SWTOR Damaged My i7 2600K

rendering or video processing machine?

Redering but also a lot of compilling big code projects, how could you guess that

oh... lucky guess

I'm about to make the move to a new system for 3D modelling and realtime rendering tests. It's just impossible to get the parts cheap in the UK atm, since theres a 20% tax on every piece of hardware you buy. So if a piece costs £1k GBP, it's actually 1.2k before shipping.

Oh that's to bad Where I live I can pull of the value-added tax through my company on all computer related hardware

I hope it works out in some way for you tho

May I ask if there is an additional 20% tax on hardware compared to other countries around UK? Since I do not think we have any extra tax on hardware here in Sweden besides the global VAT on everything?

There isnt an additional 20% on uk hardware at all. 20% is simply the standard uk vat rate. So if a computer costs £1k, then it cost £1k. No more money is added on.

I've come to the conclusion that this game is literally dangerous to run on a gaming PC.

I know that can sound hard to believe for some, but let me explain.

To begin, here are my system specs:

Intel Core i7 2600K
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro heatsink/fan
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 motherboard
16GB Mushkin Blackline 2133MHz DDR3
2 x EVGA GTX460 1GB in SLI
Crucial M4 128GB SATA3 SSD 6Gb/s
WD Raptor Enterprise 10K RPM SATA3 3Gb/s
Creative XFi Platinum
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Cooler Master HAF932 Gaming Tower
Cooler Master 850W 80Plus Certified PSU
etc.

This is obviously a fairly powerful gaming rig and I built it and maintain it meticulously; actually I'm a PC repair shop owner and I've been involved in the PC industry for many years. I've been an avid gamer since the early 1980's.

I normally do not buy into conspiracy theories nor do I allow my opinion about games to be swayed by anything but my own experiences. But my experiences with this game have convinced me there's something seriously, seriously wrong with it.

I can actually get SWTOR to run quite well on my system. I can maintain 60FPS almost everywhere outside, running at maximum details at 1920x1200 resolution with all quality-improving options in the Forceware control panel enabled. The game plays wonderfully and I have no problem with it as a game itself. I run into frustrating chugging when indoors, curiously fluctuating very rapidly between 59 and 60FPS. This occurs when I'm near walls, inside caves or corridors, inside my ship, etc.

I've done many things and attempted many tweaks to try to alleviate that, but eventually I gave up. I realized that I could just temporarily disable VSync in-game when in those situations to have my framerate shoot up to the high 90's and even 100's which results again in liquid-smooth gameplay. Once back outside, reenable and go along my merry way.

So what's my problem?

I have, previously before playing SWTOR, been able to reliably overclock my processor to 4.5GHz with absolutely no stability issues whatsoever. My system was solid as a rock for at least six months prior, through many hours of maxed out and heavily tweaked Skyrim, through playing Battlefield 3, through RAGE, etc. My system was so stable I could leave it sitting in any one of those games, video cards also healthily overclocked, and not have a single worry.

Lately, however, I've started getting BSOD's in SWTOR. They started getting more and more frequent. I began to worry. The bluescreens even started occurring outside of SWTOR, like when running 3DMark11 or even while just browsing the internet! It should be noted that while playing SWTOR, especially with VSync disabled, my system fans speeds would definitely shoot up, with GPU temps often approaching 80C. This is okay for short gameplay sessions, but definitely not okay for hours on end.

This evening, I was finally able to restabilize my system, now at 4.4GHz, which isn't much to give up, but when you consider that I had to do so simply after a couple of weeks of playing a MMORPG that has such (comparitively) simplistic graphics, it's quite disturbing. I honestly believe that had I not been running a somewhat bullet-proof system, the damage may have been worse. I now need to keep a very careful watch on my rig to make sure everything else is okay.

A word of warning to you all: If this game is pushing your system to its limits, you should ask yourself if it's worth it to risk its reliability in the long term. I have canceled my account, deleted my credit card info from this website, and will be washing my hands of the whole thing. I probably won't be buying another BioWare game ever again, due merely to spite over this.

Good luck. You may want to consider getting out while you can.

BioWare, thanks a lot. You suck.

Umm. you do realise that the 20% VAT is the tax i mentioned right? If you go to an actual technology retailer, you will see the prices listed without the VAT, as just like the previous poster said, they can claim back the VAT (Tax).

If you go to PCworld or some family run shop, they have the VAT already added in.

Yeah VAT is a pain if you can not get it off, with VAT the price go up a lot when building a pricy rigg :/ So claiming back VAT is something I must do

I hope it will work out anyways

PS: Sorry for my bad English tho, i'm Swedish and English grammar ain't my strongest subject