Anyone Else Recently Build A Bad@** PC in Reponse to upcoming 1.1?

[scribbleheli]

I'm Super Stoked about 1.1. So I saved up all my Christmas money, Work Bonus, and even a little Grant funds to build a Skylake PC.

Core I7 6700k@ 4.8Ghz 

Asus Range 8

64GB SDD just for KSP, 500gb SSD as primary boot, 1Tb HDD storage.

16Gb DDR4 @2400Mhz (another 16 is in the Que if KSP can make use of it)

Liquid cooled goodness Cosair H100i

GTX 760OC windforce (Hopefully tax refund gets a 980 ti)

 

Anyone else build I high end PC just because they were excited about 1.1?

[fchurca]

Given that 1.1 will finally take advantage of multicore processors, I don't think it will really be necessary...

Spoiler

 

[Chewy62]

If this is the only game that that pc will be playing, you just threw a lot of money out the window.

[maceemiller]

Well, compared to my machine, youve made mine look like a ZX81! If I had the money id buy a machine like that so fair play to you. I see it not as a waste of money but rather an investment. At least now you can play what you like whereas I can only pick and choose certain games. Enjoy it I say

[Jasper_f]

Indirectly I am. Currently I am using a five year old machine with Windows 7. Given that I want to make use of the free upgrade to Windows 10 - and taking into account Windows 10 is not happy about you making major revisions to your hardware - I plan on upgrading my motherboard and CPU. Currently I am using an i5 750, but plan to upgrade to an i7 4790k with an MSI Z97S SLI Krait motherboard. After replacing the hardware, I will upgrade to Windows 10, use this hardware for at least another five years, and hopefully enjoy somewhat better performance in KSP as well! For the moment I will keep my current GPU (AMD Radeon HD 7870 XT), given that the ones with better performance are still quite expensive.

 

Thus the plan is to future-proof my machine and get some extra power for KSP on the side ;).

 

 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Jasper_f

[AndyMt]

Kind of... I just ordered the top-notch Surface Book. But of course not for the sole purpose of playing KSP. It will be good enough for KSP and with Unity 5 and KSP 1.1 it will be even better.

[Streetwind]

4 hours ago, scribbleheli said:

64GB SDD just for KSP, 500gb SSD as primary boot, 1Tb HDD storage.

Why would you do this? Low capacity SSDs are also low performing, due to the nature of their construction (SSDs reach high performance through massive parallelization, and small ones lack enough parallel channels). Nonwithstanding the fact that KSP will barely even care, you would get higher theoretical performance if you put the game onto your primary 500 GB SSD. If you must have a dedicated disk section, then use a partition.

That solution is cheaper, too

Edited January 27, 2016 by Streetwind

[OrtwinS]

Nope, I'm actually curious to see how my aging notebook will handle KSP 1.1.

Bought in Q2 2011, so almost 5 years old.

 

ASUS N53SV   with   i7 2630QM (2-2.9 GHz), GT540m, and 10 GB of RAM

Originally it had 6 GB RAM, last year I put in another 4 because running multiple COMSOL instances together eats RAM.

I replaced the keyboard because several keys had become unresponsive (lost too many kerbals when the 's' key stopped responding), the rest is still original.

It runs Civ V, GTA V, KSP, Prison Architect, Space Engineers... I have no need for anything new yet. The longer I wait the better my options get.

Edited January 27, 2016 by OrtwinS

[boxman]

1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

Why would you do this? Low capacity SSDs are also low performing, due to the nature of their construction (SSDs reach high performance through massive parallelization, and small ones lack enough parallel channels). Nonwithstanding the fact that KSP will barely even care, you would get higher theoretical performance if you put the game onto your primary 500 GB SSD. If you must have a dedicated disk section, then use a partition.

That solution is cheaper, too

Yeah SSD is nearly completely pointless with KSP. I even tried putting it on a dedicated ram disk and it still barely loaded faster than on a 7200rpm hard drive.

[katateochi]

13 minutes ago, boxman said:

Yeah SSD is nearly completely pointless with KSP. I even tried putting it on a dedicated ram disk and it still barely loaded faster than on a 7200rpm hard drive.

