New PC for Rome 2 advice.

[Nydiras]

Hello everyone on the forum, I am new here and asking for some help, Last time I got a PC it was for Rome: Total war, and looking for getting a system that can run Rome total war 2 on max settings and not stress the computer out at all. The specs for the game are

• OS:Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8
• Processor:2nd Generation Intel Core i5 processor (or greater)
• Memory:2GB Ram (XP), 4GB RAM (Vista / Windows 7 or 8) GB RAM
• Graphics:1024 MB DirectX 11 compatible graphics card.
• DirectX®:11
• Hard Drive:30 GB HD space
• Additional:Screen Resolution - Minimum spec: 1024x768 minimum/ Recommended spec: 1280x1024 minimum (ALL SPECS ARE CURRENTLY NOT FINAL AND ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT ANY TIME)

My budget for the PC is around 800-1000 minus the monitor. Would it be do able to build a PC on this budget to run flawlessly? Looking forward to hearing everyones advice, willing to go up a few more hundred if it will enhance the game play. I have a Caesar inside me eager to let the fury out on the pixels on my screen. Again thank you for the time if you decide to post. also the PC will just be used for Rome Total war 2. Also please note I have no PC building experience.

 

[sublime420ec]

The rig my sig was around 960$ or so and would play that game max settings....maybe get a 7970 since there cheap now......im on my phone at lunch so cant really do all the part links n stuff for a nice build atm....maybe get haswell i5 tho.... Ivy is fine too...and lil cheaper....

 

[boxleitnerb]

Generally, I would wait until the game is released, at least for the choice of the graphics card. As for the rest, it's a pretty easy choice:

i5-4670 (K)
8 GB RAM
SSD

Most likely, Rome 2 will need the fastest CPU possible (lightly multithreaded, Shogun 2 makes use of up to 3 cores only). 8 GB RAM just make sense today, 4 GB is too little, especially when doing a bit of multitasking. The SSD (in conjuction with the fast CPU) will dramatically help with load times. Shogun 2 has awful load times before and after each battle.
If you're absolutely serious about playing large battles smoothly, I'm afraid you will have to overclock the CPU. In my experience with Shogun 2, even a 2600K@4.3 GHz is not enough if many armies/units are present on the battlefield. CPU performance is absolutely crucial in mass battles, I cannot stress this enough. I doubt Creative Assembly have made headway with multithreading support.

If you need to buy everything now, I would recommend a GTX 770 2/4 GB. At least in Shogun 2 FoTS, it is up to 40% faster than the 7970 GE:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770_6.html#sect4
If you can get a 780 fairly cheap, that would be even better. Depends on how much the other stuff costs and if you can fit it in your budget.

 

[GotNoRice]

I'm also eagerly awaiting this game.

Those specifications look pretty much useless to me.

Says Vista/7/8, but then lists a separate lower RAM requirement for XP?

Says it requires a Core i5 - but the Core i5 comes in both dual and quad-core variants. If a dual-core i5 is enough, then a dual-core i3 would almost certainly be enough as well. I can't imagine why an older quad wouldn't work great.

The only videocard requirement it lists is it's memory requirement, which is useless when many budget cards now come with 2GB+ RAM but would quite obviously be too slow for this game.

You might look up benchmarks for older Total War games like Shogun 2, as I'm pretty sure the Rome 2 engine is simply going to be an evolution of the same engine used in Shogun 2.

 

[Nydiras]

Alright guys thanks for the help so far, like I said as for my knowledge of putting together a rig is way over my head, if someone wants to help lay out the ABCs and the steps or else I feel like I am way over my but I know buying a PC at a store would not surfice for the game play I am looking for, I am currently looking at what you guys post and able to put in some over time at work so the range now has changed 1300-1499 because the large scale battles with out lag is a must. but worried about putting it together for the first time with no experience with so much invensted in the parts when I decide.

 

[hackerballs]

don't buy old if you can help it. Buy Haswell (quad core for sure) and a gtx760/ati7950 come to mind, more would be better, gtx780/ati7970...........top that off with 8/16g RAM @ 1600

 

[boxleitnerb]

Do you know someone who can assemble the PC for you? A friend or colleague perhaps? Some shops also offer this as a service, at least around here.

Let's try to put some numbers to it (newegg.com):

4670K: $240
Z87 motherboard: around $150
8GB DDR3: around $70
GTX 770: 2GB $400
Decent CPU-heatsink: $50
500W PSU: $60-80
Chassis: ? (depends on your taste)
Bluray drive: ? (do you need one?)
Soundcard: ? (if the onboard sound is not enough)

That's around $1000 for everything except chassis, bluray drive and dedicated soundcard. I'm not from the US, so maybe someone else knows where to buy cheap. You could save a few bucks on the memory and the mainboard. I wouldn't cheap out on the heatsink, though, since Haswell runs very hot. Since you're fairly new to all this, I wouldn't recommend overclocking to you, at least not on your own for the first time.

