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Blackula69 posted:If you can afford it, get an i5, and honestly I would prefer one just to have the ability to OC it to kingdom come This is the big selling point for me. The 2500k is the easiest 4GHz on the market right now, and the price difference is negligible for most folks' upgrade budgets.
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Jul 27, 2011 22:19
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americanzero4128 posted:I thought I was the only one, what's up 965 bro As for the "backwards compatibility is moot" replies... In my case, my upgrading tends to be "one part at a time," if only because I recognize that I'm not good at figuring out "okay, time to upgrade everything" timing, and everyone in my house already has a computer to use so I can't justify it to myself as creating a hand-me-down. In my case my dad got an AM2+ motherboard that he used an AM2 dual-core CPU (2.6 GHz) on, but since the motherboard was "Socket AM3 Ready" I was able to just drop the 965 Black Edition (AM3 quad-core 3.4 GHz) into it and go. As such, I'd consider Intel only if I actually had to "start from scratch," though probably a favorable look... I remember my dad giving me a yelling though when I got the 965 Black Edition (3.4 GHz) for about $140 as opposed to a sub-$100 Propus, which makes the Sandy Bridge pricing look even more intimidating at $185 for a i5-2300 (2.8 GHz) or $220 for the i5-2500K (3.3 GHz) on Newegg. 
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Jul 27, 2011 22:52
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mine runs hot as gently caress when I'm gaming and I've been worried it's going to burn up, but so far no problems. The highest I've seen mine hit was 72 Celsius while playing Bad Company 2 in July, maybe 105 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I do try to clean the heatsink every now and then. I've been looking at aftermarket cooling solutions to try and keep it under 50 Celsius while just browsing the web, but haven't found much besides giant gently caress off fans. Maybe I just need to get it off the floor and on top of my desk.
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penis bandana posted:This is the big selling point for me. The 2500k is the easiest 4GHz on the market right now, and the price difference is negligible for most folks' upgrade budgets. $100 is a big price difference and certainly wasn't negligible for my budget.
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Jul 27, 2011 22:54
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:$100 is a big price difference and certainly wasn't negligible for my budget. No, and it won't be for a lot of people. I don't necessarily think that the average gamer would notice/appreciate the performance difference either, and certainly not $100 worth in the immediate future. Again, I'm not saying that the AMD stuff is a poor choice, I just think that the i5 is a better one if you're in position to do it.
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Jul 27, 2011 23:08
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The price difference is absolutely worth it over the life of the machine, which is something people fail to look at. It comes down to how many dollars you spend per month of whatever you consider acceptable performance, and Intel has been far, far ahead of AMD for the last five years in that regard.
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Jul 27, 2011 23:22
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To be fair, I bought my Phenom II before Sandy Bridge was out. (It was still beyond my pretty strict budget)
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Jul 27, 2011 23:23
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timmmmaaaah posted:I upgraded from a CPU I skimped on (an e8400 whenever they were new-ish) But it's just like anything else: you notice the variances more than all the times it's just fine, which was probably most of the time. e: I gather that a lot of folks here upgrade their box every, what, 1 to 1.5 years? crestfallen fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jul 28, 2011 |
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Jul 28, 2011 02:04
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I still have an E8400 too with 4GB of RAM and I can still run every game just fine, even though the CPU is overclocked slightly (3.6ghz).
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Jul 28, 2011 02:07
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I made mine Spring '10, and I'm planning on upgrading next summer, and that's just the GFX card for ARMA 3.
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Jul 28, 2011 02:11
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crestfallen posted:e: I gather that a lot of folks here upgrade their box every, what, 1 to 1.5 years? I upgrade much less often. My CPU maybe every 3-4 years. My graphics card maybe every 2-3 years.
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Jul 28, 2011 02:13
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I'm in the same boat as Dr. Video Games 0031, way more incremental than the guys here decrying backwards compatibility or pro-Intel (in the sense of "the upgrade cost of going Intel CPU/motherboard is worth it") in this case. Then again, the graphics card choice (MSI R5770 HAWK 1 GB*) was for having a native HDMI port, although on a future card I may go with NVIDIA if they're still riding as high as they seem to be and just go with DVI port to HDMI port (by a DVI-to-HDMI cable of course) for my audio output. * It meets the ARMA 3 minimum requirement, so huzzah that I didn't aim too low.
