New Rig Plan: Please give guidance
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2010-02-16 09:22 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
WOW.......thats all I can say. Thats gonna be a badass rig.IMO easily able to run Ultra Mode and way more. 1. cuz of the i7. 2. cuz of the gpu you chose.
I'm sure you'll be more than happy with your choices.
btw. I've just ordered a 5850 1gb myself to replace my Geforce 9800gtx+.
Bill,
I run a very similar machine as of last week, and all I can say is...yes. You will be happy.
I have the exact same processor, same memory specs, 1000W Power supply, the only significant difference I see is the drive I have is only a 7200 RPM 1TB drive, and a 285GTX card.
It is total and complete overkill for CoH. Max out your settings and enjoy your 5 second load times between zones 
Cant wait for ultra mode...
Just yanked the hard drive. I've got more than enough HD space with my existing 7200 RPM drives. Maybe later I'll snag a 10K RPM for giggles.
This is more in prep work for future games, although knowing me, I couldn't stand playing CHV if not on the correct side of the performance curve.
Also looked at the benchmarks between the 5850 and the 5870. Looks like the extra cash for the 70 is worth it. EDIT: PDF updated.
Be well, people of CoH.
Quote:
Nothing that I can see, provided the rest of the system has the power and cooling to drive it all, including the 5870. |
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
All,
Please see the pdf located here for what I'm looking to pull the trigger on. Does anyone see anything as a bad idea? Thanks for your time. Sitting on this until I get some feedback from my fellow techheads. |
For gaming I'm still not sure if the i7-920 has any advantage over the i5-860 I have, and I don't think I'm suffering the lack of the memory channel. The main advantage is the presumptive headroom that LGA 1366 has, but I've learned to be cautious about anything Intel says regarding futureproofing.
The only thing about Windows 7 is that I'm finding a slightly higher crash rate than I did under XP, but its not excessive and I don't know if its Win7 or the drivers I have under Win7 or what. So far, weirdly enough the crashes only seem to affect me when I'm not doing anything important. I did a couple of Winter events back to back, zoning in and out of Atlas, and then when I was moving to park an alt for a day job I crashed zoning into the tram.
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Quote:
This right here.|
Originally Posted by SlimPickens
It is total and complete overkill for CoH
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I myself would never pay that much for a video card though. Might as well buy another LCD TV if my wife gave me the okay to ever spend that much.
Plus, it's an ATI card. I'm a NVIDIA person.
I do look foward to hearing about your performance though.
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I dropped you a PM about it from the Ultra Mode thread, didn't see this thread here until now.
As for overkill, we still haven't seen what Ultra Mode with the knobs at 11 will do to a system.
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Got it and replied, FX. Great info as always.
I don't believe in overkill. The rig I run on right now is a C2D OCed to 2.7GHz with 2GB of RAM and an G92-8800GTS. It's not overkill for CHV now running at 1920X1200.
I started playing this game with a server board, 2 1GHz-P3 procs and a top of the line 9800 pro. Then it was the P4-HT-3Ghz and an x800xt, then the C2d with x1950xtx....
Holy crap I've spent a lot of cash on hardware.
Still pondering going with the 10K RPM WD hard drive. What do yall think? Worth it for the lower load times?
Be well, people of CoH.
Quote:
Matter of preference I guess. Although I'm not complaining about the 8-10 second load time my new system has. However, no rig however insane is likely to break about 6 seconds or so because at that point you're bound by the limit at which the game servers will send you the initial zone data.
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Still pondering going with the 10K RPM WD hard drive. What do yall think? Worth it for the lower load times?
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I pulled the trigger. $1244.04 spent. Went with the Sapphire card with the vapor-x cooler and slightly higher clock speed.
Also grabbed the coolermaster 212 cpu heatsink from FX's rig recommendations so that I can OC some in safety.
Said fark it to the hard drive. If I want to go nuts later on, I'll grab a solid state drive for ludicrous load times.
Thanks for the help everyone.
Be well, people of CoH.
Quote:
I'd be cautious. A friend showed me his new system with two 10K drives, and the thing was howling like a banshee. Not sure what brand it was, but if they're all that loud that'd be a huge disincentive for me.
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Still pondering going with the 10K RPM WD hard drive. What do yall think? Worth it for the lower load times?
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I have a friend who has a pair of 10Ks and they do sound like a jet engine powering up for take off. He eventually went with adding sound dampening materials to the case which brought it down to a barely noticable roar.
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Originally Posted by Sardan
I'd be cautious. A friend showed me his new system with two 10K drives, and the thing was howling like a banshee. Not sure what brand it was, but if they're all that loud that'd be a huge disincentive for me.
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Quote:
I think you will be very happy.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
I pulled the trigger. $1244.04 spent. Went with the Sapphire card with the vapor-x cooler and slightly higher clock speed.
Also grabbed the coolermaster 212 cpu heatsink from FX's rig recommendations so that I can OC some in safety. Said fark it to the hard drive. If I want to go nuts later on, I'll grab a solid state drive for ludicrous load times. Thanks for the help everyone. |
And as for the overkill comments upthread, I agree- there is no such thing as overkill since we really dont know how much pull we need to power all of the ultra mode features at full settings.
Cant go too far wrong with a good case/cooling system, nice power supply, and good Motherboard, then upgrade as needed for your vid card, or hard drive.
Im not sure the i7 is really necessary either, but I went with one and overclocked to 3.75Ghz which is screamingly fast now, and hopefully stands the test of time fairly well.
