KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[swiftgates24]

Another decent tip is that, to load the GPU in games, you generally turn up the graphics way high. Big resolutions, lots of detail, that kind of stuff. To load the processor you do the reverse. Turn the graphics all the way down and you generally artificially limit the system by CPU.

Just a little note, in most games, anything below normal is handled by the CPU, and anything above high is handled by the GPU. A nice way to balance performance is having half of the settings on low, normal, or very low if it's an option, and half on them on high or ultra so the load is spread between the CPU and GPU. This doesn't work in all games, however.

[Camacha]

Just a little note, in most games, anything below normal is handled by the CPU, and anything above high is handled by the GPU. A nice way to balance performance is having half of the settings on low, normal, or very low if it's an option, and half on them on high or ultra so the load is spread between the CPU and GPU. This doesn't work in all games, however.

I am not sure what exactly you mean, but it's not like certain aspects get switched from CPU to GPU or vice versa. If you have your shadows set on Low they get done by the GPU, if they are set on Ultra too. Item range, such as in Skyrim, always gets (mostly) done by the CPU, no matter whether the setting is High or Low. The same goes for a lot of other settings.

[swiftgates24]

Well, for example, in DayZ, you can pretty much control what the CPU does and what the GPU does.

[Camacha]

Well, for example, in DayZ, you can pretty much control what the CPU does and what the GPU does.

I am not familiar with DayZ and the underlying technology, but if that is accurate it is a rather rare exception. Do you have examples of this? A quick Google search did not yield any relevant results.

[jfx]

Just a little note, in most games, anything below normal is handled by the CPU, and anything above high is handled by the GPU. A nice way to balance performance is having half of the settings on low, normal, or very low if it's an option, and half on them on high or ultra so the load is spread between the CPU and GPU. This doesn't work in all games, however.

This is both grossly oversimplified and completely:

The gist is: Your CPU will determine what minimum FPS you will get (unless you have a GPU that is stressed out by rendering Office 2003), this is barely affected by most game settings (except stuff like viewing distance (ARMA etc.) traffic density (GTA) or similar stuff which translates in less computational workload on the CPU.

In contrast GPU load is very easy to scale, be it through feature switches (SSAO, AA, AF, Post Processing, etc) or simple scaling of resolution, mesh complexity, etc.

Edited November 3, 2014 by jfx

[GiantZombies]

Hey everyone, I'll try to make this as short as possible and just get into the details.

I've been playing KSP on a laptop for the better part of 2 years now. Nothing too fancy, just enough to get me through daily use and play a few relatively low-demand games. When I first got into KSP I thought "This thing is never going to run this but whatever, it's worth a shot", and much to my surprise (integrated graphics/ancient CPU) it ran quite nicely until I started building bigger and bigger things. Well long story short, my laptop is no more, and seeing how it's a off the shelf laptop from Best Buy I don't expect it's really worth fixing if it's even fixable. So I've decided to go about building a PC which will hopefully be at least a bit more capable than my old toaster.

Problem is, I've got no experience with actually building PC's (Seriously, none, nada, zip, does replacing RAM count?). Luckily for me, you folks have this awesome thread set up where I can hopefully ask questions to my hearts content and figure things out. So to start off with, I'll fill out this build helper thing. Sorry if it gets confusing at some point or another, I'm horrible at formatting things like this.

What are you planning to do with this computer? Please be as specific as possible.

General everyday use, with a bit of gaming on the side.

What is your budget?

$500-$600 USD

Does this include a copy of Windows?

Yep, gonna need one. Unless someone who would recommend Linux over Windows can point me in the direction of a good build and humor me a bit while I pester them with questions about it.

Does this include peripherals (a keyboard, monitor, mouse, speakers, etc.)?

For the most part, no. I've got a mouse I used with the laptop because of my undying hate for trackpads. Speakers, check. Monitor, check. If anyone can recommend a nice keyboard though, I'll probably be needing one of those.

Are you from the United States or a different country? Are you ordering from your own country or from across borders?

US, and I'm not exactly sure where I'll be ordering from yet.

Wherever you may be from, does the store that you are planning to order from have a website? It's okay if it isn't in English, we can manage.

