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KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread


Leonov

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I can comment on the difference between an i5 and an i7 when running a high part count ships (800+) in docking operations, with appearance mods (EVE) installed. Lag on the i5 is about 9:1 (nine seconds real time for every second of game time). On the i7, it's a blistering fast 6 or even 5:1. Fortunately the ship is strong enough not to fall apart at 3x physics warp :) 

@Abhishek Adhikari, if you are planning to run more 'reasonable' ships than mine at the higher game settings, i5 should be more than sufficient. But of course a good general rule of computing is to always buy the very best system you can afford, because software requirements (1.1 performance promises notwithstanding :) ) generally increase over time, and it's cheaper to buy one computer now than one now and then another one next year. Best of luck!

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I'm current using an HP Z book with a 2.1GHz i7-4600U, 8GB RAM and AMD M4100 FireGL V graphics.  Good as benchmark of what not to buy for KSP as it struggles, I'm getting lag with around 150 parts in some instances.  My 5-6 year old quad core Athlon desk top out performs it.

Personally I'd wait until 1.1 comes out as we believe it will use multiple cores, which 1.0.5 doesn't, meaning at the moment a high clock speed dual core chip will beat a supposedly quicker multi core processor.

Edited by RizzoTheRat
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7 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

I guess just a personal preference, but I'd stick with Nvidia graphics...

Good you notice yourself that such general statements are useless...

 

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

I can comment on the difference between an i5 and an i7

Wich i5/i7? There are 6 generations of both. Anyway, there is no difference in performance for KSP when you compare trhe same clockspeed and generation of Intel-CPUs...

 

More details on the Laptop would be appreciated. The R5 330M is not very usefull, since its not much better than modern integrated CPUs. Maybe you can save a bit by choosing a Laptop without a dedicated GPU.

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27 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Good you notice yourself that such general statements are useless...

Ok... Guess I should have added that I would stick with the Nvidia, since Nvidia seems to better supported on Linux for one thing, if one were to ever think about dual-booting Linux...

Also, it seems to me that posting that general statements are useless, is pretty useless in and of itself... :D

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16 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

It beats the recommended specs for KSP but it's hard to say what's going to happen with 1.1 coming out soon, performance could go way up or way down. (Hopefully way up!)

If I were you I'd hold off until the update happens and then ask this question again.

Best of luck!

 

7 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

I can comment on the difference between an i5 and an i7 when running a high part count ships (800+) in docking operations, with appearance mods (EVE) installed. Lag on the i5 is about 9:1 (nine seconds real time for every second of game time). On the i7, it's a blistering fast 6 or even 5:1. Fortunately the ship is strong enough not to fall apart at 3x physics warp :) 

@Abhishek Adhikari, if you are planning to run more 'reasonable' ships than mine at the higher game settings, i5 should be more than sufficient. But of course a good general rule of computing is to always buy the very best system you can afford, because software requirements (1.1 performance promises notwithstanding :) ) generally increase over time, and it's cheaper to buy one computer now than one now and then another one next year. Best of luck!

After hearing you all I'm surely going to buy the laptop, it has raedon but after all at that price I'm getting Intel i5 6th generation processor. 

Price Indian Rupees(Rs. 46800) and U.S. Dollars($ 780). So the laptop fits its price.

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10 hours ago, Abhishek Adhikari said:

 

After hearing you all I'm surely going to buy the laptop, it has raedon but after all at that price I'm getting Intel i5 6th generation processor. 

Price Indian Rupees(Rs. 46800) and U.S. Dollars($ 780). So the laptop fits its price.

No, get a 4th gens quad core i7 if you can. It will be far better.

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I'm using an i5-6500 alongside a GTX 970. The 6500 runs quite fine. However it sadly it isn't overclockable meaning if I had better cooling I wouldn't be able to take advantage of it. The only thing I've found to bottleneck the pair was trying to simultaneously stream and run Division on ultra settings. I hope this information is useful to you. :)

Edited by Avera9eJoe
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On 03/03/2016 at 10:32 PM, Kuzzter said:

I can comment on the difference between an i5 and an i7 when running a high part count ships (800+) in docking operations, with appearance mods (EVE) installed. Lag on the i5 is about 9:1 (nine seconds real time for every second of game time). On the i7, it's a blistering fast 6 or even 5:1. Fortunately the ship is strong enough not to fall apart at 3x physics warp :) 

Please note that the terms i5 and i7 say very little about performance. You have many generations of both chips and the desktop line is named very differently from the laptop line. You can predict exactly nothing knowing just the two terms. You would at least need to know the generation and (approximate) model before you say anything sensible.

On 03/03/2016 at 10:32 PM, Kuzzter said:

@Abhishek Adhikari, if you are planning to run more 'reasonable' ships than mine at the higher game settings, i5 should be more than sufficient. But of course a good general rule of computing is to always buy the very best system you can afford, because software requirements (1.1 performance promises notwithstanding :) ) generally increase over time, and it's cheaper to buy one computer now than one now and then another one next year. Best of luck!

Actually, buying the best you can afford often is not the best approach. Towards the upper end, parts tend to become unreasonably expensive. A 3000 dollar computer will not outperform a 1500 computer 2:1, and in all reality the difference will only be a couple of percent in most applications. It is all about finding the sweet spot - what components provide great performance and the best performance per buck? It often makes a lot more sense to buy two 1500 dollar computers three to five years apart, than to spend it all on one machine and being stuck with an ageing, slow, energy hungry machine for years. You will not only get much more bang for your buck, you also have two computers and the added benefit of also working with all the latest standards and technologies.

