Will this PC build run FTB fast?

[jackman65]

I am building a computer with parts from memoryexpress.ca, and I am mainly going to play minecraft and feed the beast (Minecraft with 150+ mods). And I was wondering if this build would be sufficient for these games, especially feed the beast. Its also a budget build and my budget is $800. I need opinions on what to upgrade or change in my build.... Thanks!

Case: Zalman T1 Micro-ATX Case, Black

Memory: G.SKILL RipjawsX Series 8GB PC3-12800 Dual Channel DDR3 Kit (2 x 4GB)

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 w/ Dual DDR3 2133, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, USB 3.0, CrossFireX

CPU: AMD FX-6300 Processor 3.5GHz w/ 14MB Cache

GPU: Gigabyte Radeon R7 260X OC 2GB PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort

PSU: ThermalTake TR2 600W Power Supply

HDD: WD 500GB Caviar Blue 7200rpm SATA III w/ 16MB Cache

SSD: Corsair Force Series LS SATA III Solid State Drive, 120GB

Again, will this be able to run mostly FTB and Minecraft?

Thanks

 

[YX33A]

I am building a computer with parts from memoryexpress.ca, and I am mainly going to play minecraft and feed the beast (Minecraft with 150+ mods). And I was wondering if this build would be sufficient for these games, especially feed the beast. Its also a budget build and my budget is $800. I need opinions on what to upgrade or change in my build.... Thanks!

Case: Zalman T1 Micro-ATX Case, Black

Memory: G.SKILL RipjawsX Series 8GB PC3-12800 Dual Channel DDR3 Kit (2 x 4GB)

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 w/ Dual DDR3 2133, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, USB 3.0, CrossFireX

CPU: AMD FX-6300 Processor 3.5GHz w/ 14MB Cache

GPU: Gigabyte Radeon R7 260X OC 2GB PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort

PSU: ThermalTake TR2 600W Power Supply

HDD: WD 500GB Caviar Blue 7200rpm SATA III w/ 16MB Cache

SSD: Corsair Force Series LS SATA III Solid State Drive, 120GB

Again, will this be able to run mostly FTB and Minecraft?

Thanks

Most of that is unfortunatly gibberish to me(not the acronyms, thankfully!), but Sweet Jegus, a SSD would be nice to have for my laptop.

Also IIRC the main Benefit of using a CrossFire motherboard is to have two graphics cards or something. They allow for some sweet desktops, though.
Also only 8 GB of RAM? I'm seriously no expert, but that doesn't sound that great for anything beyond minecraft.

Also does that PSU have a surge protection system? Not necessary but it's good form to take precautions against such things.

 

[Zenthon_127]

8 GB of RAM is fine for most modern games.

 

[YX33A]

Oh good. I, uh, guess I'm ahead of the curve a bit? Not that I could have gotten less then 16 GB in this laptop...

 

[Jack0928PC]

I am just going to comment on the GPU as that is the component I am most familiar with.

After viewing some benchmarking of the graphics card I can say its a mediocre GPU. Really is nothing special, and probably wont give you the best results. With that said, $850 wont get you that dream machine... far from it, but its all about upgrading over time. This will do for FTB, like I said before you probably wont be able to run on max settings and stay above 30, but with the normal view distance and amped down setting you will be able to maintain a high stable FPS.

Just some advice, I would recommend you go to a forum page that specially deals with creating builds within your budget for your needs (I would suggest overclock.net). Especially when you are going to spend a large sum of money its important to have done your research.

Hope this helps

 

[Bigpak]

I currently have 64 gb of ram for gaming (mostly video rendering and 3d modeling) but I have two gtx 580's, it seems to be getting outdated and I run FTB just fine currently. I am going to be swapping out the two 580's for two gtx 690's, I will post again once I have them and tell you how they run. I recommend the gtx 580 as it has served me well

 

[midi_sec]

its a great minecraft PC. you shouldn't have any problems.

8gb is pretty overkill for minecraft, you'll see minimal gains with ssd(not worth the money for desktops just yet imo), 3.5 GHz clock speed is fine, your gpu is overkill for minecraft (newer games will bring it to its knees, though).

 

[kaovalin]

Disagree completely on SSD not being worth the money. Windows can shutdown and restart inside 10 seconds on my desktop now and its been running for about 4-6 months so this has been used. I also can start FTB (modified DW20) and be ingame in 30 seconds or less. If you plan to customize a modpack you will be restarting MC repeatedly so this has saved me uber time.

8GB of memory should be more than adequate to play FTB. If you want to play FTB and host a server 8 might be a bit tight between 2GB for the client plus another 2-4 for the server, but not bad either. Definately doable.

Make sure the case had good air flow. Bigger fans are better IMO as they are generally able to move more air and be quieter about it. Look for something with good cable management (as in the wires can be tucked away here and there) as this will also increase air flow in the case.

 

[midi_sec]

Disagree completely on SSD not being worth the money. Windows can shutdown and restart inside 10 seconds on my desktop now and its been running for about 4-6 months so this has been used.

real world performance is what i'm talking about. the performance gains are just not enough yet.

for example, i've got a raid0 array that boots inside 12 seconds. a comparable array would cost less than half of a ssd with the same capacity. so, for far less money, i can get similar performance? sign me up.

when prices come down some more, i'll change my opinion. there is a performance boost, but not a big enough one to drop that kind of money on just yet imo.

