KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[cantab]

1 hour ago, Alphasus said:

That, and 1 kW of PSU at 80% efficiency will at minimum pull 200W from the wall if I remember correctly.

Tests of modern PSUs routinely flat out disprove this.

That said, power supply design has advanced a lot in recent years, so a supply that's over a decade old probably warrants replacing. Even if all its components are in top condition (which is unlikely) I don't think it will give the highly stable voltages and high efficiency of today's quality PSUs.

[Alphasus]

Just now, cantab said:

Tests of modern PSUs routinely flat out disprove this.

That said, power supply design has advanced a lot in recent years, so a supply that's over a decade old probably warrants replacing. Even if all its components are in top condition (which is unlikely) I don't think it will give the highly stable voltages and high efficiency of today's quality PSUs.

Well, that's modern PSUs. But still, thanks for that help. I am a tad confused on this topic.

[Elthy]

5 hours ago, Alphasus said:

Less efficient? I said 950 75W, which is the same as the RX 460...

The 75W version is almost nonexisten (at least in germany), also most benchmarks i know use the faster version of the 950 with the extra power, so the 75W version is likely slower...

Anyway, regarding the PC: Since you are an apple user i assume you also need a windows copy, correct? Also be extremly carefull to only buy the 1060 6Gb version. The 3Gb version is allready obsolete one day after release (just like the custom 4Gb 480), also Nvidia did the mean trick to disable a few cores of it and still keeps the name. Yeah, and realy replace the PSU, the efficency of such an old 1kW one will be shoddy in a modern PC using 300W under load.

[fourfa]

Yes, I need a copy of windows too.  I'm really out of that loop - I assume the cheapest version of 10 Home 64-bit is fine?  Do they really still offer both 64 and 32 versions?

[Alphasus]

16 minutes ago, fourfa said:

Yes, I need a copy of windows too.  I'm really out of that loop - I assume the cheapest version of 10 Home 64-bit is fine?  Do they really still offer both 64 and 32 versions?

They offer both 64 bit and 32 bit versions, yes. Expect about $80 for Win10 unless you are a student, where you can get discounts.

Edited August 19, 2016 by Alphasus

[Slam_Jones]

Others on here can correct me if I'm wrong, but regarding PSUs, make sure they are AT LEAST Bronze certified  (shouldn't be an issue as I see the one Alpha chose for you in Gold certified, which is fantastic, but this is for reference at the very least). 

I bought one a few years back that was super cheap, though it was not Bronze certified.  Nor even 80+ certified!  Well, earlier this year it decided to explode on me, in that it popped very loudly, and I saw a fireball about the size of a dime appear out the exhaust port for the PSU.  I scrambled and unplugged everything, and luckily nothing else was damaged.

Long story short: a cheap PSU can destroy itself, which can in turn take out other components.  Always be wary of that.

Here's more reading on the subject for those interested.  Refer to the chart under the heading "Efficiency level certifications."

Some other reading on the subject as well.

[pincushionman]

Okay, I'm looking at upgrading my current rig with a new graphics card. I was interested in NMS and Elite: Dangerous, but canirunit indicates I need a grapics card upgrade (I believe shader model or supported DirectX version is the problem here).

Unfortunately, it doesn't look to be as simple as getting a new card. I have a Geforce 9800 GTX+ card, which is a PCI Express x16 2.0 card, and got a MSI NF980-G65 mobo, which has card slots to match. As it turns out, any of the newer cards that are a significant upgrade appear to need PCI-e x16 3.0 instead. It's a 6-year old setup by now.

So, basically, I didn't future-proof myself very well with regards to the motherboard. So I'll need a new one. Which means I actually need a new mobo, a new processor, and a new graphics card. Not the kind of money I wanted to spend, but it is what it is at this point. Case, HD, power supply, and RAM appear to be swappable no problem.

