fCraft Forums

Well, I was thinking about turning my current gaming computer into a server machine, and buying a new one to game on, and since I pretty much only play minecraft, bf3 and skyrim I kinda wanna know if this will atleast run minecraft, with about 50+fps.
Pc specs-
Intel i5 second gen 3.0Ghz
8GB DDR3 Ram
Graphics: Nvidia gtx520 1Gb dedicated ram
1Tb harddrive 7200 rpm
Windows 7 home premium 64 bit

Yes this will have no trouble running minecraft at all. You will probably be able to use a good texture pack too.

If those PC specs are your current one, use a different OS to run the server, rather than RAM hungry Windows 7. Also make sure you have a good amount of up and down in bandwidth.

Or buy my ram!

With that said, Minecraft can even run on an ancient Roman sun dial.

Now if I understand you right... Those CPU specs will be your new games machine? IF that's the case...
If you wanted to run Battlefield 3 on said machine with any sort of decent image quality and framerates, Then I would look into getting a *real* graphics card, something along the lines of a Geforce 570 or Radeon 6950 or better.
If your budget can't stretch that far, I would go no less than a Radeon 6850 or Geforce 560, even those cards are starting to show that they have a hard time in some situations, but they are cheap.
The Geforce 520 is incredibly low end, it's something I would shove into a HTPC to hardware accelerate video or play solitaire.
You may end up having to get a better Power Supply Unit to go with all that however.

On top of that, Battlefield 3 loves as many CPU cores as you can throw at it, so if that "Second gen Core i5" is only a dual core, then it probably will struggle a bit, any 6-8 core processor literally cleans up Battlefield 3.

If it's your old machine, I would drop Windows 7 in a heartbeat and go with a Linux distro or even Windows XP as Windows 7 is a bit more resource intensive than the former OS's.

And lastly... Get an SSD for all your systems. Worst thing I hate about mechanical drives is that they are slow, it's the slowest component in a computer and it shows. An SSD makes an amazing difference in terms of system responsiveness and loading speeds.

Pemalite wrote:With that said, Minecraft can even run on an ancient Roman sun dial.

I can eek 40fps out of CoD4 on my school laptop, but forget Minecraft. Minecraft makes its GPU recoil in horror. I end up getting 5 spf.

That's not suntan lotion, that's seconds per frame.

And oh my god, when I try to run a server on it to get PailStone dev done.

BAHAHAHA.

So no, Minecraft is not lightweight.

Ollieboy wrote:If those PC specs are your current one, use a different OS to run the server, rather than RAM hungry Windows 7. Also make sure you have a good amount of up and down in bandwidth.

No, these are the pc specs of the computer i'm looking into getting.

I have a computer with the same specs as you, On freebuild I get around 300 fps, on smp I get around 60 fps. Your computer will be fine

Herp, I found this computer on newegg for like, 100 bucks cheaper
Amd fx-4100 3.6ghz prossescor.
8GB ddr3 SDram
500GB sata II 7200rpm harddrive
AMD radeon HD 6670 1GB
Windows 7 Home premium 64-bit

Any other thoughts on this?

Essentially you are trading CPU performance for GPU performance with that build.
Even then, I wouldn't recommend a Radeon 6670 for any serious gaming at 1920x1080, it's a low-end card, the 5770/6770 (They're the same cards) is what you should look at for a minimum...
Even then, the 5770/6770 series struggles these days.

I assume the system you looked at was this one? - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6883229285
Just keep in mind that the FX series has a severe IPC disadvantage, you need a good 500-600mhz faster clock speed just to match a Phenom 2 per clock, per core.
Then you have the very questionable case and power supply in that system, with probably cheap fans that will sound like you're standing next to a jet turbine.

I highly suggest you build your system from scratch, you will get a vastly higher quality system... Potentially cheaper.

What's your budget?

Herp, my budgets about 700 dollars. I built this current computer, but honestly I'm just being lazy. LOL Oh, and yes that's the build I was looking at.

Hmmh, got somewhat decent setup for $830 from Newegg. You could get GTX 550 ti instead of 560 to drop the price to $750. Theres serious difference between 550 and 560 though, but running Minecraft will not be a problem either way. On other games, just drop the AA (aka anti aliasing) to 2x or none.

Oh and there's no case or dvd drive, but you can use your older ones.
That is if the old case supports ATX motherboard and the dvd drive has sata connector. dvd drives are cheap and go for some 20$ though. Also if you power supply is 600W and has the pci-e connectors (6pin), you shouldn't need a new one.

The parts

I'm kind of considering just replacing the GPU in the first build once I save up a little more money. It's got a 650 watt power supply, so I'm not sure if I'll need a new one, but I don't think I would. HmHmhmmm

Dankirk's suggestion is very good for a mid-range gaming build.

Another option is to look at AMD's llano in a small cube case and pair the on-board graphics with a Radeon 6670 for Asymmetrical Crossfire which pushes the GPU performance to around the Radeon 6770 - 6790 level.
It's actually what I'm planning to upgrade my HTPC to so I can actually run a few more demanding games on it, ideal for a tight budget, should be able to build one for about $500~ USD.

Epicpeople321 wrote:It's got a 650 watt power supply, so I'm not sure if I'll need a new one, but I don't think I would. HmHmhmmm

I've seen 1,000 watt Power Supplies literally pop when only loaded with a fraction of it's wattage because no-name companies are not always honest about what wattage their PSU is really capable of.
So just be careful and google the brand and model for an idea of what it can handle.