 

[kaovalin]

real world performance is what i'm talking about. the performance gains are just not enough yet.

for example, i've got a raid0 array that boots inside 12 seconds. a comparable array would cost less than half of a ssd with the same capacity. so, for far less money, i can get similar performance? sign me up.

when prices come down some more, i'll change my opinion. there is a performance boost, but not a big enough one to drop that kind of money on just yet imo.

I felt the same way till I played around with a computer with a SSD for a while. Its a lot faster and more responsive. This is comming from someone who had a pair of WD caviar blacks in Raid0 for about 5 years. Having made the switch, in my experience it is well worth it.

If you already have a setup that is working nominally sure, you dont need to upgrade. The OP however is building something new, so it makes sense to jump in. The HDD is one of the biggest bottle necks in every computer.

 

[Shevron]

A 550MB/sec SSD + Windows 8.1 = WHOA!

From Windows boot to desktop ready, I have less than 5 seconds.

 

[Tankh]

Yeah seriously SSD's are one of the best upgrades you can get for a computer. It just lubricates every single process the computer does so it's much faster. It may not give the biggest impact when you're actually gaming, but I'd want everything to go fast with a computer if I could.

 

[ProfessorMudkip]

A 550MB/sec SSD + Windows 8.1 = WHOA!

From Windows boot to desktop ready, I have less than 5 seconds.

Part of Windows 8.1's boot speed due to it hibernating the kernel. But yes, SSDs do boot faster.

 

[Bashful Giant]

It just lubricates every single process the computer does

...giggidy.

But seriously. That PC should have NO problems with FTB. Boot times are long no matter what, SSD or not, due to the sheer amount of tweaks the launcher has to do. But I've had 100fps on max settings with a far weaker system!

And just to throw my 2 cents in on SSD's- whilst they may be fast, the trade off of increased speed for a reduced lifespan and smaller drive just doesn't pay off for me. If you DO use one, use it for your OS only, and store sensitive and media files on a HDD

 

[Pyure]

Yeah seriously SSD's are one of the best upgrades you can get for a computer. It just lubricates every single process the computer does so it's much faster. It may not give the biggest impact when you're actually gaming, but I'd want everything to go fast with a computer if I could.

It needs saying that not all SSDs are created equally. If you buy one of these, do your research from reviewers you trust. (I'm a big fan of PC Gamer for what its worth.) Per MB of storage, they're expensive as sin, but I love mine and keep 1 or 2 of my hardest-hitting games on it at all times. Games with long load times (booting up, or switching from screen to screen/map to map) really benefit.

I wouldn't bother putting minecraft on an SSD unless you find your modpack takes more than a couple minutes to boot up.

 

[Vasa]

this is an okay pc for ftb.there should not be problems.

 

[kaovalin]

...giggidy.

But seriously. That PC should have NO problems with FTB. Boot times are long no matter what, SSD or not, due to the sheer amount of tweaks the launcher has to do. But I've had 100fps on max settings with a far weaker system!

And just to throw my 2 cents in on SSD's- whilst they may be fast, the trade off of increased speed for a reduced lifespan and smaller drive just doesn't pay off for me. If you DO use one, use it for your OS only, and store sensitive and media files on a HDD

Bit of a misunderstanding about SSD lifespan. SSD lifespan is determined entirely by usage and the effciency of the wear leveling on the drive (did research before buying). You get around 10k estimated (could be more or less) writes to each bit on the drive which is not that different from the unadvertized mechnical limits of a HDD. Search for Carnegy Melon or Google HDD studies to show you how enterprise class drives (ones that are supposedly supposed to last longer) on average last 18 months under constant load. This is partially because of failure rates of <6 months, but this is still a reality of computer hardware. Everything fails.

Some tips to increase the lifetime of an SSD, keep it less full so it can distribute the write load across the whole disk. Keeping all the space occupied with data forces the wear leveling mechanism to use a smaller amount of free space which reduces the life of that space. Move the paging file to the mechanical drive, it doesnt impact real world performance in my experience. Also dont store data that sits and does nothing, just use it for programs and OS. Pictures and stuff can go on any large HDD. For me I've got 6 months under my belt on this SSD and still going strong with it running 24/7 with the FTB server running from the conventional HDD raid0 array.

There is also this document by toshiba back up some of the things I've said:
http://www.toshiba.com/taec/news/media_resources/docs/SSDmyths.pdf

 

[Bashful Giant]

Bit of a misunderstanding about SSD lifespan....

Sorry - I read up on SSD's way back in the early Noughties, and kept the old misconception that they have a short shelf life. Glad to hear they haven't! May have to seriously consider buying one now

But for the cost to size ratio, it's still probably better to store bulky files on an inexpensive HDD (I'm thinking of all you video editors out there!). At least, until SSD memory sizes catch up.

 

[YX33A]

Sorry - I read up on SSD's way back in the early Noughties, and kept the old misconception that they have a short shelf life. Glad to hear they haven't! May have to seriously consider buying one now

But for the cost to size ratio, it's still probably better to store bulky files on an inexpensive HDD (I'm thinking of all you video editors out there!). At least, until SSD memory sizes catch up.

Oh dear. So basically not for 50 or so years.
Unless you don't mind buying one of the 7 1 Terabyte SSD hard drives out there. Well, of the ones that are for sale(still).

 

[Bashful Giant]

Unless you don't mind buying one of the 7 1 Terabyte SSD hard drives out there .

Just found a 4 TB drive for the measly sum of $29,000. So I can either start drinking prune juice, living healthily, or....

*Puts on Balaclava and looks up nearest bank address*