New Computer for NA - advice sought!

[Greenwood]

Hi all,

 

Naval Action broke my laptop. 5 minutes in game and it died, overheated, won't boot ever again. Thanks unoptimised code (handled WoWS and PoExile no probs for hours on end - well ventilated!) - devs you need to offer some sort of laptop melting compensation by way of free 1st rate deeds or something, I'm not alone.

 

I've been managing unhappily on my laptop for a while, not wanting to spend, having not played NA for about 4 months or so (played it on a gaming laptop since sold), now we're in a good place with the game/software and I need to get heavily involved 

 

I want a desktop computer, I'm in the UK (for retail purposes), I don't want to spend more than £500 or so, I realise I won't be playing on HD+ ultra settings.

 

What would you recommend?

 

GPU - I haven't had an AMD card for about 10 years so I think it's time to give them some of my cash... looking at the R9 380 or perhaps a bit less powerful, but in that region. Anyone with any experience of this card with NA I'd be keen to hear your thoughts.

 

CPU - This is the biggie for Uni engine I believe, I realize intel are head and shoulders above AMD with certain engines, e.g. total war, I appreciate this engine might be one of them, how BIG is the different though? AMD are so much cheaper... This is the bit I really want advice on, anyone with experience of benchmarks of CPUs for NA please chime in. 

 

Otherwise I think we need to create a NA benchmark thread, it's a mine field esp. with the unoptimized code throwing a spanner in the works.

 

FREESYNC - Anyone with experience of this?

 

Anyone know of any good etailers otherwise I might try and get a second hand rig off ebay

 

 

Thanks in advance, 

 

 

VincentJ

 

 

 

[Arvenski]

1.) Eventually, you're not just going to want to play NA on your PC, so think broadly: don't just buy a PC that can handle NA on minimum specs but can't handle any other new games that you might want to play on it. 

 

2.) What are you looking to spend? This is the big question. I'd happily recommend a GTX 970 and an i5-4690k, but not everybody wants to fork over that amount of cash. So, what's your budget? 

[Greenwood]

Hi, as per OP I'm looking to spend about £500 (UK).

 

The computer isn't for gaming and future proofness, it'll be for a bit of work and NA, I'm not looking to the future with it I don't have designs to play the latest and greatest when they're released.

[Count Maurice Benyovszky]

Around £550 you can get:

CPU: i5-4460 or AMD FX-8320 (your choice)
GPU: R9 380 or GTX 960 (your choice)
MOBO: MSI or Gigabyte - this choice is up to you, size of the motherboard, colors, design (just don't spend more than £60)
PSU: BeQuiet! Pure Power L8 600W is good enough
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 2x4GB 1600Mhz CL9 (doesn't matter, difference between RAM is marginal)
HDD: Seagate or Western Digital 1TB
CASE: Again your choice, size, color and overall design (I wouldn't spend more than £45 on the case)
DVD Drive: Whatever you like, it costs less than £10
 

For example:
Intel i5-4460                                                                       £155
Gigabyte GTX 960 4GB                                                     £175
Gigabyte GA-B85M D3H-A                                                £ 50
BeQuiet! Pure Power L8 600W                                          £ 60
Corsair Vengeance LP 2X4GB 1600Mhz CL9                   £ 44
Western Digital 1TB Blue                                                   £ 42
Zalman Z3 Plus                                                                 £ 33
+ any DVD Drive                                                                £10
                                                                                     = £ 569 *

AMD FX-8320 + R9 380 might be a cheaper option

*-Calculated value from PLN (Polish złoty) to GBP

[Squaz]

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/3FxFf7/the-budget-gaming-pc-600-

[Greenwood]

Gents, thanks for your time. No further input required, machine ordered.

 

For those curious, I managed to get (for about 400 quid, not inc. monitor)

 

FX 6300 AMD CPU (6 core)

8 GB ram

500w EVGA psu

DVDR

750gb 7200rpm Western digital black HD

AMD R9 380 (equiv nvidia 960)

A motherboard with 2 pci-express 2.0 slots for future crossfire if NA supports it (does it, btw??)

A custom CPU cooler

Windows 8.1 with free upgrade to 10 (giving me a fallback option if 10 presents issues).

 

thanks again.

 

 

G

Edited March 21, 2016 by Greenwood

[Arvenski]

Why the crappy GPU? The GTX 960 that the other folks were suggesting sounded like a good idea. Here.

[Greenwood]

Why the crappy GPU? The GTX 960 that the other folks were suggesting sounded like a good idea. Here.

Yep went too far down the responsible dad route, ended up getting a R9 380 in the end, equiv to 960 but will be able to crossfire at a later date (when they enable it and i buy a second card). Cheap/friendly mobo doesnt support SLI.

 

I've also bought the AOC 24" 1080p FREESYNC 75hz gaming monitor to boot which obv. wouldnt work with a nvidia card, their equiv gsync tech being oh-so-much more expensive.

 

It's all ordered and enroute! R9 380 + freesync should be quite decent!

[hubinwa]

Get a SSD for Windows and NA, you will be impressed with the performance.

[Greenwood]

Get a SSD for Windows and NA, you will be impressed with the performance.

Had SSDs before in RAID (2 drives), it's very impressive but I'm trying to keep the cost down big time, I couldn't conscience SSDs at this point. The fast HD will do, bear in mind I've been on a laptop with 5400rpm HDD for a while now

[Smiling Jack]

Now there is a question... Does NA support Crossfore and/or SLI? I'm sure there is a thread but I was reading this and just wanted to ask my fellow mates!

[OlavDeng2]

Now there is a question... Does NA support Crossfore and/or SLI? I'm sure there is a thread but I was reading this and just wanted to ask my fellow mates!

NA at this point in time does not supprot crossfire or SLI, but i do believe(and i might be mistaken as i use an amd system) that you can force SLI with NVidia inspector(dont quote me on that though)