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OT (sort of): My pc is beeing born, the lomac/movie pc of my dreams...but need advice


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  • ED Team

Hello all.

 

Ok, in just over 2 weeks, i am out of the military. I will be a free bird again.

 

I have started looking for pc parts, because i will be building my pc from scratch. But i need help and advice on what to buy, and please mention the best there is, then work your way down on what i should buy (price, quality, name it all of you know it).

 

So far, for my new pc, this is what i have bought:

 

Graphics card: ASUS Extreme N7800GTX Top

 

Soundcard: SB Audigy 2 ZS

 

Sound: 7.1 Surround sound 700W

 

Keyboard: Internet navigator SE

 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

But i am still missing quite alot of hardware. So i need some tips on what to buy.

 

I am looking at buying 2-3 gigs of RAM, so what is the fastest ram i can get? (dont worry about how much it will cost, i can afford it at the moment :D )

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Cheers

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Definetly you would need dual 7800gtx to enyoj the game in its full glory. Its just how demanding this game is. And the ram is not much important here. 1 or 2 Gigs should be more than enough. I would give focus also on rising Cpu power the game demands because of AFM and other complex computations it uses and willl be using in future.

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You don't really need duel 7800gtx because lock on doesn't really use sli to its maxiumum potential. You should focus on the cpu which i suggest you get the FX-57 which is the fastest one out there right now, 1 gig of ram is enough (2 gig if you just want to blow off some money), and one 7800gtx.

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What SuperKungFu said. One or two gigs of RAM should be more than enough (unless you want to run LOMAC and movie making programs simultaneously), and a single 7800GTX is fine, although you still might want a SLI/Xfire-capable mobo.

 

I also think that, as Super mentioned, that you should focus more on the CPU - I'd recommend high end AMD processors like the FX-57. If you still have some money to blow, then maybe you might want to invest it in some first rate cooling solutions (like liquid cooling).

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I get to live the fantasy a bit here, so here goes . . .

 

MB:

Here’s a suggestion about a MB. Stick with Asus. The A8N-SLI. Asus may not always be better in some obtuse way or another, but it’s always a stable, quality board that will O/C as well as any other . . . and it won’t give you grief. IMO, the only reason anyone buys anything other than Asus is because it’s cheaper.

 

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-p/overview.htm

 

 

 

CPU:

Here’s your processor. AMD FX57. It’s the fastest . . .and the bestest. The new duel cores are not supported by LOMAC and run at slower clocks. . . the Intel duelies run at much slower clocks.

 

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_9488,00.html

 

 

 

RAM:

Here’s a suggestion about ram. Get the fastest you can get. This is the Corsair PC2-6200 (DDR2-800). It is the fastest right now.

 

http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/hardware/1538_1.html

 

 

Why. . . . .? Here’s a review of the #2 speed ram modules now. You are going to be overclocking, right? You want to turn up the CPU and the ram together, but CPUs O/C much better than ram modules. If you ‘run em up’ together, you will hit the ram’s top speed long before the CPU hits its max RPM. The solution is to either turn down the ram speed (to keep that slower ram below redline) or buy very fast ram that can keep up.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050718/

 

 

 

GRAPHICS:

I’m thinking that second 7800 (for SLI) might not hurt. I’m seeing that LOMAC will run in SLI mode. This system is going to be the fastest around. That FX57 will easily go to 3ghz and that will put it on par with the Intel 5ghz processor . . .that doesn’t exist outside of a lab.

 

 

POWER SUPPLY

Here’s a suggestion about a power supply. Whatever you do, don’t scrimp on this. Problems that might start up because of an over-taxed PS are just weird. It’ll make you crazy. Reboots, fragged graphics, lockups. UGH! The extra $50 you might spend (over a lower powered uint) will be the best spent bucks in you rig. Get a brand name and stay at or above 600 watts. Don’t even mess with it.

 

http://www.enermax.com.tw/products_page.php?Tid=1&gon=261&Gid=18&Gid2=45

 

 

CPU cooler

Here’s a review of some Heat Pipe type CPU coolers. There’s no real need for water cooling any more. It’ll only get you a bit more and you're at risk of a flood! These pipes are great. There was a guy over at LOMAC/UBI that was building one on a budget. It looked like his 3000+ (@1.8) was going to be able to O/C to 2.8 with a heat pipe CPU cooler. That’s where your FX57 starts! With the right cooling, where can yours go?

 

http://www.extrememhz.com/hyper6-p1.shtml

 

 

CASE:

Speaking of the right cooling, how about a suggestion for a case for all this . . .

