*recommended specs... i970 ???

[JEFX]

Hey everyone!

 

I am in the process of buying a new computer and I looked at the recommended system requirements as stated on the DCS site :

 

Recommended system requirements: OS: Windows 7 64; CPU: Intel Core i7-970; RAM: 4+ GB; Graphics: 512+ MB ATI HD4850+ or nVidia GTX260+; Sound card; 6 GB of free space on HDD; Copy protected, requires internet activation; Joystick.

 

OK, Joystick is a given... 4G of RAM is small by todays standards... easy to get more... GTX 260, OK, you can get on for around 240$...

 

BUT, when I read i7-970, I really got depressed...

This is a 1000$ processor (not counting the 400$ necessary for a quality Motherboard that houses a Socket 1366 chip...

 

Is it true that Eagle is recommending such an expensive chip for best results with DCS Warthog?

 

I am planning to get an i7-950, which is one third of the price of the 970 but put more money on a great videocard...

 

What do you all think of this???

 

thanks

 

JEFX

[Sarge55]

I am using the i7 920 (not OC'd) and find that it runs quite well in the beta. The FPS varies alot depending on the situation/map etc and the fact that it's a beta. Of course near Las Vegas it's single digit but that's the same for everyone.

 

I can run DCS:Black Shark at about 40 FPS over Krasnodor (sp?) and over 80 FPS in the open areas but it is optimized and a finished product. I would expect we should see something similar from DCS:Warthog once it's done.

 

My 2 cents

[JEFX]

Thanks Sarge

 

Makes me feel a bit better...

 

(I am waiting to get that new comp before I get the beta...)

[arality]

I'm running a Phenom II 550, at stock settings and the sim runs great for me (It is in Beta so I can't run everything at full yet, like BS)! Get as big of a processor as you can afford but, don't sweat it to much.

[The Beast]

Hey everyone!

 

I am in the process of buying a new computer and I looked at the recommended system requirements as stated on the DCS site :

 

Recommended system requirements: OS: Windows 7 64; CPU: Intel Core i7-970; RAM: 4+ GB; Graphics: 512+ MB ATI HD4850+ or nVidia GTX260+; Sound card; 6 GB of free space on HDD; Copy protected, requires internet activation; Joystick.

 

OK, Joystick is a given... 4G of RAM is small by todays standards... easy to get more... GTX 260, OK, you can get on for around 240$...

 

BUT, when I read i7-970, I really got depressed...

This is a 1000$ processor (not counting the 400$ necessary for a quality Motherboard that houses a Socket 1366 chip...

 

Is it true that Eagle is recommending such an expensive chip for best results with DCS Warthog?

 

I am planning to get an i7-950, which is one third of the price of the 970 but put more money on a great videocard...

 

What do you all think of this???

 

thanks

 

JEFX

 

 

There is quite a big jump between minimal and recommended specs. I would say the recommended is for the absolute top of the line experience. I would venture to guess anything in between is going to perform well

[Rusty_M]

I think (and really hope) that the 950 will run this just fine. Let us know how it turns out. I'm selfishly looking for as much info as possible as I'm planning a similar build.

[MTFDarkEagle]

the 950 will run perfect ;-)

I'm running an amd phenom II 955 x4 o/c, and it runs really smooth. The i7 950 is much better than the 955, and even much more better if you o/c it.

[MasterZelgadis]

Recommended != Required. I say, recommended is always the maximum of hardware you can get, because there you will get the best results ;)

[Succellus]

Remember, the dev cannot recomend OC.

Sooo if the 970 ain t a tipo, and since the 970 is a 3.2 ghz at stock, i ll bet any CPU OCed to 3.2 will fit the bill. Especially if I7.

 

So if you wish, take your I7 950/930/920 to 3.2 and be happy.

 

4+ ram is a bit vague, 6 ? 8 ? 12? bi channeled or tri chaneled ?

260 GFX card is a bit old.

[EtherealN]

Well, there are some differences besides clock speed between the 970 and 920-950. The 970 has a larger L3 cache and a faster unCore clock (not to be confused by Core clock). Generally though I would expect an overclocked lower-priced i7 to perform roughly equal to the 970 - or even better if you "max out" the overclock to bring it into the 4GHz territory.

 

But as Succellus mentioned, it is not possible to recommend an overclock setting, especially since it is not advisable to perform testing with an overclocked system - a well performed overclock is not likely to cause issues, but it is possible for it to do so and that risk has to be removed to control for variables as far as possible.