My tests also back this up, SSD's make very little difference to KSP load times or performance. (Best load time performance was off a 10,000rpm WD raptor, but we're talking about less than a second faster, not a significant result, probably down to inaccuracy when timing).  Still worth having an SSD though because of the gains to the OS's performance, just don't expect them to improve KSP's performance. 

I actually want to stay on the same hardware so I can get a good comparison of how 1.1 performs.  

[ElWanderer]

Did anyone else mis-read the title as "badger PC"?

My box dates back to 2011, mostly, and I don't have the time or money to bother updating it.

[TonyC]

My computer is already pretty good for KSP, so I just bought more RAM (8 GB -> 16 GB).

[KasperVld]

I recently bought a new computer to run KSP on and work on, though in my case it's a laptop

• i7 6700HQ (2.6 GHz - 3.5GHz)
• 16GB DDR4 RAM
• 256GB SSD (Samsung 850 EVO)
• GTX 960M with 4GB discrete memory.

It's quite a step up from the old system, framerates in KSP have in some cases quadrupeled.

Spoiler

Old system specs: i7 3630, 12GB DDR 3 RAM, 250GB SSD, GTX 650M

 

Edited January 27, 2016 by KasperVld
Added old system specifications.

[DunaRocketeer]

My PC isn't that amazing, but good enough. Since 1.1 will likely have performance benefits regardless of system specs, I don't see why I'd feel a need to upgrade. I still play 1.0 in any case and it's good enough for me thanks to a community bug-fix addition.

I don't see any reason to anticipate 1.1 anyway, it'll come out, be FULL of bugs that will slowly get squished, and only then will it be worth it, fancy PC or not.

Edited January 27, 2016 by DunaRocketeer

[katateochi]

@KasperVld do you know (roughly) what sorta specs the QA team's machines are? Would be interesting to know how our machines compare to the ones KSP is tested on. 

[klgraham1013]

9 hours ago, scribbleheli said:

16Gb DDR4 @2400Mhz (another 16 is in the Que if KSP can make use of it)

If you get any game to use 16, let alone 32, I'd be flabbergasted.

[nohelmet]

I'm getting a fancy PC in a few months, but not because of KSP.

[kurja]

2 hours ago, ElWanderer said:

Did anyone else mis-read the title as "badger PC"?

 

Then he would not have Windows on it ,) 

 

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2101819.Installing_Linux_on_a_Dead_Badger

[Joco223]

I got a pretty good PC I think. It will handle KSP very good I think once the 1.1 version comes out

• CPU: i5-4460
• GPU: R9 280X
• 120GB SSD
• 8GB RAM

[hildegain]

11 hours ago, scribbleheli said:

Core I7 6700k@ 4.8Ghz Eh, barely better than sandy and ivy bridge processors. Especially not much better than an OC'd ivy.

Asus Range 8

64GB SDD just for KSP, 500gb SSD as primary boot, 1Tb HDD storage. Those SSDs are a HUGE waste. You don't need two and you don't really need more than 256gb of pure SSD. 1tb SSHD and 2tb of HDD would be superior.

16Gb DDR4 @2400Mhz (another 16 is in the Que if KSP can make use of it) DDR4 is terribly overpriced and overrated. Okay if you're going to be future proofing but DDR3 wont be a bottleneck for a loooong time. Even DDR2 is tough to cap out.

Liquid cooled goodness Cosair H100i Not got anything to say other than you don't need it.

GTX 760OC windforce (Hopefully tax refund gets a 980 ti) Get a 970 or wait for a 1070. The difference between 970 and 980ti is not worth it particularly for KSP.

My advice, save a bit of money and rethink your build. If its what's going to make you happy and it's NOT in response to KSP 1.1... then go for it.

[KerbonautInTraining]

I'm considering upgrading my CPU, does anyone know what will provide the best performance in 1.1 with high part counts? (I.e. clock speed, # of threads or cores, etc.)

My current CPU is a meh-tier AMD octo core. (Can't remember exactly which one it is)

(This may or may not be off topic, sorry if it is)

[Streetwind]

There exists no corner of this universe in which a SSHD + HDD combo is ever superior to a real SSD for anything other than mass storage of dead data.

