Part 2: Building A Balanced Gaming PC

[coupe]

I am curious if you guys will not only overclock the X3 720, but also unlock the 4th core with it. Got an X3 720 @ X4 3.5ghz. I really want to see how the new 5800 series cards work in that setup.

Incredible article. Can only imagine the work that went into this! TY!

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Another informative article. Looking forward to reading the next article.

 

[kufan64]

The second part in an excellent series of articles. Tom's delivers yet again.

 

[CBaca]

Great article. I am anxiously awaiting parts 3 and 4.

 

[hannibal]

Nice stuff. If I can hope, It would be nice to see $/performance analyse in next articles. If you have 200$ budget, how to achieve the best system (how much to CPU and how much to GPU)? If you have 300$ to spend and so on.
This does prove so far that by chosing this and that CPU and GPU you can get fairly high frame rates in given resolution (based on your monitor ofcource). Quite often the monitor is good plase to start, but allso as often it's the budget. I have 800$ to spent an new computer. How much I should put on CPU and how much on GPU if I wan to get optimal performance to desired resolution? Is guite often the biggest question in many forums.
Waiting in great interest the next parts!

 

[magicbullet]

Great Post!
request for Q6600 plz, majority of us r still using it.

 

[beehew]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]I wish you did the 4870, cause the 4890 is expensive (Well, more than I want to pay). And I already knew the 4850 wasn't good enough for what I want to run/do.[/citation]
When I bought my 4890, it was cheaper than or as much as the 4870.

 

[redgarl]

Part 3 need to rely on crossfire and SLI to know what really benefit the most. At 165$ for 2 4850 in crossfire, you get a lot of power for a really cheap price that can't be compared to anything else.

I got 2 4850 OC matching a GTX285 for half the price... that's what I call value.

 

[redgarl]

[citation][nom]coupe[/nom]I am curious if you guys will not only overclock the X3 720, but also unlock the 4th core with it. Got an X3 720 @ X4 3.5ghz. I really want to see how the new 5800 series cards work in that setup.Incredible article. Can only imagine the work that went into this! TY![/citation]

I have unlocked my 4th core and I would have liked to see some data on it too. Sincerely, my X3 is a real X4 fully stable... never witnessed a crash in more than month with the new Asus BIOS.

 

[Gryphyn]

Coupe,

I also have a 720 unlocked to an X4 and overclocked to 3.5 Ghz. I'm running 4890s in Crossfire. So I'm essentially running a 955 now, just .3 Ghz faster, and a 4870 X2 with about a 10% performance gain. I'll write off that .3 Ghz CPU speed to any additional overhead the Crossfire brings.

Looking at the chart then, I'm just going to figure an additional few fps for everything the X4 955/4870 X2 combo posts. You should be able to figure your results the same way.

 

[superpowter77]

after reading this article carefully, decided to purchase the athlon X II 550($102) and radeon 4890($169 on sale from bestbuy) (total of a ridiculous $271 for a solid gaming machine) crysis and farcry2 as main targets. I already have an gigabyte GA-MA770T AM3 mobo($69.99), 750 PSU($79.99) and 4 Gb(2x2)DDr3-1066($92.00). I only spent $512.98 for everything mentioned above.

 

[dragonsprayer]

My eariler comments are not for the average THG user. They are for noobies who stumble on this in the middle of their build before all 4 parts are done. The article is excellent - one the the best at THG. The order and way it is being releases is the problem, along with the ambition to show 3 years of cpu and gpu relationships in a short 4 part article - this could be a book!

This is very misleading article. using the same cooler on the i7 as the e8400 is not going to give good results. Waiting to overclock is very misleading.

This should have been one article, tuning of each system is complex and with out running each system at the cpu speed you really do not get a good picture of what is a good gaming pc.

If done right my guess is parts 3 and 4 will show that a HT off, or even a core turned off on i7 will out perform all other systems as long as the cooling is sufficient. The cooler used is not sufficent to cool a 125w part but fine for a 95w part. I am sure we all know, while the Xig it can cool an E8400 at 4.2ghz it will not cool a i920 at 4.1ghz (3.8ghz plus turbo).

Misleading, is trying to use so many parts and not tuning each set of parts to optimum does not give the true data people need.

As far as video cards, timing is eveything, newer solutions such as the 5800 series will always beat older solutions such as the 200 series. comparing the 300 series would have been better nvidia (who is at the bottom of my list - most unfriendly consumer company in the pc parts biz.)

This article clealy states this is raw data and not to be misused - my advice for noobie is stick to my recommendations in my first post. RAID or SSD, the cheapest newest cpu amd or intel. Putting most of you money in the gpu as THG has said, proper cooling for your cpu. The noc or true or water cooling for an i7 or turn off the HT.

Good job THG!

 

[Guest]

Why don't you say in the conclusion "With $600 you should buy this computer" and "With $800 you should buy this other one"?

 

[airgreek]

why do we not ALL thank TH crew for these REMARKABLE articles that are extremely educational and are FREE! This is the best pc gaming info on the net!

 

[saint19]

Ohhh, really good article and how i see, my X4 955 with the GTX260 isn't a good combination for a gaming rig. What next?, just wait till the 3 and 4 part to see the OC performance and wait for the GTX300 performance series or get a HD5800....But, seriously really good article...

