Project CARS - Hardware recommendation on PC

[BanjoMaster14]

I'm in the same boat. I think two latest nvidia GPUs should be enough. I can run pCars at max settings, except AA being only at ds2x, at pretty much 60 fps or more with a single 780ti. Oculus, by the sound of it, will need 90fps. Plus the resolution will be above my 1080p. Considering all this, plus pretty good Nvidia scaling on SLI, two cards should be enough. Hopefully I can just throw in another 780ti and be done with it. But may have to wait for the next-gen nvidia cards, if the resolution will be too much for the 3gb vram.

Can I ask if you get a steady 60fps with lots of other cars and in all conditions?

Apparently sli adds in a frame of latency which is a problem for vr units such as the oculus. nVidia say they can solve this by assigning a GPU to each eye and doing some driver trickery. That would indicate to me that 2-way sli is the intended solution, as going 3-way sli would reintroduce the extra unwanted frame presumably. A constant 90fps @ 1440p, which seems to be the consensus as to the final specs of the oculus, is going to take a bit of a monster system for a game like pCARS. Having said that, they must be doing everything they can to keep it accessible to those without £2k to spend on a PC? I will sell my house/car/kids for 2 gtx980ti's if that's what it'll take, but I'd rather not have to...

It's the waiting for answers that kills me, see!?

 

[FuriousDemon]

Can I ask if you get a steady 60fps with lots of other cars and in all conditions?

Apparently sli adds in a frame of latency which is a problem for vr units such as the oculus. nVidia say they can solve this by assigning a GPU to each eye and doing some driver trickery. That would indicate to me that 2-way sli is the intended solution, as going 3-way sli would reintroduce the extra unwanted frame presumably. A constant 90fps @ 1440p, which seems to be the consensus as to the final specs of the oculus, is going to take a bit of a monster system for a game like pCARS. Having said that, they must be doing everything they can to keep it accessible to those without £2k to spend on a PC? I will sell my house/car/kids for 2 gtx980ti's if that's what it'll take, but I'd rather not have to...

It's the waiting for answers that kills me, see!?

Well, not quite in all conditions. Basically, in rainy weather with heavy reflections and lights on, I'll get into the low 40s at the start of the race. But by about the middle of the first lap, once the cars separate a little bit, I'll get it up to 60 or higher. I may have to drop some settings from ultra to high to get that 60 fps at literally all times, probably reflections and track detail will do the trick.

Man...I haven't played this game in 2-3 weeks now and the sound, driving, AI, and graphics have improved a lot. Having all those bugs squished really helps the game shine. It's going to be THE racing game to get next year.

 

[nepal road]

FreshTech are notorious for bad quality PC's,

thanks for the warning. in that case do you know anything about these as a reliable make?

 

[Myles Prower]

thanks for the warning. in that case do you know anything about these as a reliable make?

Honestly, I think I was very harsh on them, I just have seen quite a few bad reviews for Freshtech, but the parts seem okay maybe they have improved but that system is suspiciously cheap, extraordinary value

 

[nepal road]

I was thinking the parts themselves looked good enough in terms of decent names and the prices do seem pretty good but I haven't looked very widely so don't have much to compare with. I'm not into putting my own pc together, rather get someone else to provide a working system. Might try googling Freshtech+problems or something similar see what I comes up. I did think that with Amazon behind them, if there is a problem it should just be a straight replacement.

 

[lmracer]

Excellent! My build is very similar. Main difference is my i5 CPU and GTX980 GPU. The prices come out about the same with the major difference being my case. I went with one I really liked due to its clean, understated design. But it was quite expensive. Silverstone FT02.

 

[Johnnypenso]

thanks for the warning. in that case do you know anything about these as a reliable make?

Don't know about them as a reliable make but the pricing seems quite good. A 970 build for just over $CDN1000. The AMD processors don't seem to be popular with gamers around here but there are also Intel builds there as well.

 

[Willfred_1]

Don't know about them as a reliable make but the pricing seems quite good. A 970 build for just over $CDN1000. The AMD processors don't seem to be popular with gamers around here but there are also Intel builds there as well.

Im a amd user and where constantly messed around as the ports work for Intel but amd always seem to have performance issues.
I'm going intel next build.

 

[nepal road]

Im a amd user and where constantly messed around as the ports work for Intel but amd always seem to have performance issues.
I'm going intel next build.

That's a shame as I'm a linux user and there are absolutely no issues with AMD processors on Linux. So it shows M$ support is the problem here (but then they do have to look after their Intel mates eh? )

 

[Willfred_1]

That's a shame as I'm a linux user and there are absolutely no issues with AMD processors on Linux. So it shows M$ support is the problem here (but then they do have to look after their Intel mates eh? )

It's not ms it's the people who do the porting of games.

