Trainz rig: AMD or Intel / ATi or GeForce?

[Thai1On]

I got some encouraging news today, the wife OK'ed new new gaming rig. I have two DIY computer stores here in town and time to get some quotes. I would like to ask my fellow Trainzers (is that a word?) on a low to mid-range or $500 to $750 or 15,000 to 25,000 Baht budget for a Trainz gaming rig.

Requirements are simple. This rigs only job will be running Trainz 2010 and 2012 later, playing some of my wife's very simple games, and playing music and movies in the TV/stereo, and of course surfing the web. The benchmark I'm shooting for is to run Appalachian Coal at a minimum of 30+ FPS with all the sliders maxed out.

So goes to age old fight AMD or Intel. So far I'm looking at either the Phenom II 955 Black Edition or i3 2100. The simple reason for this is what I've read Trainz only uses 2 cores and with a proper motherboard I can upgrade in the future. As for the video I've been an ATI guy for years so I'm looking at a 6850 chip set with a 256 bus and a gig of on board video RAM. I'm willing to take a look at a GeForce with the same specs though I plead ignorance.

For a motherboard I'm leaning towards an ASUS board for it's overclocking ability although the i3 2100 has a locked multiplier :n: So any ideas? I will approach this build with an open mind and try not to let personal presences get in the way of a killer Trainz gaming rig. I'm hoping to hear from some of the makers of Trainz and what they suggest. Thanks for your help and suggestions.

Dave

 

[Stagefright]

I'm going to follow this thread closely. I too am considering a new rig, but I've got a little bigger budget than you. I've always used AMD CPUs, but the more I look the more I see that Intel is now the better 'bang for the buck.'

A few years back, the consensus among Trainzers (yes, it is a word) was that Nvidia was the better choice. I'm not so sure now. Personally, I'm sticking with Nvidia unless convinced otherwise.

I would recommend 4 gigs of RAM and Windows 7 64-bit. 4 gigs seems to be the sweet spot, unless you use photo and/or video editing software.

Also, don't skimp on the power supply. Consider one large enough to allow for additional drives, video card upgrade etc. in the future.

Darrel

 

[whitepass]

You can not run "Appalachian Coal at a minimum of 30+ FPS with all the sliders maxed out" on a $500-$700 computer more like $1,200.

 

[johnwhelan]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-sandy-bridge-cpu,3030.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-radeon-geforce,3018.html

I suspect your budget is a little light for the performance you'd like but essentially the mix you have is fairly good.

Intel on the cpu, AMD traditionally has lower power requirements on the GPU and I think you have the $ balance about right.

On the power supply side I rather like Antec and the Sonata case can be obtained with either a good quality 500 or 620 watt efficient power supply.

Cheerio John

 

[Gandalf0444]

As far as AMD vs Intel...It depends. With AMD you do get the most bang for your buck.
However Intel does have faster CPUs.

I personally go with AMD.Why? Because the most bang for your buck, they are the under dog, and I simply like there products and have never had a problem. Again that is my opinion.

Some people say that AMD CPUs don't last nearly as long as Intel ones...I beg to differ. I have a AMD Athlon XP 2.16GHz CPU in my stock Compaq Presario and it shows no signs of dieing! (No longer my main computer though thankfully LOL)

Right now I am using a Phenom II X4 970 (3.5GHz stock, 8MB total cache) and it just beats down any game I can throw at it in conjunction with a Nvidia GTS 450(another "budget" item) and they both work wonderful together and run any game on max that I throw at it.

I can also overclock this CPU to 4.2GHz on fan heatsink without any real heat difference(maybe half a degree at most) If I added a water cooling system I could of course over clock it even more.

The motherboard is also a major component you need. If you want a nice CPU and graphics card, you want to get a motherboard with a newer chipset so it will run the components at there best. Everything will work just fine on an older chipset(so long as the mobo supports the CPU) but simply won't work at its prime.

