Processor Question

[Cryova]

Which of these builds would run KSP better?

AMD A10-6790K

Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB GPU

8GB RAM

or

AMD FX-6300

Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB GPU

8GB RAM

or

Intel Pentium G3258

Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB GPU

8GB RAM

I do plan to overclock whichever build is better. Thanks!

Edited July 23, 2015 by Cryova

[Bilfr3d]

The intel build. Overclock it as far as you possibly can, I would recommend buying an AIO water cooling loop for the CPU too, given the right circumstances those things can go up to 5Ghz. wouldn't bother about the A10 as those have integrated graphics which is useless when you have a dedicated card. The FX-6300 is not terribly good in single core performance, and KSP is a single core game (at the time of KSP 1.04), so the extra cores wouldn't really do a whole lot. Yes you can overclock the FX-6300, but the Pentium already has very good single core performance for it's price point and overclocking that thing to 5Ghz will make it way more powerful than the FX-6300 in single, and even some multi-core, situations. The FX-6300 also can't get that high an overclock because they run a lot hotter and unstable than Intel chips. Just My 2c.

[Cryova]

The intel build. Overclock it as far as you possibly can, I would recommend buying an AIO water cooling loop for the CPU too, given the right circumstances those things can go up to 5Ghz. wouldn't bother about the A10 as those have integrated graphics which is useless when you have a dedicated card. The FX-6300 is not terribly good in single core performance, and KSP is a single core game (at the time of KSP 1.04), so the extra cores wouldn't really do a whole lot. Yes you can overclock the FX-6300, but the Pentium already has very good single core performance for it's price point and overclocking that thing to 5Ghz will make it way more powerful than the FX-6300 in single, and even some multi-core, situations. The FX-6300 also can't get that high an overclock because they run a lot hotter and unstable than Intel chips. Just My 2c.

How well would the Intel build perform? How many FPS roughly?

[ZedNova]

How well would the Intel build perform? How many FPS roughly?

That depends on the part count of your vehicle and mods, so it's really hard to determine your exact FPS. Probably over 60 for most vehicles around 100-170 parts.

[Bilfr3d]

How well would the Intel build perform? How many FPS roughly?

That depends on the part count of your vehicle and mods, so it's really hard to determine your exact FPS. Probably over 60 for most vehicles around 100-170 parts.

As Zed said, it really depends on your scene, settings and vehicle. 1080p, Regular quality textures on a 150 part craft I would expect an average of about 55-60, with minimums in the range of about 30-40 depending on where you are and what other crafts are in the persistence (even outside physics rendering range). TBH the R9 280X is not an amazing choice of card considering the release of both the R9 300 series and NVIDIA's 900 Series (and the Titan X). You would get, not only more performance per watt of power, but a lower cost per frame for something like a GTX 760 or even 780. Because the 280X's run pretty hot. A 280 was hot. A 280X is like two of those cards. But in one card. That's the same size as the single card. With no extra cooling.

[Elthy]

A 280 was hot. A 280X is like two of those cards. But in one card.

Wut?

The 280/280X isnt the most recent card, and not very efficient, but its not that bad. And the 280X is not a Dual GPU!!!

No idea why you recommend a 760 or a 780 if you dont like the 280, both are outdated, too, not very efficient but get beaten when it comes to price/performance...

[Bilfr3d]

Wut?

The 280/280X isnt the most recent card, and not very efficient, but its not that bad. And the 280X is not a Dual GPU!!!

No idea why you recommend a 760 or a 780 if you dont like the 280, both are outdated, too, not very efficient but get beaten when it comes to price/performance...

Ah yes I was thinking about the wrong card seeing as these builds are fairly restrictive in terms of the cost of said builds, I would assume that you don't have the luxury of getting anything too expensive, which begs the question what can your budget stretch too? Because with all three of these builds, the RAM and GPU make no difference in the performance - the bottleneck here, in terms of KSP gameplay, is the CPU. For about a $1500 budget, you could get a very balanced build capable of playing most games with regular quality at 1080p at about 40-60fps, depending on the game. That price is ex windows just so you know. So including windows, a budget of about $1700 - I'm talking in AUD too, so you can convert that to whatever your currency is.

[CDK]

Should this be in Space Lounge?

[Bilfr3d]

Should this be in Space Lounge?

It is in space lounge...

[cantab]

Yeah, for KSP the G2358. AMD's current processors have worse per-core performance than Intel's, and KSP isn't very good at using more than one core so that matters. Make sure you get a motherboard supporting overclocking, and I recommend a decent aftermarket air cooler. (Water cooling is probably overkill price-wise on such a cheap processor).

[Pixel of Life]

Intels are far superior to AMDs. Also, if you have the money to spare, do yourself a favor and get an i5 - that thing will wipe the floor with the Pentium. An i3/i5/i7 is also a much more future-proof choice because more and more games will be able to take advantage of multiple cores and multithreading. The Pentium won't last longer than a few years at most, it's hopelessly obsolete.

