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New PC Build specifically for FFXIV
So for the last few weeks I've been working my butt off doing odd jobs for family to raise some extra cash to upgrade my now going on 3yr old PC, and granted my current build ran almost every game on near maximum settings. Still though my goal is to build a damn fine PC for FFXIV so I can crank the settings to maximum in towns and 15-man Guildleves with no stuttering or slowdown...
I am so excited for FFXIV I want the best possible experience at launch and beyond. Anyhow, my previous build was an AMD Athalon X2{dual-core} AM2 3.0GHz, 4gb of PC800 DDR2 RAM, with a stock heatsink and fairly crappy APower 850w PS which totally died on me 2 days ago. Here are the new parts I recently bought this past week, which I am now running. I am verily exciting and greatly enjoying the upgrade!
Yes I know I could have waited and gotten a few higher-end parts even cheaper by the end of the year, but really though; parts are always dropping and better ones coming out so you just have to pick a period of time, buy stuff for a good value that will last several years and repeat...
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
Antec TruePower New TP-750 Blue 750W Continuous Power ~ dern PS died the other day, had to buy a new one. This one however just screams high performance though so I'm happy!
A-DATA Gaming Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ~ Was only able to afford 4gb for now cause my PS went out, but I'll be getting another 4gb in the next few weeks!
Thermaltake CLP0554 SpinQ VT Universal CPU Cooling Fan ~ This is that huge Mofo in the images below!
Now all I need is the new nVidia EVGA GTX 480 later this year once the price drops a few hundred $$$ I'm currently running the nVidia GTX 275 896mb.
And here are a few images of said build, man I so love the heatsink...one massive turbine of cold air shooting out 360 degree helping cool other parts too. My CPU now idles around 36-38c and peaks under a full load at 49-51c, hasn't gone any higher yet...fricken sweet, and I'm only running the fan at 1000rpm, can still bump it up to 1600rpm should it be required...
So is anyone else out there building or upgrading their PC for FFXIV!? Please share your builds here...should be an interesting discussion.
Comments
It's needs some new rims, then feel free to ghost ride the rig.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Why a 480? Get a 5970.
Does anyone know if it will be necessary to run dual style (SLI) with this game to achieve max performance, or is it not needed?
EVGA-GTX 295 series (running solo atm), seems to run Aion fine on max settings, bought rig just before Aion came out, so Sept~ 09...
6 GB RAM
2,7~ Ghz
Quad Core i920
1000 W Corsair Power Supply
Cooler Master case
Bose speakers
G15 keys/gaming mouse/speed mouse pad
22 inch Hans --- another question! How badass will this game look with HD computer moniter? maybe it's time to upgrade to HD? heh, I played xi on a 360 with HD 32 inch TV, was damn sweet!
Asus Deluxe V2 Motherboard (had problem with 1st gen?... so RMA'd that one for a newer upgraded version that doesn't screw around with RAM performance, was only reading 2GB at first, but then after new board, registers 6, weird....
But with the new board, runs smooth as butterz lately.
No one knows. If you want to play it safe, get a 480 or 5970. Or I guess a second 295.
Don't try and turn this into an nVidia vs ATI war please. Just accept the fact that different gamers like different products and be done with it!
I can assure you that running your PC on a rather large, high-end monitor or HDTV is exceptional. This is what I use, a 40" 1080p HDTV by Proscan...whenever I have to get on my other PC or use one elsewhere that is like 19" crt or at most 22" widescreen I cringe after using this for the past 10mo.
it's a hemi
Looking good!
Geeked for FFXIV
Freelance FFXIV guide author for Ten Ton Hammer.com
Call me crazy, but the first thing i noticed was a big wooden spoon.
I think it just needs more cowbell.
Is all this gear really necessary? Just seems like overkill to me. Not meaning ot disparge all the hard work the OP has done. But If there wasn't a tower of cooling would the machine run just as well?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
nice build!
if you dont mind me asking, what was the total damage of the build?
Also, is the 480 as noisey as people claim? (Im in the process of saving for a new build myself using a 480 or 470)
Uh, the initial cost 3 yrs ago was like $2300, then a new monitor and video card, and PS a year ago were another $1000...etc This upgrade thus far has cost me $572, and I still need another $204 in parts sitting in Newegg checkout, then of course the 480 which I'm hoping to get for around $300 or less before FFXIV...maybe nVidia will do another version thats much cheaper but just as powerful like they did with the GTX 275.
Probably not, but its also for asthetical purposes...it just looks so dern cool and it is very cool too...rofl Nah really I did a bunch of research into this SpinQ and it really does do a damn good job, far better than a stock heatsink, plus the extra air being thrown in all directions helps a ton. Previously what I upgraded from only had a stock heatsink on it which was sitting idle at around 43-48c, and then on full load I'd see it jump as high as 83-87c...thats very hot. This SpinQ has kept my cpu at maximum load 52c and less, and as low as 31c idle...its really nice.