 

[nepal road]

It's not ms it's the people who do the porting of games.

so the folks who port intentionally do a worse job for AMD eh? yeh, right

 

[Myles Prower]

AMD use's different software and components which are less advance or harder to work with which is why there products are usually cheaper, funny you say that since the X1 uses an AMD CPU

 

[Willfred_1]

AMD use's different software and components which are less advance or harder to work with which is why there products are usually cheaper, funny you say that since the X1 uses an AMD CPU

So does the ps4

 

[Jonathan777]

Hello everyone,

In a few weeks i'm going to buy /build me a new pc to play Pcars, AC, raceroom,etc.
I have selected the needed parts and i wanted to ask if these should do ok..

- case: corsair carbide 200R
- processor: Intel i5 4690K
- graphics card: GTX 760
- motherboard: gigabyte z97m d3h
- memory: corsair 16gb ddr3
- harddrive: ssd samsung 840series 125gb
Sata seagate barracuda 2TB
- corsair cs series 550w


- case: corsair carbide 300R
- processor: Intel i5 4690K + arctic freezer 13CO
- graphics card: Gigabyte GTX 970
- motherboard: gigabyte z97x gaming 3
- memory: corsair vengeance 16gb ddr3
- harddrive: ssd samsung 840series 250gb
Sata seagate barracuda 1TB
- corsair cs series 650w


If you guys have important notices please let me know.

Greetz and thanks!

 

[Johnnypenso]

Hello everyone,

In a few weeks i'm going to buy /build me a new pc to play Pcars, AC, raceroom,etc.
I have selected the needed parts and i wanted to ask if these should do ok..

- case: corsair carbide 200R
- processor: Intel i5 4690K
- graphics card: GTX 760
- motherboard: gigabyte z97m d3h
- memory: corsair 16gb ddr3
- harddrive: ssd samsung 840series 125gb
Sata seagate barracuda 2TB
- corsair cs series 550w

If you guys have important notices please let me know.

Greetz and thanks!

Ignoring budget for a minute, I don't think there's any better bang for the buck than the GTX970/980 series of GPU's. You can see from the benchmarks here, that the 970 is closing in on double the 760. In your build the GPU is definitely the bottleneck so doubling the benchmark on the card will likely close to double the performance. That means double the framerate, or many more cars on track with the same framerate, or much, much higher graphics settings, the option of triple screens with decent settings etc. You don't really need 16gb's of ram, 8gbs should do just fine so I'd reduce the ram for now and use that money to fund the upgrade to the 970. I'd also reduce the hard drive to 1gb and increase the SSD to a 240gb Samsung if game loading times are a concern for you. A 120 is fine for Windoze and a game or two but if you want it to hold several more games it needs to be bigger. You can always add a bigger HDD later on or an external if need be. RAM can also be added later as well if need be. The power supply could also be a 650W or 750W for just a few dollars more.

 

[Jonathan777]

Ignoring budget for a minute, I don't think there's any better bang for the buck than the GTX970/980 series of GPU's. You can see from the benchmarks here, that the 970 is closing in on double the 760. In your build the GPU is definitely the bottleneck so doubling the benchmark on the card will likely close to double the performance. That means double the framerate, or many more cars on track with the same framerate, or much, much higher graphics settings, the option of triple screens with decent settings etc. You don't really need 16gb's of ram, 8gbs should do just fine so I'd reduce the ram for now and use that money to fund the upgrade to the 970. I'd also reduce the hard drive to 1gb and increase the SSD to a 240gb Samsung if game loading times are a concern for you. A 120 is fine for Windoze and a game or two but if you want it to hold several more games it needs to be bigger. You can always add a bigger HDD later on or an external if need be. RAM can also be added later as well if need be. The power supply could also be a 650W or 750W for just a few dollars more.

Ok, that 970 might fit in if i indeed save a bit on the ram. Reducing the harddrive to 1TB and increasing to a 250gb samsung ssd is cheaper then what i suggested and i have an external hd.. And funny enough going from 550w to 650w is also a bit cheaper. it will almost only serve for simracing so this isvestment should do imo
I have edited my earlier post with what it would be with your improvements. It's not even more expensive..

 

[Johnnypenso]

Ok, that 970 might fit in if i indeed save a bit on the ram. Reducing the harddrive to 1TB and increasing to a 250gb samsung ssd is cheaper then what i suggested and i have an external hd.. And funny enough going from 550w to 650w is also a bit cheaper. it will almost only serve for simracing so this isvestment should do imo

I just built a PC myself and some of the pricing doesn't seem to make sense sometimes I agree. But you won't regret the 970. Even if there's a big leap in the next couple of years in power required for then current games, the 970 should still be up to the task for most applications since it's quite ahead of the curve at the moment. One other thing to consider and it's something I did, was to get a motherboard and case that could support a second 970 just in case. I think my case cost $80 and the motherboard an extra $30, but the ability to add another 970 down the road quite easily, means that I am (fingers crossed), future proofed for a few years at least, with upgrades of course.

