Upgrading advices

Hey everyone, finally i've decided to upgrade my PC, but i'm a complete noob in hardware. So i wanted to ask few things:
-What processor can you advise, AMD\Intel? for gamedev and games of course
-How many cores should it have? 2 cores a quite popular now, but i've seen triple and quad core processors. As far as i know not many applications now are optimised for more than 2 cores.
-What about GPU? I've been thinking about ATI Radeon HD3850 512MB PCI-E

Thank you for attention

Just one hint: for gamedev you should choose a lowend pc

No, only for game testing you should have a low end pc to optimize it for such systems. For game dev you should always use a high end system because of the workflow.

No - not from my experiences.
If you develope a (casual) game on a highend machine you develope with specifications the lowend system can't support.
Many test cycles results in extra work on the performance.
Since we work with medspec laptops we save much time for performance optimization (thats our experiences).

Outside this Shadow969 will not buy a system for dev only but also for playing games so it's useless to discuss such a topic...

Well i already have a lowend machine and i'm tired of it i guess i will use it for optimisation later, but now many users want eyecandy screens, so shadermodel 3.0 is almost essential

- i'm an amd fan, but i cannot recommend their latest phenom chips, i'd go with an intel core xyz bla bla (be careful, their naming system is some kind of weird and you can easily end up with a chip that's not worth much). 2 cores will be enough for now and the coming year.
- i'd always choose nvidia for my graphics card. mostly because ati driver support on linux sucks, however, besides this, i guess it's more a question personal preference. either take a radeonhd 38xx or a gf 8800 xx.
- be careful with your choice of your mainboard, it influences your GPU and CPU choice (crossfire/SLI chipsets). and don't forget to check how many pci-e lanes are available in multi-gpu mode for each graphics card, esp. the second gpu.
- 2 GB RAM for winXP, 3GB for vista, decide for yurself if you really need a 64bit OS
- 2 HDDs for a RAID system

- 2 GB RAM for winXP, 3GB for vista, decide for yurself if you really need a 64bit OS

to be honest if i were you and getting vista i'd say get a full 4 since ram is very cheap right now and 4 gigs will take better advantage of dual channel setups unless you get 2 1gig sticks and 2 512sticks.

right. always go dual channel. but don't set xp on 4 gb.

Some things you also should think about:

1: When you say upgrading do you mean that you will fill your old system with some new stuff (GPU CPU, Mainboard, RAM) or will you buy a complete new PC? In the first case, be careful, the system has to fit in your old PC (that may sound odd, but ir isn't trust me!) and your power system has to be strong enough to take it.
2: Even if you buy a new system you should care about whether your system components fit together or not and whether you can place them together or not.
3: When you buy a new mainboard, choose it very VERY carefully!!! In my experience the mainboard is the most important component in a PC. Check the hardware forums out there for reviews and experiences made by others and also check whether the mainboard had problems with certain components (eg. GPUs so far)
4: Think about temperature. I myself have to downclock my GPU as it otherwise would be to hot for my system. Choose your GPU having this in mind and inform yourself about the coolingsystem of the GPU you want and also watch the textreviews, that show temperature behaviour of the GPUs. If you want to use an old system and want to upgrade it with new components think about buying some extra cool down systems or "system blowers".

Thanks for the advices!
I'm going to buy a completely new PC, so choosing fitting components will be rather hard. That's why i looked for some premade configurations, and found this:

- Quadcore AMD Phenom X4 9550
- Socket AM2+: AMD770 ATX
- 2GB RAM; 500GB HDD; DVD-RW
- CR x-in-1 //i have no idea what's that
- ATI Radeon HD3850 512MB PCI-E

not bad IMHO, but the price seems suspicious to me (only 550 euros). What do you think about it?

phenom 9550 is the revised version with the b3 stepping, so you don't have to fear weird crashes caused by the cpu. it resides on a am2+ socket which is good for future updates (hypertransport 3.0 etc.). the 770 chpiset offers only one pci-e x16 slot, so you won't be able to upgrade to crossfire, which is the biggest flaw imo.

Looks like a nice system you got there.

By the way:
"CR x-in-1" sounds like a CardReader which supports x different card types.

Thanks for the info and advices, i'll consider them

Best bang for buck currently would be the AMD/ATI HD4870, excellent performance for a great price. I'd stay away from Nvidia because eventhough they have the fastest cards (I'm talking GTX280 and so on), they also are too expensive for the difference compared with say an HD4870.

Also, and this is true at least since Nvidia released their 8800 series, ATI drivers nowadays really are good. Usually the really new cards improve a lot with each new driver, but Nvidia takes a lot longer to iron out driver bugs lately.

When it comes to CPU, go for Intel Core 2 Duo or Intel Core 2 Quad. Anything from an E6600 and better is fine, don't go for the really really cheap Core 2 Duo ones though, you might end up buying an underclocked and slow processor.

I'd recommend 2Gb of at least DDR2 (800mhz) memory, but depending on the motherboard you go for (for example a X38 or X48), you might end up buying 1Gb DDR3 RAM first... It's a bit more expensive, but in the long run it's worth going for. Just upgrade to more DDR3 ram by the time you can afford another extra 1Gb.

All in all, if you want to buy a PC that will be able to run the latest games AND will be able to keep up for a year or two, you'll likely spend about 1500$ - 1000€ at least. In my opinion it's totally worth it though, even though at the moment graphics card and CPU development is going at insane speeds.

I'd recommend against 64bit Windows by the way, way not enough companies fully support 64bit.



