KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Aghanim]

This: http://www.amazon.com/PNY-NVIDIA-GeForce-PCI-Express-VCGGT640XPB/dp/B0088TKS3Y?SubscriptionId=AKIAIEF7KZG4SSIJ7QQA&tag=toms_shopping_gpu-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0088TKS3Y

Avoid AMD stuff as everyone said that their linux driver is bad

[Weegee]

Also look on newegg and other sites for blowout deals- newegg's shell shockers in particular are awesome deals, so you might get lucky and find a good card there.

[HoustonDave]

This: http://www.amazon.com/PNY-NVIDIA-GeForce-PCI-Express-VCGGT640XPB/dp/B0088TKS3Y?SubscriptionId=AKIAIEF7KZG4SSIJ7QQA&tag=toms_shopping_gpu-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0088TKS3Y

Avoid AMD stuff as everyone said that their linux driver is bad

Also look on newegg and other sites for blowout deals- newegg's shell shockers in particular are awesome deals, so you might get lucky and find a good card there.

Thank you both. Much obliged.

[joppiesaus]

Hello everyone,

My brother is building a budget-gaming pc, but he's a little short on budget.

I've a Asus GT640-2GD3(2GB, 901MHz, 384 kernels) in my pc, bought for ~ 100 euros (at that time).

I want to replace the GPU for this one: MSI N760 HAWK(2GB, 1111MHz, 1152 kernels) for ~ 220 euros.

Is it worth it?

[Linear]

Hello everyone,

My brother is building a budget-gaming pc, but he's a little short on budget.

I've a Asus GT640-2GD3(2GB, 901MHz, 384 kernels) in my pc, bought for ~ 100 euros (at that time).

I want to replace the GPU for this one: MSI N760 HAWK(2GB, 1111MHz, 1152 kernels) for ~ 220 euros.

Is it worth it?

Make sure your PSU/Case supports it, but yeah, the 760 is a great card - won't make much difference to KSP.

[joppiesaus]

Make sure your PSU/Case supports it, but yeah, the 760 is a great card - won't make much difference to KSP.

Thanks for the info! Turns out my PSU provides almost too little power(well, it runs perfect. I did benchmarking. But according to the package of the GPU it's a too weak PSU)

[Camacha]

Thanks for the info! Turns out my PSU provides almost too little power(well, it runs perfect. I did benchmarking. But according to the package of the GPU it's a too weak PSU)

For the x-th time: the power requirements on the package/manufacturer website are nonsense. Pretty much made up. They base those numbers on horrible B-quality PSU's that cannot provide their wattage rating for more than a few milliseconds. To make sure users with those kind of PSU's do not run into trouble, they grossly overestimate the needed power for a specific card. A futile effort, I would say, as a cheap PSU will get you into trouble sooner or later.

Any decent A-brand PSU can output its rated power for a sustained period of time with ease, and often much more. With such a PSU you can simply look up the real world power consumption for all the different parts and add them together.

The worst case scenario of the GTX 760 seems to be about 160 watt. Add an appropiate amount for your CPU (typically between 50 and 125 watts) and add, say, 10 watt for your motherboard and each HDD. That should give you a decent estimate of how much your system will do when fully loaded. I would be surprised if a system with a GTX 760 would pull more than 350 watt, let alone 500 watt. Most modern CPU's are more frugal than that, so it probably is even less than 350 watt.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to buy a decent PSU. A lot of people do not care much and pick the cheapest option, but they risk instability, random problems and even catastrophic failure with damage to pretty much every other part in your PC. You would not be the first that fries his 700 dollar gaming card with a cheap power supply. Buy a good one that is powerful enough to accomodate your current and reasonable future needs and leave it at that. No need for crazy 1000 watt power supplies - even 700 watt is only needed when running multiple cards and such.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Camacha

[dudester28]

Hi everyone. I am planning on building a computer soon but I have no experience. I request help on planning a good build.

My probable budget will be around $800 but I could go over by just a bit.

I already have the peripherals needed.

I don't have a copy of windows but I am planning on running windows 7.

Games I hope the computer would be capable of handling: DayZ, KSP, League of Legends, Minecraft

I don't really care about size or the noise it creates as long as it is reasonable. However, I would like a graphics card that is capable of running a multiple monitor setup.

Thanks in advance

[Camacha]

Hi everyone. I am planning on building a computer soon but I have no experience. I request help on planning a good build.

