KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Baenki]

Hi all. I have to say I never build a PC myself, until now i only had out of the bix pcs.

@Camacha: What is a decent size for a SSD? What is a decent reading/writing speed?

@steve_v: How does overclocking work? What board us needed?

Also i read the xeons arent possible to overclock.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Hi all. I have to say I never build a PC myself, until now i only had out of the bix pcs.

@Camacha: What is a decent size for a SSD? What is a decent reading/writing speed?

@steve_v: How does overclocking work? What board us needed?

Also i read the xeons arent possible to overclock.

I think personally a 124gb ssd is the max you should get. All you need is for it to hold Windows. As long as you have another hard drive, of course.

[cantab]

Well...right now i'm using a 1.8 GHz dual core AMD processor. I figured a quad 3.9-4.2 GHz would be much much better.

It will, but currently Intel processors have AMD ones trounced clock-for-clock. AMD have the stronger integrated graphics, but most gamers will get a proper graphics card anyway.

Hi all. I have to say I never build a PC myself, until now i only had out of the bix pcs.

@Camacha: What is a decent size for a SSD? What is a decent reading/writing speed?

@steve_v: How does overclocking work? What board us needed?

Also i read the xeons arent possible to overclock.

The "Z" chipsets support overclocking, and the latest is Z97. Some H87 and H97 motherboards support overclocking but check the specific board for its CPU compatibility for that. And of course check the processor has an unlocked multiplier too. I wouldn't be surprised if the Xeon's are locked, they're meant for enterprise where you need rock steady reliability.

For SSD size, I'd say go for around 500 GB. Something like my Crucial MX100 512 GB isn't all that expensive, certainly not in a thousand-Euro build, and it's better to have too much disk space than too little!

[steve_v]

Hmm, interesting. Like I said, it's been a while since I had a Xeon to play with, times appear to have changed.

I assume 'can't be overclocked' just means that they're multiplier locked?

CPU clock = FSB x CPU multiplier. If I'm right, you would need a board thet can reliably muck with the front side bus frequency to get any overclocking... This is generaly not as easy or as stable as just bumping the multiplier up, since it also overclocks other parts of the motherboard.

Want to know more? Google + much trial & error. Overclocking is a bit of a black art, which is why they multiplier lock the non 'enthusiast' cpus in the first place - well that and to get more $ out of those who like to tinker.

Example: my i7-3820 is totaly stable at 4.6GHz, but only 'partialy unlocked' - the multiplier goes up to 43x. So the only way I can get there is to bump the FSB up from stock 100MHz.

This has the side effect of upping the PCIe bus clock, which my GPU really doesn't like

Therefore I can only have 4.3GHz.

Still, it's a 'free' upgrade from the stock 3.8GHz turbo clock, plus it runs at 4.3 on all cores.

Edited August 30, 2014 by steve_v

[cantab]

Overclocking with a locked multiplier depends on the processor family. For my old AMD Phenom II it works pretty well, largely because nothing actually runs at the "reference clock" so you just back off other multipliers to compensate. For modern Intel processors I believe it works less well, as you've found.

[steve_v]

currently Intel processors have AMD ones trounced clock-for-clock

Hasn't this been the case ever since the P4/Netburst debacle?

[Elthy]

@steve_v: I have an i5 3570K @ 4,2 Ghz and on my Mainboard (Asrock Z77 Pro 4) i had to change CPU Clock from "Auto" to a number to oc. I assume that OC disables Turbo, i never saw my CPU over the entered clockspeed. FSB OC isnt a big deal anymore (at least on Intel), it messes up quite much and the possible gains are small (about 5%, 10% if you are lucky).

[steve_v]

You got a 'K', they're a bit more flexible. The partialy unlocked 'non K' cpus don't let you touch the standard mult (the BIOS does, but it won't stick), however you can crank the turbo mult up to 43x (the cpu spec says 44x but again, doesn't stick). Ergo a multiplier OC requires turbo to be on.

I too have to take the cpu clock out of auto for anything interesting to happen, but I expect this varies from one mobo to another. I have an ASUS P9X79 and the BIOS menus are convoluted to say the least.

