Suggestions for new computer

[duri]

I just posted this on the LotRO forums, and wanted to get any suggestions here too. I had asked about this early in 2008, but it looks like that thread is gone. I vaguely remember that someone had a good suggestion about 2 hard drives, and someone else suggested Velocity Micro as a place to buy a built PC. Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts on this, they are much appreciated!
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I am planning to buy a new computer, and wanted to get some advice from this forum since one of its main tasks will be to run LotRO.

My general thinking is that I want to buy something good, that I wont have to upgrade for maybe 2 years. But I dont want to pay premium prices for top of the line equipment, usually I target a notch or two below that to get more value).

Along those lines, I am leaning towards going duo core, probably the E8600 or maybe the E8500. For the graphics, I was thinking maybe a GTX 260 (core 216 or maybe 192?).

Some questions:

1) since I dont use any other software nearly as intensive as LotRO, is there any sense in going quad core? I know the new I7 is out, but would I really benefit from the extra cores?

2) any reason to go SLI and use 2 video cards? Wouldnt a single GTX 260 be more than enough?

3) is it worth getting a motherboard that supports DDR3, or should I stick with DDR2?

4) how much power do I need so that I am sure I wont need a power supply upgrade for several years? 850w ok or way too much?

5) should I go with Vista 64? If so, how much Ram, 4GB enough? more?

6) Any thoughts on other things, like the case or cooling?

I guess I am looking at something in the $1500+ range, based on the price of the parts, more if I buy it pre-made.

Suggestions appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[thelonius]

If your buying a desktop don't settle for anything less than a Core 2 Quad processor. Get a Q6600, Q9650 or better though I probably wouldn't shell out the extra cash for I7. Everyone has their opinion, mine is a Duo processor is noticably slower than a Quad processor. I wouldn't worry so much about how much memory, but get a nice Quad processor.

Remember this is windows and you can NEVER throw enough horsepower at it, you do want those extra 2 cores, they will speed up everything in Windows... Difference in speed between 2 and 4 gigs of memory you may never notice, but there is a definite speed difference between 2 and 4 cores, get 4! Believe it or not, but windows is very good at sending the next process to the next available processor. Windows Will use those extra 2 cores. My experience is that LOTRO will run on a single processor, but Windows will use the other 3 processors for background and system process.

I do run LOTRO in Vista 64 and it works fine. I'm not really sure there is a big difference in speed between 64 and 32 bit. I prefer 64 bit, but it does take 15 minutes to install USB devices such as hard drives and memory sticks. There is a big future advantage to using 64 bit. You're going to notice much more difference upgrading to the Quad over the Duo than between 32 and 64 bit gaming with LOTRO. LOTRO does only run in 32 bit mode and is NOT a native 64 bit application.

[Bubub]

At $1500 you can get a smoking computer almost irregardless of what you choose.
If the only thing you are running is LOTR, then you do not have anything to worry about.
I built this one a year or two ago, cannot remember.
Intel Dual Core2 6300@1.86
2 GB Corsair Dominator
Nvidia GTX 260 256mb
Windows XP
I do tweak the system to get the most out of it, with minimal programs and services running.
I can run LOTR at high and ultra high, and higher demanding games with no problem.

[Hitorichan]

Okay. I honestly don't buy into quad core being that big a benefit over dual core YET. Applications just aren't that multithreaded - and I could go into rather excruciating detail about what I mean by this if you really wanted... but won't for now. I've got a nice Athlon 64 X2 (dual core) and even with LotRO running with most settings on their highest, I don't max the CPU while I'm playing. About the only time I max the CPU is when I'm doing a gaussian blur on a photo from my 10 megapixel camera, or maybe when doing complex video transitions for a DVD I'm authoring.

With that out of the way, let me say this: the real bottlenecks in gaming these days are twofold: data access speed... and the graphics card(s). With that in mind, let me answer your specific questions.

1. As said above, I personally say a good dual-core is just fine. Unless you want to plan for possible future applications, I wouldn't bother with a quad core. I don't believe that games really need that much CPU horsepower when the GPU is what matters more. I know Intel has the better performance, but I like AMD's prices. But that's just my preference.

2. I personally hate SLI. You double your cost for maybe 50-75% increase in performance. I run on an 8800GT and run most everything on ultra/very high and see reasonable frame-rates. If you get something in the 9800 series or, as you mention, a GTX260 or 280... you'll be doing JUST fine.

My gripe with SLI is that later, if you want to upgrade your graphics, you've got two cards to replace, not just one. I much prefer single-card solutions. Unless you "need" enormous performance for something like a competition-level FPS game session, I just don't see where SLI is worth it.

3. I'd be more concerned about the speed of the memory than which DDR technology it uses. Make sure you're going with a dual-channel solution and a good, high clock speed on the RAM. In general, I'm sure DDR3 is faster than DDR2, so that should be better.

4. Well, if you were to get a GTX 280 for your graphics card, you'd need at least a 550 just to support that video card. However, you may not need much more than that. There's a couple places out there that have some nice power supply calculators. Use that to get a better idea what you need than just asking people. Though I would say that whatever that calculator says, add 100w to it as it's telling you the -minimum-... and having excess wattage available is not a bad idea. Also, do pay attention to what the video card says it wants as a minimum - that usually has to do with the absolute peak power requirement for the video card.

More importantly, you might want to consider looking for one of the 80+ power supplies - the more efficient it is, the less power it will use from your wall. And make sure to get a good, reliable brand PSU. I like Thermaltake, myself. Dirty power can wreak havoc on motherboards.

5. I run on Vista Ultimate (x64) and have no problems at all. For amount of RAM, I disagree with Thel on this. With Vista 64, you'll see a HUGE performance gain going from 2GB to 4GB. Also, LotRO is a memory hog, if you let it be - loading textures off HD to RAM for faster access. There's a specific setting for how much RAM to use for texture cache in LotRO.

However, Thel is accurate in that LotRO is a 32-bit application, but the benefit that a 64-bit OS provides at this point is in memory access - it lets you go beyond 3.5 GB (without doing weird OS tricks) and really see a benefit from the extra RAM. I'll say this point blank.. Vista 64 REALLY WANTS 4GB+. Oh, and I've never, ever had any problems with Vista Ultimate x64 recognizing and accessing USB storage or other devices quickly.

6. I've never overclocked, so I've never had any problems with stock coolers on the CPU or GPU. I usually look for cases where I can put both a front and rear case fan on. And then look for fans that run reasonably quiet. Might want to choose a case with a filtered front bezel if you can find one. It helps cut down on dust, after all. DEFINITELY use noise-reducing gaskets on your fans. Oh, and look for a PSU that has two fans in it too.

On cases, I really, really like the one I have, though it only fits MicroATX boards (which is fine by me with my single-GPU, two-drive setup). CoolerMaster Centurion ... It mounts the motherboard upside down, on the left side of the case, putting the CPU at the bottom (with the coolest air) and the GPU up at the top, closes to the PSU, which vents most of the air out the top and back. The GPU is usually the thing that produces the most heat, so I find that design makes sense to me.

That case would NOT work if you want A: a full ATX board, B: more than two hard drives. I also like that it's smaller, which means it's easier to take to the LAN party I attend.

Now... Last but not least... 7. The unasked question. Hard Drive(s).

First. Never, EVER get anything less than a 7200 RPM drive on a desktop machine. These days, I highly recommend SATA 2 (That's the 300 Gbps data rate). More than that, I definitely want to prod you to consider a dual hard-drive setup. Here's the reason behind this...

Windows has this thing called the Page File. It's a big chunk (usually a bit more than however much RAM you have) of HD space where Windows pages bits of memory off from RAM that aren't used as much as other bits. This way you can use more RAM than you really have - because it only keeps the bits it needs in physical RAM. This technique is commonly referred to as "virtual memory". And you don't want to turn it off as it actually means better performance in certain ways.

Now, the problem with the Page File is that it requires a lot of reading and writing when you're using a lot of RAM or when switching between big applications. So, if you've got your HD busy doing read/writes for the pagefile, it can't spend that time doing reads of things like, say, huge volumes of textures... Like, oh... I don't know... Walking into Bree when the Hobbiton Philharmonic is holding a concert outside the Pony.

Fortunately, it's easy enough to put in a second hard drive. With SATA, each device is on its own "channel", so the machine can access both drives at the same time. This lets your primary hard drive do all its fast read/writes to the pagefile while the secondary disk is reading textures like mad.

So... Drive C: Windows and generic applications... Drive D: with LotRO and other disk-intensive applications... and your other data.

