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As you may know, I'm saving for a new graphics card and I'm looking at the GTX 960 as a good card for the money that also works well with a standard 500w PSU.
But....what if I saved a bit more and bought a new PC? My CPU is not great, it's an A8 APU and it's struggling at times, the motherboard is creaky and only an FM2 and won't take anything other than the APUs due to the wonderful knobbling HP do on their Bios. So I'm thinking here's a challenge, find me a PC (on Amazon as I have vouchers making up some of my money towards it, or take £150-£200 off the maximum price) that will; a) run all the latest games at high settings or thereabouts (not necessarily ultra), b) costs less than or around £500 and c) looks pretty.
This is the best I've come up with so far:
Go!
But....what if I saved a bit more and bought a new PC? My CPU is not great, it's an A8 APU and it's struggling at times, the motherboard is creaky and only an FM2 and won't take anything other than the APUs due to the wonderful knobbling HP do on their Bios. So I'm thinking here's a challenge, find me a PC (on Amazon as I have vouchers making up some of my money towards it, or take £150-£200 off the maximum price) that will; a) run all the latest games at high settings or thereabouts (not necessarily ultra), b) costs less than or around £500 and c) looks pretty.
This is the best I've come up with so far:
Go!
Page:
1) I never, EVER said "faster"
2) I never, EVER mentioned a "conspiracy"
3) "CPU hamstringing GPU= Bottleneck, however you wrap it up, and that's WRONG
Anyone who thinks CPU speed is the ONLY factor that counts for a gaming pc probably ought to brush up on their pc knowledge. That's what your analogy suggests, that's what your argument suggests, and quite frankly, that's about as short-sighted as they come.
Thanks pete for posting. It highlights the fact that my sub-£500 pc is running the same game with the same settings as a £1500 pc. Sure, he's probably getting more than the 60 fps that I'm getting, but that's a difference I doubt most people would notice/ be worried about.
To use your own analogy, £1500 might well pull away faster, but I'm still getting there on time, and if there's a "speed bump" on they way, well, I'm driving straight through.
Which would any sensible person prefer?
"Seemed to be hit or miss based on certain hardware configurations, but most of the issues were for some high end cards and CPU combinations."
Thanks for proving my point.
2) I never, EVER mentioned a "conspiracy"
3) "CPU hamstringing GPU= Bottleneck, however you wrap it up, and that's WRONG
Anyone who thinks CPU speed is the ONLY factor that counts for a gaming pc probably ought to brush up on their pc knowledge. That's what your analogy suggests, that's what your argument suggests, and quite frankly, that's about as short-sighted as they come.
Thanks pete for posting. It highlights the fact that my sub-£500 pc is running the same game with the same settings as a £1500 pc. Sure, he's probably getting more than the 60 fps that I'm getting, but that's a difference I doubt most people would notice/ be worried about.
To use your own analogy, £1500 might well pull away faster, but I'm still getting there on time, and if there's a "speed bump" on they way, well, I'm driving straight through.
Which would any sensible person prefer?
"Seemed to be hit or miss based on certain hardware configurations, but most of the issues were for some high end cards and CPU combinations."
Thanks for proving my point.
pete_21 wrote:
FWIW my brother (who is the biggest PC master race elitist I know) owns a top end gaming rig, I'm not sure of the specs but I do know they are very high (reckons he's spent around £1500 on stuff this year.) and he said Arkham Knight has run issue free on that and has done so since he installed it on release. If it was an unplayable mess he would have been the one person I would trust to call it so. He has certainly not been playing it on anything remotely low end, nor has he been running it on lower settings.
Seemed to be hit or miss based on certain hardware configurations, but most of the issues were for some high end cards and CPU combinations.
FWIW my brother (who is the biggest PC master race elitist I know) owns a top end gaming rig, I'm not sure of the specs but I do know they are very high (reckons he's spent around £1500 on stuff this year.) and he said Arkham Knight has run issue free on that and has done so since he installed it on release. If it was an unplayable mess he would have been the one person I would trust to call it so. He has certainly not been playing it on anything remotely low end, nor has he been running it on lower settings.
Seemed to be hit or miss based on certain hardware configurations, but most of the issues were for some high end cards and CPU combinations.
chasfh wrote:
pb wrote:
[i]chasfh wrote:
[i]@pb, I'm not "mixing up" anything, I'm stating categorically that the statement is ludicrous.
