Hardware for Star Citizen

[CommanderFett]

Do you guys think SLI GTX 970s will be enough to run it on Max settings at WQHD at over 60 FPS?

If not, would the 980 be up to the task?

[LongbowX404]

Do you guys think SLI GTX 970s will be enough to run it on Max settings at WQHD at over 60 FPS?

If not, would the 980 be up to the task?

YOU AGAIN!

I got scared of the other one sorry:(

I did a quick search on the RSI forums and it looks like people are projecting Star Citizen to use as much and maybe more as Crysis 3. the 980 is going to give you a 10-15% performance gain for 40-60% more in price. if you need them now, the 970's would get you there. I would personally recommend a single 980 for now and save for another. This will let you maximize as I call it "performance per cubic inch" in your computer. That's what I have been basing my build off of.

[Grrizz]

If you mean Arena commander in its current state I would say you should be able to get 60fps, if you mean when the full game comes out, no.

[CommanderFett]

YOU AGAIN!

I got scared of the other one sorry:(

I did a quick search on the RSI forums and it looks like people are projecting Star Citizen to use as much and maybe more as Crysis 3. the 980 is going to give you a 10-15% performance gain for 40-60% more in price. if you need them now, the 970's would get you there. I would personally recommend a single 980 for now and save for another. This will let you maximize as I call it "performance per cubic inch" in your computer. That's what I have been basing my build off of.

I have plenty of room in my case. Thing is ginormous. My main concern is cost. Mine is based off "performance per dollar". The SLI 970s will be about $100 more expensive than a 980, but would the performance gains be worth it?

[CommanderFett]

If you mean Arena commander in its current state I would say you should be able to get 60fps, if you mean when the full game comes out, no.

Currently I get 60 frames on my 780. Granted it's only 1080p, but the settings are maxed out.

[Grrizz]

Currently I get 60 frames on my 780. Granted it's only 1080p, but the settings are maxed out.

On a single overclocked 970 and a overclocked i7 3770 at 1440p max settings I get around 30fps (sometimes dipping below) and use up ~3.5GB of VRAM, I've seen people saying with SLi 970s they get around 60fps but you are going to run into VRAM issues as the game progresses and its only going to get harder to run regardless of VRAM. If you want to build a computer to play it now SLi 970s should get you 60fps but do not try to build a computer now to play it maxed when it comes out (in ~2 years) its ridiculous to even try, people tried 2 years ago when it was first starting to be put together and they are all tears about the performance now (their own fault IMO). Same thing goes for any game, don't build a computer to run it until its at least close to release.

Note 1440p has ~78% more pixels then 1080p and we don't even have AA or full resolution (or all of the) textures at the moment let alone all the other additions that are yet to come.

[CommanderFett]

On a single overclocked 970 and a overclocked i7 3770 at 1440p max settings I get around 30fps (sometimes dipping below) and use up ~3.5GB of VRAM, I've seen people saying with SLi 970s they get around 60fps but you are going to run into VRAM issues as the game progresses and its only going to get harder to run regardless of VRAM. If you want to build a computer to play it now SLi 970s should get you 60fps but do not try to build a computer now to play it maxed when it comes out (in ~2 years) its ridiculous to even try, people tried 2 years ago when it was first starting to be put together and they are all tears about the performance now (their own fault IMO). Same thing goes for any game, don't build a computer to run it until its at least close to release.

Note 1440p has ~78% more pixels then 1080p and we don't even have AA or full resolution (or all of the) textures at the moment let alone all the other additions that are yet to come.

1440p is my end goal, currently. The power required to run 4k right now would be ridiculous. The only reason I'm upgrading my GPU is because I remembered my plan at Microcenter

[Grrizz]

1440p is my end goal, currently. The power required to run 4k right now would be ridiculous. The only reason I'm upgrading my GPU is because I remembered my plan at Microcenter

If your upgrading now, I can say GTX970s are nice cards for 1440p, I only have a single one but I love it, you might want to keep an eye on PCPer.com to see what comes from the VRAM "issue" that's come to light lately, they should have some frame time tests up later today with it using the last 500MB. Nvidia has already said in future drivers they will be further improving memory handling too but at the moment I haven't experienced any issues myself.

