Hardware & Technical Computer Build to run Elite Dangerous

[Rog]

I don't plan on upgrading it, and don't really want to exceed £250 as it is only a secondary PC. And yes I already have an OS for it.

My budget for the 2nd PC is around £200 to £250, I need a CPU, RAM, Case and Motherboard.

Ok, so obviously there are going to be compromises at that budget, so...

i3 4130 for £83 is actually pretty capable. i5 for £45 more.
4GB of RAM should do it, but 8GB would be nicer.
8GB: G-Skill 8GB Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 Dual Kit £63
CASE: Antec VSK-4000E cheapish @ £27
OR Coolermaster Elite 334U @ £35

MOBO maybe Asrock Z87M-Pro £79? I've used it, and it was great - has the better Z87 Intel chipset too.

Takes it to £252. Any good? No optical drive there but you might not need one.

 

[Faerie]

Hi Arbanax. RAM timings are not actually important unless you're doing quite advanced overclocking, so don't worry about them, especially as this will be your first build. Good quality memory (usually) has tighter timings than lower quality stuff anyway, so it pretty much looks after itself. All you need to do is get the memory speed & voltage right & your new system should be fine.

Damaging a system IS possible, but only if you go berserk & set voltages way above what they should be. Voltages below those required will normally result in the system being unstable or not booting properly - just raise them a notch & try again.
Bad clock adjustments usually just result in a system that refuses to boot, at which point you go back to the UEFI/BIOS, find what you've done wrong, & have another try - most likely raising something's speed without giving it a tiny bit more voltage.
Read everything you can find about setting up your hardware & you shouldn't have any major problems. Great that you have someone experienced to help.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Ok, so obviously there are going to be compromises at that budget, so...

i3 4130 for £83 is actually pretty capable. i5 for £45 more.
4GB of RAM should do it, but 8GB would be nicer.
8GB: G-Skill 8GB Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 Dual Kit £63
CASE: Antec VSK-4000E cheapish @ £27
OR Coolermaster Elite 334U @ £35

MOBO maybe Asrock Z87M-Pro £79? I've used it, and it was great - has the better Z87 Intel chipset too.

Takes it to £252. Any good? No optical drive there but you might not need one.

That is awesome!! Thank you very much for the help, I appreciate it.

 

[Doctor_Demento]

Uh ram timing IS important. It directly affects the speed, stability and response time of ram. A 9.9.9.24 is substantially different then 10.13.22.41. The latter would suck and be ungodly slow and may well crash the computer. PLEASE take my word for it. I've built thousands and thousands of them. It is not a big deal to get it right. First download CPU-Z. (there are other programs that will tell you but CPU-Z is quick and easy to read and FREE) It will tell you what the SPID ratings and settings are for the speed you select. It also tells you what it is currently set at. Then simply reboot. Open BIOS, go to the advanced tab and general the next tab you need is labeled ram timings. Set them to the correct timing and viola the system WILL run faster and more stable. Your motherboard may do all this automatically and you have no problem. Then again it may not. And CPU-Z will give some nice tech info on your CPU and even identify you motherboard manufacturer and model number. Win-win

 

[Pyros]

Hey mate for a note of interest I thought I'd mention. Yes they support XMP. BUT they still do not always properly set the ram at 1600hz since there is no such thing as 1600 Mhz, it is a overclock setting only. I have a ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 motherboard and had to set the Corsair XMS ram timings manually. I had to select 1600 Mhz from bios setting but it set the ram timings way off. I've had the other 2 rams in the past on both MSI and Gigabyte boards and had to do the same thing with them as well. Some boards will get the 9.9.9 right but change the 24 to 31 or 41 sometimes. Why, I do not know. BTW since 95 I've built somewhere in the are of 5000 systems. Not so many in the last few years as I'm disabled now. But still do a few for family, friends and myself of course. I also would mention some motherboards are having a problem setting 2133 Mhz ram with a intel CPU have problems as well. They won't set the speed higher then 1866 Mhz, even doing it manually on some boards. Just thought you'd like to know mate.

I guess you mean that 1600mhz is not a JEDEC spec for DDR3 (actually there is no such thing as 1333/1600/1866/..mhz it is the "electric data rate", as the I/O bus clock is actually half that, but I digress). Anyway, afaik, JEDEC did update the spec for DDR3 all the way up to 2133. Still lags behind overclockers though

Now, as you well know, there are always fringe cases of odd equipment behavior or even soft malfunction. For example, in my personal experience, Asus consumer mobos used to have non working raid controllers - well, they did work, but windows would get corrupted twice a month if installed on a raid 0 setup .

And depending on the motherboard, bios version and memory modules/amount of modules installed, some odd things may happen. But, tbqh, currently this issues are quite rare, or far less common than they used to be. At least if we are talking about stock settings.

