KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[adsii1970]

1 hour ago, VoidSquid said:

I see...

Played 1.3.1 for I-don't-know-how-long, switched to 1.7.x finally then.

Curious: what mods do you miss in particular?

Far enough question -

The main mods I used to create surface ships were the ones by @SpannerMonkey(smce). He's no longer active in modding and has removed his mods from GitHub. So, there's that. And also, there's the older (and easier to use) TextureReplacer and BDArmory with the Naval Artillery System. Those are the main reasons that I have not brought my long-running saved game into the more modern KSP versions.

[VoidSquid]

I see, yes. Pretty good reasons to stick with 1.3.1, imo.

[Vanamonde]

Hi @Ujjiban Bhattacharjeeand welcome to the forum. We have a whole thread for PC advice with regard to the game and your question has been merged into it. You might find other useful details if you look around the thread. 

[Nuke]

7 hours ago, Nuke said:

wonder if i can top my 8086k build with my stimulus check. core components only. could probably use my existing ram since were still on ddr4. pcie 4 would be nice too. would need just a mobo (mini itx probably otherwise id need a new case) and cpu (maybe cooler as well). 

if i go with a 3800xt i have about $130 left over for a mobo. coming up from an 8086k im not sure thats a good enough upgrade.  

seems i could afford a 5800x if i could find them in stock. 

these mobos are all really pricy, and none of them support ryzen 5000 series out of the box. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Nuke

[Nuke]

after further research ive decided that any possible upgrade for $600 would actually be more of a sidegrade. this build is also not as old as i thought it was. 

might be better to upgrade the thermodynamics, memory, and storage on my existing system than to try a cpu/mobo upgrade. think with some hax i could get a 140mm aio in this thing, but id need to get some custom cut acrylic and re-engineer the whole front panel to make that work. the 8086k can in theory turbo all the way to 5ghz with the right kind of cooling, but likely not a single 140mm rad. id have to get it out of the sff case for anything more.  

only other optin i can think of is to just buy the cpu and get the mobo at a later date, but i hate to leave perfectly good hardware lying around for months.  not buying anything will just lead to cash entropy and the inability to buy anything. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Nuke

[Popestar]

So, with my laptop in its last days, I had to purchase a new desktop.  The specs on the new rig I ordered today:

• OS:  Windows 10 Home
• Processor:  AMD Ryzen™ 9 3900 W/RGB Air Cooling (3.1 GHz up to 4.3 GHz, 64 MB L3 cache, 12 cores)
• Memory:  HyperX® 32 GB DDR4-3200 XMP RGB SDRAM (2 x 16 GB)
• Storage:  WD Black 512 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
  • I already have an external Seagate 5 TB HDD, so additional storage was not needed to be purchased.
• Graphics:  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super (8 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
• Monitor:  HP X27i Gaming Monitor

Should be shipped on 2/1...which sucks.  I gotta wait 3 weeks and hope my laptop doesn't die before then.  I'm hoping it doesn't so I can do the data transfer myself without having to purchase an external HDD case for the laptop HDD and then try to do it that way.

$2250 plus tax.  The monitor itself is $325, so the machine being under $2k is right about where I wanted to be.  I thought about getting a bigger graphics card, but the options weren't all that impressive.  2 of the options had 8 GB of GDDR-6 dedicated (which is on the card I already have), and 1 of them had 11 GB dedicated.  So 3 other options, only 1 that had more dedicated memory.  And that one with 11 GB of dedicated memory?  An additional $490.  Yeah, I'll stick with the 2060, which should be enough for me.

I am getting Office 2019 with this; I've already got virus protection that I can migrate from my laptop, and all the other programs I need are getting migrated as well.  Including KSP. 

Thoughts?

Edited January 11, 2021 by Popestar

[Elthy]

Thats an extremly unbalanced PC for gaming, if your main usage case isnt video editing or other massively multithreaded workload that a realy bad deal for the money. And you compared GPUs with their VRAM, which is one of the least important specs as long as you have enough. Its all about the processing power. Both the CPU and GPU are also allready outdated...