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Jul 28, 2011 02:40
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crestfallen posted:e: I gather that a lot of folks here upgrade their box every, what, 1 to 1.5 years? I've never upgraded a CPU because by the time I needed a new CPU (every 4 years or so), my motherboard was outdated enough that I just got a new one and a new socket would be used by the time I need to change CPUs anyways. I will do the same when I move over to an intel i* series (or maybe AMD) CPU since my motherboard's socket is wrong, can't use DDR3 ram, is still PCI-e 1.0 and is missing numerous other improvements in newer boards. Zettace fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jul 28, 2011 |
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Jul 28, 2011 07:59
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I bought a C2D 3.0ghz, 8800GT system a good 3 years ago and If it wasn't for the parts breaking from shortcircuit I wouldn't upgrade for at least another year. If you can live with not-bleeding edge you can get a lot of mileage out of a "good but not silly expensive" system.
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Jul 28, 2011 08:07
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Yeah, I've seen people in this thread spend more on video cards than my entire rig, which was ~$600 a year and a half ago.
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Jul 28, 2011 08:11
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That's how much I spent on my video cards...  I have a very expensive PC, but it's the first time since I've been a gamer to really splurge on my gaming PC. Running The Witcher 2 at 70fps was worth it. I also got one of those 120hz monitors, which are great even if you don't want to use nvidia 3dvision. 120hz is smooooooooth.
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Jul 28, 2011 08:41
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I too have a $600 system. It's an AMD Athlon II x3, and I'm running an ATI 5770. You may remember this as the very cheapest 1080p build from last summer's parts picking thread in SH/SC. I still play games at high or max settings. I really don't see what a more expensive machine would have given me. I mean, maybe it'd still be able to play games on max settings in two years or something, but if my machine won't play games in a satisfactory manner in two years, I'll just take the $300 I saved going with the cheaper machine and use it to upgrade. As far as I am concerned there's no reason to spend money on a computer now that you could spend later. In a year the same cash will get you better performance anyway. Then again, I'm a broke-rear end graduate student, and getting a computer that could play games at all required some thinking, planning, and rationalizing. If somebody has the money to burn, I can't fault them for going with the less-cost-effective-but-otherwise-better-in-every-way Intel build.
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Jul 28, 2011 08:48
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Zedd posted:I bought a C2D 3.0ghz, 8800GT system a good 3 years ago and If it wasn't for the parts breaking from shortcircuit I wouldn't upgrade for at least another year. I had pretty much the same system, and that's very true. I upgraded this spring, but that's only because I got a real job and wanted to start fresh. That and I wanted to give my brother my old PC so we could play new releases online together. Since upgrading to an i5 2400 and Radeon 6850 system, it's a little disappointing how few games benefit from the extra hardware. There's the occasional gem like the Witcher 2, but for the most part ports like the Assassin's Creed series don't bother with assets or effects that the 360 isn't capable of doing at 30fps.
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Jul 28, 2011 14:04
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People also tend to forget that motherboards for Intel chips are also pricer than the AMD equivalent, so you don't just pay more for the CPU, you pay more for CPU+Mobo, so the price difference is even larger there, if you are looking for a Mobo that isn't poo poo anyway. Most gamers will absolutely NOT notice a performance difference between AMD & Intel as far as gaming goes anyway as long as other components are equivalent so it's a moot point. Go with AMD if you want good performance at a reasonable price. Go Intel if you want good performance and don't mind paying a couple hundred extra for a few extra fps. Both sides overclock well, but really these days with the power in processors, OC doesn't really do much unless you are really into PS2 emulation or so, but even then, not required.
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Jul 28, 2011 14:21
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MacGyvers_Mullet posted:Since upgrading to an i5 2400 and Radeon 6850 system, it's a little disappointing how few games benefit from the extra hardware. This is exactly what gets me about PC gaming these days. I replaced my six-year-old Athlon 64 system with an i5 750 and 5770 system last March, and while with past builds I'd be pretty much guaranteed to need upgrades or a new build in another year or so, my system continues to demolish just about everything it touches. I can only assume it's because PC gaming has been on the backburner for so long and developers are continuing to focus on consoles with six year old hardware. I can live with that. 
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Jul 28, 2011 14:21
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Speaking of videocards, does anyone know how much they would drop in price from now until October? Would the 560s and 6870s drop down to around $150? I don't mind waiting for a videocard, but I might as well buy a 6850 or 460 now if I won't be saving a lot of money anyway
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Jul 28, 2011 14:35
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mistermojo posted:Speaking of videocards, does anyone know how much they would drop in price from now until October? NCIX has a sale where a 6870 is on sale for $150 currently so I wager you'll see those prices and sillier in a few months time, doubly so if a new refresh is enroute.
