Project CARS - Hardware recommendation on PC

[Rubencho]

Drop 8gb of ram and add the saved money into the graphics card. 16gb is a little overkill if the machine is only gonna be for gaming.

Hi there thanks for the reply. I use the PC to work when I'm home and some casual gaming (I'd play more if I had the time ), got 16gb RAM because I occasionally deploy Virtual Machines.

Also I choose a PC over a console due to costs, console + supported new wheel got really expensive so I rather bought a G27 on discount and save the rest for something else

 

[JerseyDriverSS]

Hi there thanks for the reply. I use the PC to work when I'm home and some casual gaming (I'd play more if I had the time ), got 16gb RAM because I occasionally deploy Virtual Machines.

Also I choose a PC over a console due to costs, console + supported new wheel got really expensive so I rather bought a G27 on discount and save the rest for something else

The ram makes more sense then.

 

[crowhop]

The I7-4790k is on the way, fellas. Cheers all round!

 

[Stones]

Question. I see quite a few going with liquid cooling. I was told to stay away from those and go with the big heat sink and fan . Opinions?

Thanks

 

[Johnnypenso]

Question. I see quite a few going with liquid cooling. I was told to stay away from those and go with the big heat sink and fan . Opinions?

Thanks

If your case is adequately ventilated and positioned in your setup/mancave so that it has good airflow around it and you're not overclocking, you likely won't need additional cooling although for roughly $35 something like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is a good investment if you're concerned. You can always use a monitoring software like MSI Afterburner to watch your temps and add more cooling if it's necessary.

 

[Stones]

If your case is adequately ventilated and positioned in your setup/mancave so that it has good airflow around it and you're not overclocking, you likely won't need additional cooling although for roughly $35 something like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is a good investment if you're concerned. You can always use a monitoring software like MSI Afterburner to watch your temps and add more cooling if it's necessary.

I do plan to overclock. Want to get maximum eye candy / fps. I'll try the monitoring software and go from there.

Thanks

 

[Johnnypenso]

I do plan to overclock. Want to get maximum eye candy / fps. I'll try the monitoring software and go from there.

Thanks

Eye candy is mostly dependent on your video card and your frame rate is usually limited to your monitor refresh rate. Which card and monitor do you have?

 

[Stones]

Eye candy is mostly dependent on your video card and your frame rate is usually limited to your monitor refresh rate. Which card and monitor do you have?

GTX970 STRIX 4GB - DC2, OC, PCI Express along with a Samsung 120 hz 1080p tv.

 

[Johnnypenso]

GTX970 STRIX 4GB - DC2, OC, PCI Express along with a Samsung 120 hz 1080p tv.

With the 970 you shouldn't need any overclocking to get to 60Hz, 120 on max settings might be a stretch. Is that a true 120Hz on the Samsung or a native 60Hz post processed to 120Hz?

 

[crowhop]

 

[iMikeTheKing]

How does the game run on AMD Graphics cards? I have a 280x and I have a huge feeling that this game is going to run poorly.

 

[Snaeper]

Question. I see quite a few going with liquid cooling. I was told to stay away from those and go with the big heat sink and fan . Opinions?

Thanks

The issue is that most CLC's that you see don't provide enough of an advantage over an air cooler to justify the cost.

However, fully blown custom water cooling systems are another issue entirely.

I didn't overclock, but my CPU had quite a few reviews of it being too hot with the stock cooler (granted, this was anecdotal as the rest of the computer's parts could've played a part in the heat). I chose an air cooler mostly for the appearance and for the silence and have been quite happy with the consistent cooling performance as well.

 

[crowhop]

The issue is that most CLC's that you see don't provide enough of an advantage over an air cooler to justify the cost.

This is true. To get the big gains you want, you need something like this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835146042

 

[Snaeper]

This is true. To get the big gains you want, you need something like this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835146042

Uh, no. That's still a CLC. You could get the same performance that cooler gives out of an air cooler like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...5709011&cm_re=phanteks-_-35-709-011-_-Product


By fully blown customer water cooling, I meant this:
http://www.ekwb.com/products/kits/

 

[iMikeTheKing]

Question. I see quite a few going with liquid cooling. I was told to stay away from those and go with the big heat sink and fan . Opinions?

