Goblin Squad Member
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This is not really about the game, just what I need to build to do this.
So I think a GeForce 750 will be adequate for this. With an engineering back ground I like a lithe over design, but the information seems arcane.
a 750 seems to need a PCEi 3.0 x16 interface. sometime one could have 2 with SLI, but for now I only need one, maybe.
WHile some chipset (new term) would have 40 channels for 16x + 16 + 8 x, most inexpensive implementation seem to only have 16 or 2 8X or sometimes not even that.
Is 750 good enough? 660, 760, 770, 780 offer more at greater price
What if it runs on only an 8x?
Is 8GB good enough. Is i5? How fast does it need to run? Form what I have seen at work it is marginal, but I will only be running 1 to two applications and use my old mac for teamspeak/mumble.
best (not cheapest) plan is 16Gb on 2 Ram (boards) and have 2 more for 32 GB if needed.
looking for 120/128 SSD and 7200 TB HD, though not sure what I will do with that.
No CD/DVD as I can share that over network (but can I set up without that? -- Do I need CD to load bootstrap?).
Key board, mouse, monitor are all later (can I project image over net to my current iMac? X-windows seems way to slow, but who knows what has happened in 25 years)
What am I not looking at?
How does one determine how much power is needed. I see no data on what mother boards need, what is need for RAM, how does that increase for over clocking (I hope PfO does not need over clocking), I see combos of GeForce 750 combined with 500 watts. Other say 700 800 is needed. WHen Do I need to cool CPU and how much. Is the need for cooling based upon design of CPU speed (that is the mother board is designed to dispute power at 1600 and if you want more you get a cooler.
Where is the consumer reports on effective ness of coolers?
Problem continues to be I do not know what I need. I really thin the $1900 Mac Pro that my company IS upgrading me to would work, but this i not work and that is not easy (if it was I would be in alpha now -- Yes I could budget that, but I have an adult daughter coming to a significant birthday also).
SO you see why this is a separate thread.
Still, I think other may be looking at buying just good enough
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Goblin Squad Member
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i5 is good enough - and no real need to go Haswell
integrated waterblocks are the best cooling these days
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=207_16 0_45&products_id=27831
Forget SLI it never seems to quite work right
700 W power supply is handy just in case you need more grunt
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I just bought a new computer as my current one is 5-6 years old now. I ended up going with an AMD FX-6300, which should be plenty, but an i5 is also fine. The i7 adds extra number crunching power, which is good if you're compiling code or rendering, but not needed for gaming. 8 GB of RAM should be PLENTY for gaming. If you're doing intensive graphics work and need to hold a crap-ton in memory, then more might be usable, but otherwise, save the money and buy better quality RAM (lower latency). The 750 will probably be fine. That's what I bought for mine. You don't need PCI 3.0. From what I read, this makes one channel 32x, but current cards only need 16x, and won't use the extra bandwidth. The advantage comes in that an SLI configuration can be 2x 16x, instead of 2x 8x. If you're not doing SLI, then you don't need PCI 3.0, and you're usually better getting a better card (like a 760, rather than 2x 750 in SLI). SLI is really only a worthwhile thing if you're going to buy 2 of the fastest cards out there.
As for power, I went with a 500 W power supply. Try a site called pcpartpicker.com. I found it great for sorting through parts from a multitude of sites, plus it reviews your choices for comparability, and it estimates power usage. Mine came out to 240W, which I doubled for adequate headroom to ensure the PSU runs at about 50%, where they are most efficient (and to leave room for start-up current, which tends to be higher than normal run current, even at full-load).
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's also great fun to poke around Logical Increments, as long as you're willing to risk losing a couple of hours you won't notice are gone...until they are.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's also great fun to poke around Logical Increments, as long as you're willing to risk losing a couple of hours you won't notice are gone...until they are.
WHat does that mean?
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Typically for nVidia cards, the first digit is the generation and the second is the tier within the generation. The 750 appears to be more or less the entry level serious gaming card for the 700 series, and might be worse than the higher tens digit in the 600 series: the 660 is missing whatever common upgrades went into the 700 series, but has more power. Eventually, generations get far enough out of date that a lower-tier card of the current gen is better than a higher-tier one of an earlier gen, but within a generation or two the card with the higher tens digit will generally perform better for most gaming applications.
I tend to use Tom's Hardware to sort these things out. Jazzlvraz's link also looks good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's also great fun to poke around Logical Increments, as long as you're willing to risk losing a couple of hours you won't notice are gone...until they are.WHat does that mean?