Actually, that's something of a myth... there are lots of programs already capable of making use of the extra cores. Also, multi-cores really is the future, so why not make the switch now? More importantly, all future games will make use of quad cores... all PS3 and Xbox360 games that also end up on the PC are usually able to make use of multi-cores.

As for the HD3850, it's a good card as well, but you might want to check out the newer and faster HD4850 instead. It's a bit newer, a lot faster and the price really isn't that much more (about 30% usually, which translate to about 60€ or so).

Cheers

Get a Mac !

why? because it offers inferior computing power for "only" $1000 more?

get linux. but i wouldn't try with that ATI/AMD card, better choose a nvidia chip instead.

Thanks again
Mac is not my thing, mainly because of the price and incompatiblility with some applications.
As for linux i wanted to try it someday if i'll be able to install it. not really sure about the benefits though

Aww, this is so a myth! This may hold true for PowerPC Macs but not since Apple moved to Intel. Actually Apple offers the best performance on the market in notebooks for example. Check Notebookcheck.com or some other independent notebook-testing community.

And the program compatibilitay issues.. You will have the very same on Linux.. in Video or Graphics-Editing even worse.
I would say OS X has more compatible programs than Linux.

BUT! I don't want to start a debate, since people base 90% of their decisions not on rationality but on emotions and prejudices, which there are many against the mac, so.. I know you will not listen to me :P

i see much more prejudice against PCs.

i would go nVidia. i'm not prejudiced against AMD/Radeon but i've always been happy with nVidia. granted, i'm having issues at the moment, but their support is pretty good. i can't believe the GTX 2xx series is already out. i got in early on the 9xxx series (which came out late i guess), and now the next generation is already out. i guess going to uni makes a long period of time seem really short (it's such a waste of time; i could've started off as a second-year student with what i already know).

i very rarely get a new PC. this one i have now is quite a few years old, upgraded bit by bit. there's nothing left from its birth except the case.

good luck

julz

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=3978475&sku=P450-9120%20B&SRCCODE=WEM1655BY&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM1655-_-Components

Best bang for your buck!

holy crap isg, good eye, yeah, that machine is incredible for the price. not the fastest ever but still can play just about any game, damn.

Yeah, about 4 years ago... Lol, no just kidding, it's not all bad and actually a pretty good deal for that price still, but processor and graphics card really aren't very fast. AMD has been beaten bad by the latest Intel Core 2 Duos and Quads stuff and frankly there are better graphics cards than the 8500 for (relatively; as in best bang for bucks) less money!

Only thing you can't beat is the total price of only 299$ I guess, but as you'd be buying outdated hardware I wouldn't jump at it.
(I doubt it would run Crysis, Supreme Commander or any of the newer games, in fact I'm pretty sure it won't.)

i can gaurentee it would run crysis so your a bit off there phemox, i have a 8500 and can run crysis at max settings for most of the game, only when i get into really dense foliage does it lag below about 25fps. its really not a bad card.

i also plan to get a new pc soon. probably i will get an intel Q6600 cpu which should be nice for rendering in modo and blender.

i am not up to date with mainboards. what chipset does a quad core intel need? what mainboard with good price/performance ratio would you recommend? (i don't want high end stuff. i will never use SLI and RAID and such things...)
<edit> how about the ASUS P5Q Pro? </edit>

...any suggestions about a silent power supply and a silent cpu cooler?

there you go vent, all those support intel quad cores. take your pic, some things to keep in mind, pci-e slots, ability to add more cards, type of ram, sata slots, ide slots, sli/crossfire support.

Well, if you say so, however a lot of benchmarks show that the card performs in the sub 15 fps range in Crysis. Compared to the old ATI X1950 256mb that is able to get you around 26 fps on average, the 8500 really isn't such a good card for the money.

I might have exaggerated a bit by saying it won't run, but what I meant was that in my experience having 15 fps with Crysis makes it quite easily unplayable in most areas.

Also, even the 8600 has difficulties running the game at the Medium settings, so to be honest I don't really believe you, especially not that it runs at max settings with that card.



Yeah, but with max settings the foliage is always dense.



I would go for a P45 or X48 mainboard at least. Most of the newer ones support DDR3 memory (usually have names like Asus P5E3).

Some of these mainboards even support BOTH DDR2 and DDR3 in case you think DDR3 is way too expensive, which it is in my opinion.

The P5Q Pro is really good, I would buy it if not having DDR3 memory is no issue for you. It also has 2 PCI-e 16x 2.0 slots, so installing a new 3D card like a AMD/ATI HD4870 is no problem.

well to be completely honest i do have a dual card setup and i didnt measure the difference between when i have sli running and whne not having it running, but i have never had sli make a big difference anyways so it cant be that different, also i am talking about the crysis demo, so it only maxes on high, and not ultra high like on the full release. also most of the demo your on the shore most of the time or on some sort of path, so there is little vegetation there. but it does work. dont know about your sources, maybe it has something to do with the 4gb of ram i have, but i do only have a shitty processor too, and it still works.

I see, well I don't know. My dad has a 8400 (which is a bit of a disaster when it comes to the latest games, but it runs Flight Simulator X), and for the 8500 score I just looked on the internet with google compared some benchmarks that way... Perhaps SLi does matter more, after all it's usually somewhere between 40% and 60% faster than having only one card. I wasn't talking about the demo, but I'm not sure if it would matter that much, I always thought the demo runs worse than the full version. But I have played the demo only twice or so.

Anyways, I don't know... I wouldn't really recommend that card, but I think we can agree that the system it was about isn't all bad, especially for it's price, I definitely must admit.

thats definately agreed, even if he bought it and put a $200 card, he still has a decent machine with a great card for only $500 which is incredible.