Happy with what I got out of it, *any* OC is a bonus, though sometimes I do miss the old 'desolder the clockgen crystal & replace' method.

The board & CPU will do 125 ref clock, in fact the software utility reccommends it, but my current GPU freaks out at random intervals - I did put my old GTX560 back in to be sure but it's not worth the hit just for a few more CPU MHz.

Edited August 30, 2014 by steve_v

[Camacha]

Well...right now i'm using a 1.8 GHz dual core AMD processor. I figured a quad 3.9-4.2 GHz would be much much better. And since my computer will run the lower half of games, I figured this CPU would handle most games alright. (KSP for example. Think I could run KSP full graphics and everything with this setup? That's the main goal)

I do not have any experience with this hardware combine with KSP, so I cannot answer this question. All the reasoning in the world will not give a definite answer either, you really need to look at someone who has the hardware, ran the program and jotted down the numbers. Preferably someone who knows what he is talking about and without bias towards his own hardware.

Well this is a pre-setup-kit. I didn't hand pick all that. I just picked one that looked good and was in my price range, and figured that would be a good starting point. However i'm totally up for hand picking everything that you suggest. (Price right now is around 370 I believe, I would really really like to stay under 450, 500 at the most)

I suggest you take either a graphics card that can be combined with the APU (if you go with an AMD chip) or that has some zip to it on its own. Again, check benchmarks to see which card does which. I could explain this extensively, but seeing it for yourself is just a bit better If you need any help after that, we can always help.

I'm not sure i understand, i'm not a huge computer person. Yet.

Some AMD APU's (the AXX series, so A8 or A10) can combine their internal video chip with an added GPU card. You will need specific combinations for that to work though, so make sure you either put in the right card, or buy a GPU that is fast enough to do the work on its own.

[Camacha]

@Camacha: What is a decent size for a SSD? What is a decent reading/writing speed?

This is a bit hard to comment on, because it is so personal. I own a 128 GB SSD and for some people that is more than enough. Personally I find it somewhat restrictive. With today's prices I would suggest buying at least 256 GB, as they cost just a little more than 128 GB. That is more than enough for any OS and applications and should provide the space to run a couple of games from the drive too. If you are frugal with your storage though, you might consider 128 GB.

I would advise to look at the Crucial MX100 series or the Samsung 840 EVO's, with a slight bias towards the Crucial. Both are excellent drives with roughly the same real world performance. The MX100 is somewhat more reliable, the EVO slightly faster. Do not, under any circumstance, buy a SSD with a Sandforce controller. There have been too many problems with those to be considered a viable option any more.

@steve_v: How does overclocking work? What board us needed?

Also i read the xeons arent possible to overclock.

Xeons have a limited overclocking capability. The bonus is that they offer cheap hyperthreading and generally are good chips.

Overclocking means you need an unlocked K-chip and the appropriate Z87 or Z97 chipset to allow proper overclocking. Some other chipsets do work, but Intel is not too happy about that. The process of overclocking entails increasing the clock speed via the multiplier. Then you fully load the CPU to get it to heat up. If that turns out to be stable and temperatures are all right, rinse and repeat until you hit a clockspeed that is not stable any more. At this point you add a little bit of voltage, which should help your chip to run stable again and then you go back to increasing the multiplier in steps. You repeat all this until your temperatures get unacceptably high or the voltage reaches a point that is considered unsafe for your chip.

That is pretty much it. There are a lot more settings you can fiddle with, but that is the process in a nutshell. The thing with Core Intels is that they are ridiculously easy to overclock. If you know how to read, follow instructions and have some patience, pretty much any chip can be overclocked to a worth while speed. Nothing is guaranteed, but exceptions are fairly rare. The older Core chips generally overclock a little better than the newest ones (Ivy Bridge and Haswell), but are of course a little less efficient per clock.

