At a bit of a loss

[TatamiMatt]

Budget (including currency): Im not sure, this isnt for me, but as cheap as possible to meet 1080p60fps in helldivers 2

Country: UK (NI)

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Helldivers 2

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

I had someone ask me what they can do to play Helldivers 2 recently. My query is, essentially, whats the cheapest possible way to play this game, whether it be "buy a PS5" or putting together the cheapest build possible to have it run at 1080p60fps. Im honestly not sure where to start really. He's already got a decently outdated gaming pc, but every part is below the minimum required spec to play the game (see image above). He works as a teacher so i think a PC would probably be more beneficial to him than a games console, but he also doesnt really game at all, he wants to try getting back into it and helldivers' popularity spike has piqued his interest (hence the cheapest way to play it being the main topic of interest here)

[Blasty Blosty]

Upgrade the RAM to 16GB, DDR3 will be dirt cheap now. And then scour the used market for a 2060/3060. A good price for a used GPU like this will be ~£150

[Somerandomtechyboi]

send pic of the psu and mobo

 

minimum gpu requirement is an rx 470 and used 570/580 4/8gb are dirt cheap so we can start by just buying one of those for <50£ and seeing if the cpu can keep up or not

 

itd also help if the board was a z board so you can take advantage of the +4 multi so 3.9ghz -> 4.3ghz + bclk and ram oc or at the very least has 4 ram slots so just need to find sticks with matching ics

[LAwLz]

"1080p60fps" doesn't really tell us much.

There is a big difference between 1080p60fps when using upscaling and running at lowest detail settings, and if you are running at native resolution with everything maxed out. It's also a big difference if we are talking about average FPS or minimum FPS.

 

The recommended specs for 1080p 60 FPS with medium settings is an Nvidia RX 2060 or AMD RX 6600 XT with a Ryzen 3700K, 16GB of RAM.

Judging by forum posts I've heard, it seems like an AMD 3600 with an RX 2060 is enough for 50-60 FPS with some settings turned down for 1440p gameplay.

Assuming that's okay for you, a brand new PC ends up being about 650-700 dollars. Here is an example of a build I quickly threw together as an example:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HmCW89

Please note that that's something I quickly threw together. There may be room for improvements.

 

You could also try and reuse some parts to get away cheaper. The PSU and the case might be reusable. That would save 110 dollars from my build.

It might be possible to reuse the motherboard, RAM and CPU as well although at this point I think it might not be a great idea to do that. They are quite old and would potentially hold you back.

[venomtail]

Naah, that PC is far too old, he'll realistically need a new PC and I'm struggling to make any 2023 configuration that doesn't cost twice that of a PS5. Also with PS5 it should be a simple plug and play (+update) so after a long day he can just turn on and play, never having to worry about bugs and driver issues that have been a headache for AMD, Intel and NVIDIA now as well.

 

For a single game it might be worth just getting a PS5. If your friend also had reasons to need a better PC for work stuff then this investment into a new PC is a different discussion.

 

A hard to beat bundle.

[TatamiMatt]

25 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

"1080p60fps" doesn't really tell us much.

There is a big difference between 1080p60fps when using upscaling and running at lowest detail settings, and if you are running at native resolution with everything maxed out. It's also a big difference if we are talking about average FPS or minimum FPS.

Id say average FPS, regardless of setting and using some sort of upscaler whether its DLSS or FSR.

47 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

send pic of the psu and mobo

Im the third source of this info so ill not be able to provide a pic, this is someone whose asking someone i know about anything they can do to run it

 

 

Upgrading RAM with an extra 2x4gb kit for 16gb and something along the lines of a used 1080Ti if he wants to spend the extra for about 100-150 or an RX 590 for around 50-80

 

If the CPU is lacking would maxing out the socket (small upgrade in performance so probably not worth it) to a 3770K be an option?

 

All things considered i dont know if the PSU can even handle it but ill get this info if i can and go from there

[Blasty Blosty]

18 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

If the CPU is lacking would maxing out the socket (small upgrade in performance so probably not worth it) to a 3770K be an option?

Not really, there will be such a tiny difference, you would need to jump to the next generation or higher to see a difference.

[TatamiMatt]

6 minutes ago, Blasty Blosty said:

Not really, there will be such a tiny difference, you would need to jump to the next generation or higher to see a difference.

Yeah i thought as much

[jaslion]

Unfortunatly helldivers just asks too much cpu and that old i7 3770 just isnt enough to hold 60 fps no matter the settings. Just existing in the game not really doing much has it pinned at 90% when shit starts happening it simply can't keep up and stutters and drops frames a lot.

 

I'd advice a full rebuild so could you ask for a budget?

 

 

 

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Yeah i thought as much

500pounds would allow for a NICE semi used gaming system and also give them a new pc as this one has past the decade old point a while ago

[TatamiMatt]

@jaslion @Blasty Blosty @venomtail @LAwLz @Somerandomtechyboi

 

Just to update anyone whose in terested in this, ended up relaying this info (He has already bought the game on steam but hasnt been able to run it so his play time is under 2 hours and can still be refunded)

 

Thanks for the help and if you have anything else you think would be good to add!

 

(Marking solution on these posts is always a pain, everyones been helpful )

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, TatamiMatt said:

@jaslion @Blasty Blosty @venomtail @LAwLz @Somerandomtechyboi

 

Just to update anyone whose in terested in this, ended up relaying this info (He has already bought the game on steam but hasnt been able to run it so his play time is under 2 hours and can still be refunded)

 

Thanks for the help and if you have anything else you think would be good to add!