I don't want to go top-of-the-line power for everything, especially with the graphics card, but I do want to choose a motherboard that I can reasonably expect to find graphics and CPU upgrades for in, say, 4 years.

I'm using these charts from Tom's Hardware as guidance:

Spoiler

Graphics cards: I currently have a GeForce 9800 GTX+:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

CPUs: I currently have a Phenom II 955 Black. This doesn't seem to be so obsolete, which is why I'm not so happy about upgrading it. But if I am getting a new one, it's not worth getting one that's not an upgrade.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html

It looks like something like a Geforce GTX 950 is the price range I'm looking for, and it looks like there are many better cards that may be upgrade options later on, in the same interface. It's the motherboard and processor I need some help with the approach. I need a decent processor (I'm thinking an Intel i5) on a newer socket. Does anyone have suggestions on the direction I should take with that in mind?

EDIT: Dang it. I had yanked the tables from those pages in spoiler blocks here because TH runs hella slow for me, and I didn't want to put you through that. But it didn't work, so links instead.

Edited August 20, 2016 by pincushionman

[cantab]

2 minutes ago, pincushionman said:

As it turns out, any of the newer cards that are a significant upgrade appear to need PCI-e x16 3.0 instead. It's a 6-year old setup by now.

99% of the time they don't. PCIe is backwards compatible, so the card will just run using the lower PCIe speed, and this has very little impact on gaming performance because the PCIe bus is overkill for the job.

A CPU and motherboard upgrade will see a significant CPU performance boost, how much that translates to gaming fps depends on the game, but your Phenom II is not too shabby if you'll be pairing it with a card like a GTX 950.

[pincushionman]

2 minutes ago, cantab said:

99% of the time they don't. PCIe is backwards compatible, so the card will just run using the lower PCIe speed, and this has very little impact on gaming performance because the PCIe bus is overkill for the job.

A CPU and motherboard upgrade will see a significant CPU performance boost, how much that translates to gaming fps depends on the game, but your Phenom II is not too shabby if you'll be pairing it with a card like a GTX 950.

Well, that's certainly the info I was looking for. I can justify $150 worth of graphics cards, but another $300 or more on top of that in processors and mobo (that in particular would have been a pain in the butt) is a little tough to stomach, especially if the current CPU is not that bad. I haven't really taxed it in any of my KSP builds, but in other threads where CPU power was discussed, the consensus was that the 955 is perfectly adequate.

[Elthy]

A GTX 950 or better a RX 460 (4Gb if you want to be future proof) are cheap, but still an enormous upgrade for you. They also pair nicely with an older CPU like yours, PCIe speed doesnt realy matter at this performance level.

[Alphasus]

So, I'm thinking about building a PC for a cousin of mine. I'm trying to keep prices under $400, from Amazon, Newegg, and MicroCenter(I have one near me). The goal of this build is an expandable, easy to maintain, powerful(compared to XB1 and PS4), and small system. So I have a few requirements:

-mITX or HTPC case

-$450 maximum, only Newegg, MicroCenter, Best Buy, and Amazon are allowed

-Intel CPU(upgrade path, haswell is fine, nothing older)

-SFX PSU(cable management in an mITX/HTPC)

-No overclocking

This needs to be outputted around Christmas, or October, or now this year(Kaby Lake should drop Skylake prices)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($69.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($33.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 460 4GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card  ($134.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Define Nano S Mini ITX Desktop Case  ($69.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Silverstone 300W 80+ Bronze Certified SFX Power Supply  ($49.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $423.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-21 16:24 EDT-0400

MicroCenter has:

-a G4400 for $50

-8 GB Crucial DDR$ for $33

-Mobo for $30 off with the CPU($40)

-No GPU

-PSU for more than Amazon

-Case for more than Amazon

So, with MicroCenter, it totals to $377.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Alphasus

[robopilot99]

Hello there.