[Popestar]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Thats an extremly unbalanced PC for gaming, if your main usage case isnt video editing or other massively multithreaded workload that a realy bad deal for the money. And you compared GPUs with their VRAM, which is one of the least important specs as long as you have enough. Its all about the processing power. Both the CPU and GPU are also allready outdated...

They may be outdated, but they were the only options available.  I'm not mechanically inclined, so building one from scratch is NOT an option; I'm stuck with the options given on HP's site for the Omen.

With that said, gaming isn't my number 1 priority in a machine.  I happen to do some video editing, as well as software programming.  Yes, I'll be playing games on it, but not as a primary function.  Not to mention that those specs are far beyond what my laptop currently has, so it should work with the games I plan on playing.  But I appreciate the input!

[Adam_Kerbal]

Hi everyone!

This thread is pretty amazing - I'm looking at a new laptop in general and I've already gotten a lot of good info for what suits Kerbal.

I'd be grateful for your recommendation - I'll be getting a Lenovo Legion 5 and am tossing up between a Ryzen 7 4800H (2.9-4.2GHz) and i7 10750H (2.6-5.0GHz). I know that single core speed is the most important for Kerbal, but I'm wondering if the i7 is worth it as the Ryzen 7 seems to seriously outperform it in other areas.

The rest of the specs are:
RAM: minimum 16GB
Memory: minimum 512 GB SSD
Graphics: minimum GTX 1650, possibly GTX 1660 Ti. RTX 2060 is available but it seems like overkill
Display: 15.6" IPS 120 Hz 250 nits (1920x1080 FullHD), possibly 144Hz 300 nits

Has anyone used a similar setup? Which processor do you think is best for Kerbal, or would there be little difference?

Thanks,
Adam

Edited January 16, 2021 by Adam_Kerbal
Message cut short

[paul_c]

On 1/11/2021 at 7:07 PM, Elthy said:

Thats an extremly unbalanced PC for gaming, if your main usage case isnt video editing or other massively multithreaded workload that a realy bad deal for the money. And you compared GPUs with their VRAM, which is one of the least important specs as long as you have enough. Its all about the processing power. Both the CPU and GPU are also allready outdated...

Unfortunately, you basically can't buy a Ryzen 5000 series CPU, nor a 3000 series NVidia card unless you keep trying and trying to pre-order then wait a couple of months. Its a really sucky time to try buy a computer but if you actually do, then realistically its 3000 series Ryzen and an older graphics card.

The 3900 is good but if it was just for gaming a 3600X would have done it. I guess it depends on the prices. 2060 makes sense at a good price too.

 

15 minutes ago, Adam_Kerbal said:

Hi everyone!

This thread is pretty amazing - I'm looking at a new laptop in general and I've already gotten a lot of good info for what suits Kerbal.

I'd be grateful for your recommendation - I'll be getting a Lenovo Legion 5 and am tossing up between a Ryzen 7 4800H (2.9-4.2GHz) and i7 10750H (2.6-5.0GHz). I know that single core speed is the most important for Kerbal, but I'm wondering if the i7 is worth it as the Ryzen 7 seems to seriously outperform it in other areas.

The rest of the specs are:
RAM: minimum 16GB
Memory: minimum 512 GB SSD
Graphics: minimum GTX 1650, possibly GTX 1660 Ti. RTX 2060 is available but it seems like overkill
Display: 15.6" IPS 120 Hz 250 nits (1920x1080 FullHD), possibly 144Hz 300 nits

Has anyone used a similar setup? Which processor do you think is best for Kerbal, or would there be little difference?

Thanks,
Adam

Check out the Eluktronics RP-17 if you want a decent Ryzen laptop with dedicated mobile graphics card too: https://www.eluktronics.com/RP-17/

They do a 15" version if 17" is too big, but since they're the same price it would make sense to go for 17" for gaming.

