Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Buy or Not To Buy that is the question?
19" LG freeview TV/Monitor with remote and box with audio in&out, HDMI scart etc
Trust wireless 5 button mouse
Illuminated keyboard
Intel i3 540 overclocked to 3.7gb per core
4GB Kingston Hyperx DDR3 1600 MHz ram
Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 Motherboard
ATI Radeon 4870 1GB
1TB Samsung F3 HDD
600W OCZ power supply
Super multi DVD rw
Edimax Wireless network card
Is this system going to run any MMORPG well or is it back to the drawing board?
Any advice would be very welcome!
Thanks.
Comments
If you're getting it used for $500 or something like that, then go ahead. But that system makes no sense at all to buy new today. Where did you find it?
E-Bay.
I already have a supposedly decent set-up. If a little dated:
AMD PHENOM 9750 Quad Core (Aspire G7200) 2.4 GHz
4G RAM
ATI Radeon 4850 HD (2g)
It seems every MMORPG I decide to buy says that my specs are good enough
to have a 'good experience' then fail to make the grade when actually playing.
I'm really not that familiar with computers so I can only assume it's my card or my processor, or knowing my luck, both.
Any advice, which will probably include get a new rig,, would be most welcome.
Thanks for replying to the thread btw.
It's Rift at the moment by the way.
If the problem is that the game is choppy even at low video settings, then you'll need a new processor. Check your motherboard for BIOS updates, as it's likely that you can drop in something newer like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103921
Or maybe something somewhat faster like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727
The latter will take more power than what you have now, though, so your motherboard and/or power supply may not be able to handle it.
-----
On the other hand, if the problem is that, while the game runs very well at low graphical settings, it chokes when you turn up settings to where you want, then the video card is the problem. A Radeon HD 4870 is faster than a 4850, but not that much faster, so buying the new computer you're looking at won't help that much. You can replace just the video card, but you'll likely need to replace the power supply, too, in order to handle the new card. Your case may or may not have sufficient airflow to dissipate more heat, so you'd have to check on that, as well.
Or the problem might just be that for a new game, either the game engine is inefficient and never going to run well, or the video card drivers simply aren't optimized for it yet. Speaking of which, when's the last time you updated your video drivers?
The new computer you are looking at would be faster than the one you have now, but not by a whole lot. I wouldn't recommend upgrading to it, you could do better just by putting that same amount of money at a new CPU/Video Card in your current system.
Something like an AMD 6850 would work pretty much no matter what power supply you have (they are extremely low power and moderately low heat), it wouldn't use any more power than your current video card you'd be replacing, and be considerably faster for about $160 (US). Drop in a newer Phenom II like Quiz is recommending, and your computer would feel like a totally different animal between the two upgrades. And if you decide to upgrade your power supply, that wouldn't be extremely expensive either, around $60-70 (US) would net you a decent 500W~ish power supply that would easily power that video card and new CPU.
Thank you both for the observations.
I updated my drivers about two days ago, and to be honest, it did help a little.
I'll start making enquiries about upgrading as you both suggested and see if I can get one MMO working sufficiently to my liking,
If you upgrade your phenom cpu you'll also need a new motherboard and ram. That will almost equate to replacing your whole system(minus the dvdrw, psu, hdd)
Your proposed system is what i would consider mid range pc for gaming.
Imo if you're on budget try looking for 2nd hand rig or 2nd hand part.
For decent gaming now and the near future i would suggest MINIMUM
a intel i5/amd x6
a nvidia 460gtx/ati 5870
Socket AM3 processors are backward compatible to Socket AM2+ if the processor has a DDR2 memory controller onboard as well as the DDR3 controller. Deneb certainly does, and I think Propus does, too, but I'm not sure. You'll need a BIOS update to handle it, though, and you'll need it to be low enough on power consumption to not fry the motherboard.
