Gaming Machine Slow Upgrade - CPU or GPU first?

[hamfactorial]

Hi folks! Long time reader, first time noob

I primarily come from the UNIX philosophy of computing, which dictates that a tool should do one thing really well. With that in mind, I have a few different computers that I've built over the years, all for different purposes. I have a 6-HDD headless file server (Linux), a silent XBMC media computer (Linux), and a desktop gaming / general use PC (Windows 7).

I'm writing from the desktop PC now, and I'm at somewhat of a crossroads. I want to upgrade it, but I'm not quite sure where to start. I could buy all the parts now, but I also enjoy having a refrigerator full of food, and dislike credit card debt. I'm going to space out the parts over a few month, and I'd love some advice from the peanut gallery.

Here are the basics of my current system, excluding hard drives, removable media, etc. -

OS: Windows 7 Professional
MB: Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
CPU: Intel Wolfdale E8400
RAM: 4GB Patriot Viper DDR2-1066
PSU: Corsair 520HX
Case: Antec P182
GPU: eVGA GTX260 Core 216

When I use this computer, it's either for general purpose web stuff or gaming. With that in mind, I don't care much about hard drive speeds, super-fast RAM, or wild overclocking abilities. I play Starcraft II, Heroes of Newerth, and I'd like to play the new Elder Scrolls game once it comes out. I game at my monitor's native 1920x1200 resolution.

Silence at idle is my aim, since I live in a studio and my bed is nearby. I've gone so far as to put my refrigerator on a timer (1 hour power-off before/after bedtime) to avoid noise at night.

When I'm playing a game, I don't care about noise as long as it doesn't sound like a leaf blower by my feet.

I am looking at the Radeon HD 6950 as a possible video card upgrade. It might be overkill, and I could likely to talked out of it if they can't be made silent enough for my task.

I'm not sure what to do about the Motherboard & CPU though. The i5 seems like a nice performance target. I don't need a lot of serious multi-core CPU power, since I don't crunch numbers, but I don't want to put a bunch of money into a great graphics card and then have my CPU bottleneck the whole thing.

What do you think, folks? I can upgrade the graphics card now, then swap out the guts (Motherboard + CPU) out from under it later. This would be the cheaper solution. The fun of switching chipsets is that the motherboard, CPU and RAM all have to go at once.

When considering components, please give preference to well-received or well-reviewed silent (or close enough) products.

Many thanks!

[andymcca]

What cooler do you currently have on the E8400? I've recently overclocked mine to extend its life, and it's running fine on a passive Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus (with a nearby 120mm exhaust @ 800rpm). With the overclock, I actually run SC2 fine with my E8400 and a stock 8800gt, although FWIW I believe I noticed ~30% better frame rates on Ubuntu than Windows XP (one of the first times have had this happen).

For SC2 though, processor may be a major bottleneck (if you are looking for 30+ fps in the worst cases). I know WoW is a CPU hog these days .

[Dr. Jim Pomatter]

If I had your system, I would just save money for a large SSD. It will make your desktop application work a little faster, and it will lower the total noise level of your system. Bigger is better for SSDs, I recommend a 256 Gb or larger SSD. This way your magnetic disk is only media files, not programs or home directories. The magnetic disk will then be spun down when not playing media.

Turn your gaming resolution down to 1680x1050 and be happy with the GTX 260 you have already bought. You should be able to get 60 fps in most games at medium settings. This assumes that your GTX 260 is quiet enough for your tastes. Your system is plenty fast if you are not doing competitive LAN gaming or number crunching.

I am looking at the Radeon HD 6950 as a possible video card upgrade. It might be overkill, and I could likely to talked out of it if they can't be made silent enough for my task.

The $230 Radeon HD 6950 can be turned down with Power Tune to consume about 130 watts (160 max). With the HD-cage fan on the p182 you have, it should be able to use a "passive" GPU cooler.

I'm not sure what to do about the Motherboard & CPU though. The i5 seems like a nice performance target. I don't need a lot of serious multi-core CPU power, since I don't crunch numbers, but I don't want to put a bunch of money into a great graphics card and then have my CPU bottleneck the whole thing. [...] The fun of switching chipsets is that the motherboard, CPU and RAM all have to go at once.