[CommanderFett]

If your upgrading now, I can say GTX970s are nice cards for 1440p, I only have a single one but I love it, you might want to keep an eye on PCPer.com to see what comes from the VRAM "issue" that's come to light lately, they should have some frame time tests up later today with it using the last 500MB. Nvidia has already said in future drivers they will be further improving memory handling too but at the moment I haven't experienced any issues myself.

Thank you for your assistance

[CODENAME: カラス]

Well I hope I'm in the right thread, I'm going to build a rig for SC. A 4k one, but I have some questions about it....so here we go!. Warning! I'm not that great at building a rig, I've been asking around and watching youtube.

 

Q1: What is the diffirence between Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP480G4R5 2.5" 480GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) that Linus used in his video on youtube and the SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E1T0B/AM 2.5" 1TB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)?

 

Q2: Is it worth it ti get a Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75960X?. I know it's cost alot but is it worth it for gaming?, if so which mother board can support it?.

 

Thanx guys, I hope that I can find my answer here. B)

[Napper198]

Well I hope I'm in the right thread, I'm going to build a rig for SC. A 4k one, but I have some questions about it....so here we go!. Warning! I'm not that great at building a rig, I've been asking around and watching youtube.

 

Q1: What is the diffirence between Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP480G4R5 2.5" 480GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) that Linus used in his video on youtube and the SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E1T0B/AM 2.5" 1TB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)?

 

Q2: Is it worth it ti get a Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75960X?. I know it's cost alot but is it worth it for gaming?, if so which mother board can support it?.

 

Thanx guys, I hope that I can find my answer here. B)

 

SATA 3 SSDs these days are not that different from each other since the bottleneck here is the SATA port itself, so for Q1: It doesn't really matter.

 

For Q2: Only if you're heavy into content creation. Even if you want to go nuts with a 4 way-SLI setup a 5930K is enough and a 5820K only matters if you go with 2 way-SLI (which you should since SC is pretty hard to run right now.) Basically any 2011-3 motherboard works with all of the afore mentioned.

 

 

To play Star Citizen in UHD you'll probably need dual Nvidia GTX 980 or AMD R9 290x or even triple GTX970 to get usable frame rates. If you're for team red I'd personally wait for the R9 390 and see how it performs (probably still takes two of them).

[Grrizz]

Well I hope I'm in the right thread, I'm going to build a rig for SC. A 4k one, but I have some questions about it....so here we go!. Warning! I'm not that great at building a rig, I've been asking around and watching youtube.

 

Q1: What is the diffirence between Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP480G4R5 2.5" 480GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) that Linus used in his video on youtube and the SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E1T0B/AM 2.5" 1TB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)?

 

Q2: Is it worth it ti get a Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75960X?. I know it's cost alot but is it worth it for gaming?, if so which mother board can support it?.

 

Thanx guys, I hope that I can find my answer here. B)

I would like to re-emphasise a point I mentioned earlier, if you intend to build a 4K rig to play Star Citizen on too by all means go for it and enjoy it as it will be awesome HOWEVER if you intend to build a 4K rig for Star Citizen don't bother right now, the game is still ~2 years from release so you would be far better off waiting. 2 years will see ~2 generations of graphics cards so the high end now will be mid range then and processors like Skylake and its second revision should include technologies that will be more of a change than what we've seen in previous years (some speculation in that comment).

All that aside Napper speaks the truth although I would think hard about the i7 if its just a gaming rig, its probably a good choice if you don't want to upgrade for 6+ years but if you do upgrade on a semi-regular basis I would stick to an i5 for now as nothing at the moment (gaming wise) really benefits from 8 cores and the price spikes up a lot going to a 5000 series platform. We are only just getting to the point where 4 cores is (semi) required, even when we get to a point where 8 cores are fully utilised it will be a long time before programmers really focus on more than 4 cores because of the market share.

