The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

The discussion has moved on to super pi, but I just wanted to belatedly add, Jeff, that the point I was trying to make with my plug for the now-cheap 7950 is that you would NOT have to add $1000 for new hardware, just $300 for that ONE card, since the rest of your hardware is undoubtedly faster than mine - unless you have to run 40fps on everything.

From the way I see it - eye-finity at 6-7 megapixels is the new masochistic resolution, and since AMD had been pushing that concept and now has the 7000 family that can really handle it, 30" gaming for the 7000 family is middle-of-the road and no longer the stress-test it used to be.

Rich

 

The rest of my hardware is not faster than yours. Probably roughly the same if at OC'd settings which it is not. Currently sitting at stock for several reasons. I would require at the very least a new CPU right now to be faster.

Though I do agree that the video cards are more than capable of it, I would probably be buying two of them if playing at 2560 x 1600 because I require higher frame rates than you normally tolerate.

In the short term, my friend is waiting for a good deal on a Bulldozer CPU or Piledriver previews. No matter what he chooses I will be jumping on his 1090T. It's guaranteed to 4GHz with low voltage increases and beyond 4GHz to a reasonable voltage. The Thubans sure do OC well relatively.

As far as video cards go, that's another reason I'm happy at 1920 x 1200. I currently do not need a CPU or video upgrade right now. Everything I play even remotely regularly runs wonderfully. Just tried Xcom Enemy Unknown which is brand spanking new like released in the last few days, and it averages 70+FPS at 1920 x 1200 maxed with 4xAA. Crossfire support is already full 80-90% scaling. I daresay that's adequate.

CPU-wise I have actually considered a Bulldozer for several reasons, but it does not offer the brute force upgrade it would take to make a noticeable difference in the few games that actually need it. And those games don't really need it anyway. Supreme Commander Forged Alliance and Sins of a Solar Empire are RTS(strategy) games and are fully enjoyable with maxed settings even with my OC at stock. Though admittedly any CPU increase at all does improve these games. The only other reason I have to upgrade is emulation of console games. I can do it quite well but some games require mroe brute force than I currently have. Again, not a priority for me as I can play the games I want to just fine. This is why I'm willing to wait for a 1090T before making any other upgrade decisions. If he does not sell it to me, I will be tracking one down for a ludicrous price and buying it anyway.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The short version - I DO require 60FPS on everything, and I do not have the budget to maintain that at 2560 x 1600. I can however, through incremental upgrades to my existing hardware, maintain 60FPS quite well at 1920 x 1200 and 45+ in Crysis which is still quite nuts.

 

That makes total sense to me.

I wonder what the 8000 family will have in store for us.
We should start hearing something about it by end of year I would imagine.

Rich

EDIT - speaking of new games and how stressful - I meant to ask you this before - have you heard anything about the new version of the RTS game Company of Heroes? I'm not sure if the sequel has hit the stores yet.

You and Sam talked me into that RTS as a way to broaden myself beyond stricty FPS - and I thoroughly enjoyed it - and then I picked up the other one, World in Conflict, and I thought that was great as well. So I am pretty sure I will be getting the COH sequel if you guys give it high marks.

 

Company of Heroes 2 looks great and if the developers have their way, it will actually BE great. The same studio(Relic) is responsible for the Warhammer Dawn of War franchise as well if you're into sci-fi/fantasy stuff.

If you want something even deeper, Wargame: European Escalation is great and follows in the same vein as World in Conflict. ie Some messages get crossed and Russia starts World War III. It is, however, MUCH deeper than Company of Heroes or World in Conflict and requires tons of strategy, planning, and patience to play properly. Have spent 6+ hours on a single level just trying to keep all my tanks alive and fueled/armed.

Wargame also has the best selection of troops and tanks I have ever seen in a video game. It has variants upon variants for every possible situation. Something like 10 different kinds of one single tank and 20+ different tanks in the game. Not to mention dozens of infantry types, APCs, tank destroyers, helicopters etc.

