• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Official "I need a new PC!!" 2009 Edition

Wired

Member
DSN2K said:
never understand why reviewers bench low end cards with 4xAA 16xAF on, do they really think people who purchase these cards r going to do that!

well no, but if they don't use the same settings as on the more high-end cards how would you be able to compare them?
 

Otheradam

Member
D4Danger said:
have a question if anyone can help.

I'm putting together a i7 system and was just wondering what power supply I should get.

Asus P6T
Intel i7 920
BFG 260 GTX
2x HDDs
TV Tuner
DVD (I'm thinking of adding a blu-ray player in the future)

I'm looking at the Corsair HX 620W. Would this be enough power for such a system? The next one up is 1000W and £90 more.




Also, what's your thoughts on the Asus P6T? Reviews seem a bit mixed on this board.

Let us know if you end up getting all these parts and how they run, I am literally looking at the exact same parts to build a new pc in the next few weeks.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
zbarron said:
Thanks but I've gone through the benches before. I'm more curious about future games. Is there anything on the horizon that looks like it will stress my PC to the point where it needs a new video card? I know it's hard to tell when the games haven't been released yet. I already own just about every game I want to own that is out right now and I can run them fine. I am also getting suspicious at these numbers when a 250 beats a 295.
l4d_1680_1050.gif
Those benches must be CPU limited. My 295 beats the living crap out of my old 4870x2 which in turn was much faster than a 285.
 
DSN2K said:
never understand why reviewers bench low end cards with 4xAA 16xAF on, do they really think people who purchase these cards r going to do that!
It's awfully impressive that a 9600 GT can sustain nearly 60 FPS at that resolution with such a high IQ.
 

Grayman

Member
so i turned down my case fan to low(manual said some stuff about using a special fan plug to use it on high) checked the cables, emptied the power bar, and put the computer on the floor. So far no shutdowns. knock on wood.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
thaOwner said:
So I currently have this laptop:



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220404

Am thinking about selling it and building myself a gaming a gaming rig. I bought it for a little over $1300 and selling it back on ebayt anywhere from $950 - 1100.
Will I be able to build a decent rig and get myself a nice HD tv to go with along with it ?
If you have a 9800M I would keep it, it is an impressive laptop card.
That laptop is a desktop replacement and I'd keep it.

If it has a 9700M, then its a decent laptop card. If you want to play the latest games you might want to upgrade. As for HDTV I would just get a monitor instead.
Grayman said:
so i turned down my case fan to low(manual said some stuff about using a special fan plug to use it on high) checked the cables, emptied the power bar, and put the computer on the floor. So far no shutdowns. knock on wood.
Power what? Where was it before?
ChoklitReign said:
It's awfully impressive that a 9600 GT can sustain nearly 60 FPS at that resolution with such a high IQ.
Source :lol
9600GT is almost a 8800GT which is almost a 9800GT so it's all good.
 

Grayman

Member
power bar/surge protector with 8 slots. figured i might be using too much juice with speakers and some lamps or some shit on it.
 

Darklord

Banned
godhandiscen said:
Those benches must be CPU limited. My 295 beats the living crap out of my old 4870x2 which in turn was much faster than a 285.

You upgraded from a graphics card that can run everything on high, to a graphics card than can run everything on high with slightly higher unnoticeable frame rate to a graphics card than can run everything on high with slightly higher unnoticeable frame rate? What an absolute waste of money...
 
So i finally decided to upgrade my almost 5yr old system, realized it was time when i couldnt even run left4dead and make it look decent.

