Help to keep my PC running for some more time.

[josepmaria]

Hi friends.
When I builded my actual computer, i had decided to stay with that time sims (rFactor 1, GPL, GTR2, GTL ... ) and keep that PC "forever" , but I'm human and cannot resist the temptation of testing actual sims ... Assetto Corsa, Automobilista, PCars2 ..., allways offline (I've no time for enough practicing to not disturb other drivers), and I don't need 30 cars on track !!!
My actual system (that I made following Nogrip's friends advice) is:

Processor: QuadCore AMD Phenom II X4 Black Edition 955, 3200 MHz (16 x 200)
Motherboard: Asus M4A87TD/USB3 (3 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x4, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR3 DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)
RAM 12 GB (4+4+2+2) DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series (1 GB)
600 W PSU

I'm thinking in getting simply a new GPU (just for one screen), I'm used to AMD but I could change to Nvidia ... and my budget is quite restraint ... what do you think, am I loosing my time and money or is this reasonable?
If yes, which GPU must I look for ?
Getting a 250 GB SSD (only for my Windows7 system) could help also ? Which one?

Excuse such a long post and many thanks for your help !!!

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

It is very reasonable to upgrade that GPU, the 1 GB VRAM alone makes it pretty useless for any modern sim. Look out for an AMD RX 570 or Nvidia GTX 1060 6 GB variant, anything more is IMO overpowered for that CPU unless you play at higher than 1080p. Also keep in mind the extra power pin that these new GPU's require and make sure your PSU is equipped with a spare 6 or 8 pin connector.

Don't expect to play with 30 cars as the CPU will still limit the number of AI cars you can add in sims like Assetto Corsa, but GPU update alone should see a 3x boost in FPS.

 

[josepmaria]

Thanks John Eric !!!
That's more or less what I was thinking , I'll have a look to my PSU .

 

[Durge Driven]

hi guys

Assuming the PSU is capable for GTX1060 3GB I agree

However put the SSD aside a minute.

For single 1080p ( I assume ) you would only need Ryzen1400, a B series motherboard and half decent memory and a combo deal would be cheaper again

Ask Duc about AMD

Look at it this way, how much you willing to pay a week, day or hour to sim for what I would call a huge leap in performance, maybe that's a little overstated but not far wrong

 

[Bob Gnarley]

Hello there Jose.

Firstly, have a look at the specifications for your motherboards SATA ports. If your mobo only supports 3Gbps you won't get the full benefit of a 6Gbps drive so you may be better of keeping your money for now. 970 chipset is definitely 3Gbps, 990 may support 6Gpbs.

If you do go for an ssd, just go for a reputable brand. Prices are quite good now. If endurance is important you may want to consider 64 layer over 32 layer. And bear in mind, because of how they work 10% of the drive should be left empty otherwise the lifespan of the drive can be reduced.

If you are in a position to consider hardware upgrades, AMD have some big announcements about 3rd gen Ryzen coming at the CES conference in January, after which I would expect price reductions on current remaining stock. If you can find a good deal on a 1600/1600x paired with a decent B350/B450 mobo and ddr4 at around 3000Mhz you will have a system that will see you right for a few years for really not much money.

All the best. Bob.

 

[maelstrom]

Firstly, have a look at the specifications for your motherboards SATA ports. If your mobo only supports 3Gbps you won't get the full benefit of a 6Gbps drive so you may be better of keeping your money for now.

Or you could add a PCIE to SATA III card to the system.

 

[dud]

A Radeoan R390 is what, $100 on ebay? IMHO the way to go.

If you spend too much time waiting on the disk I'd rather stuff in some more RAM than a SSD. Of course it depends on what kind of harddrive you have now. If you have a modern-ish 7200rpm drive it should be acceptable (with enough RAM).

 

[Durge Driven]

SSD are limited by motherboard controllers which are not all equal

On 10% space this is only old days, red partitions showed the same in XP
If you still subscribe to that with many TBs of drives you losing out

Depends on what you store on each partition, bigger the file transfers more free space is best
On my 12TB ( 4 sata HDD) I use with USB3.0 docking bay I would not waste 1.2TB
50GB free space with archived files is plenty saving the cost of a 1TB drive ($69AU here)
in space

SSD you can actually go down to a few percent and Crystal mark barely changes

However for OS you want a lot more free space, 50% or more is good as the OS is where the most block writes are done and it will use the extra space to even blocks out

Even on a Sata for OS more free space means it will fragment slower saving maintenance time
Sata with archives frag much slower then OS

So depending on each case it can vary from less then 5% to 50% ( for OS )

edit:

TIP: lot of people miss this.........
With any external drive have own power supply like shop brought external or docking bays
Connect all external drives
In device manager open disk drives
Right click Properties on each external drive
Click on "Policies"
Select "Better Performance"
Once done disable all external drives, they will only slow boot-up
Let PC restart

Identical HDDs you only need do for one drive, it will save for all