Computer needs replacing.

Kayvan

Kayvan
IDK what you mean by "the two at the bottom", I probably get shown a different order or selection than you. Anyway, this one should be fine:

The config is similar to mine but a couple iterations newer -- I have an R5 3600 and GTX 1060, and have no problems on highest settings. I mean after all, the game is almost 10 years old.
That said, I am very skeptical of ready-built PCs; they tend to skimp on components that are not listed in the specs. Like in this case, the mainboard and chipset; whether it has an M.2 and what type, or what SSD they use (there are huge speed differences), etc. It's kinda like selling a car with a Porsche engine and omitting that it has a Reliant Robin gearbox.
I always build my own PC, that's cheaper and you have full control over what comes into that box. My previous computer lasted a full 10 years and my current one is planned to match that record.
 

varonica

varonica
TrollhunterX said:
Easier to buy a new one than deal with the problems three years have chalked up, and money is tight, so are the two at the bottom good enough to run ED?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=gaming+pcs&crid=3JELH94UL3L9P&sprefix=gaming+pcs,aps,88&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

If there's a forum for such technical queries, please point me there, or move the topic.
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If you mean the two Beelink ones that appear for me at the bottom, then no, there is no separate graphics card so they are relying on the built in graphics of the processor, the better one comes with a Radeon 780m on the CPU, the other one just says Radeon with no other details, neither of these mini "gaming" PC's are actually gaming PC's, they are PC's that will play basic games and high end games maybe at very low resolution and detail if at all, they don't meet the minimum requirements graphics wise of even Horizons let alone Odyssey. These are two "gaming" PC's to steer well clear of!
 

Arrowroot 66

Arrowroot 66
The list filters to what can be shipped to the US for me, so I have no idea what you're looking at. I'll repeat Kayvan's advice to build your own: if you use https://www.logicalincrements.com/ and pick the line that matches your budget, all the components will work together. You just need to allow for the price of the operating system, and whatever monitor and keyboard etc. if you can't reuse from your current PC. When I built mine a couple of months ago it sourced everything from Amazon and Newegg.com, US-based for me, should be UK-based for you.
 

Guyperson

Guyperson
Amazon shows everyone different product lists, so I have no idea what the "two at the bottom" are for you. I just see a couple of Ryzen 5000-based mini-PCs that would get destroyed by a GTX 560 from 2011 and are entirely inadequate for gaming. You'd have to link the actual products themselves that you're considering.

varonica said:
If you mean the two Beelink ones that appear for me at the bottom, then no, there is no separate graphics card so they are relying on the built in graphics of the processor, the better one comes with a Radeon 780m on the CPU, the other one just says Radeon with no other details, neither of these mini "gaming" PC's are actually gaming PC's, they are PC's that will play basic games and high end games maybe at very low resolution and detail if at all, they don't meet the minimum requirements graphics wise of even Horizons let alone Odyssey. These are two "gaming" PC's to steer well clear of!
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The 780M is pretty impressive for an iGPU, but it still falls short of a dedicated GTX 1060. It would have no problem with the Legacy engine but would struggle with the 4.0 engine.
 

varonica

varonica
Guyperson said:
Amazon shows everyone different product lists, so I have no idea what the "two at the bottom" are for you. I just see a couple of Ryzen 5000-based mini-PCs that would get destroyed by a GTX 560 from 2011 and are entirely inadequate for gaming. You'd have to link the actual products themselves that you're considering.



The 780M is pretty impressive for an iGPU, but it still falls short of a dedicated GTX 1060. It would have no problem with the Legacy engine but would struggle with the 4.0 engine.
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Yeah I get two Ryzen 7 based mini pc's, best link directly to the product page for the PC's being referenced to save confusing advice. But essentially, any "gaming" PC currently available that doesn't doesn't have separate GPU listed probably won't do the trick. In maybe a year or two once AMD comes out with the Ryzen 8000 series based on the Zen 5 cores and the RDNA based GPU you may get one that will do the job, but not at the moment
 

Kayvan

Kayvan
Arrowroot 66 said:
if you use https://www.logicalincrements.com/ and pick the line that matches your budget, all the components will work together.
Click to expand...
That is a pretty sweet tool, my one issue with it is that it uses exclusively Intel CPUs. I would prefer if it gave you a choice between intel and AMD. I'm not entirely up to date, and from a cursory search Intel seems to be ahead in the mid-high segment, but traditionally they require more expensive boards and ram. So I'd always check out what a comparable and rig would cost.
 