I tend to love motherboards that offer some upgradability to them.
For example my MSI 870A-G55 motherboard has 2 SATA III connections and 2 USB 3.0 connections. Good for the future, not awesome but enough to keep me rolling. I can also upgrade the CPU to a AMD 6 core cpu such as the 1100T then overclock that as well. My motherboard supports up to 16GB of dual channel DDR3 RAM. So it has a ton of room to grow with the times(I have already put 16GBs of ram in however) Now I built myself into a corner with this motherboard in a sense because it does not support crossfire or SLI properly. And what I mean by that is if I add another GPU to the other PCI-E x16 slot it will run at X8 but it will turn off my PCI-E x1 slot as well as my SATA III connections. However I do not anticipate ever having to go to SLI or crossfire. I can simply buy a card that is already SLIed or crossfired with 2 chips on it.

However none of that above will be of any use to you if you don't have a power supply, or a decent one at that! They will be very fancy door stops!:hehe: I went with a Rosewill Lightning 1000W PSU, seems a little over the top, yes. However I think for the future. Right now I am only using half of that, but when I build my next computer I will be able to drag that supply over to the new one, as well as I know for a fact I do not have to worry about not having enough power when I add another component.

As far as RAM it is kinda self explanatory as to what you need. In my opinion the best company is by far Kingston, they stand by there products, so if a stick does die, they will replace it for free for the life of the product.(But read the fine print to see what the determine as life, some have it as 10 years, others have it as long as it will physically work etc.)

 

[Thai1On]

Ah yes the times they are a changin. I remember when you bought a case it came with a power supply (a.k.a. PSU) and it was enough to handle anything you but in the case. Yes I have been checking in to PSU's and I have been told a 750 watt PSU should do the trick. Of course one store is steering me towards a Cooler Master Gold model but I'm checking on other brands.

As it looks now AMD looks to be a better choice but I would like to hear from some of the Intel owners. Seems Stagefright is making a good good case for nVidia. So which format does Trainz like better DirectX or OpenGL?

As for some more info on the build I will be using Windows 7 64 Bit and 4 gigs of RAM. I'm still checking on a hard drive and I'm torn between a SATA 3 Samsung or Western Digital and both will be a 7200 spin. The budget doesn't have room for a SSD

 

[nugget2225]

hmm for 700 i will link you to a good amd setup and edit this post

intel by far will always be the master of cpu speed, i have owned both ,i used intel for about 10 years untill i realized i could get really good performance out of amd as well, but anyway i will send some links, i am guessing you are wanting to replace the case as well.



ok this is assuming you alreay have a mouse , keyboard ,dvd drive, and monitor

case corsair 600t price 150.00
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6610150&CatId=1842

motherboard gigabyte 150.00
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=667675&CatId=7246 this board will future proof you for all am3+ cpu's as well

cpu AMD HDZ955FBGMBOX Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Processor 120.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5752143&CatId=4432

kingston hyperx 1600 8 gigs 60.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7104116&CatId=4534

xfx 6870 159.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=869185&CatId=7005

corsair power supply 85.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7195036&CatId=1483

hope this helps,this setup will support the new amd fx cpu's that were just released,no detail on if your gonna use your current hardrive

but this setup is 745.00 plus tax, if you want to ad a hardrive it depends on if you want a ssd drive or a normal mechanical drive or not, if you can afford it get at least a 120 gig ssd drive and use your old hd as storage

 

[goldenlight]

You may want to check out overclockers.com if your interested in pushing your machine to the limits.


Seems like overclocking uses more electricity. so I just run everything at default.

 

[Gandalf0444]

intel by far will always be the master of cpu speed, i have owned both ,i used intel for about 10 years untill i realized i could get really good performance out of amd as well, i have an amd 1090t for sale for 90 bucks and it retails for 170.00 but all of you are too far away but anyway i will send some links, i am guessing you are wanting to replace the case as well.



ok this is assuming you alreay have a mouse , keyboard ,dvd drive, and monitor

case corsair 600t price 150.00
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6610150&CatId=1842

motherboard gigabyte 150.00
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=667675&CatId=7246 this board will future proof you for all am3+ cpu's as well

cpu AMD HDZ955FBGMBOX Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Processor 120.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5752143&CatId=4432

kingston hyperx 1600 8 gigs 60.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7104116&CatId=4534

xfx 6870 159.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=869185&CatId=7005

corsair power supply 85.00

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7195036&CatId=1483

hope this helps,this setup will support the new amd fx cpu's that were just released,no detail on if your gonna use your current hardrive

but this setup is 745.00 plus tax, if you want to ad a hardrive it depends on if you want a ssd drive or a normal mechanical drive or not, if you can afford it get at least a 120 gig ssd drive and use your old hd as storage

Not to bad, but I would personally not go with gigabyte. They just seem a little "Cheap" to me. The components they sell are competitive price wise, however just looking at the components they look cheaply made to my eyes(could just be me) but the board does have good features.... That may or may not be the case of course, just my 2 cents.