Like I said, I haven't picked a retailer yet but I was planning on going with Tigerdirect or NewEgg. I'm open to recommendations though.

If you are from the United States, do you live nearby a Microcenter?

Just checked and... Nope...

Do you have any specific requests with the build?

Not really, just that it be able to outperform my old laptop. Which I suspect won't be hard to do.

Do you plan on overclocking?

Nahh.

Would you prefer the build to be particularly small?

To be honest smaller is better, but bigger is usually easier as far as I know. So it doesn't really matter I guess.

Would you prefer the build to be particularly quiet?

I don't care, make it as loud as a turbine engine, as long as it stays cool and does what I want it to it's fine by me. I rarely get on a computer without having headphones on anyways.

In general, do you prefer this to be a computer that you can spend money on now and let it rest, or a box built for continuous upgrading?

I'd like to be able to upgrade if I can, but to be honest when I actually do upgrade I'll probably build a new rig with a bit bigger budget. I'm just kinda getting my feet wet with this first build and trying to get a grip on what I'm doing.

Do you ever plan on utilizing NVIDIA's SLI or AMD's CrossfireX technologies? These features, with a compatible motherboard, allow a user to link multiple identical graphic cards together for added performance. In real world terms, this lets you buy a second identical graphics card down the line as a relatively cheap and easy way to gain a fairly large boost in performance. However, this requires buying a SLI/CFX compatible motherboard and PSU now, which may result in slightly higher initial cost.

Nope, for what I'm going to be using it for I don't see a need to do so.

Alright, that's finished (I hope). If I've left anything out or anyone needs any more information let me know. If you're patient enough to put up with me and answer all my inevitable dumb questions I'm more than willing to help out where I can, I just need some guidance on this and some recommended builds. Thanks!

[cantab]

On that budget and with KSP in mind Intel really gets the nod over AMD. If you're prepared to reconsider overclocking, the Pentium G3258 is Intel's only budget overclockable CPU and typically does very well. If you definitely want to stick with stock speeds, get the fastest-clocked Intel CPU you can afford - probably the Pentium G3450 or maybe the Core i3-4370. Core i5's are out of your budget I think.

Pair that with a decent affordable motherboard. Preferably a H97 (if you aren't OCing) or Z97 (if you are); if you're looking at something else do your homework in checking the CPU compatibility and overclocking options. As for size either a full ATX or microATX board should be fine. If you really want a compact PC consider a mini ITX board, but they tend to only have two RAM slots.

For RAM, I'd want some free space for future upgrades, so two sticks if the motherboard takes four or a single stick if it takes two. 4 GB is miserly, 8 is standard, 16 falls into nice to have territory. And don't get RAM with overlarge heatsinks, they're not very useful and get in the way of big CPU coolers which are.

For a graphics card, Nvidia Geforce GTX 750 Ti, or regular 750 if you need to save a few bucks. The 750 Ti will handle almost all modern games at 1080p fine.

For drives, unless you're a big music and movie hoarder get yourself a solid state drive. The presence or absence of an SSD is probably the biggest impact on general PC responsiveness. One of the Crucial MX100s would be good.

[Camacha]

It would be nice to have a little more info on the laptop. You are asking for a build that will outperform it, but we don't know what it should outperform. Surely, a new build will surpass even moderately fast laptops with some ease, but it might be useful to know what you considered okay-ish before.

For a graphics card, Nvidia Geforce GTX 750 Ti, or regular 750 if you need to save a few bucks. The 750 Ti will handle almost all modern games at 1080p fine.

Or a AMD R7 265, R9 270 or 270X, depending on budget and requirements. Those seem to have an edge when it comes to bang for buck.

[GiantZombies]

I just did a quick check before posting and I'd just like to say. I'm sorry if anyone hates reading tons of stuff, I can get very analytical at times (You can thank Squad for that). I don't mean to write an entire novel for a forum post. But hell, I'm trying to get you guys as much info as I can so I can get the info I need. So I'll thank you for your patience in advance.

On that budget and with KSP in mind Intel really gets the nod over AMD. If you're prepared to reconsider overclocking, the Pentium G3258 is Intel's only budget overclockable CPU and typically does very well. If you definitely want to stick with stock speeds, get the fastest-clocked Intel CPU you can afford - probably the Pentium G3450 or maybe the Core i3-4370. Core i5's are out of your budget I think.

