KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[qzgy]

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

It’s a bit on the graphics intensive side, it has to process and display a (soon to be growing) number of video feeds while also editing/scrubbing one. Big memory hog, too, with more hi-def cameras. The system as it was before ran pretty well (as long as I didn’t try to run KSP at the same time), and I’m looking to expand, so I certainly don’t want to step back.

Yeah ok. If it is as graphics intensive to the point running with KSP doesn't work that well, makes sense you don't want to step down. I'd still suggest looking at ebay or some other secondhand market since the performance relative to price is better than new modern lower end cards. 970s which seem to run better than what you originally had can be found on ebay for around 100 bucks. This one is 110

[CatastrophicFailure]

10 hours ago, qzgy said:

Yeah ok. If it is as graphics intensive to the point running with KSP doesn't work that well, makes sense you don't want to step down. I'd still suggest looking at ebay or some other secondhand market since the performance relative to price is better than new modern lower end cards. 970s which seem to run better than what you originally had can be found on ebay for around 100 bucks. This one is 110

That... makes me nervous.  I’ve done the used eBay thing enough I don’t think I’d trust it for sensitive electronics, if I have to just pony up the kit for a new, better card, so be it. I was ready to drop $150+ on a new mobo just the other day, anyway, so I’m probably sill ahead. How are the 1050 derivatives? They seem to be coming up a lot for $100-150ish.

[Elthy]

At least in Germany the RX 570 4GB is cheaper than the 1050ti while being more powerfull. Im not sure if a 1050 would suit you, since its 2GB VRAM are not enough for most modern tasks and you may have to replace it very soon...

[qzgy]

25 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

How are the 1050 derivatives? They seem to be coming up a lot for $100-150ish.

Generally IIRC benchmarks for them are worse than what you originally had. 1060 might be closer but it also a decent bit more expensive. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Curse you, modern nonsensical computer nomenclature! Back in my day, I knew my Pentium was faster than your 486DX2 cuz 5 is greater than 4!  I honestly didn’t think replacing a 4 year old midrange-at-the-time graphics card would be so expensive, with the way technology goes. 

 

How ‘bout this? It’s actually just a step below the RX 580 I got in my new rig. 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2019 by CatastrophicFailure

[qzgy]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

How ‘bout this? It’s actually just a step below the RX 580 I got in my new rig. 

Benchmarks checkout. Seems to be faster. If you're happy I don't see a reason not to use it.. 

Benchmark I looked at. 

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-570-vs-AMD-R9-280/3924vs2241

[CatastrophicFailure]

57 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Benchmarks checkout. Seems to be faster. If you're happy I don't see a reason not to use it.. 

Benchmark I looked at. 

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-570-vs-AMD-R9-280/3924vs2241

Wow, cool site.  I’ma gonna have to get lost on there for a couple hours once I get back to an actual computer. 

[Citizen247]

19 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

And @qzgy

Belated thanks for the assist, guys. Finally got around to doing this and it looks like it's actually the video card. Pulled that and it booted right into BIOS using the on-board graphics. Got it as far as the Windows login even, but Windows remains convinced my password is wrong even tho I've entered the correct one (and successfully logged in) umpteen times. No keyboard hooked up at the time so couldn't get further, but it looks like all I need is a new video card.

Any suggestions? One that blew was a Radeon R9 280, which I'm sure is pretty behind the curve at this point. I don't need anything spectacular for this machine, just decent. It will be used mostly for running my security camera software now, maybe the occasional older game. Would like to spend less than $100 if I can.                           

For that sort of money I'd check eBay. You should be able to pick something up in a Nvidia 1050 for that sort of money. Though I'd personally look for a 970 or 1060 if you can find one for a workable price.

[qzgy]

1 hour ago, Citizen247 said:

For that sort of money I'd check eBay. You should be able to pick something up in a Nvidia 1050 for that sort of money. Though I'd personally look for a 970 or 1060 if you can find one for a workable price.

In his own words -

6 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That... makes me nervous.  I’ve done the used eBay thing enough I don’t think I’d trust it for sensitive electronics, if I have to just pony up the kit for a new, better card, so be it. I was ready to drop $150+ on a new mobo just the other day, anyway, so I’m probably sill ahead. How are the 1050 derivatives? They seem to be coming up a lot for $100-150ish.