If you're a military, Cold War, or general weapons nut, Wargame is a real treat. It also lends itself wonderfully to the capabilities of high resolution monitors

If you want some dumb fun, X-Com Enemy Unknown is just out and actually quite good. Is supposed to be a remake of a much older game, X-Com: UFO Defense, but sacrifices a lot of complexity for accessibility. I thought the original was much better but we're talking NES graphics and running the game in DOS. The technology jump alone is enough to keep me interested, that and the game is well made. Is a squad based tactics game with an emphasis on strategy and planning.

 

Hmmm. Well, I don't know about the second one - when you said the original was better - and that was DOS - I don't know.

But - Wargame: European Escalation sounds intriguing. Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are saying that it is the same type of RTS as the two I am familiar with, Company of Heroes and World in Conflict. If it is at least as good as those two - then I'm interested, and it sounds like you are saying it for sure is.

Wow, it got a high 81% metacritic score. I'll check it out some more. Thanks for the tip Jeff.

Rich

 

Wargame is MUCH larger scale and MUCH harder, so if you want a hardcore challenge... well that's my first pick... Again it requires a lot of strategy and planning but the results are soooo rewarding

 

With the (very expensive) 4TB enterprise drives from WD having been launched, it seems some of that is filtering through to the consumer market - not for a 4TB consumer drive (WD own HGST and the HGST 4TB offering seems to suffice for now), but that the 3TB drives now are using three 1TB platters, instead of 4x750s. Baby steps, mechanical storage is slowly on the move again...

 

Yeah, you just wait - 100 TB by the end of this decade!

 

I can hardly wait for the new Helium 7 platter drives which are soon to hit the market and is in the mix for WD/HGST. More platters and 40% increase in density plus they run 5 to 7 degrees cooler. I talked to a WD rep today and he was pretty high on the new helium drives but he had a really nice aluminium cased 1T Passport drive, much thinner then the previous 500G models which he had in his bag as well.

He also had a Thunderbird drive that will blow everything away since it can read/write all at the same time, it could take 2GB of video and read/write to a new location in just over a couple of seconds, extremely impressive.

 

10 year timescale base:
September 2002: 120GB hard disk drives released.
May 2012: 4000GB hard disk drives released.
Apply trend: 133000GB hard disk would be expected by January 2022 (more likely-> 150TB by mid-2022)

5 year timescale base:
March 2007: 1000GB hard disk drives released.
May 2012: 4000GB hard disk drives released.
Apply trend: 16000GB hard disk would be expected by July 2017, 64000GB hard disk would be expected by September 2022.

3 year timescale base:
January 2009: 2000GB hard disk drives released.
May 2012: 4000GB hard disk drives released.
Apply trend: 8000GB hard disk would be expected by September 2015, 16000GB by January 2019, 32000GB by May 2022


As you see, the closer you start the trend to the present, the less optimistic it gets - hard disk technology is stagnating and will eventually cease advancing altogether, probably before solid state drives have caught up with mechanical drives in cost per GB.
It was originally envisaged that 10TB would be the largest possible 3.5" form factor hard disk. It now looks more like perhaps 20-30TB will be possible, but perhaps no further, and getting this far may take a decade in itself.

At present, mechanical storage costs around $53-$55 per terabyte in the 'sweet spot' zone of 2TB/3TB. SSDs have come down to approximately $600 per terabyte at the bottom end. This is currently about 7-8 years behind mechanical storage. However, it's a considerable improvement on the $2500-$3000 per terabyte of when SSDs first began to be popular.
My personal opinion is that the first 100TB single drive is likely to be solid state. If I had to put a time on it, I'd hazard a guess at 2025, unless there is a surprise breakthrough beyond the standards of technological advance.

 

For all we know, there's a technology right under their noses. Which could advance hard drives well beyond the current trend I certainly hope so Storing Blu-ray movies, especially 3D ones is impractical, even with 4Tb. A 50Tb drive might just be what the doctor ordered Though I'd still like a 1Pb drive I won't hold my breath though...

