KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[rkman]

more than 4GB RAM will help KSP performance on all platforms

Really, how's 8GB on a Windows 32bit platform going to help anything?

[dudester28]

Here's a quick question: I wish to build a gaming PC with a budget of around $1000. Would I get more bang for my buck if it was an Intel or AMD based computer? If it makes any difference, this would be my first time building a computer.

[Leonov]

Here's a quick question: I wish to build a gaming PC with a budget of around $1000. Would I get more bang for my buck if it was an Intel or AMD based computer? If it makes any difference, this would be my first time building a computer.

How about a Nice Form to fill out if you want help from someone with planning a build?

When trying to recommend a build to you, there's some information that's extremely helpful for us to know. If you could answer these few short questions, we'd be happy to help!

What are you planning to do with this computer? Please be as specific as possible.

What is your budget?

Does this include a copy of Windows?

Does this include peripherals (a keyboard, monitor, mouse, speakers, etc.)?

Are you from the United States or a different country? Are you ordering from your own country or from across borders?

Wherever you may be from, does the store that you are planning to order from have a website? It's okay if it isn't in English, we can manage.

If you are from the United States, do you live nearby a Microcenter?

Do you have any specific requests with the build?

Do you plan on overclocking? If yes, do you have a specific goal in mind?

Would you prefer the build to be particularly small?

Would you prefer the build to be particularly quiet?

In general, do you prefer this to be a computer that you can spend money on now and let it rest, or a box built for continuous upgrading?

Do you ever plan on utilizing NVIDIA's SLI or AMD's CrossfireX technologies? These features, with a compatible motherboard, allow a user to link multiple identical graphic cards together for added performance. In real world terms, this lets you buy a second identical graphics card down the line as a relatively cheap and easy way to gain a fairly large boost in performance. However, this requires buying a SLI/CFX compatible motherboard and PSU now, which may result in slightly higher initial cost.

(OPTIONAL) Have you already looked at or considered any parts (it's okay if you haven't)? If so, please list your top 1-2 choices for each category. If you've only picked out a few of the below, just list those.

CPU

Motherboard

RAM

Graphics Card

Power Supply

Case

Hard Drive

Solid State Drive (optional)

Mouse (if necessary)

Keyboard (if necessary)

Monitor (if necessary)

Speakers/Headset (if necessary)

Once again, thank you in advance for taking the time to answer these.

[dudester28]

This computer would be a gaming PC. Specifically, I want to run Dayz.

The budget will be ~$1000

Includes Windows

Does not include peripherals

I do live in the United States

I would probably order from NewEgg or Amazon (Whichever has the part the cheapest).

I do not plan on overclocking.

Size and quietness doesn't matter that much. As long as the computer isn't obnoxiously loud.

I don't think I would be upgrading this computer much after I finish it.

I haven't really considered that. Possibly but the computer would start with a single graphics card.

Edited January 5, 2014 by dudester28

[Leonov]

This computer would be a gaming PC. Specifically, I want to run Dayz.

The budget will be ~$1000

Includes Windows

Does not include peripherals

I do live in the United States

I would probably order from NewEgg or Amazon (Whichever has the part the cheapest).

I do not plan on overclocking.

Size and quietness doesn't matter that much. As long as the computer isn't obnoxiously loud.

I don't think I would be upgrading this computer much after I finish it.

I haven't really considered that. Possibly but the computer would start with a single graphics card.

How does this list look?

4570 is a respectable chip, plenty of power for gaming.

Stock CPU cooler is plenty for a Haswell chip that isn't being overclocked.

That ram is pretty cheap right now so i would grab it, The fins aren't tall so it will clear most of the larger CPU coolers on the market if you add one later. The speed wont be very noticeable so you can find cheaper but bang for buck i would grab it.

Motherboard is very good, the H87 chipset has plenty of features, ASUS boards are top notch its what i would use.

WD Caviar Black, Plenty fast for loading games top notch quality. I have Day Z on mine and its okay. An SSD doesn't make it load any faster right now so i wouldn't bother with one at your price point.

The bread and butter, a GTX 770. Plenty for Day z and just about any other game you throw at it.

The 300R is a pretty good starting case, it has cable routing holes so you can make the inside nice and tidy. Corsair has great quality.

The CX750M is a little overkill for your system when you are starting out, but its an okay investment to make if you start adding upgrades.

I wouldn't bother with Windows 8, I would grab Windows 7. Thats me, change it if you want.

I could make an AMD build if you want, let me know.

[dudester28]

Thanks! This really helps

[Aghanim]

I want to ask, what is the best graphics card that is in 100-500 price range, have good performance/price and good at OpenCL stuff?

[Leonov]

I want to ask, what is the best graphics card that is in 100-500 price range, have good performance/price and good at OpenCL stuff?

What specificly are you looking at doing that is OpenCL?, Bit/Litecoin minning?, Engineering Programs?

