Building my First Gaming PC for EQ2 ONLY!

[Laedarr]

<p>I am attempting to build not only my first gaming PC, but my first PC ever.  I have compiled a list of hardware that I would like to order and get started on.  I'm seriously asking for some assistance and opinions from the more computer educated individuals.  Please review the hardware I have sought out and give me some opinions or ideas of what I need to swap out, if I even do.  Thanks in advance.</p><p>1)  Sunbeam transformer full ATX tower Case</p><p>2)  Western Digital Raptor 10,000 74 gb (for eq2 only)</p><p>3)  Western Digital 160 gb 7200 rpm</p><p>4)  GeForce 9800 GTX 512 mb (asus)</p><p>5)  Asus DVD/CD rom</p><p>6)  Antec 850w SLI ready ATI crossfire 80 plus Bronze</p><p>7)  Corsair Dominator 4gb (2x2gb) DDR2 1066</p><p><img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Asus P5N-T Deluxe, LGA 775 Nvidia nForce, 780i SLI ATX intel MB</p><p>9) Wolfdale Intel Core 2 Duo E8600</p><p>10)  Asus V-60 92mm Vapo Beaming CPU cooler.</p><p>11)  Windows Vista home 64 bit</p>

[rawsom]

You are not going to get much benefit for EQ2 by using a dual core processor. It does not however make any sense to get a single core CPU either, though. So what you will want to do is to get a dual core CPU that has the fastest possible speed in a single core. If you can find a dual core that can emulate as being a single core, thus threading calculatios by itself, get that one because it is the only way to get any benefit from it for EQ2.It does help to have a dual core because vista does thread its processes, pointing them to a processor that is used less. Since EQ2 only uses one processor no matter how many there are, it helps.I would recommend getting windows xp instead. Vista just isn't for gaming, and you can actually get DX9 to work as DX10 by adjusting ini files. All features of DX10 are already there in 9.0c but disabled by default.The rest of your configuration seems fine to me.

[Laedarr]

I do understand that EQ2 does not recognize dual core cpu's, however, by purchasing a Wolfdale E8600 coupled with the MB I chose, that would allow me to overclock each processor to 4.33 ghz.  That should be sufficient enough to overlook the fact that it is a dual core processor, yes?  I should have no problem configuring the EQ2 play to a single core and pushing any and all outside applications to the second core.  That's how I see it at least.  Am I wrong?

[Brook]

Your not wrong, that's a great setup.

[Laedarr]

<cite>Brook wrote:</cite><blockquote>Your not wrong, that's a great setup.</blockquote><p>Thanks Brook <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Now I need to purchase the items and put them together ::pant:: I'm nervous about it, but I hope it's as easy as everyone says it is.  I'm still very open to any suggestions about the items I chose.   </p><p>One thing i'm definitely on the fence about is the Vista 64 or the XP 64.  I understand that right now, XP runs eq2 much smoother, but we do really need to focus on the future as anything that deals with computer programs or components render themselves obsolete in the blink of an eye.  It reminds me when windows OS went from Win98 to XP.   There were a ton of bugs at first and nothing ran smoothly, but eventually XP became the champ.  Which is the mindset I have with Vista.  Sure it doesn't run 100% smooth on every machine right now, but I'm sure that the bugs will be all sorted out and everything will be vista dependent, just like everything became XP dependent.</p><p>Still eagerly awaiting more responses to this thread though.  All the items are roughly 1410.00 and I'd really like to see many more opinions before I go ahead and spend that kind of money.  </p>

[Beghauns]

Its not far off from my current computer that I've been running for a few months now.  Except I've got a e8400 overclocked to 3.8 and watercooled (tek block, black ice raid) since the p5e asus board I've got didn't have much room for an air cooler. Graphics card is more then enough since I got my biggest boost overlclocking the cpu.  The raptor along with the 4 gigs of ram should speed up your zoning a lot, I've got 2x2gb corsair but just have a regular sata hd and zone quite quickly.  Also I run eq2 with vista 64bit, but also have xp pro on my 2nd hd for backup mostly haven't used xp in forever.  Didn't have any problems with this game on vista.  Runs around 40C under load and max i've seen with benching is 48C.  Good luck with your build. 

[Laedarr]

After reading all the tech issues going on between newer PC's and EQ2 playability, i'm very concerned about spending that kind of money.  Could someone add some input about the specs I chose, maybe make other suggestions, thanks.

[RowainX]

Only beef I'd have is all the ASUS products. I can't stand them. My last ASUS hardware was a motherboard, and it was a real pain. Tons of trouble with RAM compatability and their website was slow and useless for tech support. eVGA is by far my favourite vendor these days and I wouldn't buy a nvidia chipset graphics card or mobo from anyone but them, simply because they are the most reliable.

