O hay abc i haz build - Modern Warfare 2 Forum: Free Call of Duty MW2 Community

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 08:15 AM

Getting the 965-i5 level performance for as low as I can. I'd like you to chip in on whether or not the price difference is worth the performance difference. I'll be ripping out the guts of my current system, fyi.

All prices are VAT-inclusive.

Phenom 965 - £136.95
MSI 770-C45 - £77.31 £49.25
OCZ 2x2GB DDR3-1333Mhz 9-9-9-20 - £82.98
ASUS 5770 CuCore - £122.20

£363.32 from eBuyer.

i5 750 - £158.62
ASROCK H55-M - £65.71
OCZ 2x2GB DDR3-1333Mhz 9-9-9-20 - £82.98
ASUS 5770 CuCore - £122.20

£429.51 from eBuyer

UKz JoKeR · 03-06-2010, 08:20 AM

Wouldn't you have been better sending this post to ABC through PM. That was a joke btw, Just I don't know much about computers :L

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 08:22 AM

You also don't know much about jokes, apparently.

UKz JoKeR · 03-06-2010, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViS

You also don't know much about jokes, apparently.

ConVISED ?

fenny · 03-06-2010, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViS

You also don't know much about jokes, apparently.

lmao owned

**abc** · 03-06-2010, 11:12 AM

This little tool provides a nice little head-to-head on two proccessors to give an idea of performance. 965 vs I5 750 With the exception of far cry 2 and a really really long sum on excel, the difference is rather negligible. Essentially the I5 is upto 10% quicker to edit videos and 5% quicker at anything else.

I'm sure given how perfect the above two suggested builds are you've probably considered this, but just incase you haven't...

If you're after a 5770 level of performance, you could get a 4870/4890 second hand for £75 onwards (could save £45, which could stay in your pocket or pay for the I5) If it's the DX11 that you want then of course a 5770 is the right choice.
I guess it's worth mentioning that a 5770 is easily the best buy. Also a 1GB CuCore is probably the best pick of the non-extreme 5770s.
If you only really play games then the difference between a 965 and your OC'd Core2Duo, is rather small, so much so that it'd be very tempting to just get a 5770 and save a few hundred.
Admittedly in photo/video editting the quad makes a massive difference.
You could infact keep your DDR2 RAM (thus saving £80 odd) and stick the AM3 Phenom II in a DDR2/AM3-compatible AM2+ motherboard (hope that made sense. AM3 CPU works in AM2+ motherboard. AM2+/AM3 motherboards are same price, but an AM2+ motherboard would take your existing DDR2 RAM. Therefore an £80 cheaper way to get Phenom II 965 performance...)

I've nothing to say on the two builds. Regarding bang for buck they are both excellently specified.

The 965 is brute force and big numbers to make up for it's natural inferior-ness whereas the I5 is brute force + intelligence. Therefore the potential ofr the I5 is massive. It has hyper threading which potentially means 40% faster if a program supports it, when it's only using one core (say, gaming...) it realises and turns the other three off and overclocks the first core to 3.8GHz... on top of that it uses less power, can overclock further and offers crossfire.

I think you need to double check the price of that motherboard for the AMD build... they appear to be £49.99? If you were to get the AM2+ version and keep your RAM that'd make the 965 build a rather hard to ignore £150 cheaper than the I5 build...

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 12:56 PM

Try as I might, I can't find a 4870 for anything less than ~£100. Is there anywhere that you could point me towards?

UKz JoKeR · 03-06-2010, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenny

lmao owned

Not Really!

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by M16BE4ST

Not Really!

I'm standing on the sky.

**abc** · 03-06-2010, 02:26 PM

If you search completed listings, UK, auction, HD 4870 on ebay - the winning bids on the last items were:

£79.98
£69.00
£93.00
£110.00
£91.50
£90.00

And that's since March the 5th. Probably not worth the hassle of ebay for £90+ but I reckon a week of being patient will see you grab one for £70. Privately, amongst friends or tech forums, they tend to go for £75.

There are also plenty of people desperately trying to get something for their GTX295 or HD4870x2 so they afford 5870s and GTX480s when they arrive, but IMO a dual-GPU card aren't a good buy for average joe.

What resolution is your screen? For non-crysis levels of graphics & detail etc a 512MB vs 1GB 4870 makes literally half a frame per second difference even at extreme resolutions.

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 03:00 PM

My screen's only 1280x1024 so I'm looking at the 512mb version. That might change depending on whether benchmarks are released for BF:BC2 with its epic draw distances.

I hadn't considered eBay, tbh. I'll take a look through it and see if I can nab one at a decent price.

**abc** · 03-06-2010, 03:28 PM

what did you think of the Phenom II + AM2+ mobo = keep DDR2 RAM = save £80? IIRC you have 800MHz which is fine, but if it's "only" 2GB then I'd stick with upgrading.

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 03:32 PM

I'm still doing research on that. Do you have any DDR2 vs DDR3 performance comparisons? I can't seem to dig any up. My original plan was to use the DDR3 to give the 965 some more overclocking headroom since it's meant to be an absolute beast at it with the unlocked multiplier.

