While we’re on the topic of being dorks…
Anyone got any good somewhat recent PC games that are pretty graphic intensive? I just built a killer new machine and need some cool games to test it out. I downloaded WoW (world of warcraft) which is pretty good (and I can run it on max settings), but I’m not down with playing 10 or 12 bux a month or w/e it is.
Anybody got any ideas?
Have you tried Crysis? That is supposedly the game that taxes the heck out of everyone’s computer. I have a pretty nice machine that I built last year, and I am not able to play it at full max settings.
Yea I tried Crysis, is there a Crysis 2? I thought I heard people talking about it but couldn’t find it. I can play it on max everything except anti aliasing and it is smooth as butter 
I believe if you can play Crysis at full max settings, you aren’t going to find much that is going to dog out your computer… I am not sure about Crysis 2, but the other one that set the benchmark a couple years ago was Farcry, and there is a Farcry 2 out.
I believe if you can play Crysis at full max settings, you aren't going to find much that is going to dog out your computer
building a good gaming rig and a good computer are two different things. if you built the machine as a gaming machine, then playing a game with intense graphics is a suitable test. otherwise, you want to use becnchmarks that are tailored to the machines primary usage. for example, the single most important piece of hardware for a gaming rig is the graphics card which is more or less the least significant piece of hardware for most other usages except for maybe design apps. a machine should be build with the user in mind from the CPU up. its very rare for one CPU to excel in all categories. they are designed to be great at one thing and good at most things. these differences are often inherient in the core arcitecthure of different manufacturings. i for one, was always an AMD guy.
if you built the rig for gaming, then by all means, use games as a testing method. if your looking for quantifiable results then you might want to look into benchmark testing apps. actually playing a game is very subjective and wont tell you much. thats why they run benchmark apps instead when comparing hardware. ive got some around here somewhere but they are outdated. a google search should get you what you need.
pretty sure he was saying that there arent many GAMES that will slow the computer if he has no issues with Crysis…
Sweet, I’ll check out Farcry and Farcry 2. Makes me wonder why there are guys out there that need cards SLI’d or CrossFire’d together? This is a GTX260 card, which isn’t the top model.
pretty sure he was saying that there arent many GAMES that will slow the computer if he has no issues with Crysis....
gotcha. im not much of a gamer anymore so im not exactly up on those sorts of things. im happy with my NES emulator ;D
Yea, Shawn, I’m referring to gaming and am well aware that gaming doesn’t bench mark a computer. The PC is built to rock in everyday tasks and gaming, but I wanted to test it for gaming. If you want I can run some bench mark tests for you, but I’m not really interested in that.
PS this processor will rape any AMD you got 
If you want I can run some bench mark tests for you
nah, im good.
PS this processor will rape any AMD you got ;)
im not much for letting my hardware be raped, but if you want to pay twice as much for 10% more peformance in 60% of the applications so that you can say things like
PS this processor will rape any AMD you got ;)
then you do that. ill simply save a couple of hundred, wait 6 months then buy a better performing AMD at 1/5th the price of your awesome rapist. with that said, the computer is yours so it must be the best ;D so, in an effort to avoid the inevitible one-upmanship ill withhold the rest of my witty monologue ;D
so, in an effort to avoid the inevitible one-upmanship ill withhold the rest of my witty monologue GrinNow THATs a first!
with that said, the computer is yours so it must be the best Grin
Now your learning 
Man I can’t just cant resist…
I’m not really a big “Intel Guy” or “AMD” guy, but for the performance I got with the Intel chip it is worth the cost. AMD doesn’t have a chip that matches it. Does the Phenom chip support DDR3 yet? So there is that argument as well, but anyway.
If it was simply a gaming rig I could have gone AMD and had what I needed a little bit cheaper cost, but it’s not just a gaming rig and with Intel having the upper hand and the safety of overclocking Intel chips, its a machine that will last me another several years.
Well worth it to me IMO.
If your building a new machine, with the latest and greatest AMD and the Intel chip, the price difference really isn’t that great, and the Intel chip is still better.
