KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Camacha]

You didn't have a gtx-760 like me did you?

It is a GTS 450, but I have read that more Nvidia cards are afflicted, as well as mobile chips.

Although my full system crashes seem to have stopped since following your advice on thoroughly cleaning the drivers, I did get a display driver crash that was provoked the same way. As in basically doing nothing. I was watching Netflix and had KSP in the background. Seems that others have fixed the problem by going to an older driver or updating the card's BIOS if I remember correctly. Eh, at least with this bug I can still save everything and restart on my own terms.

Did it do that once? The behaviour I observed was quite a bit more intrusive. Sometimes everything would continue functioning just fine, but on occasion screens would become irresponsive and turn black, prompting a reboot. Not as disastrous as a crash, but very annoying none the less. It seems to happen mostly with playing (Flash) movies in the browser and 3D gaming - so roughly anything accelerated - though I still cannot provoke the phenomena reliably.

I hope I can fix it with the solutions others posted, as it seems that different things work for different people. For as far as its broken, rather than badly made.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Camacha

[Duke23]

Just once so far if I take your question the right way. This latest time it flashed my screen and started acting funny, and just when I was SURE it was going to freeze the system again it snapped out of it but Windows appeared to be using the generic vga driver (I didn't actually go check). Video playback was a little glitchy, no aero etc, but everything still worked including KSP. Eh anyway I hope you get it fixed. These graphics card/driver problems are truly irritating... I just jokingly told myself I was going to buy a Mac and be done with it, but I'd sooner eat my Kerbal figurine.

If I could find one that was both stable and up to date I'd go take out a small loan just to buy it, but unfortunately price doesn't seem to be entirely related with these. When I was playing around with Radeon cards I saw just as many people if not more complaining about the 280x (that I decided not to buy), as the 270x and 260x both of which I gave a whirl. But I don't recall any of the complaints involving fire, so maybe I didn't get the last laugh on that one.

[Camacha]

These graphics card/driver problems are truly irritating... I just jokingly told myself I was going to buy a Mac and be done with it, but I'd sooner eat my Kerbal figurine.

The choice seems between frustration because it does not work properly, or frustration because it does work properly - but not in the way you want it. That and the fact that Macs are not impervious to errors and problems either, I have had my share of marbles of doom. Plus, of course, that some specialist programs are only available for Windows. Like it or not, I am stuck with Windows.

But I must admit I rather like Windows 8, if you give it a chance it is really pretty good. I sure do hope the rumours of Microsoft going back to a Windows 7 type setup with a classic start menu and no Metro menu are not true, I feel that would truly be a loss. It is sad when something good gets scrubbed because people can not get used to new things.

If I could find one that was both stable and up to date I'd go take out a small loan just to buy it, but unfortunately price doesn't seem to be entirely related with these. When I was playing around with Radeon cards I saw just as many people if not more complaining about the 280x (that I decided not to buy), as the 270x and 260x both of which I gave a whirl. But I don't recall any of the complaints involving fire, so maybe I didn't get the last laugh on that one.

Both the 280X and 270X seem to be good cards.

You were kidding about the loan, right?

[Duke23]

The choice seems between frustration because it does not work properly, or frustration because it does work properly - but not in the way you want it. That and the fact that Macs are not impervious to errors and problems either, I have had my share of marbles of doom. Plus, of course, that some specialist programs are only available for Windows. Like it or not, I am stuck with Windows.

But I must admit I rather like Windows 8, if you give it a chance it is really pretty good. I sure do hope the rumours of Microsoft going back to a Windows 7 type setup with a classic start menu and no Metro menu are not true, I feel that would truly be a loss. It is sad when something good gets scrubbed because people can not get used to new things.

Yes very true. In fact I think the only reason people believe they work better is because they aren't able to do half the things we try to do which might bring a problem to the surface. Most gaming for example, or throwing together a bunch of parts that haven't necessarily been tested together then tweaking the settings in all of them... Not to even mention the lack of a real malware threat. But yes I'm stuck too, at least on this computer. I do tend to run a Debian based Linux distro on whatever computer isn't my main one. I actually have KSP running decently on my old laptop with Mint. There's something to be said for an operating system you can mess with until you can't even tell what version it was with backports and forced installations of unsupported software, and it still run without a hitch for the most part.

I agree 8 is nice once you get used to it. There are some things that need to be ironed out. For one I'm not a fan of the big push towards everything being in the cloud these days -- by all means make it an option after the fact but please don't make it default and then you have to hunt around to disable it. But I think it has a lot of potential if people will stop grumbling about it being "different". I mean really, if you don't like Metro it's not that hard to put the start menu back, there are several programs for it and some are free (the one from IOBit comes to mind). I helped my mom set up her new laptop with 8 on it and we did just that, now she doesn't have a quite as confused look on her face when she uses it But I grumbled too at first and after thinking about it, it was time to change up the UI. It's been pretty much the same since NT4 / Win95 with most major changes being under the hood. I kept saying why not make it optional within Windows setup to run Metro or classic. Linux has GNOME, MATE, KDE, LXDE, XFCE, etc why can't Windows have just two options?