System: Fully Built PC System
Colour: Black Piano Finish Coating
Cooling: 1 x 80mm Side Fan
CPU: Intel Socket 1156 Dual Core i3 540 3.06Ghz
Memory: Branded 4GB DDR3-1333
Hard drive: 1TB (1000GB) S-ATA ll 7200rpm
Optical Drive: 24x Sony S-ATA DVD+/-RW DL
Graphics: 1GB Intel HD Support 1080p Blu-Ray
Graphics output port: VGA, DVI, HDMI
Card Reader: Internal All-in-one with USB port
Audio: 7.1 8-Channel HD / S/PDIF (2 x front ports)
USB: 6 x High-Speed 2.0 Ports (4 x rear, 2 x front)
eSATA: 2 x Rear eSATA Ports
Network: Rear Ethernet LAN RJ-45 Port
Expansion: PCI-Express / PCI
Warranty: 3 Year cover
Does this pass the mustard at all?
I'm sorry to keep harping on about builds. But I can just about press the on button on a computer without bringing the house down. Any feedback, once again, would be appreciated.
Do you really want to try to play games on Intel's notoriously bad integrated graphics?
Having one small 80 mm fan and nothing else for airflow, save the power supply fan, also means you can't safely upgrade it much.
A Core i3 processor is entirely the wrong sort of system to be looking at. On a large budget, you should get a Core i5 2500 (or 2500K) Sandy Bridge processor. On a smaller budget, you should get an AMD system based on a Phenom II X4, or perhaps Athlon II X4 or X3 if you're really trying to cut costs. Either way, you need a discrete video card meant for gaming.
If you need someone else to assemble the parts for you, then you should only buy from a site that will tell you exactly what parts they use. In particular, if they won't tell you exactly what power supply--meaning, the brand name and model, not just the nominal wattage--then ignore the site and look elsewhere.
If you are strapped for cash and just looking for something good enough to play MMO's on, then there is one decent deal out there. This was linked on the FFXIVcore.com forums, and all in all it's not a bad deal for a pre-built computer.
These are two different vendors, both sponsored by Crytek and nVidia, and the goal was to create a machine for as cheap as possible that could run Crysis 2 at 30FPS at 1080p. The machines aren't a bad deal for being pre-built, and are somewhat upgradeable to boot.
There are two vendors listed, both are displaying very similar machines for $599 (US). Both are using an Intel Core i3 3.1Ghz CPU with an nVidia 550GTX video card and 4G of DDR3 RAM. They do not include a monitor in the bundle.
If your willing to build it yourself, you can do a bit better (although not by a whole lot), but as far as pre-built goes, it's really a pretty good deal for a decent gaming machine, and it has a little bit of room to upgrade.
http://www.geforce.com/#/News/articles/gaming-pc-for-599
Those are pretty good deals as pre-built goes. They both have the glaring problems of cheap junk power supplies and really low end motherboards. Maybe you can live with the latter, but the former is a problem.
Thankyou both for the detailed info.
I think , rather than wasting money on a cheap set up, I'm probably better off saving for a decent PC.
I do have my eye on an Alienware Area 51 which will ,hopefully, fulfil my gaming needs for at least a couple of years.
Presumably, by the time I have the finances together, it will be an Area 61.
I can't thank you both enough for your good and sensible advice.
Cheers.
Best advice I can give you is to take your machine to a local computer shop (not a box store like best buy), and tell him/her to go over your system, and make sure it's optimized.
I remember a buddy of mine had a rockin' system, but could barely get better than 25fps on the newer games with it. I dived into his bios, only to discover he had set his memory clock to 200mhz, which multiplied to 400mhz, when it was fully capable of handling 1066mhz.
Badabing, bada boom. Next thing he knows, he has 60fps.
I would hesitate telling you how to do this yourself, seeing as most of it is BIOS work, and that's a pain to explain on the internet, and could risk real damage to your components. Just infuse a little cash into your local economy, and see if the tech will let you watch.
I've noticed Rift has some serious FPS issues ATM even on solid rigs. It doesn't seem to matter what graphics setting you have either. I just find it odd that I can run SC2 at maximum settings and get 120fps, run Age of Conan at maximum, get 90fps, and run Warhammer Online, getting 100fps. This is extremely odd since Warhammer Online, and Rift are identical twins graphics, and engine wise.
Thanks.
It might be a little more sensible trying it your way, rather than doing a bad job myself through a web 'instruction' site. Meanwhile, I'll continue on with the investigating.
That might have been a joke, but if not, the reason for the name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#UFO_and_other_conspiracy_theories_concerning_Area_51
It was a joke...but thanks for the link anyway.