I dont follow hardware tech like i used to, and after a little reading, it seems that Intel pulling away is only a recent trend starting with muticore architecture. Only a couple of years ago you could get an equivalent and sometimes superior AMD chip for 2/3 the cost of an Intel chip. The point remains the same. It makes little to no sense for me to purchase the newest chipset when there will be something faster in 6 months. I will always purchase the hardware that was the “latest and greatest” 6-9 months ago and save myself a couple of hundred bucks. But, like everything in life, to each his own.
I know your all excited about flexing your little A+ skills and im glad for you! Keep up the good work building your “killer” “rape” machines! >LOL<
We need a “atta boy” emoticon…maybe one with a little Jimmy Norton hair tussle action! ;D
I am not sure where to start haha.
I have been building computers in one way or another (either with brand new parts or the ones my dad would give me in a box of parts) for about 17 years. The past 10 or so I have focused solely on building either gaming machines, or ones made for extreme overclocking. More recently I have focused solely on building gaming PCs. For these last 10 years, I have solely depended on AMD to be my CPU of choice. I loved the overclocking ability, they were the first of the two chip makers that you didnt have to connect the L1 bridges in order to ‘unlock’ the overclocking potential, or at least the first to offer it at a competivite price. Here are the important specs of my current computer:
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition
4GB (2x2gb) OCZ Reaper DDR2 1066
Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe Motherboard
1gb BFGTech GTX280 Video Card
Raidmax Quantum 700w psu
300gb Western Digital Velociraptor
Most of that was bought over a year ago. This thing is a bullet. With specs like that, I should not have ANY issues playing any game on the market right now, with the exception that my memory isn’t DDR3. I honestly think that my memory is what is keeping me from being able to play Crysis at full settings. I play World of Warcraft at full settings, including the shadows, and only see a real ‘video lag’ in high activity areas, like when 25 different players are all attacking the same target. My FPS goes from about 150fps to around 40fps, which is still pretty good.
As for the video card being the most important piece to a gaming machine, I think I have to disagree. I believe there are 2 things that you MUST put your money into when it comes to a gaming machine. Memory and Video card. Both of these components are sold as either performance or bargain, and if you want a machine to perform, most of the time, a bargain video card will not perform well with top of the line memory, and the same goes vice versa. But everyone has their own ideas of what is important.
Regardless, the main reason I posted was that a few months ago, I built a PC for a buddy of mine. I decide he would be a guinea pig for my first intel build. I can’t remember the exact specs, but I tried to build it pretty close to the same specs as my computer. I went a little better with his Processor (Intel CoreI7 920 i think) to get the DDR3 support and also went to DDR3 ram (OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 6gb (3 x 2gb). But, I didnt get him as nice of a Video Card (EVGA 896mb GTX260, I think). I also saved him some money by going with a little bit cheaper Asus Motherboard. Overall his machine ended up much nicer than mine, and outperformed it in most benchmark tests by better than 50%. I don’t think his machine is really THAT much better than mine, but the benchmark tests didn’t lie. This almost makes me an Intel buyer from this point forward. Unless I see some changes coming out of AMD, it’s going to be hard to argue with what happened. Plus Intel has slowly brought the price of their CPUs down as AMD has slowly raised their prices over the last 3 or 4 years.
As for the need for SLI or Crossfire. I believe Sharky Extreme or Tom’s Hardware did a comparison of a 1gb GTX260 and 2 500gb 9800gx2. At the time the gtx260 was about $400 and the 2 9800gx2s were about $350 combined. I believe the GTX260 just barely outperformed the SLI cards. Ill see if I can find the link to that comparison.
Btw, sorry for the lengthy post…
Here is a link to Tom’s hardware where they talked about comparing a GTX295 and 2 GTX275s in SLI. Not really a fair comparison, the 295 is running two GPUs, so technically it’s in SLI mode as well. Just not benefiting from the throughput of 2 x16 PCI Express slots. With 2 GPUs on one card, you are trying to push A LOT of ‘information’ through 1 slot.
The 275s outperformed the 295, at about $500 combined price. Where the 295 is gonna run you about $700.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-sli,2298.html
+1 to most of that stuff up there!