I'm open to overclocking, I just wasn't really thinking into it too much when I typed all that. The main thing limiting me on this is that I know even less about

overclocking than I do about building a PC in the first place. After a bit of thinking though I'm starting to see I could get a good bit of extra performance for little to no extra cost if I do it. So if you or anyone else can point me towards a good tutorial or something, I'd appreciate it. And yeah, I'd like to get a Core i5, but it's definitely out of my budget from what I can see.

Pair that with a decent affordable motherboard. Preferably a H97 (if you aren't OCing) or Z97 (if you are); if you're looking at something else do your homework in checking the CPU compatibility and overclocking options. As for size either a full ATX or microATX board should be fine. If you really want a compact PC consider a mini ITX board, but they tend to only have two RAM slots.

This is the part I was most concerned about, I was considering this as the starting point of my build more or less. Since (I'm assuming) most of everything will revolve around what motherboard I choose. I'll have a look at the ones you suggested and see which looks better. And to reference the last point, I'll probably go with something I can overclock, just so I have the option to do so.

For RAM, I'd want some free space for future upgrades, so two sticks if the motherboard takes four or a single stick if it takes two. 4 GB is miserly, 8 is standard, 16 falls into nice to have territory. And don't get RAM with overlarge heatsinks, they're not very useful and get in the way of big CPU coolers which are.

I'm with you completely on this one, this is something I've needed to upgrade in the past so I expect I'll need to do it again sooner or later. I'll probably start off with 8gb (if possible) and then upgrade later if I wind up needing more and I've got room for it.

For a graphics card, Nvidia Geforce GTX 750 Ti, or regular 750 if you need to save a few bucks. The 750 Ti will handle almost all modern games at 1080p fine.

I know nothing of graphics cards other than integrated doesn't always do what I want it to. So I'll more than likely end up getting one of the ones you suggested. Depending on price though, I may go with something different if I can get comparable performance for comparable cost.

For drives, unless you're a big music and movie hoarder get yourself a solid state drive. The presence or absence of an SSD is probably the biggest impact on general PC responsiveness. One of the Crucial MX100s would be good.

I actually am a music/movie hoarder, but luckily I've got an external HDD I store all of that on. I've heard SSD's are pretty pricey, but I don't expect I'll need a ridiculous amount of space for what I'll be using the PC for. So I'll have a look at the one you suggested and see if it's in my price range. *crosses fingers* (I NEEEEEDDD fast load times)

It would be nice to have a little more info on the laptop. You are asking for a build that will outperform it, but we don't know what it should outperform. Surely, a new build will surpass even moderately fast laptops with some ease, but it might be useful to know what you considered okay-ish before.

I guess I did kinda leave this part out, thanks for bringing it up. The last system I was playing on was a Toshiba Satellite C55t-B5110 (I'll link it below). Long story short, it's dead and no warranty is going to cover it. So I feel my money would be better spent building a PC rather than buying one off the shelf.

Link to PC in question - http://www.toshiba.com/us/computers/laptops/satellite/C50/C55T-B5110

[Camacha]

Link to PC in question - http://www.toshiba.com/us/computers/laptops/satellite/C50/C55T-B5110

Intel says the chip in that laptop was released in 2014. You managed to kill off your laptop in a little over half a year? It actually seems to be a reasonable laptop with a quadcore chip and fair single thread speed, so unless you want to build a dedicated KSP computer (read: one fast single thread) you will need a proper processor in the new build. Graphics and RAM are a little easier to improve on, I would suggest the aforementioned 270 or 270X or a sightly slower 750ti.

I actually am a music/movie hoarder, but luckily I've got an external HDD I store all of that on. I've heard SSD's are pretty pricey, but I don't expect I'll need a ridiculous amount of space for what I'll be using the PC for. So I'll have a look at the one you suggested and see if it's in my price range. *crosses fingers* (I NEEEEEDDD fast load times)

SSD's have become pretty affordable and transform the experience of computing in many subtle and profound ways. Even if you can only put Windows on the drive it is worth it. I do seem to interpret your words are you not having a proper backup drive though and that is something you really should get sorted. Any data not on two drives is data you don't care about.