(The rest of those statements is also quite questionable, but I'll chalk it up to personal opinion.)

[KasperVld]

2 hours ago, katateochi said:

@KasperVld do you know (roughly) what sorta specs the QA team's machines are? Would be interesting to know how our machines compare to the ones KSP is tested on. 

I do not, perhaps @Ted knows more.

[Armisael]

As many people have said, KSP isn't actually particularly demanding on most parts of a computer, so the system you're proposing is overkill is KSP is your only goal. It's nice for lots of other stuff, though.

That said...

37 minutes ago, hildegain said:

Core I7 6700k@ 4.8Ghz Eh, barely better than sandy and ivy bridge processors. Especially not much better than an OC'd ivy.

Asus Range 8

64GB SDD just for KSP, 500gb SSD as primary boot, 1Tb HDD storage. Those SSDs are a HUGE waste. You don't need two and you don't really need more than 256gb of pure SSD. 1tb SSHD and 2tb of HDD would be superior.

16Gb DDR4 @2400Mhz (another 16 is in the Que if KSP can make use of it) DDR4 is terribly overpriced and overrated. Okay if you're going to be future proofing but DDR3 wont be a bottleneck for a loooong time. Even DDR2 is tough to cap out.

Liquid cooled goodness Cosair H100i Not got anything to say other than you don't need it.

GTX 760OC windforce (Hopefully tax refund gets a 980 ti) Get a 970 or wait for a 1070. The difference between 970 and 980ti is not worth it particularly for KSP.

• Ivy was terrible to OC because intel replaced the solder with crappy TIM paste. It's unrealistic and unhelpful to make that comparison - unless you're proposing OP order a delidded proc off some forum? 3 generations of procs has seen some slight boost in IPC. Additionally, you get the extra features in the newer chipset
• Ivy and Z68/Z78 parts are mostly out of stock. The only way you really can get them is used. This is not the audience to be suggesting that to.
• SSDs are phenomenal - they make everything on the computer much faster and they'll last for years - they're probably the smartest part of this build.
• The 6700k goes in the LGA 1151 socket. Most boards for that socket don't even support DDR3 (and DDR3 was noticeably faster than DDR2 back in 2008, let alone now).
• If OP's actually going to run the 6700k at 4.8 GHz he's going to need a liquid loop - that's a excrementsload of heat. I suspect he's confused or made a typo, but if not...
• The 1000 series isn't coming out until april/june at the soonest. Don't tell people to wait a third of a year for the next gpu - you'll always be waiting if you do that. Also, all of those cards are way beyond what's necessary for KSP, so it hardly matters. They could get a 750ti and be just fine.

[Vaporized Steel]

I never really understood people throwing  1.5k-3k (USD/EUR/GBP) just to stay on top of the framerate tables.

which is somewhat understandable, everyone has his own hobbies and there are also people buying the newest model car from their favourite car company every 6-12 months.

But when you look at benchmark data the difference I estimate considering the test rigs and games is not worth the money.

In game (A) a 1000usd rig plays the game at 40-45fps on average with ultra hd and AA off, a 1500usd machine runs at 50 fps with similar settings, and a 3000+ usd machine may run in excess of 100fps or even more.

With the physics calculations of ksp the gpu shouldnt have to be anywhere near high end. And if you are accustomed to ksp framerate you probably will not get disturbed by 45 fps opposed to 60 fps.

In other words, the 760 is enough. I would save the tax cuts for other purposes if I were you.

A 980? For ksp? Your kidding right?

unless your going to spend a large portion of your time playing gpu intensive shooters in competitive multiplayer matches on ultra hd monitors or higher you will probably not even get to see the gpus potential.

My personal experience is that you can better buy a 100-175 usd card which will last 1-2 year with decent performance. Theyre ussually 3 times cheaper then a highend model card. But almost always the pricey cards are not 3 times faster. It also helps in energy cost.

Theres only one reason you should buy the 980 or higher, if you want to play the highend competitive games.

This is just my opinion on the matter.

I hope youake a good decision.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Vaporized Steel