I don't think his machine is really THAT much better than mine, but the benchmark tests didn't lie. This almost makes me an Intel buyer from this point forward. Unless I see some changes coming out of AMD, it's going to be hard to argue with what happened. Plus Intel has slowly brought the price of their CPUs down as AMD has slowly raised their prices over the last 3 or 4 years
like i mentioned, i dont follow this stuff like i used to, but after a little reading it does seem that intel is really pulling away from AMD in a big way. what a shame.
I have been building computers in one way or another (either with brand new parts or the ones my dad would give me in a box of parts) for about 17 years.
sounds like me ;D i still have fond memories of tearing apart my first computer, anyone remember IBM PC Jr? LOL
The past 10 or so I have focused solely on building either gaming machines, or ones made for extreme overclocking. More recently I have focused solely on building gaming PCs
a buddy and I in college formed a startup doing just that except with a heavy focus on modding. you name it, we built it. at one point my buddy’s dad was actually machining the shims that you used to need for overclocking. man, what a PIA that was.
As for the video card being the most important piece to a gaming machine, I think I have to disagree. I believe there are 2 things that you MUST put your money into when it comes to a gaming machine. Memory and Video card. Both of these components are sold as either performance or bargain, and if you want a machine to perform, most of the time, a bargain video card will not perform well with top of the line memory, and the same goes vice versa. But everyone has their own ideas of what is important.
i guess thats where we will agree to disagree ;D i mean of course memory is important, but no more so than the CPU and the board. you can have the best cpu/board/memory that money can buy and not even play most games with a solid video card, let alone demanding games. a trick i learned a LONG time ago to is to use your gaming rig only for gaming and to run the oldest OS you can get away with. its amazing how much faster any machine will run on an older OS. kind of IT 101, but some people still dont get why their machine starts to run like crap after installing a shiny new OS.
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:12, topic:2027”]
I dont follow hardware tech like i used to, and after a little reading, it seems that Intel pulling away is only a recent trend starting with muticore architecture. Only a couple of years ago you could get an equivalent and sometimes superior AMD chip for 2/3 the cost of an Intel chip. The point remains the same. It makes little to no sense for me to purchase the newest chipset when there will be something faster in 6 months. I will always purchase the hardware that was the “latest and greatest” 6-9 months ago and save myself a couple of hundred bucks. But, like everything in life, to each his own.
I know your all excited about flexing your little A+ skills and im glad for you! Keep up the good work building your “killer” “rape” machines! >LOL<
We need a “atta boy” emoticon…maybe one with a little Jimmy Norton hair tussle action! ;D[/quote]
You’re still needing that ‘hug’ aren’t you?
I’m glad you like your AMD machines, good for you. AFA my A+ skills? Isn’t that a useless cert? I’m sure I’ve been building machines just as long as you. Is it always a ‘I can pee further than you’ contest with you??? Do you really find it necessary to try and take a crack at me every chance you get?
[quote=“ihuntinde, post:13, topic:2027”]
I am not sure where to start haha.
I have been building computers in one way or another (either with brand new parts or the ones my dad would give me in a box of parts) for about 17 years. The past 10 or so I have focused solely on building either gaming machines, or ones made for extreme overclocking. More recently I have focused solely on building gaming PCs. For these last 10 years, I have solely depended on AMD to be my CPU of choice. I loved the overclocking ability, they were the first of the two chip makers that you didnt have to connect the L1 bridges in order to ‘unlock’ the overclocking potential, or at least the first to offer it at a competivite price. Here are the important specs of my current computer:
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition
4GB (2x2gb) OCZ Reaper DDR2 1066
Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe Motherboard
1gb BFGTech GTX280 Video Card
Raidmax Quantum 700w psu
300gb Western Digital Velociraptor
Most of that was bought over a year ago. This thing is a bullet. With specs like that, I should not have ANY issues playing any game on the market right now, with the exception that my memory isn’t DDR3. I honestly think that my memory is what is keeping me from being able to play Crysis at full settings. I play World of Warcraft at full settings, including the shadows, and only see a real ‘video lag’ in high activity areas, like when 25 different players are all attacking the same target. My FPS goes from about 150fps to around 40fps, which is still pretty good.
