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

[nosirrbro]

On January 27, 2016 at 9:19 AM, Armisael said:

 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.

Yep! I have a 750ti and am just fine. It runs KSP, GTA or really anything else just fine, unless you need ultra graphics anywhere and/or have a 4K monitor

[T.A.P.O.R.]

Have just been poking about with partspicker and checked out the highest clock AMD offering.

What gives with the massive power consumption?

[eddiew]

12 minutes ago, T.A.P.O.R. said:

Have just been poking about with partspicker and checked out the highest clock AMD offering.

What gives with the massive power consumption?

You're not the first to wonder  AMD cheated. It's an overclocked CPU sold as if it's supposed to run at that speed. Basically they're really not doing very well at the mo and trying to hide it...

[RW-1]

My 4790K machine was booted last night.

4.0Ghz stock, 4Gb RAM, will update to 6, don't ask ...

GTX 960 and it was just so much fun to open KSP for a bit while it was running on the box (test/setup before case install) !

Everything back to maxed, ummmmmmmmm .....  

[T.A.P.O.R.]

1 hour ago, RW-1 said:

My 4790K machine was booted last night.

4.0Ghz stock, 4Gb RAM, will update to 6, don't ask ...

GTX 960 and it was just so much fun to open KSP for a bit while it was running on the box (test/setup before case install) !

Everything back to maxed, ummmmmmmmm .....  

By Max, do you mean scatter and eve were installed?
I think my compute would chug to a halt if I tried that at the moment.

[RW-1]

1 hour ago, T.A.P.O.R. said:

By Max, do you mean scatter and eve were installed?
I think my compute would chug to a halt if I tried that at the moment.

I'd have to look ... to what settings are those?

 

[KerbonautInTraining]

So I finally checked, my CPU is an FX-8320.

When it comes to single threaded performance it's just over half as good as most intel i5 and i7's. And that's... that's just great. 

no im not crying right now what are you even talking about

[pincushionman]

6 hours ago, RW-1 said:

I'd have to look ... to what settings are those?

 

They're mods.

[Tig]

On 2/24/2016 at 3:29 PM, eddiew said:

You're not the first to wonder  AMD cheated. It's an overclocked CPU sold as if it's supposed to run at that speed. Basically they're really not doing very well at the mo and trying to hide it...

 

8 hours ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

So I finally checked, my CPU is an FX-8320.

When it comes to single threaded performance it's just over half as good as most intel i5 and i7's. And that's... that's just great. 

no im not crying right now what are you even talking about

The new Zen architecture coming from AMD is supposed to be a pretty massive improvement.  They're saying something in the range of 40% faster per clock. Sounds like it won't be out till Q4 now though...  I hope they come through, more competition means better prices for everyone.

 

But, yes, with the current offering for gaming even an i3 will beat most 8 core AMD cpus because of the lack of multicore usage.  Fingers crossed that 1.1 with Unity 5 makes better use of computers with 4+ core systems.

 

Edited: For clarity, those 8 core systems will smack an i3 silly if you're say encoding video, compressing files, etc.  My comments are just for most (not all) games.  Furthermore, most games don't really care about amd/intel as they are typically limited by your gpu; Kerbal is one of the less typical games where the cpu can become a limiting factor.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Tig

[OldLost]

While not specifically for KSP 1.1, I'm building my new PC as we speak.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($249.99 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($154.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($134.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($53.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card  ($334.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Blackout Edition ATX Mid Tower Case  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($105.98 @ Newegg) 
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer  ($15.99 @ Newegg) 
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF120 Quiet Edition (2-Pack) 39.9 CFM 120mm  Fans  ($25.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1381.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-26 01:46 EST-0500

Edited February 26, 2016 by OldLost

[Tig]

OldLost, I like the build.

Can I make one recommendation?  Up your DDR4 to 3200/3400, it really does make a significant difference in some games.  Sometimes its an obvious straight up fps increase, and sometimes it lowers those sub 1% high frametime spikes, which makes the game feel smoother even if it doesn't translate well to the traditional fps metric.

If that puts you over budget, I'd drop down to 16GB ram for now and pick up another 16GB later, unless you really really need 32GB for some application.

Normally, I'd suggest more than 650W for a build like this, but with the quality supply you've chosen I'm good with it (unless you plan on going sli at some point).