Logical Increments (follow the link) allows you to play mix-and-match with your components by rank-ordering them according to price/quality/capability/however-you-choose-to-interpret. It's a simple site, but also addicting, though, as you can get a bit distracted with swapping, what-if-ing, and simplw wishing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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RAM is cheap, go for the two 8gb sticks. Its unlikely that you'll ever need more than 16gb in that machine, but just in case. Not to mention that, unless you have the Professional version of Windows, the max you can use is 16gb (unless, of course, you are using Mac, where i have zero knowledge).
If you can swing it, I would go for a slightly beefier cpu to give your machine some staying power.
When I looked, the 750 Ti was about 80-90% of the performance of the 660, but uses less than half the power (60W vs. 140W) and costs about 30% less.
RAM is cheap, but you can start with 8 GB and it will probably last you the life of the computer. As long as your motherboard has 4 slots, you can add 2 more later if you ever need to, and by the time you'd actually need more than 16 GB, this computer will be far out-of-date. Unless you have money to blow, getting more RAM that you don't need won't do anything for performance, while getting faster RAM will (higher bandwidth and lower latency), so, unless you're already getting the fastest RAM and just want to spend more money for more RAM, then getting faster RAM is better than just getting more RAM. (If your motherboard only has 2 slots, you probably aren't getting a good motherboard, but that would be the only time to really consider 16 GB, unless you're doing some professional graphics work or some such applications that need LOTS of RAM.)
Finally, I don't believe in trying to "future-proof" a PC purchase. I try to keep mine to JUST my current needs, with the idea that I might upgrade it in as soon as 2-3 years. A minimal computer capable of handling a current-generation game at full or near-full settings can be built for $600 (which I just did), or you can add in power you don't need now, and double that cost. However, in 2-3 years, when you finally need that power to run more intensive games, the $600 computer can be upgraded to all new components for about $400-$500 (since a good SSD, PSU, and Case should still be viable), which will then be faster than any $1,000+ computer that you can build now. At the rate that computer technology progresses, you'll spend less and more-consistently have a more powerful computer to buy just what you need and upgrade frequently, than to try to go all-out every 4-5 years. Because of this, I buy what I need now, and save the extra money to upgrade whenever I need more.
This was my final build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fpXDQ7 $610 and I'm confident will run PFO and other current games on maximum settings. When it ages, I can easily upgrade the CPU and GPU or add RAM, but I don't expect to need to for the next 2-3 years.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Systems seem to have a speed of 1600 unless you over clock. How does that work; how much can one do this; and how does figure out how much the RAM or CPU can take?
These will use more power (as most of the power is associated with the 1s and 0s flipping), how is that calculated?
There are CPU coolers e.g.
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $29.99)
. I also presume this is related to the extra power being dissipated. How much is needed?
Or should I go back to start and 1600 is fast enough.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lam-My-Man! You love to overthink this :) Three things:
1) Get an i5 core. It's that simple.
2) Video Card is pretty simple as well--just pick one:
-Budget ($80): GeForce GT 730 2GB GDDR5 64bit
-Midrange ($151): GeForce GTX 750 Ti (no power input needed, 300W system requirement)
-High End ($200-$240): GeForce GTX 760 2GB
3) Get 4 or 8 GB of memory. Anything beyond 4 GB offers improvements in performance, but the improvements are marginal, with diminishing returns.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lam-My-Man! You love to overthink this :) Three things:
1) Get an i5 core. It's that simple.
2) Video Card is pretty simple as well--just pick one:
-Budget ($80): GeForce GT 730 2GB GDDR5 64bit
-Midrange ($151): GeForce GTX 750 Ti (no power input needed, 300W system requirement)
-High End ($200-$240): GeForce GTX 760 2GB
3) Get 4 or 8 GB of memory. Anything beyond 4 GB offers improvements in performance, but the improvements are marginal, with diminishing returns.
You make it simple, but there seems to have been a lot of thinking to even know what that means.
I suspect I should get CPU cooler as it does gte hot here, but not much after Sept , so skip that for now. Will do the SSH (120) and 7500 drive (1/2 TB), as I will power down between sessions.And your simplification makes smaller price achievable. Thnx
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Goblin Squad Member
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3) Get 4 or 8 GB of memory. Anything beyond 4 GB offers improvements in performance, but the improvements are marginal, with diminishing returns.
Extra RAM is really good for when you're multi-tasking. I'm liable to have a couple of PFO sessions running, along with Visual Studio (a bit of a hog) and a dozen web pages.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lam,
-CPU's are sold in two "types": retail (or "boxed") and OEM (or "tray").
-Retail come with a heatsink & fan and a 3 year warranty, OEM don't.
-95% of the CPUs at Newegg are retail, boxed, with a warranty.