As for the video card being the most important piece to a gaming machine, I think I have to disagree. I believe there are 2 things that you MUST put your money into when it comes to a gaming machine. Memory and Video card. Both of these components are sold as either performance or bargain, and if you want a machine to perform, most of the time, a bargain video card will not perform well with top of the line memory, and the same goes vice versa. But everyone has their own ideas of what is important.
Regardless, the main reason I posted was that a few months ago, I built a PC for a buddy of mine. I decide he would be a guinea pig for my first intel build. I can’t remember the exact specs, but I tried to build it pretty close to the same specs as my computer. I went a little better with his Processor (Intel CoreI7 920 i think) to get the DDR3 support and also went to DDR3 ram (OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 6gb (3 x 2gb). But, I didnt get him as nice of a Video Card (EVGA 896mb GTX260, I think). I also saved him some money by going with a little bit cheaper Asus Motherboard. Overall his machine ended up much nicer than mine, and outperformed it in most benchmark tests by better than 50%. I don’t think his machine is really THAT much better than mine, but the benchmark tests didn’t lie. This almost makes me an Intel buyer from this point forward. Unless I see some changes coming out of AMD, it’s going to be hard to argue with what happened. Plus Intel has slowly brought the price of their CPUs down as AMD has slowly raised their prices over the last 3 or 4 years.
As for the need for SLI or Crossfire. I believe Sharky Extreme or Tom’s Hardware did a comparison of a 1gb GTX260 and 2 500gb 9800gx2. At the time the gtx260 was about $400 and the 2 9800gx2s were about $350 combined. I believe the GTX260 just barely outperformed the SLI cards. Ill see if I can find the link to that comparison.
Btw, sorry for the lengthy post…[/quote]
The machine you built for you buddy is about the same machine I just built. I’m very happy with it! Only thing I want to add is an SSD, but I just can’t justify it. (although I’m sure I could if I tried). What kind of HD did you put in your buddies machine?
AFA the SLI card’s, I can understand them winning out in bench marks, but if you can play all the current games on the market on a single low end card (relative), who needs to SLI them? Granted I’ve got the option in the future to SLI another 260 in there, but they screwed me on the EVGA x58 board. They claimed 3 x16 slots, when really its 1 x16 and 2 x8s (and an x4 and a PCI).
i guess thats where we will agree to disagree Grin i mean of course memory is important, but no more so than the CPU and the board. you can have the best cpu/board/memory that money can buy and not even play most games with a solid video card, let alone demanding games. a trick i learned a LONG time ago to is to use your gaming rig only for gaming and to run the oldest OS you can get away with. its amazing how much faster any machine will run on an older OS. kind of IT 101, but some people still dont get why their machine starts to run like crap after installing a shiny new OS.
Not quite the same ball game any more w/ new OS’s supporting 64 bit processors and the older ones not. Granted I tried to install xp64, but it wouldn’t take, oh well so I went with win 7 and am pretty happy I did. I’ve been avoiding that step for awhile now and figured now is a good a time as any.
My buddies PC is using a 1.5Tb Seagate 7200RPM. Toms Hardware benchmarked it against the 300mb Velociraptor that I have and they both performed about the same, with the slight advantage in speed going to the Velociraptor. They recommeded the seagate because it is sooo much bigger, and about $100 cheaper.
I’d find it hard to believe you can play all the games on the markey with a single lowend video card… and it really depends on what you consider lowend. Are we talking a gtx260 or a gts260? Both 260s look very much the same on the outside, but are two completely different monsters when it comes to performance. I would also take a guess and say you could not SLI two GTS260 and outperform a gtx260. The biggest thing is when it comes time to upgrade, do you want to spend $300 on a new video card, or do you want to spend $90 (because its outdated) and duplicate the video card you have now, run it in SLI, and get the same, or better performance?
Gtx260. Oh def SLI the 260 when it comes time, but if I can run Crysis on max now, what do I need any more for?
My guess would be you dont, unless you are compensating for something personal… Saint:)
ahem… other than that… it would only be for future upgrades…
How about liquid cooled?