[Brinelan]

<p>EVGA rocks.  I had an issue (turned otu to be a viewsonic problem) and the viewsonic rep really couldnt care less.. told me to go spend money to take my monitor to a computer shop to hook it up to another machine to see if it worked.  Turned out that model had a dvi bug and the guy didnt know anything about it.  EVGA went through some great troubleshooting, even getting their engineers involved, and finally just swapped the card anyway.  And.. Lifetime warranty ftw!</p><p> the comp seems fine, although if it is an eq2 only rig you could probably go with less of a video card and be just fine.  I am running a 7950GT on mine and since eq2 dosent use the video card much, I don't see a need to upgrade.  I switched to Vista64 and overkilled the ram at 8gb and eq2 runs nicely.  My CPU is getting a bit long in the tooth tho (Athlon 64 6400+), but that gets fixed at tax time.</p>

[Despak]

Nice system.Only two areas I would personally alter are your hard drives and cooler;<ul><li>Samsung F1 1TB is pretty much as fast if not faster than the old raptor. </li><li>If you want to overclock then drop that Asus and get a Tuniq Tower or Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro.</li></ul>

[asmiro]

<cite>Laedarr wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I am attempting to build not only my first gaming PC, but my first PC ever.  I have compiled a list of hardware that I would like to order and get started on.  I'm seriously asking for some assistance and opinions from the more computer educated individuals.  Please review the hardware I have sought out and give me some opinions or ideas of what I need to swap out, if I even do.  Thanks in advance.</p><p>1)  Sunbeam transformer full ATX tower Case</p><p>2)  Western Digital Raptor 10,000 74 gb (for eq2 only)</p><p>^^ go with a WD velociraptor. they are 300GB, 10,000 RPM drives, but are SATA 2.0 (3GB/s) drives.</p><p>3)  Western Digital 160 gb 7200 rpm</p><p>^^ is this a SATA drive? if not, get a SATA 2.0 (3GB/s) drive.</p><p>4)  GeForce 9800 GTX 512 mb (asus)</p><p>^^ decent enough, but unless you have good airflow in your case, it may overheat, they do tend to run quite hot. possibly change this for a 9600 GSO with 768 MB of memory. they are cheaper, run cooler, and have more texture memory (less hitching while the game loads new textures into video memory)</p><p>5)  Asus DVD/CD rom</p><p>^^ go with a lite-on brand one with lightscribe. they are cheaper, work just as well, and the lightscribe allows you to make labels using the computer on lighscribe DVDs/CDs. again, go with a SATA drive.</p><p>6)  Antec 850w SLI ready ATI crossfire 80 plus Bronze</p><p>^^ good enough. especially for a single card solution. be aware that you may need to use the power adapter that came with your video card instead of the build in ones this one probably has. sometimes video cards are wired slightly different, and the PSU plug may fry the video card if you dont use the one that came with the video card.</p><p>7)  Corsair Dominator 4gb (2x2gb) DDR2 1066</p><p>^^ plenty for games. even when running vista. solid performing ram as well.</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Asus P5N-T Deluxe, LGA 775 Nvidia nForce, 780i SLI ATX intel MB</p><p>^^ decent motherboard. i would suggest going with an EVGA 750i FTW motherboard. its cheaper, has ALL the overclocking features the EVGA 780i and 790i motherboards have, but does not have dual gigabit ethernet (who really uses this unless you lan-party alot and your comp is the game server) and it uses DDR2 ram that you have in this list. it suppors ALL new wolfdale processors as well. it only has 2 PCI-E slots for video cards, so only 2x SLI not 3x sli, but you are going with a single video card, are you not? this EVGA 750i FTW motherboard will be more than enough for a single card.</p><p>9) Wolfdale Intel Core 2 Duo E8600</p><p>^^ solid CPU. if you get an after market CPU fan (a zalman 9700 or artic cooling freezer 7 pro) you can probably overclock this to 4 GHz (both cores running at 4 Ghz, not one at 2, the other at 2) this will speed up your game quite considerably. currently, the only real fix for poor performance of EQ2 on the new dual core processors, is to over clock them, since each core was running at a slower speed than thier single core P4 counterparts did, so EQ2 was actually using a SLOWER CPU than before, since it only runs on one of the cores, not both.</p><p>10)  Asus V-60 92mm Vapo Beaming CPU cooler.</p><p>^^i cannot comment on this one, as i do not know its performance. the 2 i mentioned above i know, and they  perform EXCEPTIONALLY well.</p><p>11)  Windows Vista home Premium 64 bit</p><p>^^ corrected the above entry. vista home could either be home basic (can only be 32bit for this) or home premium (can be either 32bit or 64bit). 64bit home premium is a good choice if you dont need the extra business features of vista ultimate.</p></blockquote><p>first, what exactly is your budget? do you NEED that high end of a system for other games, or is this strictly for EQ2? wait, just re-read the title of this thread. lol for EQ2 only.</p><p>i commented above on what i would keep from your list and what i would change. hope this sheds a little light for you. not to mention saves you a bit of cash on parts.</p>