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Best Specs for a PC to run the new MMORPGS coming out
doinkermit
Member Posts: 36
I am about to buy a new pc/laptop from Alienware and i can customize it basically any way i want online,
so i was wondering what do you reccomend in terms of
procceser
Ram
Video Card
Disk Space(amount of storage on the comp)
and anything else i have no idea about for computers !
Note: Money is not an issue, the price does not matter
Currently Playing: GW
Waiting For: Fury, AoC, GW:EN
Comments
CPU: Duo Core (Intel) (Note: Quad cores are nice if you want to extend your rig further, but I haven't read of any games fully utilizing multi-threading between even twin cores yet.)
RAM: 2gigs (MINIMUM) DDR2, 4gigs (RECOMMENDED) DDR2 (Note: If the motherboard you want to buy can max out beyond these, do it. RAM is always good to have more of.)
Video Card: Geforce 8800 of current best version or later version (Note: This isn't set in stone since by next Christmas you will probably see Nvidia and ATI going into overdrive to promote any of their DX10 cards, and that means price wars. And that means you can get a better card than the 8800 (baseline version) for less.)
Disk space: 1 TERABYTE (MINIMUM), MORE (RECOMMENDED). (Note: Yes, at this time, most consumer HDD's are still below this mark, but a few 1 TB HDDs have been seen on market, and they are going be expensive. But don't fret, the price on data storage has been at an all time low, therefore it's the buyer's market for now. Take advantage of it!)
-- Brede
i would recomand
Cpu: Intel core 2 duo, 2ghz and above, get the fastest now.
ram: 4gig yap
HD: 2x 2 200gig sata 2 will do, too huge you will have problem to format or do any maint
graphic: get a motherboard that support SLI and get 2 geforce 8800
And get a good processor fan eg. coolIT to cool down your cpu as it will get very hot running hihg end stuff.
Hope this helps
RIP Orc Choppa
I'd actually recommend you try and build your own computer and not get an alienware. I mean, dont get me wrong...alienware has lots of good stuff. It's just that you'll spend more money on and alienware just because of the name. The name is well known; therefore, they can charge more just so that you can say "hey i got an alienware" and people can make googly faces lol
i dont know how to build a computer nunez
Currently Playing: GW
Waiting For: Fury, AoC, GW:EN
"RAM: 2gigs (MINIMUM) DDR2, 4gigs (RECOMMENDED) DDR2 (Note: If the motherboard you want to buy can max out beyond these, do it. RAM is always good to have more of.)"
pointless having more than 4gig your OS will not be able to handle more than that.. unless for some reason your running a 64bit os.. still pointless wasting your cash on anything more than 4gig..
ahh sorry......most people know how...not that hard..sorry
If you are specifically thinking about upgrading because of games like Age of Conan, you should maybe wait until AoC is actually released to make sure that you get the latest in GFX-card technology (DX10) - not sure if there are any major advances to expect within the next months, but from what I hear there is still some room for improvement in that department.
I have a GeForce 8800 GTS 320mb Extreme edition graphics card. Is that gonna be good for AoC?
Well when you are looking at mmos you have to remember, that there are alot of textures in the cache, and alot of drawcalls with characters on screen. This means the most important things on your computer are Video Card, Memory, and Processor. Here is my in-depth analysis of each aspect, I am using Age of Conan as a base example since it seems to be the most intensive graphics wise.
Processor: The processing power required by games really hasn't gone up in rescent years. For games made today, an AMD 3000+ or Intel P4 2.4 ghz is plenty enough to run them. However, if you are looking into the future this should spark up. One thing to look at in Age of Conan is the sheer amount of foliage. They are using speedTree and DecoLayers to create this which means alot of particles. Also they have mounted and twitch based combat which is alot more processing power. Ontop of this, every texture utilizes normal maps that have to be calculated. Suffice to say, it will be processor intensive. However, I am pretty sure it will also be multi-threaded.
