Considering Purchase: Good deal/How will it run?

[Goku]

Ram speed is so quick now you are won't notice that day to day regular stuff that we do. Really isn't any kind of performance boost for gaming either. Totally up to the user if its worth the extra $5 imo.

[Rbstr]

I don't particularly like Goku's new motherboard: It only has two memory slots and it doesn't seem to have LucidLogix Virtu, which by lots of accounts is a great performance booster. (It may have it, but I can't seem to confirm)

But in general...I agree with the idea the graphics card is probably the most important thing to get bumped up in spec at this point.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Pancake

Also These Graphs:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/s...he-best-ddr3/7


I feel that it is better to invest $5 on this small upgrade than to be bottlenecked later on with overclocking. You get over a 10% boost with read/write/copy speeds and around a 6 FPS boost. Anyways, they look cool.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/s...he-best-ddr3/6

Real life's what matters. Zero difference in gaming.

Having said that, I'm wondering if bumping the RAM up to 16GB won't make UDK/Unity more comfortable? Reading up on game programming and apparently some of those programs can happily eat up 8GB.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

I don't like Goku's new motherboard: It only has two memory slots and it doesn't seem to have LucidLogix Virtu, which by lots of accounts is a great performance booster.

But in general...I agree with the idea the graphics card is probably the most important thing to get bumped up in spec at this point.

Ram slots? We have 8GB of ram. By the time that is a issue for him the CPU will be way dated.

Lol. I had no idea LucidLogix Virtu did that with video cards. That is cool and all, but it doesn't look like a great performance booster. Maybe thats why I never really heard much about it even people make a fuss about it. Even with that the 7850 is still a stronger card anyway. Not worth the price premuim.

Originally Posted by Vancha

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/s...he-best-ddr3/6

Real life's what matters. Zero difference in gaming.

Having said that, I'm wondering if bumping the RAM up to 16GB won't make UDK/Unity more comfortable? Reading up on game programming and apparently some of those programs can happily eat up 8GB.

Thats another $50 right there. Needs the proper mobo. Plus if we are talking about a new video card he will probably have to jump his budget to at least $850 area anyway.

This is the cheapest mobo that supports 4 dimms. With this mobo actually plus 8GB of the $40 gskill brings this to $804. That isn't too bad. No idea if that mobo supports the lucid or not. Its a 7 series though.

[Mutant]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Having said that, I'm wondering if bumping the RAM up to 16GB won't make UDK/Unity more comfortable? Reading up on game programming and apparently some of those programs can happily eat up 8GB.

I have had to cut down some of my multiphysics simulation models to fit into 32GB.


Its safe to say if you can use more than 8 GB you already know what it will be for.

[Soyokaze]

After playing with it some more, I've upgraded to a GTX480 & i5-2310. I've got that cheap 4xRam slot mobo you mentioned, just in case my development work gets serious. In any case, the upgrade to a quad core should improve performance from within UDK. Also running a 120gb SSD, with plans to add a larger standard HDD later, and a 620watt power supply to feed the hungry card & those possible expansions.

SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner SATA Model SH-222BB/BEBE - OEM
Antec Gaming Series One Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
EVGA 015-P3-1480-KR GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support..
Antec EarthWatts EA-650 GREEN 650W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active...
Intel Core i5-2310 Sandy Bridge 2.9GHz (3.2GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD...
ADATA S510 Series AS510S3-120GM-O 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM
BIOSTAR B75MU3+ LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model

Currently at $730 including all shipping and such.

Sound good? (Basically just looking for someone who knows more about this than me to tell me I'm now blowing cash.)

[Vancha]

Don't get the 480, it's a loud and power-hungry pig. Get a 560ti 448 core (same price or less with rebates), or an HD 7850 if you can find one for the same price (you probably can't).

[Soyokaze]

I considered the 7850 & 580ti 448, but sound & power consumption aren't a big deal to me - and beyond this why would I pay >$50 more to drop a tier in power? The 480 for $199 seems like an incredible deal to me.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Soyokaze

I considered the 7850 & 580ti 448, but sound & power consumption aren't a big deal to me - and beyond this why would I pay >$50 more to drop a tier in power? The 480 for $199 seems like an incredible deal to me.

