KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Vanamonde]

Added your post to the thread we keep for this question, @hanson26.

[Harry Rhodan]

6 hours ago, hanson26 said:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232769&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo 

It'll run fine. The real questions are if you should buy stuff a year ahead and if you really want to buy a large and relatively heavy gaming laptop that you might want or have to carry around campus quite often.

[steuben]

I'm considering a new CPU. It depends on if it is my powersupply or the dust blanket giving me trouble.

Is there a good rule of thumb these days for choosing one for KSP? I think in the previous versions clock speed over cores was the direction, mostly because KSP was single threaded. Now with 1.1.x and it's ability to use multiple cores that changes. What's the weighting of cores and speed? Given similar prices should I chose clocks or cores?

 

[Red Iron Crown]

1 minute ago, steuben said:

I'm considering a new CPU. It depends on if it is my powersupply or the dust blanket giving me trouble.

Is there a good rule of thumb these days for choosing one for KSP? I think in the previous versions clock speed over cores was the direction, mostly because KSP was single threaded. Now with 1.1.x and it's ability to use multiple cores that changes. What's the weighting of cores and speed? Given similar prices should I chose clocks or cores?

 

For KSP I would still chase best single-thread performance. Better single thread performance helps with all tasks, multithread performance only with some. So still go Intel for CPUs assuming that's an option, and fewer faster cores will be better than more slower ones.

[cantab]

Agreed. KSP still wants fast single-threaded performance, and that means a modern fast-clocked Intel CPU. When flying a single rocket I think more than two cores won't help, but with multiple ships around it might.

So good CPUs for KSP at various prices including Pentium G3258, i3-6100, i5-6500, i5-6600K. And i7-6700K if you don't want to overclock (because it's the fastest around at stock speeds).

Don't get an Athlon 860K, or any other AMD processor, if you play KSP a lot.

Edited May 3, 2016 by cantab

[steuben]

The advice about AMD is received. Given I can get an AMD with a higher clock than Intel at the same price it may end up getting weighted lower. I'm looking towards at the very large end of ship size.

It depends on how KSP approaching multi-cores and ships. I haven't seen a clear answer to that on the forums anywhere. Does each ship end up getting it's own core, or does it try to spread the physics over all the cores, or something in between?

[Red Iron Crown]

9 minutes ago, steuben said:

It depends on how KSP approaching multi-cores and ships. I haven't seen a clear answer to that on the forums anywhere. Does each ship end up getting it's own core, or does it try to spread the physics over all the cores, or something in between?

The PhysX component of the physics is one thread per vessel. However, there are other things going on that consume significant CPU for a vessel, like reentry effects, thermal calculations, and resource flow. So there is benefit to having more than one core available even with a single craft.

[cantab]

Testing on the pre-release, with a 600 part rocket KSP was using the equivalent of 1 1/2 cores on my Core i3-6100. I interpret that as meaning KSP still has one thread doing more than half the work, when flying a single ship at least, and therefore gave the advice above.

When it comes to how much performance a single core gives, AMD's architecture is so far behind that an AMD FX overclocked to 5.0 GHz still does worse than a Pentium G4400 at 3.3 GHz.

[Camacha]

The new 6950x looks pretty decent. I had hoped for even better overclocked results, but you cannot have it all.

[cantab]

It's still quite conservative stock clocks. Obviously thermals are a challenge, but I would have thought something like 4.0 boost would be achievable.

[Sjulimann]

Does the Kerbal community approve of my little command centre?

[HafCoJoe]

19 minutes ago, Sjulimann said:

Does the Kerbal community approve of my little command centre?

O_O that's amazing... but what is that third monitor doing?

[Sjulimann]

It is my spotify screen, I just removed spotify for the picture

[cantab]

Pretty nice. Rather sleeker and shinier than my battlestation.

[Red Iron Crown]

5 hours ago, Sjulimann said:

Does the Kerbal community approve of my little command centre?

Where does one get that map?

(The press on your desk is making me think of bottle rocket puns )

[Amedee]

Hello fellow kerbalistas!