I highly recommend getting a 2.6 ghz dual core processor like the E6600 Core2Duo, or the 2.6 ghz AMD Athlon 5000+ Brisbane Core. Its pretty easy for people to write Core2Duo as the best processor, but it really isn't. If you look at the benchmarks the difference between Core2Duo and Athlon aren't drastic. Yet when you look at the actual specs of the processor, the core2duo should score a huge margin further then the Athlon. The only conclusion I think is that there must be something in AMD systems that make it meld better with other components. So when AMDs new line comes out this year, there might actually be a flip flop of whos ontop soon. Really though its up to you to choose between AMD and Intel, either is a great choice for several different benefitsl; just remember to get atleast 2.6 ghz.
Memory: There is alot of texture data stored in games, especially MMOs due to all the customization a person can do. So naturally you will need more memory. However, the amount of memory depends on the operating system. You can use less memory if you are using XP over Vista. This is unless you optimize Vista. Another point to keep in mind when getting memory is that developers look at the lowest common denominator in development to maxamize profit. There is no point in releasing a game if its specs are too high for the majority of people to play.
If you are running Vista, I recommend 2 GB like the poster above. This should be ample for the next crop of MMOs, as well you can always add more later. Memory dimms are pretty easy to install.
If your on XP, then 1.5 GB should suffice. Although if your going through a manufacturer, you will probably be stuck with Vista which is good since it will be the only OS to support DX10.
Also one last aspect to take into consideration is if your using a 32bit operating system or 64bit. The 32bit versions of windows only recognizes up to 4 GB I think. Just remember aside from this, the more the better.
Video Card: You definetly will want to get a DX10 compatible card. Although what kind is completly up to you.
You can go low end ~$100-$200, such as the Nvidia 8600. It won't be able to play games on max settings, but it does take advantage of the better graphics handling of DX10. Also don't get an ATI HD2400 or HD2600. These cards might be cheap, but they perform subpar compared to the competition.
Or you can go midrange around $300 with the HD2800, or 8800GTS and lower end GTX models. The most ideal for gamers is the 8800GTS w/640MB ram. Although the HD2800 does have some benefits. Specifically it deals with some issues within vista better. Such as the HDMI audio issue. Both have there ups and downs in benchmarks, and although some say the 2800 is crap it does perform better in several benchmarks.
On the high end $500+, you only have the 8800 GTX until ATI releases its high end which makes use of fast gDDR4.
First off, alienware charges 1.5-2 times the price of purchasing the parts and assembling them yourself. A $2500-3000 computer from alienware can be purchased and assembled for $1000-1500. If you are ok paying the price premium then ok... that is your decision.
To be honest, there are no computer assemblers that offer the same price/performance as assembling the parts yourself. If you want to assemble the parts yourself there are plenty of reputable online retailers such as newegg, ewiz, and zipzoomfly.
As far as which parts to choose... there are some best choices but it also boils down to personal preference.
For video cards there is no reason to buy anything less than an Nvidia 8800 for games. The Nvidia 8800 GTS 320mb card offers the best price/performace/futureproof combination. The 8800 640 is also a good choice for not all that much more money. If you are considering a 2900, or 8800 gtx/ultra you should just wait for the fall release of next gen high end cards. Early adopters of high end cards get good value even though the cards are really expensive. They get good value because the high end cards stay at the top of the performance charts for longer than midrange cards. So you can jusify the expenditure knowing it will be a good card for a long time. Also, high end cards do sell well after a year or two so you can help fund your next video card purchase. Do not bother with crossfire or SLI unless you have more money than god and don't mind wasting it.
I am a big fan of the recent intel processors. At stock speeds they offer slightly better performance for the price of amd chips. If you are into overclocking the intel chips have WAY more headroom. If you do not plan on overclocking consider the intel dual core E6600, E6700 or the quad core Q6600.