Once you have a AMD HD 6950 graphics card, you can compare your performance to GPU benchmarks to see how much your CPU is holding your system back. I doubt that a CPU upgrade (and RAM, and MoBo) is going to have enough performance increase to justify the $350+ total price for an i5, 4GB DDR3, CPU HSF, and a USB3 MoBo. Even today's fastest i5 vs E8400 will only give you a 56% speed bump on single-threaded tasks.

If you wait (until June 2012) for the seven-series chipsets from Intel, you will get native USB3. This means that $70 MoBos will have USB3, not just $120+ boards. This will also be the release time of Ivy Bridge, and it should give you at least a 90% speed bump in single-threaded tasks.

(It may also be possible to get thunderbolt (external pci-express). I doubt that thunderbolt will have any use outside of high-end video editing next year.)

[CA_Steve]

SC2 uses 2 CPU threads and is highly dependant on cpu speed. That said, your GPU is probably the bottleneck. 6950 is overkill for your resolution.

SC2 Benchmark @ Legit Reviews, @ Techgage, @ Tom's


Second thing you can do is OC your 8400 as suggested. FPS for Starcraft is pretty linear with your 8400's clock speed.

Third, consider an SSD.

4th, get a nice i5-2500K SandyBridge and mobo.

[Abula]

4th, get a nice i5-2500K SandyBridge and mobo.

I would do the above, and start saving for the next gen gpu, the GTX260 should hold fine on SC2.

[Dr. Jim Pomatter]

SC2 uses 2 CPU threads and is highly dependant on cpu speed.

Your E8400 gets the same minimum frame rate as an i7 from last year -- 14 fps at 1920x1080. Startcraft2 wants a large cache and wants a high frequency on two cores. Your E8600 has the same cache size as the current i5 CPUs.

If you are willing to turn down settings at 1680x1050, you can stick with the GXT 260. If you want to play at your native 1920x1200 then you should get the AMD HD 6950 and a quiet cooler.

SSDs are so amazing (quiet & smooth multitasking), it is hard not to recommend them.

[Abula]

SC2 uses 2 CPU threads and is highly dependant on cpu speed

Im not totally sure this is accurate, i saw a lot of benches pre SC2 release and it does reflect that, but in my experience with i7 920 and i7 740QM setups, i see 4 cores with activity running SC2, personally i would go quad for SC2.

[hamfactorial]

Thanks for the input! You gave me some things to think about this morning as I read the replies.

I have a Xigmatek heatpipe cooler with an 120mm fan on it for the CPU. I can't remember the model name, and I'm not at the computer right now, but I'll investigate when I get home from work. It cools well, and the CPU never gets above 50C from memory. The heatsink is warm to the touch, but not hot, which is a good sign. I likely have some overclocking headroom left, but I've never been big on pushing a system to its limit. I'll play around with it this weekend.

I'll install a new HDD (or SSD) at some point, but it's not the focus of my upgrade efforts now. Once the game is loaded into memory, the hard drive doesn't do much for me.

That's some very interesting data on SC2 only using two CPU threads. I'm not sold on the idea of buying a quad-core CPU and then having two of them do all the work, especially since most of my tasks are single-threaded. I'm interested in the coming Ivy Bridge chipsets, and I'm doing some research now. I can certainly wait a year to upgrade the base system under the GPU.

I do think that I'll go with the GPU upgrade first, and tweak my existing setup in the meantime to take up some processing slack. Regarding the suggestion to stick with the GTX 260, I recognize that it's a nice card for medium resolution gaming, but I just love native resolution gaming on my big flat panel. If it can't do 1920x1200 without chugging, it has to go!

[Abula]

If you wait (until June 2012) for the seven-series chipsets from Intel, you will get native USB3. This means that $70 MoBos will have USB3, not just $120+ boards. This will also be the release time of Ivy Bridge, and it should give you at least a 90% speed bump in single-threaded tasks.

Personally i dont see Ivy bridge that hot, seems same Sandy Bridge, just with a die shrink (22nm), and some wistles like USB3 native, Lightspek/Thurnderbolt, probably all Sata III ports, etc. Personally im planning to replace my i7 920 / 1366 setup with Sandy Bridge E with 6 core cpu and wait till Haswell comes in 2013/2014, im skipping Ivy Bridge, unless i rebuild my home server.

