Hardware & Technical Computer Build to run Elite Dangerous

Doctor_Demento · Feb 22, 2014

I'd agree with Dr. Wookie here. They will tend to run hotter. Overheat easier. And cost more than a comparable desktop unit. The ones that will do it well are not cheap for sure. But in the end the choice is yours to make. Just consider well now for a decision you may regret later.

*EDIT* And they will cost a fair bit more to upgrade if you so decide to do so in the future. Mobile video cards are insane expensive. *EDIT*

Patrick_68000 · Feb 22, 2014

Doctor_Demento said:
Mobile video cards are insane expensive.

But with the new GeForce GTX 750 GPU, the things should evolve on the consumption, the temperatures and the price

Beachlight7 · Feb 23, 2014

An AMD 1.6/1,7ghz Octa core is plenty enough to run Elite 1080p@60fps.

I think most important thing is to have as much vram as possible.

Memnoch · Feb 23, 2014

That's very slow by todays standards. I think the recommended specs were quad core 2GHz minimum. 1.6GHz is quite far below this so it might depend on how well it copes with those additional cores. Personally I would just upgrade your processor. Perhaps get a decent high end gaming card like an Nvidia or AMD GPU. Some of these have dropped in price since the release of the 780 Ti and some real bargains can be had.

Arbanax · Mar 2, 2014

Hey all well tomorrow I hopefully will be able to finally order the parts for my new PC, to run Photoshop, my drawing/art programmes and of course ED. The profile is linked below if you want to look.

But just have one question I am planning on buying: Corsair CML16GX3M2A1600C10 Vengeance Low Profile 16GB (the amount of for Photoshop not E-D). Anyway it talks in the description of being able to overclock them to 16oomhz, via Intel XMP 1.3 (Extreme Memory Profile) Support.

Looking over my motherboard of choice, I cannot find in the manual or website any reference to this. And so want to make sure I buy a Mobo that can and will use this feature to get the speed boast out of the ram. Can anyone set me straight on what I am missing, please.

Thanks guys...

Here is the profile for my new pc:

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3242f

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 400R ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer

Total: £882.74

Thanks

Ab

Cody · Mar 2, 2014

If that mobo is problematical, the Asus Z87-A (or Z87-Plus) would probably suit for very little more.
On the subject of very little more, I'd up the CPU to the i5 4670K.

Arbanax · Mar 2, 2014

Ok upped the CPU, will leave the Mobo as is as the Asus is more than I need. Digging a bit deeper I managed to find that the bios seems to support XMP but is switched off until activated manually.

Thanks Cody.

Ab

Faerie · Mar 2, 2014

The mainboard definitely has an XMP option - I found a reference to it here.
In this instance it wasn't used because the memory modules used didn't have an XMP profile, but the point is that the board supports XMP.

Very nice mainboard, by the way....

[Edit] - XMP option in UEFI - http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/mainboards/gigabyte-ga-z87x-d3h/bios11_big.jpg

Rog · Mar 2, 2014

That RAM looks to be OOS at Dabs, and is just over £120 elsewhere.

You might want to consider these:

Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) HyperX Beast DDR3 2133MHz DIMM C11

Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) HyperX Predator DDR3 2133MHz DIMM CL11 XMP

Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) HyperX Beast DDR3 2400MHz DIMM C11

...available for £125 - £134 at Dabs, and all a lot speedier.

The other thing is *if* you don't need a graphics card yet for E: D, and can put it off until the last minute, you'll probably find that the Intel HD4600 graphics adequate for PS. I run it on a previous generation i3 with HD4000 (HD4600 is about 50% quicker), and it seems fine to me. YMMV!

You could then splash your £200 on the latest and greatest GPU at the time then.

Doctor_Demento · Mar 2, 2014

That motherboard will support the Corsair memory at 1600mhz. You will have to set it manually in bios. You may have to manually set the timing and increase the ram voltage to 1.650 volts. I've had that Corsair ram and that Kingston both. I currently have Corsair XMS ram running at 9.9.9.24 1.650 volts @1600hz. Love it. Either the Corsair or the Kingston would do you good. They are both good ram.

Bootsock · Mar 2, 2014

Arbanax said:
Hey all well tomorrow I hopefully will be able to finally order the parts for my new PC, to run Photoshop, my drawing/art programmes and of course ED. The profile is linked below if you want to look.

But just have one question I am planning on buying: Corsair CML16GX3M2A1600C10 Vengeance Low Profile 16GB (the amount of for Photoshop not E-D). Anyway it talks in the description of being able to overclock them to 16oomhz, via Intel XMP 1.3 (Extreme Memory Profile) Support.

Looking over my motherboard of choice, I cannot find in the manual or website any reference to this. And so want to make sure I buy a Mobo that can and will use this feature to get the speed boast out of the ram. Can anyone set me straight on what I am missing, please.

Thanks guys...

Here is the profile for my new pc:

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3242f

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 400R ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer

Total: £882.74

Thanks

Ab

Personally I'd swap out the motherboard for something like this ASUS (Z87WS) and swap out the 2.5" SSD for a 60GB mSATA SSD to cache (using Intel RST) any mechanical drives you have attached, then possibly throw in a second matched HDD for mirroring, or even drop to WD Reds given the SSD cache. It's easy to manage also as the OS will just see the mirror and SSSD cache as one drive.

That way you get the benefit of SSD type speeds without the fear if them packing in and recovering.

You could also drop to a 500w 80+ bronze PSU if needed on that - not sure if it saves much on cost without looking.