 

[Torn Mind]

Alright guys thanks for the help so far, like I said as for my knowledge of putting together a rig is way over my head, if someone wants to help lay out the ABCs and the steps or else I feel like I am way over my but I know buying a PC at a store would not surfice for the game play I am looking for, I am currently looking at what you guys post and able to put in some over time at work so the range now has changed 1300-1499 because the large scale battles with out lag is a must. but worried about putting it together for the first time with no experience with so much invensted in the parts when I decide.

There are youtube videos around that help you out in assembling the computer.

The primary matter is making sure everything fits together. Making sure the motherboard fits in the case. You will definitely need a #2 screwdriver.

CPU installation is not too difficult for Intel chips, but don't be afraid that the lever used to push the CPU down onto the pins requires quite a good deal of force to push down into place. That and the "crunching sound" is normal.

Make sure that wherever you do the assembly, you place the hard drive in a place where it cannot fall, because a hard drive has a chance of dying if dropping from a high enough distance and it hits a hard floor.

Also, take precautions so you don't zap your components with static electricity (electrostatic discharge). Usually, touching the metal on the case can dissipate the charge, but you can get a wrist strap if you're really concerned.

 

[Nydiras]

That looks wonderful, I will call up some shops and see if they will be willing to put a PC together for me. I hope its not to outrageous to have someone throw it together for me, thanks for everyone. If anyone wants to go crazy and put together and an insane rig, it would inspire me to work some over time as for the blue ray and equipment like that wont be needed this is solely to play Rome. But so far I like that spec. Do sites you buy parts from give you an OS with the parts for free or do you have to get that separate as well?

 

[Torn Mind]

That looks wonderful, I will call up some shops and see if they will be willing to put a PC together for me. I hope its not to outrageous to have someone throw it together for me, thanks for everyone. If anyone wants to go crazy and put together and an insane rig, it would inspire me to work some over time as for the blue ray and equipment like that wont be needed this is solely to play Rome. But so far I like that spec. Do sites you buy parts from give you an OS with the parts for free or do you have to get that separate as well?

If you're buying from a typical online store like Newegg or Amazon, then you'll need to purchase the OS separately.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Don't you have an OS already?

 

[Nydiras]

Just the one thats on this old laptop, but I dont know how to transfer it with out a disk like I said, I play rome total war on this and dink around on the internet thats it, I Just got all excited for the new game and knew I needed to upgrade badly if I had a shot at playing it.

 

[The Alias]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1hiGo

Rome 2 will have loads of compute effects I don't think even the Titan will be able to cope with them all considering the scale and the detail of the game . Soooo I think you should go with the build above and oc both as best as you can . it should last you for years

 

[boxleitnerb]

Ok, then it's older. I would suggest Windows 7 Home 64bit.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1hiGo

Rome 2 will have loads of compute effects I don't think even the Titan will be able to cope with them all considering the scale and the detail of the game . Soooo I think you should go with the build above and oc both as best as you can . it should last you for years

You should not recommend things without hard evidence. The engine of Rome 2 is an evolution from the engine used in Shogun 2. The major differences in terms of graphics are new particle and lighting systems. We only know how Shogun 2 (FoTS) performs, that is our baseline. And there, Nvidia performs much better, especially with antialiasing.

Aside from that, your suggested power supply is outrageously overdimensioned and you forgot the SSD.

 

[Stuka87]

I'm also eagerly awaiting this game.

Those specifications look pretty much useless to me.

Says Vista/7/8, but then lists a separate lower RAM requirement for XP?

Says it requires a Core i5 - but the Core i5 comes in both dual and quad-core variants. If a dual-core i5 is enough, then a dual-core i3 would almost certainly be enough as well. I can't imagine why an older quad wouldn't work great.

The only videocard requirement it lists is it's memory requirement, which is useless when many budget cards now come with 2GB+ RAM but would quite obviously be too slow for this game.

You might look up benchmarks for older Total War games like Shogun 2, as I'm pretty sure the Rome 2 engine is simply going to be an evolution of the same engine used in Shogun 2.

When it comes to 2nd gen Core i5's (i5-2400, i5-2500K, etc), all the desktop i5's are quad cores. Only mobiles have dual core variants.

For this game, you WILL want a quad core. And in current Total War games, nVidia cards do a bit better. The game is fairly demanding, so a better GPU will help. I would say a 760 or 7950 minimum if you want good frame rates. But nVidia is the better choice for these games.

 

[magomago]

only logical thing: wait for the game to come out before you completely spec out your system. who knows, max graphics may require something that isn't on the market yet...a step below max graphics might be easily satisfied by today's high end....or medium graphics taxes many high end pcs today.

you won't know till its out.

to me the only obvious choice is cpu, and maybe SSD based on Shogun 2 reports (I haven't played it personally).

 

[stahlhart]

Moving thread to General Hardware.
-- stahlhart

 

[hackerballs]

usually free or small charge to put together from shop............free if they sell the parts to you

 

[The Alias]

Ok, then it's older. I would suggest Windows 7 Home 64bit.



