KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[briansun1]

Got a question. I have a 500W PSU right now if I were to upgrade from a 7870 ghz edition to the GTX 780. Would I a) have enough power and would it be worth the money.

[Camacha]

Got a question. I have a 500W PSU right now if I were to upgrade from a 7870 ghz edition to the GTX 780. Would I a) have enough power and would it be worth the money.

Please read my post here on PSU's. Also please note that "a 500 PSU" is about as descriptive as "a yellow car". No one will know what it can do. Make and model are vital when dealing with PSU's, as there is total junk that is never going to do what it is rated for, and proper stuff that will do everything it says and a lot more.

If you turn out to have a rubbish PSU you will need to upgrade anyway - running one is asking for all sorts of vague and nasty trouble. You need a proper PSU from a proper brand, no ifs ands or buts. Together with good storage (and backups) it is the basis and backbone for any system. A fast processor is optional, a good PSU is not.

[Elthy]

It depends on a lot of things:

Why do you want to upgrade? The 7870 is good enough for highest Settings on Full HD in most games while the GTX 780 isnt that much faster (about 50%) that i would spend that much money for that. Also you have to specify which PSU you have, cheap ones cant deliver the power thats printed on them. Another required detail would be the installed CPU, there isnt much point in a faster GPU if you CPU is to slow...

[briansun1]

Please read my post here on PSU's. Also please note that "a 500 PSU" is about as descriptive as "a yellow car". No one will know what it can do. Make and model are vital when dealing with PSU's, as there is total junk that is never going to do what it is rated for, and proper stuff that will do everything it says and a lot more.

If you turn out to have a rubbish PSU you will need to upgrade anyway - running one is asking for all sorts of vague and nasty trouble. You need a proper PSU from a proper brand, no ifs ands or buts. Together with good storage (and backups) it is the basis and backbone for any system. A fast processor is optional, a good PSU is not.

PSU is a SILVERSTONE Strider Plus 500W BRONZE. CPU is a i5 3570K

[Elthy]

If you realy need this upgrade i would go for the GTX 970, its the same price but faster, more efficient and with never technology...

[joppiesaus]

Go for the new 970 or 980. They have much, much better value for money and they will fit with your current PSU because they are more power efficient.

+ newer technology.

[impwarhamer]

hey guys, I just thought of something that went strait over my head before, don't know how i didn't think of it earlyer.

How much am I going to have to worry about cooling my new card? Do these things have an automatic shutdown if they over heat or do you need specific equipment?

This will be the first time I've added some major hardware to my PC, so I don't really know much at all about this.

[Nuke]

hey guys, I just thought of something that went strait over my head before, don't know how i didn't think of it earlyer.

How much am I going to have to worry about cooling my new card? Do these things have an automatic shutdown if they over heat or do you need specific equipment?

This will be the first time I've added some major hardware to my PC, so I don't really know much at all about this.

my gtx560 did. ive been having trouble with my gpu fan, its bering is shot. the card is fine when mostly idle. its rated to function at up to 99c, i was logging temperature with gpuz while attempting to run a game and found that as soon as the gpu temp hit 100 the system would shut down (crash), stay off for several seconds, and then reboot. the card does not behave like it has any permanent damage.

[cantab]

Obviously the GPU will have its own cooling fans. Bigger cards typically draw air from inside the case and expel it out the back, smaller ones just circulate air over their heatsinks or are even passively cooled.

Provided you have reasonable general airflow, which you will in any decent case with at least one case fan, you'll have nothing to worry about. To be sure, get some canned air and clean out all the dust before putting the new graphics card in.

[Camacha]

my gtx560 did. ive been having trouble with my gpu fan, its bering is shot. the card is fine when mostly idle. its rated to function at up to 99c, i was logging temperature with gpuz while attempting to run a game and found that as soon as the gpu temp hit 100 the system would shut down (crash), stay off for several seconds, and then reboot. the card does not behave like it has any permanent damage.

If your card often hits those kinds of temperatures you really need to check out dust and airflow, because that is not supposed to happen.

[impwarhamer]

ok, as long as it will shutdown on overheat i'm ok, that way i know i need to have more fans or something.

[Nuke]

If your card often hits those kinds of temperatures you really need to check out dust and airflow, because that is not supposed to happen.

i did that, it didnt fix the shot bearing, and its why im still able to use my rig. i guess video card manufacturers figure that shoddy fan bearings are useful to increase their bottom line. it reduces the fans maximum rpm so it can no longer deal with the thermal output of the card (it no longer satisfies the thermal design requirements while gaming), it also melts the video card so you have to buy a new one. i plan on replacing the fan asap, but im a couple weeks from building a new system anyway. gonna move up to something in the neighborhood of a gtx750. im shooting for a low power, low heat, small footprint rig that can game with the best of em. will post more about that when i get the needed $$$ in a couple weeks. its going to be a really weird build.

that pretty much means im stuck playing frontier: first encounters instead of ksp in the mean time, i hope i can get it together before ksp 0.25. the pirate encounters 3 times a cargo run are starting to get to me.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Nuke

[skiingrules88]

So I'm looking to put together computer that I can run ksp with no lag with high graphics settings and a bunch of mods (clouds have been the cause of most of my lag in the past I think). I don't tend to play with really high part counts, so I'm mostly concerned about turning the graphics all the way up. My school's engineering department is selling their old machines which I have played on and they are much better than my laptop that I have been using most of the time to play. I figure for $150 I can buy one of these and then upgrade the cpu or graphics card. Here is what's in the computer's they're selling:

HP 8000 Elite Full Tower

Intel core 2 duo 3GHz processor

Nvidia Quadro FX 580 GPU

4GB RAM

250GB HDD

I know I would definitely have to upgrade the RAM to at least 8 GB, but what would be the next most important thing? I've read mixed info between cpu and graphics card. Or is this computer just too low-powered and I would have to replace everything making the whole plan of buying it pointless?

