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KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread


Leonov

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The temperature should be just T. Anyway note that the temperature gets inaccurate the lower it gets since the sensors are calibrated for high temps (where it gets dangerous for the CPU).

Well, 11 degrees is not a low temperature, considering some folks overclock with liquid nitrogen or even helium and sensors produce useful metrics even at those temperatures.

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Hello I'm interested in upgrading my GPU and I'm looking for advice. Currently I have a AMD HD6570. However I have installed I have recently installed Ubuntu on the machine and the card significantly underperforms. I've heard Nvidia cards are the way to go but I was wondering if anyone had any specific recommendations. I would like to be able to run KSP at high settings with a few visual mods with a consistently good framerate but I need this card to be cheap (im honestly not sure what a good GPU costs but if possible I would like to get one for less then $200). Thanks for any advice you can give.

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I got a 750 Ti. Reviews have it as a good budget card, though I've not played many games on it myself. Certainly handles stock KSP no problem. If you want to save a little money and get a little less performance, consider the regular 750 but do get a 2 GB model. In the other direction, the new 960 is out with a lot more performance than a 750 Ti and a step up from the old 760, but I think that's over budget.

The harder part for me was which brand and model. I opted for the EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC. Things to look for I would say:

* The physical size. Especially for the 750 and 750 Ti some like mine are compact while others are larger. If you need a low profile card that really limits your choice too.

* The power requirements. Check that the total wattage can be handled by your power supplies; the modern nVidia cards help here by being very efficient. Check also what auxiliary connectors the card requires (for example some 750 Tis need a 6-pin PCI-E connector, others including mine do not) and whether your PSU has them.

* The monitor connections. You might be guided by your current monitors. Otherwise I would try and get a graphics card with a DisplayPort connector.

* The noise levels. You can only really find this out from reviews.

* The clock speeds. Most graphics cards are "factory overclocked" to some extent, which can give you a small performance boost. Also try and find out if a fast-clocked card can maintain those speeds, some end up throttling themselves back.

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Hello I'm interested in upgrading my GPU and I'm looking for advice. Currently I have a AMD HD6570. However I have installed I have recently installed Ubuntu on the machine and the card significantly underperforms. I've heard Nvidia cards are the way to go but I was wondering if anyone had any specific recommendations. I would like to be able to run KSP at high settings with a few visual mods with a consistently good framerate but I need this card to be cheap (im honestly not sure what a good GPU costs but if possible I would like to get one for less then $200). Thanks for any advice you can give.

Personally I use a HD7870 and have had no problems so far. Perhaps you should check you drivers. As for a GPU in the $200 range what are you going to use it for? And can you wait a month or two.

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I got a 750 Ti. Reviews have it as a good budget card, though I've not played many games on it myself. Certainly handles stock KSP no problem. If you want to save a little money and get a little less performance, consider the regular 750 but do get a 2 GB model. In the other direction, the new 960 is out with a lot more performance than a 750 Ti and a step up from the old 760, but I think that's over budget.

The harder part for me was which brand and model. I opted for the EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC. Things to look for I would say:

* The physical size. Especially for the 750 and 750 Ti some like mine are compact while others are larger. If you need a low profile card that really limits your choice too.

* The power requirements. Check that the total wattage can be handled by your power supplies; the modern nVidia cards help here by being very efficient. Check also what auxiliary connectors the card requires (for example some 750 Tis need a 6-pin PCI-E connector, others including mine do not) and whether your PSU has them.

* The monitor connections. You might be guided by your current monitors. Otherwise I would try and get a graphics card with a DisplayPort connector.

* The noise levels. You can only really find this out from reviews.

* The clock speeds. Most graphics cards are "factory overclocked" to some extent, which can give you a small performance boost. Also try and find out if a fast-clocked card can maintain those speeds, some end up throttling themselves back.

Thanks for the note about my monitor. I would like to avoid buying a new monitor but my current one only has a VGA input and has a somewhat odd screen resolution (1280 X 1024). I somewhat doubt the size of the card will be an issue as there appears to be plenty of space inside the current case. I'll need to check the power requirements later. Thanks for the reminder.

Personally I use a HD7870 and have had no problems so far. Perhaps you should check you drivers. As for a GPU in the $200 range what are you going to use it for? And can you wait a month or two.

Mostly gaming (by that I mean KSP mainly) and yes I can absolutely wait a month or two.

Edited by robopilot99
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Provided your graphics card has at least one DVI-I output you can use a simple passive adapter to connect your old VGA monitor. That's exactly what I do with mine, even have that same 1280x1024 resolution that was common before everything went widescreen.

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I want to build my first computer. Here are some parts I picked out. Also, I would think this would be able to run KSP on atleast medium graphics. If wrong, correct me. I would also like some opinions on if this can run next gen games at least 30 FPS. Thanks!

CPU: AMD ATHLON X4 750K Quad core, 3.4 GHZ(MAX:4.0)

MOTHERBOARD: MSI A78M-E35 compatible with athlon series

Video Card: Radeon R9 270X

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB Considering 16gb, as I might use dual monitors in the future

HardDrive: Western Digital WD1002FAEX 1TB

Power Supply: CORSAIR CX500 500watt

Case:Rosewill LINE-M Micro-ATX Mini Tower

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It makes a pretty big difference with some games

Which games are depending on the RAM speed? Afaik it only matters if you use integrated GPUs, otherwise its only 1-2% difference between e.g. 1333mhz/2400mhz...

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Thanks for the note about my monitor. I would like to avoid buying a new monitor but my current one only has a VGA input and has a somewhat odd screen resolution (1280 X 1024). I somewhat doubt the size of the card will be an issue as there appears to be plenty of space inside the current case. I'll need to check the power requirements later. Thanks for the reminder.

