Hardware specs for Star Citizen at low cost

[Andy Cheese]

Hi all,

I’m currently running an AMD FX-6100 Six-Core Processor on a M5A78L-M/USB3 MB with 16G of 10666 DDR3. My GPU is only a Radeon 6850 1G. So, as you can see it’s an old system which I mainly use for running multiply VM’s (LAMPs and WAMPS, SQL servers and various versions of Windows) for programming, web design and the odd few older games.

I’m looking to upgrade to be able to run Star Citizen at 'around' the recommended specs BUT this upgrade needs to be at a low cost. Can this even be done for £300 – 400($400 – 500)?

I would like to keep the MB and just update the CPU and GPU if poss.

“Recommended System Requirements are as of June 11, 2016, Alpha 2.4.0 are:

Processor - Quad Core CPU (Intel Core i7-4770K or comparable)

GPU (Graphics Card): DirectX - Version 11- AMD A10-7700K, AMD Radeon HD 7990, GeForce GTX 780 or similar with at least 4GB Video RAM”

Would you buy a FX-8370 for £170 (I’ve got a max of 140W TDP to play with) and spend the rest on and Radeon RX 480 4GB or GTX 1050 4GB? Maybe keep the CPU and go for a RX 480 8GB or GTX 1070 8GB.

I know at this price point I’m pushing this however I can’t justify spending much more.

Thanks for looks and any input is welcome.

Cheers

[KCmetro]

5 minutes ago, Andy Cheese said:

Hi all,

I’m currently running an AMD FX-6100 Six-Core Processor on a M5A78L-M/USB3 MB with 16G of 10666 DDR3. My GPU is only a Radeon 6850 1G. So, as you can see it’s an old system which I mainly use for running multiply VM’s (LAMPs and WAMPS, SQL servers and various versions of Windows) for programming, web design and the odd few older games.

 

I’m looking to upgrade to be able to run Star Citizen at 'around' the recommended specs BUT this upgrade needs to be at a low cost. Can this even be done for £300 – 400($400 – 500)?

 

I would like to keep the MB and just update the CPU and GPU if poss.

 

“Recommended System Requirements are as of June 11, 2016, Alpha 2.4.0 are:

 

Processor - Quad Core CPU (Intel Core i7-4770K or comparable)

 

GPU (Graphics Card): DirectX - Version 11- AMD A10-7700K, AMD Radeon HD 7990, GeForce GTX 780 or similar with at least 4GB Video RAM”

 

Would you buy a FX-8370 for £170 (I’ve got a max of 140W TDP to play with) and spend the rest on and Radeon RX 480 4GB or GTX 1050 4GB? Maybe keep the CPU and go for a RX 480 8GB or GTX 1070 8GB.

 

I know at this price point I’m pushing this however I can’t justify spending much more.

 

Thanks for looks and any input is welcome.

 

Cheers

 

Yep.

 

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/download

 

Windows 7 (64 bit) – Service Pack 1, Windows 8 (64 bit)
DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
Quad core CPU
8GB Memory

 

Edit - I should add that... more is better. If you can go higher, go higher. You will probably have to lower settings within the game to pull it off with the specs immediately above.

[Andy Cheese]

Hi KCmetro, thanks for replying. 

 

I've seen the min specs (I'll be getting my AURORA MR starter package next week ) but I was hoping to get as near to possible to the current recommend specs for the low price. If you has a spare system with the above specs, what would you do?

 

Thanks

[Gyre-Taenn]

I have a 4690k and GTX 1070 FTW. I am able to run Arena Commander and the hangar module at around 90-100 FPS. I hope this gives you an idea of what it takes to run the game currently. The upcoming network updates should mean that performance will only get better from here on out.

 

I want to warn you that more cores/threads will help in the future (as Chris Roberts plans to allow utilization of up to eight cores IIRC) and more VRAM will help.

[KCmetro]

58 minutes ago, Andy Cheese said:

Hi KCmetro, thanks for replying. 