UKz JoKeR · 03-06-2010, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViS

I'm standing on the sky.

Are you this random all the time ?

**abc** · 03-06-2010, 03:47 PM

You can gauge the real-world impact DDR2 vs DDR3 has just by glancing at the images, never has the word "negligible" been so appropriate. iXBT Labs - DDR2-800 vs. DDR3-1333. Does DDR3-1333 Make Sense?

The speed of the RAM will not affect how far a CPU with an unlocked multiplier (say, the 965) will overclock, whereas the quality (not speed) of RAM will affect how far a locked-multi CPU (say, an I5 or your E6600 or whatever it is) It would not suprise me however if an AM3 CPU worked better in an AM3 socket (which would require DDR3, hence the tenuous link between DDR3, a 965 and PROFIT ?!?!?! )

Are you planning to overclock? if you are then overclocking the 965 on a cheap mobo will be far easier than OC'ing an I5 on a cheap mobo. Also a 965 will need a £30 cooler to get it anywhere significantly above 3.7GHz. Have a look at the prices, but a Phenom II 955 will in this build, given the abscence of a £100 made-to-overclock motherboard & £30/£40 cooler, probably reach exactly the same clock speed as a 965 but for less money.

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 03:58 PM

That's a revelation. I'll profess to being an OCing noob, having only needed to bump my E6750's FSB up to 400 without touching voltage or doing anything else to it before my epic failure Novatech bundle mobo died (NEVER buy a Novatech bundle).

For £80-something less though, I think I'll settle for less OC headroom (My RAM is epic fail). I'm really not thinking straight today.

EDIT: The money that I save on sticking with DDR2 doesn't outweigh the AM2+'s slightly choked bandwidth compared to AM3 and the loss of an extra 4GB of faster, higher-quality RAM.

Fuck the 5770 too. I probably won't be able to run DX11 games at decent frames when they come out anyway.

**abc** · 03-06-2010, 05:03 PM

"the loss of an extra 4GB of faster, higher-quality RAM."

This confuses me a bit. Define "extra," you weren't planning to add new DDR3 to old DDR2 on a motherboard that only has two slots

?

Furthermore I thought the article about RAM that I linked showed that going from fast DDR2 to slow DDR3 is nigh-on pointless.

Yes, current gen graphics upgrades are pointless especially if you have an 8800GT and game at 1280*1024. IMO in general graphics upgrades are soon to be utterly pointless given your 2 (or even 3?) year old mid range GFX card can adequetely handle any pathetic console port (which is increasingly all we ever get...)

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-06-2010, 05:08 PM

It's just some necessary future-proofing. I fully intend on upgrading to a better monitor with my next set of purchases (government owes me a lot of money...) and I'd rather have an adequete GPU before that point. Besides, it's already getting difficult to max out everything with AA at this res and I really would like to do that.

The RAM upgrade IS nigh-on pointless if you don't consider the fact that I am, in effect, going from 2GB of DDR2 to 4GB of DDR3 for around the same price. It seems like DDR2 prices have gone up among all of the big vendors.

EDIT: Specifically, the difference is only £20. That's a pretty small amount to pay for the extra bandwidth of the AM3 platform.

mYbuLLeTurBRaiN · 03-06-2010, 08:45 PM

I can honestly say I don't understand a word you guys are saying.

**abc** · 03-07-2010, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViS

I am, in effect, going from 2GB of DDR2 to 4GB of DDR3 for around the same price.

Ah, right. My bad, thought you had 4GB of DDR2. In that case yes/no, virtually everything you are planning is perfect.

Sure to get the most out of each platform you need to spend more money on it at a later date (i.e. a cooler) but I'd view the I5 as a longer term solution. As I said it's extremely fast now ("extremely" = beats an I7 in gaming...) and has the potential to be massively faster if overclocked with a £30 cooler, the mobo can do crossfire and the socket I5 uses (LGA1156) is new so it should have adequete life in it.

All instances of "I5" refer to the I5 750. The 750 is literally the perfect Intel choice by far atm.

Also have a quick reality check, a 965 or I5 is far far far far better than the sort of GPUs you are buying. That is fantastic because it avoids bottlenecks, but a 965/I5 can take £250 HD5850 or GTX285 without bottlenecking em. Having said that, there is very little choice other than a 9*5 and I5 atm due to their prices.

I think this may come down to what you're likely to do in the future. I5 is already £40 more. If you're not going to buy a £30~ CPU cooler when you OC, the 965 will be easier. If you will buy a cooler... the I5 will just extend it's advantage over a 965 massively.

Will mention RAM in a few hours, work...

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-07-2010, 07:58 AM

I'll wait to see what you have to say about RAM before I respond, then. What you're saying about the i5 makes a lot of sense. I can actually afford both options but would like to save money if possible. I'll do some reasearch into i5 overclocking.

**abc** · 03-07-2010, 02:48 PM

UBER FAIL COMING UP:

I can't remember what I was going to say about RAM.