You don't drop a tier, they're as good as each other. Granted, I was looking at the wrong prices, but it's only $40 (not >$50). The extra power the 480 uses will probably cost you more than that in the long-run.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Soyokaze

After playing with it some more, I've upgraded to a GTX480 & i5-2310. I've got that cheap 4xRam slot mobo you mentioned, just in case my development work gets serious. In any case, the upgrade to a quad core should improve performance from within UDK. Also running a 120gb SSD, with plans to add a larger standard HDD later, and a 620watt power supply to feed the hungry card & those possible expansions.

SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner SATA Model SH-222BB/BEBE - OEM
Antec Gaming Series One Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
EVGA 015-P3-1480-KR GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support..
Antec EarthWatts EA-650 GREEN 650W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active...
Intel Core i5-2310 Sandy Bridge 2.9GHz (3.2GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD...
ADATA S510 Series AS510S3-120GM-O 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM
BIOSTAR B75MU3+ LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model

Currently at $730 including all shipping and such.

Sound good? (Basically just looking for someone who knows more about this than me to tell me I'm now blowing cash.)

1. No OS included in that.
2. No HDD. No way you are going to get by with a 120GB SSD. Even if you think its possible its not. Go HDD then SSD later on if you are crash limited atm.
3. With OS+HDD that brings you to $900 for this build.

Do you realize this?

I don't recommend getting that SSD either. You should be looking at the Crucial M4, Samsung 830, Plextor M3, or Intel SSD. Its wortht the extra $20 to $40 easily to the due better reliability.

[Pancake]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Don't get the 480, it's a loud and power-hungry pig. Get a 560ti 448 core (same price or less with rebates), or an HD 7850 if you can find one for the same price (you probably can't).

Don't get the 560 Ti 448! The 570 is the exact same price but you get 480 cores instead. The 560 Ti 448 is a 570 with disabled cores btw.

570: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20
560 Ti 448: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&Pagesize=20

[LatinLegacy]

Newegg is a well known site but I often tell my clients to check out multiple sites as Newegg doesn't always have the best deals going...

http://www.microcenter.com
http://www.tigerdirect.com
http://www.mwave.com
http://www.zipzoomfly.com - Recently Died
http://www.amazon.com

Their are some other sites as well but they are not as popular as the ones mentioned above.

Secondly, look for bundles! Bundles will usually save you anywhere from $10 to a few hundred dollars depending on your purchase. For example, you can bundle a CPU & PSU & save $15. Then bundle a GPU & Motherboard to save an additional $20. Newegg & Tigerdirect are well known for their bundle deals so you should see how much further you can save by bundling parts. Microcenter often does some wicked bundle sales as well. With the extra money you'll be saving, you can put it towards a slightly higher clocked CPU, a better PSU, etc. Also stay on the lookout for instant rebates & mail in rebates. You can pocket some more money that way as well.

One last note, the July 4th holiday is just around the corner & it is a major holiday for hardware sales. Tigerdirect is usually very aggressive with sales at the mid to low range. Since your budget falls within that, you may end up finding some better deals. I would wait until then to see if you can part out a better system at the similar price range that you are working with. Hope the information helps.

-LatinLegacy

[Bags]

^ but he lives nowhere near microcenter

[Soyokaze]

Found Windows cheaper here:http://www.softwaresupplygroup.com/m...m-branded.html

But otherwise looks like I'll go with Goku's build (surprise surprise)

Except the GPU is now out of stock: SAPPHIRERadeon HD 7850 OC 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card ( 11200-01-20G )

Would this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150608 be the same thing?

[Goku]

Hmm nice find.

Are you going with the B75 chipset and 16GB of ram?

That 7850 is the same yes. The reviews aren't the best, which is why I didn't link it. If you want to try it go for it.

Are you ordering this soon? There is some active coupons going that can be applied to that build. I didn't factor them in, since I didn't know how long you were going to wait.