Mostly gaming (by that I mean KSP mainly) and yes I can absolutely wait a month or two.

I would wait for AMD to release there next gen cards then. Even if you don't buy them they should get nvidia to lower there prices a bit.

- - - Updated - - -

I want to build my first computer. Here are some parts I picked out. Also, I would think this would be able to run KSP on atleast medium graphics. If wrong, correct me. I would also like some opinions on if this can run next gen games at least 30 FPS. Thanks!

CPU: AMD ATHLON X4 750K Quad core, 3.4 GHZ(MAX:4.0)

MOTHERBOARD: MSI A78M-E35 compatible with athlon series

Video Card: Radeon R9 270X

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB Considering 16gb, as I might use dual monitors in the future

HardDrive: Western Digital WD1002FAEX 1TB

Power Supply: CORSAIR CX500 500watt

Case:Rosewill LINE-M Micro-ATX Mini Tower

What's your budget. And as other people have said 8gb should be fine just make sure it's dual channel and 1600mhz.

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Originally, I was planning with a i5 CPU, but it would be hard to work with that and a good video card for a budget of 650$. But my other choice I was thinking about was an NVIDIA GTX-750-TI. I know it's not the best but maybe could fit near my budget?

It might, but I'm going to give the same advice that I gave the other person. Wait 1 or 2 months for AMDs next gen cards to come out they should lower prices on both sides.

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I want to build my first computer. Here are some parts I picked out. Also, I would think this would be able to run KSP on atleast medium graphics. If wrong, correct me. I would also like some opinions on if this can run next gen games at least 30 FPS. Thanks!

CPU: AMD ATHLON X4 750K Quad core, 3.4 GHZ(MAX:4.0)

MOTHERBOARD: MSI A78M-E35 compatible with athlon series

Video Card: Radeon R9 270X

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB Considering 16gb, as I might use dual monitors in the future

HardDrive: Western Digital WD1002FAEX 1TB

Power Supply: CORSAIR CX500 500watt

Case:Rosewill LINE-M Micro-ATX Mini Tower

I put this build into pcpartpicker.com (which is a great site), and you have some headroom still, about $100. Definitely get second opinions from the forum, but here's what I changed. You might go for a 120GB SSD instead of 60GB, depending on what else is decided.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/QnKjhM

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/QnKjhM/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($74.29 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: MSI A78M-E35 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($56.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($74.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Kingston SSDNow KC300 60GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($64.99 @ Adorama)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($80.88 @ OutletPC)

Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270X 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card ($154.99 @ Newegg)

Case: Rosewill Line-M MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($41.99 @ Amazon)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $599.11

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-27 12:25 EST-0500

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Originally, I was planning with a i5 CPU, but it would be hard to work with that and a good video card for a budget of 650$. But my other choice I was thinking about was an NVIDIA GTX-750-TI. I know it's not the best but maybe could fit near my budget?
Well, for that kind of CPU budget the Intel competition would be the Pentium G3258. It's the option I'd prefer - benchmark results are similar to the Athlon overall but the Pentium's two fast cores will be more useful for more real-world things, Kerbal Space program included.

An Intel build also has much better upgradability, you can go to an i5 or i7 on the same motherboard in future if you need/want to. The Athlon would dead-end you on the CPU front since AMD's high(ish) end FX-series processors use a different CPU socket to the Athlon.

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Two cores? Would I need more than that? Most processors I've seen have at least 4 and people say it's a big part in choosing a processor.

Well, what do you do? KSP only uses 1 core so that doesn't effect KSP performance. Most games wont use more than 2 cores (if they even use 2) so if you only game cores aren't too big an issue. The Pentium probably is the way to go since it can be upgraded later. Oh, and you need to make an account on pcpartpicker to be able to send us a direct link-- the link you posted here is the generic blank one :)

Actually, given $800, you could do better than the Pentium, and skip to an i5 most likely.

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Yeah I my friend told me the link was broke haha. Yeah I am looking into the Pentium and liking the performance. I'm also looking at Radeon R9 270X? Is it worth the price? Some people were saying it was the best bang for the buck but also the new NVIDIA GTX 960 was a budget GPU. Budget is around $600.

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Yeah I my friend told me the link was broke haha. Yeah I am looking into the Pentium and liking the performance. I'm also looking at Radeon R9 270X? Is it worth the price? Some people were saying it was the best bang for the buck but also the new NVIDIA GTX 960 was a budget GPU. Budget is around $600.

See my previous post.

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Hi all, got kind of a random question here.

Is there a chart somewhere that shows KSP performance across various CPUs? I've read that Intel has a major advantage in single-processing power over AMD, and can generally run higher-piece ships (200+ parts) better than AMD.

I'm using an AMD FX-4100 Zambezi (Quad-Core, 3.6 gHz) and I can get to about 200 parts before physics lag becomes annoying (timer bar text turns yellow). As I understand it, my CPU is rather outdated. Would I get a better boost out of upgrading to an Intel core (assuming hardware compatibility) or sticking with AMD?

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Hi all, got kind of a random question here.

Is there a chart somewhere that shows KSP performance across various CPUs? I've read that Intel has a major advantage in single-processing power over AMD, and can generally run higher-piece ships (200+ parts) better than AMD.

I'm using an AMD FX-4100 Zambezi (Quad-Core, 3.6 gHz) and I can get to about 200 parts before physics lag becomes annoying (timer bar text turns yellow). As I understand it, my CPU is rather outdated. Would I get a better boost out of upgrading to an Intel core (assuming hardware compatibility) or sticking with AMD?

I would defeantly go intel if you have the money. As for the chart here's a link.

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