Thoughts on Vortex 1250?

[Dayve]

Hello all! It's getting to that time of year again where I start getting the urge to buy myself a fancy new gaming PC and an awesome game or two to play on Christmas day. The Vortex 1250 caught my eye. It's better than my current PC in pretty much every way, the price is in my "I can stretch to that" range.

So what does everybody think of this PC? From my average knowledge of PC's it looks great. Can you tell me it's a solid gaming PC build that'll serve me well for the next 3 years until I start getting the urge to buy a new one again around Christmas time?

 

[keynes]

Could you post the specs and your budget?just gaming?

 

[Dayve]

Intel® Core™ i7-4790k
ASUS® Z97-E
16GB HyperX BEAST 2133MHz
4GB GEFORCE GTX 970
240GB HyperX SSD

Those are the specs of the Vortex 1250 (on the main page of pcspecialist, unter "Intel gaming computers". The specs of my current PC are in my signature under "my new PC".

I would be using it pretty much for gaming yes, as well as general internet usage.

A link to the Vortex 1250: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Vortex-1250-gaming-pc/

 

[GeorgeHillier]

If it's just for gaming the i7 isn't needed. If I were you I'd just upgrade your current PC and buy a new graphics card like the 980

 

[ihavenoideawhatiamdoing]

I agree with George

 

[Dayve]

Thing is - I play a lot of strategy games that draw the most power from the CPU rather than the graphics card, such as Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, Galactic Civilizations III and so forth. These games barely use any graphics card power but they're heavy on the processor, and I've noticed I get a lot of slowdown and stutter in these games when I choose the largest maps and most amount of players (or in the case of CK2 and EU4 when the game has been running for 2 centuries or so and a lot of data needs to be processed all the time). So I was wanting a better processor mainly for this reason.

But I do still play graphically demanding games as well. Is it really not worth getting a new one yet?

 

[keynes]

I would also suggest a better gpu and an ssd. I haven't played the games you mentioned but I would have though the i5 would handle those without any issues unless it is a driver issue instead? You could also get an i7-4790 but again I would upgrade the gpu and ssd first.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

My i5 handles strategy games just fine to be honest. If you're sure you need a better cpu then your current machine could take the i7 you chose anyway

 

[Dayve]

My i5 handles strategy games just fine to be honest. If you're sure you need a better cpu then your current machine could take the i7 you chose anyway

What about CK2 and Galactic Civilizations III? You see CK2 has been expanded so much since its initial release that it's about 10x bigger than the day it released. The amount of data being crunched when there are tens of thousands of living characters later in the game is immense.

And with Gal Civ III if you choose the largest map to play in, with 8 other civs and about 100 minor city-state-like civs, with a map that's about as big as a real life galaxy (slight exaggeration) then again, the amount of data being crunched is awesome. I get stuttering on both games after they've been running for a while.

Thanks for the replies by the way everyone.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Have you monitored your cpu and gpu usage when playing these games? If you have then what usage is it getting?

 

[Dayve]

Have you monitored your cpu and gpu usage when playing these games? If you have then what usage is it getting?

Can you recommend a monitoring program? Preferably one that's simple to set up. I've never used one.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Can you recommend a monitoring program? Preferably one that's simple to set up. I've never used one.

HW Monitor gives you both usage and temperatures of both the CPU and GPU and is super simple to set up

 

[SpyderTracks]

HW Monitor gives you both usage and temperatures of both the CPU and GPU and is super simple to set up

It sometimes doesn't pick up the d-GPU, if so you can use piriform's speccy.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

It sometimes doesn't pick up the d-GPU, if so you can use piriform's speccy.

Ah, never had an issue with that before

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ah, never had an issue with that before

It's weird, I seem to have it with a few programs on my lappie, but speccy always finds it.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

It's weird, I seem to have it with a few programs on my lappie, but speccy always finds it.

Ah fair enough, both my desktop and laptop have always found the GPU and i change my gpu every year or so in my desktop I would've though it's more of a problem on laptops with the optimus feature

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ah fair enough, both my desktop and laptop have always found the GPU and i change my gpu every year or so in my desktop I would've though it's more of a problem on laptops with the optimus feature

Yeah, you're probably right, makes more sense that way.