I prefer hitachi and western digital hard drives. Storagereview is a good website to learn more about hard drives. Do not bother raiding them for desktop/gaming use. If you want performance, get a single performance hard drive. Performance drives are WD raptors or current high density drives such as the tk1000 1gb drive from hitachi.
Powersupplies are tricky. Hard to tell if you are going to get a solid performer or a piece of donky doo doo. Even powersupplies from the same brand vary greatly. The best advice I can give you is to go to a website of industry professionals that review, test, and dismantle powersupplies like jonnyguru. In his forums he has a list of quality sub $150 powersupplies.
Motherboards are personal preference. Some people prefer intel chipsets and some people prefer nvidia chipsets. I would get a motherboard with the intel P35 chipset. Although there are a ton of good motherboards. Some motherboards pack a ton of features, some offer a lot of overclocking adjustments, some offer sli or crossfire (not reccomended) and some offer stability (intel brand motherboards). I would reccomend brands like asus, gigabyte, foxconn, and intel. Hardware review sites like anandtech and [H]ardocp can help you choose with their quality reviews.
Do not bother with DDR3 memory yet. It is too expensive and does not really perform any better than DDR2 at the moment. Get no less than 2gb and no more than 3gb (unless you plan on using a 64 bit OS). You can get a quality DDR2 2GB dual channel kit for $70-$100.
Good luck!
If the price doesn't matter y dont you just max it all out ? ^^
My advice if you want a monster rig.
1.) Learn to build your own computer !! It's will worth the hassle in building your own because you have quality control on all your parts and you can spend and save on parts you want you might consider to be most important. It's not that hard to do once you learn and you'll be wondering why you took so long to not learn to do so.
2.) If you want to take advantage of that 4 gigs get a 64 bit OS. 32bit OS's only support at max 3.5 gigs of memory if you are lucky. This is dependent on your motherboard mainly and the OS. More then likely if you stick 4 gigs of ram into a pc with Windows Xp, VISTA 32, or any other 32-bit OS you'll only have access to 3 gigs. In windows the extra 1 gig of memory is assigned to be used by peripheral devices.
In the end I'd suggest 4 gigs because you want to stay future proof for when you move up to Vista 64 or any other 64 bit OS. Get the fastest ram you can get. DDR2 ram is nice but DDR3 ram is just around the corner and rumors are it is bringing in some nice speed improvements.
3.) I'd recommend getting a dual core cpu like Intel's Core Duo. In fact the E6750 and E6850 models are due out in a month or so and from this article the E6750 is great bargin. It can be OC'd from it's 2.6 ghz to around 3.9 ghz just using a after market cpu and heat sink !!
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/e6750_performance_preview
As others have stated not many games use multi-threading yet and quad core CPU's are just over kill. Not to mention that future quad core cpu's will be cheaper and faster once you do need a quad core cpu to run a game.
4.) Get a solid motherboard that has nice OC features and that will support future Intel/AMD cpus. Make sure it supports current ram types and if you can newer ram types around the corner. My advice is to wait until Intel ships it's new Core Duo cpu's in July and then wait and see what is out there. If you can get a fast motherboard that supports the up and coming DD3 ram spec then snatch it up.
Of course if you are going with a SLI setup with your video card then you will have to get a Nvidia chipset. The best Nvidia chipset on the market is the 680 chipset but it only supports DDR2. If you want a SLI setup that supports DDR3 you are going to have wait a bit for it to be released by Nvidia. Intel released their own DDR3 board recently though in preparation for their July price cuts and cpu roll out so if you aren't looking for SLI setup this maybe the board you want right there.
5.) Get a Nvidia 8800 GTX video card ! 2 if you are rich and have money to burn so you can run them in SLI mode for games that support SLI mode. It's a monster of a card in both performance and size !! I mean this baby is freaking huge compared to other video cards. So if you get 1 or 2 8800GTX you are going to need a full tower case and even then you need to make sure there is space to pop in both cards easily.