For the record, using two hard drives like this is exactly what the whole FlashBoost idea is trying to do for single-HD systems.

[Igby Deepswindle]

Jan 9, 2009 14:01:34 GMT -5 Hitorichan said:

For the record, using two hard drives like this is exactly what the whole FlashBoost idea is trying to do for single-HD systems.

Except that it's placing the the data into FLASH memory, or you can also choose a RAM drive. Either way, lots faster than an HD.

Here's a piece of crap I built to chug-out the LOTRO:

Athlon X2 5600+ @ 2.8ghz
Asus M2N-32 Deluxe Wireless Edition
8GB Corsair Dominator RAM
Nvidia 9800 GTX (originally had a bad 8800GT)
Rosewill 600w PSU (SLI)
10,000RPM 40GB HD (just for lotro)
Various other HD's (4) @ 7200RPM

Running Vista x64 (Ultimate) and I don't think I could be happier.

I got a cheezy-cool case too. All that junk was about $1000. Maybe $1200 @ NewEgg

Well, yes I could. One can always be happier *sigh*

[Hitorichan]

As for a RAM drive, you do have to spend time loading the data into RAM each time you restart the machine and start the game up (I don't know about you, but I don't leave my LotRO rig up and running 24/7. I shut it down when I sleep or when I'm at work (when I work). So it's going to slow down game startup times. As for the Flash memory thing - that really depends on the flash drive. Some are faster read than others. They make specific mention of the "target read speed". And they also say that people who already have fast drives will NOT benefit much from FlashBoost. Which is also why in testing Window's ReadyBoost, or whatever it's called, doesn't provide much benefit on a system like mine.

[thelonius]

It's not that you want the Quad processor for multi threaded applications that don't exist. You can go in the task manager and there are easily 10 or 15 memory resident programs if not more and probably plenty of hidden process for services. Would you prefer to spread out 10 or 20 running programs between 2 or 4 processors?? This is where I do think windows does a decent job of not running all 20 process on a single processor while 3 others are idle. Spreading the 20 running process out to 4 processors does help for me... Main thing is I'm not talking large differences in cash between a Q6600 and an E8000 series, the E8000 Core Duo could possibly even cost more than a Quad...

I do recommend running a RAID or more than 1 hard drive. My machine has a RAID 5 which does boost performance. Though using an Intel RAID built into the motherboard, I'm sure it's using CPU power to calculate parity and all that...

[duri]

I was delinquent in not thanking people for their input earlier than this, but I really appreciated the comments, and found them quite useful.

I bit the bullet and bought a computer this weekend. A local guy is going to build it for me and overclock it, etc - his prices are great and he was very helpful in designing the computer.

Anyway, for the price of an i7 920, I couldnt pass it up, even though an E8600 probably would run LotRO just as well. But in 2-3 years, no doubt tose two additional cores will be a lot more useful. Anyway, I ended up with:

i7 920 2.66GHz (overclocked to c. 3.8 GHz)
EVGA X58 motherboard
6G DDR3 1066 Ram
EVGA GFX260/216 GPU
Seagate 750G 32MB hard drive
Vista 64bit Home Premium

I plan to add a second hard drive down the road, probably an SSD when prices come down, to run games etc. I figured with this rig I am not exactly going to be constrained playing LotRO anytime soon.

All told, the total was $1909, incl a good case, cooling fan/heatsink and disk burner. Saved a bit of money on the videocard, and used it on the motherboard, figuring I will need to update my videcard in a couple years anyway but the motherboard I prefer to leave be.

Anyway, alls well that ends well. Thanks again for the help

[duri]

Got my computer last night and hooked it up today. WOW! (not WoW, but WOW!). This game looks good in the higher resolutions. I had been playing SoA on medium, 1440x900, and now I am playing on very high,1680x1050, and I cant believe how much of a difference it makes. Whats even better is that now I will not lag in groups so terribly like I did at times before; should make grouping much easier and enjoyable.

Good times!

Again, thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

[duri]

Good times.... except for the Blue Screen of Doom that has hit me 4 times now. Am trying to figure out whats causing it. So sorry about the group last night Hopefully I get it figured out soon.

[duri]

Here is my thread from the LotRO tech support forum. The crashes have become less frequent (but maybe thats a coincidence, not sure). Anyway, if anyone has ideas, let me know, here or on the LotRO forum. I am obviously not the only one who has/had this problem. Thanks!

forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=253394