[Cooly568]

This is, the new computer I spent many days planning and five days building.

Intel i7 4790k @ 4.6 GHz

ASUS STRIX 970

16GB Corsair LP @ 1600MHz

MSI Z97 PC Mate

Two 1TB HDD's in RAID 1

One 2TB HDD

One 160GB HDD

One 90GB Corsair Force SSD

Noctua DH-15

EVGA Supernova NEX750G

Cooler Master Megaflow and Jetflo Fans (Count x2 Megaflow x2 Jetflo)

Aerocool DS Fans (Count x5)

NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition

I put some tests on it here.

[Camacha]

Where is your SSD? A computer like that begs for one, you really miss out on fully enjoying your gear without one.

[Red Iron Crown]

There's a 90GB SSD listed...

Seems smallish for such a high end rig, but for storage it looks like capacity is a bigger priority than performance.

[Camacha]

There's a 90GB SSD listed...

It must have been the Sandforce controller why I overlooked that. You can hardly call that a real SSD

Just kidding, it is a real SSD - for as long as they happen to work.

[cantab]

Intel says the chip in that laptop was released in 2014. You managed to kill off your laptop in a little over half a year?

It varies by country, but if the laptop's not even lasted a year and it's not been subject to abuse I'd expect a repair or replacement free of charge.

This is, the new computer I spent many days planning and five days building.

Good work on the build. What's with the hard drive setup though, it seems odd to have a RAID array and then a drive not in it.

[Cooly568]

There are two 1TB drives I use for most data, like important videos, and things I want stored safely that are large. (the RAID setup is this)

The 2TB drive wasn't a part of the original plan, I received it from my friend who claimed it was broken, but I plugged it straight in and it's run fine, so that's for storing low importance files, like less important video files and programs.

The 160GB was yanked out of an old, old computer, and I just use it as a sort of USB drive. (it sits in my hot-swap bay)

The 90GB SSD is just for Windows and either small programs and games, or games I want to run faster.

The SSD is installed behind the Mobo, the Phantom 630 has it's SSD's stored there.

[Red Iron Crown]

RAID is actually less important than doing proper backups. RAID protects you from exactly one mode of data loss: drive failure. Any other loss mode is not mitigated by it, like user error, malware, file corruption, etc. If you don't have a backup plan in place you'd be better off mirroring the drive once a week and then disconnecting it to store somewhere safe.

[Camacha]

The 90GB SSD is just for Windows and either small programs and games, or games I want to run faster.

As long as you are aware that SSDs with a Sandforce controller are known to be unreliable you should be fine.

RAID is actually less important than doing proper backups. RAID protects you from exactly one mode of data loss: drive failure. Any other loss mode is not mitigated by it, like user error, malware, file corruption, etc. If you don't have a backup plan in place you'd be better off mirroring the drive once a week and then disconnecting it to store somewhere safe.

Agreed. RAID is not backup.

[xtoro]

Where is your SSD? A computer like that begs for one, you really miss out on fully enjoying your gear without one.

I don't know why ppl keep saying this... I have the same processor @4.5Ghz and RAM @2400, with a triple RAID 0 array, no SSD. Yes I realize SSD is fast but it doesn't change anything when doing something like playing KSP... I do have another system with an SSD, but my newer build with the RAID array loads and plays faster and better. Plus, once KSP is loaded, there's not a whole lot of disk activity anyways...

[Camacha]

Yes I realize SSD is fast but it doesn't change anything when doing something like playing KSP... I do have another system with an SSD, but my newer build with the RAID array loads and plays faster and better. Plus, once KSP is loaded, there's not a whole lot of disk activity anyways...

To even get to play you need to boot and simply doing that is worth the SSD already. '...the RAID array loads and plays better' is a statement that is hard to back up with numbers, because if you look at them it just isn't so. I don't know what SSD you have got and what hardware you use it with, but a modern one used on comparable hardware will rock the socks off of any RAID array, not to mention acoustics, power consumption and, most importantly, reliability. RAID arrays are, for a number of reasons, statistically more prone to break and rebuilding your array becomes a real chore after a while. Any one disk corrupts or breaks and your data is gone. RAID arrays are pretty decent when it comes to sequential data, but when you look at more random workloads, like most typical workloads actually are, SSDs and HDDs are a world apart.