6.) Get a 150 gig Western Digital Raptor ! Two if you got the money. Running at 10,000 rpms it is the fastest non-SCSI hard drive you can get. Remember you are only as fast as your slowest part when it comes to PC's. So while having tons of space is great for movies, pics, games, etc... If you want a fast rig you need to get the right parts that cater to speed and this drive is a speed demon out side the SCSI world.
Games I've played/tried out:WAR, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, AoC, EQ1, EQ2, WoW, Vangaurd, FFXI, D&DO, Lineage 2, Saga Of Ryzom, EvE Online, DAoC, Guild Wars,Star Wars Galaxies, Hell Gate London, Auto Assault, Grando Espada ( AKA SoTNW ), Archlord, CoV/H, Star Trek Online, APB, Champions Online, FFXIV, Rift Online, GW2.
Game(s) I Am Currently Playing:
GW2 (+LoL and BF3)
I would watch out on an AMD board right now just because AMD is nearing its release of Phenon processors. With it they are releasing a new board set. FX+ and AM2+ which have some integration features that make the processors run a little better; although FX and AM2 boards will support Phenon.
the guy with the long post was pretty much on point, I'll get a bit more specific and expand upon what he said as well as tell you what im running and love. btw I work for the largest system builder in my state and we build quite a few machines so I know a thing or two about this....
MOTHERBOARD: If you get the CPU below I recommend get the accomponying Extreme Edition mainboard that goes with it, nothing beats this combo IMHO, I have an older set and love it. Intel board works well with Intel chip, no conflicts which is nice and these high end boards have RAID 5 features native, which I'll get into.
POWER SUPPLY: Don't go any less than 550-600W and get a good one, skip the modulars even though they are cool, go with Enermax, Thermaltake, OCZ etc.
OS: Vista or XP? Doesnt matter like he said use 2GB if you go Vista though, and also go 64-bit if you do (drivers are a bit harder to find and get all components going but I have a fully functional 64bit Vista I game on and it rocks)
CPU: AMD or Intel as he said up to you, I would go Intel if money is not a problem. And ya the E6600 is nice but go with an Intel EXTREME EDITION processor. Such as the Core 2 Duo 2.93 Ghz Extreme the fastest up until the Quad Core Extreme came out www.intel.com/products/processor/core2xe/index.htm with is the fastest workstation chip on the planet buy it if money isn't a problem. Model: QX6800
CPU FAN: Go with a large copper Zalman add-on, about $80 but quiet as hell and awesome performance. or opt for liquid cooling if you want to try that out, and then you could overclock this bad boy
VIDEO: As he said go with an 8000 Series Nvidia, since you got plenty of money go ahead and pop in a 768mb Nvidia 8800 Ultra in there or maybe two of them in SLI mode ($699 each) or all the way down to the 8600's if you want to save a few hundred. The main thing to think about here is do I want bragging rights? And do I want to make this thing so kick ass I don't have to open the case for three years? Keep in mind in 12 months a new card will be out thats over $500 that blows everything else away and what you dropped all that money on will be sitting on the shelf for $149 by that time. I have a 7900GS similar to 8600 and it's runs all the latest great in 1280x1024 MAX settings all and its slower than the 8600.
RAM: 2GB DDR2-667Mhz or 800Mhz if you board supports it get the Game Rated stuff with the good latency timings from Corsair or Geil, OCZ. Maybe even opt for 4 or 8 since you can afford it and if you go 64bit OS which allows 128+MB of RAM you may one day use it all. You won't really be able to take advantage of all of it, but what the hell you got dough like I got time on my hands, hah.
SOUND: get a SB X-Fi or better yet an even higher model like the FATA1TY card, reduce CPU load to run sounds thus making system faster.
NIC: Gigabit no doubt..........should be onboard with the extreme combo
OPTICAL/FLOPPY: Do whatever you want here, Blu-Ray, DVD+/-RW (Dual Layer) floppy yes, floppy no, really its up to you but if you do want to go with a RAID on the Hard Drives get a floppy, trust me you'll be glad later if you have to reinstall the drivers for your onboard RAID if you reinstall your OS.
