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KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread


Leonov

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On 22/11/2016 at 7:36 PM, Slam_Jones said:

I've noticed that the majority of what has been recommended in this thread is i5/i7 level... isn't an i7 major overkill for a gaming rig?  I've also heard that the i3-6100 will still prove to be a very good entry-level CPU for the 1151 socket, yet I'm seeing people in this thread claiming that the i5 is the lowest you can go?   Is the performance of an i3 THAT poor, or do people just enjoy spending more money (on a "starter" PC no less)?  From all the reviews I've read, I imagine the i3 should be more than adequate for the time being.

Some i3 chips can be rather nippy. As a high thread speed makes KSP happiest, the faster i3 chips can actually be a very good choice. Other games are much more multithreaded and can therefore utilize the power of an i5. Some modern games will benefit slightly from an i7 chip, but those are rare and the money is pretty much always better spent elsewhere.

7 hours ago, occ said:

Also, will 75hz make a difference?

Yes, if the rest of your hardware can provide enough frames. Coming from a 85 Hz CRT monitor, the difference between 60 and 75 Mhz was the difference between disappointment and very acceptable for me. I do have to note that this was on a slightly older LCD and that the technology improves quickly.

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I am running a Geforce GTX 960 atm, I am planning on upgrading a bunch of stuff after awhile though.

I also have an i7-5820K CPU at 3.30 ghz (hexcore)

I also have 32GB of RAM

Edited by occ
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On 11/22/2016 at 10:56 AM, Slam_Jones said:

Due to having spent all 1,000+ hours of my KSP playtime on an AMD rig, I am often very inclined to create minimal-part-count ships.  I imagine I won't get into the 1,000 part range or anything ridiculous like that with the i3-6100, but I'll be happy that I'll be able to get a few hundred more parts that I'm used to :D

Nothing wrong with an AMD rig! Just got me an RX 480.

IMG_0592.JPG

Also, the AMD FX 8350 might run KSP well, 8 4GHz cores would run the physics well. Or an i7 Extreme.

 

What are your full specs, Slam?

Edited by legoclone09
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Is anyone excited about the release of the next AMD processor generation? Of course, at this stage it is mostly rumours and speculations, but one thing that stands out is that the chips will very probably not be cheap at all. That seems a strange thing to be happy about, but it would mean that AMD actually thinks it has a properly competing product.

Q1 2017 is going to be fairly exciting.

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1 hour ago, Camacha said:

Is anyone excited about the release of the next AMD processor generation? Of course, at this stage it is mostly rumours and speculations, but one thing that stands out is that the chips will very probably not be cheap at all. That seems a strange thing to be happy about, but it would mean that AMD actually thinks it has a properly competing product.

Q1 2017 is going to be fairly exciting.

Relevant to this is this post on r/pcmasterrace I was linked to earlier today.

https://np.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3s5r4d/is_nvidia_sabotaging_performance_for_no_visual/cwukpuc/

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2 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

There is an astronomical amount of spin in that post.

What spin? Intel played some very dirty tricks and got slapped on the wrist by a judge and had to pay AMD a big fine, even though it remains to be seen whether that covers all the damages.

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1 minute ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I think I'd rather not drive this off topic. In some other thread, perhaps.

It seems to be very much related to computer building, but whatever the case, I would hate to have people think that any of it is not true. The Intel compiler shenanigans was an abysmal trick to play and cause people problems to this very day. Fierce competition is good, but sabotaging the other party instead of fighting on the basis of your own merits does not only mean you are cheating the competition, but also that you are cheating every single customer of both companies.

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18 minutes ago, cantab said:

Intel have acted no worse than 99% of businesses would if they could. Anything to make money.

Yep. Although, just because a lot of businesses would do it doesn't mean it's right. I do hope AMD makes a comeback though, if Zen is great I might upgrade to that instead of Intel sometime. On an i5 right now, however.

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21 minutes ago, cantab said:

Intel have acted no worse than 99% of businesses would if they could. Anything to make money.

While I do agree that commercial interests will always push some companies towards these kinds of strategies, your estimation of that being 99% of them is luckily overly pessimistic. A few tens of percents seems more likely. The larger the company, the larger the chances someone somewhere will come up with some kind of scheme. Luckily, with the news travelling at lightning speeds, companies are much more likely to get seriously hurt by doing this. Even share holder interests are not an argument, because share values will seriously get hurt when the news breaks. Just look at Volkswagen getting hurt this year. Even over a year later their stock prices have not recovered much, if any at all.

Besides, I resent the implication that this is normal behaviour. It is not, as has been confirmed by a judge.

Edited by Camacha
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19 hours ago, legoclone09 said:

Nothing wrong with an AMD rig! Just got me an RX 480.

-snip-

Also, the AMD FX 8350 might run KSP well, 8 4GHz cores would run the physics well. Or an i7 Extreme.

 

What are your full specs, Slam?

 

Very nice GPU there!  Hope to get one myself in 2017 :)

However my full specs are thus (each item linked to it's page on NewEgg):

CPU: i3-6100 (not overclocked)
MoBo: ASRock H170 (Socket 1151)
RAM: 8gB DDR4
GPU: R9 270 2gb
PSU: EVGA 500W
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
SSD: Samsung EVO 250gb

Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Monitor: 43" LG 1080p
Speakers: Logitech Z506 5.1 (Refurbished, but worked perfectly so far)
Keyboard/Mouse: CM Storm Devastator / Victake 155984  (would not really recommend that mouse btw... scroll wheel died very quickly)

---------------------------

Regarding about the upcoming AMD CPU line, I would have happily invested in it (and thus stayed with AMD) if they had released in time for the holiday season.  Regardless, I'm still quite interested in how it turns out and wish them the best.

