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In the one link you submitted, the CPU's are all over the place, and don't support whatever it is that you're trying to say. I don't see how education factors into this- every comp sci program I've looked into was years behind what was actually being used, or far worse. Further, Crysis and X3??? I've been using Bad Company 2 MP as an example, which came out last year, and is the closest approximation to what the OP is looking for.

I have been listening to the cpu and AI coding discussion...but I'm not willing to spend the extra 100 bucks for the 2600K, just not feasible within my budget. Besides, gaming is pretty much the only thing those extra threads would be useful for. I don't do any photoshop or movie rendering

Another question for you guys. I have the pro edition of the xtreme power supply calculator that I use to break down my 3.3, 5, and +12V rails for PSU. I put my system in on the calculator and it gave me 475 min watts, and 525 recommended.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I'm looking at this psu, you think I will be ok power wise? Remember, I don't plan on crossfire anytime soon

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016

Aphasia wrote:

Well, AA or no AA depends on the res and memory requirements. I rather run in native resolution with a good FPS than a lower scaled res with AA with the same FPS unless its scaled 1:2, etc. But 1280x800 is too low a res for me anyway so... At 2560x1600, each level of AA usually adds significant impact on memory and frame rates. Not to mention I hate any fuzziness on lines. If the AA is done properly, you can enjoy it, but at times it fuzzes stuff that should be fuzzed.

On the other hand, If you have the horsepower, like for older games, go for it. Just push the card as high as you can until the FPS starts to drop.

The corollary to that, though, is that if you are playing at a lower resolution, AA is more important for image quality. At 2560x1600, AA doesn't have nearly the impact that it does at 1680x1050 (the resolution of my current monitor). Without AA, the jaggies are often quite noticeable at that res, so I am sometimes willing to sacrifice detail levels to get a smooth picture.

Since I plan on pulling the trigger on my build sometime in the next week (hoping that july 4th weekend will give good deals), I have a quandry.


Radeon 6950 2gb cards seem to be in low supply (at least on newegg). Looking around, it seems that the nvidia 560 Ti seems comparable and in much higher supply (at least on newegg). Checking some benchmarks, the radeon does seem to be a little more powerful, but with overclocking the Ti, could I get comparable performance and is the 560 Ti worth considering as a 6950 equivalent?

Airmantharp wrote:

In the one link you submitted, the CPU's are all over the place, and don't support whatever it is that you're trying to say. I don't see how education factors into this- every comp sci program I've looked into was years behind what was actually being used, or far worse. Further, Crysis and X3??? I've been using Bad Company 2 MP as an example, which came out last year, and is the closest approximation to what the OP is looking for.

are you serious? how do you think these people learn to code? osmosis?

all comp sci programs, up until a few years ago, were taught exclusively in C/C++, primarily because they are flexible, extensible (via libraries) and everything from drivers to OSes to game engines to browsers are coded in them.

the only major university to buck the trend is Penn State and it has raised numerous eye brows because it uses Java (and consequently object oriented principles) exclusively and many have criticized the program for not teaching comp sci students procedural programming techniques, weak pointer implementation and a number of other criticisms.

as for the benchmarks, i was showing that with properly threaded games, the lower clocked cpu with the greater thread capability offers the superior performance, i can't remember which site it was that took a 2500K and clocked it at 4Gz, did the same with a 6 core 12 thread hexa core and an i7 870 (IIRC) and in overall benchmarks, including gaming, the higher the thread count that a processor could handle, the better the performance.

as i said, SB tends to be a bit of a head fake because they turbo up so fast and so much, one site found that with intel's power saving features enabled and the turbo multiplier set to the max they could without messing with any voltages, the 2500 would fluctuate in clock speed from 1.6ghz all the way up to 4ghz.

but as i said, one can't really go wrong with any processor in the $150 and above, the performance delta between most under most commonly used circumstances will not be noticeable by the average user.

you also have the reality that despite what kind of hardware you have, i don't care if you're using SLI with dual gpu cards, the maximum frame rate that can be displayed is limited by the refresh rate, with the rest of the frames, assuming the frame rate exceeds the refresh rate, being stored to the back buffer. then we have the reality that your eyes, under most circumstances, can only discern about 60 distinct frames per second, in average people.