A friend of mine was investigating building his own desktop computer for general desktop work and some medium heavy gaming and is looking to spend around $800-$900. Having dabbled in PC building and upgrading before, I went on PC part picker and put together a build:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2xJMbj

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2xJMbj
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2xJMbj/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($219.99 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: MSI Z170A PC MATE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($108.98 @ NCIX US) 
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($34.99 @ Best Buy) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($47.49 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card  ($259.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Thermaltake Commander MS-I Epic Edition (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: Rosewill 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($49.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $800.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-28 09:53 EDT-0400

Having received good advice from this thread before, I was interested in seeing if any of you had any suggestions as to improving this build or getting it a little cheaper.

[Alphasus]

1 hour ago, robopilot99 said:

Hello there.

A friend of mine was investigating building his own desktop computer for general desktop work and some medium heavy gaming and is looking to spend around $800-$900. Having dabbled in PC building and upgrading before, I went on PC part picker and put together a build:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2xJMbj

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2xJMbj
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2xJMbj/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($219.99 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: MSI Z170A PC MATE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($108.98 @ NCIX US) 
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($34.99 @ Best Buy) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($47.49 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card  ($259.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Thermaltake Commander MS-I Epic Edition (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: Rosewill 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($49.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $800.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-28 09:53 EDT-0400

Having received good advice from this thread before, I was interested in seeing if any of you had any suggestions as to improving this build or getting it a little cheaper.

Replace the 970 with a 1060, as it's faster and cheaper. Then replace the PSU for an EVGA 550W GS 80+ Gold PSU(or one of the SIlverStone Strider 450W PSUs, at 80+ Gold you really can't get a bad PSU because the electrical components inside are very high end), as it's much more reliable and efficient. Also ask the friend what he wants in terms of cases, as at about $10 above your case price point, the Fractal Design Define S and NZXT S340 or H440 are amazing options. Also if he doesn't plan on overclocking, you don't need the CPU cooler, and can downgrade to an H170 motherboard and 6600.I would further recommend an SSD(for a boot drive), and of them I recommend 5 SSD lines.

850 EVO(cheap, fast storage)

850 PRO(2x as reliable as the EVO, but quite a bit more expensive)

950 PRO(more expensive, even faster, futureproof)

Crucial MX200(pretty cheap, more reliable than 850 EVO, but slower/same speed as the EVO, less so than 850 PRO)

Crucial BX200(cheaper than MX200, about as reliable as an 850 EVO, same speed as an EVO)

I recommend a 120-250GB SSD so that booting is fast.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Alphasus

[Camacha]

44 minutes ago, Alphasus said:

850 EVO(cheap, fast storage)

850 PRO(2x as reliable as the EVO, but quite a bit more expensive)

950 PRO(more expensive, even faster, futureproof)

Crucial MX200(pretty cheap, more reliable than 850 EVO, but slower/same speed as the EVO, less so than 850 PRO)

Crucial BX200(cheaper than MX200, about as reliable as an 850 EVO, same speed as an EVO)

I recommend a 120-250GB SSD so that booting is fast.

It should be noted that all these SSDs are really fast. You will not notice any real world differences and you probably will only ever see any difference if you look for it hard doing benchmarks. The differences being so small, my advice would be to opt for the more reliable and/or safe drives, as data protection is important.

[Elthy]

Currently there isnt much reason to choose SSDs more expensive than the 850 EVO, 250GB/500GB currently offer the most GB per $. While there are some with way higher transferspeeds it doesnt result in better real-world performance when e.g. launching programs. Also i would recommend to go for 2*4 GB RAM, since you get double the bandwidth. You can still upgrade to 4*4 GB later if neccessary. Regarding the GPU:

The 970 is allready outdated. Its 3,5GB VRAM will become a problem realy soon, games like DeusEx:MD are allready at 4GB VRAM usage on Full-HD. Chips you should consider right now are the GTX 1060 (6GB!) or the RX 470/480 (with 8GB!). You should consider a few things when you choose from those:

The 470 is about 10% slower than the 480, which is about 10% slower than the 1060. The 1060 uses less power than the 470/480, but all are below 200W and have decent custom designs, so it doesnt realy matter that much. While the 1060 is better under DX11 games, the AMD cards perform better under DX12 and Vulkan, which will get important in the future. Also AMD cards support Freesync which offers a way bigger variety for displays and lower prices, while Gsync is restricted to a few high price displays (but also offers better ranges for the sync in most cases).