[R0cketC0der]

So I'm looking to put together computer that I can run ksp with no lag with high graphics settings and a bunch of mods (clouds have been the cause of most of my lag in the past I think). I don't tend to play with really high part counts, so I'm mostly concerned about turning the graphics all the way up. My school's engineering department is selling their old machines which I have played on and they are much better than my laptop that I have been using most of the time to play. I figure for $150 I can buy one of these and then upgrade the cpu or graphics card. Here is what's in the computer's they're selling:

HP 8000 Elite Full Tower

Intel core 2 duo 3GHz processor

Nvidia Quadro FX 580 GPU

4GB RAM

250GB HDD

I know I would definitely have to upgrade the RAM to at least 8 GB, but what would be the next most important thing? I've read mixed info between cpu and graphics card. Or is this computer just too low-powered and I would have to replace everything making the whole plan of buying it pointless?

I wouldn't buy that pc and upgrade it. You would need to replace at least the motherboard, the CPU and the GPU to be able to play anything on there. Buying all the components yourself would most likely be cheaper.

Also, what exactly will you use the pc for? Is it just KSP or also any other games? What is your budget?

[cantab]

It depends what you want. If you're after a reasonable gaming PC by current standards, don't bother, all the tech is too old. But if you want a system on a very low budget that's better than what you have it seems like a good buy.

Processor-wise upgrade potential is limited and modern Intel CPUs will run KSP a lot better. That said plenty of people are playing KSP on processors of similar performance. A memory upgrade could work well provided there are free RAM slots, ask to check before buying if you can. GPU upgrade potential is good but bear in mind that spending a lot of money probably isn't worth it.

[impwarhamer]

Ok, so today the gtx 980 and psu arrived today, and I've managed to install them and download the drivers. It's really amazing, I was just running battlefield 4 at 100fps on ultra!

Anyway, I seem to have a small problem which I can't seem to find on the internets. My windows UI seems to be scaled up. I've tried changing the resolution and stuff, but I can't seem to find a fix. Everything is fine in games and videos though so it's not that much of a big deal.

[Camacha]

Did you change Right click on desktop > Personalize > Display (lower left corner) > Slide slider all the way to the left? That is what needs to be changed on most systems and makes everything look wrong-scaled-blurry even on correct resolutions.

This is for Windows 8, other versions might have other menu structures or this option not at all.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Camacha

[impwarhamer]

ok that sorta worked, but now my taskbar is tiny. Also, all the tiles on the start menu are still really big.

[joppiesaus]

Did you install drivers?

[impwarhamer]

Did you install drivers?

Yes, directly from nvidea website.

[Camacha]

ok that sorta worked, but now my taskbar is tiny.

Do you have, by any chance, turned on small taskbar icons? Right click on empty taskbar > Taskbar tab > Uncheck Use small taskbar buttons. If you have that turned off it really is the normal size for the taskbar, maybe you just need to get used to a smaller size after working with the bigger version.

Also, all the tiles on the start menu are still really big.

I think those are supposed to be big, that is kind of the point. Or are yours different than what you would normally see?

This is about normal:

[impwarhamer]

ok guys, don't worry. It just magically fixed itself for no apparent reason. No idea how, but I'm not complaining!

The start screen icons still seem bigger than normal, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Thanks anyway, and thanks for helping me upgrade my card.

Edited September 25, 2014 by impwarhamer

[Nuke]

1 week till i get monies and im starting to finalize my build. this is my current parts list:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=31249167

this is a mini-itx build. i picked this case specifically to fit in a compartment in my desk and dont want another monolith case to trip over. it comes with one 120mm fan mounting(more if i want to give up my gpu, uhmmm no) but it can be upgraded to 140mm, i found me the cheapest fluid dynamic type fan i could find. it can do 90 cfm, and so i think it will do fine. because of the unusual case design measurements are everything. things like length of the video card and depth of the power supply matter here. this is also not my first cube case but it is my first mini-itx build.

its going to run a 65w i7 4790s cpu. mini-itx boards only have room for one card slot, and since im putting a gtx750ti in that slot, i need a mobo with wifi built in. the mobo i found does this fine. if i want to spend twice as much i could drop in a mobo that supports faster ram speeds, but that will likely go against the low power/heat/noise/cost design im going for. im getting a small ssd for my os, and will use my existing ssd for files.

and now the dreaded power supply critique. in my last several builds i have noticed drastic declines in power consumption. in fact i ran this whole build through a psu calculator and discovered that this system will draw no more than 253 watts (peak estimate). i was originally going to get a power efficient 380w supply but instead opted for a 400w unit (to better compensate for capacitor aging). i have a couple older psus (a 650w and 750w) i can drop in if that is not enough, but i think it will be.

[Red Iron Crown]

Nuke, are you sure about the 4790s? For about the same money you could get a regular 4790 which is clocked a good bit higher and idles at about the same wattage, the only time the lower power draw of the 4790s would matter is when it's actually crunching at peak capacity. I don't really know your use case, but if you don't spend a lot of time pegging the processor it might not be worth it.

[Nuke]

im thinking about it. might need a few extra watts from the psu to compensate though. if i can move up to a 450w without too much extra cost it might be worth it. that cpu is only about $5 more. that pushes my peek power up to 290w. so a 450w should allow for some capacitor aging and still be able to deliver the required power. i know from building smps devices that you dont want to load a power supply over about 65-75% of its rated capacity.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Nuke