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Jul 28, 2011 14:46
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There is a lot of talk about price for performance and hardware, this goes a lot into what they deal with in the sh/sc forum in the parts picking thread. AMD is ok. Its performance lags behind the i5 2500k. You can see this on any game that stresses cpu. The article that has been linked a few times shows exactly this. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/20 Look at Starcraft 2. This is a modern game that is cpu intensive. The difference between the athlon x4 645 and the 2500k is 50% faster. Your getting 50% performance from the better cpu as you would expect on a game that is cpu intensive. As someone else pointed out, on a console port designed for 5 year old hardware, you get more than adequate performance. The xbox 360 is designed around the intel core 2 level of hardware, so anything like an Athlon 2 x640 or phenom 2 is going to destroy that level of hardware. Of course the xbox has dated graphics and many games on that system are locked to 30fps. If this is the level of graphical quality you want, sure a $600 pc will do a bang up job. Get the Athlon 640 with the ati 6850 and go crazy. However, don't be shocked if Battlefield 3 runs on low-med settings at best. Also keep in mind that test lowers the resolution well below what many people use to show the impact on the processor. Sure games run great on 1024x768 or 1680x1050. PC gaming always depends on what resolution you game at, what games you play, and what level of quality you demand from them. Rift works on my laptop which has an older core 2 duo processor and an 8800m gts in lower render modem, but it looks like poo poo compared to my more powerful desktop. Thats the way it goes.
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Jul 28, 2011 14:52
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This thread has mentioned the upcoming "next-generation" graphics cards a few times. Roughly when will they start showing up, and how big of an improvement will they be over the current-gen (for example my GTX 460 rig, which I picked up last year as my first gaming PC)?
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Jul 28, 2011 15:09
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Hard drive arrived today, getting everything installed now. Need to figure out what I'm playing first. Feels good man 
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Jul 28, 2011 15:10
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jassi007 posted:AMD is ok. Its performance lags behind the i5 2500k. You can see this on any game that stresses cpu. The article that has been linked a few times shows exactly this. Sites like AnandTech also tend to use a disproportionately high amount of CPU-intensive games as benchmarks in order to illustrate the differences between CPUs. Let me stress again: The amount of CPU-bound games out there is small. Yes, Starcraft 2 is one of them, and if you're going to be playing a lot of those CPU-bound games than an i5-2500k is a more than worthy investment. But it's not an essential. quote:Also keep in mind that test lowers the resolution well below what many people use to show the impact on the processor. Sure games run great on 1024x768 or 1680x1050. It also uses a GTX 280 as the GPU, which is a good deal slower than even a Radeon 6850, especially at high resolutions.
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Jul 28, 2011 15:14
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peteyfoot posted:This thread has mentioned the upcoming "next-generation" graphics cards a few times. Roughly when will they start showing up, and how big of an improvement will they be over the current-gen (for example my GTX 460 rig, which I picked up last year as my first gaming PC)? I wouldn't upgrade for another cycle, at least - they'll be cooler, faster, and better, but because of console development cycles and the fact that most gamers run at 1080p, it'll be a while before your card is out of date.
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Jul 28, 2011 15:15
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Devil Wears Wings posted:Let me stress again: The amount of CPU-bound games out there is small. This is a poor measure of it - Starcraft 2 and Battlefield 3 are or will be games that are played be many people, so saying it is a small number means little when most of the top grossing list fits the CPU-intensive category.
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Jul 28, 2011 16:17
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Devil Wears Wings posted:Sites like AnandTech also tend to use a disproportionately high amount of CPU-intensive games as benchmarks in order to illustrate the differences between CPUs. You are correct. That is why I said, and I stress PC gaming always depends on what resolution you game at, what games you play, and what level of quality you demand from them. One thing to note, since a major pc gaming market is MMO's, they generally are all cpu intensive. They generally have more scaled back graphics compared to single player games, but the volume of data being thrown at the client is all number crunching, and a better cpu can help. Again the anandtech graph shows that with WoW. Of course WoW has 6 year old graphics so anything runs WoW, but someone who is into Rift, looking forward to The Old Republic and beyond should keep that mind. MMO's are by design (tons of players and data at a time) CPU intensive.
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Jul 28, 2011 17:14
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jassi007 posted:PC gaming always depends on what resolution you game at, what games you play, and what level of quality you demand from them. Wiser words have never been spoken  although I would add disposable income, always work within the budget of your wages/trust fund/black market income.
