The Video Games Thread II - The Resurrection

[The Bear]

Looks a very nice tidy setup in that case Gav. I do like the way the PSUs are at the bottom in cases nowadays.

After thinking more about SLI after talking about it earlier, I did a bit more research and read a comparison of two of my cards (650Ti Boost) against current top end cards and they apparently compare very well and runs briliantly in SLI mode. So I've decided to go down that route in the future and have therefore upgraded my mobo to a Z87 and a Haswell CPU!! The price difference between that and an Ivy Bridge with a top end Z77 board was small enough to make it worth doing.

I also decided to go with PC Specialist as they have better case + cooling options than the site I was using (even though they were a lot cheaper). Plus they've done a very nice job with yours.

 

[Boozad]

Looks a very nice tidy setup in that case Gav. I do like the way the PSUs are at the bottom in cases nowadays.

After thinking more about SLI after talking about it earlier, I did a bit more research and read a comparison of two of my cards (650Ti Boost) against current top end cards and they apparently compare very well and runs briliantly in SLI mode. So I've decided to go down that route in the future and have therefore upgraded my mobo to a Z87 and a Haswell CPU!! The price difference between that and an Ivy Bridge with a top end Z77 board was small enough to make it worth doing.

I also decided to go with PC Specialist as they have better case + cooling options than the site I was using (even though they were a lot cheaper). Plus they've done a very nice job with yours.

Well worth upgrading to Haswell mate for the price difference, it's hardly anything at all. Good call. You'll love the Z87 it's a gorgeous board.

PC Specialist are fantastic, their customer support is absolutely brilliant too. They also offer an upgrade service after you've bought from them so you shoul be able to buy a matching GPU to SLI from them a bit cheaper than anywhere else. Get some photos up when you've got the rig Nick, would love to see it. What case did you go for?

 

[Paul]

Bear

Please let me list the words in the above post that I understood :

Looks, way, bit and I.

Other than that you may have been speaking a foreign language

 

[The Bear]

I can't remember which case it was Gav. I'll let you know when I get back home. I wanted an extra case fan and a better branded PSU (Corsair TX750) because I plan on SLI.

I also switched the 1TB HDD for a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 500GB drive after seeing some comparisons on YouTube, plus they were the same price (£59). That should still be plenty of storage as I don't play LOADS of games. How big are the installs for AAA titles through Steam nowadays anyway?

Paul - The key was to find a board with two lanes of PCI-e 3.0 x16 that also run in dual x8 with a GPU in each. But I don't need to tell you that! :icon_wink:

 

[Boozad]

I also switched the 1TB HDD for a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 500GB drive after seeing some comparisons on YouTube, plus they were the same price (£59). That should still be plenty of storage as I don't play LOADS of games. How big are the installs for AAA titles through Steam nowadays anyway?

I don't know how much the Caviar Blacks are but if you can afford a 1TB of those instead I'd go for it. They are very fast for an HDD and brilliant for gaming, I have Windows, Office, AntiVirus and Adobe on my SSD with Steam, Origin and games on the Caviar Black and it's great. My backup rig has a Caviar Black as its main drive and it works fine for that too.

If you want to stay wih the hybrid I'd recommend setting a partition of about 100GB or so for the OS and have a separate partition for games and other installations, you can do that on PCS by viewing your order and looking towards the bottom of the page there's an option to set partitions. Top games are around 20GB or so now (at least the ones I play, I don't know what stuff like Total War amount to) so you'll have a fair bit of room. You can always uninstall after you've finished/had enough to free up room, most saves are cloud based anyway so you'll retain all the in-game info if you reinstall later.
Also adding another HDD later is a piece of piss of course if you need/want to.

 

[Boozad]

5 hours and 10 minutes to go until the Steam Summer Sale by my reckoning.

A quick guide to Steam sales for the un-initiated:
1) There are daily sales which change every 24 hours, chosen by Steam/publishers. Usually between 50-80% off.
2) There are vote-based sales which change every 8 hours. A vote between three different games is presented to everyone, and after 8 hours the game with the most votes replaces the previous voted game as the new sale item. These are a standard 75% off, I believe.
3) Publishers have a habit of putting their entire catalogue on sale at this time, usually 33%-50% off, or even higher if you're Valve.
4) There are achievements/badges for doing certain things such as voting on a certain number - or all - of the vote sales, for example. Acquiring these badges makes good things happen.

 

[b3h]

5 hours and 10 minutes to go until the Steam Summer Sale by my reckoning.

A quick guide to Steam sales for the un-initiated:
1) There are daily sales which change every 24 hours, chosen by Steam/publishers. Usually between 50-80% off.
2) There are vote-based sales which change every 8 hours. A vote between three different games is presented to everyone, and after 8 hours the game with the most votes replaces the previous voted game as the new sale item. These are a standard 75% off, I believe.
3) Publishers have a habit of putting their entire catalogue on sale at this time, usually 33%-50% off, or even higher if you're Valve.
4) There are achievements/badges for doing certain things such as voting on a certain number - or all - of the vote sales, for example. Acquiring these badges makes good things happen.

Cheers!

I did not know about the badges - i will be sure to vote on stuff!

 

[The Bear]

No doubt the Steam site will be down for about an hour when the sale goes live.

 

[The Bear]

I can't remember which case it was Gav. I'll let you know when I get back home.

It's the InWin G7. Lots of fan slots (7) and has it's own integrated fan controller.

 

[The Bear]

My spec is now:

Haswell i5-4330 (3.0GHz) 6MB Cache
ASUS Z87-A USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
CORSAIR TX750 PSU
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz
Palit Geforce GTX 650Ti BOOST 2gb GDDR5
500GB SEAGATE HYBRID SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm)

I'll probably order it first half of next week as I have the following Thu/Fri off.

 

[Langers]

Hmm... Methinks a PC thread might be in order! The last few pages make as much sense to me as a Dean Saunders interview!

 

[Boozad]

I had been thinking that myself mate.

 

[The Bear]

Nah keep it all in here. It's PC gaming but It'll quieten down once we've all compared rigs.

 

[Langers]

I'm joking chaps - it's still gaming after all!

It just goes way over my head!

 

[Boozad]

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/gb/en/pc/games/shooter/bioshock-infinite/ £12 use code GMG20-F202F-UI40F for one day only

 

[Boozad]

I think this page will be updated live with info of what's on sale and the prices.

 

[b3h]

Ready!

 

[Boozad]

12 minutes to go!

 

[b3h]

I am clock watching, how sad

 

[Boozad]

I'm watching the Alice: Madness Returns countdown timer. That's even sadder.