Official PC Gamers Topic V3

[Vercetti42]

I don't understand what isn't appealing about W_D. It's not as if proper open-world games are ten-a-penny; the graphics look pretty awesome, the underlying concept us actually quite well thought out and some of the game mechanics look excellent. I know it's largely a personal thing but I'd be keen to find out why you feel that way.

 

Ubisoft have consistently said that PC is the primary platform and from the info so far optimisation seems fairly good, if a little CPU intensive. It's not as if they haven't got experience bringing an open-world environment vastly superior on PC to console; just look at FC3 to see what can be done when they really do treat PC as a primary launch platform.

 

My main problem with the game is if it could get boring. I mean it's mainly centered around hacking so I hope it doesn't get old.

 

I'll just wait for the reviews to come. I might still pick it up though since I like both Ubisoft and Open-world games.

[sivispacem]

Hacking is a primary mechanic but from everything I've seen it doesn't play nearly as large a part as general shooting/driving/mischief-making. That's a little bit like saying V is a property purchasing simulator.

[Pat]

Although it'd be a huge upgrade from what I'm running now, I'm still on the fence if I should go with Ivy/Haswell ($230-240) or go with Sandy Bridge.

Choices man...tough choices...

I'm still a Sandy Bridge fan myself. I've been using a 2500k for almost four years now and I haven't even OCed yet. I'll never understand why Intel stopped using the IHS.

 

@Fireman: why did you get the 4GB 770? If you're on a single 1080p display you're not going to see any difference in performance from the 2GB, and even with multiple displays the 770/780's memory buses are so bad that the increase isn't really worth it. Honestly, the 4GB versions are kind of a scam.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Pat

[Creed Bratton]

Looks like I might be in the market for some cheapish upgrades in the very near future. What does an FX-8320 and decent AM3+ motherboard go for these days?

It shouldn't cost you more than 250 euros. Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 is a decent motherboard for AMD's 8 core.

 

 

As for Watch Dogs. Ubisoft managed to completely put me off that game. Seriously, f*ck that company and their godawful DLC practice. Every time I consider buying a Ubisoft game I feel like an idiot. So f*ck Watch Dogs. I'll wait for the imminent GOTY version. And how many versions of the game does one game need?

Edited May 21, 2014 by The Yokel

[sivispacem]

 

Looks like I might be in the market for some cheapish upgrades in the very near future. What does an FX-8320 and decent AM3+ motherboard go for these days?

It shouldn't cost you more than 250 euros. Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 is a decent motherboard for AMD's 8 core.

 

Look like I'm about to win a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 off of fleabay for under £50. Currently top bidder on a 8320 at £22 but that has a few days left.

£100 octacore challenge...COMMENCE!

 

 

The last Ubi game I bought was Far Cry 3, and that didn't have any DLC to speak of. Well, aside from Blood Dragon, but that was a) standalone, b) an entirely different game and c) huge for the price.

 

-E

 

Ninja'd at the last moment. F*cking eBay.

Edited May 21, 2014 by sivispacem

[RassO]

Pc sucks

 

 

Looks like I might be in the market for some cheapish upgrades in the very near future. What does an FX-8320 and decent AM3+ motherboard go for these days?

It shouldn't cost you more than 250 euros. Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 is a decent motherboard for AMD's 8 core.

Look like I'm about to win a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 off of fleabay for under £50. Currently top bidder on a 8320 at £22 but that has a few days left.

£100 octacore challenge...COMMENCE!

 

 

The last Ubi game I bought was Far Cry 3, and that didn't have any DLC to speak of. Well, aside from Blood Dragon, but that was a) standalone, b) an entirely different game and c) huge for the price.

 

-E

 

Ninja'd at the last moment. F*cking eBay.

I hate it when that happens. But you didn't win so I laugh

Jk

OT: I like pc but I dont see how anyone can play a game using a keyboard I tried playing arma and minecraft on pc but gave up 10minutes later

[RyanBurnsRed]

 

OT: I like pc but I dont see how anyone can play a game using a keyboard I tried playing arma and minecraft on pc but gave up 10minutes later

 

 

Then what are you doing here?

 

 

 

I'm still a Sandy Bridge fan myself. I've been using a 2500k for almost four years now and I haven't even OCed yet. I'll never understand why Intel stopped using the IHS.

 

 

Yeah I've wanted a 2500K for awhile. They dropped down in prices to $211 right around the time Ivy came out. Then they stopped selling them altogether.

Those CPUs can hit 4.7 GHz with no sweat. I'll probably end up going with a Sandy Bridge i5 or i7 if I can. My first gen i5 has lasted me this long...I'm sure a 2500K can last even longer xD

 

Also it seems like Shadows of Mordor is also a CPU intensive game with that nemesis system they've got going on...so that's another reason for me to upgrade this year

[gtamann123]

What Pat said. An i5 is an i7 without hyperthreading. Unless you're going to be doing some video rendering, animation, or recording, then save $100 and go with the i5.

I also need an upgrade. I'm hoping to get one by the end of the year

What benefit does a non hyperthreaded quad core i5 have over a dual core hyperthreaded i3? How noticeable would the difference be? I have looked at some benchmarks that said most i5s are comparable and sometimes worse when compared to the i3 I have. So for me it seems like i7 or just stay with my current CPU.

Edited May 22, 2014 by gtamann123

[sivispacem]

Hyperthreading is designed to permit parallel threads per core to be executed at the same time. Basically it creates two virtual/logical cores and then shares their load with one real core. The problem is that the virtual core shares the cache and processing hardware resources of that core, so you don't see as much performance as you would with two actual cores. Some of the hardware is duplicated but the really important stuff isn't.

[Creed Bratton]

I don't think anyone will need more than what AMD already has available (8000/9000 FX series), considering the hardware inside the consoles. Don't forget, PS4 CPU runs at 1.6Ghz and Xbone 1.75 and they use 6 out of 8 cores for gaming. The other two are reserved for the OS. A freakin' 8 core running at 4.0Ghz stock will last you for a very long time. I have an FX-8350. I didn't even bother overclocking it. It's that freakin' fast in gaming. And it can easily go to 4.5. It's not as fast as a 4th gen i5 probably. At least not in single-threaded tasks. But I think it's more future proof for gaming. Although, when Intel releases Haswell-E, it will probably destroy my cute little 8 core in every benchmark. But that thing will be too expensive.

Edited May 22, 2014 by The Yokel

[sivispacem]

I'm going FX-8320 and probably Sabertooth. It kills me as it seriously f*cks up my red/black colour scheme but I'm not paying an additional £60 to colour-match my motherboard with my GPU.

 

Was looking at the Gigabyte UFx series stuff but the 7 is silly expensive (£212 for a f*cking 990fx motherboard!) and the 5 and 3 have really bad issues with voltage regulation when overclocked.

 

Given that an octacore FX at 4.5GHz pretty much matches a 4670k at the same clock speed in gaming benchmarks (wins some, loses others, never much more than 5% difference) and the FX series seem perfectly content to hit 5GHz on air or AIO (try that on a Haswell processor, I dare you) I personally think you'd have to be a bit barmy or at least rather wasteful to pay the 60% extra a Haswell i5 and decent board costs over a 990FX/83xx combo.

 

 

The strange thing is, as time has gone on the FX83xx appear to have got faster. They were pretty hopeless until W8 + the 7 compatibility patches were released, but in most of the gaming benchmarks, as games have evolved the FX series appear to have got progressively faster compared to the Haswell processors, to the point at which average frames in a fair few very recent titles are beating the 4570k and matching 4770k.

[Creed Bratton]

I'm going FX-8320 and probably Sabertooth. It kills me as it seriously f*cks up my red/black colour scheme but I'm not paying an additional £60 to colour-match my motherboard with my GPU.

Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P is cheap and it's black. Although, I'm not sure which revision you'd need, because earlier revisions may not support the FX-8320 TDP out of the box without a bios upgrade. You might want to consider it if you're planning a new build in 18 months anyway. Save yourself some money.

Edited May 22, 2014 by The Yokel

[sivispacem]

I'll definitely have a look. Any idea how good the VRM on it is? Seems to be a weak point on Gigabyte boards.

[Creed Bratton]

It's an 8+ 2. But I have no idea how good it is. I've never had a Gigabyte board.

Edited May 22, 2014 by The Yokel

[iNero]

Since they got problems with shipping my order with the 280x ( it isnt in stock anymore apparently ) I thought of replacing the 280x with the "Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 WindForce 3X OC Rev. 2.0 Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16" which would cost me about 170 € more than the 280x.

You think it is worth it? 414€ for an 780 is a good price as far as I compared it.

Just not sure if the better performance is worth the additional money.

 

Im not really appealed by AMD after this article:

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/26/why-watch-dogs-is-bad-news-for-amd-users-and-potentially-the-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/

 

...

[Pat]

If you're gaming on a single 1080p monitor, just get a 770. The performance difference between it and the 780 is not even close to making up for the price difference.

[iNero]

If you're gaming on a single 1080p monitor, just get a 770. The performance difference between it and the 780 is not even close to making up for the price difference.

 

I would need a 4GB 770 since 2GB is too few for the future.

And 4GB would cost me about 350€. ( there is no 3GB 770 )

At least the ones that are good enough for maxing games out on 60 FPS.

I recently watched a lot of benchmark videos of 280x and 770 cards and they all had drops under 60 fps in games like BF4 or Metro.

Im someone who notices drops very easily though.

So basicly I have to choose between a 350€ 770 4GB and a 414€ 780.

 

Comparison:

 

 

The 780 has up to 30 FPS more. Its probably also a bit more future safe I guess and I would still get a lot of money of it when selling it.

But I really dont know.

[Pat]

The only game in those benchmarks running at 1080p that goes below 60fps with the 770 is Crysis 3. Everything else is above 60fps, and if your monitor has a 60hz refresh rate (which I'm guessing it probably does) you will not notice any difference once you go past 60fps. If you do notice a difference, it is purely the placebo affect. As for the 4GB 770, it's a scam; its memory bus is too much of a bottleneck.

 

I maintain that the 780's price difference is not worth it if you're on a single 1080p monitor.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Pat

[GTA-Bobski]

I had the same choice to make between an AMD or NVIDIA card and did alot of reading on the GTX780 and AMD R290.

In the end it was a mix between price, performance, 3 or 4GB DDR5 VRAM and cooling that made me buy a Sapphire R290 Tri-X OC for 365 euro. With the specs of the X1/PS4 in mind it's quite clear to me 4GB VRAM is gonne be important the next years. It already is with Watch_Dogs, which is ironic because nVIDIA promotes that game with their high-end 3GB VRAM cards.

I've got the 290 for over a month now and have no complaints whatsoever. And I agree with Pat on the 60Hz thing.

I oc'd the card to nearly 290X speeds and with a oc'd i5 4670k I get a score of 9587 in Futurmars Fire Strike 1.1, and that's 200 points higher than a Titan and i7 4770k on stock speed. But then again, who uses stock speeds these days when oc'ing is made so easy.

The 290 also has something which I didn't read much about in the reviews. It dynamically adjusts the clockspeed, thus saving power and making it less hot. This feature works extremely well in games with v-sync on. In Far Cry 3, Anno 2070 and MP3 the framerate always is a smooth 60fps and the card stays under 80 degrees celcius with the fanspeed on 35%. At that percentage you can't hear the fans at all.

There's one downside though, you need a decent 600W PSU capable of 12v~55A or more. That gives you enough headroom so the PSU fan stays silent too. The card will work with a 500W PSU but chances are the PSU gets really hot and noisy.

Also, the GTX cards have Shadowplay. If you want to make vids or stream games then forget about AMD cards because ShadowPlay is just brilliant.

[iNero]

Ok, I just found this one:

 

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/3072MB-Inno3D-GeForce-GTX-780-iChill-HerculeZ-X3-Ultra-Aktiv-PCIe-3-0-x16_857664.html

 

Only read 2 reviews so far, but both of them literally praised it.

 

Fastest Stock 780 and also had the highest OC clock rate.

It has outstanding cooling and so on.

OCed it beats a Stock 780 Ti.

 

They said it has almost no flaws except for a high price which was about 550$ when they tested it. Here I would get it for 424€. It beats a Stock 780 Ti.

 

Someone has some oppinions on Inno3D? I still havent decided.

[Creed Bratton]

This is more relevant for PC gaming than just Watch Dogs so make sure you read it carefully: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/26/why-watch-dogs-is-bad-news-for-amd-users-and-potentially-the-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/

 

Ubisoft and Nvidia are screwing over AMD users by refusing to give AMD the Dx11 code to optimize their drivers. It's anti-consumerism 101. Ubisoft cares more about Nvidia's money than they do about their customers with AMD GPUs. Now I'm even happier that I decided not to buy this game.

[iNero]

This is more relevant for PC gaming than just Watch Dogs so make sure you read it carefully: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/26/why-watch-dogs-is-bad-news-for-amd-users-and-potentially-the-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/

 

Ubisoft and Nvidia are screwing over AMD users by refusing to give AMD the Dx11 code to optimize their drivers. It's anti-consumerism 101. Ubisoft cares more about Nvidia's money than they do about their customers with AMD GPUs. Now I'm even happier that I decided not to buy this game.

 

I posted this just a few posts above

[Creed Bratton]

 

This is more relevant for PC gaming than just Watch Dogs so make sure you read it carefully: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/26/why-watch-dogs-is-bad-news-for-amd-users-and-potentially-the-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/

 

Ubisoft and Nvidia are screwing over AMD users by refusing to give AMD the Dx11 code to optimize their drivers. It's anti-consumerism 101. Ubisoft cares more about Nvidia's money than they do about their customers with AMD GPUs. Now I'm even happier that I decided not to buy this game.

 

I posted this just a few posts above

 

Oh, sorry. I didn't see it. It is a big deal, though. Nvidia are really a bunch of f*cktards. I'm glad their G-sync is dead now that VESA has adopted the adaptive sync into the DisplayPort 1.2a standard.

Edited May 27, 2014 by The Yokel

[Vercetti42]

This is more relevant for PC gaming than just Watch Dogs so make sure you read it carefully: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/26/why-watch-dogs-is-bad-news-for-amd-users-and-potentially-the-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/

 

Ubisoft and Nvidia are screwing over AMD users by refusing to give AMD the Dx11 code to optimize their drivers. It's anti-consumerism 101. Ubisoft cares more about Nvidia's money than they do about their customers with AMD GPUs. Now I'm even happier that I decided not to buy this game.

 

I was just getting hyped for this and now I'm annoyed again. You're right Ubisoft and Nvidia are obviously in some kind of a new deal, a lot of users own AMD cards and this is obviously an easy way to earn money for both Nvidia and Ubisoft by forcing gamers to buy Nvidia cards and I own an AMD card. I hope this does not continue for games like Far Cry 4.

 

What a smart and cunning way to earn money. Idiots.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Vercetti42

[iNero]

Atm Im really tempted to cancel the order and wait for new GPUs and probably the new 8 core i7s.

I would have a bit more money to spend too.

Although I already waited like 6 months for new GPUs ( not the rebrand stuff )

I really dont know... atm I only have a xbox360. I wont buy any new game for it though. Basicly I missed out all good games since GTA5 release...

[sivispacem]

The 8-core i7s are going to be hideously expensive and total overkill for all but the most intensive use. I'm guessing probably $1,500 to $1,800 for motherboard, CPU and RAM alone. Depending on how the price of DDR4 fluctuates.

[RyanBurnsRed]

The price of RAM have gone up significantly over the past 2 years. Back in 2011 and 2012 you could get 16 GB of DDR3 1600 RAM for the same price as 8 GB DDR3 1600 RAM today.

When DDR4 comes out, I doubt it'll be any cheaper. To be honest, I think it'll be more expensive.

[Cosmic Gypsy]

When i search for an Arma thread, nothing comes up, even though i'm pretty sure an Arma thread exists, so instead of making another thread i'll just post it here.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/288520/

Arma go karts DLC.

[sivispacem]

That's absolutely hilarious. Almost worth getting Arma 3 just for that.

[Andreas]

I got Arma 3 a month ago or two, but still haven't installed it on my PC yet. I should totally do that now that you point out the DLC.

 

On the subject of Watch Dogs, I find it ridiculous that Ubisoft are refusing to give AMD the game code for possible driver optimizations. That's just unacceptable and really puts me off, and it makes it even more unlikely that I will purchase the game anytime soon. Maybe I should really start to think about getting a PS4 a little sooner, or something.

 

On another note, there is just one system part that needs upgrade in my case and that would be the GPU. I'm still using my now three-to-four years old GTX460, but I'm not sure though whether I should wait for AMD Pirate Islands and nVidia Maxwell. If I wait, it might take some time. If I buy some hardware now, then I'm probably going to beat myself because there's far better hardware for ~300€ in a few months' time. And, as far as I know, there will be some substantial performance increases with the introduction of the new graphic-card generation. On one hand, there is a new generation from both, NV and AMD, every other year but, on the other hand, my current GPU lasted for years already and it's still decent so waiting a bit longer wouldn't be so bad, either. Decisions, decisions...

 

I think I will wait a little and see how some of the better games in the near future will look like on middle versus high and high versus maxed out settings.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Andreas