1050 from the benchmarks I looked at (same site as above) seems to be actually a step down than the original card.  https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-R9-280-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1050/2241vs3650

[Citizen247]

6 hours ago, qzgy said:

In his own words -

1050 from the benchmarks I looked at (same site as above) seems to be actually a step down than the original card.  https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-R9-280-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1050/2241vs3650

I didn't see that post, for some reason the whole latest page didn't show up when I posted last time. Still though finding a gfx card for the money posted outside of second hand/eBay is going to be a struggle. The only reason I suggested a 1050 is because it's about the only card you could reliably get for the money suggested. I'm in the UK though, so I can only judge based on prices here, perhaps GPUs are significantly cheaper elsewhere? It wouldn't surprise me, the number of times I've seen computer parts listed as the same price in dollars and pounds... As I said I'd look for a 970 or 1060 minimum. I currently run a 1080ti though, so YMMV.

Not wanting to start an argument, but I personally no longer recommend AMD graphics cards for two reasons:

Firstly from what I've seen their price to performance isn't particularly good, even with the Nvidia tax. Further, AMD keeps releasing the same GPU over and over again with only slight MHz bumps as new cards. 

Secondly, my experience with AMD graphics cards hasn't been great. I used them pretty exclusively for many years, since before the AMD buyout of ATI in fact. And I have a stack of dead graphics cards that just decided to stop working one day to prove it. It makes me wary of AMD cards for the time being.

Obviously AMD have been putting their R&D budget into Zen, which is a great architecture that actually gives Intel some proper competition. It means that AMD graphics cards have fallen behind over the last few generations though. I'm personally hoping the success of Zen gives AMD the resources to give Nvidia a proper run for their money in the gfx sphere. If/when they do I'll re-evaluate.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Citizen247

[Harry Rhodan]

The 500 series is a rehash of the 400 series architecture but they still only compete with the old 1000 series from Nvidia that the 400 already had to compete with. And at least at the lower half of the spectrum those rehashes deliver a bit more bang for the buck than the Nvidia options. With Vega they also have a newer architecture for high end cards (and oddly enough for low end APUs) and the next one called Navi is scheduled to be released this year.

[strudo76]

How important to performance is the motherboard?

I have a Gigabyte H270M-D3H, which is one of their cheaper boards. I see more expensive "gaming" boards, which I've generally thought of as just more features (ports, slots, interfaces, etc) and the ability to overclock better, but given the difference in price, I'm starting to wonder if there is a performance difference for the base components. I have i7-7700 (non K) CPU, so overclocking isn't a consideration, and I generally don't overclock any of my components anyway. I use the XMP profiles in the RAM, but no further customisation.

So does anyone have any specification differences they can point me to in regards to just the base component performance?

[Lisias]

4 minutes ago, strudo76 said:

How important to performance is the motherboard?

A lot. A mediocre mobo can ruin the CPU performance. Memory Bus, Data Lanes to the PCIE slots, memory support - all of that, when operating below the optimum specs, will hinder the CPU performance beyond hope.

Of course, you don't need a gaming mobo to get decent performance. And chances are that you can get more system stability on a decent non-gaming motherboard. But using a cheap mobo to anything but Office Automation is looking for suffering.  

[Elthy]

If you dont plan to overclock the mainboard doest matter at all. More expensive ones can connect more devices (SSDs, GPUs...) without slowing down, otherwise it doesnt matter.

[steve_v]

3 minutes ago, Elthy said:

If you dont plan to overclock the mainboard doest matter at all.

The motherboard does most certainly matter. Quality of components, number of power rails and regulator phases, heatsinking, chipsets used, I/O bandwidth and expansion capacity, BIOS bugs, it all matters.

Personally, I wouldn't touch a Gigabyte board with a very long stick. I don't know what their quality is like these days, but I've had rather unpleasant experiences with them in the past. And avoid anything with Realtek network chips, they're garbage.

[Elthy]

Quality of components doesnt affect the performace for non OC systems. It may affect longevity (but even the cheapest ones will last longer than you will use the hardware) or capabilitys under (extreme) overclocking.

Number of powerrails doesnt matter outside of more extreme OC, since mainboards have to be good enough for the compatible CPUs, otherwise they wouldnt be allowed to be sold by Intel/AMD. Same for heatsinking, enough for typical use cases.

