[Question] Ordered parts for a system..what do you think?

[Calek]

Just curious if you guys think this will run Ages of Conan uberly:

MoBo: MSI K9N SLI-F nForce 570LT Socket AM2+
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Socket AM2 2.8 GHZ (1000MHz FSB)
RAM: 4(Four) OCZ 1024MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Gold XTC (4GB Total)
GPU: XFX GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB PCIe w/Dual Link DVI (dx10 + shader v3 ready)
HDD: Western Digital 7200 RPM 100GB SATA (Already had on hand)
PSU: 450W with SATA (no SLI) (Already had on hand)
OS: Windows XP Professional SP2 (Already had on hand)

Combined total here is about $525 with regular UPS ground shipping.
I was considering maybe getting another GeForce 8600 GTS to take advantage of the dual SLI setup, but to do that would cost me about another $250 after card and a new power supply.

I've also considered taking advantage of the 64 bit capability of this system to get the full 4GB ram usage out of it, but WinXP 64 has annoying stability issues and I'm still not ready to drop $189 for Vista Ultimate.

I've also thought about getting another small Hard Drive to set up on a SATA RAID, but again that adds some more cash and the whole reason I'd do it is to put my vRAM on a seperate drive. I don't know if this is possible in a SATA RAID environment.

What do you guys think? Help is greatly appreciated!

[Praesto]

Yea should run it fine. If not then it would take one hella computer to run it.

[Messages]

Got some of the equal stuff, just picked Intel Duo (3.0) instead. 1GB same card, just with overclocking (9600). Looks pretty okay, but if you put everything on max, you will still gimp your FPS to around 20.

(This is if you put the terrain distance to 5000 meters, included other distance stuff as well, which doesn't really make a difference.)

As a conclussion, you can run Age of Conan at the max graphics, with decent 80 FPS. But as I said, if you're gonna put it all on, max of the max, you will expect lag.

[Calek]

Thanks for the responses thus far :-). I hope it does run it well

[garoboldy]

Run it? Yes
Uberly? No

If you want uber, change out your memory, cpu, get 720i board with dual 9k series vid cards and 10k rpm sata raid and a 1000w psu.

You should be fine with what you have there though. and gratz on the new system.

[Calek]

Run it? Yes
Uberly? No

If you want uber, change out your memory, cpu, get 720i board with dual 9k series vid cards and 10k rpm sata raid and a 1000w psu.

You should be fine with what you have there though. and gratz on the new system.

Thanks for the info :-D

..and WOW, that's what it takes run this game nicely? That's like a $1k system right there. What were they thinking when they built this game?! lol. If the release date were in 2009 I'd understand..

[DrLecter]

I've also considered taking advantage of the 64 bit capability of this system to get the full 4GB ram usage out of it, but WinXP 64 has annoying stability issues and I'm still not ready to drop $189 for Vista Ultimate.

Wise decision on not getting 64bit.
However you wont need Vista Ultimate if all you do is Game/Surf and use daily programs.

I am on Vista Home Premium, and I am fine. Maybe if you need to run MYOB or some MS business programs you can go for Ultimate but there's not all that difference if you're just a gamer.

Go with what you want in terms of what package. But stick to 32 bit, you'll be happier.

Oh and your setups fine, you should be able to run AoC on medium settings, from what I hear.

[Calek]

Thanks drewg What about using vram on antoher physical drive..possible with a sATA RAID?

[Sicco]

I'll post here instead of makin a new post :] (Hope you dont mind)

I've been thinking of buying:
CPU:Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
Motherboard:Asus P5K-E/WIFI-AP
RAM:Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2 4GB (2x 2GB sticks)

Now to the problem, Should i buy an 8800GT too or stick with my two GeForce 7950 GT's? (2x=SLI) or go with a 550W power supply/cooling and clock?
(Don't know how many W my current power supply is on)
I haven't found any problems with my graphics cards, I'd say my current ram/cpu is the bottleneck atm..

Current spec:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core 2.2GHz
2GB RAM
2x Geforce 7950 GT
Not sure what type RAM and motherboard is..
I could run Crysis with medium/high without lag and it lags on basically any setting in AoC :/
(I can get MAX 40ish FPS the first 10-20 minutes then it never goes over 30 :S (because of the RAM?))