Thanks

You can go with either but it really depends on your case and your RAM. The size of your case matters as you won't be able to have full blown water coolers AIO's (CLC'S) or even the Phanteks or Noctua Air coolers because they won't fit. If you have the Phanteks cooler then you will need low profile RAM as the cooler won't fit. Full blown water cooler offer the best performance but they are expensive, AIO's (CLC's) are in the middle, and Air Cooler give you great performance for a great price.

 

[CSLACR]

My question is simply if the GTX970 is actually needed or not? I understand the concept that things will run more smoothly, etc etc, but are we splitting hairs for perfection, or is it more critical to gameplay?

The reason I ask is that so many "gaming PC's" are running so much less than the GTX970, it just begs the question. It seems like all the people buying things listed as gaming PC's might be a tad pissed when they go home and find it's all just inadequate. Or maybe it's that Pcars and other driving sims require better hardware?

 

[alphabetagaga]

what is the price difference between the 970 and the gpu you would like instead?

 

[CSLACR]

what is the price difference between the 970 and the gpu you would like instead?

Difficult to answer directly, but I would estimate at least 2-400 dollars more in a build. No idea the price separately.
You can find pre-built "gaming PC's" on Amazon for 6-800 bucks relatively easily, like this for
$750: (GTX745)
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-AG3-605-UR1G-Gaming-Desktop/dp/B00R2N5OG8/ref=sr_1_23?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019222&sr=1-23&keywords=gaming pc
Also $750 (GTX750)
http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-Xtreme-GXi680-1-Inch-Desktop/dp/B00K8TBNCW/ref=sr_1_24?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019222&sr=1-24&keywords=gaming pc
$605 (GTX745)
http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-AX51R2-1437BK-Gaming-Desktop/dp/B00K0HMX30/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019573&sr=1-1&keywords=alienware gaming pc

I haven't encountered one equipped with a 970 anywhere in the price range. Absolutely clueless when it comes to building my own of course.

 

[mister dog]

Difficult to answer directly, but I would estimate at least 2-400 dollars more in a build. No idea the price separately.
You can find pre-built "gaming PC's" on Amazon for 6-800 bucks relatively easily, like this for $750:
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-AG3-605-UR1G-Gaming-Desktop/dp/B00R2N5OG8/ref=sr_1_23?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019222&sr=1-23&keywords=gaming pc
Also $750
http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-Xtreme-GXi680-1-Inch-Desktop/dp/B00K8TBNCW/ref=sr_1_24?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019222&sr=1-24&keywords=gaming pc
$605
http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-AX51R2-1437BK-Gaming-Desktop/dp/B00K0HMX30/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019573&sr=1-1&keywords=alienware gaming pc

I haven't encountered one equipped with a 970 anywhere in the price range. Absolutely clueless when it comes to building my own of course.

I just bought this one (700 euros), it has a GTX960 and I5, should do the job:

http://www.ebay.es/itm/251803041689?clk_rvr_id=781111619946&rmvSB=true

 

[NLxAROSA]

My question is simply if the GTX970 is actually needed or not? I understand the concept that things will run more smoothly, etc etc, but are we splitting hairs for perfection, or is it more critical to gameplay?

Needed it is definitely not, but it's a huge bang for the buck. The GTX960 is also a great card if you want to spend a bit less. There are also several AMD alternatives, though I would prefer nVidia myself.

EDIT: Also stay away from the i3 if you can and get at least a quad core i5.

 

[CSLACR]

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX745 Graphics with 4GB of Discrete Video Memory
• NVIDIA Geforce GTX 750
  
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 745

These are the ones in the range I'm seeing.
An alternative I thought of is buying a decent PC (decent i5 quad-core 8gb ram for 4-500) with a bad GPU and just buying a good one, like a 960 or 970. 960 is about 150usd iirc, and 970 300+.
So $500 for a decent Tower and another 150-350 for upgrading is 650-850. Xbox One and PS4 ballpark on price.

Everything I've heard says these(nvidia geoforce) are better than AMD, although I assume the better AMD's aren't totally horrible.