Anyway, first things first, I'm not looking for a crazy powerful system by any standards, most of my gaming is done on my ps3 so I don't need something that can run Crysis on some insane resolution. Just looking for something on the average/good side of things with some room to upgrade later on just in case.
I've pretty much based my system on TR april's utility player setup, but with a different mobo and video card, here's what i got so far:


ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 DDR3 AMD 790GX ATX AMD Motherboard - $139.99
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W - $145
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $48.99
Antec Sonata III 500 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply - $119
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - OEM - $74.99
MSI R4870-MD1G Radeon HD 4870 1GB PCI Express x16 (2.0v) - $145 (After MIR)

So I'm looking at $674, no dvd writer yet since for some reason i haven't had the need for one so far, they're so cheap that i'll probably pick one up later anyway. Along with an extra 2gb of ram when win7 comes out.

I got a couple questions before i pull the trigger though:

I'm currently using a viewsonic 19" CRT (lulz, I know) and I will upgrade to an lcd later on, probably this ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD no need for anything bigger really, now the question is, will my video card have much trouble running anything at full 1920x1080 with some AF and AA turned on?

- The mobo im looking to buy doesnt support triple channel ram, is this a big deal at all or should i try and future proof the build with one that does?

- I plan to OC my phenom to at least 3.4 since everyone seems to agree that it can achieve that speed without much problem, would the stock cooler suffice for that or should i look into some after market stuff? Also regarding the cpu, i should be fine until next year if i decide to do an upgrade right (socket-wise)?

Alright thats all for now. What do you guys think? I havent put anything together in years so im kindof out of the loop regarding pc hardware, hopefully i can get some input today on this build, the MIR rebate for the vidcard expires tonight so i gotta decide on that quickly. :D
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Grayman said:
power bar/surge protector with 8 slots. figured i might be using too much juice with speakers and some lamps or some shit on it.
Sounds like something where your problems could be coming from.
Darklord said:
You upgraded from a graphics card that can run everything on high, to a graphics card than can run everything on high with slightly higher unnoticeable frame rate to a graphics card than can run everything on high with slightly higher unnoticeable frame rate? What an absolute waste of money...
For almost any game (besides 2 or 3 exceptions) if you hit a CPU limit you are already past 60fps on max settings.

On recent games you'll see an almost equal boost to power.
Saturated price points :lol
warhead-1920.gif
 

Slavik81

Member
Hazaro said:
Wow. On the high-end cards, the median is nowhere near the mean.
So basically you get 30fps most of the time, but the high-end cards spike to 200fps when looking at a wall or something?

Why is the median so much lower than the mean?
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
devilchicken said:
Who me? :lol
And what kindof aftermarket cooler/heatsink anyway? Also, i forgot to mention that i'd rather have it on the quiet side, so 120mm fans are a plus, don't feel like having something that sounds like a plane about to take off in my bedroom.
Yes you :lol

Mobo is DDR3 not DDR2.
As for cooler, pretty much anything will be good for noise.

If you are picky get a big 120 and put low speed fans on it.

*As for Median Low lots of CPU limits when shit hits the fan so they are going to choke down to 15-18 anyway in low points no matter what. That's my guess anyway.

Walking around and shooting you obviously see the boost. Here's a more interesting chart.
fallout3-2560.gif



And here you can see the difference between CPU limited and GPU limited, but at 160 fps it's not exactly goign to matter if you are CPU limited, but bump the resolution a bit and see that GPu muscle go to work on Source :lol

l4d-1680.gif
l4d-2560.gif
 
Hazaro said:
Yes you :lol

Mobo is DDR3 not DDR2.
As for cooler, pretty much anything will be good for noise.

If you are picky get a big 120 and put low speed fans on it.

Alright, got it. I just picked up the ram you suggested instead. When you mean cooler, you just mean the cpu fan with stock heatsink or you mean heatsink/fan combo? Like i said, not sure if the stock stuff will be fine for an OC, I could just get an extra 120mm fan and put it on the front of the case for extra circulation if it is.
 

zbarron

Member
Minsc said:
Probably just CPU limited, and drivers make a big difference. I remember things like that happening before with poorly optimized drivers.