varonica

varonica
Kayvan said:
That is a pretty sweet tool, my one issue with it is that it uses exclusively Intel CPUs. I would prefer if it gave you a choice between intel and AMD. I'm not entirely up to date, and from a cursory search Intel seems to be ahead in the mid-high segment, but traditionally they require more expensive boards and ram. So I'd always check out what a comparable and rig would cost.
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The AMD X3d model processors are significantly faster in many games than the equivalent Intel CPU's, but AMD and Intel are pretty much on a level at the moment apart from that. However any decent model CPU from either maker will perform significantly slower when paired with a sub-standard GPU, so that need's to be considered in any plan. It may in fact be better to get a slower CPU and a better GPU to avoid GPU bottlenecks if you don't plan to upgrade components in the future.

If upgrading in the future is a possibility I would suggest a Ryzen 7 5800X3D or the 7800X3D and the best graphics card they can afford at the moment, it's much easier and cheaper to upgrade the graphics card later than the CPU, which might require a new motherboard also.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Robert Maynard
varonica said:
If upgrading in the future is a possibility I would suggest a Ryzen 7 5800X3D or the 7800X3D and the best graphics card they can afford at the moment, it's much easier and cheaper to upgrade the graphics card later than the CPU, which might require a new motherboard also.
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The 5800X3D doesn't really have an upgrade path as it is one of the last AM4 parts - a "real" upgrade would need an AM5 motherboard. The 7800X3D is AM5 and needs DDR5.

That being said, if budget is limited, then the 5800X3D with AM4 motherboard and DDR4 should give good bang for buck - acknowledging that the CPU side won't be upgradeable.
 

varonica

varonica
Robert Maynard said:
The 5800X3D doesn't really have an upgrade path as it is one of the last AM4 parts - a "real" upgrade would need an AM5 motherboard. The 7800X3D is AM5 and needs DDR5.

That being said, if budget is limited, then the 5800X3D with AM4 motherboard and DDR4 should give good bang for buck - acknowledging that the CPU side won't be upgradeable.
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Yeah that's exactly why I mentioned the possibility of future upgrades, forgot to mention the different motherboard requirements of the two chips, my bad. If money is a problem and they only intend to upgrade the GPU in the future then the 5800X3D is probably the best value, if they want to upgrade CPU in the future then the 5800X3D would be the wrong choice.
 

GroG79

G
On a budget there is absolutely no reason to buy a 5800X3D. At the moment the 3D costs 300 vs 200 for the 5800

Just get the 5800X or even the 5700X. You will save lots of money on mobo cpu and memory compared to the 7xxx series.
 

TrollhunterX

TrollhunterX
Kayvan said:
IDK what you mean by "the two at the bottom", I probably get shown a different order or selection than you. Anyway, this one should be fine:

The config is similar to mine but a couple iterations newer -- I have an R5 3600 and GTX 1060, and have no problems on highest settings. I mean after all, the game is almost 10 years old.
That said, I am very skeptical of ready-built PCs; they tend to skimp on components that are not listed in the specs. Like in this case, the mainboard and chipset; whether it has an M.2 and what type, or what SSD they use (there are huge speed differences), etc. It's kinda like selling a car with a Porsche engine and omitting that it has a Reliant Robin gearbox.
I always build my own PC, that's cheaper and you have full control over what comes into that box. My previous computer lasted a full 10 years and my current one is planned to match that record.
Click to expand...

Yes, sorry, I hadn't realised results would be different. My 'two' included this one, for about £350 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/XUM-Gaming...fos.23648568-4ba5-49f2-9aa6-31ae75f1e9cd&th=1. The other was a hundred pounds less.
They're probably neither of them ideal. Your suggestion would be the max I'd be willingto pay, but as long as it let me do all the other things I need a home computer for, I could justify the purchase to my [grown-up] children. Normally, my wife would be going down the bespoke route, but she died on the 18th of December last year. One day we were at the Same Day Emergency Clinic at Gloucester Royal, where she was being examined for breathing issues, but told to come back the next day. Following afternoon, she was dead in bed from an abdominal bleed.Now I'm just trying to adjust to the new reality of not being a carer, but rather in paid employment, after 20+ years.

