Please Critique Gaming Build

[patrick2099]

I was originally looking for a Dell XPS 9100, but decided to build my own, to get more bang for the buck. I was going to go with an Intel CPU, but after reading some of the initial SandyBridge problem information, I decided to stick with AMD.

I was wondering if this would make a decent gaming rig, and if I was missing anything obvious, or if you all thought that replacing something could make a good difference with regards to most bang for the buck. For example, I'm not sure if going with a more expensive motherboard would be worth it. Please let me know what you think. Also, would I need to buy an additional CPU cooler with this?

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Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT90ZFBGRBOX

SAPPHIRE 100314SR Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1501FASS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM

OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD2-2AGTE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

[aznshinobi]

No need to get the 1090T, if you get that you might as well get the i5 750. I suggest getting the 1055T.
Also the Caviar Black's are jokes, not worth their price and way to expensive. Price/Gig is just to high. Get a Samsung F3 1TB for 60$ off Amazon.

Also what's your budget?

If you have like an 800$ budget you could try the build on my website in my siggy. and then add that OCZ SSD into the budget.

 

[patrick2099]

Thanks. My budget was between $600 - $1500 -- preferably somewhere around the middle of that.

Here was my reasoning in the CPUs, including that the whole SandyBridge thing had me scared or accidentally getting one of those.


http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html


Intel Core i5 750 @ 2.67GHz 4,231 $204.99*
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 5,187 $179.99*
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 6,051 $199.99*
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07GHz 6,345 $285.99*


What was your reasoning in choosing the 1055T over the 1090T? I've been out of the loop on computer hardware for years, and you probably have more recent knowledge, whereas I was just using benchmarks.

I will look into the hard drive you recommended as well as taking a look at the builds in your sig when I get back from the grocery store. Thanks again for the help.

 

[aznshinobi]

Well the i7 950>i5 750>1090T>1055T But the 1090T and 1055T are really close because the arch is the same just different clock rate and it doesn't justify the 20$. So the 1055T is a better buy. Then you have 750 which is so close to the 1090T pricing but beats it in almost every benchmark so why skimp on the CPU. After 750, there really is no more point unless you need multi-threaded applications.

1055T vs. 1090T
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=146

i5 750 vs. 1090T
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/109?vs=146

 

[daship]

Sandy bridge if you dont need more then 4 Sata ports.

 

[banthracis]

Sandy bridge if you dont need more then 4 Sata ports.

Problem is, where are you gonna get a mobo right now?

You don't need a 6 core CPU for gaming. 4 core is more than enough. In addition, the i7's actually perform worse than the i5-750/760 in gaming due to hyper threading.

You should fill out the form in the sticky, link in my sig. We need info like, wat's your current monitor res, do you need a new one? etc.


Some basic info about bottlenecks and threading.

There are many factors that determine this point. So I'll divide it into CPu and GPU

CPU half of the explanation-
Short answer. Depending upon resolution and type of game. IE how well threaded it is and whether it has physics and AI, or just AI. Also if it's AI intensive like RTS or not, like FPS.

Long explanation

Threading
Games are very poorly threaded. The part of gaming that is well
threaded, the graphics portions, is handled by the GPU, which already
have hundreds of cores.

In gaming, the most CPU intensive task is AI. AI, by definition is not
a parallel process. It is extremely difficult to thread AI. Most games
that are "multi threaded" actually keep AI on 1 thread and throw the
rest (minor far less intensive stuff) on the other.

Can you design a game to utilize 4 or more cores? Sure, you can throw
all the CPU non intensive calculations onto their own threads, but
until someone figures out a good way to thread nonparallel
computations, the performance increase will be minimal, as the hard
work is still restricted to 1 thread.

This issue has been stumping programmers for decades. There are ways
to do this in specific situations, but no general solution yet. A
general solution allowing infinite threading of nonparallel
calculations would be the programming equivalent of finding the cure
for cancer, noble prize stuff for sure.

Basically think of it this way. On a math exam you have a 3 part
question in which the answer to part each part depends on previous
answers. IE

A. Add up 3 and 5.
B. Use the answer from part A and divide by 2
C. Use the answer from part B and triple it.

what is the final answer?

This is the type of thinking AI requires. Threading this is the
equivalent of calculating the answer to A, B and C simultaneously.
It's not impossible like the mathematical equivalent is, but it's not
easy.

For this reason, more than 3 threads has very little benefit. So if a game is well threaded, it'll utilize CPU up to 3 threads.

On the other hand, if it's not well threaded you're better off with high speed single or dual core.

GPU half of the answer:
Short- depends on resolution, eye candy and drivers.

Long Answer
The higher the resolution, the more the GPU needs to calculate. Hence, the higher the resolution, the more the the bottleneck shifts towards GPU.

At the same time, enabling AF and AA also require further GPu calculations. So if you turn up the eye candy, GPU has to work harder and further pushes bottleneck to GPU.

Additional features such as tessellation also are GPU calculated. So these will also shift bottleneck to GPU.

At the same time, even if the hardware is capable, if drivers aren't then you got issues. If drivers are extremely poor (take TERA currently for ex) both ATI and Nvidia GPU's are getting unplayable FPS when theoretically they should be fine. So in this case, the bottleneck is with the drivers, not the CPU or GPU technically.

Summary:
Bottleneck moves toward CPU if:
Lots of Physics
Lots of AI
Poor threading
Low resolution

Bottleneck moves to GPU if:
High Resolution
Eye candy enabled
Tessellation is used

Bottleneck moves to drivers if drivers just fail.

In general, since people want to game at the highest res and with as much eye candy as they can, you'll find GPu bottleneck.

The one exception to this is poor software coding. If a game isn't coded to use CPU /GPU properly all bets are off and it'll depend upon game where bottleneck goes.

 

[patrick2099]

Best answer selected by patrick2099.

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar