TheRealBowser Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 I have decided to purchase and put together new parts for my old PC that runs this game at 20- FPS on low settings, to 40+ FPS on high settings. I have the items set up, but I want to make sure these all fit together and that I am getting a good deal. If anyone can provide extra tips or advice I'd really, REALLY, appreciate it! http://www.directron.com/rm51264ba1339.html x2 for 8gb ram. I'm told, however, that 4gb ram is all I will ever need. Is this true? The motherboard I am looking at only has 2 slots, so I want to be sure to begin with. http://www.directron.com/tp550.html Antec 550W Power supply. I know very little about power supplies but I know I need 550W or so. Is this a good choice? http://www.directron.com/h577fk1gd.html or http://www.directron.com/n550gtxticyclo.html Honestly I am not sure which of these to choose... which is the better deal? Which will run better? http://www.directron.com/h61mgc.html A cheap micro motherboard, but appears to have everything I need. Am I correct -- will it be compatible with everything I need? Are there any other problems I should be made aware of? http://www.directron.com/bx80623i52500.html The processor I am looking at. Not sure what to say.. except I am concerned about applying thermal glue. How difficult is that to do? I guess t hat's not a really good question to ask here. Lastly, should I be concerned about upgrading making my hard drive or DVD rom outdated? I would greatly, deeply appreciate all and any help. You could save me a lot of time, trouble, and money, so please let me know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shammus Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 (edited) I would pick up a power supply larger then 550w The card recommends 550w, but I recently bought a 560ti and had an older 850w power supply in there and it wasn't enough to power the card.. it stuttered and all kinds of junk The powersupply will offer the 2 x 6pin connectors you'll need or a 6 and 8 pin depending on what the card will use.. that has a 6pin and a 6+2 pin. Otherwise looks to me like everything you'd need. What are you putting this into? I'm assuming you know what your chassis will support in terms of motherboard sizes? As long as you have a DVD rom drive you shouldn't have to upgrade it. My only recommendation is when you're doing graphics cards get ample power to it, otherwise you could spend a few days in frustration wondering why its not working, if you wasted your money etc.. VIDEO cards can be funny things when they don't get proper power, mine was locking my pc up for 2 minutes at a time. Edited December 19, 2011 by Shammus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealBowser Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 I would pick up a power supply larger then 550w The card recommends 550w, but I recently bought a 560ti and had an older 850w power supply in there and it wasn't enough to power the card.. it stuttered and all kinds of junk The powersupply will offer the 2 x 6pin connectors you'll need or a 6 and 8 pin depending on what the card will use.. that has a 6pin and a 6+2 pin. Otherwise looks to me like everything you'd need. What are you putting this into? I'm assuming you know what your chassis will support in terms of motherboard sizes? As long as you have a DVD rom drive you shouldn't have to upgrade it. My only recommendation is when you're doing graphics cards get ample power to it, otherwise you could spend a few days in frustration wondering why its not working, if you wasted your money etc.. VIDEO cards can be funny things when they don't get proper power, mine was locking my pc up for 2 minutes at a time. I was under the impression that my Power supply was more than enough, but if it is not please let me know so I know to purchase a better one. I have an antec tower, to be honest I have not looked at whether it can hold a micro board. Is it safe to assume it will? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dasffion Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 I was under the impression that my Power supply was more than enough, but if it is not please let me know so I know to purchase a better one. I have an antec tower, to be honest I have not looked at whether it can hold a micro board. Is it safe to assume it will? It's always better to get a bigger powersupply than is strictly required so you can upgrade your components easier in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealBowser Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 It's always better to get a bigger powersupply than is strictly required so you can upgrade your components easier in the future. It appears 850W is only 10-20 dollars more so I may just get that instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papajan Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 Tom's Hardware did a small benchmark of TOR beta and found that AMD cards generally worked better. Though if you're an nVidia fan, maybe they'll improve their drivers for TOR. As for thermal grease, the Arctic Silver line is the popular pick. If your HSF comes with a thermal pad to start with, you can remove that by wiping it with cotton balls and rubbing alcohol. Then if you can find them, I suggest the flexible double-sided razors for applying the new thermal paste. Your goal is to make sure that you completely coat the place the heatsink and CPU will touch. And you want as thin a layer as possible - the purpose is to fill in the miniscule gaps and roughness in the surface of the CPU's heat spreader and the heatsink's bottom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AIox Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 "4GB is all you need" Nerp. Only those who sit on 4GB says so. (and they are NOT aware of that once the 3.9gb limit is reached, it uses harddrive space unless you've turned off pagefile) Once you got beyond 4 you will never look back. I have 8GB and my usage is above 4GB when playing SWTOR. When playing BF3 for instance its above 6GB.