Part 3: Building A Balanced Gaming PC

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[citation][nom]kartu[/nom]5770 wasn't even considered?[/citation]
Oh, it was considered, along with the HD 5850. Again, there's a limit to the hardware we can squeeze in and three 5000 series cards was it. This already bumped us up one extra GPU to test with each CPU. We wanted the top single GPU(5870 at the time)and the 1GB 5750 was more more fitting as a 512MB 4850 replacement.

Keep an eye out for our upcoming System Builder Marathon. The budget build uses a 5770, and (as always) we'll test each system both stock and OC'ed.
 

We are recommending a level of hardware (from our sampling) as we simply can not include all processors/graphics cards in the mix. Also, you are assuming a complete new build. What about upgrades? Used hardware? Obviously various configurations exist among Tom's readers. Some may be very close to desired performance with a simple upgrade and/or OC. Others may need a whole new build. Hopefully the data itself and the recommended level of hardware, will help guide each toward the right path.
 
I don't understand why solid state hard drives aren't used in testing. They are pretty affordable nowadays especially just as a boot drive. I doubt there are many gamers that wouldn't use an SSD on a new build. Using a standard hard drive really throttles performance.
 
while I would love to see the core i3 and radeon 5850 I understand that this article is a hell lot of work 'just' as it is... much appreciated

now I'll have to wait for the next amd piece
 
I've been trying to decide if two GTS250's in SLI will max out my Opteron185 running at 2.8ghz nicely. It's on a socket 939 board, and only PCI-E 1.0 or 1.1. I'd have to check for sure. I'm going for balance, and wouldn't want to overpay for cards. Fallout is a game I'll be playing on it at again at some point probably at 1680x1050. Should I go with two 512 or 1GB versions of the card and does this make sense to do?
 
Are there plans to add the nVidia 400 series cards and the 6-core processors to these articles? Afterall, the purpose - building a balanced PC - is to look for bottlenecks during upgrades and new builds, and since many gamers will consider upgrading to these new releases which represent the top-of-the-line, these articles seem incomplete without these additions.
 
I really enjoy these balanced build articles. It really helps in knowing whether a platform will bottleneck a future video card upgrade.
 
[citation][nom]Jonnydough[/nom]I've been trying to decide if two GTS250's in SLI will max out my Opteron185 running at 2.8ghz nicely. It's on a socket 939 board, and only PCI-E 1.0 or 1.1. I'd have to check for sure. I'm going for balance, and wouldn't want to overpay for cards. Fallout is a game I'll be playing on it at again at some point probably at 1680x1050. Should I go with two 512 or 1GB versions of the card and does this make sense to do?[/citation]

Sadly it will bottleneck. I had a Opty 180 with a 9800GTX+ 512Mb and was considering a SLI too. I decided instead to get a new board with Phenom II X4 955, while keeping my graphic card. What a difference! The CPU was already bottlenecking the GPU. It seems like the 1Ghz HT link of Opteron is hampering the graphic card performance. I'm not saying you won't gain any performance, but it will be limited. Do yourself a favor, and upgrade your rig instead. If you're on budget grab a Athlon II X4 620, a 790XT board and some 1333 DDR3 memory. You'll end up with more performance than you'd have with your SLI on your old rig and ready for a better graphic card latter on. Or nothing is stopping you from getting another GTS250 to make a sli on your new rig latter on and not be bottlenecked.
 
Although it was in the back of my mind two years ago, little did I realize just how long my Q9450 would remain a competent CPU. From these charts, it's got YEARS of life left in it, and is even likely worth buying another S775 mobo as my orphaned Abit flakes out.
 
[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]Although it was in the back of my mind two years ago, little did I realize just how long my Q9450 would remain a competent CPU. From these charts, it's got YEARS of life left in it, and is even likely worth buying another S775 mobo as my orphaned Abit flakes out.[/citation]

Not only does it make sense, grabbing a mobo that will support high overclock will enable you to get more performance out of your CPU. The P45 northbridge is awesome when it comes to overclocking. Grab one with DDR3 and higher frequency RAM and you're all set for hours of fun :)
 
5 intel CPUs and 3 AMD CPUs? You cover high and low end Intel (pretty much) but why not put in the popular $50~55 AMD Athlon II X2 245? Its a good deal slower than the AMD X2 550, but still better than most bottom end intels.

It would have been a good comparison to show $55, $100 (550 & 720) and $150 CPUs.
 
[citation][nom]werfu[/nom]Sadly it will bottleneck. I had a Opty 180 with a 9800GTX+ 512Mb and was considering a SLI too. I decided instead to get a new board with Phenom II X4 955, while keeping my graphic card. What a difference! The CPU was already bottlenecking the GPU. It seems like the 1Ghz HT link of Opteron is hampering the graphic card performance. I'm not saying you won't gain any performance, but it will be limited. Do yourself a favor, and upgrade your rig instead. If you're on budget grab a Athlon II X4 620, a 790XT board and some 1333 DDR3 memory. You'll end up with more performance than you'd have with your SLI on your old rig and ready for a better graphic card latter on. Or nothing is stopping you from getting another GTS250 to make a sli on your new rig latter on and not be bottlenecked.[/citation]

What speed was your 180 running at? How much ram did you have? I can run between 2 and 4 gigs depending on if I pull from my internet system or not. I keep wanting to buy more ram but at $40 a gig new I won't. I'll see if this mobo dies and then transfer the ram over to my primary gaming system. This is a dual core athlon as well, and capable of some light gaming. I was thinking I'd drop my 8800GTS 640 into it which should certainly max it out since it's only an Athlon 3600+. They didn't make many of that chip for the 939. The 9800GTX+ is a serious card, pretty on par with the 250.
 