Granted this build is primarily looking forward to FFXIV, as I build most my PCs for, MMOs seem to be the only thing worthwhile anymore to spend money on, since they provide months of entertainment for very little $$$. However I'm also greatly looking forward to trying out the DX11 games that are coming and having that Tesselation feature. Developers have actually embraced DX11 this round, instead of discarding it like they did with DX10....so I wanna be well prepared for gaming in general for the next 3-4 years+
Nice looking rig!
Just one suggestion... IMO a 750watt PSU ain't gonna cut it for a 480. I have a GTX260 and with the rest of my rig 750 watts is pushing the limits... in fact I think it's bottlenecking the GPU on the more graphics-intensive stuff that I do.
I would recommend going with 1000watts to keep yourself future-proof... at least until the time comes that you'll need an entirely new rig...
ya know... in like 6 months when new hardware comes out
Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience.
I guess you've never built a computer before, otherwise this would be normal to you...
uh, could you elaborate? My roomate has built several computers but I dont' recall us even owning a wooden spoon. though maybe we do?
I can however understand the sentiment.
Many years ago when living with friends, we would often run out of toilet paper. Which of course would lead to us putting paper towels in the bathroom until we bought more. Well, one day we realized that we were out of both toilet paper and paper towels.
So I had the bright (read: brilliant) idea to use paper coffee filters until we went out. They aren't soft but they are paper and after all, people used to use the Montgomery Ward catalog for paper a long time ago, so same idea.
In any case, over the months coffee filters would eventually always be on the shelf "just in case".
One evening my friend Anne came over to watch movies. Anne is one of those tall, brunette, bombshell type women but with brains to match. She is also the type of woman who has nine pillows on her bed and thinks this is a good thing.
In any case she went to use the bathroom, closed the door and then subsequently opened the door asking "why are there coffee filters in here?"
And my first thought was "well why wouldn't there be...?"
In any case your comment reminded me of exactly that moment.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Yipes you must be running a ton more than I, but I've looked over the total wattage I'd need from all my parts, and currently with a GTX 275, which requires like 550 watts, and a combined total of all my other parts are less than 30w, so a 750w is far more than I need. The GTX 480 is 600w requirement, so even when I have that I'll still be well under 700w. Really a larger watt PS like 1000+ is more for if you're planning to run SLi with a duo/tri or even quad GPU which I never bother with, 1 card is far plenty and I don't do any overclocking either.
So, stupid question. how does one tell how much power a power supplie "supplies" without opening up the case?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Exactly...large wooden spoons are quite the staple in successfully building a PC, guess it would also help to know that I'm a personal chef and was also cooking at the time and kinda brought the spoon in to my PC area on accident. ROFL...its still there too, forgot to put it away...guess was too excited to test this new PC out...hehe
You have to get a better display.... with HDMI...something like, Viewsonic or HP. Or even better a Mac display.
huh!? My HDTV does have HDMI, and looks just as good if not better than a normal PC monitor. Would appear that you're judging the quality from that crappy digital cam shot I took really quick; then yeah it doesn't look so good, but just as many before you have questioned it, yes an HDTV works perfectly for a PC monitor.
There can be off-center issues on occassion with certain games that don't have a resolution setting, but eh whatever...hehe
Hehe, it's a nice rig. I'm planning on building my own around November, since i don't really need one now. I'm sure prices will be down as well as i plan on building around an i7 920. I'm fighting the urge to do it now though as my current rig is close to 4 years old, but i think i'll make it.
I would like to add on the power supply a bit. When picking out one, the amount of watts is not as important as the number of amps on the 12v rail. A single rail with 70 amps on the 12v line would be more than sufficeient for any card. Thus a 800 watt power supply would be more than fine if it was of sufficient quality.
The amouont of watts comes into play when you are running 3 dvd roms and 4 hdd with 7 fans, and 3 leds These parts each require a certain amount of watts.
Been trying to find more info on my PS, but nothing is documented on how many amps per rail it has. Mine has 4 ~ 12v rails, but how do you find out how many amps each rail has?
Might have just found it:
Output +3.3V@25A,+5V@25A,+12V1@25A,+12V2@25A,+12V3@25A, +12V4@25A,-12V@0.8A,+5VSB@3.0A
So that looks like I have over 150amps yes?
You are correct in your assumptions. I count 100 though. I do not rely on multi rails. That is a debate for a whole new thread. They seem to be most usefull when having many pcie slots being used.
My newest build has the link below. I just link this to show you my ideas, not to say its superior to yours. I prefer one steady stream of current.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009