Hardware and STO

xaraman

Hi guys,

I'm going to be building a new box over the next few weeks and since it's been about 8 years or so since my last build (Yes, I play STO on a very old computer). I'm just checking here to see if there are any reported issues using certain hardware with STO.

My plan is to buy the following:

Motherboard with a Z97 chipset (although I don't OC, the features on the Z97 boards seem to allow for better expansion)
Intel i7 4790k (Think it's a haswell core)
GPU with nVidia GTX760 chipset (2Gb)
16Gb (2x8) 1600mhz CL8 1.35V RAM

I'm also planning on installing W7 as I've heard W8 can bit a bit spotty with certain games or is it stable with STO?

I'm thinking these components are all standard fare, so there shouldn't be any problems with them. I'm also planning a SSD to install STO on. I've never used SSD before. Are they the better option for gaming?

PS...Oh yeah, my power supply is a 700-750W so there should be no problems running the new components.

Cheers!

jaguarskx

There is no need to spend the extra money on the i7-4790k unless you are using programs that can take advantage of Hyper Threading (HT) like video encoding for example. Games do not make use of HT so for a gaming rig the extra ~$100 for a Core i7 vs a Core i5 is a waste of money that can be either saved or used on something else like a better graphics card.

If you do not plan to overclock, then you do not need to purchase a "K" model CPU which costs about $10 - $15 more than the non-"k" version. I would just get something like the i5-4690 if you do not plan on overclocking at all. It will provide the same performance as the i5-4690k when it is not OC'ed.

A SSD does not improve game performance. It has faster read / write speeds compared to traditional HDD. It will make your PC feel more responsive because it takes less time for Windows to start and for programs to launch. It does not really your frame rate except in games that loads the world map sections at a time. It basically means the sudden drop in frame rates will not last very long as the game waits for extra map areas to load into memory. STO does not load sections of the world at a time. However games like Battlefield 4 and Skyrim do.

I play STO on my laptop with Windows 8, I don't really notice any difference compared to my desktop PC running Windows 7. Well... the game performs better on my desktop because the CPU and especially the GPU is more powerful.

16GB of RAM for a gaming PC is a bit overkill. If you do other things with the PC besides gaming that actually needs 16GB of RAM like working with very large Photoshop files, then fine. If not then you can save a bit of money and drop down to 8GB (2x 4GB sticks).

A 700w PSU would be fine for your system.

xaraman

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

I was interested to hear an opinion on the CPU. I just thought the 4GHz base rate (No OC) and the HT that comes with the i7 4790k might have "future proofed" my build for another year or so. I'm not the type that likes to rebuild every few years. My boxes are built to last (...my budget) .

Same with the motherboard I'm looking at; it has far more options than I need at the moment, but sometime in the future, I probably will slot a second GPU in and an extra HDD/SSD or 2.

As regards using a SSD. I know it won't affect frames that much, especially on the system I'm building, but I am interested in the speedier read/write time for the OS and 1 or 2 programs that I use. It should help bottlenecking in the system, especially with more intensive software.

I am planning to do more with this computer than just gaming. I'll be doing some professional work on it too, that's why I'm going with the RAM I spec'd. So I can expand the facilities with the software and hardware associated with that and sometimes (depending on the project) you'll need the full 32Gb of RAM. But, that's talk for another forum .

Cheers!

jaguarskx

The i7-4790 / i7-4790k is basically the best consumer level CPU you can buy. The Hyper Threading (HT) capabilities of the CPU can provide a good boost in performance as long as the programs are designed to take advantage of it. I would say that in general many professional software geared towards "design and development" should be coded to make use of HT. Additionally, software used for both financial and scientific modelling should be able to use HT as well.

You didn't mention which Z97 motherboard you intend on buying... then again I am not very familiar with specific motherboards.

aureleus

If your going Nvidia I'd pick up one of there GTX 970s its not terribly much higher, price wise, then the GTX 760, but its performance is Far better and it uses less power :P. It's basically on par with a GTX 780 if not better.