[citation][nom]dreamphantom_1977[/nom]I know i'm gonna get a bunch of thumbs down for this, but why aren't gtx 480 or gtx 470 in these tests? I see ati's top end cards and even some OC cards in there.[/citation]
It takes a lot of time and testing to put together an article like this. Its very likely they started this before the GTX 400's were released and didn't have time to throw them into the mix before the article was posted.
 
[citation][nom]flyinfinni[/nom]It takes a lot of time and testing to put together an article like this. Its very likely they started this before the GTX 400's were released and didn't have time to throw them into the mix before the article was posted.[/citation]

The first two articles in the series were back in November and December of '09 so the 400's were only a promise with no certain release date. This 3rd article was probably already being conducted in the labs when nVidia finally launched the 470 and 480. Hopefully, for the next installment, they will include at least the 480 in the tests.
 
[citation][nom]complain[/nom]Its total nonsense, buying pc for gaming today. I have Xbox360 and PS3 + Nintendo DS and also QuadCore based gaming PC. I dont play on PC anymore, im only using it for browsing, listening music and communicating with others. Netbook should be totally sufficient for such task, i will never buy PC for gaming in future. GO and buy gaming console, if you have good TV, and you will be sitting around 2 - 2,5 meters from screen, graphics is pretty good - totally sufficient.[/citation]

That's retarded. I have a PS3 which I do love to play with surround sound and a 40" HDTV - but I just got a new PC and it's significantly better in newer demanding games like Crysis. I can easly plug my PC into the TV if I wish for a similar experience, only, you know, better graphics. IMO having both is the best, because there's a lot of good console games... just not as nice looking.
 
I was wondering why my FPS in GTAIV was low compared to what's in the chart (I have a Q6700+Radeon 5850 @900MHz Core), and then realized it was the view distance setting. 25?! Booo! No wonder the curve is leveling off like that!

I do appreciate this type of article though! Very useful information for gamers looking to upgrade. Thanks Paul!
 
GREAT STUFF Paul. This 4 part articles is THE cream of the crop. Nothing on the net can touch the valuable info derived from your hard work. I waited SO LONG to see Part 3. Hail to the E8400 OCed to 4.4gh.
 
This woulda been a great article ....if published right before XMas 2009. Realizing it's a lotta effort and takes time but R2E when R3E is out ? No fermis ? WD 640 ? mid range coolers ? I'm just not finding it relevant to today's choices.
 
I was lookin forward for this article, until i reached page 3 "motherboards". Can someone explain to me how to build a balanced gamepc with a extreme expensive motherboard, expensive memory and premium priced PSU ?

So, aldo i like the the intentions of this review, in the end it "feels" like a big Newegg commercial; and the contenders are:
Asus, BFG, Corsair and the rest.

Sure, you can clock that motherboard to the extreme, but for half the money you can buy something else, good, stable motherboard; overclock it a little, just like you can save money with cheaper memory and PSU and put that saved cash in a faster videocard. So instead of for example a supermotherboard, with superram and a super PSU with a HD5750; for the same money you can buy a good, middleclass motherboard, memory an PSU and take a HD5850....


No overclock in the world can make a HD5750 beat a HD5850 😉

 
I personally got some use out of this article. I have a 275GTX overclocked and an e6300 (2.8) overclocked to 3.6Ghz.

I have recently been wondering if I should spring for a new system and go i7 since I haven't been getting quite what I expected out of my 275gtx coming from a 8800GT. Wondering if it was possible my CPU was bottlenecking me somewhat this really helped. I have a friend who was going to get rid of an 8400 wolfdale and I was torn between a costly new build or buying his CPU on the cheap side and hopefully getting a boost.

According to most of the charts I should see a pretty decent boost in most types of games with just the 8400 upgrade so my noble little e6300 has been the bottleneck as I feared. I just purchased a new house so I think I'll go with the 8400 and get a good boost to last me the rest of the year and worry about a new build next year instead :) Doesn't look like stepping up to the quads in most games helps a lot until you get to the i5 and i7 ones anyway and that's a whole lot of green and my wife would prefer a new bedroom suit for the house 😛

Thanks for the article!
 
[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]I was wondering why my FPS in GTAIV was low compared to what's in the chart (I have a Q6700+Radeon 5850 @900MHz Core), and then realized it was the view distance setting. 25?! Booo! No wonder the curve is leveling off like that!I do appreciate this type of article though! Very useful information for gamers looking to upgrade. Thanks Paul![/citation]

I can confirm, that with my GTX285 i noticed hardly any differenc ein gameplay (and FPS) between my E8400@$ghz rig and my current core i7 920@ 3.6ghz rig. With most settings at max, GTA IV was very playable on 1920x1200. Afcource i unlocked the memcap and used some other performance enhancing tricks (with no imagequality loss, atleast; i did not notice them). Anyway, in both cases the cullpitt = memory; you need 2GB videoram to fully enjoy maxed out settings.


What i notice from the benchmarks is that up to a HD5870 (GTX470?) a dualcore E8400 can muster it all very well. So what i said then is still valid; with the current middleclass GPU-power you don't need quadcores.
Only for highend rigs it make a big difference, with medium GPU's it's just a little bit better, in some cases.
 
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