Both the 280X and 270X seem to be good cards.

You were kidding about the loan, right?

Yes, the 270x wasn't bad before the flaming incident. It did have some slightly off colors from what I was used to and some microstutter though. I looked at some real world comparisons and it appeared that the Radeon drivers do better at spiking the maximum framerate than keeping a steady one across the board. I actually didn't have any complaints about the 260x other than the obvious, it wasn't quite powerful enough for what I wanted. I was... half joking about the loan? Come on, tell me you wouldn't pay a crazy amount of money for a graphics card guaranteed to run perfectly and play everything for the next 7 years or so. I was just saying it seems that no matter what card you buy it's going to have some kind of inescapable irritating issue.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Duke23

[Camacha]

I was... half joking about the loan? Come on, tell me you wouldn't pay a crazy amount of money for a graphics card guaranteed to run perfectly and play everything for the next 7 years or so.

The thing is, the high end cards are not *that* much faster than the more economically priced ones. You are quite certainly not going to play games with it for 7 years. Top performers are a little more prone to defects and in one or two generations you will be stuck with a slow, hot and noisy card. You paid a bunch for it, so you will not get rid of it, yet much cheaper and less power hungry cards easily outperform it. It is the law of the handicap of a head start in all its glory. Unless you need the performance now, I always strongly advise against buying high end computer gear. Buying speed for the future simply does not work in computer land. If you have 700 dollar to spend you are better off with two 350 dollar cards or even three 200 dollar cards instead of a 700 dollar card. The latter will be fastest initially, but in a year or three you still have money to upgrade to a new card when buying the cheaper ones. It will certainly outperform the older, more expensive card at that point. On average, you will have more frames for more years.

Another things is that I think that taking out loans on anything but a house and education is generally ill advised. Especially so in the case of electronics, where the device often wears out before you make your last payment. If you wait a little while and save up your money will stretch that much further (because you do not pay interest), with the added bonus of preventing unnecessary impulse buys.

Sorry if I sound a bit preachy with that one, but I see people burning their fingers all the time.

I was just saying it seems that no matter what card you buy it's going to have some kind of inescapable irritating issue.

I think you are right on the money with that one.

[Duke23]

I think you misunderstand me, that wasn't meant to be completely serious... I agree with everything you said wholeheartedly. I was more suggesting that if we lived in a world where it was possible to do that and not get horribly screwed, I would. The state of technology is much too volatile to spend money you can't afford to toss in the trash for the newer model in a couple years. This is why I waited a couple years before jumping on the smartphone / tablet bandwagon, and why I like to stick to upper-midrange parts at best although I do go for certain brand preferences depending on what it is.

Edit: Well I guess you can scratch what I said before about my system crash, it just happened again. Sigh.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Duke23

[Camacha]

I think you misunderstand me, that wasn't meant to be completely serious...

Sorry, a bit of a kneejerk reaction on my part there Too many people make those mistakes: I want a computer that stays high-end for at least seven years, I will spend a lot of money on it to make that work. It usually takes quite a bit of convincing to make them understand they are just throwing away money.

Looks like we have about the same attitude on the technological curve - I tend to buy most stuff on the edge between midrange and high-end. A lot of bang for your buck while being relatively affordable. I am done with buying cheap crap, but also need to spend my money wisely to stretch what I can do with it.

[Duke23]

It's okay, I forget this is the Internet and you can't see my face, lol. Going by Moore's law you could expect to have a high end computer for a few months, but given the way they tend to release things I'd give it a year or so before they come out with something that makes you feel silly for not "waiting" which is pointless in itself.

I know I've felt that way. "Well if I had just waited I could have got that discount, or this better item would have fallen into my price range." Then I realize how deceiving that line of thought is because it never ends and I'd rather have something than nothing. In reality I try to plan for my computer or x piece of technology to accomplish what I need it to do (within reason) for "at least" 2 years, but it's all relative I guess.

You're right though it's hard to get this concept through to people. I've gotten the strangest looks when I tell someone that I can't magically make their computer do what they're asking of me. "But I just bought it 4 years ago on sale, it's not even that old!" Okay well let's just upgrade everything but the case and hard drive, and then maybe you can play the newest COD... Those things are on sale for a reason, they're already a year out of date before you take it off the shelf! Frustrating, but what can you do?

