New Rig for SOW:BofB What should i get

[Avimimus]

Pick whatever is state of the art in Q1 2012. That way you'll be sure to be able to handle "Battle over Moscow" as well.

(typical single missions in Il-2:FB required a rig which was a little over two times faster than the original Il-2 system requirements - if the engine upgrades don't push up the resource needs, then the mission builders will).

That said I could do with advice regarding the fastest RAM currently available and other performance configurations. I don't keep track of these things anymore.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

That said I could do with advice regarding the fastest RAM currently available and other performance configurations. I don't keep track of these things anymore.

Currently that would be something like triple channel 2133mhz DDR3 installed in banks of 3.

Latencies are less relevant these days ... the 2133 ram is often CAS 9 or so. The clock is so fast the latency becomes less relevant.

But you need a 1366 motherboard for triple channel.

Not sure if Sandy bridge will change that. Possibly SB will be all triple channel, no idea.

[Ataros]

As far as I know Oleg does not have top end hardware in his office and the game is not fully assembled yet. Thus, system reqs are not known.

The only 2 things his devs mentioned are
- 4 cores will be better than 2 as they will have physics, graphics and sound data handled by different cores (and the 4th one left for system, and other overhead). Personally I doubt that 2 extra cores of 6core proc can be fully loaded before next engine revision.

- 3Gb ram will be minimum requirement.

I think your current rig will run BoB on low settings at least in QMB.

[Avimimus]

Thanks!

It is worth remembering, though that Il-2's system requirements climbed by about 30% during the beta stage.

I remember as I had a 350mhz machine that could no longer run it. It is also a good idea to recognise that Oleg's sims run on incredibly slow machines, but require a lot of resources to 'run well'.

[szala11]

Originally Posted by DoolittleRaider

As I understand it, the Core i7 970 is essentially the same as the 980, but a hundred bucks or so cheaper (maybe $850 versus $1000???), except that the 970 is 'locked' and cannot be overclocked. Both the 970 and 980 are 6 Core. I don't need the 'open' or'unlocked' structure of the 980, as I never will overclock.

Hey, at this level 850$ or 1000$ is really not a difference!! If you have 850$ you also have 1000$! BUY the i7980X! I'm 100% sure i will get the 980X or maybe a very good sandy for XMAS. That's why i saved up my money. I Also plan to drop in a 3rd gtx480 into my babe. With 980X and 3 GTXs BOB will run WITHOUT any issue. I understand you dont plan to OC but nowdays overclocking is VERY easy. 10-15 seconds in BIOS and you can get the 980X to 4.2Ghz. Also if you dont plan to OC why do you buy the p6T Deluxe V2??? It is made for OC and Crossfire/SLI. Buy a cheaper board and drop the difference into CPU.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by szala11

Dude! If you want to run BOB flawlessly you should get at least the 6 core i7980X. Anything weaker will struggle with BOB.It is just a few more bucks! It is said there will be lots of planes flying at the same time in SOW. and more important : drop in another gtx480 if you plan to fly near buildings. But i'd wait for the gtx580. 2 of them.

Are you sure about that? None of us have played the game yet.

I suspect any top spec Core i7 will probably do just fine but experiences will probably vary. I was saying somewhere else that Storm of War will probably look spectacular on a wide variety of computers but the absolute top level of detailing will probably be a whole other level that only the absolute top of the line computers will be able to take advantage of.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by T}{OR

I would suggest waiting for the beginning of the 2011 when Intel's Sandy Bridge micro architecture CPU-s should become available to public. The new GPU flagships are behind the corner and should also be available by then.

What does this all mean? - You can save considerably on your current components if you buy them in two months time as the prices will drop. Or you could get the latest gear available for the more or less the same price.

Personally, and more importantly - I'd wait for the game specs to be come out. This way you won't miss with your purchase.

Good point if you want cost effectiveness.

As for the individual components and judging from the performance we've seen in the videos from the Igromir expo (running SoW on full detail at PCs below the minimum specs, with stutters no less but still running stable and smooth over water), i doubt your proposed rig will have any problems whatsoever.

If anything, i'd go for a more middle-range quad core i7 instead of the 6 core model as it seems a bit overkill to me personally. Not that i know anything about how much SoW will benefit from extra cores, just guessing here.

I'd also choose an Ati graphics card just because the current nVidia offerings use up a lot of power, generate a lot of heat and as a consequence need high speed, noisy fans to keep temperatures where they need to be, all for a very small performance increase in most applications that don't go overboard on tesselation. Meaning, Ati will give the same or better performance over a wider range of different applications for less money.