/Kevin

[MrMonkey]

I just bought a new rig purely for AoC. Spec is as follows;

4GB DDR2 Corsair 800Mhz Ram (Might be 1066Mhz, not 100% sure)
Intel Dual Core E8400 3ghz
nVidia 9800GTX
500gb Samsung Spinpoint
ASUS P5K SE (SE Because I'm not going SLI and I won't be)
Silverstone 750w PSU

Runs at 40-60fps with everything on high at 1600x1200 in areas with a few people and 30~fps in cities.

So I think as long as you don't push the graphics majorly you should be okay. My old setup wasn't as good as the one you've bought and would run it at 1600x1200 with everything on low at 20~fps so you should be able to run it with mid range settings fairly easily.

[Binary]

Also, just a heads up. With your Windows XP sp2 your system is only going to recognize 3.25 gigs of ram. Unless you have 64 bit edition, then I'm not sure.

[Sicco]

But will i be able to use the 4GB or will 0.7GB go with loss?
(It recognize 3.25GB but 4.0GB is usable?)

[Matt]

that pc should be able to handle windows vista sp 1 fine.
i have a 4400+ that i paid $460 for nearly 2 years ago and its about $60 now on tigerdirect.com

I just upgraded the videocard from a 7950 GX2 to the 8600GT mainly because i wanted to get more out of the PC.. and the motherboard wont support the 8800.. definitely made yourself an excellent budget PC. I think you'll be able to run AoC on high with no problems. However as newer games come out you'll run into a few...

[Verye]

I personally believe you should've gone with 64-bit for many reasons. One of which is that you wasted some money on getting 4 of those RAM sticks. 32-bit can only use 4 gigs of combined memory, including RAM and video RAM (VRAM). Since that GPU is using 512 MB, that means that you'll basically lose the effectiveness of 512 MB of RAM.

Also, 64-bit Vista simply runs faster than 32-bit Vista with a 64-bit supported processor. All applications and games that provide 64-bit support also run faster, too. Age of Conan currently doesn't, but other games do, and many future games will. Obviously, that computer isn't just going to be for Age of Conan.

And it sucks that you got an XFX video card instead of an EVGA one. With EVGA, you can use their step-up program to exchange your card for a new card, and you just pay the difference. It saves a ton of money when upgrading cards. And considering the 8600 is kind of old, you'll probably want to upgrade it when the 9900 comes out this summer.

Anyway, I have a computer that's a bit better than yours (quad-core 45nm CPU and 8800 GTX) and I run Age of Conan fine. Yours will run it fine too, but you'll probably want to tone the settings down (shadow and shader settings specifically) in order to get good FPS when in big fights/graphically demanding areas.

[foojoo]

OCZ Reaper HPC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel
Newegg.com - OCZ Reaper HPC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
QTY: 2

$65.99 x 2

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
OC'D to 3.0 ghz on air cooler.
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - CPUs / Processors
QTY:1

$131.99

PALiT NE/880TSXT302 GeForce 8800GT SONIC 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Newegg.com - PALiT NE/880TSXT302 GeForce 8800GT SONIC 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
This is basically like my old card, except more stream procs, higher clock rates, and more ram. Also has 3 phase power, I dont know what that is, but it makes me feel special hehe
QTY: 1

$169.99 ($149.99 after rebate)

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard
QTY: 1

$109.99

Total: 543.95 (over time, I got them piece by piece) and the price was actually lower, about 500 bucks because newegg changes prices alot)

CPU, Mem, and Mobo are all 1066 mhz. Runs great. Using 64 bit version of xp thats been stripped down to the bare minimum to run. Might try on vista as well. The cpu is nice, its a wolfdale, can overclock real easy, it was actually my first time doing anything like that.

I WAS running an AMD 3200 x2, asus m2n4 sli mobo, and a 8800gts 640mb and 2 gigs of non matching ram at some crazy low speed. It ran the game fine on medium settings, even high settings with some of the things turned off. Of course, the forums are saying that setting it to high will actually improve your performance anyway, even on a lower end card right now. I parted out my old comp, to fund the new build.


Even if you only opted to go with 2 gigs of ram instead of 4, you would be ok. The game will run fine. I also tested installing the game on a seperate hd, seems to do a bit better that way as well. threw it on a spare 250gb sata drive, and all was well.

Thats my 2 cents