Suggestions for a new system

Looking at the screenshots that have been posted of upcoming stuff and from my little experience so far in the beta, I am more determined than ever to get a better computer that can handle maxed-out Ultra Mode. Anyone out there have any suggestions? I want a system that can handle the highest settings without slowing to a crawl, but at the best possible price (I *do* have to be reasonable with my budget...)

I would appreciate any feedback.

Do you mind building? (It's not that difficult.)

If you don't mind building, check any of FatherXmas's posts - he's got his $700 (I think) and $1200 or so builds in his sig, and he updates them constantly (probably in the first 1-2 pages of guides ATM.)

If you don't want to build... use those to piece together a system at ibuypower or cyberpower or the like.

See my Guides and Tutorials

There's a few posts going on in Tech right now where folks are looking for pointers for upgrades.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Boo!

Fill out Hyperstrike's survey and post it on the tech board.

I meant in it's own thread, not tacked on to Hyper's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arnabas 1) What will you primarily be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc *** Gaming, browsing. 2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? *** As low as possible... Not really sure, but the more expensive it is, the longer I will have to save $$. 3) Where do you live? This is important as it affects what vendors you may buy from and how much shipping costs might be. *** Just outside Ottawa, Ontario 4) Are you planning to buy or build? *** Buy 5) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need. If you're unsure what exactly you need, say so. *** Well, since I can't say "everything", I'll go with Unsure. 6) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model. *** None 7) Will you be overclocking? *** Err.... no idea. 8) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? *** I have a monitor I can use which is about 12 inches or so. 9) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? *** Whenever I can save enough for it. 10) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc. *** 11) Any specific must-have features? Must be able to max out Ultra-Mode? Must have 6+GB of RAM? Must have an SSD? etc. *** Want to be able to max out Ultra without slowing to a crawl. If I can do so at full speed, great. 12) Are there any vendors/brands you'd specifically prefer to use? *** Nope 13) Are there any vendors/brands you'd specifically prefer to avoid? *** Nope 14) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? (Note: If your current OS came with your computer, odds are that it is NOT transferable.) *** Not sure. Probably not **Terminology**

So you are in Canada, not building, want a fast gaming system for not a lot of money but you won't say what your budget is.

Maybe the person doesn't know how monitors are measured? I mean, I've a 19" and that wold be about 12" high.

Checking out this thread, it looks like Ultra Mode isn't too heavy for modern CPU's. Probably any Sandy Bridge CPU, including the new low end Pentium ones, will run it at decent frame rates. For a GPU I'd suggest something that's not low end, but considering the OP doesn't even know his monitor size, I'd say that he's running at low resolution, so most modern cards will work. Probably anything from Radeon 6670 and up will work nicely.

That said, this is just from what I see on that thread and my estimates of what the OP needs.

Edit: The problem is that OEM's tend to bundle $80 graphics cards with $200+ CPU's, where a $100 will be enough. It would be best to find a place that sells custom specced PCs. I think something like the following will work well if the main purpose is to play CoH:

CPU: Pentium G840
Graphics: Radeon 6670
RAM: 4GB
Disk: 500GB

If there is a laptop that I could be directed to, which could handle this, that would be great. For example, would this be likely to do the job?
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...0315c16aa6en02
or do I need to go higher-end?

It wasn't a snark, it's important to know so I can look at the Canadian NewEgg, TigerDirect, NCIX and not the US ones.

Could you tell us the current resolution of the monitor (if it's an LCD) or your desktop resolution. I'm not guessing very high due to the physical size.

If the monitor is an issue, I will just pop for a new one.

Any thoughts on the link I put in above? Is that worth considering?

Only thing I see sub-optimal for what you are looking for is the graphics card solution - 6755 radeon HD mobile.

My card handles most of Ultramode fine, and is a 6870 regular card. Its (roughly) a generation and a step or two down from mine, not counting the fact it's an intergrated/mobile version, which generally means it's not as good as the same number card in a desktop/regular version. So from what I know, it'd handle the non-ultra stuff fine - but for the ultra mode stuff no clue.

Not quite, Rajani. It's a step and a half down within the same generation (first number is generation...6xxx).

It's high-mid range and should handle low-end ultra but probably will choke on the higher settings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

While I like AMD's LLano line of CPUs since their integrated video core is so much better than previous ones from anybody, it's still an integrated video core. However this in this setup it's combined ala crossfire with a mobile HD 6750M with dedicated memory.

Still I'll say that while you may be able to turn on some of the UM features on minimum, and still get a reasonable 30fps framerate.

The CPU is a quad core that runs at 1.9GHz but can turbo boost to 2.6GHz depending on temp, power use and number of active cores (more cores, lower speed). Good thing the game only stresses two cores.

Just some food for thought: If you want a gaming laptop, and when I say that, I mean, a really good one that will give you the same kind of performance you'd expect out of a desktop rig, running Ultra Mode on high settings, etc., expect to pay a lot more than you would for a desktop that will give you equivalent performance. That said, you can get a laptop that will give you decent performance on low-end Ultra Mode without going into the multi-thousands.
I, personally, am a big believer in desktops over laptops if you're looking for performance and lacking in cash, however. The premium for portability is just too high for my taste. As an example, I purchased a laptop in July of last year for ~$1,400 and built a desktop in November for ~$1,000. The desktop has four times the RAM, double the hard disk space, two more processor cores that are each more than twice the GHz, and two nVidia graphics cards, both of a higher generation than the laptop's single integrated core Radeon.
The difference in price/performance is somewhat exacerbated by the fact that I ordered the parts and built the desktop myself, which is going to be part of somebody's profit margin if you buy a built rig, but that notwithstanding the difference is pretty massive.

Edit: Reading through the thread I'm also going to suggest that, yes, if you go with a new desktop rig, an old monitor is going to be an issue. The best computer in the world plugged into an ancient monitor that only takes VGA input and puts out a native resolution of 1280x720 (just venturing a guess based on what you've said about the monitor you have packed away) is still going to give you a picture quality you'd expect from an equally dated rig.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

Well, I would be just as happy with a desktop (happier, even if it gave better performance, cheaper). I just got used to playing on my current laptop, which is the best system I have at the moment, so I was kind of speaking with that in mind. I don't mind either way. Money is the biggest issue.

I just got this system in Feb from IBUYPOWER for $1000. Can't promise you'd get the same price, but I'm thrilled with what it can do.

Intel Core i7 870 processor (4x2.93Ghz/8mb l3 cache), 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB, 2 TB Hard Drive - 32M Cache - 7200 RPM - 3.0Gb/s


Money was an issue for me and IBUYPOWER's website let me twiddle and tweak the options so I could get what I wanted within my budget.

Hope you end up as happy as I am with whatever you end up getting.

Try this on for size.

i5-2500K
Z68 motherboard
GTX 560 (think major overclocked GTX 460)
8GB DDR3-1333 memory
1TB Hard Drive

$990.49 at NewEgg.ca

Well, if I can get away with spending less than $1000, I'd be happy. I suppose that I would be able to go up to about $1200. However, if I was told that to get the performance I am asking for, it would be a minimum $1800, I'd accept that. I'd just have to wait several months longer to pursue it.

I got an ASUS G73JH last summer to play CoH. There's a new G74 model that looked quite nice and then disappeared from stores immediately. Still listed on the US web site:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ASUS+-+L...2579&cp=1&lp=1

What a horrible URL. Anyway, I've heard people say good things about it, and it's $1100 US, so it might be within range -- but on the highish end. (The Best Buy version is cheaper than the other models, and has a lower-rez screen. I used my old one with a 1920x1200 monitor and it was silky smooth in Ultra.)