I've always had nVidia cards up till getting my i7 rig last year, at which point i switched to Ati, so it's not like i have a grudge against them. It just doesn't make sense to me at this point in time to buy and install a very expensive mini-heater in my PC case with all the trouble that comes with it, for a marginal 5% or so boost in frame rates and maybe 20-25% in specific full-tesselation titles like a few first person shooters that i don't play.

As for RAM, 3GB is the minimum requirement for SoW, that's pretty much the only part of the specs we do know officially. I'd say get 6GB, 3 sticks of 2GB actually to take advantage of the tripple channel feature in i7 boards. More than 6-8Gb seems again like overkill and wasted money (before you can ever take full advantage of it, you might be on your next upgrade that uses a different kind of stick altogether, like DDR5 for example)

Since RAM is relatively cheap compared to other stuff, you could get one of the dual GPU 5xxx series Ati cards with the left-over cash, a simulator specific peripheral you might need, an extra hard disk, or a solid state disk to put your operating system on, and so on. You might even be able to sell your old monitor and get a new IPS one for the added color quality. The options are endless and you can tailor your PC to be a very well rounded machine for reasonable amounts of money, as long as you shop one step below the top of the line components.

[Ataros]

IIRC Oleg several times compared BoB release with Il-2 release regarding system requirements. In 2001 no hardware could run Il-2 maxed at hi-res at 50+ fps.

I have an impression that we would not be able to run BoB at 100% maxed out settings (100% AI complexity, 100% ground units, etc.) at 50+ fps for 3-5 years after release on mid-range hardware ($800-1200 setups). My 2005 $1200 setup could not run 4 year old Il-2 maxed out at 50+ fps at 1680 res low above cities for example.

So wait if you can or be prepared to upgrade next summer or winter again I upgraded for BoB last spring and ready for next upgrade when I feel I am not satisfied with BoB performance.

PS. 3.2 GHz clock speed may not be enough for BoB regardless of number of cores. Some games just require high clock speed (e.g. Arma2). Say ArmA 2 starts to kick only at 3.8 Ghz at my quad core i7 860 and not playable at 3.3 Ghz. And in some complex Warfare missions with many AI fps drops to 8-10 due to lack of processing power (not video). Video is not an issue in sims unless you run triple monitors I think.

[szala11]

...but the absolute top level of detailing will probably be a whole other level that only the absolute top of the line computers will be able to take advantage of.[/QUOTE]

That's what Im talking about. Most of us want to play this game with everything
MAXED OUT to get the best visual experience. Therefore i dont hesitate to drop in a 3rd or even 4th gtx480 into my rig. You will need a VERY powerful system to get the most joy out of this game... Get the latest and BEST hardware so you wont be disappointed.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by szala11

That's what Im talking about. Most of us want to play this game with everything
MAXED OUT to get the best visual experience. Therefore i dont hesitate to drop in a 3rd or even 4th gtx480 into my rig. You will need a VERY powerful system to get the most joy out of this game... Get the latest and BEST hardware so you wont be disappointed.

3-4 graphics cards? Come on

I mean, it's your money but isn't that a bit extreme? Going to all that trouble just to run one title at full detail a few months earlier? All you gain is seeing some features a few months earlier, that's all.

I never do SLI/crossfire for this very simple reason...today's double GPU solutions cost more and perform less than the single GPU of 6 months in the future.

I agree with what the other people are saying...the way PCs evolve today, you could buy a $2500 rig and it could be surpassed before you even have the chance to stress it to the maximum. If it doesn't get the chance to get used and stressed to its limits, it's wasted money plain and simple. What would i do in your position? Get the best foundation for a good PC by buying a good case, PSU and CPU, ie the things that don't get rendered obsolete every 6 months. Then, use mid-range components for the things that might need more frequent upgrades.

That's actually exactly how i'm set up right now...i have two 1.5 TB disks, an Asus P6T Deluxe, 3GB of RAM and a 700W power supply. I run a stock i7 920 with an Ati 4890 1Gb. All in all, i've spent about 1500 Euros on this rig over a few months (high quality IPS monitor included in the price). I could have gone for dual 4890x2 or 12GB of RAM but i didn't.
I wait for the 6xxx series cards to hit the market and nVidia to regain some lost ground that will force Ati to further drop the prices. Then i'm going to buy a 5970 or something like that for a mere $200 and have the same performance as someone who built a rig the same time as i did, but decided to spend $500 on dual 4890x2 right off the bat. In a similar fashion, when i7 prices drop due to the release of sandy bridge CPUs, i can exchange my 920 for a high end six-core at half the price it costs now.