 

(Marking solution on these posts is always a pain, everyones been helpful )

Dont forget you are not ALLOWED to play online on ps5 without paying for ps plus.

 

 

 

[TatamiMatt]

Just now, jaslion said:

Dont forget you are not ALLOWED to play online on ps5 without paying for ps plus.

Oh wow really! I havent owned a playstation since my old PS2, good to follow up with

[Blasty Blosty]

10 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

@jaslion @Blasty Blosty @venomtail @LAwLz @Somerandomtechyboi

 

Just to update anyone whose in terested in this, ended up relaying this info (He has already bought the game on steam but hasnt been able to run it so his play time is under 2 hours and can still be refunded)

 

Thanks for the help and if you have anything else you think would be good to add!

 

(Marking solution on these posts is always a pain, everyones been helpful )

I would buy a new PSU anyway, for safety and reliability reasons. God knows how long that PSU has been sitting there, surprising it with modern hardware might be a bit of a shock

[venomtail]

13 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

@jaslion @Blasty Blosty @venomtail @LAwLz @Somerandomtechyboi

 

Just to update anyone whose in terested in this, ended up relaying this info (He has already bought the game on steam but hasnt been able to run it so his play time is under 2 hours and can still be refunded)

 

Thanks for the help and if you have anything else you think would be good to add!

 

(Marking solution on these posts is always a pain, everyones been helpful )

Impotant to remember that this is a coop games. Are most of his friends on Steam? Don't think this game has crossplay. Won't be as fun to play solo on PS5 if all his friends are on Steam.

[TatamiMatt]

17 minutes ago, venomtail said:

Impotant to remember that this is a coop games. Are most of his friends on Steam? Don't think this game has crossplay. Won't be as fun to play solo on PS5 if all his friends are on Steam.

No the game has crossplay, a few of my own mates own it on PS5 and i play with them regularly

[podkall]

34 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Thanks for the help and if you have anything else you think would be good to add!

so about the 3770k, it's got it's own oomph the only problem with it it's how outdated it is, being 4/8 achieves almost nothing as intel on higher end chips was always 4/8 regardless.

Despite being at school and working on a phone with a broken acreen I managed to get a surface unferstanding of 3770k's overall performance, I found a benchmark on YouTube that paints the picture pretty well, the main takeaway from the benchmark is that the 3770k isn't weak overall, but it's probably not strong for newer games that might be CPU intensive and CPU intensive games in general give it a hard time.

 

The way I came to this conclusion is quite simple, thabks to the comparison benchmark I can see that the 3770k is doing okay at getting 100+ fps, however it's struggling at keeping a steady pace, this can be seen in R6 Diege benchmark where despite going 150+ fps the 1% lows are hitting 37fps and visually I can see some stuttering and fps fluctuation towards the 1% lows, which could be same problem with Helldivers if they are that intensive, which is probably since it's a fairly new game;

 

So this CPU would be rather decent at games that are around GTA5 era and older. Anything newer is pushing it's limits.

Not to mention being on a DDR3 platform.

[TatamiMatt]

21 minutes ago, Blasty Blosty said:

I would buy a new PSU anyway, for safety and reliability reasons. God knows how long that PSU has been sitting there, surprising it with modern hardware might be a bit of a shock

I agree, a new PSU is included in the build file but could be salvagable as a backup or just to sell or something similar

[TatamiMatt]

2 minutes ago, podkall said:

The way I came to this conclusion is quite simple, thabks to the comparison benchmark I can see that the 3770k is doing okay at getting 100+ fps, however it's struggling at keeping a steady pace, this can be seen in R6 Diege benchmark where despite going 150+ fps the 1% lows are hitting 37fps and visually I can see some stuttering and fps fluctuation towards the 1% lows, which could be same problem with Helldivers if they are that intensive, which is probably since it's a fairly new game;

Not to mention being on a DDR3 platform.

I believe helldivers is decently cpu bound too, ontop of the ddr3 and the fact its store on a HDD

[Blasty Blosty]

3 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

I agree, a new PSU is included in the build file but could be salvagable as a backup or just to sell or something similar

Yeah yeah of course, good to have a spare one for testing

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, TatamiMatt said:

If the CPU is lacking would maxing out the socket (small upgrade in performance so probably not worth it) to a 3770K be an option?

waste of money especially if its not a z board

 

if its a z board then allcore 4.3ghz (37 -> 41 allcore multi + 105 bclk) -> 4.8ghz at best

 

if those chips arent <20$ better off ditching the entire mobo cpu ram combo for used ryzen with a 3100/3300x/3500(x) for ~30£ or 3600(x) for ~50£ + a used midranger b3/450 like the gaming plus ~50£ though there should also be some at 40 or even 30£, will obliterate that ancient 3770k even if oced and offers an upgrade path to a 5800x3d (200-250£ used)

 

used bare pcb ddr4 should be dirt cheap so id look for double sided 8gb 2133 hynix or samsung sticks, former is preffered since itll always be hynix afr which is a pretty decent ic afaik similar to 4gbit e die and since its 4gbit can do 3800 with 250-300 trfc, m378a1g43eb1 is samsung e die but not guaranteed to be available and you may only find m378a1g43db0 4gbit d die which is ok but probs worse than 4gbit afr then theres also m378a1g43tb1 4gbit t die which is complete trash, since its bare pcb you can just buy 2 now and when you need 32gb just add another 2 sticks with the same part number since the ics are the same so guaranteed compatibikity unlike plastic heatspreader rams