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
As I already clearly stated, it's not a bottleneck at all but the plain fact that most games use both CPU and GPU to run and FPS will be affected by both, though MOSTLY by GPU, hence the fact that most games are perfectly playable on AMD CPUs and some even on an old dual core pentium. Nearly all games use a maximum of 2 cores so more than that will not affect games (other non-gaming tasks, maybe, but even they work better first and foremost with better instruction sets). Plus your CPU actually has 4 physical cores, not 8, not that this makes a lot of difference as its down to single core performance.
Upgrading-wise, I was talking about newer, faster processors.
I've been running an AMD CPU in my last few PCs and I'd considered both for my new PC but the basic fact is that you get more out of an Intel CPU than an AMD and this fact will be compounded with time as games become more complicated,[/i]
So, after countless people berating me for stating I can run Arkham Knight without issue, it's now "expected? What "example" would you like?
Please...
And what about the Witcher 3? That the same deal is it? Dying light? Farcry 4?
3D rendering (Poser, Daz Studio, Carrara etc.) is also faster, smoother and a LOT less glitchy.
Also, what's the difference between a "bottleneck" and "slowdown"? Are they not the same thing?.[/i]
Bottleneck = CPU not allowing GPU instructions to come through fast enough, General FPS difference =.GPU and CPU working at maximum and comparing to other systems.
I'm happy for you that you can run games well but I fail to see how that proves anything being said about the difference by all those websites, magazines and detailed results. Oh, I forgot, it's a big conspiracy theory.
pb wrote:
[i]chasfh wrote:
[i]@pb, I'm not "mixing up" anything, I'm stating categorically that the statement is ludicrous.
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
As I already clearly stated, it's not a bottleneck at all but the plain fact that most games use both CPU and GPU to run and FPS will be affected by both, though MOSTLY by GPU, hence the fact that most games are perfectly playable on AMD CPUs and some even on an old dual core pentium. Nearly all games use a maximum of 2 cores so more than that will not affect games (other non-gaming tasks, maybe, but even they work better first and foremost with better instruction sets). Plus your CPU actually has 4 physical cores, not 8, not that this makes a lot of difference as its down to single core performance.
Upgrading-wise, I was talking about newer, faster processors.
I've been running an AMD CPU in my last few PCs and I'd considered both for my new PC but the basic fact is that you get more out of an Intel CPU than an AMD and this fact will be compounded with time as games become more complicated,[/i]
So, after countless people berating me for stating I can run Arkham Knight without issue, it's now "expected? What "example" would you like?
Please...
And what about the Witcher 3? That the same deal is it? Dying light? Farcry 4?
3D rendering (Poser, Daz Studio, Carrara etc.) is also faster, smoother and a LOT less glitchy.
Also, what's the difference between a "bottleneck" and "slowdown"? Are they not the same thing?.[/i]
Bottleneck = CPU not allowing GPU instructions to come through fast enough, General FPS difference =.GPU and CPU working at maximum and comparing to other systems.
I'm happy for you that you can run games well but I fail to see how that proves anything being said about the difference by all those websites, magazines and detailed results. Oh, I forgot, it's a big conspiracy theory.
Thank you pete ... there speaks a voice of calm and reason ... chas has blown a fuse ;¬)
depends which fuse ... Fiesta or Ferrari now
depends which fuse ... Fiesta or Ferrari now
pb wrote:
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
I used to have a Mk1 Escort that would leave a Cosworth behind from a standing start too. Bought it for £100 from a breaker's yard, stripped it, added some cheap upgrades, put it back together.
Nobody believed that one either until they saw it.
Straight line or "race conditions", yes, a Ferrari is better. But for driving in general? A Fiesta's probably better and more versatile.
Not really a good "comparison" at all pb, considering the majority of games these days could be considered "speed bumps"...
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
I used to have a Mk1 Escort that would leave a Cosworth behind from a standing start too. Bought it for £100 from a breaker's yard, stripped it, added some cheap upgrades, put it back together.
Nobody believed that one either until they saw it.
Straight line or "race conditions", yes, a Ferrari is better. But for driving in general? A Fiesta's probably better and more versatile.
Not really a good "comparison" at all pb, considering the majority of games these days could be considered "speed bumps"...
FWIW my brother (who is the biggest PC master race elitist I know) owns a top end gaming rig, I'm not sure of the specs but I do know they are very high (reckons he's spent around £1500 on stuff this year.) and he said Arkham Knight has run issue free on that and has done so since he installed it on release. If it was an unplayable mess he would have been the one person I would trust to call it so. He has certainly not been playing it on anything remotely low end, nor has he been running it on lower settings.
pb wrote:
chasfh wrote:
[i]@pb, I'm not "mixing up" anything, I'm stating categorically that the statement is ludicrous.