[eddiew]

650W is actually excess for that build. It'll overclock and still be within the capacity of a 550  

(CPU is rated 91W, GPU is 145. Even overclocked that's still likely to stay below 300-350, and the sum total of everything else will be sub-100. That said, PSU efficiency is usually best around 50-75% load, so 650 isn't a bad call. I just wanted to clarify some $ can be saved up front there if desired ^^ )

10 hours ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

So I finally checked, my CPU is an FX-8320.

When it comes to single threaded performance it's just over half as good as most intel i5 and i7's. And that's... that's just great. 

no im not crying right now what are you even talking about

It's a respectable CPU for what it is - most games will play just fine on it... but yeah, unfortunately, KSP is one of those games that really, really responds well to single-thread performance. WoW and Minecraft are two others. On the other hand, Cities Skylines loves threads. It's all about what you want to play most.

Unity 5 might make a difference - or it might not. I'd be inclined to let it drop before you decide you must have a new rig, tbh

[tetryds]

I'm going to upgrade my pc for KSP, video editing, live streaming and game development.

Going from an FX-8150 @4.4GHz to an i7 4790k, which shouldn't really stay behind the i7 6700k in gaming performance.

My goal is to achieve 5GHz for benchmarking, and stable 4.6GHz for gaming (yes, KSP specifically).

My current setup is:

CPU: FX-8150 @4.4GHz

GPU: MSI GTX 970 gaming 4g

RAM: 16gb DDR3 1866MHz

MOBO: M5A99X Evo R2.0

PSU: 850W 80+ bronze (forgot which but its good)

Cooling: Corsair H100 water cooler

1TB HDD, another 500GB one and a 250GB SSD

[RW-1]

11 hours ago, pincushionman said:

They're mods.

Ahh thanks!

Saves me time, Nope, I happen top play stock.

The new system is amazing for KSP! I'm going from a i7 920 at 3.2Ghz with a GTX 295 to a:

i7 4790K 4.0Ghz,

GTX960 (ddr5 ram on it, 2GB)  With the way it uses its dual ball bearing fans, they only run when needed, and They hardly went on, have to look, they are fracking quiet ...

4Gb DDR3 ram on the Z97 Classified Mainboard.  (Lost 2Gb, going from triple channel memory to sual, will pick up an extra DIMM and fill out the board for 8 later)

Creative Fatality X-Fi sound card.

I'm sooo  pumped for the Changes with 1.1 now but I've been without my rig since Sept, I missed it.

[KerbonautInTraining]

6 hours ago, eddiew said:

It's a respectable CPU for what it is - most games will play just fine on it... but yeah, unfortunately, KSP is one of those games that really, really responds well to single-thread performance. WoW and Minecraft are two others. On the other hand, Cities Skylines loves threads. It's all about what you want to play most.

Unity 5 might make a difference - or it might not. I'd be inclined to let it drop before you decide you must have a new rig, tbh

1.1 is still going to be mostly single threaded, though not as much as it is now. 

Do I dare ask about overclocking? As you can probably tell, I'm not too great with this whole thing. My current PC is the first one I've ever built.

[eddiew]

23 minutes ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

Do I dare ask about overclocking? As you can probably tell, I'm not too great with this whole thing. My current PC is the first one I've ever built.

It's pretty simple these days - many motherboard manufacturers will include a suite of tools that let you go at it within Windows, so you don't even have to fiddle around with BIOS settings. Personal preference would be go with a board from either Asus or Gigabyte, both of whom very sympathetic to overclockers.

Basic premise;

1. Incrementally add more frequency until something stops passing a test
2. Add more voltage and see if it's stable
3. Once stable, if not running too hot, add more frequency until something stops passing a test
4. ...etc

Essentially you're running above the rated speed, which usually requires you to pump more voltage into it. Depending on your cooling, you may run into a thermal limit whereby more volts/speed results in throttling and makes the CPU slower than ever, or you push the voltage too far and fry it. There are however plenty of resources on safe maximums for both temperature during load tests, and voltages for each model of CPU, so once you've worked out your mechanisms for fiddling it, you just keep working until you bounce of one or the other. The big thing is; motherboards will generally give very tiny voltage bumps, like 0.0125v. There's a reason for that - namely you do not want to smack an extra 0.1V into it. It's not a lightbulb   One increment at a time only!

6 hours ago, tetryds said:

My goal is to achieve 5GHz for benchmarking, and stable 4.6GHz for gaming (yes, KSP specifically).

...