HARD DRIVES: The general consensus is go with the Western Digital RAPTOR series hard drives and stripe them for speed performance. This is definately a good way to go. However, I opted for (4) 250GB Seagate NL35 Enterprise drives on a RAID 5 (Parity but you can think of PARITY or RAID 5 as basically mirroring and striping = speed increase + data redundancy in case a drive fails) I never backup my data so I like knowing I have my hard drives on a RAID 5 backing everything up. If one drive fails I stick another in and it rebuilds itself, a very nice feature if you have gigs and gigs or plan on having gigs and gigs of data on your PC like music, videos, games, etc.
KB/MOUSE: Go to Best Buy and find one you like, hah
MONITOR: same thing here
OTHER STUFF: Get Vista Ulimate if you go Vista because if you have an XBOX 360 or other Media Center extender you can network the two and run Media Center on your TV in your living room through a networked PC rooms away in the office, very cool.
HERE IS MY SYSTEM AND I RUN EVERYTHING GREAT: IT WAS TOP OF THE LINE ABOUT A YEAR AGO.
Intel Core Duo 3.2Ghz Extreme Edition w/Zalman copper pipe heatsink and 80mm fan
Intel Extreme Edition 955BK Mainboard
2GB DDR2-667Mhz
256MB Nvidia 7900GS
(4) 250GB Seagate NL35 SATA-II Hard Drives RAID 5 Config.
SB X-Fi
Thermaltake Tsunami Dream with 600W OCZ Powestream SLI PSU
Sony FD
Sony DVD+/-RW
Sony DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
Hauppauge WinTV PVR150 Tuner (works with my Media Center
Vista Ultimate 64bit
and yes don't go alienware they are very expensive build your own as suggested if you dont want to pm me and i'll build you one or go with a well known gaming pc company like Falcon Northwest, as I said I work in the IT industry and know many people in the channel I could get you in touch with a local game rig builder more than likely, hit me up don't go alienware they are a rip off def pay 1.5-2 times the price
Kinda in the same boat, i plan on going for WAR. I wasnt too much into AOC but if i was how you think
like ram wise, 2gigs will hold
graphic card wise, x2 GeForce 8500GT's
CPU, AMD Dual Core 4800-500
how you think that will hold up? I mean i plan on building this within the next two months than updating christmas time.
ATI 2900 HD (2 of them in xfire)
2x 150gb SCSI in raid 0 (30krpm boot drive)
+2x SATA2 1TB in raid 0 (for downloads)
Intel Core 2 Quad QX6600
A Dual core motherboard (using V8 technology (2x quad core))
And for gods sake dont buy vista.
--
Note: PlayNC will refuse to allow you access to your account if you forget your password and can't provide a scanned image of the product key for the first product you purchased..... LOL
One of the most important thing when u build any computer, the first thing u should spend ur money on is the motherboard, try to get the latest and high-end motherboard coz it is worth the money and it will stay with u at least 2 years also u will still find upgrades for it,i.e:
MB: ASUS P5K3 DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
And the second important thing is power supply, as long as your computer parts get the exact power that they need, then your parts life will be longer that expected. i.e
PSU: OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W Power Supply - Retail
And all other parts that u wanna get will depends on your budget
and in my opinion get the both that i mentioned above and the below:
CPU:Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail
Graphics:EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768-P2-N831-AR HDCP Video Card - Retail
Memory: before u decide which memory to go with, first u need to check the ( QVL ) from the motherboard website.
For one wait till the mmo you want is about to come out (with-in a month) . - this means cheaper prices and/or better hardware.
Two - atm liek what everyoen else said intel nvidia , get good CAS ram (lower better) good cooling and power suply .
Build your own..