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
As I already clearly stated, it's not a bottleneck at all but the plain fact that most games use both CPU and GPU to run and FPS will be affected by both, though MOSTLY by GPU, hence the fact that most games are perfectly playable on AMD CPUs and some even on an old dual core pentium. Nearly all games use a maximum of 2 cores so more than that will not affect games (other non-gaming tasks, maybe, but even they work better first and foremost with better instruction sets). Plus your CPU actually has 4 physical cores, not 8, not that this makes a lot of difference as its down to single core performance.
Upgrading-wise, I was talking about newer, faster processors.
I've been running an AMD CPU in my last few PCs and I'd considered both for my new PC but the basic fact is that you get more out of an Intel CPU than an AMD and this fact will be compounded with time as games become more complicated,[/i]
So, after countless people berating me for stating I can run Arkham Knight without issue, it's now "expected? What "example" would you like?
Please...
And what about the Witcher 3? That the same deal is it? Dying light? Farcry 4?
3D rendering (Poser, Daz Studio, Carrara etc.) is also faster, smoother and a LOT less glitchy.
Also, what's the difference between a "bottleneck" and "slowdown"? Are they not the same thing?
Plus, if you think buying Intel is going to "future proof" you any better than AMD, you're sorely mistaken. Intel change their socket config just as often as AMD.
FACT: I can set games to the highest settings WITHOUT ISSUE despite even the game ITSELF telling me that I can't That's the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of your statement; if anything my kit runs BETTER than more expensive, "higher specification" stuff, absolutely NOT crippled in any fashion.
You know what? I'm done. If anyone's interested, I open broadcast now and again, take a look for yourselves...
chasfh wrote:
[i]@pb, I'm not "mixing up" anything, I'm stating categorically that the statement is ludicrous.
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
As I already clearly stated, it's not a bottleneck at all but the plain fact that most games use both CPU and GPU to run and FPS will be affected by both, though MOSTLY by GPU, hence the fact that most games are perfectly playable on AMD CPUs and some even on an old dual core pentium. Nearly all games use a maximum of 2 cores so more than that will not affect games (other non-gaming tasks, maybe, but even they work better first and foremost with better instruction sets). Plus your CPU actually has 4 physical cores, not 8, not that this makes a lot of difference as its down to single core performance.
Upgrading-wise, I was talking about newer, faster processors.
I've been running an AMD CPU in my last few PCs and I'd considered both for my new PC but the basic fact is that you get more out of an Intel CPU than an AMD and this fact will be compounded with time as games become more complicated,[/i]
So, after countless people berating me for stating I can run Arkham Knight without issue, it's now "expected? What "example" would you like?
Please...
And what about the Witcher 3? That the same deal is it? Dying light? Farcry 4?
3D rendering (Poser, Daz Studio, Carrara etc.) is also faster, smoother and a LOT less glitchy.
Also, what's the difference between a "bottleneck" and "slowdown"? Are they not the same thing?
Plus, if you think buying Intel is going to "future proof" you any better than AMD, you're sorely mistaken. Intel change their socket config just as often as AMD.
FACT: I can set games to the highest settings WITHOUT ISSUE despite even the game ITSELF telling me that I can't That's the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of your statement; if anything my kit runs BETTER than more expensive, "higher specification" stuff, absolutely NOT crippled in any fashion.
You know what? I'm done. If anyone's interested, I open broadcast now and again, take a look for yourselves...
chasfh wrote:
@pb, I'm not "mixing up" anything, I'm stating categorically that the statement is ludicrous.
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
As I already clearly stated, it's not a bottleneck at all but the plain fact that most games use both CPU and GPU to run and FPS will be affected by both, though MOSTLY by GPU, hence the fact that most games are perfectly playable on AMD CPUs and some even on an old dual core pentium. Nearly all games use a maximum of 2 cores so more than that will not affect games (other non-gaming tasks, maybe, but even they work better first and foremost with better instruction sets). Plus your CPU actually has 4 physical cores, not 8, not that this makes a lot of difference as its down to single core performance.
Upgrading-wise, I was talking about newer, faster processors.
I've been running an AMD CPU in my last few PCs and I'd considered both for my new PC but the basic fact is that you get more out of an Intel CPU than an AMD and this fact will be compounded with time as games become more complicated,
@pb, I'm not "mixing up" anything, I'm stating categorically that the statement is ludicrous.