[Elthy]

9 hours ago, paul_c said:

Unfortunately, you basically can't buy a Ryzen 5000 series CPU, nor a 3000 series NVidia card unless you keep trying and trying to pre-order then wait a couple of months. Its a really sucky time to try buy a computer but if you actually do, then realistically its 3000 series Ryzen and an older graphics card.

The 3900 is good but if it was just for gaming a 3600X would have done it. I guess it depends on the prices. 2060 makes sense at a good price too.

At least in germany both are available, Nvidia GPUs and AMDs 12/16 core at very high prices (+30%) while AMDs 6/8core are close to UVP. And for almost 2000$ its easy to build a better PC using those instead of the outdated stuff.

 

10 hours ago, Adam_Kerbal said:

I'll be getting a Lenovo Legion 5 and am tossing up between a Ryzen 7 4800H (2.9-4.2GHz) and i7 10750H (2.6-5.0GHz). I know that single core speed is the most important for Kerbal, but I'm wondering if the i7 is worth it as the Ryzen 7 seems to seriously outperform it in other areas.

The Ryzen seems to be a bit better, but not enught to warrant a much higher price.

[paul_c]

48 minutes ago, Elthy said:

At least in germany both are available, Nvidia GPUs and AMDs 12/16 core at very high prices (+30%) while AMDs 6/8core are close to UVP. And for almost 2000$ its easy to build a better PC using those instead of the outdated stuff.

 

I keep in touch with a number of YouTube channels (Gamer's Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, JayzTwoCents) but I can also relate to my own personal experience. Like many, I wanted to buy/build a decent gaming PC during the lockdowns. I built mine last September, before the newer stuff came out, although I was aware of it. I never intended it to be a high-end system but at the same time didn't want to buy something outdated.

Originally I eyed up the Ryzen 3300X but its basically a paper product, its very sparsely available - so went for the 3600X out of necessity. For graphics, I always knew about the 3000 series but in the interim, went for a cheap(ish) secondhand 2060. I have yet to find a game yet, where the system struggles to cope. On the most demanding, a hardware monitor shows the GPU gets 100% utilised and reaches its 179W power limit, but I've not seen poor frame rates in.....anything. Anything except.....KSP! If you construct a space station then add bits and add bits so it has loads of parts, that's the only thing it struggles with (but I think that's a KSP issue or rather a me-making-a-silly-too-big-space-station-in-KSP issue). I even owned MSFS2020 for a short while - no problems with performance there either (on decent settings too).

So yes, on the internet the Ryzen 5xxx and NVidia 3xxx are great, but in reality the previous generation are still able to keep up with the vast majority of games (at least in my limited experience). Maybe there's something in the future coming out which will push the performance boundaries again (MSFS2020 does this on older PCs....). Or you want to run everything in 4K at 120+fps.

[Popestar]

9 hours ago, Elthy said:

At least in germany both are available, Nvidia GPUs and AMDs 12/16 core at very high prices (+30%) while AMDs 6/8core are close to UVP. And for almost 2000$ its easy to build a better PC using those instead of the outdated stuff.

I'm not in Germany.  And as I stated, I'm not mechanically inclined enough to build one myself.

I got what was available.  I didn't post it to be hammered on about how wrong I was.  

[paul_c]

36 minutes ago, Popestar said:

I'm not in Germany.  And as I stated, I'm not mechanically inclined enough to build one myself.

I got what was available.  I didn't post it to be hammered on about how wrong I was.  

Don't worry, your spec is fine, it is not "extremely unbalanced".

[Adam_Kerbal]

22 hours ago, paul_c said:

Check out the Eluktronics RP-17 if you want a decent Ryzen laptop with dedicated mobile graphics card too: https://www.eluktronics.com/RP-17/

They do a 15" version if 17" is too big, but since they're the same price it would make sense to go for 17" for gaming.