Biggest HDD = the HDD ill pass on . with HDD you want to buy good ones that have been out for a little while ... and thus have alot of reviews and prefromence testing... from there the faster it is the better it is (you can find transfer bandwith and latency tests which show what Hdd REALLY are the best not just claim to be the best).
Spend less ... less is more this is always true with computers and tech... the less you spend the more you get. you can drop 3 k on just the computer and have the sweetest comp around... however in 1-2 year/s that will no longer be true. instead drop 1.2-.5k max on one (depending on what you already have) MAX MAX MAX for everything ( maybe minus the display) and in a year or 2 you can basicly get a new computer or up date it to be in the very top of computer preformence.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Dont go with Alienware. They sold out to Dell a couple years back. They are just really expensive Dells now. Go Falcon Northwest or Voodoo PC as they are better companies imho.
And I say go:
Core2Duo Quad Extreme
4gb @ 800-1000Mhz RAM
2x150gb WD Raptor(Raid)
2x500gb WD for storage(Raid)
SoundBlaster Xifi
8800GTS/GTX
Vista Ultimate
www.voodoopc.com/default.aspx
www.falcon-nw.com/
---------------
Tested over a 115+ games since 1997.
Currently Playing:
Played(Retired): AOL NWN(91-95), UO, EQ1/2, DAoC, CoX, Lineage1/2, SWG(Pre CU/NGE), Planetside, Anarchy Online, FFXI, AC, Vanguard, D&D, AoC, DCUO, Rift, Eve, others
pretty much what this guy said, except the terabyte of storage isnt needed... speed matters much more, 500gb is enough imo
by the way this will cost u an arm and a leg :P
Why is everyone reccomending and buying 2-4 hard drives for a desktop gaming rig?
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid. Just get one good hard drive. Less money, less power consumed, less heat, less chance of data loss, and it performs basically the same. I can link you many many many articles that state raid for desktop gaming rigs is not worth the hassle. Here are a few:
"So what's a 'real world' speed increase of typical Windows and Linux applications? It is difficult to put a solid number on this figure, because of the diversity of software out there, but it is reasonable to assume a 0% - 15% overall disk performance increase moving from a single disk drive to two in RAID 0, with rapidly diminishing returns as you add more drives." - Storagereview.com
"In the balance of our application and game tests we only noticed a 2%~3% performance difference between RAID 0 and single drive configurations. Unless you extract files, copy or move them on the same drive, and encode all day long then the benefits of RAID 0 on the typical consumer desktop is not worth the price of admission." - Anandtech.com
"Of course, I would be remiss not to point out how little performance impact different RAID levels had in our application benchmarks and stopwatch tests. Although multi-user and synthetic disk subsystem tests like IOMeter, HD Tach, and ATTO show clear differences between the performance of each RAID implementation and array configuration, the performance benefit in more real world applications is significantly less pronounced." - Techreport.com
If all you do is synthetic benchmarks... then sure you will notice some performance gain with RAID 0. If you actually use your computer for gaming then you will not notice a difference using RAID 0. Save yourself some money and dont bother with RAID for gaming rigs.
Vigor gaming is also another good pc company. I got mine from there and its great!
ive got a question why does everyone suggest nvidia whats wrong with ati i know ati hasnt released a card yet to compete with nvidias top card but if you are all going to suggest he waits why dont you allso suggest he waits to see if ati can come up with a better card for cheaper and second this is kinda off topic but what is the best RAID setup that should be used
pretty much what this guy said, except the terabyte of storage isnt needed... speed matters much more, 500gb is enough imo
by the way this will cost u an arm and a leg :P
Agreed. A terabyte of storage is overkill for a gaming rig, and 500gb is more than enough. All of my games (and it's a fookin' lot of games) fit nicely on a single 320gb hard drive. More is only really needed for storing a lot of movies or TV shows, and even then it takes a lot to fill up a terabyte.If you're a gamer, just get a 320 or 500 gig drive. If you're a shameless video pirate and TV junkie, consider a terabyte or more.