While its impossible to say for certain, due to experiences from the last 4 years i would say the 1060 is better if he wants to upgrade again in 2 years but the AMD cards will be more future proof after that. For all three chips the MSI Gaming X variant is a decent choice, but for the 480 you should also look at the Red Devil and for the 1060 at e.g. EVGA.

For all of those a 550W PSU is completly overkill, a 400W would be more than enough for the 1060 or 450W for the 480.

[Alphasus]

7 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Currently there isnt much reason to choose SSDs more expensive than the 850 EVO, 250GB/500GB currently offer the most GB per $. While there are some with way higher transferspeeds it doesnt result in better real-world performance when e.g. launching programs.

I think this is because Windows OSes seem to be horrible at using PCIe SSD speeds, as the Apple rMBPs actually gain alot from that speed, but I can't tell you why Windows machines don't seem to have such gains.

Also i would recommend to go for 2*4 GB RAM, since you get double the bandwidth. You can still upgrade to 4*4 GB later if neccessary. Regarding the GPU:

I would actually say that 1x8 GB or 2x8 GB would be best because then you can upgrade to 32 GB without replacing anything.

The 970 is allready outdated. Its 3,5GB VRAM will become a problem realy soon, games like DeusEx:MD are allready at 4GB VRAM usage on Full-HD. Chips you should consider right now are the GTX 1060 (6GB!) or the RX 470/480 (with 8GB!). You should consider a few things when you choose from those:

The 470 is about 10% slower than the 480, which is about 10% slower than the 1060. The 1060 uses less power than the 470/480, but all are below 200W and have decent custom designs, so it doesnt realy matter that much. While the 1060 is better under DX11 games, the AMD cards perform better under DX12 and Vulkan, which will get important in the future. Also AMD cards support Freesync which offers a way bigger variety for displays and lower prices, while G-Sync is restricted to a few high price displays (but also offers better ranges for the sync in most cases).

Except the 480 only barely wins ~30% of all DX12 testing, and loses in the other DX12 tests.

While its impossible to say for certain, due to experiences from the last 4 years i would say the 1060 is better if he wants to upgrade again in 2 years but the AMD cards will be more future proof after that. For all three chips the MSI Gaming X variant is a decent choice, but for the 480 you should also look at the Red Devil and for the 1060 at e.g. EVGA.

Except the 480 only barely wins ~30% of all DX12 testing, and loses in the other DX12 tests.

For all of those a 550W PSU is completly overkill, a 400W would be more than enough for the 1060 or 450W for the 480.

Sorry, I had PSU anxiety after a friend's died and took his PC with it. I should have mentioned reliable brands.

11 minutes ago, Camacha said:

It should be noted that all these SSDs are really fast. You will not notice any real world differences and you probably will only ever see any difference if you look for it hard doing benchmarks.

Couldn't tell you if that's just Microsoft not using that speed, as Apple seems to have used it well in the case of PCIe.

The differences being so small, my advice would be to opt for the more reliable and/or safe drives, as data protection is important.

 

[Camacha]

2 minutes ago, Alphasus said:

Couldn't tell you if that's just Microsoft not using that speed, as Apple seems to have used it well in the case of PCIe.

The speed is there. It is just that computers are vastly more complex than just the speed of the hard drive, which makes the real world gains minor to often non-existent.