 

[dragonsprayer]

Saint that is not true. Your 260 is a sub $200 card on sale with rebate. All this shows is the more you pay and the newer the card the better the performance, a 4890 might be the same price or close to it now it is a much newer part.

amd gamble on smaller chip after the R600 fiscals is great turn around (i am hard core amd/ati gpu and intel cpu's - we run (my own rigs) 4870x2's, 3870x'2 and 4890's water cooled and air.

nvidia has held the price on the 260 due to low die yields (poor number of chips out of fab) and lack of 5000 series parts on the market - heck you could not get a 5870 for most of november. ATI should have built up the inventory better before release.


your gaming rig is fine, unless you run 2500 lines you notice little difference in most games other then crysis

 

[falchard]

Very interesting article. It seems clear that the LGA775 socket is now not a viable option compared to an AM3/AM2+ machine due to cost and performance differences.

I was expecting the Core i7 to completely obliterate the Phenom II's in the CPU intensive games, however the performance difference wasn't that much. I also expected nVidia performance on Intel Machines to be shot which was true except for the Core i7 which it has superior performance when linked together. Another thing I expected was ATI cards to be neutral because of their relations to Intel. It was neutral to a degree, but now seem to heavily favor AMD CPUs which makes sense.

 

[dragonsprayer]

falchard
you have to wait for the end of the article - as my point said

also you must use over all cost

e8400 plus a p5q pro or p5k pro is less then the cost or the same as a i7 920.

say your budget is $1500 you may find a gtx 295 and a 4ghz e8400 set up - super easy with the p5q pro at fsb 400 to 425 super stable and fast.

this is just data - you need to read into it more

 

[Onus]

I agree with falchard. Other than to replace failing equipment or make use of existing parts, I don't see a build where something other than LGA775 doesn't make more sense. For those applications in which Intel VISIBLY out-performs AMD (complex number crunching, rendering, etc), the buyer/builder will most likely be a business user. He or she will have sufficient financial interest in the superior performance to easily justify going to i7. Someone (e.g. a gamer) building an edong will also want i7, or i5 if i7 is out of reach. At the low end, where most consumers live, AMD rules. These charts show there is nothing measurable to be gained with LGA775, especially if the builder has any hope of upgrading his CPU in the future.

 

[liquidsnake718]

Im slowly veering away from a GTX285...... someone tell me why I should get it over a 5850?

 

[limwsv]

I am starting a petition to have the article part on the ATI 58xx move up to be part 3. It'll be good to see how the CPU/GPU stack up with the newer graphic card as I think that will be what most people will be buying now, rather the soon-to-be obsolete 48xx.

 

[dragonsprayer]

jtt, i only made an example of the E8400 since it was used in the review.

i agree i would not buy a core 2, am i5 750 in mid level ($400 cpu/mobo/ram) asus mobo will run as fast as an i7 920. or amd

above $2k go i7 920, air cooled turn off the HT

below $2k go amd or i5

i am intel hard core but amd has a very viable option. time for me to exit this thread. good luck guys! i only try to educate the new builders! my last post ... i do not want to get the troll award....then you all know i do not care!

good luck, free tech support as always for THG people and see ya!

intel fan boy #1 ....IFB#1

 

[airgreek]

my buddy has an E8400 overclocked to 4.30gh on an Abit IP35 Pro with a 4870X2 running Windows XP Pro and his system ROCKS!

 

[Guest]

I built a game machine with intel i7 920, gigabyte x58 ud3, 3x 2gb ddr3, ati 5870, intel 80gb g2 ssd, 24" HP corsair psu, antec case, logitech illuminated kb & laser mouse. This machine is balanced 7.8 windows experience the cpu matches the hdd & the graphics is slightly faster. The machine is silent and efficient. Why doesn't Dell or anybody else sell something like this? $3222 us dollars

 

[pauldh]

[citation][nom]Kelavarus[/nom]I'm in agreement with KT_Wasp here. I've got a friend running a Core 2 Quad, one of the lower versions, not sure which but I think it's around 2.3 Ghz, and they've got a 4850, and they run all their games with the exception of Crysis at all high with no problems. I'm not sure what resolution they play at, but they've got a 1920x1080 screen, so it's definitely not 1024x768. But anyway, completely playable on games like Shattered Horizon and Dragon Age. I don't know what the actual framerates are, but it doesn't stutter at all with no dips and plays very smoothly.[/citation]
Dragon Age doesn't stress the GPU too hard, which is one reason it will not be added to the series bench suite. Similar, look how well the 4850 did in Fallout 3 or GRID with max details and 4x AA.

Nothing against the 4850, I even purchased the one in this review for myself back when the 4800's launched. But, I'll stand by the data here knowing it is far from capable of maxing out many other games, even at 1280x1024. Windows XP (DX9) it will fair better although level of AA will still need to be sacrificed some. Forget about Crysis DX10 very high or Stalker Ultra though. In a WIC, FarCry 2, or Supreme Commander, it's the 4x AA that pushes beyond the 4800's limits. It's still a fine card, but needs the settings/AA reduced from what's used in this series. Here we specifically want to see the level of hardware needed to max out these games, including AA when possible.