Part 4: Building A Balanced Gaming PC

[bergieberg]

I LOVE the idea and the goals of this article. But it totally falls flat. No Fermi cards (I know you're going to add them later)? Testing the i7-920 and GTX 295? You can't even buy those any more. Those games are getting old, too. Where is StarCraft 2?

Give me this with stuff I can buy or I might as well read system builders from 2009.

 

[7amood]

[citation][nom]garlik_bread[/nom]Personally, i'd be interested to see results from a card with less han 1GB RAM on the GPU.On the lower end of the spectrum, with the lower resolutions, is the 1GB really necessary?Basically, i have a 512MB Asus 5770 and want to validate my purchase[/citation]
refer to old reviews, to summarize, on-board GPU memory is directly related to your resolution. However, more memory does affect the gaming experience slightly (but not much). I don't exactly remember the number, but 512 was enough for most games running 1600 by 1050.

 

[bergieberg]

Oh, and your chart on the Pricing page seems to indicate that the 295 beats the 5970 with faster processors. Sooo not true.

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]lemieuxxx[/nom]what about the i3 540. Is it horrable i see its not on here.[/citation]

Your grammar is "horrable"...

 

[Ecoli]

[citation][nom]sublifer[/nom]Got a poll going over here to find out what kind of stories people want to see on Tom's (no, I'm not a Tom's employee, just a concerned viewer)http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] icles-want[/citation]

What MOBO and RAM are you running on that rig of yours?

 

[Alvin Smith]

That sure was a bunch of testing and compiling !!

Better you than me! I just purchased an Althlon-II x4(OC) and two GT240s for Sony Vegas Studio 10 and Edius Neo 2 ... It's no thourobred, but it gets me into the "ball-park" with three HD displays.

Zotac makes fanless 240's ... With SLI, they will even game modestly and are fine for silent DAW/HTPC/Consumer Edit.

= Al =

 

[timbo]

Ok Tom's, your advice is in this article: "The Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 provides a good look at what you can still get from the LGA 775 interface, ideal for the folks with slightly older P45/X38/X48 systems and not afraid to upgrade."

Is contradicting the advice from your article about best processor for the money, July edition regarding the Q9440: "This is as far as I'd recommend taking an LGA 775 platform, though."

So, who's advice would you take? Paul Henningsen's or Don Woligroski's? It would be nice to have both weigh in on this.

I have a 5 year-old system which I upgraded from a 7900gt KO to two hd 4870's & I am looking to upgrade the original E6400 to a C2Q to hold off on building a new rig for a while longer before investing the money on a whole new platform.

 

[pauldh]

Actually timbo, the two articles do not contradict each other. In this series we use the Q9550 stock and overclocked to represent about all you could hope to squeeze out of LGA 775. We're seeking an expected level of platform performance and not what is currently the best buy. Don't confuse this with a recommendation to buy regardless of price. Part 3's pricing table speaks to the contrary: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,2625-6.html

We don't have the luxury in this series of switching processors every time pricing changes. When it actually comes time to purchase an upgrade, attention must be turned to current prices and where the sweet spot is price/performance for your upgrade. That's where the monthly best for the money and heirarchy chart come into play for aiding in the purchase decision.

 

[bergieberg]

What's the deal with so many people hating my comments on the article? Surely I can't be the only person who didn't think this one was particularly useful when put next to the other Tom's system builders that are so awesome.

 

[Marcus52]

Not at all done with reading the article(s), which I think are fantastic at least in concept and expect will be excellently executed, but I just have to comment on the word "performance" meaning pretty much "frame rate".

Just say frame rate. You correctly pointed out that one person's performance criteria may not the same as another person's, stating why there are good reasons for people to have different criteria, and then turn around and destroy the acknowledgement by using the all-encompassing word "performance" when only the frame rate is being considered.

Performance and frame rate are not synonymous, please stop speaking as though they are.

 

[Guest]

This is a really great article and they obviously have taken only few choices among all options we have.

I personally would like to see a Core i3 530 clocked at 3.8 Ghz vs a Phenom II X2 555 with 4 cores unlocked and OCed to 3.8, both paired with a single GTX 460 to see a real budget solution for a balanced gaming RIG, 100dls on the CPU and 229 on the GPU.

Keep it coming TH.

 

[billiardicus]

Great article. I was shocked at the power consumption page. It seems like a lot of gamers are buying way larger power supplies than they need. I personally have a Q6600 @ 3.3ghz and a GTX 280 running on an Antec 500w with no problems. It seems like that little Antec 500 could power almost all of those systems. It costs $50. Maybe we are spending too much on PSU's?

 

[pauldh]

Not at all done with reading the article(s), which I think are fantastic at least in concept and expect will be excellently executed, but I just have to comment on the word "performance" meaning pretty much "frame rate".

Just say frame rate. You correctly pointed out that one person's performance criteria may not the same as another person's, stating why there are good reasons for people to have different criteria, and then turn around and destroy the acknowledgement by using the all-encompassing word "performance" when only the frame rate is being considered.

Performance and frame rate are not synonymous, please stop speaking as though they are.

I see where you’re coming from Marcus, but would argue for the purpose of this series the two are synonymous. We are specifically looking at graphics cards and processors, trying to seek balance and eliminate “bottlenecks” from either. Game benchmarking isn’t perfect by any means, but framerates are the obvious and accepted measurement of performance used for such a comparison.