[Camacha]

I too have to take the cpu clock out of auto for anything interesting to happen

The Auto feature is generally a horrible way of overclocking your chip. This feature typically cranks up the voltage like crazy and plunks the multiplier to a fairly random value. This causes a lot of heat and not the most stable overclocks. If you spend an evening fiddling around with things, you will always* end up with a much more subtle, cool and possibly faster overclock.

* If you can follow a manual, that is.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Camacha

[steve_v]

I was refering to the 'cpu clock multiplier: auto' option, not the evil auto tuner

FWIW the 'auto tuner' on my board just cranks up the BCLK and applies moar VCore, in a rather ham fisted fashion. "Congratulations! LEVEL UP!".... crash and burn. I tried it once and it performed exactly as anticipated.

I generaly avoid adding much VCore, if any, this while watching the actual load voltages like a hawk - what you set is rarely what you get since CPU scaling, LLC and a whole raft of 'better overclocking' "features" tend to interfere.

Current OC is with no additional voltage anywhere, beyond the stock turbo mode boost. Therefore nice and cool, nice and quiet.

The manual (and I use the term loosely) would be a lot more relevant if it actually had anything in it. Idiots guide pictures and option descriptions like: 'Enable of feature might enhance the overclocking' seems to be about what you get

Do not, under any circumstance, buy a SSD with a Sandforce controller.

Harsh, but true. Regardless of claims that the 'firmware bugs' have been fixed it's not worth the risk.

There's a lot of hype over read/write speeds for SSDS, truth is that even a slow SSD is going to be considerably faster than any but the fanciest spinning disk, and for latency there's no comparison. That said, I'd probably still go for a pair of 15000RPM platters if I can get em.

Edited August 31, 2014 by steve_v

[Camacha]

The manual (and I use the term loosely) would be a lot more relevant if it actually had anything in it. Idiots guide pictures and option descriptions like: 'Enable of feature might enhance the overclocking' seems to be about what you get

The confusion is my fault since I was not explicit enough, but I was talking about guides written by knowledgeable and helpful people on the intarweb, not the manufacturers guide. There is a lot of nonsense out there, but if you have a look around you should be able to find something that makes sense. Every Intel generation has a slightly different version, but the idea is essentially the same. If you take your time, follow the instructions and use your brain you should have a fairly decent overclock within an hour or so.

In earlier generations it was much more a question of interpretation, fiddling and some black magic, but today's generations are a breeze to overclock.

There's a lot of hype over read/write speeds for SSDS, truth is that even a slow SSD is going to be considerably faster than any but the fanciest spinning disk, and for latency there's no comparison.

It is exactly that hype that lures people into buying disappointing SSDs. Ridiculous read and write claims based on ideally compressible data (all zeros, as if anyone is ever going to write that a lot), RAM disk set-ups that jeopardize data or wonky RAID on a PCB, to name a few. While you are right: pretty much any modern SSD is going to be an massive improvement. I do think it pays to go for quality, but going for pure numbers and specifications is going to get you disappointing results.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Camacha

[ac30fspad35]

unrelated to your guys matters these are my specs

intel core i7-4500u 3.0 ghz with turbo boost

nvidia 840m

8 gbs of ram

1 terrabyte of hardrive

5 hours battery life.

os......win..dows....8.....i dont like 8.

[steve_v]

os......win..dows....8.....i dont like 8.

So install 7? Or GNU/Linux, and enjoy stable 64bit KSP?

While 8 *seems* to be an okay OS, I could stand about five minutes of the new gui foolishness. It's just horrible.

[ac30fspad35]

sigh but....but its 8.......

edit: never mind figured out a way that it will give me notifications so i can choose to update when i want to instead of UPDATING EVERY DAMN TIME I POWER THE LAPTOP.

[Camacha]

While 8 *seems* to be an okay OS, I could stand about five minutes of the new gui foolishness. It's just horrible.

A lot of people feel this way, but I seriously think that if people would give it a chance they would find a very nice OS. Sure, the UI is different and that has people jumping, but if you accept that it is going to be different instead of trying to hold on to what was, it works out pretty well. I had to wrestle about and hour and a half with it, after that it turned out to be the best OS I ever used.

