Overkill for SWTOR?!

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BennyBoyP

Bronze Level Poster
Hi All,

Finally plucked up the nuts to order my gaming rig. Decided to push the boat out and get something extreme so that it will stand the test of time. Three days into production and I'm literally counting the hours until I get this badboy up and running...

COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
20GB INTEL® SSD 311 SERIES - CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD
10x LG BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE
COOLIT ECO II A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER)
Sound Blaster® Audigy™ SE
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
IIYAMA E2773HDS 27" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD1920x1080
LOGITECH® MK520 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO

Wish me luck with the delivery time ;)

Cheers.
 
DeadEyeDuk

DeadEyeDuk

Superhero Level Poster
Nice looking rig. As to your question, I would say without doubt overkill the play ToR...but the more the better :D
 
BirKy

BirKy

Silver Level Poster
Aye they say the system specs needed for TOR aren't heavy duty so maybe a little overkill, but on the other hand good for practically every other game too :) nice rig!
 
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BennyBoyP

Bronze Level Poster
Thanks all. Pushed the boat out on this one and really looking forward to getting involed in some serious gaming. Pre-ordered Skyrim and can't wait to push the settings to max!

Will certainly be looking for advice when it comes to overclocking too, so you can expect to see me on here a lot more!

Cheers.
 
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BennyBoyP

Bronze Level Poster
Day four in Pre Production. Can't wait for this bad boy to come home. It's good timing too as my Dell Inspiron 1720 packed up last night. The battery won't charge. It's about 2 months out of warranty. Thanks Dell...
 
MeveM

MeveM

Bright Spark
Well, I'd say no its not overkill. Depends what you're going to do. In WoW with my spec I go down to 45fps in a packed orgrimmar with max settings. So SWTOR has about the same requirements, so during open pvp etc with large amounts of people using abilities, it won't be overkill.
 
D

davboy

New member
Good luck with delivery time. Mine currently on 16th working day. Nervous tension setting in now. HURRY UP!!!
 
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BennyBoyP

Bronze Level Poster
Day five and my missus was wondering why I was tidying the 'gaming room'. Had to come clean and tell her I've ordered a silly rig. Incredibly she didn't seem too bothered about the cost... think it was more to do with the fact that she's soon to become a gaming widow...

She'll get over it I'm sure ;)
 
B

BennyBoyP

Bronze Level Poster
OK, I am having serious second thoughts about my system. Mainly that I haven't pushed the boat out enough...

Was thinking of changing to a Raid 0 setup as follows:

Hard Drive 1 - 120Gb SSD
Hard Drive 2 - 750Gb Caviar Black
Hard Drive 3 - 750Gb Caviar Black

I currently have the Intel 20Gb SSD Cache, so would I still need this with the above changes? Would the speed increase even be noticeable given that I'm only going to be using this rig for games, so not for storage or anything else?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.
 
Frenchy

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
BennyBoyP said:
OK, I am having serious second thoughts about my system. Mainly that I haven't pushed the boat out enough...

Was thinking of changing to a Raid 0 setup as follows:

Hard Drive 1 - 120Gb SSD
Hard Drive 2 - 750Gb Caviar Black
Hard Drive 3 - 750Gb Caviar Black

I currently have the Intel 20Gb SSD Cache, so would I still need this with the above changes? Would the speed increase even be noticeable given that I'm only going to be using this rig for games, so not for storage or anything else?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

If your getting an SSD anyway I wouldnt even bother with Raid, tbh id only Raid if I was only using HDD's
 
B

BennyBoyP

Bronze Level Poster
Thanks Frenchy. Might save a few quid then and keep it the way I have it, with a possible Raid 0 upgrade in the future.

+ Rep for the advice, and your ridiculous rig ;) (any photos of that btw?)
 
R

RickyL

Member
BennyBoyP said:
OK, I am having serious second thoughts about my system. Mainly that I haven't pushed the boat out enough...

Was thinking of changing to a Raid 0 setup as follows:

Hard Drive 1 - 120Gb SSD
Hard Drive 2 - 750Gb Caviar Black
Hard Drive 3 - 750Gb Caviar Black

I currently have the Intel 20Gb SSD Cache, so would I still need this with the above changes? Would the speed increase even be noticeable given that I'm only going to be using this rig for games, so not for storage or anything else?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

You can't setup a RAID 0 like that. Each of the hard drives needs to be very similar, e.g. same storage capacity and its better if they're similar in performance, e.g. all SSDs or mechanical HDDs.

You're probably getting confused with the new feature on Z68 motherboards (Intel Smart Response Technology) where you can use a small SSD and a HDD together, and the SSD acts as a cache for the HDD. This is limited to 60GB of the SSD though, and if you're going to do this it's best to use the Intel 20GB SSD cache drive.

Alternatively, if you can afford a larger SSD, e.g. 120GB+, then you can have this as your OS/games drive, and you won't need to RAID it, since it'll be plenty fast enough. Use your HDDs just for media storage, e.g. songs, photos, videos etc. You would do this instead of the Intel 20GB SSD cache.

BTW, I noticed you ordered a i7-2600k, but you didnt order it pre-overclocked from PCS. You should either get them to pre-overclock it for you, then it's under warranty, or get an i7-2600 if it was a mistake and you didn't plan on overclocking.
 
B

BennyBoyP

Bronze Level Poster
RickyL said:
You can't setup a RAID 0 like that. Each of the hard drives needs to be very similar, e.g. same storage capacity and its better if they're similar in performance, e.g. all SSDs or mechanical HDDs.

You're probably getting confused with the new feature on Z68 motherboards (Intel Smart Response Technology) where you can use a small SSD and a HDD together, and the SSD acts as a cache for the HDD. This is limited to 60GB of the SSD though, and if you're going to do this it's best to use the Intel 20GB SSD cache drive.

Alternatively, if you can afford a larger SSD, e.g. 120GB+, then you can have this as your OS/games drive, and you won't need to RAID it, since it'll be plenty fast enough. Use your HDDs just for media storage, e.g. songs, photos, videos etc. You would do this instead of the Intel 20GB SSD cache.

BTW, I noticed you ordered a i7-2600k, but you didnt order it pre-overclocked from PCS. You should either get them to pre-overclock it for you, then it's under warranty, or get an i7-2600 if it was a mistake and you didn't plan on overclocking.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice Ricky. My 2600k is ordered at 4.8Ghz, not the stock 3.4, i just didn't add it to my sig.

I understand the distinction between the SSD cache setup and the Raid 0 setup I described. I was under the impression that I could have the SSD as the first drive and Raid 0 the 2 HDD to give me a 2nd 1.5T striped drive. Is this not possible?

Thanks again.

BennyBoy
 
R

RickyL

Member
BennyBoyP said:
Thanks for the advice Ricky. My 2600k is ordered at 4.8Ghz, not the stock 3.4, i just didn't add it to my sig.

I understand the distinction between the SSD cache setup and the Raid 0 setup I described. I was under the impression that I could have the SSD as the first drive and Raid 0 the 2 HDD to give me a 2nd 1.5T striped drive. Is this not possible?

Thanks again.

BennyBoy
Click to expand...

Ah I see. Yes, if you're ditching the SSD cache setup, then it should be possible to use an SSD as your first drive, and then RAID 0 two HDDs as a 2nd logical 1.5 TB striped drive.

Be aware that RAID 0 has a higher probability of failure, i.e. if any of the disks in the RAID fails, then you lose the data on all the RAIDed drives; so make sure you backup any data you wouldn't want to lose.
 
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