 

[NLxAROSA]

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX745 Graphics with 4GB of Discrete Video Memory
• NVIDIA Geforce GTX 750
  
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 745

These are the ones in the range I'm seeing.

The 745 should be avoided like the plague.

An alternative I thought of is buying a decent PC (decent i5 quad-core 8gb ram for 4-500) with a bad GPU and just buying a good one, like a 960 or 970. 960 is about 150usd iirc, and 970 300+.
So $500 for a decent Tower and another 150-350 for upgrading is 650-850. Xbox One and PS4 ballpark on price.

That would be a great alternative for sure. Just make sure the PSU can handle the 960 or 970. If you have examples in mind, by all means post them here. 👍

 

[Johnnypenso]

Difficult to answer directly, but I would estimate at least 2-400 dollars more in a build. No idea the price separately.
You can find pre-built "gaming PC's" on Amazon for 6-800 bucks relatively easily, like this for
$750: (GTX745)
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-AG3-605-UR1G-Gaming-Desktop/dp/B00R2N5OG8/ref=sr_1_23?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019222&sr=1-23&keywords=gaming pc
Also $750 (GTX750)
http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-Xtreme-GXi680-1-Inch-Desktop/dp/B00K8TBNCW/ref=sr_1_24?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019222&sr=1-24&keywords=gaming pc
$605 (GTX745)
http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-AX51R2-1437BK-Gaming-Desktop/dp/B00K0HMX30/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424019573&sr=1-1&keywords=alienware gaming pc

I haven't encountered one equipped with a 970 anywhere in the price range. Absolutely clueless when it comes to building my own of course.

I believe this is the computer that @BrandonW77 recently bought and I believe it was in the upper end of your price range, but he'd have to confirm that, I don't remember off the top of my head.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9375X1015946Xe028c28c64c75be11e442bac9e435f59

At around $800 you're kind of in the price range where you'll get a good i5 processor that's more than up to the task, but you get a midrange card with it. For that extra $100-150 you get the 970 or equivalent card and with everything else the same you double the performance of your system. Do you need double the performance most of the time to run a game at 1080p/60fps? Probably not. When might you need it? All settings maxed out and/or massive grids offline with full weather, day/night, full damage etc. What happens if you want to run those same settings with a mid-range card? You might get less than 60fps when the system is stressed out, like at race starts, when the weather kicks in with lots of cars on screen etc.

The 960 is a good mid-range card that will run the game with an i5 quite well and if you notice issues offline in the above conditions you can always turn down the eye candy to maintain the frame rates if necessary. So really it's a question of spending that extra $150-200 for the extra insurance and some future proofing or conserving the cash and working around the shortcomings, if any, of the weaker GPU. If you want to simply match the mid-range console settings you should be fine as well, the GPU really only gets stressed when you are far beyond what you are going to see on console, like trying to race with GT5 Photomode quality cars vs. the slimmed down console display of 60K polygons.

A quick search found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883230007

Also, use this for reference, GPU Benchmarks It's pretty much a linear scale, in that a 9000 benchmark will give you double the performance of a 4500 benchmark, all else the same. You can do a search at the top right if you don't find a car. The GTX 745 for example benchmarks at 2160, whereas the GTX960 benchmarks at 5994. The system above is $799 and would be far, far better for gaming than any of the systems with lesser cards in the same price range.

 

[BrandonW77]

That's the one I got. It's out of stock though, but I can run triple screens at nearly full quality on all sims and rock a solid 60fps.

 

[CSLACR]

The 745 should be avoided like the plague.

That would be a great alternative for sure. Just make sure the PSU can handle the 960 or 970. If you have examples in mind, by all means post them here. 👍

This is AMD, but the specs sound good. (I think)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NJG71JA/?tag=gtplanet-20
or this has an AMD R7, possibly good enough itself?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=CyberpowerPC_Gamer-_-83-229-496-_-Product

I believe this is the computer that @BrandonW77 recently bought and I believe it was in the upper end of your price range, but he'd have to confirm that, I don't remember off the top of my head.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9375X1015946Xe028c28c64c75be11e442bac9e435f59

At around $800 you're kind of in the price range where you'll get a good i5 processor that's more than up to the task, but you get a midrange card with it. For that extra $100-150 you get the 970 or equivalent card and with everything else the same you double the performance of your system. Do you need double the performance most of the time to run a game at 1080p/60fps? Probably not. When might you need it? All settings maxed out and/or massive grids offline with full weather, day/night, full damage etc. What happens if you want to run those same settings with a mid-range card? You might get less than 60fps when the system is stressed out, like at race starts, when the weather kicks in with lots of cars on screen etc.

