MSIMagus said:
Found the thing on the OP that you were talking about. Thanks to the guy that posted it and came up with it, I am sure it will be very helpfull! Anyways my answers
Basic Desktop Questions:
Budget: Price Range + Country $700-$1,200 US
Main Use: Gaming, Emulation (PS2/Wii), general usage (Word, Web, 1080p playback) will be why I am getting this. Main use is gaming and I tend to run a lot of torrents at the same time. We use our PC as our primary source for TV.
Monitor Resolution: Not sure. How do I check this? Iv got a pretty good sized monitor(around 23-25 inches I believe).
List SPECIFIC games that you MUST be able to play: PS2 Emulation, Diablo 3, Torchlight 2 are my main concerns, but id still REALLY like to be able to toss pretty much anything at the new rig and have it play it for the next 3+ years without upgrade and 5 or more with upgrades. I dont have to run things at the max settings, I just want to be able to run them. I am usually more concerned with load times then graphics quality.
Are reusing any parts?: Nope, just the monitor and even that I may replace.
When will you build?: - Whenever. Id like to build within 3-6 months max though. I will start within the month if there is not a good reason to wait.
Will you be overclocking?: - Almost def not. Less it seems amazingly easy I really doubt I will.
Thanks again to everyone putting work in to help me and others here!
With a 2500k, I don't think the processor would be the bottleneck for the next couple of years. The GPU will be the bottleneck before the CPU. The $100 extra you could spend to get a card like the GTX 570 over a GTX 560ti or HD6950, will offer better FPS for awhile, but it will be outdated almost as quick. A lot of people (most gamers actually, according to Steam statistics) seem to see the wisdom in continually swapping out mid-range ($150-$200) cards every couple of years, instead of spending hundreds more on something like the GTX 580. Three years without upgrading is stretching it though, and five years with upgrades is kind of out of the question. The upgrade paths on these components just aren't that long. Before five years, you'd need a new motherboard because the CPU socket had changed, and you may need new RAM, and you'd certainly need a new GPU. The only things unlikely to change in that time is the PSU, the case (ATX doesn't seem to be going anywhere) and the HDD (they will gain more capacity, but more speed is unlikely as SSD take over).
PS2 emulation isn't going to work perfectly no matter how much you spend. Having said that, a 2500k at a high clock speed is probably your best bet for that. Some games won't work no matter what. For what it's worth, I've heard that PS2 emulation is CPU bottlenecked right now (my results with my GTX 580 and C2D E8500 seems to agree with that. Shadow of the Colossus doesn't run any better on my GTX 580 than it did on my HD 4850, at the same resolution, using the same processor).
1080p video should be no problem for a 2500k, without GPU help (though that guy from earlier was having some odd issues...he never came back to get more help though, so maybe he figured it out)
Diablo 3 won't be graphics intensive, nor will Torchlight 2 (probably).
You should reuse parts, if you have any worth reusing. A hard drive is a hard drive after all (unless you are going SSD), and a DVD drive is generally a DVD drive.
"When will you build" - I've heard people saying that the AMD HD7000 series is coming up this fall, but who knows how much of an improvement that is going to be. The same can be said of Bulldozer (AMD hasn't shown me any reason to believe that they'll overtake Intel in terms of performance. Others may have a differing opinion.). Prices may get lower around black friday, but that is kind of a crap shoot.
"Will you be overclocking" - I would. From everything I've heard, the 2500k is simple to overclock, and very stable and cool at high clock speeds. It's free performance for those willing to take it.
Any other questions?
