best choice?

I've also gotten Windows XP 32 bit still which if I remember correctly only supports up to 3gb of RAM? If I get 4gb (2 sticks of 2gb) will it be able to use the 2 sticks correctly or will I get some crashes or what ever? I intend to upgrade to windows 7 fairly soon so soon I'll have support for the full 4GB but until then I want it to work perfectly on XP

And finally is installing new RAM as simple as just sticking it in or do I need to worry about drivers or my computer getting confused since it's different to the old RAM?

[BF2_Trooper 0]

Gonna start getting parts for a new computer soon, but I want to get a new UPS battery backup first. I don't want to spend too much on power backup, but what is the minimum voltage/watts do you think I need to backup a PC with a 750 watt PSU? I plan on getting an i7 Core 3.2 ghz cpu, 12GB of system RAM and either a 480 or a 580 GTX video card.

I don't plan on installing more than one video card btw, if that matters.

Edited June 27, 2011 by BF2_Trooper

[kavoven 4]

Did MS change anything with their audio output-whatever-capabilities from Vista to 7?

I just updated and the sound is cruel! Its like someone switched the all the HZ>20.000 channels to maximum ...

(Realtek-Anything Onboard - I really liked my Vista sound)

Edit - Screw that. I don't know what I did but its back to normal now... must have changed a critical setting.

Edited July 5, 2011 by kavoven

[namman2 0]

i dont know if this is the right place to ask , but my hdd had crashed :( , i lost all the projects to arma :( , is there a way i can fix it?

the problem is windows will take hell alot of time just to recognize the partitions and after it does i have to format them to be able to open them , ofcourse i didn't do that , i did chkdsk and it could read all the files there but yet nothing happened :(

is there a chance to save the files ? :(

[weedkiller 10]

guess you can only try and plug it in with a usb adapter into another pc and hope n prey, lots of the time once a drive is dead it is dead, always back your shit up on another drive

[qbert 10]

With the release of Arma 3 in the near future, and the already taxing Arma 2/OA, I've been preparing to revamp my whole computer, each part at a time. My hardware is as follows:

AMD athlon II x2 250 3.0GHz OC'd to 3.4

ATI Radeon HD 5670

4GB RAM DDR2 running at 1200

500GB hard drive(not upgrading)

500w Power supply

My plan right now is to get a Phenom II x4 840 as a replacement for my dual core. There's two things that have me stumped right now though, first thing is that I have no idea how my power supply will react to this, it's a medium quality psu as far as I know. Second thing is that I'm not sure how much of a performance gain I'll get from having a quad core. I know the ArmA series has been very CPU intensive and all, but I really don't know what effect it'll have on my framerate. Are we talking a 5 frame boost, or a 30 frame boost?

Secondly, I have plans in the next 5 months to get a replacement gpu. This raises a few more questions. Assuming I go for something along the lines of a 5870 up to a 6850, from the HD radeon series, will I also need a new psu to go with it? I've been using passively powered cards in this computer almost exclusively. How much power would this thing be sucking up if I went for my dream hardware? (quad core cpu I mentioned and a nice graphics card) :confused:

Thanks in advance!

[woore 10]

I don't think you need to upgrade your PSU. 100 W to Phenom II x4 840 and 250 W to ATI Radeon HD 6850 + 12 W for HDD and @25 W for other components. 397 W total energy consumption, so 500 W is fully enough to power up your system. It's not my oven with i7 860/GTX 470/2 HDD massive, which requires 600W )))

[ArmAddict 10]

Hey all,

I'm looking to upgrade my PC (Which is very low end right now, can barely run ArmA II, or any other game for that matter, on normal settings). I plan on building an entire new PC. I've picked out all the parts, now I would just like some feedback. Also note that I'm not looking to spend much more than I already am (About $725 with shipping) on the parts I've chosen.

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-103-851&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128519

DVD Drive: ASUS 24x DVD Burner http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

HDD: Western Digital 500GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795

Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102925

PSU: Rosewill RD450-2-DB 450w http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182022

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231311

Case: Cooler Master Centurion 534 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119106

I have also read over the feedback for these items and everyone seems to like them. Let me know what you think. Also note this is my first build, so please excuse any stupid mistakes that I may have made.

Edited September 1, 2011 by ArmAddict

[weedkiller 10]

2.8 cpu is ok but would go bigger if possible, a 3.4 if you can, the psu will not be man enough at 450w as most gcards want 500w minimum, would go for a 700w minimum, and go for a 2gb gcard also.Dont really need 8gb ram for gaming but thats what i have so who am i to say, 6gb would be all you need unless graphic editing then 8gb

can say is the only changes i would make other than going for better of everything else but that will increase your costs otherwise everything else is fine

Edited September 1, 2011 by weedkiller

[Shadow NX 1]

Definatly a X6 1090T, if you get a good one 3,8Ghz or more shouldnt be a problem.

My X4 975 runs at 3,6Ghz without changing anythign but the multiplier, from what i tested 3,8 also worked stable.

And ArmA2 definatly is very CPU hungry, a strong CPU is more worth than more Cores .

---

And now id also like to have a problem: :D

I upgraded my system with a SSD, Windows 7 64bit is freshly installed, all smooth but after a while i encountered a weird problem.

As soon as i get to the Windows is loading screen before the windows colours start to flash it seems as if it would hang, when i reset the system boots perfectly quick afterwards.

Yesterday i noticed it doesnt hang but instead takes like 2 minutes then suddently the windows colours of the load screens flash up and im on my desktop, there all is nice and fast and the specs of the SSD seems fine for being attached to a Sata-2 port.

Very rarely the system starts fast but in 90% of the cases i now wait 2 mins till i see my desktop.

What could it be? Bios is set to AHCI for the SSD.

SSD is flashed to latest Firmware, 7 i think.

Once loaded all is running perfectly fine, no crashes or stutters.

Specs:

OS: Win7 64bits

Ram: 4Gigs G.Skill DDR-2 Ram ( 2 Modules )

Drive 1: SSD 128GB ( Crucial C300 ) on Sata2 ( Sytem partition & Programms )

Drive 2:HD Samsung Spinpoint F1 250GB on Sata2 ( For Gaming )

Board: Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H (rev. 1.0) on latest Bios versio.

GPU: ATI HD6950 Asus DUII 2GB shaders unlocked everything else is stock

CPU: AMD Phenom2 X4 975 @ 3,6Ghz

[Tonci87 163]

So I´m looking for a good Laptop for my brother, Price Limit is 1100€ Should have a good CPU and GPU.

Any recommendations?

Currently we have this one in mind:

http://www.euronics.de/produkt/bis-42-cm-Bildschirm-kompakte-Alleskoenner/ASUS-X5MSN-SX066V-39-6-cm-Notebook

Edited September 2, 2011 by Tonci87

[ziiip 1]

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6333387/the-state-of-pc-gaming/index.html?

State of pc gaming article by gamespot.

[nkenny 1051]

Hey all,

I'm looking to upgrade my PC (Which is very low end right now, can barely run ArmA II, or any other game for that matter, on normal settings). I plan on building an entire new PC. I've picked out all the parts, now I would just like some feedback. Also note that I'm not looking to spend much more than I already am (About $725 with shipping) on the parts I've chosen.

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-103-851&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128519

DVD Drive: ASUS 24x DVD Burner http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

HDD: Western Digital 500GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795

Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102925

PSU: Rosewill RD450-2-DB 450w http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182022

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231311

Case: Cooler Master Centurion 534 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119106

I have also read over the feedback for these items and everyone seems to like them. Let me know what you think. Also note this is my first build, so please excuse any stupid mistakes that I may have made.

While the 6-core CPU does look very attractive, for gaming you will get more (and cheaper) by selecting an equivalent Quad-core solution. If you can get a Phenom II 3.4-3.7 you should be reasonably futureproof as well. Get a BLACK edition to permit overclocking if you start feeling cocky.

