PC for Roy Koh

[Falesh Helithian]

CPU Cooler (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158603) £38
i5 2500K (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/251596) £183
GTX 460 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/232853) £147
Hard Drive (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804) £40
8GB Memory (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172949) £65

Not sure of a good motherboard. You will probably want one that offers good SLI performance so you can add a second graphics card as a possible upgrade.

[Elias Agricolas]

If the CPU is the new Sandy Bridge design, using the LGA1155 pinout, Computer Shopper recommends the Asus P8P67 motherboard (£128) for top-of-the-range performance (I have always gone with Asus boards, myself). The P67 chipset is necessary for overclocking but if you don't want to go down that path you can get H67 chipset LGA1155 motherboards for much less (Shopper rated the ASROCK H67M-GE at £72 - but only one PCI-E x16 so no SLI/Crossfire.)

The mag also quotes £172 for the i5 2500K from www.aria.co.uk (though I've never heard of the company before)

[Royko Sothenic]

Thanks guys, do you also know any built machines that are good/cheap i dont mind building it but can sometimes get some problems with that

[Falesh Helithian]

If you are buying one built just make sure it has an i5 2500K in, don't get one that doesn't have the "k" at the end as they suck at overclocking.

[Altus Whyte]

I usually buy gigabyte mainboards since they have better technical documentation and don't have all that useless marketing-bling-features asus boards tend to have.

You could also check if there's any ATI 68xx available at a lower price. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

[Raize Sothenic]

Good stuff guys,

Now i've moved house the wife has given me 700 quid to build a new PC so i might have to buy a sister PC to Roys :D

[Alexander TheDutch]

i have 2x ATi 6850 in crossfire and thay arend that good for darkfall. better go with nvidia if you ask me.
my old nvidia 8800gtx runs better thenn these 2

[Jaidyn Sothenic]

Defo on the cpu, you can OC that to 4.9 :O Even better than the Sandybridge i7!

[Falesh Helithian]

i have 2x ATi 6850 in crossfire and thay arend that good for darkfall. better go with nvidia if you ask me.
my old nvidia 8800gtx runs better thenn these 2

I ran a 4850 then a single 5770 and finally 2 x 5770 in crossfire and I've always had good performance so I'm not sure about the ATI vs nVidia thing. Still, the CPU is by far the most important thing for DF so you can cheap out on a graphics card and still get excellent performance. Since you are cheaping out though it's good to leave an option for upgrade, hence looking for a motherboard that can handle good crossfire/sli.

When you come to overclocking I would highly recommend using the following forums: http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/

[Fornax Eridanu]

Since the plan is to get a 2500k that would rule out the H67. The 2500k allows adjusting the multiplier (upwards) for which you need the P67 indeed, or the sooncomming Z68 (april?)

Aside of that there is a bug in both the H67 and P67 chipsets and (almost) no motherboards will be for sale untill the fixed (B3-stepping) will be available in march or april. Intel is recalling all faulty chipsets (B2 stepping).

Basically 4 out of the 6 SATA-ports have a bug that will develop over time http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug

The choice of the Sandy Bridge i5 2500K is a good one though, but expect you will have to wait a few weeks.

May I suggest adding some 70-120 pounds for a SandForce based SSD? OCZ Vertex 2, 60 or 80GB or something. It only needs Windows, DF and some often used aplications on it, the rest can find a good home on the HD.

[Falesh Helithian]

An SSD is nice but it doesn't give much, if any, performance increase for darkfall. Having a second hard drive for playclaw footage is good though so I guess if you want to go for two then getting a small SSD as a second wouldn't bump the cost by too much.

[Fornax Eridanu]

An SSD is nice but it doesn't give much, if any, performance increase for darkfall.

I beg to differ here.
When I get near several other players there is noticeable stuttering in my framerate and movement when stuff is loading from disk, and I know my (mechanical) HD is in good shape. An SSD would greatly lighten this stuttering and for sure help with getting into the game at first and teleporting/releasing. Aside of that it will make windows in general boot and run smoother.

My opinion is that an SSD for windows and DF (and a few other games) will make Roy happier with his new computer. (My choice would be a SandForge-based SSD.) But right now it is his choice if he wants to fork out the extra money for it.

[Falesh Helithian]

I beg to differ here.
When I get near several other players there is noticeable stuttering in my framerate and movement when stuff is loading from disk, and I know my (mechanical) HD is in good shape. An SSD would greatly lighten this stuttering

I don't think I have any stuttering, at least it's not something I have noticed. I had read about different people trying the SSD's and found no performance increase but I don't have one so I can't say for sure and since you have experienced a benefit then maybe there is one or at least they help some people. As you say loading should definitely be sped up.

[Jaidyn Sothenic]

Was currently looking for one for Raize but fell upon this

http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Range/Gladiator/Anarchy+GTX+P67+Gaming+PC+?productId=43228

very good price and it has the sandybridge i5 so looks great for the cash.