You should not recommend things without hard evidence. The engine of Rome 2 is an evolution from the engine used in Shogun 2. The major differences in terms of graphics are new particle and lighting systems. We only know how Shogun 2 (FoTS) performs, that is our baseline. And there, Nvidia performs much better, especially with antialiasing.

Aside from that, your suggested power supply is outrageously overdimensioned and you forgot the SSD.

I think win8 with a big hard drive would be a better investment over an ssd with win7 based on my experience experimenting with a low end system (more sensitive to improvements)

Power supplies tend to fluctuate less when not pushed to their limit which in turn is better for higher overclocks . Therefore I overspec on my psu especially since it doesn't cost much more .


consider this :

now this

I for one don't think the jump from a 7950 to gk104 is worth $150 especially when both are overclocked . Plus I'm sure you know what some lighting systems do to kepler :

and Rome 2 is a ge title so I'm pretty sure global illumination will be there knowing them lol

 

[Insert_Nickname]

A fast CPU should be your first priority. 4670K or even 4770K. I'd recommend an Nvidia card since Shogun2 seems to favor NV slightly. Since they're using basically the same engine, I'd expect that to be true for Rome2 too. Not by much though, if you can get a deal on a HD7950/70 they're great as well.

If you're absolutely serious about playing large battles smoothly, I'm afraid you will have to overclock the CPU. In my experience with Shogun 2, even a 2600K@4.3 GHz is not enough if many armies/units are present on the battlefield. CPU performance is absolutely crucial in mass battles, I cannot stress this enough. I doubt Creative Assembly have made headway with multithreading support.

You have some kind of bottleneck there. My 3770non-K+HD7870 can run 80 unit (ultra, 200 men per unit) battles at 1440p without breaking a sweat.

 

[mfenn]

only logical thing: wait for the game to come out before you completely spec out your system. who knows, max graphics may require something that isn't on the market yet...a step below max graphics might be easily satisfied by today's high end....or medium graphics taxes many high end pcs today.

you won't know till its out.

The correct answer. We don't really know what the performance requirements will be like until September.

 

[Skott]

I'd be willing to hazard a guess that if you build a rig like in the stickied mid level thread you won't have a problem running RTW2 or any other new game.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2192841

 

[boxleitnerb]

I think win8 with a big hard drive would be a better investment over an ssd with win7 based on my experience experimenting with a low end system (more sensitive to improvements)

Power supplies tend to fluctuate less when not pushed to their limit which in turn is better for higher overclocks . Therefore I overspec on my psu especially since it doesn't cost much more .


consider this :

now this

I for one don't think the jump from a 7950 to gk104 is worth $150 especially when both are overclocked . Plus I'm sure you know what some lighting systems do to kepler :

and Rome 2 is a ge title so I'm pretty sure global illumination will be there knowing them lol

An SSD will be waaaay more beneficial to Rome 2 than Windows 8. You think, I know because I actually own Shogun 2 and have played and benchmarked it extensively.
The graphics card review you posted is old I suppose. Current results with current drivers and the current build of the engine (Fall of the Samurai) show differently. Shogun 2 is a GE title, too, and runs better on Nvidia hardware. So that is no indication of anything

You have some kind of bottleneck there. My 3770non-K+HD7870 can run 80 unit (ultra, 200 men per unit) battles at 1440p without breaking a sweat.

My results are consistent with other benchmarks (integrated CPU benchmark) of Shogun 2. It's important to know that Shogun 2 behaves quite differently when it comes to fps and stuttering.
You can have high fps and still stuttering. This is because the rendering engine is decoupled from the rest of the engine. Try a 4 army battle and look at the unit animations (even of only a single unit on the screen) - they skip steps while fps are high. fps will become a problem when many units are visible at once, though. This is what the CPU benchmark represents, and fps can drop to as low as 20 there on my system due to the CPU. Note: in really large battles with many armies, this is in addition to the other problem mentioned above.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

My results are consistent with other benchmarks (integrated CPU benchmark) of Shogun 2. It's important to know that Shogun 2 behaves quite differently when it comes to fps and stuttering.
You can have high fps and still stuttering. This is because the rendering engine is decoupled from the rest of the engine. Try a 4 army battle and look at the unit animations (even of only a single unit on the screen) - they skip steps while fps are high. fps will become a problem when many units are visible at once, though. This is what the CPU benchmark represents, and fps can drop to as low as 20 there on my system due to the CPU. Note: in really large battles with many armies, this is in addition to the other problem mentioned above.

I'm not sure what is going on then, but even a close-up of a (40 unit (attacker) + 20 unit (defender) + artillery firing) castle assault in FotS, runs completely without issues here. No stuttering, no animation skipping (other then the occasional "float walking", but that's likely how the engine is designed)...

 

[boxleitnerb]

Maybe 60 units is not enough to provoke this kind of stuttering and animation skipping. But the low fps is definitely an issue, just run Fraps to verify.