KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Cupcake...]

...which means it's time to invest in a new one. I've got my eye on these systems here which I'm guessing will be more then adequate for KSP and various MOD garnishings:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB61303/PB-Gaming-61303-Kaby-Lake-Core-i7-7700-Quad-Core-3

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB62002/PB-Gaming-Series-62002-Intel-Kaby-Lake-Core-i7-770

Seeing as a do some Youtubering on the side I was also wondering if anyone has any experience of Nvidea Shadowplay. Is it true you need an always on internet connection to use it? Does the footage import into Premier CC etc. Any advice/thoughts will be highly appreciated! Ta.

 

Cupcake...

 

[Vanamonde]

@Cupcake..., your question has been merged into the master thread for this sort of thing. 

[qzgy]

@Cupcake... - both systems look good. A 1080 is probably overkill on a 1080p screen though for KSP, so unless you have a higher screen resolution or play other games, I would go for the cheaper one. However, definitely recommend changing the CPU cooler on that. Personally use a H5 universal by cryorig.

 

I'm not sure though if its cheaper to build instead of buy. Other will need to inform you on that.

[Cupcake...]

1 minute ago, qzgy said:

@Cupcake... - both systems look good. A 1080 is probably overkill on a 1080p screen though for KSP, so unless you have a higher screen resolution or play other games, I would go for the cheaper one. However, definitely recommend changing the CPU cooler on that. Personally use a H5 universal by cryorig.

 

I'm not sure though if its cheaper to build instead of buy. Other will need to inform you on that.

Thanks for that. :)

 

Cupcake...

[Elthy]

Both come with non K Intel CPUs, which are not realy recommended anymore. A cheaper Ryzen 5 1600(X) will give you about the same singlethreadspeed while being faster for multithread applications, e.g. video stuff.

Even the 1070 is extremly overpowered for KSP, a GTX 1050ti or RX 560 4Gb are enough for Full HD modded KSP, since its mostly limited by CPU Speed. Both Nvidia and AMD offer great Screenrecording. Shadowplay doesnt need internet to record but you need an account while AMDs Relive simply works.

[wumpus]

3 hours ago, qzgy said:

I'm not sure though if its cheaper to build instead of buy. Other will need to inform you on that.

It looks like https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/ has a New Zealand option (I didn't expect that).  I'd expect a quick check of the various "build guides" will give you a sense of the difference in price/materials used (be careful: the build guides (https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/guide/) don't appear to be including windows in the build, at these prices you don't want to deal with the hit Linux graphic drivers deliver).

[The "gaming, streaming, and editing build left me salivating.  But it is a few hundred more (and add at least another hundred for windows) and almost certainly adds *zero* difference to KSP (I suspect a strong Pentium and a 1070 will do that on all but the highest end monitors.  Unity isn't exactly pushing things).  Most of the difference will be in editing, and I can't begin to say if that matters.]

[Opus_723]

Hi,

I'm starting a physics PhD in a couple of weeks and the department has awarded me a (generous) chunk of money to spend on academic supplies as I see fit. I need a new computer for school anyway, as my old school laptop got dropped one too many times, so I thought I would spend part of the award to try building one to get more bang for my buck.

For school/research purposes, I would like a computer that can crank through decently heavy Mathematica code (or compile in other languages) so that I'm not so reliant on school computers.

I figure that gives me a decent excuse to build a good gaming computer while I'm at it. I pretty much only play KSP, but I would love a machine that would let me run a lot of mods, including visual mods, and build high part count ships without lagging much (my old laptop could pretty much only run stock). I would also like to try a few more recent, more traditionally "pretty" games, but that's not as much of a priority as running physics simulations for school and really maxing out KSP.

My budget for this computer is $1,000, including peripherals (I would like a nice monitor, but I'm fine with a dirt cheap mouse and keyboard, which I already have), but not the OS, which I think I can get heavily discounted as a grad student. I know enough about computers to know what all the parts do and roughly how they work, but I don't know anything at all about specific parts/series/brands.

Could someone suggest a parts list?

[qzgy]

5 hours ago, Opus_723 said:

Hi,

I'm starting a physics PhD in a couple of weeks and the department has awarded me a (generous) chunk of money to spend on academic supplies as I see fit. I need a new computer for school anyway, as my old school laptop got dropped one too many times, so I thought I would spend part of the award to try building one to get more bang for my buck.