Sputnik7 wrote:

I have been listening to the cpu and AI coding discussion...but I'm not willing to spend the extra 100 bucks for the 2600K, just not feasible within my budget. Besides, gaming is pretty much the only thing those extra threads would be useful for. I don't do any photoshop or movie rendering

if that's the case then why not save as much money as you can and go with an i7 760, buy the cheapest motherboard you can find (i have seen motherboards that support lynnfield's for as little as $55) and crank up the turbo clock (every site i have seen has been able to turn up the turbo clock on these cpu's to 38x-40x on stock voltages). you'll get a cpu that ramps up to about 4ghz under load and runs cool and will clock down (with intel's speed step enabled) really low when idle. couple that with a decent video card and you have a nice gaming rig without breaking the bank.

honestly, you can't really go wrong with most choices and in fact, since you're obviously budget conscience and your computing uses are rather limited, you don't need to drive yourself crazy trying to decide. just pick something and go with it.

sorry, double post, not sure how i did that.

Sputnik7 wrote:

Radeon 6950 2gb cards seem to be in low supply (at least on newegg). Looking around, it seems that the nvidia 560 Ti seems comparable and in much higher supply (at least on newegg). Checking some benchmarks, the radeon does seem to be a little more powerful, but with overclocking the Ti, could I get comparable performance and is the 560 Ti worth considering as a 6950 equivalent?

the 560Ti, from what i have seen has half the on board ram, potentially, with graphics intensive games, at high resolutions, the 6950 2gb would have a distinct advantage as there would be half the amount of swapping from main memory to the frame buffer of textures, especially when you enable advanced card features such as the fancier AA and AF modes, assuming comparably clocked video card ram.

the flip side is that the 560Ti, by virtue of supporting CUDA, would have a distinct advantage in any game coded to take advantage of PhysX and in the future, if you did decide to do any video or photo editing, many programs have started using the gpu to accelerate various video processing functions and those functions are almost always coded using the CUDA framework.

it really depends on your workload, if you absolutely will never have any need for CUDA and you're fairly certain that you won't be playing any games that use PhysX, then the ati card is the smarter choice, that 2gb frame buffer is sweet. however if CUDA could potentially be in your future or Physx may show it's face in the games you play, the nvidia card would probably be the better choice.

with regards to power supplies, i've personally had good luck with antec's products, the price is right and i think it should prove reliable.

Sputnik7 wrote:

JustAnEngineer wrote:

The Logisys CS888CL has the largest window that I've seen.

The XClio 777Color's eight 256-color LED 180mm fans look like something right out of a low-budget Sci-Fi movie. This large case occupies 93 liters of space.

The XClio A380Color costs only about half as much and fills only 2/3 the space but it still features a pair of 256-color LED 250mm fans and another 120mm on the back.

Is that enough bling?

I gave away my cold cathode fluorescent lighting kits several years ago.

Haha that is too much bling for me. I'm thinking something more along the lines of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112320
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197

I have 2 of the Coolermaster HAF 922's and if your not a fan of frequently blowing out dust from the mesh parts I'd recommend something else.

Sputnik7 wrote:

I have been listening to the cpu and AI coding discussion...but I'm not willing to spend the extra 100 bucks for the 2600K, just not feasible within my budget. Besides, gaming is pretty much the only thing those extra threads would be useful for. I don't do any photoshop or movie rendering

Another question for you guys. I have the pro edition of the xtreme power supply calculator that I use to break down my 3.3, 5, and +12V rails for PSU. I put my system in on the calculator and it gave me 475 min watts, and 525 recommended.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I'm looking at this psu, you think I will be ok power wise? Remember, I don't plan on crossfire anytime soon

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016

It's still more than you need, but it's well rated and inexpensive, so I think it's good.

Sputnik7 wrote:

Since I plan on pulling the trigger on my build sometime in the next week (hoping that july 4th weekend will give good deals), I have a quandry.


Radeon 6950 2gb cards seem to be in low supply (at least on newegg). Looking around, it seems that the nvidia 560 Ti seems comparable and in much higher supply (at least on newegg). Checking some benchmarks, the radeon does seem to be a little more powerful, but with overclocking the Ti, could I get comparable performance and is the 560 Ti worth considering as a 6950 equivalent?

If you cannot find an HD6950 at a comparable price to what you initially made your decision on, then the 560 Ti is a very good backup. As we've noted earlier the difference in RAM isn't going to make a difference at your resolution.

deadrats wrote:

you also have the reality that despite what kind of hardware you have, i don't care if you're using SLI with dual gpu cards, the maximum frame rate that can be displayed is limited by the refresh rate, with the rest of the frames, assuming the frame rate exceeds the refresh rate, being stored to the back buffer. then we have the reality that your eyes, under most circumstances, can only discern about 60 distinct frames per second, in average people.