Future games? I think you have the effects of what is looking to be a longer than normal console generation lingering on to PC games somewhat, and causing requirements to stay lower, for now anyway. I can't think of any upcoming 2009 or 2010 games that will be more demanding than Crysis unfortunately.
Drivers probably. This is one of my main problems with PC gaming right now. Crysis came out in 2007 and we still haven't gotten anything nearly as impressive and it's already 2009. RAGE looks good but that's a 2010 game.

Crazymoogle said:
Step-up puts you on a waiting list, so I would suggest getting onboard. I don't really see a $50 difference between those two cards, but I haven't been intensely staring at the benchmarks (well, that and I have a 285). The waiting list can be awhile, but as I recall you don't send in until they have something for you, after that the process shouldn't take very long since they ship from within the US.
OK. Thanks.

godhandiscen said:
Those benches must be CPU limited. My 295 beats the living crap out of my old 4870x2 which in turn was much faster than a 285.
The CPU used is an i7 920 at 3.8Ghz. I should certainly hope that isn't the bottleneck to a card like the GTS 250. I'm just going to disregard the numbers altogether.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
zbarron said:
The CPU used is an i7 920 at 3.8Ghz. I should certainly hope that isn't the bottleneck to a card like the GTS 250. I'm just going to disregard the numbers altogether.
It has maxed it's potential at that resolution. So yes technically it is, but you're getting 160fps so it's not an issue.
devilchicken said:
Alright, got it. I just picked up the ram you suggested instead. When you mean cooler, you just mean the cpu fan with stock heatsink or you mean heatsink/fan combo? Like i said, not sure if the stock stuff will be fine for an OC, I could just get an extra 120mm fan and put it on the front of the case for extra circulation if it is.
Stock should be fine for 3.2 or whatever you said, I'd pick up a $30 Heatsink/fan for it. Anything on newegg with some positive reviews is fine.
 

zbarron

Member
Hazaro said:
It has maxed it's potential at that resolution. So yes technically it is, but you're getting 160fps so it's not an issue.Stock should be fine for 3.2 or whatever you said, I'd pick up a $30 Heatsink/fan for it. Anything on newegg with some positive reviews is fine.
Good point. I was just thinking the graphics card would hit a bottleneck before the CPU would.
 
Hazaro said:
Stock should be fine for 3.2 or whatever you said, I'd pick up a $30 Heatsink/fan for it. Anything on newegg with some positive reviews is fine.
Yeah i think im gonna pick up an ocz vendetta 2, hopefully it will fit on my mobo without problems, only $35 too.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
zbarron said:
Good point. I was just thinking the graphics card would hit a bottleneck before the CPU would.
That would be the case for games like SupCom which are heavily CPU bound.
devilchicken said:
Yeah i think im gonna pick up an ocz vendetta 2, hopefully it will fit on my mobo without problems, only $35 too.
It will only point Up/Down as will most rifle coolers.

Zerotherm or Sunbeam can orient correctly.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004

If you can mess with the mounting on this, this would be good.
A Zerotherm (Any, they all cool about the same) is fine too.
 
Hazaro said:
Zerotherm or Sunbeam can orient correctly.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004

If you can mess with the mounting on this, this would be good.
A Zerotherm (Any, they all cool about the same) is fine too.
Looks like those are a pain in the ass to install, the review for the mobo im ordering said that you could fit some tall corsair dimms if you wanted to bend the fins on a scythe ninja, so im thinking it would work. *knocks on wood*
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Darklord said:
You upgraded from a graphics card that can run everything on high, to a graphics card than can run everything on high with slightly higher unnoticeable frame rate to a graphics card than can run everything on high with slightly higher unnoticeable frame rate? What an absolute waste of money...
:D Newegg did it for me. It is all in this thread I believe. When my 4870x2 broke, NewEgg gave me a 295GTX+ for free because the price I paid for it originally was similar to the price of the GTX295. Later, I had the chance of trading my 295 + $100 for two 285s however my PSU would not power them up, however I still got a chance to see how powerful was a single 285 at stock and it didn't impress me at all. Also, having such an expensive videocard may be a waste of money in your opinion, but I want my experience to be flawless, so it is worth the price for me. Even though I could have just stayed with my 4870x2. However, Crysis on Very High at 50fps is a sight to behold.
zbarron said:
The CPU used is an i7 920 at 3.8Ghz. I should certainly hope that isn't the bottleneck to a card like the GTS 250. I'm just going to disregard the numbers altogether.
Judging from Hazaro's benchmarks it is an engine bottleneck, and the slight difference in frames could be due to either the lower memory bandwidht of the 295 or the SLI technology.
Slavik81 said:
Wow. On the high-end cards, the median is nowhere near the mean.
So basically you get 30fps most of the time, but the high-end cards spike to 200fps when looking at a wall or something?