Buy what you need now (and maybe just a bit more to be sure), but do not go crazy and spend as much as you can. It rarely pays off.

21 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

Also, it seems to me that posting that general statements are useless, is pretty useless in and of itself... :D

Elthy is right. The harmful fable that Nvidia would somehow be inherently better has been thrown around for too long. Anyone making such a statement without any reasoning or substantiation should be corrected right away.

5 hours ago, Alphasus said:

No, get a 4th gens quad core i7 if you can. It will be far better.

There is no way you can make such a statement with any accuracy.

 

 

Edited by Camacha
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43 minutes ago, Camacha said:

There is no way you can make such a statement with any accuracy.

Yes I can. He has a dual core i5, because no quad core i5 laptop has those clockspeed. The quadcore i7 will always have a higher clockspeed, and more cores.

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16 minutes ago, Alphasus said:

Yes I can. He has a dual core i5, because no quad core i5 laptop has those clockspeed. The quadcore i7 will always have a higher clockspeed, and more cores.

No, you cannot. You have not even defined the requirements or how it would be better, so there is no way to make that statement with any accuracy. What if you want great energy economy, integrated graphics or some other technology that is not available in the 4th generation? I am not even mentioning that clock speeds are not something you can compare in this way. Where did that 4th generation even come from?

The statements people make in this thread could do with a lot more accuracy.

Edited by Camacha
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13 minutes ago, Camacha said:

No, you cannot. You have not even defined the requirements or how it would be better, so there is no way to make that statement with any accuracy. What if you want great energy economy, integrated graphics or some other technology that is not available in the 4th generation? I am not even mentioning that clock speeds are not something you can compare in this way. Where did that 4th generation even come from?

The statements people make in this thread could do with a lot more accuracy.

I'm sorry. Better as in faster, and good iGPU is my definition. This is also quad core i5 though, turboing faster, and with a good GPU for just about $20 from his pricing.

Here you are.

GTX 960M

i5-6300HQ 2.3 GHz Quad-Core (6M Cache, Turbo up to 3.2 GHz)

1080p screen

That is 6th gen. and clockspeed between haswell and skylake is comparable with about a 15% addition(4790k vs 6700k performance difference).

Edited by Alphasus
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You could ship it to India if you so desired, but I can't find anything comparable on amazon india so i dont know where he has found this laptop. Further, I will say this. A desktop will perform, in terms of power, far better than any laptop for the same price. For $900, you are looking at 6th gen i7 quad core, and a GTX 950. For $800 in India you could still get a 6th gen i5 quad core and GTX 950.

Edited by Alphasus
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Im thinking about doing some benchmarks on 1.1. Stuff im interessted about:

-Improvement to 1.0.5
-Scaling with memory bandwidth
-Scaling with core number/clockspeed

Now im not sure what would be the best, reproducable thing to test. There are propably several scenarios that are interessting, i have to select the best compromise between time spend benching and representative results. Im thinking about one scenario with a huge rocket launching (high part count single vessel+aerodynamics) and another one with multiple vessels in vacuum, maybe a base on mun or a spacestation. What would you select?

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I have no idea how i would reproduce docing maneuvers...

 

Edit: Actualy i have an idea. I just need a save where no controll inputs are needed anymore until docking, it will be interesstin to see the changing fps...

Edited by Elthy
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1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Edit: Actualy i have an idea. I just need a save where no controll inputs are needed anymore until docking, it will be interesstin to see the changing fps...

As long as you are aware that exactly these inputs might somehow influence things :)

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1 hour ago, Elthy said:

I have no idea how i would reproduce docing maneuvers...

 

Edit: Actualy i have an idea. I just need a save where no controll inputs are needed anymore until docking, it will be interesstin to see the changing fps...

Use mechjeb.

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In regard to upcoming 1.1 i think of upgrading my computer, it has currently a GTX650Ti and an i3-2100, runs KSP fine as long i don't use ships with huge partcounts.

Any hints as to what i should look at (cpu/gpu wise) when budget is around 600€ ?

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A better GPU wont help much (not sure about mods like scatterer and EVE) for KSP. The best (reasonable) setup for KSP is propably the i5-6600k, overclocked it has the best single-thread performance on the market while still having a reasonable price. Combine that with a decent cooler, 16GB RAM and a Z170 mainboard...

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1 hour ago, micr0wave said:

In regard to upcoming 1.1 i think of upgrading my computer, it has currently a GTX650Ti and an i3-2100, runs KSP fine as long i don't use ships with huge partcounts.

Any hints as to what i should look at (cpu/gpu wise) when budget is around 600€ ?

That i3 is already doing quite well in single threaded performance. You should be aware there is not a huge lot to be won. Also, you might want to wait until 1.1 is out and we know how it impacts performance. Your woes might very well be mitigated.

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1 hour ago, micr0wave said:

thx guys, i probably gonna wait a bit then, someone told me last days there will be some new gpus coming soon, so waiting might even be cheaper.

Upgrading the GPU will likely help little to nothing when it comes to KSP. In other games it might help quite a bit more, depending on the game.

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