Im not sure what you are talking about with I/O Bandwitdh. Your bandwitdh is independed of the mainboard quality, PCIe x16 is allways the same speed and even the cheapest mainboards have it. Adding more than one GPU and more than 1 PCIe SSD (or 4 SATA ones) are extreme cases which dont apply to over 99% of cases.

Same thing for BIOS stuff, irrelevant for most stuff outside OC , also i havent ever heard of BIOS bugs in modern hardware that werent patched.

And whats the problem with realtek network chips? They are to capable of 1GBit Ethernet and low pings, more expensive stuff doesnt give you a better internet connection.

 

Most stuff advertised for "gamers" is snake oil and RGB leds...

[Harry Rhodan]

29 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Quality of components doesnt affect the performace for non OC systems.

It does somewhat. The higher your CPU is clocked the better the VRMs need to be. Especially the old AMD FX-8xxx series suffered from performance loss and had to throttle down constantly if you had a cheap board.

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Im not sure what you are talking about with I/O Bandwitdh.

Primarily, bandwidth between the CPU and other components, like the main memory and the GPU(s).

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Adding more than one GPU and more than 1 PCIe SSD (or 4 SATA ones) are extreme cases

Really? I had 2 GPUs until very recently, and this box has 4 SSDS, 2HDDs, and 8 memory DIMMS in it. Quad-channel bandwidth bonus for the RAM because I have a nice board.

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

i havent ever heard of BIOS bugs in modern hardware that werent patched.

I prefer not having them to begin with, see comment on Gigabyte boards.

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

whats the problem with realtek network chips?

Do a real throughput test with many connections, and have a look at CPU load and retransmit rates. Compare to non-trash NIC.
Realtek chips are what you find on bargain-basement no-name NICs, and there's a reason for that.
Intel chips are what you find on server NICs, and there's a reason for that too.

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Most stuff advertised for "gamers" is snake oil and RGB leds...

This I do agree with. There's no reason you can't have decent quality without the silly lights though.

 

[Elthy]

3 hours ago, Harry Rhodan said:

It does somewhat. The higher your CPU is clocked the better the VRMs need to be. Especially the old AMD FX-8xxx series suffered from performance loss and had to throttle down constantly if you had a cheap board.

From what i know every current mainboard is able to run even the hungry i9 9900k at its stock clocks, the problems only beginn when you start to OC.

2 hours ago, steve_v said:

Primarily, bandwidth between the CPU and other components, like the main memory and the GPU(s).

Really? I had 2 GPUs until very recently, and this box has 4 SSDS, 2HDDs, and 8 memory DIMMS in it. Quad-channel bandwidth bonus for the RAM because I have a nice board.

I prefer not having them to begin with, see comment on Gigabyte boards.

Do a real throughput test with many connections, and have a look at CPU load and retransmit rates. Compare to non-trash NIC.
Realtek chips are what you find on bargain-basement no-name NICs, and there's a reason for that.
Intel chips are what you find on server NICs, and there's a reason for that too.

This I do agree with. There's no reason you can't have decent quality without the silly lights though.

 

Quadchannel: Even for enthusiast gamers those are completly unneccessary since the Quadchannel CPUs (Skylake-X and Threadripper) are slower in most games than their smaller counterparts (and also outside any "normal" gaming budget). Also thats not a factor of the mainboard, but of the CPU you bought.

SLI/Crossfire are too unneccessary in modern gaming. Most games stoped supporting it and buying two of the most expensive GPUs available will exceed any sensible budget while bringing almost no benefit.

You HDD/SSD hoarding is also not a typical usecase, but even 6 Sata ports are common on all but the cheapest small-formfactor mainboards.

The Memory Bandwidth and GPU Bandwidth do not depend on the mainboard. Any recent Intel/AMD mainboard supports PCIe Gen3 x16, outside of bleeding edge server hardware there is nothing faster, even a 2012 60$ Ivy Bridge mainboard has the same GPU connection speed. Memory also mainly depends on the support of the CPU. There may be a slightly higher limit for Memory OC if the traces are better isolated, but thats far outside the scope of normal overclocking.

More expensive network chips may have a higher theoretical performance, but if you arent directly plugged into a server/whatever those wont realy matter. Almost noone has an internet connection to exceed a normal LAN connection to a cheap mainboard. If you do, you propably know enough about network hardware that you will know what to buy.

To conclude: Until you reach extreme budgets (which usualy result from enthusiasm for the hardware itself, not the stuff done on them) its better for you performance to spend the surplus mainboard money on the other components.

