Short background: I haven't played a computer game on my own gear since Supreme Commander back in 2007. Prior to that, I haven't owned a stationary computer worth its salt when it comes to gaming since 2001 (GeForce3).
Right now I have a pretty decent setup at home: a 720p projector, a 100" screen and 4.0 "surround" (two front, two back). I currently have a bit of disposable income, and would like to create a HTPC fit for gaming, playing 720p (hah) and acting as a torrent box, freeing up my Macbook. Possibly some video encoding if it's a big project, but I mostly do work on the Macbook.
As far as gaming is concerned, I would like to be able to play new games coming out, like Mass Effect 2, MW2, as well as oldies like Crysis and others, without having any stuttering. For playing, I'll mostly do 1280x720 until summer comes, when I'll switch over to my 24" Dell monitor and 1920x1200.
My current intended setup, after a lot of to'ing and fro'ing looks like this:
Case: Fractal Design "Define" R2 (sound dampened, quiet fans; more info on metku.net). It's about $100 here.
PSU: Corsair TX650.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3R (USB3 for future proofing, Crossfire, etc)
CPU: Intel i5 750.
Cooler: Corsair H50
Memory: 4GB Corsair cl9 1600mhz XMS3 (2x2gb)
HDD: Caviar Green 1tb
GPU: Radeon 5850
It's going to be placed underneath a window beside the sofa. While running, the fan on my projector is quite noisy, so the only really important thing for me is absolute silence at night (as I live in one room, though on the exact opposite end of the room as the PC will be).
My question to you is this:
Is it overkill?
How long will the HD5850 stay current (extrapolating from previous trends I have no experience with)? Keep in mind I can get another one when they get really cheap (<$100) and Crossfire it.
Will the Corsair H50 be enough to keep the CPU completely silent? I might overclock it to the golden mean of effectiveness Tom's Hardware recommends, but nothing hardcore. ("We measured less than a 6% increase in peak power on the MSI P55-GD65 when going from a 133 to 160 MHz clock. This had the processor reaching 3.36/3.84 GHz maximum clock speeds in the two applicable Turbo Boost modes (one to two and three to four cores used).") (citation: here)
Please crit my Gaming HTPC
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
running crysis at large frame sizes is still about the most demanding video task that you could ask of a gaming pc? going crossfire would be a good idea there.
how does i7-860 compare to the i5-750? you lose hyperthreading with that i5, but you gain extremely low idle power consumption... however, aren't these all lynnfield chips? so you lose pci-e bandwidth in crossfire mode? it's the curse of the 1156 platform.
how does i7-860 compare to the i5-750? you lose hyperthreading with that i5, but you gain extremely low idle power consumption... however, aren't these all lynnfield chips? so you lose pci-e bandwidth in crossfire mode? it's the curse of the 1156 platform.
Power consumption differences between the i7 860 and i5 750 are almost negligible. However, I'd save the money and stay with the i5. Hyperthreading generally doesn't help much in games. Until games can utilize more than 4 cores (most only handle 1 or 2 now), hyperthreading may hurt more than it helps in gaming performance. However, if you're doing video encoding or ALOT of multi-tasking, then the extra virtual cores may be useful. Otherwise, I'd stick with the i7 750 and look into upgrading the chip in 3-4 years with the $80 you save from not going to the i7 860.
I have no experience with the H50, so I can't really say how quiet it'll be. However, it does look like a nice, compact, easy-to-use water cooling solution.
For the 5850 staying current . . . I'd guess it'll be about 1.5 to 2 years before you start seeing a lot of games it really struggles to handle. Here's an article showing a 5850's performance on 1920x1200. I think 32fps is generally acceptable. If you're doing CF after a few years (I'm not a fan of CF, I'd rather just get a new replacement card after awhile because it keeps the power consumption down), it'll probably be able to handle up-to-date games at high-res and decent frame rates for at least 3-4 years. Note that I'm not a hardcore gamer, so 30+ fps at 1440x900 or greater is generally fine for me.
Another issue with CF is that the P55 motherboards can choke the higher-end graphics card band-width wise (they only provide 2x PCIe x8 with two GPUs). To avoid that, you'd have to get an X58 motherboard, and that whole system (chip, mobo, RAM) is significantly more expensive.