PSU: 850W 80+ bronze (forgot which but its good)

Cooling: Corsair H100 water cooler

5GHz is very unlikely... 4.6 is pretty realistic

850W is massive overkill for 1 graphics card... but if you already have it, it certainly doesn't hurt and I guess you have the option to SLI later.

47 minutes ago, RW-1 said:

4Gb DDR3 ram on the Z97 Classified Mainboard.  (Lost 2Gb, going from triple channel memory to sual, will pick up an extra DIMM and fill out the board for 8 later)

I heartily recommend 16 or more if you can afford it   8 is very easily filled up these days, soon as you want to have something in the background as well as just your game. I have 32GB, and regularly see 16+ in use.

[tetryds]

@eddiew well, that is the "easy way" of overclocking, I wouldn't use that method  alone for anything higher than a 20% clock increase, after that point you should consider increasing the base clock and allow more current to the CPU, voltage alone won't do miracles.

You may also want to input your other frequencies manually, including the ram timings.

5GHz would be just for limited periods of time, but it's not unlikely, would only take a while.

[KerbonautInTraining]

5 minutes ago, tetryds said:

@eddiew well, that is the "easy way" of overclocking, I wouldn't use that method  alone for anything higher than a 20% clock increase, after that point you should consider increasing the base clock and allow more current to the CPU, voltage alone won't do miracles.

You may also want to input your other frequencies manually, including the ram timings.

5GHz would be just for limited periods of time, but it's not unlikely, would only take a while.

Ofc before I even think about overclocking I'm gonna have to upgrade from the stock cooler...

That sort of single threaded performance increase should I expect? I think anything under 15% isn't worth the effort tbh

Edited February 26, 2016 by KerbonautInTraining

[eddiew]

6 minutes ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

Ofc before I even think about overclocking I'm gonna have to upgrade from the stock cooler...

Performance increase is pretty much on the same scale as GHz. My i5 is at 3.3GHz stock, and runs 4.4 for a 33% increase   It'll go higher, but it gets pretty hot under full load and I decided the extra couple of hundred MHz weren't worth it.

How much you'll get... totally dependant on the chip, the cooling, and how far you're prepared to push it. Most i5s will get to 4.4-4.5 without complaint though.

Edited February 26, 2016 by eddiew

[eddiew]

12 minutes ago, tetryds said:

@eddiew well, that is the "easy way" of overclocking, I wouldn't use that method  alone for anything higher than a 20% clock increase, after that point you should consider increasing the base clock and allow more current to the CPU, voltage alone won't do miracles.

You may also want to input your other frequencies manually, including the ram timings.

5GHz would be just for limited periods of time, but it's not unlikely, would only take a while.

Original question was from someone who hasn't overclocked before though, wanted to keep it simple   I should perhaps have been more specific and said to change the CPU's multiplier, rather than talked about incrementing the frequency.

For a newbie, I would certainly NOT look at base clock fiddling... as far as I know, Intel systems don't react well to that - although I hear they handle it better now than they used to. Certainly in my generation of CPU (sandy bridge) nobody ever got than a few extra MHz out of it before all sorts of things started to die. As for more current... is not current dictated by voltage and frequency? I'm not aware of any direct way to specify the current a CPU gets from the motherboard, although that may just mean I'm out of date...

RAM timings are a good point - but if you're not messing with the base clock, then it won't cause problems, it just won't be optimised. Again, trying to stay rookie-friendly

[tetryds]

Oh yes, I forgot that about intel processors, but it should be easier if you set most frequencies manually.

Yes voltage dictates the current, but the mobo limits it.

As temperature and clock increases, the internal resistance of the processor drops, this causes the voltage on it to drop, so you need to compensate by increasing voltage (that is not the only reason though).

But several enthusiast mobos have the option where you can allow more current to pass on the processor, the current limiting can make the voltage drop and the system becomes unstable.

Most guides make sure that you are allowing as much as your mobo can allow before even starting, but I don't really recommend leaving it at that because while overclocking becomes more stable if you push it too hard you generate a lot more heat.

 

How it affects KSP varies, on my case I got a huge increase in fps on every game because my CPU at stock frequencies is a bottleneck, so I got a lot of lagspikes and stuff.

It was all gone after I went past 4.2GHz.

And I got around 10~15% performance increase on KSP alone, which is a lot for a 22% clock increase.

