Hardware & Technical PC on a budget advice thread

[Rog]

Rog: If I can avoid building one myself I would be happier. I don't need it for anything other than playing Elite.

Those ones from DinoPC look pretty good. Looks like they're using decent components, and the prices are not taking the mickey.

If you were to go for something from there hovering just under £1000, I reckon you'd be pretty happy.

The "Dark Reign" does look good value, but their customise/specify your own system is there if you want to roll your own.
http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/custom.asp

Personally I would go with an Intel Z87 motherboard, i5 4670K CPU, mayne spend a couple of quid on that Zalman cooler, 8gb 1866mhz RAM, 1TB disk and the graphics card of your choice - maybe the GTX 770 4GB.

You also get to choose your OS: win8 or win7.

 

[jbt]

Thanks Rog. That's helpful. What's the consensus on OS? I'm only likely to use it for games. They both costs the same. IIRC correctly there is a rule about Windows where they alternate an ok OS with a terrible one (i.e. XP/Vista, 3.11/95). Which one out of 7 and 8 is the bad one? (;

Do you plan to use a mouse/keyboard or a joystick? Do you plan to use more than one monitor?

 

[Rog]

OS is down to personal choice really.

Purely a personal thing, but Win8 gets on my nerves, but it's still probably the recommended option for most (even though Win9 is already in development). Don't let my opinion put you off, Win 8 will be fine if you have no preference.

You'll need a mouse and keyboard of course anyway. Personal preference again. Logitech make good models, and no real need to spend silly money.

As for controllers, the current consensus (including the developers) appears that a decent joystick is the way to go. Mouse/keyboard is apparently a little unwieldy. Some people prefer a gamepad style controller like say an Xbox360 wired controller.

There are a few threads like this one and this one discussing joysticks.

Popular choices are the Saitek X52/pro, Thustmaster T-flight HOTAS or Thrustmaster Warthog. Saitek have just unveiled their X55 stick - but I don't think anyone's had one to test yet.

I bought an X52pro, and it's am quite pleased with it - though I haven't used it in anger as I'm not in the alpha test. It's one of the main ones the devs themselves use I believe.

 

[popuptoaster]

I think head tracking of some kind will be of more value than multiple monitors, having said that i have three set up and it does make flying games more pleasant.

modern video cards make it much easier to run multiple monitors, the current Nvidia cards can run 4 all at once, three to game on and one for other use.

I have a 24" widescreen as my main one and two smaller as my side monitors, haveing them odd sizes though can cause issues and I will be getting two more the same size as the main one.

I'll probably not get such high quality ones though as I wont spend a whole lot of time staring at the side ones. I budget around £120 each for them wheres as the main one was about 250

I would also say dont skmp on the sound, i have a Cambridge Audio amplifier playing through two big old pioneer speakers right near my head, they do a good job of giving you the noise and vibration of a plane or tank and sound much richer and more pleasant than small modern speakers and a sub.

Mine is done on a budget, so as you can see the screens don't match but the two extra ones were free, cast offs from mates.

 

[jbt]

Thanks popuptoaster. Nice setup! I've got the audio sorted. I can't stand tinny little speakers either and have a nice amp and some studio monitors. I probably need a bigger desk if I'm going to fit three monitors on it but it looks good!

Rog: The X52Pro looks amazing but I'm worried it might baffle me. I might start with an xbox game pad and see how I get on.

 

[Minti2]

Thanks popuptoaster. Nice setup! I've got the audio sorted. I can't stand tinny little speakers either and have a nice amp and some studio monitors. I probably need a bigger desk if I'm going to fit three monitors on it but it looks good!

Rog: The X52Pro looks amazing but I'm worried it might baffle me. I might start with an xbox game pad and see how I get on.

Bought a 360 for Alpha and it is good, however then bought a X52 pro at Xmas and its a different class, its what ED is made for, smooth flying and all buttons to hand, dont need to use keyboard as you do with 360.

You can play it straight out of box, there's a set buttons controls for X52 pro in the Alpha option control panel , so all buttons are set for you as you saw in the earlier posts with the option to change if you wish.

However each to their own, hey want to buy my 360?

 

[popuptoaster]

With the X52 pro you have the choice of three colours for the LEDs as well, mine is currently set for Warthunder so i have the weapons showing red, the engines and controls such as flaps or gear showing amber and all the others showing green which helps you remember which button does what.