[DragonRoco]

I have recently built a computer and it cannot connect to the Internet. I have installed the lan drivers from the cd and after removing the driver from the cd i installed the newest one that I downloaded with another computer. The only time the Internet worked it was moving at 960 bytes a second. I can't think of what else to do?

Any help would be appreciated.

[hotmailcompany52]

I have recently built a computer and it cannot connect to the Internet. I have installed the lan drivers from the cd and after removing the driver from the cd i installed the newest one that I downloaded with another computer. The only time the Internet worked it was moving at 960 bytes a second. I can't think of what else to do?

Any help would be appreciated.

Have you tried restarting your computer and reinstalling the drivers?

Have you guys seen Nvidia's new chip? Link here for the lazy.

[Leonov]

Have you tried restarting your computer and reinstalling the drivers?

Have you guys seen Nvidia's new chip? Link here for the lazy.

I have played with the Tegra that Nividia put into the ASUS Nexus tablet, Its a quick little chip. Tegra is a cool project i would love to see how this is implemented into the market, but honestly I want a Haswell Tablet.

A Haswell Powered Andriod Tablet, preferably Nexus by Google, and manufactured by ASUS. That would be a cool gadget to have.

Or a Surface 2, bridging the gap between Tablets and Laptops one Tech Cycle at a time.

[Aghanim]

What specificly are you looking at doing that is OpenCL?, Bit/Litecoin minning?, Engineering Programs?

Luxrender stuff

[Leonov]

Luxrender stuff

Will you be doing any Gaming?, or just straight rendering?

If all your going to do is rendering grab a firepro off this list, if not, look at the R9 series of GPUs.

[DerpyWagon]

Leonov,

I think you missed my build question a few days ago. My parts are on the way, but I am getting concerned about how the FX-6300 will run KSP. I am upgrading from a 2010 budget laptop running a 2.4 Ghz dual core and integrated graphics, so I am sure it will be much better - but this is my first rig and I would be disappointed if it performed poorly on KSP.

Any idea when the game will be optimized for more than 1 core? Any changes I can make to improve performance?

CPU: AMD Fx 6300, clocked to around 4 Ghz

GPU: MSi GTX 760 hawk

Ram: 8 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3

OS: Win 7 or 8.1 64 bit

Storage: Mushkin Chronos 240gb SSD

[Leonov]

Leonov,

I think you missed my build question a few days ago. My parts are on the way, but I am getting concerned about how the FX-6300 will run KSP. I am upgrading from a 2010 budget laptop running a 2.4 Ghz dual core and integrated graphics, so I am sure it will be much better - but this is my first rig and I would be disappointed if it performed poorly on KSP.

Any idea when the game will be optimized for more than 1 core? Any changes I can make to improve performance?

CPU: AMD Fx 6300, clocked to around 4 Ghz

GPU: MSi GTX 760 hawk

Ram: 8 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3

OS: Win 7 or 8.1 64 bit

Storage: Mushkin Chronos 240gb SSD

The SSD will make it load a little faster, if you can overclock your ram(Really simple to do), 1866 should be fine, the faster ram will make everything feel snappier on that AMD system. The 6300 should be more than enough to keep the finicky mistress that is KSP happy, I have a laptop with a dual core i5 running about that same speed KSP is nearly unplayable, I tried it out for some giggles when i bought it.

What Ram and motherboard are you getting specifically?

The laptop versus your rig will be a night and day difference in performance, trust me. Don't get worked up about speed and number of cores, The processor in your laptop is probably soldered into the board. its a mobile processor, all its really men't to do is surf the web and some word processing.

[DerpyWagon]

The SSD will make it load a little faster, if you can overclock your ram(Really simple to do), 1866 should be fine, the faster ram will make everything feel snappier on that AMD system. The 6300 should be more than enough to keep the finicky mistress that is KSP happy, I have a laptop with a dual core i5 running about that same speed KSP is nearly unplayable, I tried it out for some giggles when i bought it.

What Ram and motherboard are you getting specifically?

The laptop versus your rig will be a night and day difference in performance, trust me. Don't get worked up about speed and number of cores, The processor in your laptop is probably soldered into the board. its a mobile processor, all its really men't to do is surf the web and some word processing.

Here is my complete build. I really appreciate all of your help!

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (Purchased For $80.00)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $30.00)

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (Purchased For $76.00)

Memory: Kingston Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased For $69.99)

Storage: Mushkin Chronos 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (Purchased For $130.00)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $59.99)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (Purchased For $249.99)

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $90.00)

Case Fan: SilenX EFX-12-15T 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $11.00)

Case Fan: SilenX EFX-12-15 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $11.00)

Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $50.00)

Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS324-07 DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $14.99)

Total: $872.96

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-07 16:42 EST-0500)

Prices are a bit off. I paid a bit less

[Leonov]

Here is my complete build. I really appreciate all of your help!