Besides, maybe you are the rare exception that only plays KSP, but most people do a lot of other stuff with their PCs and pretty much everything benefits from a SSD, ranging from moderate gains to game changing speed increases. HDDs have been great cheap tech, but SSDs really are the next big thing. Don't forget we are only seeing the beginning, manufacturers are still figuring out how to deal with the technology, when proper M.2 or PCI-E SSDs become common speeds will get another huge bump, as SATA3 is already limiting the current ones.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Camacha

[xtoro]

Boot? Who needs to boot? That's what sleep mode is for... And funny you post that video because the SSD I was talking about IS a Crucial M4... As for RAID being prone to breaking, everything is prone to breaking so who cares? That's what backups are for.

I'm just saying. I enjoy my high end specs in my PC, and I kept my RAID array when I upgraded my components because I have 800GB of data on it. Which would be ridiculously expensive to replace with SSD's that can have the same storage, for a minor bump in hard drive speed, which doesn't bother me at all to begin with. Plus, I just didn't feel like doing the work.

It just annoys me when people post specs and there's always some troll saying "What? No SSD? SSD is the best blah blah blah"..... barf.

[Red Iron Crown]

It just annoys me when people post specs and there's always some troll saying "What? No SSD? SSD is the best blah blah blah"..... barf.

They're not trolling. SSDs do make a big difference in the responsiveness of the system, more than the benchmarks would suggest. There's a reason they're so popular despite the cost per gigabyte being so much higher. Not overly useful for bulk storage though, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to store a big movie or music collection on one.

[xtoro]

They're not trolling. SSDs do make a big difference in the responsiveness of the system, more than the benchmarks would suggest. There's a reason they're so popular despite the cost per gigabyte being so much higher. Not overly useful for bulk storage though, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to store a big movie or music collection on one.

I'm just saying that it's really annoying that every time someone posts specs of a rig and it doesn't have SSD, someone pipes up and starts trashing the build because it doesn't have SSD... Like when Cooly568 posted his specs, and it's happened when I posted my specs, on multiple sites including this one, and it's really annoying because to be honest, yes I can afford it. Do I want to spend my money on a minor bump in performance? Or do I want to spend it on my truck, or my car, or my house, or my wife, or invest in something, or just save it... I'd rather do any of the latter because I don't like throwing away my money.

I also find that these comments usually come from somebody who has a crappy system, but has an SSD drive. So when I post my specs of my high end rig that blows theirs out of the water, they try to trash it by saying it has no SSD lol

[Red Iron Crown]

I guess it depends on your use case. The storage I/O bottleneck is still a major one for most users, the performance gain from switching to a decent SSD is more than "a minor bump" and is definitely not throwing away money. Personally I wouldn't build a system today, even at the lower end, without an SSD.

But it is of course your money and your decision how to spend it, if you feel an SSD isn't a good value proposition for you by all means don't spend your money on one.

[xtoro]

'...the RAID array loads and plays better' is a statement that is hard to back up with numbers, because if you look at them it just isn't so. I don't know what SSD you have got and what hardware you use it with, but a modern one used on comparable hardware will rock the socks off of any RAID array

So here's the numbers, since you asked.

Here's my SSD system, with a Crucial M4 drive (can see it in the device manager), just like the video you posted:

Here's my RAID0 system:

Here's a video of me running a benchmark on both systems. I didn't do bootup time because my RAID system is running Win7 and my SSD is running Win8, so Windows 8 boot faster regardless and is only marginally faster, so this is a moot point.

As you can see, the RAID0 performs faster than the SSD hands down, by almost double the speed. Even one of the newest SSD's with claimed speeds of 500/s will still only get high 400's, which is hardly faster than my RAID array. Get an SSD with even higher speeds like some extreme model and you're pay much much more for the SSD... And yes, games also load faster on the RAID including KSP.

Also,

RAID 0 System is three Samsung S4's, 320GB each, total cost $150.

SSD system with equivalent storage space would cost approx $500 for a single drive.

So there, you have your numbers, and the RAID wins, period.

Thanks.

Edited November 7, 2014 by xtoro