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Jul 28, 2011 17:26
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Manac0r posted:Wiser words have never been spoken Its funny when someone says "games running fine" and then includes 1280x1024 or something.
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Jul 28, 2011 17:44
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peteyfoot posted:This thread has mentioned the upcoming "next-generation" graphics cards a few times. Roughly when will they start showing up, and how big of an improvement will they be over the current-gen (for example my GTX 460 rig, which I picked up last year as my first gaming PC)? It's rumored that new Nvidia cards are dropping in Q1 2012 and new AMD cards are going to ship in late Q4 2011. Performance is expected to be more evolutionary with the next big jump in performance due around 2013.
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Jul 28, 2011 18:06
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As far as building a brand-new-from-scratch desktop system goes, if you're spending over a grand on a gaming PC, you're doing it wrong (give or take about an extra $100 if you need a new monitor as well). It blows my mind how people can afford to drop $400-$600 on video cards that are going to radically depreciate in value and performance in a year's time, but whatever. My general rule of picking one video card around the $200 mark has served me well. If I can't run a gave at my monitor's native resolution with most things turned all the way up, it's going to bother me, so I guess I'm sort of a graphics fag. The AMD discussion is interesting too as I pretty much turned a blind eye to them after upgrading my last computer, a single-core Athlon 939 system, since everyone spooged in their pants over the Core 2 Duo chips a few years ago. I want my next PC to be a gaming laptop and from what I've seen, virtually all of the laptops I've looked at are predominately Intel/Nvidia. I figured AMD would be interested in powering gaming-capable laptops too.
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Jul 28, 2011 19:00
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whiteshark12 posted:This is a poor measure of it - Starcraft 2 and Battlefield 3 are or will be games that are played be many people, so saying it is a small number means little when most of the top grossing list fits the CPU-intensive category. SC2 is a bad example, with a decent video card you'll be above 60 frames regardless of your CPU. At that point, it doesn't really matter if a good CPU will double the framerate, if you have a 60Hz monitor it wont make much of a difference. Battlefield 3, though, my Phenom II X4 runs the alpha on high settings at 60-70 FPS. We'll how it fares once full destruction physics and all of its graphical features are added in the beta.
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Jul 28, 2011 19:10
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freeforumuser posted:The thing is while the 2500K is $100 more than the 955BE it is also ~50% faster at stock and can be overclocked waaaay higher while consuming less power at the same time. Add in a ~$100 motherboard, ~$40 aftermarket HSF and price of DDR3 for both and AMD doesn't look good for the money. I don't give a poo poo about the power consumption, and while the Intel chips may be faster at stock I'd still say a 965 gives you better bang for your buck as far as game performance goes. Running it at 4 GHz is more than enough to make sure that the CPU won't bottleneck your games for a while.
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Jul 28, 2011 19:38
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cat doter posted:120hz is smooooooooth. Do you think you can convey to me what that is like? I'm currently deciding between a 120hz monitor and Dell's new $399, 8ms response, IPS display.
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Jul 28, 2011 20:46
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Shameproof posted:Do you think you can convey to me what that is like? I'm currently deciding between a 120hz monitor and Dell's new $399, 8ms response, IPS display. It's like going from 300 thread count sheets to 600+
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Jul 28, 2011 20:49
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But an IPS panel has 6 more bits of color, so by that logic isn't that like going from 300 thread count sheets to 19200?
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Jul 28, 2011 21:02
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Question: Are there any free alternatives to XPadder out there so I can play lazy PC ports with my 360 gamepad? The last free version of it (5.3) won't work on Windows 7, and Pinnacle Game Profiler looks good, but it only has a 30-day trial.
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Jul 28, 2011 22:58
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Charles Martel posted:Question: Are there any free alternatives to XPadder out there so I can play lazy PC ports with my 360 gamepad? The last free version of it (5.3) won't work on Windows 7, and Pinnacle Game Profiler looks good, but it only has a 30-day trial. XPadder is working fine for me on windows 7, have you tried compatibility mode?
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Jul 28, 2011 23:00
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Charles Martel posted:Question: Are there any free alternatives to XPadder out there so I can play lazy PC ports with my 360 gamepad? The last free version of it (5.3) won't work on Windows 7, and Pinnacle Game Profiler looks good, but it only has a 30-day trial. PGP is worth the money. It's very powerful.
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Jul 28, 2011 23:05
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