If you are planning on overclocking the 4690k you might want to get some extra cooling for the CPU. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo for example, is highly recommended and usually less than $30.

 

[Jonathan777]

I just built a PC myself and some of the pricing doesn't seem to make sense sometimes I agree. But you won't regret the 970. Even if there's a big leap in the next couple of years in power required for then current games, the 970 should still be up to the task for most applications since it's quite ahead of the curve at the moment. One other thing to consider and it's something I did, was to get a motherboard and case that could support a second 970 just in case. I think my case cost $80 and the motherboard an extra $30, but the ability to add another 970 down the road quite easily, means that I am (fingers crossed), future proofed for a few years at least, with upgrades of course.

If you are planning on overclocking the 4690k you might want to get some extra cooling for the CPU. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo for example, is highly recommended and usually less than $30.

I won't be overclocking the processor. If i believe what people say, with this setup and for it what will be used it shouldnt be necessary. if you have the knowledge that's something else but maybe in a few years..

Considering the case and motherboard is sthing i'll definitely weight in to have the possibility of adding another gtx970.

One more question.. Why wouldn't this setup or yours be good enough to play PCars, AC,.. in 3 years? Unless you want to go for newer games or add 3D or so i don't see the need to upgrade honestly.. Or is this a wrong assumption?

 

[Myles Prower]

I would suggest a GTX 970 as well, its a future proof card as the 900 series also supports DX12 in addition to being powerful already. If you are only using a single GPU then a 600W power supply is what you need, Intel CPU's and Nvidea cards are very power efficient, I have a 970 and i5 4460 and the estimated power usage is 332W, the sweet spot for a power supply is between 50-80% of its capacity.

 

[Jonathan777]

I would suggest a GTX 970 as well, its a future proof card as the 900 series also supports DX12 in addition to being powerful already. If you are only using a single GPU then a 600W power supply is what you need, Intel CPU's and Nvidea cards are very power efficient, I have a 970 and i5 4460 and the estimated power usage is 332W, the sweet spot for a power supply is between 50-80% of its capacity.

Meaning that the Corsair CS series 650w is ok?
I will probably go for the GTX970 as it does seem to stand out..

 

[Myles Prower]

It maybe a little overkill

 

[Johnnypenso]

I won't be overclocking the processor. If i believe what people say, with this setup and for it what will be used it shouldnt be necessary. if you have the knowledge that's something else but maybe in a few years..

Considering the case and motherboard is sthing i'll definitely weight in to have the possibility of adding another gtx970.

One more question.. Why wouldn't this setup or yours be good enough to play PCars, AC,.. in 3 years? Unless you want to go for newer games or add 3D or so i don't see the need to upgrade honestly.. Or is this a wrong assumption?

If you aren't going to overclock I was going to tell you to save a few few bucks and just get the 4690 but I see they are only $5 apart now, so definitely get the K model for the chance at overclocking if necessary.

This will be good enough to play PCars and AC and any other game currently released, but you never know what's coming down the pipe. I can easily see me wanting to go to 4k when it's widely available and I upgrade my tv or maybe a dedicated setup with triple screens. I like to plan ahead if I can but when it comes to this kind of stuff it's awfully hard to predict what's going to happen so I like to keep my options open.

 

[Jump_Ace]

I just built a PC myself and some of the pricing doesn't seem to make sense sometimes I agree. But you won't regret the 970. Even if there's a big leap in the next couple of years in power required for then current games, the 970 should still be up to the task for most applications since it's quite ahead of the curve at the moment. One other thing to consider and it's something I did, was to get a motherboard and case that could support a second 970 just in case. I think my case cost $80 and the motherboard an extra $30, but the ability to add another 970 down the road quite easily, means that I am (fingers crossed), future proofed for a few years at least, with upgrades of course.

If you are planning on overclocking the 4690k you might want to get some extra cooling for the CPU. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo for example, is highly recommended and usually less than $30.

I'll second the 212 Evo heatsink too. It's fantastic and inexpensive 👍


Jerome

 

[hotak]

i'd suggest with souch a little case to also buy another one case fan if you're going to overclock. i always suggest a coolermaster's HAF series case for more powerfull PCs because they offer great cooling for quite low prices (compared to similar cases), but the carbride isn't bad either, just a little smaller than what i'd take for an high-end PC

 

[Jonathan777]

i'd suggest with souch a little case to also buy another one case fan if you're going to overclock. i always suggest a coolermaster's HAF series case for more powerfull PCs because they offer great cooling for quite low prices (compared to similar cases), but the carbride isn't bad either, just a little smaller than what i'd take for an high-end PC

Thanks for your feedback.. I selected the carbide 200r cause i really like the design. That cheaper haf ist really a beauty Are the dimensions really that small of the 200r? The 300r also has a nice design and is a bit bigger.. Would that do?