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, Elthy said:

Quality of components doesnt affect the performace for non OC systems. It may affect longevity (but even the cheapest ones will last longer than you will use the hardware) or capabilitys under (extreme) overclocking.

You are wrong beyond my ability to state it under forum rules.  

Motherboards are a very complex device, as complex as a Boeing. And, exactly as a Boeing, all that it takes to ruin everything is a bad component. A single transistor, a prosaic screw, anything that goes off specs will hinder the performance and, ultimately, crash the system.

Cheap capacitors will allow hysteresis to run wild, forcing the subsystem to clock down or to resend the packets or both (all the interanal systems talks via data lanes nowadays, this things is almost like ethernet connections with steroids).

Cheap VRMs will underperform under heat, and cheap mobos are not known for good heat dissipation (there's a reason pricer ones uses copper on some key points instead of cheap aluminium everywhere).

For every technical aspect, you are not only plain wrong, but you are misguiding others into wrongness - adding injury to the offense.

 

6 hours ago, Elthy said:

Most stuff advertised for "gamers" is snake oil and RGB leds...

Well, not every aspect. You are pretty good on this point.  

[Elthy]

Of course, if a component fails you will have problems. But that doesnt simply happen because oyu bought a cheap mainboard, even the cheapest ones are required by Intel/AMD to run the CPU within specs. And within specs means that the CPU will clock to the same speed on a 60$ or 600$ mainboard, which results in exactly the same performance. Only when you start to push beyond specification (=overclocking) you will see diferences as cheaper mainboards may not have enough reserves. But even here the difference i marginal and only important if you want to go to the limits of your hardware, which is generally a bad idea due to exponential increases in power consumption and cooling requirements.

The named i7 7700 will perform exactly the same on every compatible mainboard (all 200 series chipsets and some 100 series ones), save for some chipsets afaik not being able to load XMP profiles (which is technicaly OC).

[steve_v]

3 hours ago, Elthy said:

Also thats not a factor of the mainboard, but of the CPU you bought.

In my case, it's a factor of both. CPU's don't do a whole lot without a mainboard to plug into.

3 hours ago, Elthy said:

You HDD/SSD hoarding is also not a typical usecase

Your typical is not my typical. I have 30TB of storage on this desk.

3 hours ago, Elthy said:

Until you reach extreme budgets (which usualy result from enthusiasm for the hardware itself, not the stuff done on them) its better for you performance to spend the surplus mainboard money on the other components.

If you like your cheap mobo causing yo grief, that's cool. I don't.
Case in point, last week had to sort out a machine that randomly resets 3-4 times a week. Can you guess which component was at fault? Do you think it was a high-end board or bargain-basement?

[Norcalplanner]

So I'm looking to spend some money on my system, primarily to increase performance in KSP (RP-1 with all the visual mods) as well as some other games (Kingdom Come Deliverance, Cars 2, Fallout 4, etc). Current specs include a 6600k in a Z170 mobo with a mild OC, 16 gigs of ram, a gtx 960, and ssd and spinning drives.

I know upgrading the graphics card will help (leaning towards a RTX 2060), and I'm going to try a more aggressive OC, but would it make sense to bump up to 32 gigs of ram? Or would it be better at this point to look at upgrading the mobo and CPU? Looking to keep things under 500 USD atm.

[strudo76]

9 hours ago, Norcalplanner said:

So I'm looking to spend some money on my system, primarily to increase performance in KSP (RP-1 with all the visual mods) as well as some other games (Kingdom Come Deliverance, Cars 2, Fallout 4, etc). Current specs include a 6600k in a Z170 mobo with a mild OC, 16 gigs of ram, a gtx 960, and ssd and spinning drives.

I know upgrading the graphics card will help (leaning towards a RTX 2060), and I'm going to try a more aggressive OC, but would it make sense to bump up to 32 gigs of ram? Or would it be better at this point to look at upgrading the mobo and CPU? Looking to keep things under 500 USD atm.

What resolution do you play at?

[Harry Rhodan]

13 hours ago, Norcalplanner said:

I know upgrading the graphics card will help (leaning towards a RTX 2060), and I'm going to try a more aggressive OC, but would it make sense to bump up to 32 gigs of ram?

Neither the GPU nor the RAM will increase performance very much unless you plan on using graphic intensive mods or a whole lot of very large mods.