Thanks! It's a bit out of my budget but I've heard good things about them. I was curious about Ryzen 7 (2.9-4.2GHz) vs Intel i7 (2.6-5.0GHz) - do you have any thoughts on which is superior?

12 hours ago, Elthy said:

The Ryzen seems to be a bit better, but not enught to warrant a much higher price.

Thanks! It's that for general use? The i7 has a much higher speed (2.6-5.0GHz vs 2.9-4.2GHz) so I'd assume it's better for Kerbal but not as good for other things (6 vs 8 cores).  Legion 5s with Ryzens are somehow cheaper than with i7s in Poland at the moment. 

[paul_c]

AMD have traditionally been better for budget end of the market which is the kind of spec I was after, and just made sense (back in September). AMD are better multi-threading but are generally lower clock speeds. This means for intensive gaming (where the CPU affects it, ie the GPU isn't the bottleneck) Intel still do well. However since about 8th gen, Intel haven't really progressed at nearly the same rate as AMD so the gap got closer and closer. Its fair to say that with the Ryzen 5000 series they've pretty much caught up (IPC - instructions per cycle - took a leap forwards, so the lower clock speed is less relevant now). Depending on the availability and price, AMD makes sense.

Intel are just launching 11th gen (for laptops and ultraportables, there's stuff available now) but there's no big technology leap, its just a small change from 10th gen. And AMD have had poor availability (for enthusiast/builders) and thus the prices have not fallen, whereas Intel has better availability and some of the recent prices have been cut so its pretty even now. IF you can get an AMD at the right price, they're better.

The supply issues aren't so bad with system integrators eg laptop manufacturers.

[Elthy]

12 hours ago, Popestar said:

I got what was available.  I didn't post it to be hammered on about how wrong I was

Well, you asked for thoughts...

9 hours ago, Adam_Kerbal said:

Thanks! It's that for general use? The i7 has a much higher speed (2.6-5.0GHz vs 2.9-4.2GHz) so I'd assume it's better for Kerbal but not as good for other things (6 vs 8 cores).  Legion 5s with Ryzens are somehow cheaper than with i7s in Poland at the moment. 

A few points:

You cant compare CPUs by their clockspeed (only within the same achitecture), AMDs 3000/4000 Series CPUs (based on Zen2) are able to calculate more stuff per clock than Intels Skylake-based CPUs (as the i7 10750H). Also the maximum stated clockspeed isnt used all the time, only when thermals and power usage allow. Here Zen2 is more efficient than Skylake, allowing it to sustain its speed for longer, while its still possible that the Intel CPU is faster for short bursts (a few seconds long) due to its way higher maximum clockspeed.

You are right that the corecount doesnt matter much for KSP so its important to focus on the single thread speed. Sadly there are few tests that compare those CPUs directly at the same allowed power usage, so im comparing the score in Cinebench, which is a syntetic benchmark that favors AMD slightly:
4800H@45W ST: 1240
4800H@45W MT: 10575

i7 10750H@45W ST: 1149
i7 10750H@45W MT: 6541

(Source: https://www.computerbase.de/2020-11/cinebench-r23-community-benchmarks/#abschnitt_die_ergebnisse)

As you can see the i7 is slightly slower in ST performance, but since Cinebench favors AMD a tiny bit the speed should be more or less identical. But for multithreaded workloads AMD is far ahead, you just wont notice in KSP1. I would still go with AMD as MT will get more important across the board, e.g. in KSP2, especialy since its cheaper.

7 hours ago, paul_c said:

AMD have traditionally been better for budget end of the market which is the kind of spec I was after, and just made sense (back in September). AMD are better multi-threading but are generally lower clock speeds. This means for intensive gaming (where the CPU affects it, ie the GPU isn't the bottleneck) Intel still do well. However since about 8th gen, Intel haven't really progressed at nearly the same rate as AMD so the gap got closer and closer. Its fair to say that with the Ryzen 5000 series they've pretty much caught up (IPC - instructions per cycle - took a leap forwards, so the lower clock speed is less relevant now). Depending on the availability and price, AMD makes sense.