[Willbl3pic]

I use an AMD FX-6300. It's good for gaming, but it won't be a supercomputer.

Pentium is horrible and hopelessly outdated.

[Bilfr3d]

Pentium is horrible and hopelessly outdated.

I've never heard something so idiotic... Some Pentiums may be horrible (i.e. ye' olde' Pentium 2's), but the new Intel Pentiums, especially the anniversary edition, kick arse for the price and is a great choice for overclocking on a cheap budget (the anniversary Pentium)

[Pixel of Life]

I've never heard something so idiotic... Some Pentiums may be horrible (i.e. ye' olde' Pentium 2's), but the new Intel Pentiums, especially the anniversary edition, kick arse for the price and is a great choice for overclocking on a cheap budget (the anniversary Pentium)

They have great single core performance. Other than that, yes, they ARE terrible. If an application has any kind of multithreading support, even a non-OC'd i3 will blow an overclocked G3258 out of the water in most cases.

OP, the Pentium is fine if you're only going to play KSP, but if you plan to play any AAA titles such as BF4 or the upcoming Fallout 4, you're doing yourself a disservice by getting one. Get an i3 or an i5 if you can afford one - you will not regret it.

Edited July 25, 2015 by CaptainKorhonen

[WinkAllKerb'']

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/

gpu

usually looking at a few website of that kind (just a random link as exemple here) is nice depending your budget and the differents benchmark tools used.

[Harry Rhodan]

OP, the Pentium is fine if you're only going to play KSP, but if you plan to play any AAA titles such as BF4 or the upcoming Fallout 4, you're doing yourself a disservice by getting one. Get an i3 or an i5 if you can afford one - you will not regret it.

As most games don't utilize hyperthreading the i3 won't get you much farther than the Pentium.

[cantab]

They have great single core performance. Other than that, yes, they ARE terrible. If an application has any kind of multithreading support, even a non-OC'd i3 will blow an overclocked G3258 out of the water in most cases.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,review-32974.html

Overclocked to 4.5 Ghz, the Pentium compares well to a 3.5 GHz Core i3 across a range of games and applications. The results do show that Hyperthreading is useful with the Pentium being more prone to frame variations than the i3, but they also show that the Pentium is by no means "blown out of the water". Above all else the results show that for many games CPU performance hardly matters.

For people who can afford a fast i3 or i5 without compromising other aspects of the build then sure such a processor is worth getting. But Cryova is not on that kind of budget.

[Guest]

I told my friend, that KSP is mostly single thread, CPU-heavy game.

He told me: You probably want a dual Xeon 3GHz server to run it. He owns one.

I wonder if he right.

[Camacha]

Intels are far superior to AMDs.

That rather depends on the exact requirements and circumstances.

I told my friend, that KSP is mostly single thread, CPU-heavy game.

He told me: You probably want a dual Xeon 3GHz server to run it. He owns one.

I wonder if he right.

Xeons can be fun cheap alternatives to an i7, but just as a blanket statement I would not consider it true. For most people Xeons are interesting as a cheap alternative with hyper-threading. The trade-off is no overclocking.

Dual Xeon for KSP is utterly pointless, since more cores or even CPUs will only improve multithreading performance. Maybe the Unity 5 upgrade will bring something different, but until now the gains over an equally clocked (and otherwise comparable) i3 are next to nothing.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Camacha

[Guest]

That rather depends on the exact requirements and circumstances.

Xeons can be fun cheap alternatives to an i7, but just as a blanket statement I would not consider it true. For most people Xeons are interesting as a cheap alternative with hyper-threading. The trade-off is no overclocking.

Dual Xeon is utterly pointless, since more cores or even CPUs will only improve multithreading performance. Maybe the Unity 5 upgrade will bring something different, but until now the gains over an equally clocked (and otherwise comparable) i3 are next to nothing.

Dual Xeons are only only mentioned because old unused server he owns have this setup.

[FireFaced]

The Pentium can't be overclocked.... Or at least, it's hard to do so.

[Camacha]

The Pentium can't be overclocked.... Or at least, it's hard to do so.

Are you talking about the Pentium G3258? Because if I am to believe the stories and benchmarks, it overclocks pretty well.

[cantab]

Despite not having a K suffix the Pentium G3258 is indeed one of the handful of "unlocked" modern Intel processors.

[Harry Rhodan]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,review-32974.html

Overclocked to 4.5 Ghz, the Pentium compares well to a 3.5 GHz Core i3 across a range of games and applications.

Interesting. Would've thought otherwise. But at least the Pentium is still cheaper.

[icecreamberni]

The Pentium will perform better in KSP. The FX in other, better multithreaded games. Both run KSP fine. If you play a LOT of KSP, then go for the pentium, if you also play a lot of other games, then go for the FX.