So for the non "push to the limit/OC" use case, better to start by using the XMP profile and things should work a intended. If they don't, well, time to take measures

 

[Doctor_Demento]

I guess you mean that 1600mhz is not a JEDEC spec for DDR3 (actually there is no such thing as 1333/1600/1866/..mhz it is the "electric data rate", as the I/O bus clock is actually half that, but I digress). Anyway, afaik, JEDEC did update the spec for DDR3 all the way up to 2133. Still lags behind overclockers though

Now, as you well know, there are always fringe cases of odd equipment behavior or even soft malfunction. For example, in my personal experience, Asus consumer mobos used to have non working raid controllers - well, they did work, but windows would get corrupted twice a month if installed on a raid 0 setup .

And depending on the motherboard, bios version and memory modules/amount of modules installed, some odd things may happen. But, tbqh, currently this issues are quite rare, or far less common than they used to be. At least if we are talking about stock settings.

So for the non "push to the limit/OC" use case, better to start by using the XMP profile and things should work a intended. If they don't, well, time to take measures

LOL, yeah ASUS old raid. Yeah JEDEC specs made a big difference. And while I would not say rare, I would agree not normally. And I don't overclock. No need to. Yes XMP settings SHOULD work every time. We both know they don't. My last MSI board would not run at 1600Mhz (yes I know its 800Mhz doubled making it 1600. just like my AMD 8350 CPU is not really 4ghz. it 200 X 20, grin) until I set the voltage to 1.650 volts. Period. Would not. And from many forums I found it was not rare. I can tell you for a fact and I do mean FACT. I can build multiple systems with totally 100% identical parts and they will not run identical. (I've done it more than a few times. Last time was I replaced the entire computer/network for the Sheriffs Dept in New Castle IN.) It may be a tiny, tiny difference and on the extreme end. One may not even run at all. Look at the performance difference not just among various manufacturers of the same model video card. Look at the difference with the same model from the same manufacturer. I do agree that for the most part that stuff made now work miles better than it use to. I've been doing this since 1971. But that was a IBM 300 series mainframe the size of a small boat, lol. Watched a lot of changes over the years. And yeah as for the ram I agree. Plug it in. And completely suggest getting CPU-Z. Really. Check it and it should be super dandy. If it's not and it will tell you. Then fix it, yup.

 

[Rog]

It should be noted that at the very high frequencies that modern motherboards are expected to function, they are essentially working at reasonably high radio frequencies.

Up there, it doesn't take much to knock a system back at all.

All things equal, higher stable MHz beats better CAS latency.

 

[Faerie]

Uh ram timing IS important. It directly affects the speed, stability and response time of ram. A 9.9.9.24 is substantially different then 10.13.22.41. The latter would suck and be ungodly slow and may well crash the computer. PLEASE take my word for it. I've built thousands and thousands of them. It is not a big deal to get it right. First download CPU-Z. (there are other programs that will tell you but CPU-Z is quick and easy to read and FREE) It will tell you what the SPID ratings and settings are for the speed you select. It also tells you what it is currently set at. Then simply reboot. Open BIOS, go to the advanced tab and general the next tab you need is labeled ram timings. Set them to the correct timing and viola the system WILL run faster and more stable. Your motherboard may do all this automatically and you have no problem. Then again it may not. And CPU-Z will give some nice tech info on your CPU and even identify you motherboard manufacturer and model number. Win-win

I think you are over-complicating the issue. Memory will default to it's best, or at least perfectly acceptable timings so there is no need to change them.

And I challenge you to substantiate your claim to have built "thousands and thousands" of computers. I simple don't believe this & your gross exaggeration does you no credit.

 

[Pyros]

All things equal, higher stable MHz beats better CAS latency.

Generally speaking it is true. One thing that may elude some people, specially when comparing different RAM generations (DDR vs DDR3 for example) and they see latency notations going up, is that memory latency is referred in cycles and the cycles are shorter in terms of time (latency for a DDR3 module is around 9-10ns). Which means that a 2400 module with the same latency (clock cycles) of a 1600 module actually has 2/3 of the real life latency (time).

Anyway, typically latencies do increase with clock rate, but even when they do increase faster than the frequency ("looser timings") it tends to pay off in terms of performance. Not always and may be application dependent, and differences may be small.

For Haswell users or prospective buyers, here is a nice article on performance, MHz vs latencies (sorry if I've posted this before): http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell

 

[Steve50]

Well, if anyone wants to run ED you need vastly better specs than I have.

Win 7 Home Premium 64bit
8gb DDR3
Asus Nvidia 650 GTX
Athlon II 620 X4 (quad core 4x 2.6ghz)

I've been getting ultra low fps in the alpha (2-6fps!!) and in my ticket I've been told my system 'barely meets' the required specs.

I cannot tell you how ****ed off I am, the wife and I scraped and saved to get me in the alpha, a new PC is not in our budget, not even remotely. If I come across as angry, sorry but I am, we dropped £200 into a game I cannot play.

 

[NeilF]

Well, if anyone wants to run ED you need vastly better specs than I have.

Win 7 Home Premium 64bit
8gb DDR3
Asus Nvidia 650 GTX
Athlon II 620 X4 (quad core 4x 2.6ghz)

I've been getting ultra low fps in the alpha (2-6fps!!) and in my ticket I've been told my system 'barely meets' the required specs.