[Camacha]

I know I've felt that way. "Well if I had just waited I could have got that discount, or this better item would have fallen into my price range." Then I realize how deceiving that line of thought is because it never ends and I'd rather have something than nothing. In reality I try to plan for my computer or x piece of technology to accomplish what I need it to do (within reason) for "at least" 2 years, but it's all relative I guess.

The only thing I somewhat regret is not waiting for SSD's to be 1 dollar per GB before buying one. Within four months SSD's were a lot cheaper. On the other hand, I have had a lot of fun and good use out of it, so that is not that bad. It is just that I am used to a bit less write-off on my computer stuff.

I expected to feel sorry about buying a Sandy Bridge since the next generation (Ivy) was only one or two months out and I really needed to buy a computer, but I never regretted that. Every generation after that was about efficiency and not raw speed, so when you overclock your system the new stuff is actually not that much faster than two generations back - if at all. On stock clocks every generation was an upgrade, but since they started messing with TIM rather than soldered IHS's overclocking has not been the same.

The only advantage I see in the new stuff are native USB3 ports, which may come in handy when booting from a stick. That is quite a minor thing though and generally can be worked around.

[Elthy]

When you say that high end GPUs are to expensive for their value you have compare the price and performance of the whole pc and not just the GPU. Lets say you get 30% more performance if you pay 400 instead of 200 for the GPU. But when the other parts of the PC are 600 you get slightly more performance per money with the better GPU (only true when games are limited by GPU, not CPU, but most games are)...

[Camacha]

When you say that high end GPUs are to expensive for their value you have compare the price and performance of the whole pc and not just the GPU. Lets say you get 30% more performance if you pay 400 instead of 200 for the GPU. But when the other parts of the PC are 600 you get slightly more performance per money with the better GPU (only true when games are limited by GPU, not CPU, but most games are)...

Sure, if you want maximum performance you should go for the pricey cards. But if you are more concerned with value for money and/or gaming is not the only reason you build a PC the high-end cards are really not worth the huge difference in price. I mean, you could almost buy two 280X's for one 290X, or three 270X's. Meanwhile, the difference in frame rate is going to be a lot more minimal. I can think of better ways of spending thpse 250-350 dollars that separate the 290X from the 280X. Add to that the previous comments of ending up with an old, expensive, hot and noisy cards and I feel high-end cards are hardly ever worth it. You'd better save half of your money so you can buy that 380X or 480X when it is released. It will outperform the 290X, be cooler and you will have more frames on average. High-end cards just have shoddy value for money.

And yes, a lot of people buy faster and more expensive processors than they actually need. Everyone wants an i7, but practically nobody actually needs one. That is barely a reason to buy an overly expensive card

[Elthy]

What i tried to say is that even when you want high performance per spend money you can go for high end cards since the rising price isnt that big compared to the overall price of the pc.

[Camacha]

What i tried to say is that even when you want high performance per spend money you can go for high end cards since the rising price isnt that big compared to the overall price of the pc.

That depends on how you build your PC. An expensive card could almost double the price of a budget concious build, and that is with a decent processor like a i5. It boils down to the 80/20 percent rule: the first 80% of effect/performance are as easily achieved as the second 20%. That last bit of performance will cost you dearly.

It is also worth to note that an expensive GPU is pretty much good for gaming and not much else. More things are becoming hardware accelerated, but very few benefit from the added power of a high-end card. Meanwhile, a faster CPU, hard drive or enough RAM benefits pretty much every operation you do.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Camacha

[RogueMason]

Well, I'm back, and I'm typing this from my new computer. Everything seems to be working as it should, and KSP runs soooo smooth; it ran well on my laptop, but this...ahh, bliss

However, I do have a question. I got the GTX 760 in the end, but soon discovered that it has no VGA ports unlike my monitor, which has just VGA ports . The 760 does have a DVI-I port amongst others and I chose to get an adapter for it, but I've wound up with a DVI-A to VGA adapter for lack of better choice. My question is this; Would it be a good idea to get my hands on a DVI-I to VGA adapter instead of using the DVI-A adapter?

Also, thanks again for the help earlier on guys

[kookoo_gr]

Hi, i would like some advice on choosing between two laptops since my current one seems to be fried. The first is a toshiba laptop with the following specs

screen 15.6" LED 1366 x 768

graphics card nVidia GeForce GT 740M

processor Intel Core i7 3630QM 2.40 GHz

RAM 4GB DDR3 up to 16 GB

HDD 750 GB SATA 5400 rpm

and the second one is the Lenovo y510p

Processor:

Intel Core i7

I7-4700MQ

2.40 Ghz

RAM: 8 GB up to 16GB DDR3

HDD: Hybrid HDD 1TB:

Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce GT 750M

It will be a gaming laptop but it will also be used for daily use, my main concern is the graphics card when it comes to games, what will be the difference between these two graphics cards?

