Computer Build Resource Thread - Page 117

On December 01 2010 10:58 FragKrag wrote:
In your case, the bottleneck could easily be your CPU or your GPU. 8800GTS was a pretty good card, and the CPU is decent as well. Just not ultra material.

On December 01 2010 14:04 Myrmidon wrote:
@petergibbons: At a quick look, I think you can save some money on that easily. Most games don't use that many processor cores, so they don't benefit much (usually not at all for a quad core) from hyper-threading, so an i5 is as good as an i7 for your purposes. Triple-channel memory is likewise not important. If you're not sure about overclocking, maybe a decent budget cooler is in order, rather than something like a H50. Anyhow, if you're spending this much already, you might as well get an SSD too, but I didn't list one.

There may be some better deals, but I think this works better:

+ Show Spoiler [quick list of parts] +

On December 02 2010 06:13 skyR wrote:
OEM is one time activation. Meant for system builders. Once you install it on a computer, you'll be able to reinstall on that same computer if necessary. If you change hardware or try to install it on another computer, it'll say "Please call Microsoft to activate" or something like that. Most people abuse this and use the OEM key for multiple builds but its only meant to be used for one build.

Retail, its yours. You can install it as many times as you want on as many computers as you want without having to call Microsoft to activate it each time.

On December 02 2010 10:35 Myrmidon wrote:
@petergibbons: btw, it looks like a lot of those deals I quoted you that were hanging over from around Black Friday are gone. The TruePower New is at the normal price, and the combos are no longer available. Are you going to be looking for a new list, or did you order already?

Sure, that works. For the record, I'm not much of a fan of future-proofing through getting high-end current components. Upgrading more frequently with bang-for-buck options will give you better performance on average for less money over time. (Of course, upgrading may be considered a hassle, and time is money...) Better things are always on the horizon, but in a little over a month, there's already going to be a $200 CPU (with a $120 mobo or so) that is faster in most tasks than the i7-950 system.

More specifically about the new build: what programs were you going to run again? With a motherboard like that, I hope you have plans for exotic high-end overclocking and/or at least two GPUs, if not three. By the way, with an X58 system, get three (six) sticks of RAM to utilize all three memory channels.

I'm still convinced that most users would feel much more of a performance boost from an i5-7xx system with an SSD over an i7-9xx system. Do you want a 10-30% increase (or so, depends on what you're running) in CPU compute performance, or a 10000% increase in random access speed from disk?

On December 02 2010 12:16 Myrmidon wrote:
For gaming on a single (or dual) GPU, an i5 quad core at the same frequency as an i7 is just as good as the i7. Both have the same Nehalem microarchitecture, meaning the inner CPU compute hardware is the same. The i5-7xx have the same number of cores and cache as the i7s do too. What is different is that the i7-9xx has hyper-threading and more interfacing bandwidth. Those advantages don't really make a difference for what you're doing.

A few games benefit slightly from hyper-threading; most see no benefits. You can find some benchmarks if you search for them. If you really need hyper-threading, the i7-8xx CPUs have that and don't require you to get an expensive X58 mobo.

Most games are limited by the GPU's capability rather than the CPU anyway. An OCed (or even non-OCed in most cases) i5-7xx should really hold up for 3-4 years. If it doesn't, the i7-9xx probably wouldn't have either. I'd get the i5-7xx and SSD, really.

By the way, on a single GTX 470 system, a good 500W PSU should provide plenty of room for decent air overclocking.