I cannot tell you how ****ed off I am, the wife and I scraped and saved to get me in the alpha, a new PC is not in our budget, not even remotely. If I come across as angry, sorry but I am, we dropped £200 into a game I cannot play.

Doesn't bode well for me then as my machine isn't a world away from yours, and I wasn't expecting to upgrade!

Note: Although I believe my GFX card is a reasonable step up from yours?

 

[Voyager_NL]

Well, if anyone wants to run ED you need vastly better specs than I have.

Win 7 Home Premium 64bit
8gb DDR3
Asus Nvidia 650 GTX
Athlon II 620 X4 (quad core 4x 2.6ghz)

I've been getting ultra low fps in the alpha (2-6fps!!) and in my ticket I've been told my system 'barely meets' the required specs.

I cannot tell you how ****ed off I am, the wife and I scraped and saved to get me in the alpha, a new PC is not in our budget, not even remotely. If I come across as angry, sorry but I am, we dropped £200 into a game I cannot play.

Damn Steve... that's a bummer! What you could do is find a second hand videocard of about 1 or 2 years old. Should be under 150,- bucks and that would do fine. What resolution are you trying to run it on? Nothing extreme I assume.

Nvidia Series 660 or 680 should already do the trick for you (not sure for what price you can get them). AMD almost anything from the 6000 and 7000 series. (not the M(obile) versions!!).

You might even get a few bucks for your old 650GTX.
Make sure that you know what can go into your machine first before buying though. PCI-E slots can be tricky powerconnector wise.

 

[Beachlight7]

Well, if anyone wants to run ED you need vastly better specs than I have.

Win 7 Home Premium 64bit
8gb DDR3
Asus Nvidia 650 GTX
Athlon II 620 X4 (quad core 4x 2.6ghz)

I've been getting ultra low fps in the alpha (2-6fps!!) and in my ticket I've been told my system 'barely meets' the required specs.

I cannot tell you how ****ed off I am, the wife and I scraped and saved to get me in the alpha, a new PC is not in our budget, not even remotely. If I come across as angry, sorry but I am, we dropped £200 into a game I cannot play.

Run a benchmark test to see if your system is outputting the correct performance for your hardware. It should work ok according to minimum specs. Are you running at 720p?
Try this site:
http://www.passmark.com/index.html

 

[NeilF]

Well, if anyone wants to run ED you need vastly better specs than I have.

Win 7 Home Premium 64bit
8gb DDR3
Asus Nvidia 650 GTX
Athlon II 620 X4 (quad core 4x 2.6ghz)

I've been getting ultra low fps in the alpha (2-6fps!!) and in my ticket I've been told my system 'barely meets' the required specs.

I cannot tell you how ****ed off I am, the wife and I scraped and saved to get me in the alpha, a new PC is not in our budget, not even remotely. If I come across as angry, sorry but I am, we dropped £200 into a game I cannot play.

I don't understand why with graphics turned down to a medium'esque setting you wouldn't be getting a reasonable FPS?

Your PC would surely run many 3D intensive games on medium settings fine, and Elite is mainly "empty space" (eg: compared to the busy 3D landscape of a FPS) so I don't know what the problem is? 2 FPS? Really?

 

[Sir.Tj]

Might be worth giving your PC a spring clean, clean up the registry etc. Could well make a difference if you haven't done it for a while.

 

[Steve50]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see if it helps any.

 

[Chock]

Yup, I dunno why that rig isn't able to run it at an at least tolerable speed. Poor internet connection lag slowing things down maybe? Any noticeable difference with MP versus the first solo scenarios in terms of speed?

It can't be the RAM, since 8 Gig of DDR3 is certainly okay (unless some of it is unseated and you've got less than you thought working), Win 7 64 Bit is okay, so it can't be that, alright, the processor ain't the best, but it's not terribly bad and it should be the GPU handling most stuff anyway. The GPU is a bit old but it is still a 70 quid graphics card, so although not right up there, it is hardly a POS. So unless the motherboard is something weird which can't handle the bus speeds and is causing a bottleneck or whatever, it's a bit puzzling.

Might want to check it with CPU-Z to make sure it's all working hardware-wise:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

 

[Beachlight7]

Something must be wrong with the PC, unless it's trying to do 4k or something.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Ccleaner might be worth a look as well.

 

[NeilF]

Well, if anyone wants to run ED you need vastly better specs than I have.

Win 7 Home Premium 64bit
8gb DDR3
Asus Nvidia 650 GTX
Athlon II 620 X4 (quad core 4x 2.6ghz)

I've been getting ultra low fps in the alpha (2-6fps!!) and in my ticket I've been told my system 'barely meets' the required specs.

I cannot tell you how ****ed off I am, the wife and I scraped and saved to get me in the alpha, a new PC is not in our budget, not even remotely. If I come across as angry, sorry but I am, we dropped £200 into a game I cannot play.

Are other modern 3D games you're currently playing running OK enough?