Poll: New computer help

[ojm62]

Hi guys, I'm about to buy a new pc and need some advice from fellow gamers. I would like to be able to play games like crysis maxed out, but at medium resolutions, and this is what Im thinking of getting:

Phenom II x2 @3.1 ghz
2 gig of ram (maybe 4?)
ati radeon hd 4890 1gig
£442 all in all.
Is that cpu and gpu enough? Or would a dual gpu serve me better?

Cheers.

 

[ojm62]

Anybody? lol

 

[ghalkhsdkssakgh]

I think, at £442, it might not be enough for what you expect. You might have to spend a bit more than that.

 

[ojm62]

I think, at £442, it might not be enough for what you expect. You might have to spend a bit more than that.

What part do you recon I should splash some more cash on?

 

[ActionDan]

I think You'd be better off going with a ATI 4870x2. Best single card on the market. Except maybe the Nvidia GTX295. And even if you get the single 4870x2, You won't run Crysis everything maxed (especially the Anti aliasing) And there isn't much point because Crysis isn't that much of an in-depth game anyway. You'll be done with it in about a day.

 

[Azhrarn-101]

More RAM won't hurt, with Vista (and soon Windows 7) 4 GB should be almost mandatory and Beefing up that Phenom II X2 to a Phenom II X4 shouldn't break the bank providing the motherboard supports that.

Other than that, looks pretty good.

As for ActionDan's comment about the 4870X2, not all games play nice with Crossfire (even if it is on a single board), the 4890 is more reliable in terms of performance.

 

[z3rostr1fe]

I don't know about AMD's, but I think that would be adequate for several games as compared to an Intel P4 bought in 2005. :/

 

[ActionDan]

More RAM won't hurt, with Vista (and soon Windows 7) 4 GB should be almost mandatory and Beefing up that Phenom II X2 to a Phenom II X4 shouldn't break the bank providing the motherboard supports that.

Other than that, looks pretty good.

As for ActionDan's comment about the 4870X2, not all games play nice with Crossfire (even if it is on a single board), the 4890 is more reliable in terms of performance.

The 4870x2 isn't a a cross-fire setup, it's a single card. Just has two GPU's in one card.

 

[ghalkhsdkssakgh]

I think, at £442, it might not be enough for what you expect. You might have to spend a bit more than that.

What part do you recon I should splash some more cash on?

As the others have said, you might want to spend a bit more on the graphics card. Like ActionDan said, though, I wouldn't use Crysis as a benchmark for your games. Its graphics are more of an anomaly than anything.

 

[ojm62]

I think, at £442, it might not be enough for what you expect. You might have to spend a bit more than that.

What part do you recon I should splash some more cash on?

As the others have said, you might want to spend a bit more on the graphics card. Like ActionDan said, though, I wouldn't use Crysis as a benchmark for your games. Its graphics are more of an anomaly than anything.

If I were to get a better gpu, such as a gtx 285 would that be any better? Cheers

 

[ActionDan]

Yes, try to go through a selection of games you have (especially if you have Steam, makes it alot easier) and If not, use 3DMark.

 

[Azhrarn-101]

The 4870x2 isn't a a cross-fire setup, it's a single card. Just has two GPU's in one card.

Exactly, 2 GPUs which means it uses the multi-GPU portion of the drivers, in other words CrossFire.
These things don't act like they're one GPU, they act like 2 independent GPUs, which means that games that don't scale with CrossFire don't scale with the 4870X2 since it's essentially a more compact form of conventional CrossFire, and why you need CrossFireX support when you use 2 of them in a computer, because you'll have 4 GPUs to control.

 

[megalomania]

For the price you are getting a pretty sweet deal. People will always tell you to get a better card but the 4890 is perfectly capable.

The PhenomII x2 is only dual core but its still a good processor.

The only thing you might think about is a bit more RAM. If you are running XP you will be fine with 2gig, if you are running Vista and try to play any heavy duty games you may find you will run out of paged pool memory or something, so 4gig might be better. (If you are getting two gig of 1600MHz DDR3 vista might cope because it is fast enough to compensate! Also you could turn aero off)

 

[The_Prophet]

Hi guys, I'm about to buy a new pc and need some advice from fellow gamers. I would like to be able to play games like crysis maxed out, but at medium resolutions, and this is what Im thinking of getting:

Phenom II x2 @3.1 ghz
2 gig of ram (maybe 4?)
ati radeon hd 4890 1gig
£442 all in all.
Is that cpu and gpu enough? Or would a dual gpu serve me better?

Cheers.

Seems fine to me. I have:
ATI Radeon 64 x2 6000+ 3GHz dual core
ATI HD 4850
3GB RAM, and I am satisfied. Oh and you should get atleast 3GB RAM. 2GB is not enough.

 

[ActionDan]

The 4870x2 isn't a a cross-fire setup, it's a single card. Just has two GPU's in one card.

Exactly, 2 GPUs which means it uses the multi-GPU portion of the drivers, in other words CrossFire.
These things don't act like they're one GPU, they act like 2 independent GPUs, which means that games that don't scale with CrossFire don't scale with the 4870X2 since it's essentially a more compact form of conventional CrossFire, and why you need CrossFireX support when you use 2 of them in a computer, because you'll have 4 GPUs to control.

Wow damn. I suppose it IS crossfire when you put it like that. I've always thought of it as just 1 single card though. Anyway anyway games are handling Crossfire better now along with SLI, I know someone who has put 2 4870x2's in his PC and it runs anything like a dream. Downside is that 4870x2's are still quite expensive. £300 region. Yeouch.

 

[Horticulture]

CPU and GPU look fine. I'd spring for 4 gigs of RAM, though.

 

[ojm62]

Cheers guys, so 4 gigs of ram is advisable, and perhaps a dual gpu, but if I overclocked the cpu would it still be worth changing it to a quad for gaming?

 

[Azhrarn-101]

Wow damn. I suppose it IS crossfire when you put it like that. I've always thought of it as just 1 single card though. Anyway anyway games are handling Crossfire better now along with SLI, I know someone who has put 2 4870x2's in his PC and it runs anything like a dream. Downside is that 4870x2's are still quite expensive. £300 region. Yeouch.

That's true, support for multi-GPU has improved a lot over the last year or so, but it's still far from perfect and given the cost of the 4870X2 the performance gain for resolutions up to and including 1920x1200 is hardly noticeable.

Check the following links from [H]ardOCP for comparisons on a few recent games.
Basically if you're not using a 30 inch screen with a 2560x1600 resolution, you generally won't need that 4870X2. =)

ArmA 2 [http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2009/08/10/arma_ii_gameplay_performance_image_quality/1]

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood [http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2009/07/21/call_juarez_bound_in_blood_gameplay_perf_iq/1]

Ghostbusters [http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2009/07/01/ghostbusters_gameplay_performance_iq/1]

Demigod [http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2009/06/15/demigod_gameplay_performance_iq/]

In fact, the HD4890 he already has is often among the best choices up to 1920x1200.

Cheers guys, so 4 gigs of ram is advisable, and perhaps a dual gpu, but if I overclocked the cpu would it still be worth changing it to a quad for gaming?

That depends, at 3.1GHz it certainly isn't bad, but to "future proof" your PC a bit ahead of better support for multi-core processing that X4 isn't a bad choice. The additional ram is a great investment though.

 

[snow wolf]

:/ what games do you plan on playing XD