Why is the median so much lower than the mean?
No it is not that. The most demanding level of the whole Crysis saga is the train level. That level is CPU limited due to the intensity of the physics. Since the physics in that level tax the processor so much, the SLI technology takes a hit. With SLI/CrossFire X technology you need a beefy CPU to take advantage of it, else you can even get lower performance than with a single card solution.

Also, the 295 is a hell of a value. It is able to top SLI'd 285s. That is a $530 pricepoint beating a $800. *hugs 295*


PS: The most demanding game out there is Warhammer Online. Using up to 4GB of ram, and displaying over 100 characters on screen at once, no other game can brind down videocard to its knees like that one. However people cannot really bench that game since every battle is different and it would be unfair.
 
I love seeing all those fps charts so I can read where about's my 260 sits, also since I will be playing at 720p or 1400x900 at my screen's max res I can expect 10-20% more frame rate power then running at stupidly high resolutions for crysis.

Awesomesauce.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Diablohead said:
I love seeing all those fps charts so I can read where about's my 260 sits, also since I will be playing at 720p or 1400x900 at my screen's max res I can expect 10-20% more frame rate power then running at stupidly high resolutions for crysis.

Awesomesauce.
Stupidly awesome resolutions.

Enjoy your AA and AF :lol
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Diablohead said:
I love seeing all those fps charts so I can read where about's my 260 sits, also since I will be playing at 720p or 1400x900 at my screen's max res I can expect 10-20% more frame rate power then running at stupidly high resolutions for crysis.

Awesomesauce.
I play Halo 3 and I can block the jaggies with my mind. However you cannot call those resolutions stupid. You need to experience them to get a feel for them. Once you try them, you cannot go back.
 
Hazaro said:
Stupidly awesome resolutions.

Enjoy your AA and AF :lol
Long as it looks like my 360 i'm all for it
GRID would look better in x8

Oh by stupidly high I mean overkill for me, I seen high res stuff before just that I can't do it myself with my current setup.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Diablohead said:
Long as it looks like my 360 i'm all for it
GRID would look better in x8

Oh by stupidly high I mean overkill for me, I seen high res stuff before just that I can't do it myself with my current setup.
In due time... Why are you stopping at 8x? Do 16x and 16x. (Grid is pretty harsh though)
EviLore said:
Core i7 put together and OS reinstalled without any probs. Next up, overclocking.
Pics!
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
EviLore said:
Core i7 put together and OS reinstalled without any probs. Next up, overclocking.
Bench it without overclocking. You will be amazed.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Hazaro said:
Why would you waste time on something you won't run? :lol
I overclock gradually. Seeing if I notice a difference. I started running at my stock 2.93Ghz and now I am at 3.8GHZ. However I might revert back to 3.6GHz since I haven't noticed much of a difference ever since 3.4GHz. Also, temps. Summer is coming and it will be hot.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
godhandiscen said:
I overclock gradually. Seeing if I notice a difference. I started running at my stock 2.93Ghz and now I am at 3.8GHZ. However I might revert back to 3.6GHz since I haven't noticed much of a difference ever since 3.4GHz. Also, temps. Summer is coming and it will be hot.
Sounds smart.