I have no experience with the H50, so I can't really say how quiet it'll be. However, it does look like a nice, compact, easy-to-use water cooling solution.
For the 5850 staying current . . . I'd guess it'll be about 1.5 to 2 years before you start seeing a lot of games it really struggles to handle. Here's an article showing a 5850's performance on 1920x1200. I think 32fps is generally acceptable. If you're doing CF after a few years (I'm not a fan of CF, I'd rather just get a new replacement card after awhile because it keeps the power consumption down), it'll probably be able to handle up-to-date games at high-res and decent frame rates for at least 3-4 years. Note that I'm not a hardcore gamer, so 30+ fps at 1440x900 or greater is generally fine for me.
Another issue with CF is that the P55 motherboards can choke the higher-end graphics card band-width wise (they only provide 2x PCIe x8 with two GPUs). To avoid that, you'd have to get an X58 motherboard, and that whole system (chip, mobo, RAM) is significantly more expensive.
Graphics cards are one of the fastest changing components in the modern computer. I can't think of another sole component that changes faster, with such huge perofrmance increases and price decreses / obsolescence.
My advice to you is, don't even consider Crossfire for this build. It's overkill, and in my opinion, a waste of money. You're far better off spending a little extra on a high end card, and upgrading a couple years down the line...which is why it's so important not to skimp on the Mobo (i know alot of people with motherboards that only accept PCI-E x16 1, which prevents them from taking advantage of virtually all modern graphics cards).
As for the CPU heatsink, I'm not sold on the Corsair H50. If you think about it, both that, and air-cooled heatsinks ultimately bleed heat the same way...air. Sure, water is a great heat transfer device, however heatpipes in modern aftermarket heatsinks are extremely effective at heat transfer. So if you're going to be sheding the heat in the same way, why complicate it with water, a pump and a radiator...in my opinion, a nice oversized air cooled solution is the still the best, cost effective, and most reliable.
That isn't to say water cooling isn't advantageous, its just not something I would do for one chip alone. In my opinion, watercooling starts to pull away from air cooling when you integrate it with GPU and motherboard waterblocks. Then, you have your entire system being cooled by 1 or 2 fans on a radiator, versus 2-4 fans including case fans. Is it worth it for the CPU alone? Naaaa
My advice to you is, don't even consider Crossfire for this build. It's overkill, and in my opinion, a waste of money. You're far better off spending a little extra on a high end card, and upgrading a couple years down the line...which is why it's so important not to skimp on the Mobo (i know alot of people with motherboards that only accept PCI-E x16 1, which prevents them from taking advantage of virtually all modern graphics cards).
As for the CPU heatsink, I'm not sold on the Corsair H50. If you think about it, both that, and air-cooled heatsinks ultimately bleed heat the same way...air. Sure, water is a great heat transfer device, however heatpipes in modern aftermarket heatsinks are extremely effective at heat transfer. So if you're going to be sheding the heat in the same way, why complicate it with water, a pump and a radiator...in my opinion, a nice oversized air cooled solution is the still the best, cost effective, and most reliable.
That isn't to say water cooling isn't advantageous, its just not something I would do for one chip alone. In my opinion, watercooling starts to pull away from air cooling when you integrate it with GPU and motherboard waterblocks. Then, you have your entire system being cooled by 1 or 2 fans on a radiator, versus 2-4 fans including case fans. Is it worth it for the CPU alone? Naaaa
one 5850 isn't enough for serious crysis... fortunately the cards will be much cheaper in the spring than they are now, but you'll have to go with an x58 motherboard... the bargains are out there if you can wait, i paid $278 for the i7 920 cpu and an msi x58m motherboard from frys.
