The 'help me choose hardware to run PA' megathread

You managed to get it working then? Glad to hear it! I must admit I woulda thought the e 350 wasn't enough. What fps are you getting (cntrl + p brings up the performance monitor)?

About 5 FPS on a 2 player AI Skirmish and 2 player planet ; although it may not be enough its still good for me to move around the screen; command and build units without any major hiccups. I can still spam light vehicles and build Great Wall of China's.

The told me that their current supplier changed the delivery date again and my PC won't be arriving till next week.

Sure I can wait another week, I mean I have waited for the past 3 with my new case and GPU calmly collecting dust, another week means nothing to me.

Probably a hopeless case but can I run PA on this?

It'd be mainly for watching replays.

That should do it fine... Though you need to update your drivers

I am concidering to upgrade my ram/memory. Today I have 2x4 GB of 1600mhz ram (Kingston KHX1600C9D3K2/8GB). But I want to build really huge planets in PA .

Ideally I would like to add 2x8 GB to my existing ram (to get 24GB ram) but is it a must to have the same amount of GB in each memory slots? Should I rather replace all the ram with new (and sell the old)? Is high mhz any point?

I apreciate any help cause I am a noob when it comes to pc-building.

Today my system is:
Asus P8Z77-V Pro, Socket 1155
Intel Core i5 - 3570k
RAM:8 GB - Kingston DDR3 HyperX 1600Mhz
EVGA GTX 980 4GB SC
Noctua NH-D14 med Corsair SP 120 QE
Power: Corsair AX 760
2 SSD at 120GB,
+ trad disk at 500GB
Fractal R4
Monitor: Fujitsu P27T 6 IPS at 1440p

Thanks for any help

My memory today:

You need to install ram in matched pairs, and all memory should be same speed to avoid problems.

High speed ram doesn't help unless your using integrated graphics.

So getting an additional 2 x 8 at same speed and adding to your current makes most sense

Thanks @cdrkf , so with same speed you mean 1600mhz I guess. I found these Cruical 16GB kit (8GBx2), Sport,1600MHz, 1.5V, CL9-9-9-24. They have 1,5V though. My Kingston memory has 1.65V. Problem?

I ran into the same problem when I also upgraded from 8GB to 24GB. I had 1.5V sticks in there, but all I could find where 1.35V sticks (laptop memory). After some research I found out that 1.35V sticks will just run at 1.5V. It's a power saving feature and it's not necessary to run them at the lowest voltage. It works fine on my laptop anyway. I assume the same holds true for 1.65V and 1.5V.

Yeah, worst case senario is that I only can use the new 2x8GB sticks (well...that is if I dont blow up the whole pc)

Hi there,

I'm planning to replace my current PC rig (very outdated, 2006 built, to the point I'm playing on a 2012 macbook today) by a mini-PC, plugged to the TV. This is, assuming Valve gets something out of the SteamOS initiative soon this year ...

Probably the most ressources demanding game I'm planning to play on this rig will be PA, so I'm wondering how the below config would run it ... My goal would be, of course, to run it at maxed settings since this will be on a 46 '' TV screen.

Here it is, any comment/feedback welcome:

• Intel core i7 4790K CPU
• 16 GB of RAM (DDR3-1600)
• Nvidia GTX-970 OC GPU
• Z97 based motherboard

PS: yes, I know, it'll be costly

Should work fine. Probably more than fine.

You can drop the I7 and get an i5 and save $100 bucks. I7 is often 1-2% slower in some cases due to the multi threading overhead. Games aren't being built with multi threading yet.

I actually don't think it will be that costly. $1200 bucks maybe?

That's the same set-up I have. It runs amazingly

Hey ya,

@blighted,

Thanks, I've seen this feedback a lot (un-related to PA) on the i5 being very similar to the i7 on gaming. I think I'll get the 100 bucks discount
And yes, I'm targeting for 1200 USD (actually 1200 E), which is quite a cost actually for a gaming rig, YMMV ...

@cwarner,

Good to hear, I really want to get this very demanding game run top notch on my TV.
What settings do you run it at ?

PS: I plan to get the config on mini-ITX, which will be a bit of a challenge (cooling, case etc ...). Will post it here, when I get it ...

Out of interest, if you plan on running the game in offline mode, or using your machine to host a LAN match, then the i7 might be a good idea as PA uses about 4 threads for client, and another 2 for server + 1 additional for each connected player + a load of coherent. I'm not saying an i5 can't do all this, however it will slow down more quickly in offline mode than vs an i7, whereas if playing online you probably won't see much difference.

I thought the i7 had 4 real cores and 4 fake cores, i.e. the hyperthreading thing. That only gives a performance boost when the cores are doing very similar tasks, doesn't it? The i5 has only the 4 real cores, I think.

I can run the game at full everything and record it with OBS at 1080p / 60FPS with this rig without a problem.

You are correct that i7 is 4 threads + HT, however recent benchmarks are showing that due to how big Intel's cores are these days, you can actually pretty much get 4 cores worth of performance out of 2 cores + HT. I'll have to dig them up but there are tests showing the latest Haswell i3 outrunning the entry Haswell i5 in games that use 4 threads thanks to higher clock and HT even though *technically* it's a dual core

When Intel first added HT it wasn't much advantage, and often it still isn't where games don't use more than 4 threads, however it's surprisingly good these days. The way it works is it create 2 threads and feeds those into a single core. The reason this gives a performance increase is that in normal threads there are naturally quite a lot of pauses where one result is waiting on something else. HT feeds the second thread into these gaps to increase overall utilisation. The point is if you take an i5 and an i7, the i7 does pull ahead (thanks to HT) quite a bit when the thread count increases.

Edit: Some benchies comparing an AMD FX 8320 (cpu I have which is getting spanked lol), an i3 4360 and an i5 4430.

The i3 is dual core with HT at a 3.7ghz.
The i5 is quad core no HT at 3.0ghz (3.2ghz turbo).

http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/page5.html

The i5 is slightly faster, but only just- so 4 real threads are better, however the fact a clock boost of 700 mhz and HT is enough to level the playing field (and more astonishingly outpace a 4ghz FX) shows just how good Intel are getting with it The issue for the i7 is that most current games only need 4 threads to run well. PA is the same if we're only looking at client, however the server is pretty intensive so when running both that's where I can see the i7 should provide a noticeable advantage, as I'm guessing it will behave like a 'real' hex core.

Nice detailed stuff! I learned something today. Also that makes me happy I have an i7.