[COMPUTERS] Building a Gaming Machine

I can post some more specific info later after doing some research online, but here's some basic stuff.

I know that there are a lot of issues going around with the 7900 GT, but I got one for my PC and it has had no problems whatsoever. For the 7900 series, nothing is really different between the 7900 GT and the 7900 GTX other than clockspeeds. For the 7800 series, the GT has some pipelines disabled as well as lower clockspeeds, so there's a little more of a dropoff between the two cards. The 7800 GTX is basically a slightly slower, more expensive 7900 GT IIRC, so there's probably not much reason to go with it. So if you're going Nvidia, you probably should be looking at the 7900 GT or GTX (unless you want something like a 7600, which doesn't quite pack the same punch, but is a LOT cheaper).

SLI is a way to boost performance by using two graphics cards together. Assuming your motherboard supports SLI (2 PCI E x16 slots), then you could put something like 2 7900 GTs in your PC for more performance. It won't be double the performance (more like 1.5 at best IIRC), and there are some other small issues with it. It is more of an option for those with a lot of money and wanting the absolute best performance (2 7900 GTX cards to play a game or something like that). It is a plus, but not something huge for the average PC gamer I think, at least in its current state. My PC supports it, although I'm only considering using in the case that getting an extra 7900 GT would improve my performance better than any other option I have (both in price and performance). FWIW, ATI offers a similar feature called Crossfire, although I believe Nvidia's solution is further along and has less problems.

There is plenty reason to look at ATI along with Nvidia. I'm somewhat having second-thoughts on my 7900 GT purchase because of this. After I decided on getting a 7900 GT, it seemed like the X1800 XT from ATI really started to drop in price. I'd have to look at the numbers again, but that card does very well against the 7900 GT (results depend on the clockspeeds since the 7900 GT clockspeeds can vary a lot). And in a game like Oblivion, ATI cards perform better in general than Nvidia cards, so the X1800 XT card does better than the 7900 GT. Throw in the fact that it can also do HDR and AA (something no Nvidia card can do yet), and it can easily be the card to pick in this particular scenario. Of course, there will be some games designed for Nvidia cards as well. This would include games from Epic and iD since I believe they both develop with Nvidia cards; in fact, I think Nvidia even implements some logic in their GPUs specifically for their engines.

As for manufacturers, I think I settled on BFG, eVGA, and one or two other manufacturer's that I'm drawing a blank on for Nvidia cards. I believe all of them offered lifetime warranties on their cards. I went with eVGA since they seemed to offer the best cards at the lowest prices, and they also had a special deal going on at the time. Additionally, I believe eVGA has a special 90-day program that let's you "step-up" to another card if you wish. You can read more about it at their site.

I went with a X2 4200+. At the time, it seemed like the best choice, performance/price. IIRC, it actually performed better than the 4400+ when I checked out some benchmarks. I'll have to check to see if anything changed, but I'm guessing that it is still one of the better options out there (if not the best).

I think it should probably be 450 W at least, but something closer to 500W would be preferred, especially if you will be looking to use SLI sometime (that uses a lot of power). Maybe more than 500W actually in that case (can't remember how much SLI requires).


I'll answer some of your other questions later on if I can.

 

Ummm.

go sli if possible since u want to play everything at full settings.

Newegg would be more convenient since they pretty much have everything while Fry's sometimes doesn't carry the inventory on hand.

Ur power supply should be def. in the 500w range.

Asus sli deluxe motherboard, from what I heard is a stable and good mobo. U could go for the Fata1ty board, but that one is more expensive and poorly structured although you'll get a better response.

Games...Get Pong. U'll be able to get about 92394 fps with a Sli setup

 

For gaming? A multi-core processor isn't necessarily the best way to go. Remember that 2x2.0 GHz processors will not outperform a single 2.5 GHz processor when it comes to running a single task/thread. The whole point of having an X2 is if you multitask a great deal. Example...if you were a professional video editor or an engineer and you need to run several cpu-hungry applications at the same time.

If you're planning on building a rig purely for gaming, and not so much for workstation processes...the Athlon-FX series would be my recommendation

 

Some future titles are starting to take advantage of multi-core CPUs though. In fact, Oblivion takes advantage of dual core processors. Assuming developers stick to developing with one core in mind, then you have a point, but it seems like developers won't be doing that for much longer.

 

you can get a super gaming rig for under 2k easy, but DO NOT SKIM ON PSU. many ppl in my comp class 2 years ago used stock/crappy PSU gave some problems, also get a good cooling system with dual core and SLI.

 

1. Newegg, Fry's only has good deals when their on sale and rebates suck.

2. Ati > Nvidia, I used to only purchase Nvidia until I tried Ati.

3. Amd > Pentium

4. 500 +

5. Starcraft

 

Well, any kind of program these days will "take advantage" of dual cores in that everything is technically multi-threaded. Nonetheless, it doesn't change the fact that games are generally linear in their processes because of their nature. Same goes for most computer applications. At most, you'll only see a 10-15% improvement in game performance on a dual-cpu machine even in ones that are "specially" designed to take advantage of dual-cpus like Oblivion.

Dual core performance improvement will always be the most apparent when multi-tasking cpu-hungry workstation tools like Maya, CAD, MATLAB that frequently jack up cpu usage up to 100% on their own. Running a single application or game will rarely allow you to see tangible improvements.

This is all a moot point though. The new generation FX processors are all going to be dual-core from now on as well. I just figured DanzelKun was building a machine specifically for gaming, which is why I recommended the FX over the X2. AMD designed the FX with gaming in mind.

If he plans on using the same computer for CAD tools, I'd recommend spending a little extra and going for the Opteron. Performace-wise, it's more or less identical to the mainstream consumer chips (FX and X2), but it's built using very high-quality materials. You're pretty much guaranteed no cpu failure for years and years if you get one...even if you plan on overclocking to insane levels.

 

From what I can tell, there's not really much reason to spend the money for a FX series single-core processor compared to the dual-core processors he could get when it comes to gaming. The cheapest single-core FX chip he can get would be the FX55, which costs $640 at Newegg. The most expensive X2 chip is the 4800+ at about the same price ($632 at Newegg). Yet in some Oblivion CPU benchmarks I saw, the 4800+ performed roughly the same to the FX57 (@ $811), with maybe +- 3-4 FPS either way during the most drastic differences. Even the processor DanzelKun is considering (X2 4200+ @ $357, almost half the price of the cheapest FX chip) isn't really at that much of a disadvantage, staying within 10 FPS of the FX57 in most cases.

And here's the kicker...those "drastic differences" I was talking about only occur when Oblivion is being played in low-to-mid settings that don't really tax the graphics card that much. In the most likely scenario, with DanzelKun playing at high resolutions and at high settings, there would be little to no gain (<1 FPS difference depending on settings) in most of these processors (X2 processors and the FX series...even the dual-core FX60 isn't that big of a difference). That kind of shows you how important the graphics card is in games, at least if you have all the eye-candy enabled.

FWIW, I believe some other games show similar results, at least those that support dual-core processors (Quake 4 had nice gains IIRC). I should also note that while these games support dual-core processors, I don't believe they come close to actually taking full advantage of them. As you alluded to, games have typically been single-threaded, resulting in minor performance gains when using multiple cores and multiple threads. However, due to the transition to multi-core architectures (including the 360 with 3 cores and 6 threads, as well as the PS3 with 7 cores and 9 threads), developers have been working on trying to take advantage of these new architectures, even if it means writing code in a entirely new way (2-3x the cost to do so in some cases). Considering that most developers haven't even had a chance to work with multi-core processors for very long, they probably haven't been able to optimize their code for them yet. Remember that games take ~3 years to make, if not longer, and most of the games coming out now probably didn't have dual-core systems until long after development started. Late 2006 and into 2007 might be when we start seeing some games that were developed with multi-core systems in mind. I know that will be when the first UE 3.0 games will be coming out, and the Epic guys insist that you'll see "significant" performance gains with dual-core systems.

 

If you are really going to buy a top of the line gaming machine part from Newegg, most of the stuff will have FREE 3 day shipping.

Go with a dual core processor, and an SLI compatible mobo. I'm drooling over dual 7900's in sli.