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
Because, as stated in a million websites, Arkham Knight works better on lower end hardware and is a badly programmed mess that is bugged for higher end hardware. It's not a great example of anything other than how not to program a game for PC. It would be like saying your Ford Cortina is faster than a Ferrarri because you tested them both on a high street with speed bumps and the Ferrari couldn't go over the speed bumps.
As I already clearly stated, it's not a bottleneck at all but the plain fact that most games use both CPU and GPU to run and FPS will be affected by both, though MOSTLY by GPU, hence the fact that most games are perfectly playable on AMD CPUs and some even on an old dual core pentium. Nearly all games use a maximum of 2 cores so more than that will not affect games (other non-gaming tasks, maybe, but even they work better first and foremost with better instruction sets). Plus your CPU actually has 4 physical cores, not 8, not that this makes a lot of difference as its down to single core performance.
Upgrading-wise, I was talking about newer, faster processors.
I've been running an AMD CPU in my last few PCs and I'd considered both for my new PC but the basic fact is that you get more out of an Intel CPU than an AMD and this fact will be compounded with time as games become more complicated,
@pb, I'm not "mixing up" anything, I'm stating categorically that the statement is ludicrous.
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
If there was a bottleneck, how in all the shades of hell could I even HOPE to play AK on a 2GB card?
With regard to upgrading, I have two slots for GPU's, enough room for as much RAM as I could possibly ever want, my mb will take an 8 core AMD processor, I have six SATA connectors for hard drives....
What else do you consider "upgrades"?
chasfh wrote:
DL wrote:
[i]chasfh wrote:
[i]
What a complete load of nonsense.
Not my nonsense chas but Dave James's from PC Gamer :¬)[/i]
Doesn't make it any less ridiculous.
The wrong combination of GPU and CPU REGARDLESS OF THE MANUFACTURER can spoil a pc. To write off an entire manufacturer's range in such a fashion is ludicrous and irresponsible, and any journalist doing so should be ashamed of themselves.
It's laughable, really.
Anyone who knows my Steam user name could, by now, have watched me play on my "hamstrung" pc, I'm not keeping it a secret! But that's quite obviously beyond reasonable, it's far easier to write off what I say as nonsense, to post "quotes" from other sources to "prove" that I'm exaggerating/ lying/ delusional.
At the end of the day, who is it that's played over 50 hours on Arkham Knight without issue? The fact that I'm still ranked first for "Gotham's Greatest" on Steam should probably tell you something.[/i]
You are mixing up your ability to play games with the journalist's assertion that AMD CPUs will slow down a GPU. He's mistaken that it will 'bottleneck' a GPU, that's not what's happening, but it will have an effect.
What they should have said is that in a direct comparison between AMD and Intel the AMD CPU will often see a drop of FPS in high end cards. Couple this with the new processors where AMD have made little headway.
This doesn't mean AMD is no good for gaming and at the budget end of the scale it's an ideal way to save money but upgrading isn't as easy and as time goes on games will need more power.
Can you play games with a good FPS and resolution using AMD CPUs? Yes, of course. But the fact is that most games will see a small boost in power from an Intel CPU.
DL wrote:
[i]chasfh wrote:
[i]
What a complete load of nonsense.
Not my nonsense chas but Dave James's from PC Gamer :¬)[/i]
Doesn't make it any less ridiculous.
The wrong combination of GPU and CPU REGARDLESS OF THE MANUFACTURER can spoil a pc. To write off an entire manufacturer's range in such a fashion is ludicrous and irresponsible, and any journalist doing so should be ashamed of themselves.
It's laughable, really.
Anyone who knows my Steam user name could, by now, have watched me play on my "hamstrung" pc, I'm not keeping it a secret! But that's quite obviously beyond reasonable, it's far easier to write off what I say as nonsense, to post "quotes" from other sources to "prove" that I'm exaggerating/ lying/ delusional.
At the end of the day, who is it that's played over 50 hours on Arkham Knight without issue? The fact that I'm still ranked first for "Gotham's Greatest" on Steam should probably tell you something.[/i]
You are mixing up your ability to play games with the journalist's assertion that AMD CPUs will slow down a GPU. He's mistaken that it will 'bottleneck' a GPU, that's not what's happening, but it will have an effect.
What they should have said is that in a direct comparison between AMD and Intel the AMD CPU will often see a drop of FPS in high end cards. Couple this with the new processors where AMD have made little headway.
This doesn't mean AMD is no good for gaming and at the budget end of the scale it's an ideal way to save money but upgrading isn't as easy and as time goes on games will need more power.
Can you play games with a good FPS and resolution using AMD CPUs? Yes, of course. But the fact is that most games will see a small boost in power from an Intel CPU.
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