Will my system support multiple games?

[Justinator]

Well as the title says, I was wondering if this system that I am building will support multiple games. I originaly went with this build in order to play BF3 when it comes out but now thinking back of how much fun starcraft on Nintendo 64 was I just might consider buying Starcraft 2 for my new PC.

Could I hold 2 or 3 games on my system without sacrificing performance too much?

I never had a computer that could hold more than BF2 at one time and it had to be played on low settings for it to work so a good gaming PC is new to me and I believe this list is the making of a pretty decent gaming PC.

Any input is appreciated.


MoBo:
GIGABYTE GA-Z68P-DS3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard


Ram:
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT


Video Card:
SAPPHIRE 100312-3SR Radeon HD 6950 Dirt3 Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video ...


Case:
COOLER MASTER Storm Enforcer SGC-1000-KWN1 Black SECC / ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ATX PS2 / EPS 12V (optional) power supply


PSU:
XFX Core Edition PRO550W (P1-550S-XXB9) 550W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC power supply


SSD
Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW080G310 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM


HDD
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive


CPU
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K


O/S:
Microsoft Windows 7 Premium 64bit



Moved from PC Gaming

Anandtech Moderator
KeithTalent

 

[zi0n.]

I am kind of confused by your question. Do you mean running them at the same time? If so, I don't see a problem running SC and BF3 at the same time. Only problem would be if whatever game you play conflicts with each other such as in anti cheat(being the same), usually doesn't let you. Performance wise I think you would be ok running 2-3 games.

 

[lehtv]

I don't understand why you think holding multiple games on your SSD or HDD has anything to do with performance.

 

[Justinator]

Sorry, I didn't mean running them at the same time. I ment having them installed on the PC at one time. I didn't even imagin that running them at the same time was even possible. LOL. WOW thats impressive. LOL.

Like I said I never had a PC that could hold more than my regular crap (Music, photos, etc...) and BF2 without making out the abilities of the computer.

So that being said how many large games would be safe to install on my PC at one time?

 

[lehtv]

Short answer:

The number of games doesn't matter at all. Install as many as you want.

Long answer:

How much of your disk space is used (in % total) can affect the performance of the drive. This is the only metric of relevance here - number of games or photos or number of any type of thing you have on your drives is irrelevant. Only the number of bytes used (data) out of available bytes is relevant. As a drive fills up, it will make the HDD or SSD perform a bit worse. You should never fill a drive up to 100% space used - it'd be wise to keep a "free space margin" of perhaps 20% of the drive's capacity.

What does HDD or SSD performance affect then? Well, it will not affect frames per second in games. Frames per second is determined by the CPU and the GPU - the motherboard, memory and HDD/SSD will not have a tangible effect on FPS. HDD and SSD performance is measured in the speed at which data is read and written. That means a fast SSD will improve loading times in applications and games, e.g. how quickly a savegame is loaded from disk and written on disk, how quickly a web browser is opened, how quickly Windows boots, how quickly files are copied within and between drives, how quickly images are opened for viewing, etc.

 

[zi0n.]

As much as your HD holds them, I have like 10+ games installed, even though I only play like 3. The most I play are on my SSD.

 

[Justinator]

Ok, makes sense. So I should be good if I put a few games on the SSD since it will performe faster than the HDD to counteract the performance sacrifice of loading multiple games onto my harddrive. ? (what little sacrifice that may be)

That is if I don't choose to use my 80 GB SSD as catch for my Z68 chip function on my MoBo.

Ohhhh!!! The stress of it all... LOL

 

[zi0n.]

I wouldnt bother using it for cache, I'd rather install the OS plus 1-2 games and the rest put them in your HD.

 

[lehtv]

80 GB doesn't offer a lot of space to install games on, with current games taking so much space. I've got a 120GB SSD with 5 games installed and 20GB free. You could probably install 2 or 3 games

 

[pontifex]

whether you have 1 or 2 or 50 games installed will not affect performance at all. Actually having data stored on your hard drive does not affect performance in any way.

 

[Justinator]

Ok, well if I choose not to use 64gb of my 80gb SSD for catch with my z68 chip on my MoBo I will use it just for games. Should I consider having my o/s on the SSD as well or should I put that on the 1TB HDD with all the other crap?

What will I gain by having my o/s on the SSD along with my 2 favorite games?

I can't see myself having more than 3 games on the computer anyways since there really isn't much more that interests me other than BF3, and SC2 at the moment.

 

[lehtv]

Definitely put your OS on the SSD. It'd be a waste of a good SSD not to do that. Whatever games don't fit onto it can just be installed on the HDD.

 

[Justinator]

Ok. I suppose I will scrape the idea of using the z68 chip function and utilize my SSD for the o/s and favorite games(s).

 

[T_Yamamoto]

SSD=OS and programs you use the most (ie:Firefox, Word, SC2)

 

[mnewsham]

I have something like 70 games installed at the moment, (60GB ssd with two games, 500GB HDD with about 50 games and a 2nd 500GB hdd that i swap out when i want to play one of the other 20 or so)

 

[Justinator]

Ok. Sounds like I'll be good to go for what I want / expect.

 

[mfenn]

SSD=OS and programs you use the most (ie:Firefox, Word, SC2)

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

OP, the build itself looks pretty damn good to me! I would probably swap the SSD for the Crucial M4 128GB though.