For school/research purposes, I would like a computer that can crank through decently heavy Mathematica code (or compile in other languages) so that I'm not so reliant on school computers.

I figure that gives me a decent excuse to build a good gaming computer while I'm at it. I pretty much only play KSP, but I would love a machine that would let me run a lot of mods, including visual mods, and build high part count ships without lagging much (my old laptop could pretty much only run stock). I would also like to try a few more recent, more traditionally "pretty" games, but that's not as much of a priority as running physics simulations for school and really maxing out KSP.

My budget for this computer is $1,000, including peripherals (I would like a nice monitor, but I'm fine with a dirt cheap mouse and keyboard, which I already have), but not the OS, which I think I can get heavily discounted as a grad student. I know enough about computers to know what all the parts do and roughly how they work, but I don't know anything at all about specific parts/series/brands.

Could someone suggest a parts list?

Nota physics PhD student, but I have a build that might suit you.

This is roughly my current build (computer only). It used to cost around 1000 dollars, but some prices have increased, and some are not sold now.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YNpg9W

Works well with KSP graphics mods and stuff, needs more memory though I feel.

As for OS, I suggest looking at Kinguin. I've bought Windows 10 from them a couple times. Seems to work quite well, and significantly cheaper than through normal means.

 

 

[Cupcake...]

16 hours ago, Elthy said:

Both come with non K Intel CPUs, which are not realy recommended anymore. A cheaper Ryzen 5 1600(X) will give you about the same singlethreadspeed while being faster for multithread applications, e.g. video stuff.

Even the 1070 is extremly overpowered for KSP, a GTX 1050ti or RX 560 4Gb are enough for Full HD modded KSP, since its mostly limited by CPU Speed. Both Nvidia and AMD offer great Screenrecording. Shadowplay doesnt need internet to record but you need an account while AMDs Relive simply works.

Cheers guys, I really appreciate your help on this! I've done a bit more digging and think I've found the perfect spec for my budget (I know the 1080 is overkill but hopefully it'll make it last a wee bit longer).

 

http://www.2moroit.co.nz/product-hi_end_gamingi7_7700k_16gb_2400_2tb_240gb_gtx1080_8gb-15255

 

I'm too scared to build my own PC so I reckon a nice prepackaged one will be the way to go in my case.

 

Cupcake...

Edited September 7, 2017 by Cupcake...

[HafCoJoe]

1 hour ago, Cupcake... said:

Cheers guys, I really appreciate your help on this! I've done a bit more digging and think I've found the perfect spec for my budget (I know the 1080 is overkill but hopefully it'll make it last a wee bit longer).

 

http://www.2moroit.co.nz/product-hi_end_gamingi7_7700k_16gb_2400_2tb_240gb_gtx1080_8gb-15255

 

I'm too scared to build my own PC so I reckon a nice prepackaged one will be the way to go in my case.

 

Cupcake...

I did some price comparing, and that prebuilt machine is actually really well priced in comparison to it's equal in separate parts. I was going to suggest building it yourself at first, but after seeing that price tag I'll actually go back on that . Hah. I really wish I had that GPU!!!

[Cupcake...]

It does seem like a very good deal indeed. They build each one from scratch too so I might skip the hdd and get them to fit slightly faster ram instead. With a bit of luck I'll be back to KSP by Tue.  

 

Cupcake...

[Elthy]

If you dont need it right now i would wait for Coffee Lake, its due to be released on the 5. October. Its the biggest change for Intel CPUs since Sandybridge because Intel will finaly increase the number of cores. A quadcore doesnt seem appropiate now anymore.

[Cupcake...]

3 hours ago, Elthy said:

If you dont need it right now i would wait for Coffee Lake, its due to be released on the 5. October. Its the biggest change for Intel CPUs since Sandybridge because Intel will finaly increase the number of cores. A quadcore doesnt seem appropiate now anymore.

That's the problem with tech isn't it? There's always some shiny new thing on the horizon.  I have given it some thought and I thinking maybe I'll pull the trigger anyway. The majority of my gaming is KSP which from what I gather isn't terribly well optimised for multi-core anyway.