My son thinks an upgrade would do the job (can't recall if that's for memory, graphics card or motherboard, because I'm a little ADD/forgetful), it's just a matter of sourcing the components. Would definitely be cheaper than a new computer, so a family discussion is on the cards, I guess.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Still reading through it, but I may not finish just yet, as I need to pop out.
 

GroG79

G
With that GPU you will not get a long life out of the machine. Id say you are starting with a -5 year lead.

Have you considered trying to buy a second hand locally using a the 2nd market?
 

Guyperson

Guyperson
Current platforms and anything X3D are going to run out of a budget like that so having an upgrade path on AM5 or Z700 series boards is probably off the table.

GroG79 said:
Have you considered trying to buy a second hand locally using a the 2nd market?
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Depending on what components they already have, this would be the most economical path. But it's hard to make recommendations without knowing what they already have.
 

Kayvan

Kayvan
If your current computer has a halfway reasonable socket and (!) chipset, an upgrade might be the way to go. We'd need to hear the exact specs though, unless you can rope your son into taking care of it. Just the right socket is not sufficient if the chipset doesn't support the newer CPU.
 

Darrack

Darrack
Im running an old i7-7700 with GTX 1070 16GB, no issues with Odyssey at all with a mixture of Ultra/high graphics.
Also have no problems with foot CZs though i do play Solo/PG.

O7
 

varonica

varonica

Nvidia GT 730 2GB​

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Nope, not gonna work well at all! It may indeed run Horizons at around 30fps with halfway decent settings, wouldn't venture running Odyssey at much more than single digit frame rate unless you turn everything to lowest possible settings and reduce resolution to silly low levels. If you could push it budget wise to at least an Nvidia RTX 1070 you may have something worth buying as a budget machine.
 

londonx

L
Yeah I dont think that build looks like a good deal to me, the GPU and CPU are 10-12 years old now, goodness knows where they are getting hold of that stock! What are the specs of your current PC? As per the post above I would flag the 2GB RAM on the GPU as a deal breaker. 4GB would be a bare minimum these days as this cant be upgraded without replacing the GPU.

Just looking around, I am thinking roughly the specs of this £620 PC as a minimum that maybe you could shop around for, having said that Scan are doing a 36 month Interest Free credit deal with PayPal credit at the moment to spread the cost, which might be a safer bet than gambling on ebay

  • Nvidia GTX 1650 (entry level dedicated GPU card with 4GB RAM for 1080p gaming)
  • 8GB Sytem Memory (this is the easiest and cheapest component to upgrade at a future date to 16GB) (note there is also a 16GB model of the above available for a bit more)

e.g. a build here with a better CPU for £550 but no long interest free deal and a strange caveat on the GPU (*Model of GPU may vary from that shown but specifications will be identical.), sounds like those dodgy builds you get from ebay and Wish!

AlphaSync PCs | Best Pre-Built Gaming PCs UK | Ebuyer.com

Shop the brand new range of AlphaSync pre-built gaming PCs. Packed with power, these seriously high-performance PCs are purpose-built for gamers and power users.
www.ebuyer.com www.ebuyer.com


Looking at some refurbished PCs on ebay I would be tempted by something like this for £500, looks like an old CPU like that Amazon build (2nd gen i7) but a much better GPU than the other suggestions with 8GB RAM which is the current sweet spot for GPUs, 32GB System memory (16GB would be current sweet spot) and a 1TB storage, which is important for gaming), 24month interest free Paypal credit as well:

www.ebay.co.uk

RTX Gaming PC: Intel i7 6700 @ 3.60GHz/ 32GB DDR4/ 1TB SSD/ 8GB RTX 3050/Wins 10 | eBay UK

32GB DDR4 RAM. 8GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050. 1x Gaming PC. Plug | Power | Play. Free Wi-Fi Dongle provided to enable Wi-Fi onto the computer. Windows 10 64-Bits. Only expect the performance on a level to the components themselves.
www.ebay.co.uk

8GB NVIDIA RTX 3050
32GB RAM
1TB SSD
 
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TrollhunterX

TrollhunterX
Guyperson said:
Current platforms and anything X3D are going to run out of a budget like that so having an upgrade path on AM5 or Z700 series boards is probably off the table.



Depending on what components they already have, this would be the most economical path. But it's hard to make recommendations without knowing what they already have.
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1703888350959.png

Might this help?
A facility my daughter just showed me.We're getting 2 16GB RAMs to improve the memory.
 
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