[Dr. Jim Pomatter]

Personally i dont see Ivy bridge that hot, seems same Sandy Bridge, just with a die shrink (22nm), and some wistles like USB3 native, Lightspek/Thurnderbolt, probably all Sata III ports, etc. Personally im planning to replace my i7 920 / 1366 setup with Sandy Bridge E with 6 core cpu and wait till Haswell comes in 2013/2014, im skipping Ivy Bridge, unless i rebuild my home server.

Ivy will not be hot, it will be cool! It will run 20% faster at load, and use 38% less power at idle. That is directly from Intel (via Anand's article). The OP ("hamfactorial", not his real name) wants a silent system at idle, as he lives in a studio.

USB3 will be a big deal for me, as I am often bottle-necked by the USB2 transfer rate to my phone or external hard drive. Once Intel has it in the native chipset and both high-end and low-end systems have USB3, then my next phone is going to have it.

SandyBridge-E should have a few more Mhz (perhaps 700) at its top turbo speed, due to its expected 130 watt power use (vs 95 for SandyBridge). SandyBridge-E is going to cost MORE then SandyBridge, need more memory, and need a more expensive Motherboard. The OP is trying to keep costs down.

I would suggest that hamfactorial:

1: Overclock the FSB from 1333->1600, leading to the E8400 running at 3.6 Ghz, a 20% overclock. Be sure it is 100% stable before you add the new video card.

Here is the GA-EP45-UD3R (rev. 1.1) page, so you can look at your manual BIOS options while reading.

HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) - A Guide v1.1 a good guide. It suggests combating Vdroop but Anand has warned that this leads to voltage spikes that can shorten CPU lifespan.

2: Install your AMD HD 6950 and make sure your CPU and GPU are 100% stable at load with the increased heat in the case. Many people use FurMark and Prime95 (1 less thread then the default).

3: Buy & install a quiet cooler for the AMD HD 6950. Turn the max power use to -20% in the Catalyst Control Center (AKA Power Tune).

4: Save your money to see what new "candy" AMD/Intel/Nvidia/Micron try to tempt us with in 2012.

[cordis]

With your requirements, the gpu upgrade might be overkill. A gtx 450 or 550 would probably work. Although, come to think of it, I have a couple spare gtx 260s in a box somewhere, would be happy to get a few bucks for one of them. Not sure what your power consumption is like now, you might need a PSU upgrade with that kind of load, but if you're interested, let me know. Mine were fairly quiet at idle, as far as I remember.

As far as the cpu goes, waiting for ivy bridge might be good, but there's always a better cpu on the horizon. You might want to check ebay for old 1366/i7 board/cpu combos, might be able to pick something up cheap from people who upgraded to sandy bridge. If cost is the big concern, used stuff might be the way to go.

[Abula]

Ivy will not be hot, it will be cool! It will run 20% faster at load, and use 38% less power at idle. That is directly from Intel (via Anand's article). The OP ("hamfactorial", not his real name) wants a silent system at idle, as he lives in a studio.

I didnt meant hot as temperature, but as desireble, that said i do think its going to be faster, considering all they are doing is a die shrink, it should consume less power and have higher stock clocks, now clock for clock i doubt its going to be an improvement, i do think Sandy Bridge E clock for clock will be, and ill be really dispointed if an Ivy bridge (not E) can compete with Sandy Bridge E being relesesed less than 6 months apart, but will see. By what i read, Haswell is where we will get a good jump in cpu power, but for the average user is probably meaningless, they can do most of their all day things with low voltage dual core, but for editing, encoding... i think Sandy bridge E and waiting for haswell is the correct move, at least thats what i believe (not suggesting the OP to go that route, this is more my personal choice).

USB3 will be a big deal for me, as I am often bottle-necked by the USB2 transfer rate to my phone or external hard drive. Once Intel has it in the native chipset and both high-end and low-end systems have USB3, then my next phone is going to have it.