I pick a good voltage and see what my chip can do. Then see what it can suicide at. :lol

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=392354
(Mobo decided to use 8.5 instead of 9) Would of liked to see another 4.7Ghz on that. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle though, amazing batch though.

1GB of RAM to get the FSB needed to run the damn thing so high.
 

Slavik81

Member
EviLore said:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx

"On Tuesday, May 5 (PST), the RC will be available to everyone via our Customer Preview Program. As with the Beta, the Windows 7 RC Customer Preview Program is a broad public program that offers the RC free to anyone who wants to download it. It will be available at least through June 30, 2009, with no limits on the number of downloads or product keys available."
Looks like it's up now.

I got a package from newegg today, but it was my wireless card. Motherboard, CPU and GPU still enroute. A shame, but it looks like I'll be tossing that Vista disk I burned, and jumping straight to Win7. Hopefully my stuff shows up tomorrow.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Slavik81 said:
Looks like it's up now.

I got a package from newegg today, but it was my wireless card. Motherboard, CPU and GPU still enroute. A shame, but it looks like I'll be tossing that Vista disk I burned, and jumping straight to Win7. Hopefully my stuff shows up tomorrow.
Any word on what build it is?

I still have the beta version sitting around.
 

Slavik81

Member
Hazaro said:
Any word on what build it is?

I still have the beta version sitting around.
Before the page was updated, they made a point of saying they were discontinuing distribution of the Beta version, so I presume the Release Candidate is different.
 
Hazaro said:
Any word on what build it is?

I still have the beta version sitting around.

Thanks for the heads up, d/l'ing now and the filename is "7100.0.090421-1700_x64fre_client_en-us_retail_ultimate-grc1culxfrer_en_dvd.iso"
 

Grayman

Member
I am getting a spinning green dots of death so I'll have to try to get the file tomorrow or the next day when demand is lower.
 

papercut

Member
Hey guys, just bought a new PC. Thanks for the help in here! Now, on to a question:

I have the Gigabyte 790gp-UD4H with a Phenom 940. The bios auto detects the "cpu frequency" as 200mhz and I can't really see the parameters of anything else. Is this normal or should I be doing something to make sure that my cpu is running full speed?

(yea, I'm new to this)

Thanks!

EDIT: Nevermind, I guess it's the base clock. Now to find the multiplier...
 
Any gaming related downsides to using Windows 7 at this point? Overclocking utilities, benchmarking apps, steam and other dd services, etc all working like they should?
 

derder

Member
gregor7777 said:
Any gaming related downsides to using Windows 7 at this point? Overclocking utilities, benchmarking apps, steam and other dd services, etc all working like they should?
I've been using it as my main OS since the first build. Other than random lockups when playing WoW, it's been smooth sailing for me. I think it was the fault of my wireless driver that I've since updated. The freezing hasn't occurred since.
 
I grabbed a key and the download earlier today and will burn it before I get access to my machine on the weekend, i'm willing to install win7beta as my primary windows and leave XP for now until/unless I find a huge problem like 3dsmax2009 not working, paint shop pro refusing to install etc. If It all goes tits up you will know :p
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Benchmarks completed.

Old System
E6600 @ 2.9ghz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
4GB DDR2 800
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64

New System
Core i7 920 @ 4ghz
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
12GB DDR3 1600
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64


Crysis Warhead Test -- DX10 mode, all settings on Enthusiast, 1920x1080, vsync off, Ambush timedemo using benchmark tool.

Company of Heroes Test -- DX10 mode, all settings at maximum, 1920x1080, built in Performance Test used. Assuming vsync's on since it capped at 60.

UT3 Tests -- all settings maximum, 1920x1080, 24 player botmatch used on all maps. One regular map used, along with the three special PhysX maps from Nvidia's site. I set the launch flag for vsync to be off, but it must've stayed on as per my normal settings, so capped at 60.