 

Saying that I do need to do some research on the upcoming chips, as you could well be right.  Man, it's a tricky time to be buying hardware!

 

Cupcake...

Edited September 7, 2017 by Cupcake...

[Cupcake...]

16 hours ago, Elthy said:

If you dont need it right now i would wait for Coffee Lake, its due to be released on the 5. October. Its the biggest change for Intel CPUs since Sandybridge because Intel will finaly increase the number of cores. A quadcore doesnt seem appropiate now anymore.

You're right, I'll hold off. Even if I do go with the aforementioned rig I should be able to squeeze a few hundred bucks off the price.

 

Cupcake...

[Mukita12]

I'm still used my current mac

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)

Processor: 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

VGA: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 512 MB

 

And my Future Build PC Spec is :

Processor:Intel i5 7400 Quad Core

Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-H110M Gaming 3

VGA : Gigabyte GTX 1050Ti 4 GB OC

Memory : Geil EVO X RGB 8 GB Dual Kit (4GB x 2) (Black/White Heat Spreader)

Hardisk : Toshiba/WDC 1 TB SATA 3

PSU : 1STPLAYER Gaming PSU Black Widow 500W Pure

Case : CUBE Gaming Vred Black/White + LED Fan

OS : Microsoft Windows 10

[Stelum]

As title. Thanks for your replies!

 

Specs:

Ryzen 5 1600

Gtx 1060

corsair 16GB DDR4 3000MHZ

1TB HDD

250GB SSD

650W PSU

 

EDIT: 1060 6GB version  sorry forgot to add 

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by Stelum

[p1t1o]

Yeah, almost certainly, its a new machine after all.

Naturally "be able to run" is a rather subjective endpoint.

The number of mods you can run, and the amount of hi-res textures you install, are limited by RAM. 16GB should buy you a lot of headspace (since people, myself included, were in the past running heavy mod loads, RSS and HD textures squeezed into the 32bit version limited to 3-ish GB [available] RAM.)

The actual "quality" (ie: framerate) you can achieve is more limited by how many parts your current ship is made out of, and how many ship are currently active, CPU limited.

But its quite a high spec machine so you shouldnt have any problems out of the box, unless thousand-part ships are the norm for you

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by p1t1o

[Helmetman]

@StelumYou did know that apart from one other GeForce rev the gtx 1060 is one of the best? Or did you bought the computer with blind knowledge? The fact that you can name the hardware pieces by name indicates you kind of know what ya got, getting warm? Not even the highest end games need 16gb ram to run properly. And the Ryzen 5 is one of the best AMD cpu for gaming out there. If people play KSP with RSS + so many mods on machines years older then ^ that ^ then what kind of answer do you expect to get? 

Like we're gonna say NO! this is the worst investment ever! Put it in the bin! buy a new computer ASAP!

I'm not 'trying' to be jerky lol If your just enthusiastic and want validation you'll get mine and the machine is a beast
I think performance wise especially into part count it is your use of texture sizes for whatever your using, mod collection and more specifically what your dream idea of a fully modded game actually is. I get the idea reading these forums that people go quite far to get the best out of their KSP setup through re-tweaking and configuring. On that note it is usually more rewarding knowing how to set things up properly on the software side of things rather then having a cpu that is a few clock ticks faster if you catch my drift.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by Helmetman

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

I think it depends on your definition of "heavily modded". I run a 980 with 24g and it runs KSP while half-asleep (the 980 is usually at about 4%; with all graphics turned as high as they go). I favor single launches and larger ships (sometimes 1,200 parts or more), but I never experienced any of the lag that people talk about it.

I run straight vanilla, so I decided to make a separate install with some visual mods for screenshots and just to see how it looks. I installed EVE, SVE, SVT, DOE, Scatterer, Planetshine, Engine Lighting, Real Plume, and Kopernicus. If you already run mods, you can probably guess what happened. FPS dropped to about 4 during launches and whenever ships are near one another. If it had always been this way, it might not bother me. I'm used to running at 25-70 FPS (from largest ships to smallest ones), though, so it drives me nuts. I strictly use it for screenshots and videos, because I just find it infuriating to play.

My MSI is almost 2 years old now though, so your system will definitely be better.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Cpt Kerbalkrunch

[regex]

That system is much better than my i5/16GB/965M laptop running a well-modded RO/RSS with Principia and visual mods @1080p, I'm sure it'll do fine.