Also, like I said before, people often neglect to take data security into account, which should probably be the primary concern when it comes to hard drives. Using a slight hyperbole, fast corrupt data is not very useful at all.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Camacha

[Alphasus]

1 minute ago, Camacha said:

The speed is there. It is just that computers are vastly more complex than just the speed of the hard drive, which makes the real world gains minor.

Well yeah, but again, I have seen a huge difference in boot speeds(and transfer speeds)between Apple's PCIe stuff and Apple's SATA 6 stuff, and when they jumped to PCIe 3 from PCIe 2.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Alphasus

[Camacha]

Just now, Alphasus said:

Well yeah, but again, I have seen a huge difference in boot speeds(and transfer speeds)between Apple's PCIe stuff and Apple's SATA 6 stuff, and when they jumped to PCIe 3 from PCIe 2.

Like I said, computers are vastly complex machines with many components, technologies and design choices interacting. Without detailed comments from engineers in the various companies that play a part, it is hard to make any apple to Apple comparisons.

[Alphasus]

4 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Like I said, computers are vastly complex machines with many components, technologies and design choices interacting. Without detailed comments from engineers in the various companies that play a part, it is hard to make any apple to Apple comparisons.

If he was building a hackintosh, would you recommend the PCIe SSDs? Also, have you seen the MX300s? Great GB/$, but horrible speed(actually noticeable real world).

Edited August 28, 2016 by Alphasus

[Camacha]

1 minute ago, Alphasus said:

If he was building a hackintosh, would you recommend the PCIe SSDs?

That fully depends on what the experiences with them so far have been on the internet in that specific situation. What I always say: real world benchmarks are king. Building a Hackintosh is, by its nature, a rather experimental affair, so expect some surprising results either way.

[Alphasus]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($69.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($33.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 460 4GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card  ($134.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Define Nano S Mini ITX Desktop Case  ($69.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Silverstone 300W 80+ Bronze Certified SFX Power Supply  ($49.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $423.92

I'm trying to keep this sub $500 without an OS or HDD. Mini ITX/HTPC case is needed, and so is WiFi. This build is for a cousin. Could I get some help(not great at budget builds)?

Edited August 28, 2016 by Alphasus

[Elthy]

@Alphasus

I took my numbers from this 3dcenter summary of this golem articel, it summarizes at a 5% advantage for AMD (over 8 tests), although most of that comes from DOOM. Also the conclusion about AMD being more future proof doesnt only come from the DX12/Vulkan titles we will (hopefully) see in the next years, but also from the past duels of the 7970 vs. 670/680; 780(ti) vs. 290(X); 970/980 vs. 390(X). It allways resulted in the Nvidia cards usualy having the upper hand at launch, but AMD being the better investment in the long run.

Edit: Im sure you can find cheaper ITX cases, i ordered this for an office PC for a friend, on wednesday ill find out if its fine.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Elthy

[Alphasus]

4 hours ago, Elthy said:

@Alphasus

I took my numbers from this 3dcenter summary of this golem articel, it summarizes at a 5% advantage for AMD (over 8 tests), although most of that comes from DOOM. Also the conclusion about AMD being more future proof doesnt only come from the DX12/Vulkan titles we will (hopefully) see in the next years, but also from the past duels of the 7970 vs. 670/680; 780(ti) vs. 290(X); 970/980 vs. 390(X). It allways resulted in the Nvidia cards usualy having the upper hand at launch, but AMD being the better investment in the long run.

Edit: Im sure you can find cheaper ITX cases, i ordered this for an office PC for a friend, on wednesday ill find out if its fine.

Forbes Benchmarks
Tied or slightly slower in all tests(except for synthetics, which theoretically shows bad optimization), except for Tomb Raider, where the 480 got beaten by 20%.

 

Thanks, I'll take a look at that case!

Edited August 28, 2016 by Alphasus

[Elthy]

For some reason forbes doesnt let me past that inspirational quote, propably one of all the privacy addons i use. But i knew them as an economics magazine, didnt know they test hardware...