I may have been about to talk about cheap vs performance orientated RAM. Although performance orientated RAM will give you another 300MHz or so, we've already shown RAM speed doesn't make a massive difference. On top of not making much difference, Black Editions and Core I* have somewhat changed overclocking and arguably made RAM less important. Besides, 1333MHz = PC10664 = 10.7 GB/s which is rather a lot.

Mmm, both CPUs are 100% completely adequete for anything less than a £240 HD5840 or GTX285. If you want to look "are they adequete" then it's quite interesting. There is no question that the I5 is 10%~ faster. Assuming the Phenom II 965 scales perfectly (not an unreasonable assumption) it'd need to be at 3.74 GHz, which incidently is around the max overclock on a stock cooler, before it draws even in performance to an I5. Even with £50 cooling you'll still top out only 400~ MHz (10%) later. The I5 on the other hand with £50 cooling has a overclocking margin of 50% which will be the nail in the 965's coffin.

More contradictory statements - but the one I think is the most "win" of all. As I said it takes a somewhat monsterous graphics card, a HD5850 or GTX 285, to even get near bottlenecking a 965/I5. Therefore with a 5770 you are going to have about 50% of that CPU power... completely unused!!! It would therefore make more sense in a "gaming performance" to get the cheaper CPU option and put as much as possible into the GFX card (slight problem that there is literally nothing worth buying apart from the 5770... which itself is pretty rubbish value compared to the last gen cards)

What to do if you spend more on GFX? Patience. The 5800s are fantastic performers and hard to manufacture. That equalled a 25% price [i]rise[/] a month after launch, and the prices are still stupidly high. Likewise the 5830 which is probably worth around £160 is at a stupid price of £210. The 5770 which performs like a £100 card is also a bit rubbish value at £120. The only thing that will make those prices go down is when nVidia releases it's mid-end stuff. The high end stuff should be out this week, but either way it's still going to be a while before mid-end nvidia stuff pushes ATI prices down.

On another bottlenecking note, you may even find your E6750 isn't bottlenecking your 8800GT at all, although by the sounds of things your E6750 isn't exactly working?

What sort of time scale is on this?

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-07-2010, 03:23 PM

Timescale is <2 weeks. My E6750 is currently running at 1066FSB which, essentially, makes it totally gimped beyond the point of belief. The main problem here is the CPU-bottlenecked BF:BC2 (and similar games in future) that I'd like to be able to run and pretty much requires a quad core in order to run at a stable 60fps. I can scale back graphical requirements to suit a 4870 but it's a bit hard to scale back CPU requirements. I am correct in my assumptions by going for this kind of a combination for that kind of a situation, right?

I'd also like to avoid having to replace the CPU and motherboard the next time I upgrade. Since the next upgrade will probably contain a 5850-level GPU (it'll be a way off), wouldn't going with this platform at this time be the future-conscious option?

Considering the fact that there is approximately a £15 difference between getting 4GB of RAM on an AM3 DDR3 platform and getting an extra 2GB of DDR2 RAM on a 4-slot AM2 board, would staying with DDR2 really be worth it? Switching to DDR3 leaves me with what is essentially a motherboard, RAM, CPU and GPU bundle that I can sell to a friend. Given that, what would your thoughts on DDR3 be?

Olaf Vikingsson · 03-08-2010, 01:30 AM

Bump. Decided on 965 with DDR3 and 5770 for power efficiency and the sellability of my old core components. Since I won't be upgrading either element for a while, I'll make back the money in bills and then some.

**abc** · 03-08-2010, 09:36 AM

Correct, unless you already have 4GB of fast DDR2 then DDR3 is definitely definitely definitely the way to go.

Likewise you can't really go wrong with AM3 and a 965 from a value point of view, just bear in mind that if/when it comes to wanting to OC, the I5 will wipe the floor with a 965.

Whilst offering what seems like sub-par level of value/performance the 5770 is the smallest rip-off of all the GFX cards currently out there.

I guess it's also worth mentioning what you actually plan to buy. That motherboard is reputedly a fantastic budget performance mobo. Out of the RAM available on ebuyer, whilst the spec leaves a bit to be desired, that is definitely the one I'd pick. Likewise the GFX card is perfectly chosen - cheapest non-refference cooler & good brand.

I am not at all trying to disuade you from "bothering" with a CPU upgrade, I'm just concious that if gaming (and not video editting?) is what you're after then the GFX card and CPU are rather mismatched. Having said that, I am also very aware that the GFX card market is crap atm while the CPU market is very good and there really is no choice whatsoever other than a 5770 & 965/I5 with your kind of budget.

Please don't be offended if you knew this, but remember changing motherboard manufacturer will require a fresh install of your operating system. Make sure you can find all the installation discs for your most critical programs (windows, office, games etc) and have all your keycodes etc.

P.P.S. I don't know if you were aware but if you have a valid ac.uk email address (which I'm assuming you do) windows 7 pro is yours for £38. Likewise Office 2007 Pro is available for around £40 too. Win 7 for £40~ would be a nice way to compliment new hardware and bring you into the year 2009

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