 

[Memnoch]

Rumours (that's all I've seen so far to claim that it's anything more) that Saitek will be producing an SC related peripheral.

It'll probably end up being an existing stick with some SC decals stuck on it! But it would be cool if they took one of the in-game sticks and replicated it in the real world. I bet they would shift thousands of them easily.

 

[Memnoch]

It looks like the original has been changed. I'm guessing it said 600GB or something like that. I hope no one actually bought one thinking they would actually get it for that price, that and its an odd size for an SSD as far as I know.

 

[Im_Lost]

I got 2x 128gb Samsung 840evo SSDs for £140 not long ago. I put them in a raid for 256mb and over 1000mb/sec, just because I can

It's great for processing large files.

 

[Im_Lost]

In modern systems the ram makes little difference for gaming etc, even the speed of it. Get 8gb and leave it at that, it's more than enough unless you running VMs.

The best upgrade for you would be the CPU (and motherboard). Your CPU is significantly slower than a I5 or I7, even for single core processing. Go for an i7 if you can since hyper-threaded games are expected now consoles are using it.

 

[Dejay]

I'd be waiting for the Geforce 800 series / Maxwell. It probably be out before release of ED

 

[Histati]

On my way with the first purchases towards my new rig. I'm following the specifications we discussed earlier. I'm taking my time with it and trying to get pieces as they are on sale with rebates as a bonus. The CPU cooler original price was 104.99$,on sale 94.99$ with a rebate of 25.00$= 69.99. The blue ray cd drive original price 89.99, sale price 76.99 with a 20$ rebate = 59.99. The SSD 109.99 origanal on sale for 89.99, no rebate. I'm feeling good about this, looks Like I can keep all the kids after all. I did go over budget on the case I purchased the CM Storm Stryker case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119260 . I saw it had good reviews, a cool looking design and with plenty of room for me to get all ten of my fat thumbs in there when go to build this thing. Thanks for all the tips. Conservative estamated completion time 2 months

 

[Dejay]

Thanks for the guide. Haven't read it yet, since I plan to wait for Oculus Rift and Maxwell Geforce 800 before upgrading. But personally I think a guide is most welcome. Yes much is discussed here, but an unstructured discussion isn't really an easily readable guide. Many discussions also get merged into mega threads by the mods, which sometimes doesn't help at all. I've recently searched for joystick info and the best discussion was a thread merged into the middle of another thread! I'd wish original posters of threads that yield some interesting discussions would more often pull up interesting information or arguments about a topic back up into the first post.

So a guide by a single person who you can either choose to trust or not is always a good idea, even if they just reorder stuff that's been written before but makes it more accessible. Thank you!

 

[Bojangles]

Thought I would share my recent computer build with everyone, hope it helps anyone who is undecided on their build; I have been playing Elite Dangerous single player build on my new system and it runs super smooth on the highest settings

My system :

MSI Z87 G45 Gaming Motherboard
Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core running at 3.4Ghz (Can be overclocked)
Hyper T4 Cooler
8Gb Corsair Vengeance RAM 2133 Mhz
2Gb Nvidia GeForce GTX 770
1Tb Western Digital HD
Blu Ray Reader
Corsair Carbide SPEC-03 Gaming Case

Altogether purchased all parts from SCAN.CO.UK and came in at just over £800, so I thought that was pretty good. Hope it helps

 

[Firestarter]

If on a budget I'd go for

CPU I'd choose is i5 4670. The K versions cost more and can be overclocked but if you're keeping an old motherboard you're not likely to have much over clocking potential. If really pushed for cash the i3 is still ok, it's only dual core but most games currently don't make efficient use of the extra cores so the performance drop is less than the price difference.

GPU. Whatever it is make sure it has GDDR5 memory. A 1Gb GDDR5 graphics card wil be faster than a 2Gb GDDR3 one. If you're keeping an old PSU consider a stock (not overclocked) GTX750 - they're cheap and its low power use doesn't require a separate power connector. However generally you get more bang for your buck from the GPU rather than the CPU so its wiser to spend a bit more here. So look at the GTX660 or above, whatever you can afford.