I think your best bet is to come up with something and ask up to comment on it. That way you learn a lot yourself and you are also not asking other people to do your work for you.

If you feel starting from scratch is a bit of a bit ask, you can always try to find an existing configuration (here or elsewhere) that roughly suits your needs and go from there.

[dudester28]

Okay, I have actually come up with two builds in two different price ranges since I am still unsure what budget I will have:

$1000:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/NoctHorn/saved/xn66Mp

$800:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/NoctHorn/saved/NRKcCJ

So I am also wondering if I should get windows 7 or 8.1. What do you recommend?

EDIT: Hello? Is anybody there?

Edited June 3, 2014 by dudester28

[R0cketC0der]

Okay, I have actually come up with two builds in two different price ranges since I am still unsure what budget I will have:

$1000:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/NoctHorn/saved/xn66Mp

$800:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/NoctHorn/saved/NRKcCJ

So I am also wondering if I should get windows 7 or 8.1. What do you recommend?

EDIT: Hello? Is anybody there?

I would recommend windows 8.1. For me it's starting up a lot faster and it will also be supported longer.

Also I depending on what you will use the computer for, a GTX 770 may be totally overkill. I got a 750 Ti and battlefield 4 runs on ultra without any issues for me. A 770 be able to play current games longer than my 750 Ti, but it also costs more than double the price. Another thing is that both if your configurations don't seem to have any fans, don't forget to buy them.

[joppiesaus]

Okay, I have actually come up with two builds in two different price ranges since I am still unsure what budget I will have:

$1000:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/NoctHorn/saved/xn66Mp

$800:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/NoctHorn/saved/NRKcCJ

So I am also wondering if I should get windows 7 or 8.1. What do you recommend?

EDIT: Hello? Is anybody there?

I recommend a custom cooler. The stock coolers just get full of dust and it may give some problems later.

Overall nice builds, but the graphics cards maybe a little overkill depending on what you want to do.

[dudester28]

Can you recommend a cooler for me? I am now choosing to go with the $1000 build and need a cooler which is inexpensive but also decent quality. I am aiming for a cooler under $30.

[xzxvrx]

I recommend the Hyper 212- http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr1

[dudester28]

I have one other small thing. How much of a buffer should I go for concerning power supply? Pcpartpicker estimates the wattage to be 448W. Would I be fine with a 500W power supply from corsair? If not, what wattage do you recommend?

[Mazlem]

You can get some faster RAM for the same price - http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f314900cl9d8gbxl

I'd get a 550 to 600W power supply. More won't hurt, but over 600 would definitely be overkill.

[dudester28]

I'm back! After much deliberation and suggestions from multiple forums, I think I am pretty confident with the build I have come up with:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/NoctHorn/saved/dD7v6h

The 4670K was available for a pretty low price. This will allow me to overclock in the future (but not right now).

[NFUN]

I know I could've/should've asked this question in a million better places, but honestly I'd forget in a day and I trust you guys.

After finishing building my computer (or so I thought) and after turning it on, my SDD starting smoking and was completely fried. I believe that it might have something to do with receiving 12v instead of 5v, but I'm not sure how to fix that save cutting wires off which I'm not willing to do until I'm positive.

Relevant Computer Parts:

Corsair CX600 PSU

Crucial M500 SATA 2.5 inch 7mm SSD

ASUS M5A97 Motherboard

Additional Information: The original Power Supply was dead-on-arrival (it lit up the case LED's but didn't power anything) and the new one worked as far as I could tell. I believe I connected everything identically in both cases, and there could be a chance that the motherboard or SSD may have been damaged by the faulty PSU. Tell me if there is anything else I should add.

[Specialist290]

I know I could've/should've asked this question in a million better places, but honestly I'd forget in a day and I trust you guys.

After finishing building my computer (or so I thought) and after turning it on, my SDD starting smoking and was completely fried. I believe that it might have something to do with receiving 12v instead of 5v, but I'm not sure how to fix that save cutting wires off which I'm not willing to do until I'm positive.

Relevant Computer Parts:

Corsair CX600 PSU

Crucial M500 SATA 2.5 inch 7mm SSD

ASUS M5A97 Motherboard

Additional Information: The original Power Supply was dead-on-arrival (it lit up the case LED's but didn't power anything) and the new one worked as far as I could tell. I believe I connected everything identically in both cases, and there could be a chance that the motherboard or SSD may have been damaged by the faulty PSU. Tell me if there is anything else I should add.