Two years go I had a gaming rig assembled with these specs:

• GPU: MSI 3GB D5 X GTX780 Twin Frozr R

• CPU: Int Core i5-4670 3400 1150 BOX

• HD: SSD 500GB 520/540 840 EVOBasic SA3 SAM

• MB: Asus GRYPHON Z87 Z87 RG SM

• RAM: D3 8GB 2133-11 XMP Beast K2 KHX

I have some money to spend to upgrade this rig.

The obvious choice would be to add more RAM (moar mods!). The Asus Gryphon Z87 motherboard supports up to 32 GiB, so I was thinking about maxing that out.

Any other recommendations that would make sense in the context of playing Kerbal Space Program? My budget is about 500 EUR (including the RAM upgrade).

[Elthy]

Upgrading the RAM could be helpfull if you managed to fill it before (actualy not that hard with 64 bit now), but the other parts are still decent for KSP. I wouldnt spend money on them now, but maybe you could upgrade to an i5 4690k which can be overclocked if you add a CPU-Cooler. Not worth it in my opinion, but its your money

[cantab]

8 hours ago, Amedee said:

Any other recommendations that would make sense in the context of playing Kerbal Space Program?

A gamepad or flightstick can be really good, if you don't have one already.

[Amedee]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Upgrading the RAM could be helpfull if you managed to fill it before (actualy not that hard with 64 bit now), but the other parts are still decent for KSP. I wouldnt spend money on them now, but maybe you could upgrade to an i5 4690k which can be overclocked if you add a CPU-Cooler. Not worth it in my opinion, but its your money

Yes, I am able to fill the RAM. Just try adding all the planet packs with all of their textures! :-D

If I were to upgrade the CPU, I think I would go for an i7.

1 hour ago, cantab said:

A gamepad or flightstick can be really good, if you don't have one already.

I already have a Logitech G19 keyboard, Logitech G600 Mouse, Logitech G13 gamepad and Logitech G35 headset, so I think I'm good there.
I do mostly rockets, very little airplanes. so I don't think a flightstick would be much use. But a friend has one, maybe I'll ask him if I can borrow it for a couple of days to try it out.

Edited May 7, 2016 by Amedee

[Elthy]

26 minutes ago, Amedee said:

I think I would go for an i7.

That doesnt make any sense at all. Rule of thumb: If you cant say why you need an i7, you dont need it. Its not faster than an i5 in games, hyperhtreading sometimes even results in lower performance. The higher clockspeed can be reached by OC easily.

[Amedee]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

That doesnt make any sense at all. Rule of thumb: If you cant say why you need an i7, you dont need it. Its not faster than an i5 in games, hyperhtreading sometimes even results in lower performance. The higher clockspeed can be reached by OC easily.

Maybe I also do other things with this rig than just play KSP?
I prefer not to overclock. I lost more than one CPU that way in the past. I'm older and wiser now, I have learned not to tweak hardware to its limits. I pay others to do that, so I can blame them and have a warranty when it goes wrong.

[Alphasus]

15 hours ago, Amedee said:

Maybe I also do other things with this rig than just play KSP?
I prefer not to overclock. I lost more than one CPU that way in the past. I'm older and wiser now, I have learned not to tweak hardware to its limits. I pay others to do that, so I can blame them and have a warranty when it goes wrong.

If you need hyperthreading, go with a quad core Xeon E3. The e3 1241 v3 is like a 4770k, but it runs cooler and is cheaper.

[cantab]

If you're really anti-overclocking then the 4790K can make sense. It's not cheap, but I'd expect it to boost KSP's framerate by about 15% and while that's not much it's more than anything else is likely to do.

[Alphasus]

1 hour ago, cantab said:

If you're really anti-overclocking then the 4790K can make sense. It's not cheap, but I'd expect it to boost KSP's framerate by about 15% and while that's not much it's more than anything else is likely to do.

I would mention the xeon e3 1241v3 again. Effectively a 4770k.

[briansun1]

18 hours ago, Alphasus said:

I would mention the xeon e3 1241v3 again. Effectively a 4770k.

This has my vote.