To some degree. Game smoothness is related to frame rate. You can look at average framerates all day, but the median low is the one that you should be most concerned about as it determines just how 'fast' your game will feel. This is more determined by CPU than GPU, too.

to the OP: i just realized something: you already have a pretty decent system, you have an E8400 o/c'd to 3.6ghz with 8 gig of ram and a gtx 260, perhaps your best bet would be to see if you can score a cheap 9550, o/c raise the fsb from 1333 to 1600 and just spring for an updated video card and save yourself a ton of dough.

deadrats wrote:

to the OP: i just realized something: you already have a pretty decent system, you have an E8400 o/c'd to 3.6ghz with 8 gig of ram and a gtx 260, perhaps your best bet would be to see if you can score a cheap 9550, o/c raise the fsb from 1333 to 1600 and just spring for an updated video card and save yourself a ton of dough.

Which would yield 3.4GHz; see my server below. It's still not fast enough, the IPC just isn't there. Even at 4.0GHz (which he won't hit) it wouldn't be as fast as a stock 2500k, which has at least another 35-50% overclocking headroom left.

I have a 2600k and 2x6970 in crossfire. The cpu is definitely not the bottleneck. I get about 40-50% cpu usage, meaning that the game is not really utilizing more than 4 threads most of the time. Of course my framerate is vsynced to 120fps, and BF3 might use more threads. My $.02 is: four threads should be enough for BF3.

If the 2500k seems too slow, you can always overclock it some (which since you're getting a k-series I presume you plan to do). Another thing to keep in mind is that a hyperthreaded (logical versus physical) core only gains you about 30% at the most. In games it probably more like 15-20%. So four hyperthreaded cores are likely to give you the equivalent of around 5 or 5.5 physical cores, assuming that the game can even take advantage of 8 threads.

Good news! I got most of my build. I decided since I don't have to part with my current system until mid or late july, I can hold off on a graphics card until the specs for bf3 come out

here's what I got so far:

Lian Li lancool PC-K63 case
antec 550W psu
crucial c300 SSD 128GB sata 6
g skill 8 gb ddr3 1600mhz ram
intel core i5-2500k (gonna o/c to 4.5Ghz)
samsung f4 2tb mechanical hdd
asus xonar dg sound card
asrock p67 pro3 mobo
zalman cpu cooler

Kamisaki wrote:

Aphasia wrote:

Well, AA or no AA depends on the res and memory requirements. I rather run in native resolution with a good FPS than a lower scaled res with AA with the same FPS unless its scaled 1:2, etc. But 1280x800 is too low a res for me anyway so... At 2560x1600, each level of AA usually adds significant impact on memory and frame rates. Not to mention I hate any fuzziness on lines. If the AA is done properly, you can enjoy it, but at times it fuzzes stuff that should be fuzzed.

On the other hand, If you have the horsepower, like for older games, go for it. Just push the card as high as you can until the FPS starts to drop.

The corollary to that, though, is that if you are playing at a lower resolution, AA is more important for image quality. At 2560x1600, AA doesn't have nearly the impact that it does at 1680x1050 (the resolution of my current monitor). Without AA, the jaggies are often quite noticeable at that res, so I am sometimes willing to sacrifice detail levels to get a smooth picture.

Thats certainly a good point that shouldn't be forgotten.

I really prefer to game at native panel res of 2560x1600 when I can. After doing some Ultra and high-res texure tests with Crysis 2 yesterday, I actually switched to 1920x1200@Very High instead of 2560x1600@High and its better. But thats for multi. Even thought not perfectly smooth, single player is kindof playable with a single 6970 at 1920x1200@Ultra.

The higher res often doesnt sound like that much of a difference, but looking at how many pixels there are on screen makes it pretty clear. 2560x1600 is 4MP, 1920x1200 is 2.3MP, and 1920x1080 is an even 2MP. So in reality I would think that you could push 1920x1080 + at least 2xAA before you reach the same load on the card as 2560x1600. On the other hand, you will suck the memory dry with lots of AA, especially with high res textures like the new ones for Crysis 2. 768MB minimum VRAM is a pretty steep requirement. The weird thing is that performance doesnt scale exactly with the amount of MP. 4MP wont have half the framerate of 2MP, but rather like 20-30% less in most games like BC2, and others. Crysis on the other hand seem to scale decently well when lowering the res.

I would say that priority should be something like this. As long as the FPS is good, you want the highest res you can, after that you can start piling on AA. If you cant run the higher resolution, drop one step and then start piling on AA. In some games AA + 1920 will probably be a better fit than 2560, in others, not so much. But thats just a hunch.