[drewjn]

@Grrizz

 

So at what point would I have to worry about an upgrade, with my current specs (in sig)? They should be near the same as @CommanderFett

 

 

I was also in the same thought process when I bought a 970 in the case I might need to sli later on, but bought it more towards being a mid-range vid card at this point of time. I just couldn't find the reason in buying a 980 and the AMD cards may be good, but the brands and variations are not as clear cut and as easy to figure out at that moment of time.

[LeonTheLoner]

Well I hope I'm in the right thread, I'm going to build a rig for SC. A 4k one, but I have some questions about it....so here we go!. Warning! I'm not that great at building a rig, I've been asking around and watching youtube.

 

Q2: Is it worth it to get a Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75960X?. I know it's cost alot but is it worth it for gaming?, if so which mother board can support it?.

 

No, probably not. You might as well grab a 4790k and an appropriate mobo, and then put the rest of the money into getting two GTX980's. I'd wait for the 3xx series GPUs too if it's for star citizen, since it isn't out yet.

[Grrizz]

@Grrizz

 

So at what point would I have to worry about an upgrade, with my current specs (in sig)? They should be near the same as @CommanderFett

 

 

I was also in the same thought process when I bought a 970 in the case I might need to sli later on, but bought it more towards being a mid-range vid card at this point of time. I just couldn't find the reason in buying a 980 and the AMD cards may be good, but the brands and variations are not as clear cut and as easy to figure out at that moment of time.

For me personally, I'm not looking for a major upgrade till we see Skylake and Pascal because those should (speculatively) be the next potential tech jump IMO but for anyone looking to build a "Star Citizen computer" I wouldn't even think about it until the PU is at least in beta, ideally I would be waiting till around public release (slightly before or even after). My hope is what I've got will tie me over till then (it's similar to yours - in my profile) and if the second revision Skylake and Pascal are due out around the time of public release they would be my ideal target because in the second revisions they usually work out architectural/driver problems/inefficiencies they may have overlooked in the first, so even though the biggest performance bump will come from the first revisions the second revisions tend to be a bit less "prickly".

Of course I say all this at the moment being more happy with Intel/Nvidia but if AMD have something more attractive in that time frame I would consider that too I just use Intel/Nvidias roadmaps as an example because their future plans seem more clear from what I know, aside from APUs I don't really know what AMDs longer term goals are, even the 300 series GPUs are still a bit of a mystery to me. That and the last 5-8 years of AMD experiences have soured my palette somewhat but that's just personal to me.

And of course upgrading for other reasons is completely valid, I may do a system at the end of the year/start of next year just because I like computers but it definitely wont be my "Star Citizen computer", likewise for people wanting to ditch their computer if its getting long in the tooth I'd say go for it as there is always something else just round the corner when you are talking about computers, just don't do it for Star Citizen alone (yet!).

[CODENAME: カラス]

You guys are awesome, thank you......I had a wish list from Newegg, I'll post it here and I would like to get feedback.

 

Let's help me make the right choices and save money! B)

 

Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 (CC-9011030-WW) Black Steel / Plastic ATX Cube High Airflow Cube Case

 

ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

 

x2 ASUS STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5 GeForce GTX 980 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

 

CORSAIR AX1500i CP-9020057-NA 1500W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS Titanium certified Full Modular Power Supply

 

Intel Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 6-Core 3.4GHz LGA 2011 130W Desktop Processor BX80633i74930K

 

SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E1T0B/AM 2.5" 1TB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

x2 CORSAIR DOMINATOR GT 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000) Desktop Memory Model CMT32GX3M4X1866C9

 

WD SE WD4000F9YZ 4TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Hard Drive

 

CORSAIR Hydro Series H110 Extreme Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler. 280mm

[Napper198]

You guys are awesome, thank you......I had a wish list from Newegg, I'll post it here and I would like to get feedback.

