Sim Racing PC - spec help?

[Ultuous]

After couple of years getting into sims on PS4 I'm looking to step up to PC, but I'm woefully out of date - can anyone help?

• Budget ~£2k
• Looking mainly to play Assetto Corsa (with Sol/ CSP) and ACC
• Will be using my LG OLED until looking to a rig in a year or two (so would prefer something fairly 'unobtrusive' to sit in the living room) and would like to game in 4k - is a 3080 the best bet for my money?
• Would like to try VR at some stage
• Prefer ready-built, but could be convinced to self build if it's going to get me much more for my money

Thinking of these or similar - am I along the right lines/ can anyone recommend better alternatives?

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-performance-r...

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/3xs-vengeance-h1-a... (case would be ideal for location, but would i regret going mini ATX?)

[Blib]

Here's my thread from a few months ago. Should give you some pointers.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Even though I had a video card issue with the machine, the chaps at SCAN were excellent. I recommend them without reservation.

Have fun!

(I'm still rubbish but less so now. )

[Ultuous]

Thanks for the reminder - I actually read yours at the time and gained a lot from it, but was worth going back through!

Keep at it - it took at least 6 months before I felt in fully control and most of that was due to having to regain a feeling of motion without the sense of g force - it's amazing how the brain adapts over time.

Like you were, I've not bought a desktop for 25 years - if someone could critique those I've linked to it would be a massive help!

[HorneyMX5]

I'd always go for the larger case as it makes upgrading and cooling much easier. Specs of those are man enough for running most sim titles with everything turned up quite high. Do you know which one you'll be playing? iRacing is about the least resource hungry with ACC being a bit of a hog in comaprrison.

You'll also find that moving from a consol you'll actually be more interested in FPS than 4k vs 1440p as high refresh rates are more condusive to finding lap time.

I went pre built becuase I didn't want the hassle of deling with warranty on seperate components from different supplier sif there was an issue. I used Cyberpower and I've had zero issues in the 18 months of using my PC.

[Ultuous]

Thanks - that's really useful!... I'll be using ACC as my 'serious' sim (for which the CPU on the second machine seems to get rated highly) and AC for more variety (never tire of it on the PS and want access to the mods avail on PC!)

Is 16gb enough or should I be looking for 32?

Impossible question I know, but... do you think I'm likely to want to upgrade or get decent milage for for 5-6 years as is before starting again with a new base?

(Heart is saying the second machine given the neatness and seemingly high spec but head is trying to be more pragmatic before getting the wallet out!)

[FourWheelDrift]

Wait at least 2 days before looking for a GPU, or rather wait (depending on what refresh rate you intend to have for your gaming an RTX 4070/4080 launching later will handle 4k high refresh rates beautifully. If you stick with your LG OLED Tv (is that 60hz?) then a 3080 will provide easy 60fps matching performance at highest settings.

Etherium merge, going point of stake in 2 days, GPU prices will drop.

[Snubs]

Have you tried googling for any gaming PC builders in your area? I bought my PC last July and did a lot of research into the various specs at the time. The issues I found were firstly often differing views i.e. 'a 3060 is all the graphics card you'll ever need, don't waste your money on anything more' vs. 'a 3080 is the surefire futureproof monster power graphics card you must have!'. Throw on top of that the seemingly endless combinations of CPU, RAM, storage, cooling, motherboard and other components and the paradox of choice can leave you at a baffled standstill.

In the end I found a local gaming PC specialist who you could tell was building PCs because he loved it and the fact that he made money out of it was a bonus. Loads of great advice and when my M2 card lunched itself, it was replaced under warranty no questions asked or receipts needed.

[TheGroover]

I play assetto Corsa (not ACC) on a system with an i5-11400 2.6GHz, 16 GB ram and an RTX 3060 Ti. It runs perfectly at QHD resolution and in VR.

[FourWheelDrift]

QHD is not 4k though it's 1440p.

[LukeBrown66]

ACC is very graphics card heavy, you can play it on an older one, but if so make sure all else is up to spec, or spend a ton on graphics card and as much as you can on everything else!!

[Si1295]

I built a PC a couple of months ago for sim-racing so hopefully the below helps

AMD 5600X
3070 RTX
32gb Ram (3600mhz)
M.2 nvme

It manages 100-140 fps on a 34” 21:9 at 1440p save for some weird moments in iRacing (main straight at Rudskogen) where it will drop to 70fps

Edit: That’s on ACC and iRacing. ACC settings are on Ultra with DLSS iirc

Edited by Si1295 on Tuesday 13th September 16:16