So with bf3 specs unofficially released by gamestop:

Minimum Specifications

* Hard Drive Space: 15GB for disc version or 10GB for digital version
* Operating System: Windows Vista or Windows 7
* Processor: Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz
* RAM: 2GB
* Video Card: DirectX 10 or 11 compatible Nvidia or AMD ATI card

Recommended Specifications

* Hard Drive Space: 15GB for disc version or 10GB for digital version
* Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
* Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
* RAM: 4GB
* Video Card: DirectX 11 Nvidia or AMD ATI card, GeForce GTX 460, Radeon HD 6850


I think a 6950 1gb would be worthwhile eh? Benchmarks i've seen actually show the 1gb version to be faster than the 2gb version. And if bf3 is only recommending a 6850....I think my 6950 would do well for quite a while, don't you think?

If you like high resolution textures and high resolution displays, the 2 GiB card may be a better choice.

Personally, since BF3 releases on 10/25/11, I am waiting to upgrade my 2009 box which is already plenty fast for current stuff. (i7 1366, 5870)

By that time there is a decent chance that 7xxx Radeons ("2H 2011") and LGA 2011 Sandy bridge ("Q4 2011") are available. The former feels like a no-brainer already, the latter depends on pricing.

If you know anyone that built a gaming box early-mid summer 2009, ask them how it felt shortly after

Bauxite wrote:

Personally, since BF3 releases on 10/25/11, I am waiting to upgrade my 2009 box which is already plenty fast for current stuff. (i7 1366, 5870)

By that time there is a decent chance that 7xxx Radeons ("2H 2011") and LGA 2011 Sandy bridge ("Q4 2011") are available. The former feels like a no-brainer already, the latter depends on pricing.

If you know anyone that built a gaming box early-mid summer 2009, ask them how it felt shortly after

The Lynnfield (700, 800 seies) CPUs surely did make the extra expense of X58 with it's three sticks of memory requirement along with more expensive boards due to branding and complexity feel a little unnecessary didn't they? Especially since they handled SLi/CFX pretty well too.

Still, you have a very nice, very fast system- if you're not pushing more than 1080p, I'll bet you can still play BF3 very well with only a few settings turned down.

Further, I'd expect LGA2011 based boards to be even more expensive that their X58 counterparts were/are, and the CPUs to not be any faster than current LGA1155 Sandy Bridge-units. We've already seen that the architecture isn't hardly starved for memory, so it looks like they're going to be workstation focused, with an eye on things like feeding Tesla HPC parts. And I don't think anyone will enjoy having to pay for four memory sticks from the get-go either .

Airmantharp wrote:

I don't think anyone will enjoy having to pay for four memory sticks from the get-go either .

At $120 for 4x4 GiB of RAM and $1000 for the processor plus another $300 for the motherboard, who's worried about memory costs?

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Airmantharp wrote:

I don't think anyone will enjoy having to pay for four memory sticks from the get-go either .

At $120 for 4x4 GiB of RAM and $1000 for the processor plus another $300 for the motherboard, who's worried about memory costs?

That's a good point, though I'd venture the CPU and motherboards will be able to be had for a little less than that, if X58 is any indication. Right now I'd be more worried that memory prices will go back up, as they invariably do, before LGA2011 parts are released.

BD also should be out by then, again, another reason to wait...at the very least to get some benches and price/perf curves on the new stuff. Its a safe bet out with a GPU refresh and 2 CPU platforms by halloween one of them might be a much better choice.

If you're paranoid about ram prices, one of many cheap deals right now (get either 4x2 or 4x4 total) will cover any platform you could get in 2011 or early 2012 DDR4 is still a ways to go.

The Lynnfield (700, 800 seies) CPUs surely did make the extra expense of X58 with it's three sticks of memory requirement along with more expensive boards due to branding and complexity feel a little unnecessary didn't they? Especially since they handled SLi/CFX pretty well too.

Not really, X58 had some sweet spots in 2009 with deals that undercut same clock 1155 and a time that some 3x2 kits were cheaper than the same brand 2x2 kits due to sales/rebates/weirdness. (yes, really) 1155 really didn't offer anything compelling until a bit later, it was gouged somewhat at launch. It would be interesting to compare some invoice histories around then, ram spiked at that time too.

Google "microcenter 920 $200" and you get a post in late June 09 that spells it out: $170 uATX board (I have the same) $200 cpu that overclocks well, $80 for 3x2 1600 ddr3. 1155 didn't touch that combo price/perf that year, though some of the blame could be put on the ram double+ price spike.