 

I don't think it'll be quite so soon. Coding conventions aren't that easily forgotten or disregarded. Engineers as a whole don't like to start from scratch. Besides, it's not like games and applications these days do everything serially. If that were the case, we'd still be playing games like Space Invaders. Multi-threaded programming has been around since the first object-oriented programming languages came about.

I'm not a software engineer myself, but I find it hard to believe that people stay away from multiple threads just because single cpu machines were the mainstream for so many years. In order for the application to do multiple things at once in real-time, you'll need to have multithreading. However, at the same time, you can only do so many things at once when you're processing real-time user input (like a game). That's the reason why workstation tools that don't need to constantly wait for user input before going off and rendering/calculating/etc. see such dramatic improvements with multiple cores.

With games, you can't predict what the user will do and go off and do it before he even does anything. There's only so many things a cpu can process before it has to wait for more input. Hence, that's the reason why I say applications that require real-time user interaction won't see huge increases in performance between single and dual-core processors...especially when most games these days rely more on video processing than any actual calculation for the CPU's ALU.

We may see "significant" improvements in the future on the order of 40-50% or so, but I don't see games running twice as fast because in the end...(despite having multiple threads), it's still only one process. I believe the performance between a dual-core cpu of one speed vs. a single-code cpu with a clock speed 1.2x faster would see comparable results.

Now, if you somehow manage to find a way to play Oblivion AND Quake 4 at the same time, THEN we'll see the huge improvements between single and dual cores.

EDIT: I had no idea the FX's were so expensive. I was just making a recommendation based on the fact that they were specifically designed with gaming in mind. If a the price of a single core FX is the same as a dual core X2 with the same clock speed, I'd obviously buy the X2.

 

If you can't decide, I'd go with NVidia. Hardware-wise, ATI and NVidia are a wash, but from my own personal experience, ATI drivers (although much improved over the last few years) can still sometimes create little issues here and there that'll slowly drive you insane.

As for NVidia, I've never had an issue with their drivers. It's almost as if Microsoft and NVidia are in bed together.

 

Yeah, I didn't either. I checked out the benchmarks first and thought maybe I should reconsider my earlier advice. I then went to Newegg to see which FX processor would be the best choice...and then I saw the price.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not really disagreeing with any of it. I agree that it will take some time for developers to fully take advantage of these new architectures. However, games coming out within the next year or so will be made with multiple cores in mind; they won't be 100% optimized for multiple cores, but they'll be more optimized than most of today's games, most of which probably aren't optimized at all. The reason Unreal Engine 3.0 is so popular with developers is that, among other things, Epic developed the engine with multiple cores in mind (a risk that has paid off big time). This will allow for better handling of physics, AI, animation, etc., and other tasks that don't run so well on graphics cards.

That said, as you sort of pointed out, performance gains are probably not the biggest reason to go multi-core, at least for games. There are some improvements, especially if a game is developed with multiple cores in mind, but you won't see a 2x increase for a dual-core processor (or a 3x increase with 3 cores, or 8X increase with 8 cores, and so on). I'm sure if 5GHz single core processors were cheap, easy to make, and consumed relatively low amounts of power, the game industry might still be developing with single core processors in mind...especially since it would be MUCH easier to do so. But as we both find out with this FX/X2 comparison, the other advantages to processors with multiple cores makes it necessary to go multi-core in the game industry. The performance gains in games, while not as impressive as in other applications, are still a nice bonus.

 

What kind of games, or developers to be specific, do you prefer? That can kind of help determine the purchase. For example, if you were getting this card to play games from say Valve (Half-Life), Bethesda (Oblivion), and Monolith (FEAR), then maybe ATI would be the better choice. On the other hand, if you like say Epic (Unreal), iD (Doom and Quake), and some other Nvidia developers, Nvidia might be the better choice. Especially since most games might be using Unreal Engine 3.0, although I'm not sure how much that might affect things (maybe not even at all). This may not be much help though since it sounds like the games and genres you like have developers in both categories.