GTX 760 is more than enough for the alpha, but I prefer the EVGA cards myself especially with their 90-day trade up offer and upgradeable 3 year warranty.

Pyros · Mar 3, 2014

Bootsock said:
Personally I'd swap out the motherboard for something like this ASUS (Z87WS) and swap out the 2.5" SSD for a 60GB mSATA SSD to cache (using Intel RST) any mechanical drives you have attached, then possibly throw in a second matched HDD for mirroring, or even drop to WD Reds given the SSD cache. It's easy to manage also as the OS will just see the mirror and SSSD cache as one drive.

That way you get the benefit of SSD type speeds without the fear if them packing in and recovering.

You could also drop to a 500w 80+ bronze PSU if needed on that - not sure if it saves much on cost without looking.

GTX 760 is more than enough for the alpha, but I prefer the EVGA cards myself especially with their 90-day trade up offer and upgradeable 3 year warranty.

Getting a more powerful PSU would be a good idea - a quality 500-550w is a good balance between capability and price, and 400w is a bit borderline, specialy taking into account that a quality PSU does last more than the typical system lifetime and there is some capacitor degradation.

Regarding the SSD, tbqh I cannot discern why should he exchange a higher capacity and performance SSD system drive for a mSata for cache one...

Depending on other undisclosed storage devices (e.g NAS) and on photoshop work requirements I would consider a 2TB HDD and a backup storage solution.

Pyros · Mar 3, 2014

Doctor_Demento said:
That motherboard will support the Corsair memory at 1600mhz. You will have to set it manually in bios. You may have to manually set the timing and increase the ram voltage to 1.650 volts. I've had that Corsair ram and that Kingston both. I currently have Corsair XMS ram running at 9.9.9.24 1.650 volts @1600hz. Love it. Either the Corsair or the Kingston would do you good. They are both good ram.

No need as both the RAM and the mobo support XMP - just a matter of selecting it on BIOS, as long as everything is set to run @stock frequencies.

Actually, afaik, every intel based motherboard in the past 5 years or so have supported XMP.

On the subject of memory, while there is nothing wrong with the selection, it has been shown that Haswell systems do benefit from 1866+ DDR3 RAM. But it comes down to price difference.

Arbanax · Mar 3, 2014

Pyros said:
No need as both the RAM and the mobo support XMP - just a matter of selecting it on BIOS, as long as everything is set to run @stock frequencies.

Actually, afaik, every intel based motherboard in the past 5 years or so have supported XMP.

On the subject of memory, while there is nothing wrong with the selection, it has been shown that Haswell systems do benefit from 1866+ DDR3 RAM. But it comes down to price difference.

Thanks all, loved the suggestions having gone through what Rog, wrote, it turned out to be quiet timely.

The Corsair memory wasn't actually available, so went for some Kingston hyper x 2133 instead. Otherwise I went with the specs as listed. I've got the 750 PSU simply because of the older HDD I am going to load in eventually and also to give some head room later on if I upgrade again. Thanks for the info in intel speed boast to ram, made things much clearer.

I'm so grateful to the guys here, comparing prices, of what is out there with what I've been able to choose, has saved me a fortune and got me (hopefully) a neat system, more powerful than I've ever had.

Thanks again

Ab

Obsidian Ant · Mar 3, 2014

Hi guys, hoping you can help out with a small build I'm planning. This is for a 2nd spare PC. I want it to be able to play modern games (running on medium settings at 720p is fine). This is what I am looking at, at the moment:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA B85M DH3
CPU: i3 4130
RAM: Generic 4gb or 8gb (any suggestions?)
Case: Corsair 200R
GPU: GTX 460 (being moved from my main PC as I am getting a GTX 780)

I already have HDD and PSU sitting at home.

I am a bit unsure about the CPU to be honest. I know it should be good enough for what I want, but would I be better off taking my i5 2500k out of my main PC, and buying a new i5 Haswell for around the £130 mark (an i5 4440 maybe)?

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

What do you guys think? I appreciate any feedback on this...

Rog · Mar 3, 2014

Will it be upgraded or added to in the future, or is the £250 top whack, never to be exceeded?

Presumably you've got an OS to stick on it?

Obsidian Ant · Mar 3, 2014

Rog said:
Will it be upgraded or added to in the future, or is the £250 top whack, never to be exceeded?

Presumably you've got an OS to stick on it?

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.

Doctor_Demento · Mar 3, 2014

Pyros said:
No need as both the RAM and the mobo support XMP - just a matter of selecting it on BIOS, as long as everything is set to run @stock frequencies.

Actually, afaik, every intel based motherboard in the past 5 years or so have supported XMP.

On the subject of memory, while there is nothing wrong with the selection, it has been shown that Haswell systems do benefit from 1866+ DDR3 RAM. But it comes down to price difference.

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.

Faerie · Mar 3, 2014

I reckon the mainboard, CPU, & GTX 460 are pretty well balanced so it should be a fine little machine.

If I was to suggest anything, it's that you might want to think about getting some branded memory as the good stuff is only marginally more expensive than generic kit & has the advantage that you *know* it's not going to misbehave.

Arbanax · Mar 3, 2014

Doctor_Demento said:
Hey mate...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.

Hey right back at you Dr, no worries about mentioning things, this will be my first every build, although I've got hands on help from someone who knows a thing or to. As regards to setting the clock timings in the Bios, I know now (thanks Faerie) where its found, but do you know where I look to find the appropriate timings for the ram. Want to make sure I get this in right, so I don't damage anything or knock anything out of whack.

Thanks

Ab