 

4GB+ of RAM basically means "we recommend 4GB of RAM or more". In this case I don't believe dual or triple channel makes a real difference (though if you are running a triple-channel motherboard, like a socket 1366 system, you'd be silly not to run in triple-channel configuration :P ) since my own tests have indicated no statistically certain impact of RAM speeds (apply a grain of salt though - my most extensive testing in this regard was performed on DCS:BS, but since most of the underlying technology is similar I expect this to still hold true).

[Succellus]

Nice to have you here EtherealN.

 

Recomended 4gb or ram sounds a bit like a Minimum Xgb. So if numbers could come something more round, or, would we see a diference beetween 4 and 6 ? 6and 8? since today most memory come dual channel or tri channel for MKT reasons, the jump would be 4(2x2),6,, 8 (2x2+2x2, or 2x3+2),12...

 

Another , i think hard to mensure, point would be the benefit of a 970 over anyelse clocked at 3.2 to equal the 970 clock.

Would we see real benefit having a 970 over a 920/930 - 940/950 - 960 ?

 

I suppose to have an i7 970 as mark you ED guys made test with various processors.

[EtherealN]

The recommendations are based on the hardware used in testing and development.

 

As for benefits of 4GB and the steps up, it does first of all assume that you are running the 64-bit executable - with the 32-bit your adress space will limit the process to adressing less than your total memory - though just like with having extra cores this might be beneficial in letting OS and background use what's "outside" the scope of the executable.

 

However, we do have to remember that the "recommended" specification is different to the "required" in the sense that it is very subjective. A "required" specification is subjective too, of course - for example I know people that run FC2 below required specification - but it is an approximation of what is needed to get it "playable". The recommended specification is even more subjective though since it aims at giving you a guideline for a system that will run it "perfectly" so to speak, but since there's as many definitions of that condition as there are gamers running the product, it is a very difficult number to set.

 

Back to the memory question though: my expectation is that increasing the memory will solve only specific issues but will have negligible impact (once you are above the 4GB) on raw FPS. For example, having a huge amount of RAM will allow the process to load and keep more resources (like sound files, textures, geometry and so on) in memory without use of swap files, which should help decrease the risk of sporadic stutters where the application finds itself suddenly needing a resource that's not currently in RAM. It is kinda problematic to give expectations there though since this depends a lot on how your operating system is configured - for example on my own Vista install I have disabled the pre-load functions, which has the effect of loading applications taking more time than otherwise possible, but it helps reduce possible error sources for other purposes as well as decreasing swap file usage when I perform uncommon tasks.

 

As for benefits (assuming equal clocks) of 970's over the other 9's, I personally don't think they would be noticeable, but I have not performed the tests required to state this with confidence. This is obviously also even more problematic since many of the i7 8xx processors outperform some of the 9xx ones. So recommending a 970 isn't the same as saying that you need a 9xx series CPU to meet this specification. And obviously it becomes even more complex when we start trying to compare with AMD processors as well.

 

So basically, you could translate the recommended spec into "plain english" as "here's a system that we have found to run this very well" and then you can use comparative reviews and benchmarks to see how that would compare to your own system or a system you are intending to purchase.

Edited November 17, 2010 by EtherealN

[JEFX]

Thanks for those precisions EtherealN, nice to hear you here.

I believe it is a HOT topic for a lot of us!

 

 

JEFX

[Succellus]

Ethereal thank you for the explanation.

Usually Minimum specis read as: What you need to run it at low settings, and recomended as: What you need to run it at high setting (diferent from full).

 

I tend to believe that those tests are done on a clean install, OS + +drivers + game + 0 so depending on how "clean and lean" is the system it may varie a lot.

 

I wonder what would be the spec for FULL game - all maxed and all that you can switched "on", which is usually what the gamer want.

[EtherealN]

Yes Succellus, but there's a difference between "needing to run" and any practical information. My ASUS EEE can run this since it has a processor with the required instruction sets and a Dx9 GPU. But it won't run it in a "playable" fasion, and it's the whole "playable" thing that makes this complex since some people will refuse to play anything that doesn't give them a constant 60+ FPS and others are happy with a constant 25FPS.

[Succellus]

Running all on 60 is a whim, a wish, and not feasable, but i understand your point. That why i just wonder what would be required... and 30fps for FCS is perfectly acceptable. You hardly do a 360 in less than a second, if you do start worry! :D

[JEFX]

Well, Well, friends

 

It is nice to talk about it and read specs and forums but...