[Stelum]

1 hour ago, regex said:

That system is much better than my i5/16GB/965M laptop running a well-modded RO/RSS with Principia and visual mods @1080p, I'm sure it'll do fine.

Thank you!

2 hours ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

I think it depends on your definition of "heavily modded". I run a 980 with 24g and it runs KSP while half-asleep (the 980 is usually at about 4%; with all graphics turned as high as they go). I favor single launches and larger ships (sometimes 1,200 parts or more), but I never experienced any of the lag that people talk about it.

I run straight vanilla, so I decided to make a separate install with some visual mods for screenshots and just to see how it looks. I installed EVE, SVE, SVT, DOE, Scatterer, Planetshine, Engine Lighting, Real Plume, and Kopernicus. If you already run mods, you can probably guess what happened. FPS dropped to about 4 during launches and whenever ships are near one another. If it had always been this way, it might not bother me. I'm used to running at 25-70 FPS (from largest ships to smallest ones), though, so it drives me nuts. I strictly use it for screenshots and videos, because I just find it infuriating to play.

My MSI is almost 2 years old now though, so your system will definitely be better.

I see, thanks!

3 hours ago, Helmetman said:

@StelumYou did know that apart from one other GeForce rev the gtx 1060 is one of the best? Or did you bought the computer with blind knowledge? The fact that you can name the hardware pieces by name indicates you kind of know what ya got, getting warm? Not even the highest end games need 16gb ram to run properly. And the Ryzen 5 is one of the best AMD cpu for gaming out there. If people play KSP with RSS + so many mods on machines years older then ^ that ^ then what kind of answer do you expect to get? 

Like we're gonna say NO! this is the worst investment ever! Put it in the bin! buy a new computer ASAP!

I'm not 'trying' to be jerky lol If your just enthusiastic and want validation you'll get mine and the machine is a beast
I think performance wise especially into part count it is your use of texture sizes for whatever your using, mod collection and more specifically what your dream idea of a fully modded game actually is. I get the idea reading these forums that people go quite far to get the best out of their KSP setup through re-tweaking and configuring. On that note it is usually more rewarding knowing how to set things up properly on the software side of things rather then having a cpu that is a few clock ticks faster if you catch my drift.

 

 

Haha, yes I did. I picked the parts out and attempted a first time build which didn't turn on. So I brought the PC back to the store I bought the parts in and they're handling it. Read the motherboard isn't compatible BIOS wise with the CPU (Asus X370-a) so I hope that'll be fixed soon. i'm getting mixed replies here some saying its enough to run it well others presenting concerning numbers like 25fps on a 980. I play KSP on my current PC with lowest settings on an iGPU and 8GB of DDR4 2133MHZ RAM and an AMD APU at 18-50 fps, so I'm hoping the upgrade will be pretty good.

3 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Yeah, almost certainly, its a new machine after all.

Naturally "be able to run" is a rather subjective endpoint.

The number of mods you can run, and the amount of hi-res textures you install, are limited by RAM. 16GB should buy you a lot of headspace (since people, myself included, were in the past running heavy mod loads, RSS and HD textures squeezed into the 32bit version limited to 3-ish GB [available] RAM.)

The actual "quality" (ie: framerate) you can achieve is more limited by how many parts your current ship is made out of, and how many ship are currently active, CPU limited.

But its quite a high spec machine so you shouldnt have any problems out of the box, unless thousand-part ships are the norm for you

 

Haha no, I like to keep my ships simple and realistic (hence RSS) I tried my hand at the stock game and while fun (got to Mun, Minimus, Duna and Jool) I'm picky about certain things such as the air physics being unrealistic, and the fact that a "low orbit" on Kerbin makes it look like you're ISS level of altitude. Im not trying to throw shade on the game here at all, it's definitely fun, but thats why we have mods.

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, Stelum said:

mods.

Precisely

 

[Vanamonde]

@Stelum, your question has been merged into the master thread for this sort of thing. 

[SpaceEnthusiast23]

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/QWW8Gf Is the ram compatible?

[linuxgurugamer]

3 minutes ago, SpaceEnthusiast23 said:

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/QWW8Gf Is the ram compatible?

Compatible with what?