 

[hotak]

Thanks for your feedback.. I selected the carbide 200r cause i really like the design. That cheaper haf ist really a beauty Are the dimensions really that small of the 200r? The 300r also has a nice design and is a bit bigger.. Would that do?

I like to overclock my PC so always prefer a bit bigger Cases so the inside air isn't much hotter than outside, but if you're not going ti OC even the carbride 200 is ok, just add a fan if your cpu reach ~75 degrees under load

 

[Willfred_1]

A note to every one who is looking at PC.
When looking to buy or build one consider what you mean by future proof.
For some places it means it powerful enough to be top spec for a year or two. For others (mainly a minority) it means it can be easily improved upon. The second meaning is more crucial in my opinion.
I know quite a few people who brought a few years ago a top spec PC. However they now have an additional expense of buying new cooling systems, power units and cases. As some parts such as gpu have gotten slightly larger. This is solved by looking at the direction of development and current trends.


While many games can run on a large 4gb gpu to get ultra on many recent/ future games it looks like you'll need multiple gpus. This can be factored in when picking cases. Cooling will get more important as the increase of base clock speed in pcs is starting to slow. So we'll see more extreme over locks in the future.

Don't just look at the present systems consider any future systems. As this may save you money!

 

[Cyber_stig_77]

Hello everyone,

In a few weeks i'm going to buy /build me a new pc to play Pcars, AC, raceroom,etc.
I have selected the needed parts and i wanted to ask if these should do ok..

- case: corsair carbide 200R
- processor: Intel i5 4690K
- graphics card: GTX 760
- motherboard: gigabyte z97m d3h
- memory: corsair 16gb ddr3
- harddrive: ssd samsung 840series 125gb
Sata seagate barracuda 2TB
- corsair cs series 550w


- case: corsair carbide 200R
- processor: Intel i5 4690K
- graphics card: GTX 970
- motherboard: gigabyte z97m d3h
- memory: corsair 16gb ddr3
- harddrive: ssd samsung 840series 250gb
Sata seagate barracuda 1TB
- corsair cs series 650w

If you guys have important notices please let me know.

Greetz and thanks!

For an extra $40-50 get a sli ready mob so you can add another 970 later on
I have recently built a very similar pc and was going for a non sli board but now I am happy I spent the little extra to get a more future proof system.
My system, i5 4690k + gigabyte Z97X-gaming 3 mob + gigabyte GTX970 G1 gaming + 2x4Gb corsair vengeance pro + coolermaster D92 CPU cooler + coolermaster v650 80+gold PSU and a crucial 256Gb ssd. CPU is oc'd @ 4.5ghz, 970 is oc'd @ 1350/1500Mhz, ram @1600Mhz in xmp. System is very stable and scored 10260 in 3D mark-fire strike. Runs Assetto corsa @ 70-90fps with everything on ultra, reflections on high with a full grid or everything on ultra @120-140fps hot lapping.

 

[Jonathan777]

For an extra $40-50 get a sli ready mob so you can add another 970 later on
I have recently built a very similar pc and was going for a non sli board but now I am happy I spent the little extra to get a more future proof system.
My system, i5 4690k + gigabyte Z97X-gaming 3 mob + gigabyte GTX970 G1 gaming + 2x4Gb corsair vengeance pro + coolermaster D92 CPU cooler + coolermaster v650 80+gold PSU and a crucial 256Gb ssd. CPU is oc'd @ 4.5ghz, 970 is oc'd @ 1350/1500Mhz, ram @1600Mhz in xmp. System is very stable and scored 10260 in 3D mark-fire strike. Runs Assetto corsa @ 70-90fps with everything on ultra, reflections on high with a full grid or everything on ultra @120-140fps hot lapping.

Cool! That's about what i was aiming for. After reading your post i do consider switching to the gigabyte gaming 3 mob so i can add that extra gpu if needed in the future! Just curious, but what is your case? Cause i might go bit bigger than what i've currently selected.

 

[Willfred_1]

Cool! That's about what i was aiming for. After reading your post i do consider switching to the gigabyte gaming 3 mob so i can add that extra gpu if needed in the future! Just curious, but what is your case? Cause i might go bit bigger than what i've currently selected.

The additional gpu is not much if but when. The devs will start to use the PC to push the graphics more due to the similaritys in architecture between pcs and consoles.