Crisis of confidence

lokiss

lokiss

lokiss

Soldato
Joined
14 Sep 2008
Posts
3,865
Location
Nottingham
XFX HD 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE BattleField 3 PC Game £257.99

Benq XL2410T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £239.99

AMD Bulldozer FX-8 Eight Core 8120@8150 Black Edition 3.60Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail with FREE Deus Ex PC Game £149.99

Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £139.99

Asus M5A99X EVO AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express ATX Motherboard £105.60

Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £99.95

Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £83.99


Im no expert, and the last time i spent over a grand on a pc was 14 years ago. With that in turn, rip me up, hurl abuse, kick me in the nuts with where im going wrong in life in general... or maybe with just what im about to blow over a grand on.

It'll be worth it i hope, off to the gym for a couple of hours for a half way push, fill me with confidence for the extra mile.
 
Swap the Bulldozer and AM3+ motherboard for an intel 2500k and a Z68 board. Performance is much better on the intel platform.
 
As above, Intel is quite a bit ahead of AMD ATM, other things that you may want to consider are
- Get a 60/64 gig SSD and normal (not green) HDD and use Intels SRT which uses the SSD as a cache for the main HDD, not saying you definitely should, but its worth considering depending on your uses as it could free up a chunk of cash for use elsewhere
- If you plan to use the 3D aspect of your monitor, NVidia would be a better bet than AMD, a 570 is similarly priced
- Alternatively if its just for the faster refresh rate, if you did go for the above option it would allow you to up to a 7950 just about
- Could also drop RAM back to 8 gig, but again it depends on your intended use of the PC whether this would be good idea or not, and on RAM if you get low profile stuff it will ensure you can fit an aftermarket cooler without interference
 
Cheers guys.

Kinda knew you'd drop the 2500k on me, im just a mug for amd and bigger numbers in a non logical sense. The 570 is something id tossed over, it was more the free battlefield that i was going to buy anyway, thus saving 30 quid, and the bolt on 2gb which has been a minefield shifting through the opinion on the forum... do's and don't at 1080p.. everybody has a different spin on it:(

Thanks for the info on the hd, thats something i hadn't considerd.

Monitors a given, if im spending big, want that 120 foremost with the option for future 3D.. everybody raves about 120, i want in:)

Case: cosmos, 600 stream pro psu.

The deal is i normaly keep for a couple of years, currently with a 955, 6gb, 5770 wraped on a asus board with shrinking hd space and it's starting to chug. Obviously for the most part im going to need new gear for bf3, and do to the more the merrier amount of carp i keep open including an allways open football manager client, rams good.. why the 16gb being one of the lesser expenses.

I'll give it an hour, then jump in the car if im happy.

2500k, will it be decent for a couple of years?
 
lokiss said:
2500k, will it be decent for a couple of years?
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It'll be more decent than the Bulldozer :p

It's a great chip. No-one knows exactly what Ivy Bridge, or Haswell (or even Piledriver) will be like so it's not possible to say how far off the pace it will be by then.
 
lokiss said:
2500k, will it be decent for a couple of years?
Click to expand...

At the very minimum. I doubt games will become poor performing due to CPU bottlenecks by then.

There's a good article that somebody had somewhere in the forum (sorry!) that showed performance for the same card across current generation and then previous generations of CPU's going right back to the Q6600 and the difference was minimal to say the least.

The chip will last you a long time.
 
A couple of hundred quid more...

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail

Asus P8Z68-V PRO GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

And a cooler ofc.

Confident, that'd be a no.... but hey thanks for the help chaps.... intel, people do listen:)
 
lokiss said:
Cheers guys.

Kinda knew you'd drop the 2500k on me, im just a mug for amd and bigger numbers in a non logical sense. The 570 is something id tossed over, it was more the free battlefield that i was going to buy anyway, thus saving 30 quid, and the bolt on 2gb which has been a minefield shifting through the opinion on the forum... do's and don't at 1080p.. everybody has a different spin on it:
Click to expand...

6950 / 560ti are pretty good. The 570 and 6970 will be getting left behind just as fast imo, and will resale just as well. It's kinda of a bummer buying a GPU right now, the new generation is about to hit its stride, and the prices will drop.

Monitors a given, if im spending big, want that 120 foremost with the option for future 3D.. everybody raves about 120, i want in:)
Click to expand...

Okey. In any case 120Hz monitor is nice.

Case: cosmos, 600 stream pro psu.
Click to expand...

That should do for a little while. The OCZ ModXStream isn't the best but will power a single GPU and sandybridge happily (should be the about same as your current power consumption, all things considered).

The deal is i normaly keep for a couple of years, currently with a 955, 6gb, 5770 wraped on a asus board with shrinking hd space and it's starting to chug. Obviously for the most part im going to need new gear for bf3, and do to the more the merrier amount of carp i keep open including an allways open football manager client, rams good.. why the 16gb being one of the lesser expenses.
Click to expand...

Your rig isn't that shocking. First, I would consider a 128GB SSD (Crucial M4), a 2TB storage hard drive (Samsung F4, Seagate Green), and a set of 2x4GB PC12800C9 RAM although 6 GB should be plenty already and the SSD will help a great deal with virtual memory (which is most likely the cause of your 'chugging'). When these get full, their performance drops dramatically (fragmentation, OS virtual memory swapping...).

Basically give it a spring clean and re-install the OS on a SSD. If it's still not satisfactory, then why not upgrade to Z68 and 2500K. Or wait for IvyBridge.

You could also wait for the new Nvidia GPUs to arrive and wait for the prices to be sensible. It depends how much of a bottleneck your 5770 is. It's not bitchin' fast, but should do gaming OK at lower settings.

You are in a position where you don't need to buy everything in one go, so it's worth considering some spot upgrades on the parts that are most likely your bottleneck (hard drive, and a fancy new screen, amybe overclock the CPU with a decent £30 cooler like the Corsair A50 / Gelid Tranquillo / Hyper 212 Evo).

2500k, will it be decent for a couple of years?
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Most def, even at stock speed. Then considering these are easily overclocked to 4.4-4.6GHz.

EDIT : 6GB is weird, should be 4 or 8GB. This could force the memory controller to not run in dual channel, loosing performance. How much I don't know.
 
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Heh thanks.

Dirty deeds and all that, bank account 1300 quid lighter.

Honestly, appreciated everything contributed here... i live and die on the 'if im gona do it, im gona do it' why everything job lot within reason.

Good to come and ask because i realy would have just gone with the amd chip. Many thanks again, y'all have a good evening:)
 
lokiss said:
Benq XL2410T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £239.99
Click to expand...

I have had this monitor a week now and I now couldn't be without it, looks amazing
on Battlefield 3 and in general its a brilliant monitor I would not go back to a monitor
now that is not 120hz.

I just noticed you like in Nottingham, were about's are you from in Notts?
 
More a hail from notts, used to live on an avenue off sherwood rise.

Out in the sticks now closer to loughboro, quiet and no trouble, taking it back to town mostly for nights out and forest.

That aside, yeah thats why i went with the 120 screen, everybody including yourself says no way back.... happy days.
 
lokiss said:
More a hail from notts, used to live on an avenue off sherwood rise.

Out in the sticks now closer to loughboro, quiet and no trouble, taking it back to town mostly for nights out and forest.

That aside, yeah thats why i went with the 120 screen, everybody including yourself says no way back.... happy days.
Click to expand...

Cool, Its not that bad were I am to be honest gets noise some times but not
that often lol.

Yeh 120Hz all the way now mate.
 
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