As it is, upgrading to this i3 has been quite an improvement already, and I certainly can't say I regret the choice! :)

 

Edited by Slam_Jones
Fixed hyperlink
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8 hours ago, Slam_Jones said:

CPU: i3-6100 (not overclocked)

MoBo: ASRock H170 (Socket 1151)
RAM: 8gB DDR4
GPU: R9 270 2gb
PSU: EVGA 500W
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
SSD: Samsung EVO 250gb

Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Monitor: 43" LG 1080p
Speakers: Logitech Z506 5.1 (Refurbished, but worked perfectly so far)
Keyboard/Mouse: CM Storm Devastator / Victake 155984  (would not really recommend that mouse btw... scroll wheel died very quickly)

Nice! Here's my list: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/legoclone09/saved/sRrrHx

I'd look at r/buildapcsales for some sales.

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Just wanted to chime in with a relatively inexpensive option for Mac users that want a decent computer to play KSP on.

While my antiquated early 2008 iMac was clearly not up to the task, I picked up a late 2012 Mac Mini with these specs for $450. For a computer it's cheap thrills.
It works quite well and can play the game at graphics settings around 50% with very little lag in the graphics and I'm able to do screen recording at the same time at a reasonable 40 FPS. I swapped out my SSD from the iMac (Samsung 850 Pro 256 gig) and dumped in the Kingston HyperX RAM (16 GB).

Hardware Overview:

 

  Model Name:    Mac mini

  Model Identifier:    Macmini6,1

  Processor Name:    Intel Core i5

  Processor Speed:    2.5 GHz

  Number of Processors:    1

  Total Number of Cores:    2

  L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB

  L3 Cache:    3 MB

  Memory:    16 GB

BANK 0/DIMM0:

 

  Size:    8 GB

  Type:    DDR3

  Speed:    1600 MHz

  Status:    OK

  Manufacturer:    0x0198

  Part Number:    0x4B485831363030433953334C2F3847202020

  Serial Number:    0x623663A3

 

BANK 1/DIMM0:

 

  Size:    8 GB

  Type:    DDR3

  Speed:    1600 MHz

  Status:    OK

  Manufacturer:    0x0198

  Part Number:    0x4B485831363030433953334C2F3847202020

  Serial Number:    0x012E7188

 

Chipset Model:    Intel HD Graphics 4000

 Type:    GPU

  Bus:    Built-In

  VRAM (Dynamic, Max):    1536 MB

  Vendor:    Intel (0x8086)

  Device ID:    0x0166

  Revision ID:    0x0009

  Metal:    Supported

 

 

Edited by GDJ
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24 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

For that price you could easily build a better PC with a dedicated graphics card as well, here's a list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RsbTpb

 

Well, yes and no.

Better computer, graphically sure.
Processor, maybe. You listed a dual core i3. I have the dual core i5. There is a speed difference in favour of the i3.
Better price in CDN$, No.

Total:$627.63
 

Edited by GDJ
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29 minutes ago, GDJ said:

Well, yes and no.

Better computer, graphically sure.
Processor, maybe. You listed a dual core i3. I have the dual core i5. There is a speed difference in favour of the i3.
Better price in CDN$, No.

Total:$627.63
 

Oh, didn't know you were in Canadian. Yeah, better deal.

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1 hour ago, legoclone09 said:

For that price you could easily build a better PC with a dedicated graphics card as well, here's a list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RsbTpb

 

Yeah, not to make this into a Mac bashing thing, but that kind of money gets you a really decent bang-for-buck build. If you are willing to go second hand, you could build something that is not the latest and greatest when it comes to power consumption, but properly quick.

Edit: oh, Monopoly money :D It makes it a better deal, though the relative qualities do not shift much.

Edited by Camacha
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2 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Yeah, not to make this into a Mac bashing thing, but that kind of money gets you a really decent bang-for-buck build. If you are willing to go second hand, you could build something that is not the latest and greatest when it comes to power consumption, but properly quick.

Edit: oh, Monopoly money :D It makes it a better deal, though the relative qualities do not shift much.

Speaking of bang for your buck a GTX 660 can handle modern games at medium settings well. Great for being 5 years old!

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1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Oh, for canadian dollars 450$ isnt a bad price, although im sure you could have gotten better hardware for that when buying used parts in a computer forum...

Well, the guy threw in the bluetooth Apple keyboard, mouse and USB3 DVD burner to go with it.

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3 hours ago, GDJ said:

Well, yes and no.

Better computer, graphically sure.
Processor, maybe. You listed a dual core i3. I have the dual core i5. There is a speed difference in favour of the i3.
Better price in CDN$, No.

Total:$627.63
 

More to the point, running OSX on non-Apple hardware is both technically and legally problematic. It's *possible*, sure, but I think most people with a need/want to run OSX are better off just getting a Mac.

I mean, if someone told me that I could get a great deal on some hardware but installing Linux (my chosen main OS for close to 15 years now) on it would be both unduly difficult and possibly unlawful, I'd probably walk away.

Edited by cantab
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