-Since the stock coolers on retail CPUs aren't particuarly good, I usually buy a heatsink and fan of my choice and apply it. It's really easy, and there are tutorial videos at newegg/youtube.
So you just buy a "CPU Fan & Heatsink" ($30-$40) that matches your CPU's socket type (LGA 1155 if an Ivy Bridge, LGA 1150 if it's Haswell), and some "thermal grease paste" (a little dab goes between the CPU and the fan's heatsink). You DON'T need a water-based cooler, because you will not be overclocking your CPU.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Typically for nVidia cards, the first digit is the generation and the second is the tier within the generation. The 750 appears to be more or less the entry level serious gaming card for the 700 series, and might be worse than the higher tens digit in the 600 series: the 660 is missing whatever common upgrades went into the 700 series, but has more power. Eventually, generations get far enough out of date that a lower-tier card of the current gen is better than a higher-tier one of an earlier gen, but within a generation or two the card with the higher tens digit will generally perform better for most gaming applications.
I tend to use Tom's Hardware to sort these things out. Jazzlvraz's link also looks good.
Toms Hardware are great, I've been using their info to build systems for what feels like forever, but is probably around 10 years.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lam-My-Man! You love to overthink this :) Three things:
1) Get an i5 core. It's that simple.
2) Video Card is pretty simple as well--just pick one:
-Budget ($80): GeForce GT 730 2GB GDDR5 64bit
-Midrange ($151): GeForce GTX 750 Ti (no power input needed, 300W system requirement)
-High End ($200-$240): GeForce GTX 760 2GB
3) Get 4 or 8 GB of memory. Anything beyond 4 GB offers improvements in performance, but the improvements are marginal, with diminishing returns.
Gonna change perspective on that GPU list.
-No-Gaming($80): GT 730 (these are for running post-xp windows with Aero, and getting HDMI connections)
-Budget ($150-$250): GeForce GTX 750 (these run games at moderate quality)
-Mid-range($250-$400): Geforce 760, 770, more VRAM=higher prices. (These are really all you need to run anything well)(if you want to run 2 instances of the game, spring for a 4GB card)
-High End($600-$3000): GeForce 780, 790, Titan. (Overkill for most people)
And get at least 8gb of memory, 2x4GB, and plan on getting another pair, they aren't that expensive. Windows eats up a lot of resources(I think 3gb), and the alpha takes about 3gb. And websites are starting to use a lot of ram nowadays. Yeah, getting more RAM won't help a single application*, but it lets you run more at once.
Yes, i5 is good, as long as it is 3.0GHZ or higer.
I'm running an i5 3.3GHz, with a Geforce 760 GTX 4GB, and 16GB of ram and can run 2 alpha instances just fine, with Netflix, Teamspeak and a bunch of websites running in the background.
*unless that application is Minecraft.
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Goblin Squad Member
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OK, I got i5 3.1. Mother board is good for i& and faster CPU for later maybe.
8GB, can go to 16 later, 1600 for now. Over clock later, if need be.
NVDIA 760, 3 MB more than spec, but I expect that will matter more than the i5.
1 TB disk was probaly not enough so I am orders an SSD -- will need advice about how to move code and boo to that from the HDD.
only 1 screen, so probably not two instance, initially
Thank you for tha care and advice. Back in the 80's I did these things all the time, multi bus, controller design and configuration, parallel drivers 7155, wire wrap, 7404 drivers etc. then I move to higher configurations and then no hardware trades (someone else did that), on to UNIX and X in early 90's.
I do not know a thing in hardware anymore.
I thank all that helped.
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Goblin Squad Member
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SSD isn't really necessary, but good for load times if you are impatient. I uses a standard 7500 RPM 3TB drive.
I wouldn't try and transfer anything. Pull your current harddrive out, and install windows on the SSD, then only install games on the SSD. Plug in the other drive, and delete everything that isn't documents/media.
You may not be able to run 2 instances until you upgrade to 16GB of RAM.
Unless you are going to try and actively use both instances, I wouldn't worry about only using one screen. I run two windowed instances of the game on one screen, and stagger them so I can see the my crafter;s chat when on my adventurer, and the minimap on my adventurer when I'm on my crafter. The 2nd screen is for Netflix/Prime/Teamspeak chat. As for screens, amazon has some nice cheap 1080p asus 21-24in screens, I just convinced my boss to get me one for work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am not sure I will get windows disk to install. I understand that many modern deliveries have something to restore, bit not to build. I am WinDoze adverse (last time I used WinDoze, I was deleted). THis is magic to me.
OS X and UNIX I have been doing for 19 years. Windows was something I did in late 80's.