[Tig]

9 hours ago, eddiew said:

650W is actually excess for that build. It'll overclock and still be within the capacity of a 550  

(CPU is rated 91W, GPU is 145. Even overclocked that's still likely to stay below 300-350, and the sum total of everything else will be sub-100. That said, PSU efficiency is usually best around 50-75% load, so 650 isn't a bad call. I just wanted to clarify some $ can be saved up front there if desired ^^ )

I understand what your saying and agree, but a couple things for the non-experts:

1) Many PSU maximum wattage numbers (in this case 650) come with asterisks attached in many cases.

2) Some PSU wattage numbers are outright lies and fraud, imo.  I've got a PS from a friends computer here in front of me, says its 420 watts, lol yeah right.  Unless you use it in a typical computer, then its limited to about 370 watt... grr.  Now my buddy who purchased it felt a bit taken, cause he just reads the number on the front of the box (like most people).

3) Capacitor aging: I know this is a matter of some debate.  But the short of it seems to be a consensus that you can expect to see a 5%-20% drop in wattage after about a year or two of use.  How true that is, I myself question, but its thrown around a bit.

4) Don't mistake TDP = wattage at load = wattage at surge.  A i7-6700k (91 tdp) can easily exceed 110watt increase over idle on surge, and it doesn't idle at zero watts...  A classic example of this is hard drives.  You'll read online that most hard drives pull ~7-10 watts during use, true, but on spinup they can easily exceed 30 watts.

 

My calculation on @OldLost 's build was about ~410-420 watts worst case, about 2/3 of the PS capacity, which like @eddiew suggested is a good sweet spot.  That said, I'm good with this 650 because that's a very high quality line from EVGA, I'd bet most of those PS are capable beyond their listed spec.  But my comments for the average builder needing a bit more is based upon the fact that I don't know if their getting a top tier supply.  Unknown 750 watt supply?  I'm subtracting 10% cause the specs are probably misleading.  I'm subtracting 20% due to the aging of sub par capacitors.  I'm already down to 525 watts...

I'm probably being a bit more conservative that @eddiew and he's right, probably more conservative than is strictly necessary.  It's just that power supplies are a place I have seen many friends not get what they think they paid for, and an extra $10 for an extra 100 watts gives me piece of mind and room to expand without worry. 

[T.A.P.O.R.]

22 hours ago, RW-1 said:

I'd have to look ... to what settings are those?

 

I tried replying yesterday, but my phone has an old quote stuck in the reply box.

They're prettiness mods. Can be a bit harsh on your machine. Especially Scatterer.

 

[KerbonautInTraining]

26 minutes ago, Tig said:

3) Capacitor aging: I know this is a matter of some debate.  But the short of it seems to be a consensus that you can expect to see a 5%-20% drop in wattage after about a year or two of use.  How true that is, I myself question, but its thrown around a bit.

Capacitor aging, assuming they're smoothing/filter caps should only effect output noise, although I suppose they could effect efficiency as well.

Capacitors hate heat. The cooler they're kept the longer they last, as the fluid in them will evaporate over the course of their life span.

I haven't done any research on capacitor aging when it comes to PSU's in particular.

OT: I did some research and somebody managed a 50% overclock with my CPU (FX-8320) at the cost of doubling the power consumption... obviously I'm not going to take it that far but it gives me a bit of confidence.

[eddiew]

2 hours ago, Tig said:

I'm probably being a bit more conservative that @eddiew and he's right, probably more conservative than is strictly necessary.  It's just that power supplies are a place I have seen many friends not get what they think they paid for, and an extra $10 for an extra 100 watts gives me piece of mind and room to expand without worry. 

It's all fair, especially when talking about budget supplies. My personal preference would be to get a quality 600-650 with gold efficiency rating - but a lot of people see it as a reason to pinch pennies, and... yikes. Last article I read on cheap PSUs had some of them delivering well under what's advertised, not to mention pulling more at the wall.

1 hour ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

Capacitor aging, assuming they're smoothing/filter caps should only effect output noise, although I suppose they could effect efficiency as well.

Capacitors hate heat. The cooler they're kept the longer they last, as the fluid in them will evaporate over the course of their life span.

It's worth mentioning that a good brand supply (Seasonic, Enermax for two examples) can come with a 5 year warranty. I feel pretty secure when the manufacturer issues these, as they'll probably have tested their units at rougher conditions than I'll ever put them through   It's worth switching them out every few (or 5) years, but ultimately they are built to operate ^^