KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Nuke]

speaking of full disassembly, my psu showed up.  im not in a computer surgery mood right now though. now i can enjoy my games and feel bad about the environment (but not that bad). 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Nuke

[magnemoe]

On 11/2/2023 at 10:46 AM, Nuke said:

you got to be careful with socket compatibility. mobo dictates everything but you still need to have an idea of what cpu you are going to be using. then pick a mobo that is compatible and gives you all the interfaces you need. then you do ram (usually something on the qvl). you cant stick an amd in an intel or vise versa. even if you have the correct socket type, you might need to flash the bios to unlock a newer chip. fortunately that is really easy these days and you can do it without a cpu in the socket. read manuals before you buy. i usually theory craft multiple different builds before settling on one. 

i dont really do in-generation upgrades. no point getting a low end cpu and upgrading later. first off its got to be better than what you were running previous without jumping to a higher tier. wait too long and an upgrade involves replacing most or all core components anyway, so just buy something in your budget and plan on replacing most of it next time. cases, gpus, ssds, power supplies (in good condition and in spec for your build), fans if they are good (say noctua or some other high end fan product) usually end up in multiple build iterations. when i upgrade im usually skipping 2 or 3 generations and im unlikely to hit the same socket twice. memory too is almost a new type, except current build still uses ddr4. will do gpu upgrades periodically and storage as needed (of course with m.2 i usually coincide this with the core components, because depending on build getting at them may require a near complete disassembly, im currently fine for another terabyte or two). 

I agree at this time, in generation upgrades made sense back 20 years ago then you had an +20% performance gain yearly and it mattered, not today then its 2-3% and it hardly matter.
Now my home commuter is an monster, Ryzen 9 5950 16 core, 64 GB ram, 4070ti and a 1TB M2 SSD who is next for the upgrade as in more M2 ssd. 
As purchaser of computer stuff in an small company I has serious perks, the 4070ti was after restoring the boss laptop 

[Nuke]

power supply installed. now somebody remind me why stuffing a 1kw supply into a 12 liter case is a bad idea. it just feels wrong.

corsair did shrink all their connectors though. so all the power supply side connectors are tiny. like the tiny nvidia 12 pin connector (which they included, negating the need for a squid cable in the future if i ever go back to nvidia). while i do question the wisdom of using these connectors, i do appreciate the space savings as id not have been able to get the longer psu in otherwise. but i do worry because i had to fold the cables 90 degrees for clearance. and that was one of the issues these smaller connectors had. the old modular connectors were bigger and could handle consideable abuse. i was somewhat dismayed that despite the ginormous intake fan, the output vent is very restrictive. i hope thats not a problem.

anyway, enough chit chat. ksp2. lets see if i still get annoyed by paige. see if my rockets blow up at random. see if part counts can be jacked up. see if i can get a thousand tons on the pad. wish me luck. gonna skim the patch notes first, see whats happened, haven't played since release. 

e: rock solid, not a crash.  curse you gpu manufacturers for requiring so much juice. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Nuke

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 11/10/2023 at 1:44 PM, Nuke said:

curse you gpu manufacturers for requiring so much juice

Too soon to say 'I told you so?'

[Nuke]

it was buy something or spend the money on groceries. im having the same dilemma about whether or not to buy a steam deck when the oled models come out on thursday. on the other hand now is a good time to buy the old models, they were price dropped in preparation. 

 

of course then i realized i was old and a 7 inch display just wont cut it. 

Edited November 12, 2023 by Nuke

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

16 hours ago, Nuke said:

 

of course then i realized i was old and a 7 inch display just wont cut it.

I feel your pain! 

I'm loving the real estate of the 32 inch monitor. I just wish I could move it to my wife's office b/c she has much better natural light than I do.  However, she's working from home regularly now - so not happening. 

I'm really feeling the limits of my 3070 when I get a chance to game. 

Debating on the 7900 xtx now or wait for the Nvidia Supers (rumored for Feb/April next year). 

Key phrase is 'when I get a chance'.  A 6 month delay does not seem like that big of a wait when I consider my availability to game won't likely happen until June (summer break). 

I'm still appalled at the pricing - but 8gb of vram and 3070 performance at 4k is painful... And I'm still addicted to my frugal 'price/performance' habits.  Value - and getting value out of the money paid is one of the core drivers for me that I just cannot convince myself to bite the bullet and spend what they're asking for the current generation easily. 

[Nuke]

if the xt needs a 1kw psu, i loathe to think what its larger brother would use. been generally happy with the 7900xt (granted i upgraded from a cut down rtx2070 super), but the industry can do better. hopefully in 3 or 4 generations when the card gets long in the tooth, they will reverse their transgressions. performance in ksp2 is acceptable at 4k native now. the new psu also runs a lot colder. should run some benchmarks to see if my computer runs better without the space heater in the case (e: 3% faster in cinebench). it does reinforce my claim that 80+ ratings are not a guarantee that the psu work well at its advertised wattage number. 

and for something completely different, is a 265w flexatx psu enough for a 4970k and 1060. for my win7 legacy box (for a number of low performance ''80s, 90s and '00s games). was going to put  the sf600 in there but after some review there is no way in heck that diminutive psu will fit in the equally diminutive htpc case. dont want to spend more than the cost of the tooling to mod the back panel of the case.  

Edited November 12, 2023 by Nuke

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 11/12/2023 at 12:09 PM, Nuke said:

a 265w flexatx psu enough for a 4970k and 1060. for my win7 legacy box

God - it's been so long since I looked at those specs, I can't remember.  OFC my Win7 box was the one I 'learned' about bad PSU / underwattage - and I tossed the thing long ago.