Unfortunately, I can't help you with building the computer itself, but I've taken the liberty of merging your post into our main computer-building megathread

[NFUN]

Thanks, I didn't see this thread

[Camacha]

After finishing building my computer (or so I thought) and after turning it on, my SDD starting smoking and was completely fried. I believe that it might have something to do with receiving 12v instead of 5v, but I'm not sure how to fix that save cutting wires off which I'm not willing to do until I'm positive.

If your SSD did indeed die in such a spectacular fasion, something is very, very wrong. Are you sure you just used the proper cables (not some wonky adapter or something) in the right places? If so, I would distrust anything connected to the PSU, as the source of such a failure could easily have damaged other components.

I must admit I have never heard of such a failure. Burning and/or sparking PSU's, sure, but not a SSD burning up.

[Frago]

Wow! Imagine my surprise to find this forum on builds on the Kerbal site! I have just torn apart... no thats a lie, I tore it apart a year ago! Anyways, it's my gaming rig. It was an AMD machine with an X2 core, but it would not play the "latest" games. So I did my research and picked a list of components that HAD to be swapped, and a list of parts I could keep from the old build to keep costs down.

What I went with:

New parts:

Sabertooth 990FX Rev2 motherboard

AMD FX 8750 CPU (Black Edition)

Corsair Dominator Platinum 16Gb DDR3

Used parts saved from prior build:

XFX Radeon HD5750

30yo Old Game case - No brand, but it has a nice layout, smooth wiring, and 4lg-6sm slots 4 60mm fans

Audigy 2 ZS Platinumsound card

OCZ GSX850 PSU

Maxtor Diamond Max and WD Blue HD

Generic DVDR

so I got it all together and powered it up. When I powered it up fans spun for just a split second and then beep! I plan to check the connections first, but any one of you might be a better builder and already know whats wrong! This was only my second build in 7 years and I'm being real ambitious trying to pull off a nice rig. I kinda rushed the assembly and might have missed something.

[NFUN]

If your SSD did indeed die in such a spectacular fasion, something is very, very wrong. Are you sure you just used the proper cables (not some wonky adapter or something) in the right places? If so, I would distrust anything connected to the PSU, as the source of such a failure could easily have damaged other components.

I must admit I have never heard of such a failure. Burning and/or sparking PSU's, sure, but not a SSD burning up.

I used the cables that came with the PSU to connect to the SSD. I used the only cables left that fit, and after the smoking I even looked up proper attachment just to be sure. I will probably check out the mobo in the shop if no other solution is presented, but I don't think Amazon will like my returning of 2 PSUs in 2 weeks.

[R0cketC0der]

Wow! Imagine my surprise to find this forum on builds on the Kerbal site! I have just torn apart... no thats a lie, I tore it apart a year ago! Anyways, it's my gaming rig. It was an AMD machine with an X2 core, but it would not play the "latest" games. So I did my research and picked a list of components that HAD to be swapped, and a list of parts I could keep from the old build to keep costs down.

What I went with:

New parts:

Sabertooth 990FX Rev2 motherboard

AMD FX 8750 CPU (Black Edition)

Corsair Dominator Platinum 16Gb DDR3

Used parts saved from prior build:

XFX Radeon HD5750

30yo Old Game case - No brand, but it has a nice layout, smooth wiring, and 4lg-6sm slots 4 60mm fans

Audigy 2 ZS Platinumsound card

OCZ GSX850 PSU

Maxtor Diamond Max and WD Blue HD

Generic DVDR

so I got it all together and powered it up. When I powered it up fans spun for just a split second and then beep! I plan to check the connections first, but any one of you might be a better builder and already know whats wrong! This was only my second build in 7 years and I'm being real ambitious trying to pull off a nice rig. I kinda rushed the assembly and might have missed something.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/946340_10151593370413927_325972543_n.jpg

Haven't had any such problems myself, but I think would be some cable not properly connected. My guess at this would be the 8-pin CPU power cable. Would have tried if pulling it out led to a similar failure on my computer if my CPU fan wasn't so huge that I can barely touch that cable.

[Camacha]

I will probably check out the mobo in the shop if no other solution is presented, but I don't think Amazon will like my returning of 2 PSUs in 2 weeks.

Depends. If the problems are caused by the PSU or a part they provided, they should do whatever is necessary to fix it and all parts damaged.