All tests: triple buffering on globally.


benchmarkgraph01.jpg


benchmarkgraph02.jpg


benchmarkgraph03.jpg


benchmarkgraph04.jpg


benchmarkgraph05.jpg


benchmarkgraph06.jpg




Conclusions:

Crysis Warhead benched effectively identically. Not a big surprise since my GPU solution isn't yet powerful enough to benefit from a powerful CPU here.

Company of Heroes average framerate improved moderately, but the big gain is in minimum framerate. Overall experience should be significantly better on i7 with settings cranked.

UT3 on a regular map stayed locked at 60 on i7, with some spikes downward on Core 2. With the Physx-enabled maps, though, there's a huge difference, which should carry to games like Mirror's Edge with PhysX on.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
EviLore said:
Benchmarks completed.

Old System
E6600 @ 2.9ghz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
4GB DDR2 800
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64

New System
Core i7 920 @ 4ghz
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
12GB DDR3 1600
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64

Neat. Now try NWN2 with shadows maxed!
 

Darklord

Banned
EviLore said:
Benchmarks completed.

Old System
E6600 @ 2.9ghz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
4GB DDR2 800
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64

New System
Core i7 920 @ 4ghz
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
12GB DDR3 1600
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64


Crysis Warhead Test -- DX10 mode, all settings on Enthusiast, 1920x1080, vsync off, Ambush timedemo using benchmark tool.

Company of Heroes Test -- DX10 mode, all settings at maximum, 1920x1080, built in Performance Test used. Assuming vsync's on since it capped at 60.

UT3 Tests -- all settings maximum, 1920x1080, 24 player botmatch used on all maps. One regular map used, along with the three special PhysX maps from Nvidia's site. I set the launch flag for vsync to be off, but it must've stayed on as per my normal settings, so capped at 60.

All tests: triple buffering on globally.

How do you get those charts where it shows the old system compared to the new? Did you do it yourself?
 
Darklord said:
How do you get those charts where it shows the old system compared to the new? Did you do it yourself?

Maybe Excel? That's what I use for similar charts.

derder said:
I've been using it as my main OS since the first build. Other than random lockups when playing WoW, it's been smooth sailing for me. I think it was the fault of my wireless driver that I've since updated. The freezing hasn't occurred since.

Cool. Do you use Steam?
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
EviLore said:
Benchmarks completed.

Old System
E6600 @ 2.9ghz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
4GB DDR2 800
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64

New System
Core i7 920 @ 4ghz
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
12GB DDR3 1600
GTX 260 @ 650/2400
Windows 7 RC x64


Crysis Warhead Test -- DX10 mode, all settings on Enthusiast, 1920x1080, vsync off, Ambush timedemo using benchmark tool.

Company of Heroes Test -- DX10 mode, all settings at maximum, 1920x1080, built in Performance Test used. Assuming vsync's on since it capped at 60.

UT3 Tests -- all settings maximum, 1920x1080, 24 player botmatch used on all maps. One regular map used, along with the three special PhysX maps from Nvidia's site. I set the launch flag for vsync to be off, but it must've stayed on as per my normal settings, so capped at 60.

All tests: triple buffering on globally.

Conclusions:

Crysis Warhead benched effectively identically. Not a big surprise since my GPU solution isn't yet powerful enough to benefit from a powerful CPU here.

Company of Heroes average framerate improved moderately, but the big gain is in minimum framerate. Overall experience should be significantly better on i7 with settings cranked.

UT3 on a regular map stayed locked at 60 on i7, with some spikes downward on Core 2. With the Physx-enabled maps, though, there's a huge difference, which should carry to games like Mirror's Edge with PhysX on.
You are heavily capped due to the resolution and settings you are using. If you want to really test the difference between CPU's you have to choose the lowest graphical settings possible, at least thats how tech sites do it. However, that sort of comparison is also pointless since you wont play at those settings. I did notice a huge difference when I upgraded to a Core i7 but I guess it had to do with the fact I was running CrossFire. How about real gameplay? Do you feel a huge improvement?
 
Top Bottom