 

I decided to take the plunge and ordered my custom system today :

I will be getting the following (no turning back) and I believe that I will be able to survive the next couple of years with this (I seriously hope...) :

 

Motherboard : ASUS Rampage III extreme X58 ROG (Socket 1366)

CPU : i7 950

GPU : nVidia GTX 580

RAM : 12 Go Corsair 1600 Mhz DDR3

Drives : Kingston SSD V series 128 Go

HDD 1 To 7200 RPM (Black)

System : Win 7/64 pro

(and plenty of room in the box for expansion, 2 DVDs, plenty of USB ports, etc...)

 

I believe that the combination of the very good performance of the i7 950, coupled with the exceptional qualities of the GTX 580, plenty of RAM and the extra loading speed of a small Solid State Drive for the software and the system, will make this a fine computer (fingers crossed):music_whistling:

 

I will report back on performance when I get familiar with it (I havent bought A-10C yet, I was waiting for the new machine, which I will get at the end of the week).

 

cheers:thumbup:

 

JEFX

[Crazyowl]

Well, Well, friends

 

It is nice to talk about it and read specs and forums but...

 

I decided to take the plunge and ordered my custom system today :

I will be getting the following (no turning back) and I believe that I will be able to survive the next couple of years with this (I seriously hope...) :

 

Motherboard : ASUS Rampage III extreme X58 ROG (Socket 1366)

CPU : i7 950

GPU : nVidia GTX 580

RAM : 12 Go Corsair 1600 Mhz DDR3

Drives : Kingston SSD V series 128 Go

HDD 1 To 7200 RPM (Black)

System : Win 7/64 pro

(and plenty of room in the box for expansion, 2 DVDs, plenty of USB ports, etc...)

 

I believe that the combination of the very good performance of the i7 950, coupled with the exceptional qualities of the GTX 580, plenty of RAM and the extra loading speed of a small Solid State Drive for the software and the system, will make this a fine computer (fingers crossed):music_whistling:

 

I will report back on performance when I get familiar with it (I havent bought A-10C yet, I was waiting for the new machine, which I will get at the end of the week).

 

cheers:thumbup:

 

JEFX

 

How mush if I may ask? :music_whistling:

[JEFX]

No problem asking CrazyOwl

 

I wanted to limit to 3000$ (CAN) and I will be close to that plus a few taxes... The i950 makes my choices less pricy (compared to the 970 for example), the GTX 580 is pricy but I deem most necessary to the beauty of the experience (I play this at 3840x1024 on TripleHead 3 screens).

 

The SSD is a bit pricy too, thats why I decided on a rather small one, but for the most important matters. The RAM is a rather normal one, therefore less expensive than the newer sexier ones, but I get a bigger number of it for less money.

 

I agree that it is an expensive system, but I havent upgraded for a long while, my system now is a dualcore E6600... I think it was time for a move!

 

cheers

 

 

JEFX

[Cali]

I think I'll go AMD/ATI on my next build, better bang for the buck. I'm one of those guys that's happy with 25+ FPS in FC2.

[mvsgas]

Yeah Cali, I started to save and buy parts for my next build. So far I got the MoBo and SSD. I'm going for AMD also. One thing I thought was crazy, looking through New egg I found this;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%204092&IsNodeId=1&name=%245000%20and%20more

That has to be the most ridiculous priced computer part I have ever seen :megalol:

Sorry I felt compelled to share that.

[Atomic978]

Well I hope my processor will be enough to run this sim at least on medium settings. I currently have a INTEL 2.66GHZ Q9400 6M 750I

It is running at 3.06 ghz per core though. I am not sure how it compares to a i7 but so far has worked great for all my other sims and games.

[JEFX]

Well, thanks for all advices guys, I just got the new system and finally downloaded DCS A-10C and it is a pure joy to look at!!!

 

The first few minutes (and still now) reminded me of the amazement I felt back with my first hours in Falcon 4, many many years ago!

 

I think DCS A-10C (and DCS in general) is the best thing that ever happened to flight simulation! And the new PC is really doing agreat job!

 

:D:D:D

[tobyeez]

Hey, I just practically ordered the same machine for $1,500 at Cyberpower.

[TeeJay82]

Amd 1090t cpu + geforce 580 = win