I do agree on you on this, i do look forward to having USB3 native from intel, then i wont have to chose how i use my ports so i have free USB3, but also consider that even cheap boards today like my Intel H61 $85 comes with USB3 ports (Renesas/NEC), so all in all the gain is more usb3 ports and being provided by intel native, no need for extra chips or controllers, but i dont see a huge gain, cheap boards of today already come with usb3.

[hamfactorial]

Here's a follow-up, for anyone who was interested. I decided to stick with my base system and swap out the GPU, plus try a little bit of water cooling for fun.

I've always wanted to water cool my PC, and it seemed like a fun project. I looked into it years ago, but it was too expensive for my college budget. It's less expensive now, especially since the really pricy items are for the high overclock guys, and I have a few of the parts already sitting around (tubing, fittings, fans).

I found an nVidia GTX 560 Ti with a Swiftech MCW-82 and GTX560-HS board heatsink on Swiftech's online inventory clearance page, so I bought it. The Radeon 6950 was $280.00 USD on newegg.com, and the complete GTX560 setup from Swiftech was $230.00 USD, saving me $50.00 USD on a like-new card. Swiftech had an HD6950, similarly priced and equipped there, too, but I picked the nVidia for better Linux drivers for dual-boot use.

I spent another $120 USD for a radiator and pump. An aftermarket heatsink for the GTX 560 or the Radeon 6950 would have been roughly $80 USD, so I didn't spend a great deal extra to try out water cooling.

I'm looking at a 10C delta system with 3 Yate Loon D12SL-12 fans in the 600-800 RPM range. It will have a Swiftech MCR320-QP radiator with an integrated reservoir and an MCP655 pump on the lowest setting possible. The system should be able to dissipate roughly 250 W at full load with this quiet setup. TDP on a GTX 560 is 170 W. My E8400 has a TDP of 65W, so I should just slide underneath the system capacity at 1.5 GPM if I want to add the CPU to the loop (I probably won't, it's silent now with the Xigmatek heatpipe cooler).



The whole adventure could bite me in the ass, but it will be a fun experiment

[CA_Steve]

Congrats on your purchase - you should be able to get some great results for GPU temps. And, air-cooled, it's a no-brainer to crank the 8400 up to 3.6GHz at stock voltage.

I've never been tempted to go water-cooled. I may have an irrational fear of water flowing through my PC (Titanic theme playing in the background).

[awolfe63]

Can I make a suggestion with respect to the noise issue? Sleep the machine when you are not playing games. That will turn off all the fans. You have a server that can handle any always-on requirements. Sleep is pretty reliable on Windows 7. If that doesn't work, turn it off. 2 minutes to start gaming is no big deal.

An always on, idle gaming rig can easily burn 1000KWh/year.

[hamfactorial]

I do sleep the gaming machine when it's been idle, but the file/web server has to stay on 24/7. My main concern with the gaming machine was getting a fast performer that doesn't sound like a leaf blower during heavy use.

The file server is the loudest machine right now, due mostly to the 5 HDDs inside, three of which are 7200 RPM. As I replace them with 5400 RPM disks, the vibrations should calm down.

[Telstar]

I do think that I'll go with the GPU upgrade first, and tweak my existing setup in the meantime to take up some processing slack. Regarding the suggestion to stick with the GTX 260, I recognize that it's a nice card for medium resolution gaming, but I just love native resolution gaming on my big flat panel. If it can't do 1920x1200 without chugging, it has to go!

I did this (gpu first).
But the cpu upgrade should be soon. A 2500k with light overclock (to 4ghz) will be plenty of power for at least two years to come.

[hamfactorial]

I'm very impressed with my light watercooling setup so far. The P182 is a terrible case for watercooling (no internal radiator mounts), so I've screwed my 3.120 rad onto the back with #6-32 screws as a temporary solution in the meantime.

My GPU idles at 28C with a room ambient of 90F. Fully loaded in Furmark, it ramps up to 42C. The GTX 260 that it replaced would idle at 70C, so this is amazing.

I still have the CPU on air cooling, with plans to throw on a CPU block in a year or so when I upgrade the guts of the setup.

The MCP655 pump, set on setting #1, is inaudible with the case closed. It is prone to vibration, though, so I have it sitting on a wad of rolled up socks. I'm going to suspend it, eventually, once I decide on a better case.