BUILDING A NEW PC

[phatom]

i am thinking of building a new pc to run trainz 2012 better then what i got now

amd 2 x4 620 processor 4 core(s)
6 gig of ram
ati radeon hd 5600 series memory 1024 gddr5

what do you think a good system would need to be to run trainz 2012 with out turning everything down
i was thinking of something like this

M5A97 EVO Socket AM3+ 970 ATX AMD Motherboard

FX 4100 Black Edition 3.6GHz Quad-Core Socket AM3+ Boxed Processor

TR2 Series 600 Watt ATX Power Supply

Ballistix Sport Series 8GB DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) CL10 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit (Two 4GB Memory Modules)

100328L AMD Radeon HD 6770 1024MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Video Card

 

[kamran]

if you can upgrade graphics card lil more then it will be more better but your choice will also do good for you
rest of your choice is good

 

[LNERlover5]

I would be cautious of the bulldozer platform, if i am correct they would at times under perform compared to the higher end AM3 Processors which they compete with at the same price point.

 

[johnwhelan]

I'd look towards Intel on the cpu.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-overclocking,3052.html

Better performance and lower thermal envelope.

On the graphics card AMD cards generally have lower TDP which means less heat and lower power bills.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-graphics-card-radeon-geforce,3067.html

Memory Trainz uses 4 gigs max so add in a gig for the operating system gives 8 gigs on a dual channel board or 6 gigs on a triple channel board. If you can find one a 6 gig triple channel memory motherboard would save heat etc.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

Actually thinking about it you can do 6 gigs on a dual channel machine. Performance wise 8 gigs doesn't add performance and only adds heat to the machine which may cause other components to slow down.

Cheerio John

 

[phatom]

With the help from you guys and my computer guru
i built one last night and got every thing turn up and running great

got an asus board with the intel i 5 2600 at a greatt deal

i have been an amd fan but was told by you guys and the computer guru that the bull dozer was not quite up to the task

i also added gtx 550 vid 1 gig DDR5 memory
8 gigs of ram
i know i only needed 6 gigs but it was only 10 dollars more


Thanks

 

[phatom]

sorry wrong info cpu is a i 5 2500k sandy bridge 1155

 

[jbanetman]

You were right to stay away from AMD for the new build. Their Bulldozer 8 core, has been found performance-wise to really be a quad with semi-hyperthreading,with an extra integer core on each real core. Integer is good, comparatively to a Intel 2500, but floating-point was a letdown. And games run only average or slow compared to even their last gen. AMD just admitted now that it really only uses or has 1.2 billion Transistors(only 1.2 B are good, or what?), when they had previously said it had 2 billion xistors. So hardware folks are scratching their head at AMD for this fiasco. Is it really a 8 core CPU with modules disabled due to poor yield? Or were they fused off due to heat throttling? Nobody knows except AMD.

 

[William0d0]

sorry wrong info cpu is a i 5 2500k sandy bridge 1155

Now you just need to overclock that baby for a free performance boost. You should be able to reach 4.0 ghz even with stock air cooling. I've gone as high as 4.6 with a Corsair H70 (water cooling). I keep it at 4.5 just to be on the safe side. If your ASUS mobo is like mine the BIOS has an auto overclocking option.

 

[nugget2225]

reply

I would be cautious of the bulldozer platform, if i am correct they would at times under perform compared to the higher end AM3 Processors which they compete with at the same price point.

i wouldnt under estimate the bulldozer cpu's there have been alot of bad reviews, and alot of good reviews as well, i am running the 8 core bulldozer at 4.6 ghz with the h100 corsair cooler and never goes over 45c under full load,amd made the bulldozer out to be more than what it is, but under windows 8 which the beta is slated for febuary,with a release next summer,the bulldozer clearly out performs the 2500k and the 2600k under windows 8,trainz loves high cpu frequencies, and i dont believe either of the intel cpu's can get that close to 5 ghz without cooking eggs on it, my cpu idles at 23c, intel just cant do that without very expensive watercooling, of course its all a matter of opinion, i wouldnt buy the fx 4100 though you should at least get a 6 core amd, if you plan on going that direction

 

[William0d0]

i wouldnt under estimate the bulldozer cpu's there have been alot of bad reviews, and alot of good reviews as well, i am running the 8 core bulldozer at 4.6 ghz with the h100 corsair cooler and never goes over 45c under full load,amd made the bulldozer out to be more than what it is, but under windows 8 which the beta is slated for febuary,with a release next summer,the bulldozer clearly out performs the 2500k and the 2600k under windows 8,trainz loves high cpu frequencies, and i dont believe either of the intel cpu's can get that close to 5 ghz without cooking eggs on it, my cpu idles at 23c, intel just cant do that without very expensive watercooling, of course its all a matter of opinion, i wouldnt buy the fx 4100 though you should at least get a 6 core amd, if you plan on going that direction

My current idle CPU temp is in the 20'sC, in the summer in the 30'sC. Hey, I try to save money with the air conditioning and heating.

Full load 45C sounds like not full load, try running Prime95 and get back to me.

Prime95 will push my CPU temp to 75C in a matter of seconds and make the fans really start to scream. It will torture stress all cores to 100%.

I can run my i5-2500(k) at 4.6 with Corsair H70.

 

[nugget2225]

reply

i agree intel is always gonna be better, i use to be intel all the way until i realized under most scenerios intel and amd will run pretty close, i have been playing battlefield 3 at ultra hight settings, and its smooth, and its a very high intesive game.trainz is the only sim outside of microsoft fight sim, that i have never been able to get to run 100% smooth, flight sim might now that it has become older but i havent checked in a year or so.if you do a google search, cinebench seems to be the only one that will out perform intel in benchmarks, but its also a more multithreaded benchtest.as far as i know intels threshhold is like 80c before its damaged unlike amd where its only 60-70c.at room temps at stock clock the bulldozer runs idle for me at 18c and i am in florida, in that respect,the outside temp about now is between 70 and 80 degrees during the day.i will torture test at 4.6 ghz and give you my results, i will run it on an 8 hour test at bedtime.i also must add that windows 7 is pretty good at handling cores, but windows 8 is suppose to be even better, and when i ran the windows 8 develepers preview, i was amazed on how smooth the bulldozer runs.i love trainz but to me it was poorly coded from the getgo, i dont know what the deal is with it, even on an intel 990x extreme i owned last year trainz was still choppy in surveyor, so everyone can kinda draw their own conclusions, i would like some answers as well, the west and eastbound coal runs in trainz 12 are so choppy and no really even playable, that was tested on my bulldozer, and my 1090t x6 with pretty much the same result.

 

[JimBrand]

gtx260 inadequate???

Ouch! I'm building a new system just for trains and I have a P68/67 main board and a sandy bridge i15 2500k cpu- which I hoped was a good start. I was going to use my current GTX260 video - but it now sounds a little low end. Any suggestions? - Jim

 

[Euphod]

This site may help you compare video cards:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

 

[RRSignal]

Ouch! I'm building a new system just for trains and I have a P68/67 main board and a sandy bridge i15 2500k cpu- which I hoped was a good start. I was going to use my current GTX260 video - but it now sounds a little low end. Any suggestions? - Jim

Low end? No. Could you get a faster one to match that sweet CPU? Sure, but it depends on what you want to spend. The GTX 560 and 560 Ti are some of the best cards available, but there is a $60 price difference. If you went back a little to a 550 Ti, you'd actually, by some measurements be doing worse than your current card.