 

I've seen the min specs (I'll be getting my AURORA MR starter package next week ) but I was hoping to get as near to possible to the current recommend specs for the low price. If you has a spare system with the above specs, what would you do?

 

Thanks

Put all the drivers, .net, etc. on the system.

If Windows 10 and unable to get patcher to install or game to load, run them in Windows 7 compatibility mode.

CPU & RAM are fine.

Technically, so is GPU, but might want to upgrade it.

The gtx1070 is great.

Might want to upgrade monitor to maximize use of GPU, if it's not already capable of it.

If not matching monitor to that type of GPU, then a lower-priced GPU would be fine.

Since the 1GB recommended is really minimum for GPU, you could get anywhere between 1-8GB, 4GB's fine.

 

[rucdoc]

I would go for the 8350 over the 8370 personally, but which ever, otherwise that's not a bad build, probably not a 4k machine, but should do 1080p fine

 

[BananaDealer]

18 hours ago, Andy Cheese said:

Hi KCmetro, thanks for replying. 

 

I've seen the min specs (I'll be getting my AURORA MR starter package next week ) but I was hoping to get as near to possible to the current recommend specs for the low price. If you has a spare system with the above specs, what would you do?

 

Thanks

I'd recommend going for the package including Squadron 42 if you aren't already...

As for the technical side of things, I have no experience with AMD products, but I'll recommend anything with more than 4 cores and clocked at a minimum of 3GHz, with a GPU comparable to a GTX 1070. I would also suggest at least 16GB of RAM to make sure you have enough to dedicate to the game, without bottlenecking other processes (or having the game itself bottlenecked because something is eating up your RAM in the background)...

[Andy Cheese]

Thanks all for your input.

 

‘KCmetro’ raised a great point that I did not ever think about:

23 hours ago, KCmetro said:

Might want to upgrade monitor to maximize use of GPU, if it's not already capable of it.

If not matching monitor to that type of GPU, then a lower-priced GPU would be fine.

 Dam, I missed that in my costings. I using two monitors, one 24” wide-screen and another one is 21”. Both are a few years old, one is HD 1080 and the other DVI both low refresh rate and yes, the smaller is the HD 1080 screen which sucks big time.

‘rucdoc’ also highlighted the 8350 which is spot on. I’ve checked the spec’s and is now on sale at £130 so that looks like the way to go for me.

Also, due to cost I’m probably going to have to go with an RX480 8G unless something else gets pointed out in the meantime.

Thanks again

Andy

[rucdoc]

as a note my advice is based on not wanting to wait and go with the new zen processors, as they will be more expensive and need you to buy ddr4 which is also more expensive. though waiting until they are released might cause prices for older cpus to drop

[KCmetro]

4 hours ago, Andy Cheese said:

Thanks all for your input.

 

 

 

‘KCmetro’ raised a great point that I did not ever think about:

 

 

 Dam, I missed that in my costings. I using two monitors, one 24” wide-screen and another one is 21”. Both are a few years old, one is HD 1080 and the other DVI both low refresh rate and yes, the smaller is the HD 1080 screen which sucks big time.

 

 

‘rucdoc’ also highlighted the 8350 which is spot on. I’ve checked the spec’s and is now on sale at £130 so that looks like the way to go for me.

 

Also, due to cost I’m probably going to have to go with an RX480 8G unless something else gets pointed out in the meantime.

 

 

Thanks again

Andy

The new monitor that I'm going to get will become the main one, but I'll still use my old monitor, I'll set up both. The only downside is they're mismatching sizes, and if I end up getting the higher end for the new one, there will be a leap in quality between them. Having matching monitor sizes is kind of a big deal to me, if setting them up side by side. I might actually set up the slightly smaller one above the new one.

[Albatross]

Honestly, I say save your money. It isn't wise to build a rig for Star Citizen right now, especially with a really low budget. Save your money and wait until the game furthers along development and they fix the issues that plague it performance wise.

 

Or...at least wait until Patch 3.0.