Sure, PC gamers know there are numerous other aspects of a PC’s performance that could still adversely impact the gaming experience; server lag and pings in online games, too little RAM causing HDD thrashing, slow HDD or fragmented game files, loading time, bloated OS environment, background tasks, driver or software issues/conflicts, game bugs, etc. Individuals will vary in this area also as to tolerance of what’s acceptable. But these are outside the scope of comparison here, and for the most part eliminated from the test using 4+ GB RAM, same HDD, clean OS images tweaked for gaming performance, no online gaming, same drivers, software versions, no brand new games or demos, etc.

 

[pauldh]

This is a really great article and they obviously have taken only few choices among all options we have.

I personally would like to see a Core i3 530 clocked at 3.8 Ghz vs a Phenom II X2 555 with 4 cores unlocked and OCed to 3.8, both paired with a single GTX 460 to see a real budget solution for a balanced gaming RIG, 100dls on the CPU and 229 on the GPU.

Keep it coming TH.

Thanks. Yes there is no way to touch all hardware and we need to use a snapshot of what's available. The more we add, the more lab work, and the less timly and relevent the data becomes. The scope has already been streched quite a bit over original plans.

It will be a few weeks before finalizing the hardware list for parts 5&6, but aim is set towards Core i3 and GeForce GTX400's. I'm open to game and hardware suggestions, but of course can make no promises.

For a quad Phenom II, keep in mind not all X2 & X3's will unlock, nor is reaching 3.8 GHz a guarantee. If so, you'd basically have the 3.7 GHz X4 955 results.

 

[pauldh]

Great article. I was shocked at the power consumption page. It seems like a lot of gamers are buying way larger power supplies than they need. I personally have a Q6600 @ 3.3ghz and a GTX 280 running on an Antec 500w with no problems. It seems like that little Antec 500 could power almost all of those systems. It costs $50. Maybe we are spending too much on PSU's?

Yes, many of us do spend too much, others unfortunately spend way too little.

There's benefit to buying "reserve" power, espeicially when considering future upgrades and a PSU's effeceincy as it ages. Also, GTA IV and other untested games certainly may load the system higher than Crysis. While potentially overkill, I personally like reserve beyond the system's simultaneous 100% CPU+ GPU load (prime 95 + furmark) when buying a PSU.

 

[Nossy]

[citation][nom]Billiardicus[/nom]Great article. I was shocked at the power consumption page. It seems like a lot of gamers are buying way larger power supplies than they need. I personally have a Q6600 @ 3.3ghz and a GTX 280 running on an Antec 500w with no problems. It seems like that little Antec 500 could power almost all of those systems. It costs $50. Maybe we are spending too much on PSU's?[/citation]

Umm...yes, and no. Personally I think the PSU is as essential to a PC build as everything else like CPU/MOBO/MEM/HDD. Having a very reliable and efficient PSU is one of the keys to having a very stable PC. If you have a PSU with high fluctuation in voltage, low efficiency, or not enough juice IS one of the main cause of a system instability. Many PC builders will overlook their PSU and point it to something else like faulty MOBO, RAM, etc.

If you read below the graph, you will see that the author wrote that those numbers are far below what Prime95 will show if you tax all CPU cores. The graph is use mainly as a relative reference. I can personally say that 500Watt PSU will not be sufficient for anything above a 5850 with a Quad core CPU - unless of course you are just surfing the internet.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]descendency[/nom]i5/i7 isn't a generation. it's like 5 or so. It's the same thing as C2D and C2Q[/citation]
I'm pretty sure he meant i5/i7 as in Nehalem v. Sandy Bridge. He'll wait for Sandy Bridge or Bulldozer.

I'm glad that my i7 should hold out through Sandy Bridge since I'll be GPU limited until Fermi prices drop for an SLI upgrade. My GTS 250's in SLI severely bottleneck my i7-930.

 

[youssef 2010]

[citation][nom]article[/nom]Plotting six GPUs paired up to four CPUs at four different......[/citation]

They're seven GPUs not six

 

[HEXiT]

i built my i7 920 just over 2 years ago now... i got the 5870 (even though toms couldn't justify the price to performance at the time) and new i would have a gaming monster. it hasn't let me down on any game. my actual reason for my choices was to get crysis to max out at 1920/1080 and get 30fps minimum. it did exactly what i set out for it to do...
2 years on and im still surprised at how well it plays games although when i first got it i found the gpu was slightly overpowered with less demanding games. then as time went by it really did hit the sweet spot...
i wanted a balanced pc i got what i payed for. my previous system was an amd 6000x2 88gt and it to was ballanced, so much so it still has enough grunt to play deus ex @16/10 with a little eye candy. but that build had to grow i started with a 4600x2 and when i got the 88gt i saw a bottleneck of about 8% so i got the bigger brother and made what is as close to a perfectly balanced machine as i have ever seen...
i learned that lesson 5 or so years ago when i returned to pc gaming. yet a still see on the forums guys throwing huge gfx cards on poultry cpu's... hopefully reading this will open there eyes to what i and others have been saying all along... balance is the key to good gaming... not only will you play your games at acceptable fps, when you do loose fps in heavy areas the loss is not as noticeable as its never as steep as when you play on mismatched parts.
its all well and good having 200fps max but if your dropping to 40 minimum then the game will feel unplayable. which brings us back to the magic word "BALANCED"
balance brings its own rewards in smooth game play and longevity of system life... so ignore this kind of article at your peril...