 

Let's help me make the right choices and save money! B)

 

This is more likely: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JXwzjX

 

First: old CPU and old motherboard doesn't make sense anymore. The 5820K overclocked is perfect for this task and a lot cheaper. If you want to go even cheaper go with an i5-4690K and a Z97 motherboard since PCIe lanes have little impact on performance and since motherboards have basically no impact on performance as well get one that's cheap an has all the bells an whistles you need and has a color you like.

 

Second: No one needs a 1500W power supply (except a 4 way crossfire, all out AMD build). 1000W is plenty for even future upgrades an should serve you a long time.

 

Third: 1TB of SSD is IMHO a bit overkill but it only hurts your wallet, so your decision.

 

Forth: 32GB of RAM for gaming is way too much. Even 8GB would be enough but for DDR4 16GB is the minimum configuration. 

 

 

But as @Grrizz stated before, buying a PC for Star Citizen now doesn't make much sense since it is still very early in development and until it's release in 2016 a lot of stuff is going to happen in computer world. In the end it is your money and your decision. If you want a killer gaming rig right now, go for it, but keep assured that no system is future proof no matter how much money you throw at it. 

[CODENAME: カラス]

This is more likely: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JXwzjX

 

First: old CPU and old motherboard doesn't make sense anymore. The 5820K overclocked is perfect for this task and a lot cheaper. If you want to go even cheaper go with an i5-4690K and a Z97 motherboard since

and since

as well get one that's cheap an has all the bells an whistles you need and has a color you like.

 

Second: No one needs a 1500W power supply (except a 4 way crossfire, all out AMD build). 1000W is plenty for even future upgrades an should serve you a long time.

 

Third: 1TB of SSD is IMHO a bit overkill but it only hurts your wallet, so your decision.

 

Forth: 32GB of RAM for gaming is way too much. Even 8GB would be enough but for DDR4 16GB is the minimum configuration. 

 

 

But as @Grrizz stated before, buying a PC for Star Citizen now doesn't make much sense since it is still very early in development and until it's release in 2016 a lot of stuff is going to happen in computer world. In the end it is your money and your decision. If you want a killer gaming rig right now, go for it, but keep assured that no system is future proof no matter how much money you throw at it. 

Can you advise a build for me?, or lets dumb down that list I had posted?.

[Napper198]

Can you advise a build for me?, or lets dumb down that list I had posted?.

 

Thats what the pcpartpicker.com url in my post is for 

[CODENAME: カラス]

Thats what the pcpartpicker.com url in my post is for 

Ah srry I jumped over that and went for the kill...lmao

[drewjn]

If for gaming primarily, stick to four cores, i7 4790k is good enough. 16 gb of ddr3 at 1600 or 1866 mhz. Ssd at 500 or 250mb, suggest mx100 or 850 evo. And go only one 980 until you need to add. 750 to 1000w for psu.

[IceCold007]

The Release Date for SC will be 2016 in that time better GPU's will be out. ATM 970 should run it ok but SLI or AMD crossfire should work better. Oneone can predict which system will run it as smooth as possible given the fact that the final release version aint released yet. You can however speculate as much as you like

[Trik'Stari]

What would I need for triple monitor surround?

 

I have one 970, about to buy another and 2 more 1080p 60hz TN panels.

 

Edit: I am also buying into the game now as well, gonna get the arena module. Want to be able to run that on 3 monitors.

[Napper198]

What would I need for triple monitor surround?

 

I have one 970, about to buy another and 2 more 1080p 60hz TN panels.

 

Edit: I am also buying into the game now as well, gonna get the arena module. Want to be able to run that on 3 monitors.

 

As long as you don't expect them to run at 60 fps you should be fine. It's more likely going to be 40ish fps. Personally I'd rather go with one ultrawide, but that's probably a cost decision, too. 

[Trik'Stari]

As long as you don't expect them to run at 60 fps you should be fine. It's more likely going to be 40ish fps. Personally I'd rather go with one ultrawide, but that's probably a cost decision, too. 

So....dual 980's then?