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (Purchased For $80.00)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $30.00)

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (Purchased For $76.00)

Memory: Kingston Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased For $69.99)

Storage: Mushkin Chronos 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (Purchased For $130.00)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $59.99)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (Purchased For $249.99)

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $90.00)

Case Fan: SilenX EFX-12-15T 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $11.00)

Case Fan: SilenX EFX-12-15 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $11.00)

Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $50.00)

Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS324-07 DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $14.99)

Total: $872.96

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-07 16:42 EST-0500)

Prices are a bit off. I paid a bit less

The BIOS, in this case UEFI or the ASUS boards is pretty easy to navigate and even lets you use a Mouse. The ram can easily go to 1866, so if you need it to be faster it can be.

Mushkin makes good stuff, that SSD is fine, Plenty of capacity for a handful of games on top of your Operating System. If the caviar Blue gives you troubles, WD has a great warranty service send it in and they will make it right.

If you need help with thermal paste you can look in the OP of this thread and it has a lot of Videos that will show you what to do.

[Mach_XXII]

This computer would be gaming PC to play ksp,minecraft,starbound,dayz

The budget $1000.

Includes Windows.

Size and sound doesn't matter unless it's really loud.

Don't want to upgrade it in the future unless I need to.

Any suggestions?

[briansun1]

case

I want this case...

[hotmailcompany52]

Looks pretty neat. How much is it?

[briansun1]

In the US, The Graphite Series 760T has a suggested retail price of $179.99 (black) or $189.99 (Arctic White), while the 730T has a suggested retail price of $139.99 (black only). Both will be available in February from Corsair's worldwide network of authorized distributors and resellers. It is backed with a limited 2-year warranty and Corsair’s excellent customer service and technical support.

............................................................................

[hotmailcompany52]

Hehe, Im mc blind. I don't think its worth the money. A lot of it is just gimmicks and not useful. The only useful thing might be the little handle to make opening the case easier for upgrades.

[dudester28]

This computer would be gaming PC to play ksp,minecraft,starbound,dayz

The budget $1000.

Includes Windows.

Size and sound doesn't matter unless it's really loud.

Don't want to upgrade it in the future unless I need to.

Any suggestions?

A few days ago, Leonov suggested a build for me on the same budget, games, etc.

The build is here

His full reply to me was:

How does this list look?

4570 is a respectable chip, plenty of power for gaming.

Stock CPU cooler is plenty for a Haswell chip that isn't being overclocked.

That ram is pretty cheap right now so i would grab it, The fins aren't tall so it will clear most of the larger CPU coolers on the market if you add one later. The speed wont be very noticeable so you can find cheaper but bang for buck i would grab it.

Motherboard is very good, the H87 chipset has plenty of features, ASUS boards are top notch its what i would use.

WD Caviar Black, Plenty fast for loading games top notch quality. I have Day Z on mine and its okay. An SSD doesn't make it load any faster right now so i wouldn't bother with one at your price point.

The bread and butter, a GTX 770. Plenty for Day z and just about any other game you throw at it.

The 300R is a pretty good starting case, it has cable routing holes so you can make the inside nice and tidy. Corsair has great quality.

The CX750M is a little overkill for your system when you are starting out, but its an okay investment to make if you start adding upgrades.

I wouldn't bother with Windows 8, I would grab Windows 7. Thats me, change it if you want.

I could make an AMD build if you want, let me know.

Hope this helps

Edited January 10, 2014 by dudester28

[Leonov]

This computer would be gaming PC to play ksp,minecraft,starbound,dayz

The budget $1000.

Includes Windows.

Size and sound doesn't matter unless it's really loud.

Don't want to upgrade it in the future unless I need to.

Any suggestions?

How about this list?

[NovaSilisko]

So, I need to start building a new PC sometime, preferably soon... of course, two problems:

1. I am poor

2. I am dumb

My main requirements are that it functions decently as a gaming PC (same specs as my current PC would be fine), can be relocated without requiring a forklift, it actually be quick to do things (10-15 min startup time as I have now is not acceptable), and, importantly, it is quiet. My current PC is a jet aircraft, practically...

I've got my sights set on a case, which seems in my mind to be the greatest case ever imagined by mankind:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139014

No screws required to detach the side panel, just big clamps, carrying handles for mobility (this satisfies point 2), and lots of room inside... bit pricey (I think? not much experience in this), but otherwise seems to be fantastic.

Problem is of course I don't really have nearly enough money to do this (budget of something like $300?), so I dunno when this would be able to happen... but it can't hurt to plan for any unexpected windfall. I also don't know much about hardware, and fully expect to break everything if I look at it funny. So that's where you lot come in, I guess. Maybe I could recycle my existing GPU? I don't think there's anything horribly wrong with it, and that would take a good bit of the cost off. Unless of course the GPU is what makes it so loud.