Everything else however does look good.

 

[nugget2225]

reply

i am using the am3+ ud5 , when you have it in front of you, its rock solid, i recommended the ud3 in the build because it was a little cheaper and still supports both crossfire and sli, thats whats nice about the 900 series chipsets, then once again i will even have to change my board and videocard out next year with pci-express 3 and the new 7 series amd video cards

 

[BLACKWATCH]

You may want to check out overclockers.com if your interested in pushing your machine to the limits.


Seems like overclocking uses more electricity. so I just run everything at default.

If you have to "Overclock it", then you really should think about upgrading your hardware, 'overclocking' is basically cheating on your system, if you did it to your wife, she'd divorce you. :wave:

 

[johnwhelan]

Ah yes the times they are a changin. I remember when you bought a case it came with a power supply (a.k.a. PSU) and it was enough to handle anything you but in the case. Yes I have been checking in to PSU's and I have been told a 750 watt PSU should do the trick. Of course one store is steering me towards a Cooler Master Gold model but I'm checking on other brands.

As it looks now AMD looks to be a better choice but I would like to hear from some of the Intel owners. Seems Stagefright is making a good good case for nVidia. So which format does Trainz like better DirectX or OpenGL?

As for some more info on the build I will be using Windows 7 64 Bit and 4 gigs of RAM. I'm still checking on a hard drive and I'm torn between a SATA 3 Samsung or Western Digital and both will be a 7200 spin. The budget doesn't have room for a SSD

According to links above to toms Intel offers the best price performance Power supplies are interesting, if you go by the manf rating they aren't comparable, some count 750 watts in strange ways.

Also I note you are in Thailand so the barnds that are cheapest and best in the US may not be in Thailand.

DirectX is a windows standard developed for games, OpenGL has a different history and contains mone things that you need for Windows games which comes at a performance cost. Nvidia has a program that offers support to companies such as N3V to get the best out of their cards, realistically DirectX usually gives the best performance and is well defined. Generally speaking nVidia will require more power than an AMD card of equivalent performance. This will impact your cooling and power supply requirements.

Cheerio John

 

[nugget2225]

reply

i wouldnt however for anyone building a system to not use a bulldozer cpu, the gigabyte and asus boards are having all kinds of problems with these chips, i was kinda stuck i had already had the am3+ board and bought the bulldozer and sold my 1090t on ebay the day before my bulldozer arrived, its been a nightmare with gigabyte , they need bios fixes bad, i believe after the kinks our out it will be a great cpu, on the stock , all stock clocks i was idling at 38c and under load 58c, and everything in between, so i ended up buying the corsair h100 self contained water cooler, it keeps it cool, but come to find out the lot number of the corsair h100 has been recalled and the fan speed control doesnt work, so i have to contact corsair for some kind of replacement part for the cooler, gigabyte too let off steam about the bios issue, they had 6 months for preperation of this cpu, and amd to find out why the chip was running so hot in the first place, i am trying to save anyone that thinks the bulldozer is the king of amd , dont do it till they smooth things out, very dissapointed with gigabyte,amd and corsair

 

[Gandalf0444]

Same kind of headaches the intel sandy bridge gave when it first came out...:hehe:

 

[nugget2225]

reply

Same kind of headaches the intel sandy bridge gave when it first came out...:hehe:

i was so frustrated over the past 3 days, i was ready to walk the whole pc out to the trash, i have never had this many problems from 3 difrent companies at once, i was considering a ssd drive, and in the back of my head i was thinking thats gonna be 4 problems because ssd's still have a long way to go, even though they have already come along way.thats 3 days i could have been in trainz working on a route i have been building among other things, wait till the ivybridge it will probably be the same way, but honestly if amd and gigabyte gets there sh@t together i will stay with amd setups, if they dont i will go back to intel and pay extra without the headache.my computer last night was literally changing things in the bios on its own, i had never seen anything like it after 15 years of pc building.