 

I wouldn't say it's impractical, but it will certainly take several disks if your film collection is big and you're not ripping the files to save space. A 4TB drive will fit about 80-90 raw bluray discs worth of content. Not bad for a single disk if you have a server full of drives.

 

Well I like the drive that you looked at, Steve - just a few seconds to move 2 gigs of data!! WOW!!!

Good for you Sam to apply some scientific method to my random pie in the sky prediction. I vote for your conclusion, yielding maybe a 15-18 TB drive by end of 2019.

Jeff, Wargames somehow reminds me of the complexity of Arma. I applaud the unquestionably ultra-high level of patience that allowed you to dive in and figure out the game. While some reviewers didn't like the game, the majority of them were very impressed.

BUT ARE WE ACTUALLY SAYING THERE IS NO TRAINING AT ALL??????

Kevin will ask, "Why are you shouting, Rich?" Read it again, Kev - NO TRAINING!!!

I believe it is a bad move, marketing-wise, in fact I believe it is UNFRIENDLY, to spend a lot of money making a game and not allocate enough funds to polish it up to the point of including some way to teach the game to the uninitiated. Even the formidable and complicated Arma had training.

(On Arma, I couldn't get through the helicopter training successfully - flying through all those circles down that valley within the tight time limit - I literally pulled an all-nighter. Maybe my old mouse and pad were to blame - this was before my significant upgrade to an Ikari laser and matching steelseries pad. So I skipped the rest of the training and decided to dive right into the game. I was immediately aghast that the giant, almost conically-shaped butt of my rifle seemed to take up more than 40% of the screen. That was it. I decided that Arma and I were not made for each other. )

Both Company of Heroes and World in Conflict had 1. glorious graphics, 2. a nice story, and 3. training. I very much appreciate the tip about trying out the title, Jeff. Because of you I have enjoyed a lot of games I would never have known about - like Metro and like the two Operation Flashpoint titles. But I think I'll pass on this one, unless I am mistaken and you let me know that there indeed IS a training level buried somewhere in the game-start command center interface. LOL

On another note, I finished Episode 4 of Walking Dead - only one more to go - they'll probably conclude it in a few weeks for a Steam download by the end of this month. Those of you who are not high on shooters, or for that matter any video games at all beyond the amusing Angry Birds, might want to check this one out. Virtually all the reviews are VERY positive.



It is a deeply riveting, unforgettable experience, which is also what I think of the TV show. Here's the video walk-through, which has helped me several times when I was stuck. A little viewing of it will give you some flavor of the gameplay.

Rich

 

I guess I could see owning multiple 4Tb drives. Once they're reliable! I won't be the guinea pig on this one

 

A rich guy like you Kevin should take the chance so that we all know whether to take the leap too. LOL.....

Now that Sam got that super nice server case I know now that I will be taking that jump as well, probably next summer if all goes well.

 

You guys and your jumps and leaps to quote Steve above, somehow reminds me of the guy yesterday who jumped on my head TWICE as I guarded the bomb in the bank vault from the counter terrorists, in Demolition, the version of Counter Strike: Global Offensive that Sam told me about. You were right Sam - it's a lot of fun.

If anybody reading this is planning to build a rig to include some light gaming, you might try CS:GO only $14.99 at Steam, or Walking Dead (see a couple posts back) only $24.99 at Steam, both very light on graphics card requirements, and both a lot of value for the money.

Rich

 

I have a friend that just got Walking Dead 5, he likes it but it has caused him some problems too.

 

Oman7,

Check out this Intel SSD! $235 w/free shipping

Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW240A310 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167088&name=Internal-SSD

It's just under $1 per GB, and a very fast SSD. Probably the best bang for the buck that Intel offers in an SSD, at the moment.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I'll have to admit SSDs are starting to get tempting. Definitely one upgrade I could make without hesitation.