Intel are just launching 11th gen (for laptops and ultraportables, there's stuff available now) but there's no big technology leap, its just a small change from 10th gen. And AMD have had poor availability (for enthusiast/builders) and thus the prices have not fallen, whereas Intel has better availability and some of the recent prices have been cut so its pretty even now. IF you can get an AMD at the right price, they're better.

The supply issues aren't so bad with system integrators eg laptop manufacturers.

AMD has caught up to Intels Skylake based CPUs with the Zen2 based 3000 series, Intel is only able to outrun them (in single threaded workloads) with their extremly high clocked high end desktop models that draw an obscene amount of power. Intel had to counter their mobile lineup with Icelake/Tiger Lake, which are currently only avaiable as low power models with 4 cores in low power notebooks, everything higher is still based on sklyake, still loosing to AMDs Zen2 in most circumstances.

With AMDs Zen3 based 5000 series they made another big leap in performance, outclasing Intel on the desktop in all workloads. Those will soon also be available in notebooks, just like Intels Tigerlake with 8 cores, resulting in an extremly interessting duel. Simliary Intel will soon launch Tigerlake based deskop CPUs, which will likely be on par with Zen3 in single thread tasks. But since they will only offer up to 8 cores and are likely to have lower efficency they will still be behind in Multithreading.

The 11th Gen is actualy the biggest leap Intel made in the recent years, since it combines the high IPC of Icelake with the high clockspeed of Skylake.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Elthy

[Adam_Kerbal]

12 hours ago, paul_c said:

AMD have traditionally been better for budget end of the market which is the kind of spec I was after, and just made sense (back in September). AMD are better multi-threading but are generally lower clock speeds. This means for intensive gaming (where the CPU affects it, ie the GPU isn't the bottleneck) Intel still do well. However since about 8th gen, Intel haven't really progressed at nearly the same rate as AMD so the gap got closer and closer. Its fair to say that with the Ryzen 5000 series they've pretty much caught up (IPC - instructions per cycle - took a leap forwards, so the lower clock speed is less relevant now). Depending on the availability and price, AMD makes sense.

Intel are just launching 11th gen (for laptops and ultraportables, there's stuff available now) but there's no big technology leap, its just a small change from 10th gen. And AMD have had poor availability (for enthusiast/builders) and thus the prices have not fallen, whereas Intel has better availability and some of the recent prices have been cut so its pretty even now. IF you can get an AMD at the right price, they're better.

The supply issues aren't so bad with system integrators eg laptop manufacturers.

Thanks for the clarification here - I'd read about the IPC but couldn't find anything concrete. I'm sold on the AMD

4 hours ago, Elthy said:

Well, you asked for thoughts...

A few points:

You cant compare CPUs by their clockspeed (only within the same achitecture), AMDs 3000/4000 Series CPUs (based on Zen2) are able to calculate more stuff per clock than Intels Skylake-based CPUs (as the i7 10750H). Also the maximum stated clockspeed isnt used all the time, only when thermals and power usage allow. Here Zen2 is more efficient than Skylake, allowing it to sustain its speed for longer, while its still possible that the Intel CPU is faster for short bursts (a few seconds long) due to its way higher maximum clockspeed.

You are right that the corecount doesnt matter much for KSP so its important to focus on the single thread speed. Sadly there are few tests that compare those CPUs directly at the same allowed power usage, so im comparing the score in Cinebench, which is a syntetic benchmark that favors AMD slightly:
4800H@45W ST: 1240
4800H@45W MT: 10575

i7 10750H@45W ST: 1149
i7 10750H@45W MT: 6541

(Source: https://www.computerbase.de/2020-11/cinebench-r23-community-benchmarks/#abschnitt_die_ergebnisse)

As you can see the i7 is slightly slower in ST performance, but since Cinebench favors AMD a tiny bit the speed should be more or less identical. But for multithreaded workloads AMD is far ahead, you just wont notice in KSP1. I would still go with AMD as MT will get more important across the board, e.g. in KSP2, especialy since its cheaper.