 

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_3/601-9132189-6738549?%5Fencoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B0009EXXYW

 

Actually, I’ve considered this. The defrost cycle might end up being a problem though?!

 

Good luck . . . and welcome back . . .and BTW, many thanks.

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Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN
The new duel cores are not supported by LOMAC and run at slower clocks. .

 

dont you mean that you have to use one core in multiplayer as it stutters, so you have to force it to run on one, but they do run at there normal clock speeds ? the clock dont get lowered at all, but yeah the fx55/57 would be my choice of cpu atm...

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  • ED Team

Thanks for all the tips.

 

I dont think im gonna go buy another 7800 gtx, i think ill wait a little.

 

And, YES, of COURSE i will be making more lomac movies, i have been waiting for over 1 year now.... :D

 

I can't wait to release more movies, its gonna be a fun and hectic year now hehe :D :D

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200 gigs is not enough lol. Seriously its not, I’m running out. I have way too much…umm…airplane videos in there. ;) Anyway…since you are a very respectable lomac movie maker…maybe you should get the AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 4800+. Although it is not as fast as the FX-57 that I previously recommended, I believe it is still faster than the FX-55. Plus it is duel core which will be great for movie making. Although lomac doesn’t really take advantage of duel core as of yet, the future gaming should be all leaning towards that direction.

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A little more about CPUs. . .

 

AMD is running their top dog 64 X2 Dual Core 4800 at 2.2 ghz.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-x2_3.html

 

2.2ghz is their 3500+ clock? Right? And AMD is calling this a 4800? They must have some sort of answer to this. Maybe the answer is this. The duel cores will do the work of a 4800 IF both cores are used by the programs? So, if the box is mainly for LOMAC, the FX57 will work just like their dualie X2 4800 while still allowing a full 2.8ghz ride for LOMAC. Gotta be something arguable because 2.2ghz is nowhere near FX-anything clock speeds. With the X2 4800, LOMAC will run at the speed of a $250 AMD 3500+. And speaking of . . .

 

 

Their FX57 runs at 2.8 ghz

 

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2456

 

LOMAC does stutter with the dualies. But even if it didn’t, it still would not use the second core. You might as well shut it off, stutter or not. It’s no use to LOMAC. This is really the single Big Step ED could take to making their game run better . . .eg, enabling their code to utilize dual core processors. With the new 7800/SLIs, the game is almost completely CPU limited now. If the code is so ‘locked in’ to the need for raw processing power, ED’s only real chance to improving their game’s playability is to let it use the new dualies. I doubt we need to tell them that!

 

All the AMD dual cores run at slower clocks than the FX5(X) group. I think it’s a heat issue. There are actually 2 sets of CPU hardware on these chips. So, potentially they are having to deal with 2X the heat. They had to turn down the clock to keep the heat under control.

 

Intel’s fighting the same battle. Intel’s top single core CPU is up to, what, 3.8 now-a-days. However they had to turn down their dualie. Intel’s top dual core runs at 3.2ghz. This is the equivalent of an AMD 3200+ running at 2ghz, so the AMD dualie is still faster than Intel’s.

 

. . . .but clock-wise, they are all slower . . . much slower . . . than their fastest single core counterparts.

 

Oh, and hard drives . . look at the Western Digital Raptor. It’s SATA spinning at 10,000 rpm. It’s the fastest thing available ( and a 5 year warranty) . . . and if you wanted to raid ‘em, look out! If I was building one, I’d get 2 of the WD 74gig raptors and raid ‘em. (That Asus A8N has plug and play sata raid.) Then get any old 160gig as a ghost backup for the raptors. Then I’d start getting 250gig standard 7200 rpm sata drives, or the biggest drives I could get, as my storage for movies (and stuff) my needs increased. Seagate has big ones and a 5 year warranty. My main programs would go onto the raptors for quick access. No more waiting for 10-30 seconds for missions to load!

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A few months back, I ordered 2 x 300Gb Seagate IDE drives (one for boot + apps, the other one to ghost entire first 300Gb drive to once a week, then disconnect it totally from power and IDE cables... just in case!). When the box arrived, it had an extra 74Gb 10krpm WD Raptor SATA drive it... it wasnt on the picking sheet, it wasnt on the order, and I didnt pay for it. I kept it for a couple of weeks to see if they noticed, but they didnt contact me. So, now its in my machine, with my pagefile and system TEMP directory sitting on it.... whoosh! :)

 

Drive space... if you are doing video (which you are) you can NEVER have enough drive space... ever... (go for drives with 16Mb cache if you can, but choose Seagate first cos they have 5 year warranty!!)

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