(Terribly optimized game fyi) And using something like After Effects CS5 I can easily hit 8GB in a preview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrhobbz Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 save an extra $100 and pickup a 6950 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealBowser Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 save an extra $100 and pickup a 6950 Why? Is it significantly better? I think what I am getting will get me 40+ FPS on high, and I don't really intend to heavily play other games at the moment, at least not ones that have more strenuous graphic requirements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealBowser Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 "4GB is all you need" Nerp. Only those who sit on 4GB says so. (and they are NOT aware of that once the 3.9gb limit is reached, it uses harddrive space unless you've turned off pagefile) Once you got beyond 4 you will never look back. I have 8GB and my usage is above 4GB when playing SWTOR. When playing BF3 for instance its above 6GB.(Terribly optimized game fyi) And using something like After Effects CS5 I can easily hit 8GB in a preview. I guess I can pick up another 4gb. Will I ever need more than 8gb? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akdonkey Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 (edited) I guess I can pick up another 4gb. Will I ever need more than 8gb? I remember once being told " You'll never need more than 1 Megabyte of Ram for anything ever!" We know how that is now. So I always spend the max I can on RAM I get every bit I can afford at the time of the PC upgrade or purchase. Because next week when that new top of the line game you must have that just came out, guess what? It needs double the RAM that you bought yesterday. Edited December 19, 2011 by akdonkey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ringzero Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 (edited) The GTX 550 Ti is definitely the better of the two cards you listed. The Radeon you listed is an older generation card, so why not go with current-gen? A 550 Watt PSU is all you need. If you get a Radeon 6950, then you might get a 600+, but any more than that will be a waste. 850+ is only necessary if you crossfire two GPUs. Edited December 19, 2011 by Ringzero Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brento Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 (edited) The quality of your power supply is more important than the wattage. To the guy who said 850 watts wasnt enough to power a 560ti, he's smoking crack. I've got a Corsair AX750 (750watts) and I've run TWO AMD 6850's on it. I've now got a single GTX570 and it runs perfectly. Your 550 watt Antec is more than enough to power a single card. And get 8gb of RAM. RAM is so cheap theres no reason not to. Edited December 19, 2011 by Brento Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ringzero Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 The quality of your power supply is more important than the wattage. To the guy who said 850 watts wasnt enough to power a 560ti, he's smoking crack. I've got a Corsair AX750 (750watts) and I've run TWO AMD 6850's on it. I've now got a single GTX570 and it runs perfectly. Your 550 watt Antec is more than enough to power a single card. And get 8gb of RAM. RAM is so cheap theres no reason not to. Brento, just out of curiosity, why'd you go from Crossfired 6850s to a 570? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealBowser Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 I remember once being told " You'll never need more than 1 Megabyte of Ram for anything ever!" We know how that is now. So I always spend the max I can on RAM I get every bit I can afford at the time of the PC upgrade or purchase. Because next week when that new top of the line game you must have that just came out, guess what? It needs double the RAM that you bought yesterday. I was more referring to this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles-William Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 (edited) Here's a neat little calculator from asus that accurately estimate what power supply based on the complete system http://support.asus.com/powersupply.aspx Edited December 20, 2011 by Charles-William Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RachelAnne Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 (edited) The GTX 550 Ti is definitely the better of the two cards you listed. The Radeon you listed is an older generation card, so why not go with current-gen? A 550 Watt PSU is all you need. If you get a Radeon 6950, then you might get a 600+, but any more than that will be a waste. 850+ is only necessary if you crossfire two GPUs. Nah he doesnt need such a strong one. A good 450W is all you need, unless you have hundreds of external things plugged in. People often make the mistake to purchase a 600+W of a noname, while they can get a 450 of a good company such as be quiet, corsair. The GPU´s and CPU´s of today dont need that much power anymore, especially an intel system is very low on its hunger for power. If he goes with an older GPU then a 550+ might be needed, but I would not recommend such a card. Get a 68xx or 69xx and swtor will run very good right now and even better if they made some adjustments to the drivers and the client itself. I do also recommend 8 GB (2x4) so it can run in dual channel mode, make sure the mainboard does support it tho. 1333 is sufficent dont go for the 1666 or anything above. Edited December 20, 2011 by RachelAnne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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