[GDJ]

My new rig in progress:

ASUS TUF gaming Z790 WIFI+  motherboard
Intel i3-13100 processor (Motherboard is compatible with 14th gen Intel processors, which I probably will upgrade in the future)
Kingston FURY Beast 32GB DDR5 RAM (x4) (arriving Friday)
Some cool looking generic case I picked up at the pawn shop for $65 (also came with a AIO water cooler block and radiator, plus a whack load of fans. Not a bad deal really).

Coming soon:

850 - 1000 watt power supply
Intel ARC 770 16 GB GPU
An adapter card for Firewire 800/400 (I have some older equipment that work well still)

This computer will be doing other things besides some light gaming, hence the RAM. The processor is the weak link, but that can be upgraded later.

Edited November 14, 2023 by GDJ

[Nuke]

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckateli said:

God - it's been so long since I looked at those specs, I can't remember.  OFC my Win7 box was the one I 'learned' about bad PSU / underwattage - and I tossed the thing long ago.

the psu used to have trouble powering my old second gen i5. but the 4790k ran fine. i think it comes in around 45w and 125w from the gpu.  math tells me that the sum of these things is less than 265, but psu manufacturers learned different math apparently. its buisiness grade stuff so its usually tuned for stability. only real problem is there is no gpu power connection, but the cpu power is a 4+4 and the mobo only has a 4 pin cpu power (this is where intel started getting efficient). i could probibly splice together an adapter. even though cpu has its own power its usually on the same rail as gpu power anyway. i wont exactly be running crysis on the thing so it should work. mostly emulators and games i cant run on win10, including all my classic mechwarrior games.

i was gonna put the board in moms computer, but she doesn't like change. 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Nuke

[Nuke]

On 11/12/2023 at 8:09 AM, Nuke said:

and for something completely different, is a 265w flexatx psu enough for a 4970k and 1060. for my win7 legacy box (for a number of low performance ''80s, 90s and '00s games). was going to put  the sf600 in there but after some review there is no way in heck that diminutive psu will fit in the equally diminutive htpc case. dont want to spend more than the cost of the tooling to mod the back panel of the case.  

the answer is yes. had cinebench and furmark running simultaneously without crashing. 

i did have to make a bracket. had a peice of sheet metal that i cut to accept a gpu and flexatx psu. a piece of bar stock to serve as the mounting point. i dont have a press break to put the bend in the sheet metal where you screws usually go. incidentally i figured out hot wo make countersunk holes in bar stock, so the side that touches the gpu would be flush (just be really aggressive with the deburr operation). the cutout was done with a dremel, holes were made for the gpu ports and the power supply fan and power cable. bracket was secured in 3 places with m3 screws and nuts. a gpu riser cable connects the gpu.

i also made a kludge adapter so the gpu could be powered by the unused cpu power connector (mobo only needed a 4-pin and the psu had a 4+4). i thought for sure that would cause cpu instability, but it didnt. its an industrial supply so it actually can do its rated power.  i didnt have a 4 pin female so i used a 10-pin instead, using the 4 in the middle that matched the keying. i didnt want to destroy the connector so i just taped off the excess pins (now that it works i might go back in and dremel off the excess).

noise, yes, lots. other than the cpu and gpu fans, there is a 92mm noctua and a little tiny no name 40mm fan in the psu, a recipe for loud. heat, yes. the case has almost no ventilation. a small strip above the i/o shield and the top of the case, and one fan intake, as well as a place where i cut the bracket too short.  i recommend this build for no one. i offered it to mom but she hates change. but its still the 3rd most powerful system in the house.

[GDJ]

On 11/13/2023 at 6:21 PM, GDJ said:

My new rig in progress:

ASUS TUF gaming Z790 WIFI+  motherboard
Intel i3-13100 processor (Motherboard is compatible with 14th gen Intel processors, which I probably will upgrade in the future)
Kingston FURY Beast 32GB DDR5 RAM (x4) (arriving Friday)
Some cool looking generic case I picked up at the pawn shop for $65 (also came with a AIO water cooler block and radiator, plus a whack load of fans. Not a bad deal really).

Coming soon:

850 - 1000 watt power supply
Intel ARC 770 16 GB GPU
An adapter card for Firewire 800/400 (I have some older equipment that work well still)

This computer will be doing other things besides some light gaming, hence the RAM. The processor is the weak link, but that can be upgraded later.

And she's done.

-Picked up a modular 1000 watt Power supply
-ACER Bifrost ARC 770 16 Gb graphics card (so far it's pretty good). Makes the intel 730 chip graphics look like complete dog-poo.
-Couldn't get the Firewire adapter card to work with the motherboard. Not a huge deal, but damn annoying.
-Stuck with two 32 GB RAM sticks for now. 64 GB of DDR5 RAM is plenty for now (actually overkill beyond ridiculousness for what I'm currently doing ATM).

Future:
-Probably a larger air cooler for the CPU. I can't justify nor put up with the All-in-one liquid cooler. Ether the lines are too long, too stiff, or the radiator placement is just janky.  The i3's 85 watt thermal rating is pretty controllable with a air cooler.
-Besides, I have four 120mm fans sucking in cool air into the case, and lots of ventilation for the warm air to leave.
-Intel 14th gen i5 or i7. Not sure at the moment. The i3-13100 is surprisingly jammy for a 4 core/8 thread processor.