 

[Aleksej]

If on a budget I'd go for

CPU I'd choose is i5 4670. The K versions cost more and can be overclocked but if you're keeping an old motherboard you're not likely to have much over clocking potential. If really pushed for cash the i3 is still ok, it's only dual core but most games currently don't make efficient use of the extra cores so the performance drop is less than the price difference.

GPU. Whatever it is make sure it has GDDR5 memory. A 1Gb GDDR5 graphics card wil be faster than a 2Gb GDDR3 one. If you're keeping an old PSU consider a stock (not overclocked) GTX750 - they're cheap and its low power use doesn't require a separate power connector. However generally you get more bang for your buck from the GPU rather than the CPU so its wiser to spend a bit more here. So look at the GTX660 or above, whatever you can afford.

It is already time when 2GB VRAM become a necessity. E.g. video memory usage in ED with maxed graphics and FXAA ON is about 1400MB on a single GPU and 1600MB in SLI.

As for CPU ED easily uses 8 threads, so I would not consider 2-core CPU if we are talking about budget gaming PC.

Otherwise simple budget PC is the one with integrated CPU/GPU, simple MB, 4-8GB RAM and HDD with 400-500W PSU.

 

[Camouflage]

Hi, I'm looking at a new PC on a budget for Elite Dangerous. I want the game to be playable and the new PC to be upgradable, so I can enhance the quality of the game play down the line if I wish.

I have spec'd the following at Dino PC for £534.

CPU: 1061 - AMD FX 6300 Black Edition
CPU Cooler: 3024 - Zalman CNPS5X Performa
Operating System: 11001 - No Operating System - I will install my own
Motherboard: 4192 - NEW! Gigabyte 970A-DS3P
RAM: 5051 - 8GB DDR3 1333mhz (1x8GB)
Hard Drive: 6064 - NEW! Transcend 128GB 340 SSD
Secondary Hard Drive: 6028 - 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 7003 - 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: 9059 - NEW! AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB
Sound card: 10001 - Onboard 7.1 Audio
Case: 17090 - NEW! Zalman Z3
PSU: 18045 - 450W Corsair VS
Note: I got Windows 7, a decent Monitor, decent speakers, keyboard, mouse and a couple of TB storage on a NAS

Too much, too little? Love to hear your expert views.

 

[Sterlino]

Hi, I'm looking at a new PC on a budget for Elite Dangerous. I want the game to be playable and the new PC to be upgradable, so I can enhance the quality of the game play down the line if I wish.

I have spec'd the following at Dino PC for £534.

CPU: 1061 - AMD FX 6300 Black Edition
CPU Cooler: 3024 - Zalman CNPS5X Performa
Operating System: 11001 - No Operating System - I will install my own
Motherboard: 4192 - NEW! Gigabyte 970A-DS3P
RAM: 5051 - 8GB DDR3 1333mhz (1x8GB)
Hard Drive: 6064 - NEW! Transcend 128GB 340 SSD
Secondary Hard Drive: 6028 - 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 7003 - 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: 9059 - NEW! AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB
Sound card: 10001 - Onboard 7.1 Audio
Case: 17090 - NEW! Zalman Z3
PSU: 18045 - 450W Corsair VS
Note: I got Windows 7, a decent Monitor, decent speakers, keyboard, mouse and a couple of TB storage on a NAS

Too much, too little? Love to hear your expert views.

may be i am the last who can talk here but... watch out...
the ram you chose is wrong.
The cpu handles 1866mhz for the ram and since most of the modern architectures have the dual channel ability you should get a 2x4gb of ram at DDR3 1866mhz of speed.
If you buy the ram you wrote you will experience some bottleneck slowing issues.

 

[cawigan]

Ideal hardware set-up

Did someone say single dad?

urm got to buy a new pc for home for my daughter to play her internet on, going to show her this internet game of the future called Elite, whether she'll like it...

Anyhow, what's the best set up going to be please, a bit rusty on tech now.

Thinking I'm going to treat myself to one of these new curved screen tvs Samsung, I think they come with wifi, (is Elite going 3d??) etc, but I assume I'll still need a keyboard, hard disc...anything else?

So graphics card
RAM
Processor
Mouse?


Currently use a projector to watch tv, but the sun makes it hard to watch during daylight (good thing really),so I could stick with that or splash the cash, but then how much does a dedicated computing pc cost bearing in mind I'm not made of gold and have plenty of protestant guilt work ethic

Thanks, I'm off to trade some food items and keep my harmless status