[Javster]

Computer building is very daunting for me, but I'd love to build a proper gaming PC. Does anyone have any tips?

[Aghanim]

Well, I'm back, and I'm typing this from my new computer. Everything seems to be working as it should, and KSP runs soooo smooth; it ran well on my laptop, but this...ahh, bliss

However, I do have a question. I got the GTX 760 in the end, but soon discovered that it has no VGA ports unlike my monitor, which has just VGA ports . The 760 does have a DVI-I port amongst others and I chose to get an adapter for it, but I've wound up with a DVI-A to VGA adapter for lack of better choice. My question is this; Would it be a good idea to get my hands on a DVI-I to VGA adapter instead of using the DVI-A adapter?

Also, thanks again for the help earlier on guys

At least if the DVI adapter successfully transform DVI signals into VGA, its good enough

Question: I'm thinking about getting a graphics card that can be use as a drop-in replacement for my old Geforce 210, and I doesn't feel I want to change my PSU, as my brother will freak out if suddenly my PSU have a 600W rating because he thinks that it means the PC is always drawing 600W from the wall and he will argue with me about hibernation is the same as standby and consuming power

Yes, I do know that this is not true. But because I don't want to always argue for power efficiency and stuff, this is necessary

And I do have a PC with that 600W PSU, its my mother's work PC with GTX 660 Ti, as its the only descent gaming PC that we have

Edited July 5, 2014 by Aghanim

[Elthy]

@kookoo_gr:

The problem is that the GT 740M and 750M come in lots of different versions (they even have other chips with the same name). To know what the differnece you have to tell us which chip, memory and clock the GPUs have. Also i want to point out that you shouldnt expect to much from these cards, you wont play modern games with more than minimum-medium graphics, not what i would consider gaming hardware...

@Javster:

1. Dont buy a complete PC, buy the parts and build it on your own (as easy as Lego).

2. Ask someone to help you with the part selection. You could ask here or (better) in a big forum only about hardware from you country. Be sure to specifie budget and games you want to play.

3. Dont rely on single opinions, read several tests about every part (dont buy untested parts except for the drive) and dont get caught in Nvidia/AMD Fanboy battles

[kookoo_gr]

thanks for the info. Unfortunately the only info available for the GPUs from the official sites are that they have 2GB of RAM. I don't expect to play modern games to full graphics i am happy to play them at medium, heck i am pleased if the laptop can tun KSP at an acceptable degree (i know that KSP right now does not support multi threading) and these laptops are the closest thing to my budget, 900 euros and 1000 euros respectively.

[Elthy]

Sure that you need a laptop? A PC for 1000€ would be at least 2 times as good...

[kookoo_gr]

I would like to have a tabletop pc but i use a laptop for my astrophotography sessions as well

[Javster]

How is this for a gaming computer? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/P4C2bv

[Elthy]

How is this for a gaming computer? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/P4C2bv

You have a K-CPU and a good cooler but you choose only a B85 mainboard. If you want to overclock you should take a mainboard with Z87/Z97, if not you could take a cheaper i5 4XXX quadcore. Also your PSU is extremly overpowered, with that GPU you wont need more than 400W, even with overclocking.

You RAM is a problem, too. I would allways take RAM without a large heatsink, you wont need it and it just collides with most larger CPU-coolers (not sure about your choice). Also 16GB are quite much, there isnt a single game that requires that much (i doubt you will mod the 64bit KSP to that size). Since RAM is expensive these days i would rather spend the money for a better GPU or invest in a SSD.

Your GPU is a bad choice, there is no sense in a 4GB GTX 760 since your will run out of processingpower when a game demands more than 2GB. I would go for a better GPU like the R9 280X which you can get for the same price. Also i would use a custom design since it will greatly reduce the noise, but i cant recommend one since im not completly up to date with noiselevels of recent customdesigns.

I think you can get 1TB of storage for about 10 pound more, maybe you should think about that...

[Javster]

Budget is really important here, I want to keep the price as low as possible.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PkT4Bm

I've followed the advice from the above post.

[Elthy]

I would choose a better PSU, the one you selected has the worst efficency rating. One i recommend often for low budget is the BeQuiet PurePower L8 CM 430W, its 80+Bronze and has cable management which is imho a must.

Also i have no idea which games you want to play on which resolution, perhaps a lower price GPU is enough when you are short on money. And you could choose a cheaper CPU-cooler, the Alpenföhn Brocken 2 and the Thermalright Macho are very good and cheaper. Or you dont buy a cooler at all, thats the cheapes but also loudest variant...

Edited July 6, 2014 by Elthy