"The Radeon HD 5850 single video card was interesting; it just couldn’t push "Enthusiast" Shader Quality at 1920x1200. We tried literally ever "Enthusiast" level setting in Warhead, and it was not playable, even without AA. We were seeing around 20 FPS in the ice levels alone with "Enthusiast" Shaders Quality. We had to drop it down to "Gamer" Shaders Quality; HOWEVER, everything else remained at "Enthusiast" level. This reduction in image quality allowed us to raise the AA level to no less than 4X AA. Again, the game just wasn’t playable with Shaders Quality at "Enthusiast" and No AA."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/ ... d_review/4
"The Radeon HD 5850 single video card was interesting; it just couldn’t push "Enthusiast" Shader Quality at 1920x1200. We tried literally ever "Enthusiast" level setting in Warhead, and it was not playable, even without AA. We were seeing around 20 FPS in the ice levels alone with "Enthusiast" Shaders Quality. We had to drop it down to "Gamer" Shaders Quality; HOWEVER, everything else remained at "Enthusiast" level. This reduction in image quality allowed us to raise the AA level to no less than 4X AA. Again, the game just wasn’t playable with Shaders Quality at "Enthusiast" and No AA."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/ ... d_review/4
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hybrid2d4x4
- Posts: 310
- Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:45 pm
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
I agree with most of the previous posters, though I don't think it's even remotely reasonable to throw a second 5850 into the mix just to get better framerates in one title notorious for being overly taxing of hardware.
I think your component choices are very well suited to your goals and if you're only running 720p, you may even get 2-3 years out of the vid card (or 1.5-2 at the other monitor's res, as stromgald mentioned), at which point you'd be better off replacing the card rather than adding in a second major heat source.
I think your component choices are very well suited to your goals and if you're only running 720p, you may even get 2-3 years out of the vid card (or 1.5-2 at the other monitor's res, as stromgald mentioned), at which point you'd be better off replacing the card rather than adding in a second major heat source.
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spookmineer
- Patron of SPCR
- Posts: 749
- Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 6:02 pm
?RoGuE wrote:i know alot of people with motherboards that only accept PCI-E x16 1, which prevents them from taking advantage of virtually all modern graphics cards
NVidia GTX 2xx and the like are x16 2.0 cards, ATI 5xxx are x16 2.1 cards (its throughput speed is the same as 2.0).
A motherboard supporting x16 will take full advantage of these cards...
Provided:
New motherboards should support 2.0 at least, if not, they're old (2007). The throughput of 2.0/2.1 is enough for even the most modern cards.
THats the problem..they are 2007 era motherboards which have effectively become obsolete in 2 short years. New graphics cards utilize 2.0 slots...spookmineer wrote:?RoGuE wrote:i know alot of people with motherboards that only accept PCI-E x16 1, which prevents them from taking advantage of virtually all modern graphics cards
NVidia GTX 2xx and the like are x16 2.0 cards, ATI 5xxx are x16 2.1 cards (its throughput speed is the same as 2.0).
A motherboard supporting x16 will take full advantage of these cards...
Provided:
New motherboards should support 2.0 at least, if not, they're old (2007). The throughput of 2.0/2.1 is enough for even the most modern cards.
Not all x16 slots are created alike.
After a lot of mucking about (not quite used to building computers) I got it all up and running.
My current airflow looks like this:
Top: 140mm 900rpm 9db exhaust
Case back: Corsair H50 intake with 2 fans sandwiching the radiator (120mm, slowed down to about 1000rpm).
Side door: intake directly on the side of the GPU, same 120mm fan.
I guesstimate the ambient temperature to be about 21c. It's not cold by a long stretch. These temps are not overclocked.
Temperatures:
CPU Idle: 25/21c (highest and lowest of the cores)
CPU Load: 43/39 (highest and lowest of the cores) (30 minutes of Prime95 on the "warmest" setting).
GPU Idle: 35/30c (Shader/DispIO and MemIO)
GPU Load: 64/60 (Shader/DispIO and MemIO) (6 passes of a crysis benchmark with everything on full)
And through it all, it was quite silent. I'm very satisfied.
My current airflow looks like this:
Top: 140mm 900rpm 9db exhaust
Case back: Corsair H50 intake with 2 fans sandwiching the radiator (120mm, slowed down to about 1000rpm).
Side door: intake directly on the side of the GPU, same 120mm fan.
I guesstimate the ambient temperature to be about 21c. It's not cold by a long stretch. These temps are not overclocked.
Temperatures:
CPU Idle: 25/21c (highest and lowest of the cores)
CPU Load: 43/39 (highest and lowest of the cores) (30 minutes of Prime95 on the "warmest" setting).
GPU Idle: 35/30c (Shader/DispIO and MemIO)
GPU Load: 64/60 (Shader/DispIO and MemIO) (6 passes of a crysis benchmark with everything on full)
And through it all, it was quite silent. I'm very satisfied.
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hybrid2d4x4
- Posts: 310
- Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:45 pm
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada