Updating my rig, need some advice

[Uurastaja]

Hi,

I tried to ask this question in another hardware related forum, but since I got no answers I decided to come here to see if I could get help from people who have more experience with Red Orchestra.

RO is one of the few games I play these days and I need to update my components (motherboard, processor, graphics card and RAM) in order to run games well with 1900x1200 resolution. I'm not interested in the latest framerate killer games such as Crysis, so I guess I don't need the most effective parts.

I already have a Sonata III case with 500W PSU + other drives I need. It would be great if the new parts would be effective, yet quiet.

My budget is around 300 euros and I'll order either from Finland or Germany. Are my demands possible?

 

[Zetsumei]

can you say what you have at this moment. so we can look at what would nice stuff to upgrade.

For ro order of importance in a computers power is like this:

Processor
Videocard
Memory

 

[Uurastaja]

I used to have AMD 3000+, ATI x800 AGP and 1GB of RAM, but I sold the graphics card and memory away because I didn't play anything then.

Now I only have the good-old ATI 9200 and 512MB of RAM, so I need to buy the parts from scratch.

The problem is that I don't know what parts are good quality (heat production and silence important) and what suits my needs.

 

[Zetsumei]

Vidcard ATI radeon 4850 (ati to make sure you have no stuttering issues)
Processor intel Core 2 duo E8400 (if you don't overclock that is)
Memory get something nice atleast 2GB ddr 2 for around 40-50 euro
Motherboard a really cheap P35 mobo if you can find it, else a G31/G33/P31 mobo i guess.


Price processor: 135 euros
Price vidcard: 150 euros
Memory: 40 euros
Mobo: 60 euro for a P35, 40 euro for a G31

this would make 385 together.

the 3870 vidcard would save you 40 euro 3850 would save you 60 euro. (although for its performance the 4850 is so ****ing cheap )
Nicer chipsets are the P35/P45/X38/X48
An E8200 processor would be 125 euros but is 333mhz slower saves you 10 euro.
Starting at 30 euros you can find 2gb of memory so another 10 euro you could save.

So if you absolutely must get it for 300 its possible although for 100 more you would get a really nice system.

 

[Uurastaja]

Thanks for help. What you suggested is almost what I had in mind.

I read from the other forum that it's really easy to overclock e7200 --> e8400, so I decided to pick e7200 for 35e cheaper. Of course the processor needs a cooler so I chose Xigmatek HDT-S1283 since many people think it's the best solution for its price. HD4850 also goes to the cart because as you said it has good bang for the buck.

Here's my shopping basket in hardwareversand.de:

+ 30e shipping costs, so the final price would be 410 euros. This looks good to me, do you have anything in mind that I should change?

 

[fiftyone]

The E8400 runs at about 16

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

The E8400 runs at about 16

 

[fiftyone]

=GG= Mr Moe
No, not at all.
Its in a Antec SLK3000B with a single 12c fan, stock Intel processor cooling, sat in a ASusP5K (heat pipe).

Get this, for the first couple of hours it was running at 6

 

[Zetsumei]

Thanks for help. What you suggested is almost what I had in mind.

I read from the other forum that it's really easy to overclock e7200 --> e8400, so I decided to pick e7200 for 35e cheaper. Of course the processor needs a cooler so I chose Xigmatek HDT-S1283 since many people think it's the best solution for its price. HD4850 also goes to the cart because as you said it has good bang for the buck.

Here's my shopping basket in hardwareversand.de:

+ 30e shipping costs, so the final price would be 410 euros. This looks good to me, do you have anything in mind that I should change?

Just make sure that you overclock it to a 333x4 fsb or something else the added cooler price isn't worth it in my opinion (mind you that the price of your processor + HSF combo is thesame price as the 8400 now, so just make sure you go beyond the 8400 stock speed with your setup, shouldn't be too hard )

If you go and overclock check out the board's overclock ability a bit on www.overclockers.com as well, although generally all P35 boards do pretty well, and gigabyte in general seems to be a favored brand. Although changing it from 266 to 333 mhz fsb should certainly be possible with good stability, its mostly when you start messing with timings and weird fsb mhz's. 333mhz fsb would give you about 3,16 ghz

Dunno what ram it is make sure of all ram available that you check a bit around for timings and low CL rating. And get the best possible memory. Gigabyte's website offers memory charts for what memory is known to work well with their motherboards worth taking a look at that as well . Usually you can get a nice matched sets as well that includes 2 sticks in 1 package for a relatively cheap price.

And check around different shops as well some shops have parts for like 3 euro more expensive possibly but might offer free shipping. So make sure you compare lots of shops to get the cheapest price ^^.

 

[Uurastaja]

I'll get the e7200 boxed, but I'll see if I overclock it or not. Do I need the extra speed that much in games like Red Orchestra? If the processor bottlenecks I either overclock it or get a more efficient one.

In my opinion the case should have better cooling so I chose two Nexus 120mm fans for 10 euros to replace the generic Antec one. I heard these are good for the price.

And check around different shops as well some shops have parts for like 3 euro more expensive possibly but might offer free shipping. So make sure you compare lots of shops to get the cheapest price ^^.

I changed the store, because there is a cheap and reliable store in Finland that has 10e shipping cost for my purchase. I just want to get the parts fast and easy, that's all. Just as long as the budget is close to 400e everything is fine.

Here's the shopping basket:

Dunno what ram it is make sure of all ram available that you check a bit around for timings and low CL rating. And get the best possible memory. Gigabyte's website offers memory charts for what memory is known to work well with their motherboards worth taking a look at that as well . Usually you can get a nice matched sets as well that includes 2 sticks in 1 package for a relatively cheap price.

I've read that CL latency has nothing to with memorys performance. People have confirmed this in another forum and I've heard no complaints about "unknown" memory manufacturers.

 

[Uurastaja]

The Gigabyte P35 motherboard doesn't seem to be available, so should I buy MSI P31? It costs 50e and I heard it's good.

 

[Zetsumei]

Stock it should handle ro well enough you can always add a different HSF later on, although if you overclock with the stock heat sink keep an eye at those temperatures.

Anyway its your choice, P31 chipsets are quite nice for being the little brother of the P35, although generally it got less features and whiz around it.

They're not really overclockers but making the fsb to 333mhz x4 should still be pretty easy so it should work.

----

And memory timings do matter in performance although more so on AMD chipsets.
But tight timings usually mean that you can put the timings looser yourself and raise the FSB of the momory without using a divider. Although again at 333mhz all dividers and stuff should work perfectly since that is a default FSB ratio. (although ratios between 266 and 333mhz might not be as stable)

 

[Uurastaja]

I got a confirmation for my order in the other forum. I was told to buy 4GB of memory for future, and I did it because the memory is rather cheap (2x Buffalo 2GB DDR2 800 PC6400 for 70e).
The guy also suggested to only get one 12cmx12cm cooler for my case as two of them might screw up the ventilation.

I decided not to go with the P31 so I ordered Abit IP35-E from another Finnish store for 73e + shipping costs. Every part is ordered now for 435e. No worries if it goes a bit over, the budget isn't tight.

Finally, thanks for help Zetsumei. Your information regarding overclocking and so on has been very useful.

 

[Uurastaja]

I've been using this setup for a while now, but I have a problem. 3DMark 06 and Company of Heroes demo won't start, the monitor just hits blank when I try to run them. 3DMark crashes after it has loaded the first test and CoH crashes immediately when I start the game (THQ logo sound runs in the background). After the screen goes blank the PC is still running and I have to reboot it.

I did some research and I did exactly what Futuremark said in their FAQ. I installed the right hotfix for 3DMark06, renamed/deleted the Direcpll.dll file, ran the benchmark using the -nosysteminfo command line and increased the GPU fan speed from 20% to 70%. I also removed the old ATI 8.7 beta drivers with Driver Cleaner and installed the hotfix for 4800 series. Not to mention the DX9c update. Didn't work.

Other games such as RO and World in Conflict demo work fine even though WiC crashed once after I had played it for over an hour.

CoH's Warnings log:

RELICCOH started at 2008-07-19 16:37
OS NT 5.1, 3327MB Physical Memory, 2955 Physical Available, 1992 Virtual Available
RUN-OPTIONS
WORKING-DIR C:\Program Files\THQ\Company of Heroes Single Player Demo
USER Hannu
16:37:43.06 2 Logical Processors detected
16:37:43.06 Multithreading Enabled
16:37:43.06 THREAD: Hyper-Threading Technology Processors are not detected.
16:37:43.06 XTHREAD: Detected 2 core(s) with 2 hardware thread(s)
16:37:43.06 XTHREAD: Main thread now used as XThread 0
16:37:43.06 XTHREAD: Spawned thread on processor 1
16:37:43.06 MATHBOX -- Version=6, Cpu=INTEL Pentium-III:f=6,m=7, Mode=SSE
16:37:43.06 FILESYSTEM -- filepath failure, path does not exist 'DataPreview\'
16:37:43.06 GAME -- Company Of Heroes, 1.0, Build 10359
16:37:43.06 GAME -- Available memory: 3326MB RAM, 1884MB Pagefile
16:37:43.06 SYSTEMCONFIG -- Failed to load configuration from 'userdata:configuration.lua'.
16:37:43.23 SPOOGE - Driver[DirectX9 rendering device] version[4,36]
16:37:43.26 SPDx9 -- Driver Name = ati2dvag.dll Desc = ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
16:37:43.26 SPDx9 -- Driver Vendor = 0x1002 Device = 0x9442 SubSys = 0x05021002 Rev = 0x0000
16:37:43.26 SPDx9 -- Driver Version Product = 0x0006 Version = 0x000E SubVersion = 0x000A Build = 0x1AA6 (6822)
16:37:43.26 SPDx9 -- Driver GUID = {D7B71EE2-D702-11CF-1469-0825A1C2CB35}
16:37:45.96 SPDx9 -- 742MB available Texture Memory
16:37:45.96 ShaderDatabase: using shader profile [ps30]
16:37:46.29 FILESYSTEM -- filepath failure, missing alias 'TOOLSDATA:autoloddecimator.lua'
16:37:46.93 GAME -- Beginning FE
16:37:46.93 UIFrontEnd - Loading Front End
16:37:47.62 SOUND -- Initializing ...
16:37:47.62 SOUND -- Initialization completed!
16:37:47.62 UIFrontEnd - Initializing Forms
16:37:47.78 Could not open DynamicPopupMenu
16:37:47.90 MOVIE -- Opening movie 'movies:ThqIntro.lua'
16:37:48.06 Activating screen: MovieScreen

Edit: I forgot to mention that when I installed the parts I overclocked the CPU from 2.53GHz to 2.85GHz.

 

[Zetsumei]

you might have a bad part somewhere try running memtest to test your memory and other programs to test your vidcard etc.

And if you got a friend try swapping over parts and testing for a day.

Its not completely uncommon when building a new pc that a few parts could be faulty. These days all companies just push out this way too quick.

You should still have warranty for all parts anyway.

 

[Uurastaja]

Here's the result with HCI memtest, ran it overnight:

I also uploaded my DxDiag file If you want to check it.

Sometimes when I start the computer, it shuts down for couple of seconds and then continues to boot Windows by itself. I've checked if the cables block any fans, but the case is clean.

 

[Zetsumei]

can you possibly check how hot your videocard is becoming and whether the fan works correctly on it.

Try to update to the latest bios on your motherboard as well just to be sure.
Its hard to solve issues like this but generally you should have no such issues so its most likely that one part was shipped partially faulty to you.

So just make sure you have all the latest drivers installed in the correct fashion. Catalyst 4.8 should be out soon as well. And as much as possible try to test individual parts with benchmarks and check if you can narrow down where the issues are coming from.

 

[Uurastaja]

GPU temp at idle is 60c, fanspeed 35%. Haven't checked the temp at stress mode, but the fan works correctly.

I don't think bios update will solve the 3DMark problem, I believe it has something to do with the drivers. I've tried all the drivers for 4800 series and none of them have fixed the issue even though I've always deleted the previous ATI software with Driver Cleaner. Today I noticed AMD finally released the 8.7 drivers but they don't fix the problem either.

 

[Uurastaja]

What's with the warning?

 

[Zetsumei]

well it sais ddr2 voltage is too low