Few questions

MattShepherd · 5 Mar 2009 at 09:38

For a while ive been thinking about building a new pc, ive just recently forked out on a new monitor, which was kinda forced upon me since my last monitor kept flickering, so ideally id like a nice gaming system to go with it.

Ive been reading a number of posts about memory and chips but people seem to contradict each other so often, so i figured id make a quick thread seeing if i can get any real answers.

The pc will be purely for gaming and gaming alone, so id like to spec it accordingly. My current pc is like 4 years old and ive had the misfortune of having to play like every single game on low, so im really looking forward to playing a game in all its gaphical glory lol. When i bought it i was pretty neive i guess, i got suckered into downgrading from a geforce 6800 to twin sli 6600's, which i was assured would improve performance no end... ive been spinning 1 card on every game ever since lol

Firstly im torn between ddr2 and ddr3, from what ive read current games dont even scratch the surface of the ddr3's power, so ddr2 at a considerbly less ammount seems the obvious choice, but im kinda hung up on buying old technology. I mean £800 is a lot of money for me and im hoping to get a really nice system from it, im worried that because ddr2 is as old as it is, the moment i build the system (if i built it with ddr2) ddr3 will get slashed in price and im losing out on like 600mhz.

Im also still a bit confused between dual and the i7's, i know everybody is screaming dual core excels for gaming but surely games must be on the verge of breaking in to quad core technologies. I mean i was checking a site earlier which was reveiwing the new lotr (im not a fan but still) game and its recomended spec is like 2.8ghz dual core... the best chip i could find on here is shipped at 3.3, it seems like the recomended specs to all the new games are inching closer to the highest end dual core chips, so im completly confused about what to do. I know most of the I7's are only clocked at like 2.4-2.7 ish, which is even lower, but i would have thought games will be emrbacing quad core soon surely? But as for the current games, im wondering how well i7's will handle them? Or how well dual core will manage future games.

Sorry for the long winded post, ive been browsing and making builds for a few days, and for once in my life im actually being patient this time and trying to get everything as perfect, or as close to perfect £800 can get me lol.

Thanks in advance

Matt

ro55o · 5 Mar 2009 at 10:00

Hi and welcome.

What size of monitor is it you bought? This will make choosing the graphics card easier. For purely gaming, then the general consensus is get a faster dual core, something like the E8400 and then overclock it even further. Games won't really fully start using quad cores for a while yet, a dual core will still last you a good few years. As for i7, I don't feel it's worth the premium, especially in gaming. It doesn't seem to perform any better than the older gen dual and quad core CPU's. Again, I'd only suggest DDR3 with i7, DDR2 will perform to similar levels and cost a lot less.

The new AMD phenom CPU's are performing really well in gaming aswell, especially the X3 720 BE, it has three cores and performs just as well as the more expensive intel dual cores and even i7. It's backwards compatible, so will work with either AM2+ or AM3 mobo's. AM2+ means you can still use DDR2 ram and use a cheaper motherboard, while AM3 uses DDR3.

I'll spec you a system for £800 in a minute.

MattShepherd · 5 Mar 2009 at 10:13

Thank you very much lol, thats everything i was confused about answered really. The monitor is a 24", running at 1920x1200.

ro55o · 5 Mar 2009 at 10:16

AMD setup

Intel Setup

Also if you don't fancy building it yourself, the pre built Titan Vulcan is on offer this week and offers great performance for the price and is also pre-overclocked.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-046-OE&groupid=43&catid=43&subcat=

MattShepherd · 5 Mar 2009 at 11:23

£100 over budget ;x let me know what you think

i was wondering with the tri core, its oc'd to 3.3, which is great but im wondering how much further you could go with it. also, im guessing theres no plans to incorporate tri core technology in to games?

oh, i dont need an os since i have free access to them with msd as a student xd

ro55o · 5 Mar 2009 at 11:41

The E8600 isn't worth the premium over the 8400 or 8500. Get either of those 2 and overclock them beyond the E8600's speed.

You can get the XFX 4870 for a lot less than the sapphire, same card, just a different cooler on the toxic (although it is better, I don't know if it's worth the extra £41).

Swap the memory for the kingston ram, same performance, almost half the price.

The AM3 X3 720BE has an unlocked multiplier, so it's just a case of increasing this to overclock. From what I've heard they can easily get past 3.3ghz. It seems you prefer the intel though, but again don't spend the extra on the E8600, get the 500 and overclock it, should easily get passed 4ghz.

ro55o · 5 Mar 2009 at 11:49

Here's a review on the AM3 X3 720BE, it's comapres it with the E8400 and the i7 CPU's.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-phenom-ii-x4-810-and-x3-720be-review-am3/24

MattShepherd · 5 Mar 2009 at 11:58

Well the only reason i was going for the 8600 was because you can clock it to 5ghz on air, so ive read anyways, so i figured that would be a nice investment for the future.

im wondering how the 8500 and 8600 would compare vs the pheneom II, also i chose the ram because apprantly the heatsink on it allows for some nicer overclocking.

i might be wrong with all of this so feel free to let me know ;x

thanks for your help though

ro55o · 5 Mar 2009 at 12:17

5ghz is a huge overclock, I know that some people can get to this, but I don't know how stable it would be. I've taken my E8400 to 4ghz and stopped there (I'm happy with the improvement it gives, I did take it a little further but didn't see a big enough change to warrant the higher temps and voltages). Maybe someone that has taken one of these CPU's to that level can comment, I don't have any experience of such a high clock speed.

For the ram, the heatsinks on the OCZ will help keep temps down slightly over the kingston, but again I don't have any experience in big overclocks, you can raise the question in the memory section on the forum, probably more help than I can give

mp260767 · 5 Mar 2009 at 12:22

i'd go for the vulcan as per ro55o's post, ddr3 setup at a reasonable price.

MattShepherd · 5 Mar 2009 at 12:44

i really liked the look of the vulcan, but im guessing 3.3 is about as far as i can go with ocing, where as the system i built to make seems to have a lot more longetivity. i really dont know though, i guess theres such a fine lime between investment and waste of money ;x

mp260767 · 5 Mar 2009 at 12:47

MattShepherd said:
i really liked the look of the vulcan, but im guessing 3.3 is about as far as i can go with ocing, where as the system i built to make seems to have a lot more longetivity. i really dont know though, i guess theres such a fine lime between investment and waste of money ;x

check the cpu forum out for overclocks on the processor in the vulcan setup, seen most getting around 3.5/3.6 so should do a bit better.

as mentioned, your spec would be better off with the 8500 so that will save you some money, for next to no loss of performance.

MattShepherd · 5 Mar 2009 at 13:58

argh im so torn lol, im kinda reluctant to buy the 8500 because it lacks the room for clocking the eo stepping 8600 does, however if i take the 8600 and do clock it later, its still probably gonna be limited by the ddr2.

ideally id like a ddr3 setupwith the eo stepping 8600, then theres plenty of room for clocking later on, but im looking at like a £1.1k tag then ><

argh so many choices lol.