I am sad that most people jumped on the hate train and never gave it a fair chance. Sure, don't get me wrong, some people really will not like it no matter how hard they try, but most started out with the notion that it was either bad anyway (because that is what they heard) or got frustrated because it is no Windows 7, therefore bad and never really looked at the OS as it is. They tried a couple of new things and, as is the nature of new things, some worked out better than others, but my fear is that Windows 9 is going to revert a lot of the nice things in Windows 8 simply because people could not handle them.

[ac30fspad35]

wi...windows n..n..nine.....it must be hellspawn.

but in all sanitys sake i do actually like windows 8 i just had to figure out a way to change it from updating every single time i power on my computer.

[steve_v]

Given the choice, I pick KDE any day (though bash is pretty nice too . Enough knobs to set the UI up just how I like it. My pc should adapt to how I operate, not the other way around.

[Camacha]

I have been flirting with Ubuntu for over a decade now, and have been trying more seriously to get to grips with it for the past year. I must admit I sometimes feel a little lost in a jungle of magic commands and missing spaces, but the basis OS and installation of essential programs is very easy and Terminal-less. Clearly more streamlined than in previous years.

It will be some time before I feel like a power user though Windows sure can be clunky, but if you know how to work it, it is flexible and has an amazing range. Of course, that might be the Stockholm syndrome talking, as I am currently, for various reasons, bound to Windows as my main OS.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Camacha

[cantab]

"Under the hood" Windows 8 has some things to recommend it, and I opted for it on my new SSD over Windows 7. But the Start Screen is a big waste of time, and the UI overall is a little schizophrenic. It does make some sense on hybrids, which MS are pushing with their Surface Pro, but it has issues on a pure tablet and on a desktop.

On the Linux side I'm a long-running KDE fan, but I switched to xfce for my new install to save on the RAM, since my PC "only" has 4 GB. I considered LXDE but the current Lubuntu seems to have a few niggles, and the clincher was xfce's window manager doing half-maximise by dragging to the screen edge, invaluable for working with things side-by-side.

[steve_v]

OS and installation of essential programs is very easy and Terminal-less.

Actually, this is one of the main reasons I don't like *buntu. I prefer the terminal for most tasks.

IMHO one of the advantages of UNIX-like systems is that you can do & automate _everything_ from a console, or a remote shell. The less I need to use the rodent, the happier I am.

The lack of a decent command-line interpreter is one of my major beefs with Windows - yes I know about powershell, but this sort of thing should come pre-installed.

if you know how to work it, it is flexible and has an amazing range.

I would say the same about command-line *NIX

@cantab: You know you can mix-and-match window managers, right?

[Rainbowtrout]

Should I invest in this?

[Baenki]

Hello again.

After my try to configure my own PC failed miserably (the people in the store where i wanted it to be built, thought it would be a better idea to sell me overpriced and underpowered machines and the prices for assembly in onlinestores are utopic) i searched online again and found this one.

https://m.notebooksbilliger.de/pc+systeme/hyrican+pc+systeme/pc+hyrican+alpha+gaming+pc+4244+intel+i7+4770+34+ghz+143072

What do you think?

Note i will get a 50€ students discount so the pc will be

949€ instead of 999€.

I know the customer rating is bad but it is because only 2 ppl rated it and one got his delivered broken.

I also read a new mouse and keyboard are included.

Edit: one customer said there is an i7-4790 inside insted of i7-4770

Edited September 8, 2014 by Baenki

[Elthy]

If you have problems building the PC on your own i would suggest you to look here:

http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/komplette-rechner-zusammenstellung/229690-die-pcgh-bastler-vor-ort-hilfe-bei-montage-und-problemen.html

There are guys who help you for free (since the just enjoy building PCs) and you dont need to buy an overpriced PC.

The PC you posted isnt that bad for a prebuild PC but the i7 is a waste of money (if you need hyperthreading you should take a Xeon 1321, otherwise an i5 is enough). Also there is no info about the GPU (which 280X is it?) and you could buy the same hardware cheaper online (i suggest Mindfactory).