Load times with a 7200RPM drive are still just around 6 secs. Sure beats the 30 sec-1 minute loads I was suffering through on my old machine... my "speed" Posi's were less speed and more wait...
They say patience is a virtue, and after a couple years of slow loads I feel like a saint.
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This. I wouldn't want some of the 10k drive-equipped performance servers I've heard near me when I'm playing, and certainly not when I'm watching a movie. |
Originally Posted by Sardan
I'd be cautious. A friend showed me his new system with two 10K drives, and the thing was howling like a banshee. Not sure what brand it was, but if they're all that loud that'd be a huge disincentive for me.
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Also note that moving from 7.2k RPM to 10k RPM drives may or may not give significant load time increases. Revolution speed mostly helps random seeks on different parts of the disk; CoH zone loading should be more concerned with sustained reads of fairly large files in close proximity. A more significant metric is probably sustained transfer rate.
Make sure the system is actually capable of handling SATA Rev. 2 ("3 Gb/s") properly throughout; while it's rare for a single spinning-media drive to be able to push more than the 1.5 Gb/s path can handle, if you're thinking of upgrading to a SSD you'll be able to take more advantage of the 3 Gb/s path. (If price is really no object, plan for SATA Rev. 3 at nominal 6 Gb/s and high-channel or paired SSDs, although at that point you'd have to wonder if you'd do better just loading up a 64-bit system with 16+ GB of RAM and putting all of CoH on a RAM drive...)
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I run 2 of the 300 gig 10k rpm WD Velociraptors and I literally can't tell the difference in noise from my older drives. I've heard the Barracudas are noisy but the WD's aren't bad.
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Okay I haven't read the pdf or any other posts after this. |
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
All,
Please see the pdf located here for what I'm looking to pull the trigger on. Does anyone see anything as a bad idea? Thanks for your time. Sitting on this until I get some feedback from my fellow techheads. |
But THE Bill Z Bubba is seeking computer advice? I guess that snow here in Texas does mean hell is freezing over!
It's always a good thing to have another pair of eyes on a topic like rig building, PS. 
Parts just arrived. Finishing up with some data backup then the tear down/rebuild will begin.
Unfortunately, it appears that I'll probably have to make a run to Frys for some more parts due to wanting what will become my son's rig to stay up to my required specs for gaming. On the plus side, I probably won't need to upgrade either of us again for at least two years.
Be well, people of CoH.
Quote:
This.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
. On the plus side, I probably won't need to upgrade either of us again for at least two years.
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I wasn't going to do it again myself until 2011, but my motherboard bit the dust last summer, so I went ahead and did it early. The only thing I kept was the DVD drive. I love looking and drooling over my custom parts when I open up the case.
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Yeah but for some of us that remember how prominent you were in this section not so long ago are thinking this is like JFK asking for directions to the White House.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
It's always a good thing to have another pair of eyes on a topic like rig building, PS.
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Seriously though, I'd like to see how much you get that 920 to OC. I'm planning a new comp soon (yeah yeah for the last two years I know I KNOW) and was looking at a very similar parts list. I just hope I can figure out my taxes soon enough to get a refund back. Wife's disability is throwing me way off this year. (Claim this but not that, see line 49873849B schedule 3421kfd *bang*)
Although I'm assuming your rig will handle GR fine I'm trying to convince myself to hold off until then to plop down $1500+ and enough to keep my current rig run CHV for my son.
Back in CHV. Loaded all three of the necessary installers for my XFi Xtremegamer card, or whatever it's called.
Sound seems ok.
In Grandville running around, 1920X1200 res, 200% world detail, 4xFSAA and 8X AF, the spot above the arbiter face the recluse statue and tower, I still get dropped to 30-35FPS. But that spot is murder. Running around the zone I saw 70-90FPS until I turned back on V-Sync which caps me at 60FPS.
There's tweaking to be done, be she seems good to go. Proc's sitting at 41-44C on temps.
Be well, people of CoH.
The scary thing is what is Ultra Mode going to do to that area? Although hopefully Ultra Mode addresses some of those problem areas. (doesn't hold breath but still crossing fingers)
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So any problem with the Hyper 212 Plus heatsink? |
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Proc's sitting at 41-44C on temps.
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The mounting instructions makes it appear to be a little more complicated than some other third party heatsinks. Of course that's probably due to it's multi platform compatibility as well as the picture oriented, 63 languages on one page instruction sheet.
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Powerstream, I hope for the same. I'd be lying if I said I think it will happen, but I like to have my hopes slammed to the ground and stomped on.
FX, actually... it was ok. Once I realized that the thing actually had a backplane. It was hiding in the bottom of the box. It helped quite a bit after I found it.
For the I7-920, the hyper 212 just needs to be adjusted to the max size, then it slapped right on. It's actually a lot easier to mount than the Zalman I've got on the C2D.
I was surprised at the size, but that is the way of things these days.
Side note: I emailed Mid. I've GOT to overclock this beast and I really like the motherboard. Out of the box it seems much more stable than the Asus board the C2D is on.
Be well, people of CoH.
Well the interesting thing is that it's smaller and lighter than some. This one is 50% larger in volume than the Hyper and 150 grams heavier.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
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you could always put up a CPU-z validation, so we can see CPU stepping and VIDs, batces and revisions, voltages and memories...you know, the *good* stuff! =)
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
(she's not got any accounts going these days, save a few a few days she let me borrow it, hee)
All,
Please see the pdf located here for what I'm looking to pull the trigger on.
Does anyone see anything as a bad idea?
Thanks for your time. Sitting on this until I get some feedback from my fellow techheads.
Be well, people of CoH.