450W is weaksauce. I know it hurts. Really. Who would have thought that PSUs would get so expensive? Especially for something with such hidden performance betterfits. The cold hard truth remains. A 650W is decent, but higher is better and more future proof. Coolermaster make som excellent PSU's as well. :)

I'm not personally familiar with your choice of motherboard and RAM, I'm a MSI and OCZ fanboy myself, but I cannot see any obvious weaknesses. 8gb is good. If you are on a REALLY tight budget you can go for a 4GB packet and upgrade later.

Out of preference I would have selected an nvidia graphics card. It has been my experience that nvidia is better supported by developers and suffer fewer driver issues (really. google it sometime). Neither can I claim familiarity with Saphire brand of cards. All I can really offer in that regard is whether you go for nvidia or amd/ati: don't by 3d graphics card from a crappy brand. Particularly look for 'golden sample' mid-range cards (such as the ti560) with high quality RAM and overclocked CPUs. These offer exceptional performance and durability for their cost.

Good luck :)

-k

[Derbysieger 11]

450W is weaksauce. I know it hurts. Really. Who would have thought that PSUs would get so expensive? Especially for something with such hidden performance betterfits. The cold hard truth remains. A 650W is decent, but higher is better and more future proof. Coolermaster make som excellent PSU's as well. :)

-k

You are right that you shouldn't buy a cheap PSU but saying that a PSU with higher W is better is absolute BS. It is dependend on what kind of rig you are going to build. For a rig with a single GPU 500W is usually more than enough and even leaves enough power to overclock your CPU unless you have A LOT of HDDs that need extra power.

To give you an idea: the rig in my sig consumes max. 390W when I'm running benchmarks (80-100W on Desktop, not more than 370W ingame). The 525W Enermax I have has enough power left to upgrade the graphicscard when Arma 3 comes out and add a few HDDs when I need more storage (currently I have 1x Intel X25-M 80GB, 1x Vertex 2 120GB, 1x Caviar Blue 640GB, 1x Caviar Green 1000GB, 1x Caviar Green 2000GB).

Edited September 20, 2011 by Derbysieger

[nkenny 1051]

Ahh, don't get me wrong. I am talking about staying future proof, ie being able to do piecemeal upgrades without extra hidden cost. Obviously a stupidly high end PSU doesn't magically transform a PC to a computing monster. :)

*shrug* I am admittedly not familiar with the power consumption of ATI cards. Were I to put together a new box I would aim higher than 500W though, and Guru3d appears to agree.

-k

[Derbysieger 11]

If you don't plan to do SLI/CF in the near future and you don't plan to get an insane amount of storage (I know a guy who has 25TB storage on his gaming rig and 30TB on his server^^) 500W-550W is enough and it leaves room for future GPU upgrades and additional HDDs.

qoute from your link:

On your average system the card requires you to have a 500 Watt power supply unit.

The main reason why GPU manufacturers recommend higher W than really necessary is because there are always people who think a PSU isn't really important and go for some cheap no-name product from china that breaks down as soon as you want to use more than 60% of it's capacity, often destroying the whole PC in the process.

As long as it is a good manufacturer (certified PSUs!!!) you can expect to be able to use the power output it promises. Of course you don't want to stress it too much but as long as there isn't an unusual amount of storage there is no danger.

I have seen SLI setups with 650W PSUs and an OC'ed CPU but that doesn't leave any room for big upgrades.

[PuFu 4591]

while i agree with you derby, the difference in price between a certified 500W PSU and a 650W one is not all that high.

I always prefer having head room for further upgrades (be it another GFX card, HDD, Ram etc).

The 1000W on my 6 core rig is a bit overkill, but since i bought it, i added 2 more internal HDDs (i need to update sig), i have 2 external (1.5Tb and 1TB) connected most of the time (yes they do have to be plug in directly into a socket, but still..), i added 12GB more of Ram, and i plan on getting a SSD not that far off. That still leaves me with plenty of juice to spare for things like CF or a future SLI setup.