I had this one site that compared the raw theoretical numbers between graphics cards, but I've seemed to have lost the bookmark to it. It has been a while since I checked, but I think the 1800XT was better in raw numbers than the 7900 GT at stock speeds. But I'm guessing that if you get a 7900 GT, you probably won't get one at stock speeds. I think eVGA has one card clocked at ~600 MHz (with 1600 MHz memory) for ~$350 at newegg, which basically almost makes it a 7900 GTX. If you have a specific 7900 GT card and a specific X1800XT in mind, it would be easier to compare the two. Of course, the raw numbers wouldn't tell you everything, including the fact that the ATI card could do HDR+AA as I mentioned earlier. Then there's also the issue with drivers, which I can't really help out with since I haven't had much experience with ATI. I thought I read they had gotten much better in recent years, but they might still be far behind Nvidia in that regard.

First off I want to say that I'm not a complete expert on SLI/Crossfire. Like you, I didn't plan on buying more than one graphics card to take advantage of SLI. Because of this, I haven't used SLI nor have I paid that much attention to it. I pretty much have the same mindset as you though in that I might use it in the future to get a performance boost in games at a relatively cheap price. I've read that SLI at best gives you about 1.5X the performance in the best case scenario. It depends on the game itself to see how much of an improvement you see. It shouldn't be that difficult or expensive to get a motherboard that supports this feature, so you might as well go with it and re-examine the situation when the time comes. That said, depending on your definition of a “few years,” you still probably need to upgrade to a new card eventually. I don’t know if you’ll be able to play the latest games at the highest settings in 6 years or so just because you got 2 7900 GT cards in SLI.

Also, not that this is what you want to hear, but there will be some significant hardware coming out later in the year in case you can wait. Intel is supposed to roll out their dual-core Conroe chips pretty soon, which I believe are supposed to outperform the AMD dual-core chips by quite a bit IIRC. Then we also have some DX10 cards coming out sometime this year and into the next. I believe ATI's card will also have unified shaders, like the Xbox 360 GPU. Theoretically, this should allow for much better performance in games (similar raw numbers, but much more efficient than non-unified solutions).

Here's a comparison of DX9 versus DX10 FWIW:


That might be a little misleading though since it will probably take a while before developers make games that take full advantage of DX10 features.

 

1. Go with newegg, nothing beats the egg.

2. The recent problems have been with the 7900gt OC versions the last i read. IF you really wanted to, 1 7900GTX will suffice you for a long time until you feel the need to add another. SLI right now is overkill, but that didnt stop me from having 2 x 7800GTX's and I dont regret buying them.

3. The X2 4200 is what im running right now, but I would also recommend the X2 3800+. Get a heatsink, and you can easily overclock this to 4200+ spec, this is only if you are familiar with timings, voltage, and mulitpliers. Just make sure you get an SLI capable motherboard, that has 2 full 16x PCI-E lanes like the Asus A8N32 or the Abit equivlant. These boards will run about 190-200 but thats the premium you pay with these top of the line manufacturers.

4. If you plan to go SLI in the future, go ahead and buy an SLI capable power supply that is atleast 500w. These power supplies will have dual 6pin pci-e connectors, and also regulated 12v rails for contant power.

5. Call of Duty 2, Battlefield 2, Quake4, Fear, HL2, Far Cry, and the list goes on for FPS's. RTS might wanna look at CivIII.

 

If you can wait until July 23rd, Intel's Conroe line is supposed to be released then. Preliminary reviews have found the Conroe to be quite a bit faster than AMD's FX-62 (its newest AM2 top of the line processor). One review had it being a full 50 fps faster than the FX-62. I would take those reviews with a grain of salt but it is definetly going to be faster. Probably a lot faster and a lot cheaper than AMD's FX line. The Intel E6600 is going to be priced ~300ish and the E6700 is going to be priced ~500ish. The E6700 is the one that beat the FX-62 by 50fps. You can read about it here: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5692

On vista, reports are saying that it will be delayed until end of this year till early next year. So its kind of unknown when Nvida or ATI will release their DX10 cards.

On the Nvidia 7900 series. So far two out of three 7900 GTX's I have received have been bad. The were stock clocked cards. Its kind of been a crap shoot. ATI's X1900XTX is considered to be faster, especially in Oblivion. But its also known to be a lot louder, run hotter, and draw more power. There haven't been the rash of failures that the 7900's series have been reporting though.