AMD has caught up to Intels Skylake based CPUs with the Zen2 based 3000 series, Intel is only able to outrun them (in single threaded workloads) with their extremly high clocked high end desktop models that draw an obscene amount of power. Intel had to counter their mobile lineup with Icelake/Tiger Lake, which are currently only avaiable as low power models with 4 cores in low power notebooks, everything higher is still based on sklyake, still loosing to AMDs Zen2 in most circumstances.

With AMDs Zen3 based 5000 series they made another big leap in performance, outclasing Intel on the desktop in all workloads. Those will soon also be available in notebooks, just like Intels Tigerlake with 8 cores, resulting in an extremly interessting duel. Simliary Intel will soon launch Tigerlake based deskop CPUs, which will likely be on par with Zen3 in single thread tasks. But since they will only offer up to 8 cores and are likely to have lower efficency they will still be behind in Multithreading.

The 11th Gen is actualy the biggest leap Intel made in the recent years, since it combines the high IPC of Icelake with the high clockspeed of Skylake.

Thanks for the ultra-clear and detailed explanation. I have been reading through this thread as well as various benchmark sites for weeks but couldn't quite understand the differences. Today I'm looking to get last year's tech (4xxx for Ryzen or 10xxx for Intel) as the price is slowly dropping with new tech being introduced.

 

This thread has delivered once again Have a great day!

[Adam_Kerbal]

For those who are interested, I ended up getting a Legion 5 and it is great - even a 700+ part craft flew without issue (though the frame rate was around 15-30 fps on low quality graphics while launching from Kerbin). There was no slowdown in responsiveness.

For maximum quality graphics and a100-200 part craft I was seeing 40-70 fps.
For low quality graphics I was seeing 120+ fps.

The specs are:
Lenovo Legion 5
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H
16GB RAM
512 GB SSD
RTX 2060
15.6" IPS 120 Hz (1920x1080 FullHD) - max brightness is 250 nits, for some this might be a little dark.

Happy computer buying

 

[paul_c]

 

Enjoy!

[AeroSky]

Hello!

Is this a decent processor/CPU for KSP and possibly KSP 2? I'm planning to pair it with a GTX 1660 Super if possible.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086MMRW87?tag=georiot-us-default-20&th=1&psc=1&ascsubtag=pcg-ph-8617618286213472000-20&geniuslink=true

 

[Elthy]

Its decent, but usualy an i5 10400 is only slightly more expensive while offering 50% more cores, which is important for future-proofing. They wont help with KSP1, though.

[AeroSky]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Its decent, but usualy an i5 10400 is only slightly more expensive while offering 50% more cores, which is important for future-proofing. They wont help with KSP1, though.

So going for an i5 10400 is slightly more expensive, but its ready for future games like KSP 2. I think I'll go with the i5. Thanks for the help!

[Elthy]

Since you use an dedicated GPU you can likely save a few bucks by going with the i5 10400F, which has its internal graphics disabled.

[Opteryx]

My computer is a good gaming computer in 2014-2017 standards. It is a Dell workplace computer with many custom parts (none of which are LED's). I am unaware of its exact specs because my dad was the one who built it, but here are the parts:

CPU-  8 Core Intel CPU (I don't know the exact model, but it runs about as fast as a modern off the shelf PC)

GPU- Geforce GTX 1070 primary GPU with a small backup GPU

RAM- Whatever the stock one is (it is pretty good, it runs at about 30% memory with RLCraft running)

Power Supply- Unaware of model, but it was replaced in 2018 after a power surge

OS: Windows 10

Drives:

C drive is a 900GB disc drive

D drive is a 4TB solid state drive

H drive is a 2TB solid state drive