Gaming PC

[ferrisbueller]

Looking at buying a PC for online gaming but it hasn't taken long to get lost in the myriad options and jargon. I want to play multiplayer driving sims: Assetto Corsa etc. Maybe iRacing. The spec requirements for those aren't that high but no doubt there's the usual issue of the difference between what it takes to run the game vs what it takes to run it optimally. Also considering three monitor set-up. Obviously I want to reduce spend but want something with a useful life of more than 15 minutes.

Looking at Scan, Overclockers, Fierce etc. The main focus seems to be frame rate on Fortnite, which doesn't really help me.

I need to get a handle on what kind of spec I need so I can narrow things down. Also, are used machines worth looking at or too much of an unknown quantity?

Thanks

[anonymous-user]

To give you a benchmark:

I play iRacing on triple monitors, or Oculus VR. I also play PubG. I can play them all on max everything, with no slowdown. Actually, there are a couple of little reductions on iRacing but that's to keep a very high framerate to be competative and involves background scenery in the pits - and that's on the monitors. Oculus is max everything on all games.

My spec is a few years old but it gives you an idea of how many pixels you can push around. Think of it as a baseline,

Intel i7-3770
Nvidia GTX 970
16Gb Ram
All SSD drives

My PC boots in seconds, I do a fair bit of video rendering, and never does it feel slow.

So as you can see - you don't need to break the bank to have a fast machine . The latest Nvidia RTX 1060 almost doubles the speed of my card for £349 (I think I paid around £220 for my GTX970 at the time). The latest AMD Ryzens are twice as fast at half the price too.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 9th January 20:27

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 9th January 20:28

[ferrisbueller]

That's very helpful, thanks. I wouldn't be doing VR.

If I took 970 as a baseline, is there a minimum processor requirement? Most low to mid stuff comes with 8 GB of RAM, 1 TB Hard drive etc.
I assume there are compatibility issues with motherboards etc so I'd need to consider that if buying with a view to future upgrades?

[guitarcarfanatic]

What budget? Rule is to get the best you can. Ryzen seems the best value at the moment. Vega64 is best bang for buck processor wise, but new GTX 2060 is about to be released. CES announcements have suggested new gen of AMD processors and GPU's - knowing AMD, they will be very good value.

Don't forget to budget in a decent monitor. 1440p - 27 inch is the sweetspot IMHO. If gaming for FPS etc, you will want more frames (144hz). Although I game most nights for PUBG and still use a 60hz 1440p monitor as it doubles up for editing photos etc.

If you have a idea of budget, I can help a bit more.

[ferrisbueller]

Looking around £500-600 seems to get something which exceeds the specs above. There are second hand ones for £300.

Monitor wise, space is an issue as I'd like to end up with three to give some peripheral.

[guitarcarfanatic]

Ok so my build (not including monitor) was about £600.

i5-7600 (non-K)

16gb DDR4 Ram

GTX 1060 3GB

240GB SSD

Cheap Case

Cheap Corsair PSU

Job done! Built it myself.

TBH, if you can get an older i7 system with 16gb ram (secondhand) and then pick up a decent graphics card (RX 580 8gb price has dropped a lot or wait for the GTX 1160 if it turns out to be true), you will have a really solid system.

[FourWheelDrift]

You might find this helpful if you are putting one together, or even by seeing how cheap a pre-build could be if you bought the bits yourself.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/

You can at least experiment with different setups against cost. Click add to select or on the names for the price options and suppliers.

[anonymous-user]

I think you'd struggle to get a decent spec at £300 used. (if this is full rig)

970 used will be c £100-120
3770k plus MB and 16GB would be c £160-180

So close to £300 already, then add

PSU c£35-45 (refurdb corsair from scan is £35)
Case £35-50 for decent new case
SSD boot plus spinny storage c£50
Decent Monitor as well.

What sort of spec are the used £300 machines?

[anonymous-user]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Precision-T1600-CA...f:0

4 cores, 8 threads, turbo up to 3.7ghz, 8gb ram, 500gb mechanical drive

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ZOTAC-GeForce-GTX-1060-...f:0

6gb GTX 1060

Sell the Quadro GPU (£20) and put a 256gb boot SSD in it (£60)

Decent spec for £285 minus the value of the quadro, plus the cost of an SSD - likely £300 all in.

[stevesingo]

I recently build a PC for my son...on Christmas day.

With some good advice from here https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Bullett]

Don't discount VR, especially for sims.

[RobDickinson]

Also think about a 34" ultra wide monitor instead of 3 etc

[paulwoof]

VR is an option for sims if you dont have the space for triple monitors. Single monitor you will be limited in Field of view massively, To do sims properly you need to set fov for correct distance/speed perception. on a single monitor you will be looking through a narrow little window infront of you.

iRacing and assetto corsa arent difficult to run in comparison to AAA games. So no need to go crazy with the PC. iRacing at least still runs on 2 CPU cores as such works better with faster cores rather than more. So from this side, iRacing particularly does better with intel CPU's due to their faster clock speed as much as I like my AMD ryzen CPU. Its currently my bottleneck in iRacing VR as single core speed is just not there.

[ferrisbueller]

Thanks all. Need to have a trawl through and educate myself some more.

No VR, tried it and don't get on with it.

[anarki]

RogerDodger said:

To give you a benchmark:

I play iRacing on triple monitors, or Oculus VR. I also play PubG. I can play them all on max everything, with no slowdown. Actually, there are a couple of little reductions on iRacing but that's to keep a very high framerate to be competative and involves background scenery in the pits - and that's on the monitors. Oculus is max everything on all games.

My spec is a few years old but it gives you an idea of how many pixels you can push around. Think of it as a baseline,

Intel i7-3770
Nvidia GTX 970
16Gb Ram
All SSD drives

My PC boots in seconds, I do a fair bit of video rendering, and never does it feel slow.

So as you can see - you don't need to break the bank to have a fast machine . The latest Nvidia RTX 1060 almost doubles the speed of my card for £349 (I think I paid around £220 for my GTX970 at the time). The latest AMD Ryzens are twice as fast at half the price too.

Edited by RogerDodger on Wednesday 9th January 20:27

Edited by RogerDodger on Wednesday 9th January 20:28

Not trying to be an arse but what resolution are you playing at when you say you can max PUBG on a GTX970 with no slowdown?

My setup (including peripherals) cost me over £2,000 and I still get the occasional sub 60fps dip on PUBG in the most demanding areas, although very very rarely. That's everything maxed at 1440p.

Here is my setup for reference: https://imgur.com/gallery/hArbrj2/

For those not wanting to view the gallery, its a Ryzen 2700X (as its watercooled it holds all core boost clocks at 4GHz), 16GB DDR4 @ 3466MHz, RTX2080, NVMe SSD all shoved into a case the size of a shoebox.

[130R]

I love the look of this case for a (non-gaming) Raven Ridge build I was thinking of doing for my parents: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lazer3d-ht5-timber-...

Unfortunately it only supports some bizarre DC-DC power supply.

[anarki]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks, I love the case, it took a while to arrive (over a year) as it was a kickstarter.

Airflow is ok considering the size and design on the case:

CPU temps on full load (prime 95) hit around 70'C but the fans are at full chat at those temps, and they are noisy. For gaming the CPU temps hover in the mid 50's with much quieter fan noise (still audible though)

GPU temps hit 73'C at full load (stock GPU clock, +500MHZ on the GDDR6) at which point the fans at are max speed - again audible but not too bad.

I have custom fan curves set for the CPU/GPU so in general use its whisper quiet but hit it with a load and it makes its presence known. I wear headphones when I'm gaming so it doesn't bother me!

[anarki]

130R said:

I love the look of this case for a (non-gaming) Raven Ridge build I was thinking of doing for my parents: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lazer3d-ht5-timber-...

Unfortunately it only supports some bizarre DC-DC power supply.

Not as scary as it sounds, grab a picoPSU-160-XT and an external laptop power brick rated for 160W+ and away you go.

Yes it limits the build to 160W max but a low wattage i5 or i7 (S or T variant) with a 1050ti and an SSD should see you under 160W easily.

I have a htpc build using a dq77kb and an i3 3240T with 8GB RAM and mSATA SSD, no dedicated graphics card, all running off a 65W HP laptop charger.

Using the above and adding a 1050ti - which draws no more than 75W, and there's headroom.

I say do it! Buy that case and build a quirky machine

[anonymous-user]

ferrisbueller said:

Thanks all. Need to have a trawl through and educate myself some more.

No VR, tried it and don't get on with it.

I setup iRacing with triple monitors (benefit over superwide is you can angle the monitors quite sharply at the sides) - totally awesome.

Then, I tried Oculus with iRacing. They are not even on the same page. Sure, you lose resolution with the oculus (things get a bit pixely) but this is outweighed by the advantage of real (true) 3D.

The best way to describe it is this:

Any racing game - the first time you go round a corner, you have to guess your speed. See if you come off. Why ? because it is 2D and you have to guess the radius of turns.
Real life - 1st track day - you get round every corner without coming off - why? because you can see the depth, angle etc.
Oculus - first time you try a corner - you make it round - for exactly the reason above. You should not underestimate real 3D vs "3D representation" - i.e on a monitor.

It makes things real. Not to mention the luxury of actually being able to physically look to see who is by your side, and how close.

The trade off in resolution is completely swamped by the addition of real depth of vision and free head movement.

[ferrisbueller]

Right, put a few hours in browsing various sites and think that my £500 budget would get something like:

i5 or i7 at circa 3.5Ghz
1050 (or occasionally 1060) 4MB
8 MB RAM
1 TB HDD

There are loads of new and used machines being added to eBay etc every day. Is a secondary SSD worth adding? 240 GB is only £30-40 so not a deal breaker. There appear to be some great deals secondhand but I'm a bit wary as there's no way of telling what sort of life they've had.

Edited by ferrisbueller on Sunday 13th January 12:22