The 960 is a good mid-range card that will run the game with an i5 quite well and if you notice issues offline in the above conditions you can always turn down the eye candy to maintain the frame rates if necessary. So really it's a question of spending that extra $150-200 for the extra insurance and some future proofing or conserving the cash and working around the shortcomings, if any, of the weaker GPU. If you want to simply match the mid-range console settings you should be fine as well, the GPU really only gets stressed when you are far beyond what you are going to see on console, like trying to race with GT5 Photomode quality cars vs. the slimmed down console display of 60K polygons.

A quick search found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883230007

Also, use this for reference, GPU Benchmarks It's pretty much a linear scale, in that a 9000 benchmark will give you double the performance of a 4500 benchmark, all else the same. You can do a search at the top right if you don't find a car. The GTX 745 for example benchmarks at 2160, whereas the GTX960 benchmarks at 5994. The system above is $799 and would be far, far better for gaming than any of the systems with lesser cards in the same price range.

I'd "like", to spend 1500-2K and get something that'd definitely last a few years without hindering gameplay, but I don't have the cash and likely won't be running into it anytime soon.
It may be a question of just being smarter (and much easier) to buy a few PS3 games and wait a year. If Pcars was also a PS3 title my mind would be made up already.

 

[Johnnypenso]

This is AMD, but the specs sound good. (I think)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NJG71JA/?tag=gtplanet-20
or this has an AMD R7, possibly good enough itself?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=CyberpowerPC_Gamer-_-83-229-496-_-Product

I'd "like", to spend 1500-2K and get something that'd definitely last a few years without hindering gameplay, but I don't have the cash and likely won't be running into it anytime soon.
It may be a question of just being smarter (and much easier) to buy a few PS3 games and wait a year. If Pcars was also a PS3 title my mind would be made up already.

The first one has no separate video card listed, which means onboard graphics, which means no dice.

The second one is an R7240 with a benchmark of 963...again...no dice. It's $659. For $799 here's something that meets your needs. You don't need to spend $1.5-2K to get where you want to go, but you also won't be able to do it for $500-600 IMO. Once you get up to the $800ish to $1000 it should be fairly easy to find what you're looking for.

 

[CSLACR]

The first one has no separate video card listed, which means onboard graphics, which means no dice.

The second one is an R7240 with a benchmark of 963...again...no dice. It's $659. For $799 here's something that meets your needs. You don't need to spend $1.5-2K to get where you want to go, but you also won't be able to do it for $500-600 IMO. Once you get up to the $800ish to $1000 it should be fairly easy to find what you're looking for.

Regarding the first link, the idea would be to add a graphics card, if onboard graphics means you can't install a better graphics card, please excuse my dumbness on the subject.

For $800 your link seems a pretty sweet deal, I think you pretty much sold a PC for them if I can get the money together. I'll have to bounce the ideas around my head some more, try to figure out ways to get extra cash.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Regarding the first link, the idea would be to add a graphics card, if onboard graphics means you can't install a better graphics card, please excuse my dumbness on the subject.

For $800 your link seems a pretty sweet deal, I think you pretty much sold a PC for them if I can get the money together. I'll have to bounce the ideas around my head some more, try to figure out ways to get extra cash.

You can install a graphics card...maybe...depends on the motherboard and size of the case. The better graphics cards are quite large and sometimes don't fit into all cases. The processor was a little on the weak side as well.

 

[Snaeper]

Regarding the first link, the idea would be to add a graphics card, if onboard graphics means you can't install a better graphics card, please excuse my dumbness on the subject.

For $800 your link seems a pretty sweet deal, I think you pretty much sold a PC for them if I can get the money together. I'll have to bounce the ideas around my head some more, try to figure out ways to get extra cash.

Let me save you a hundred bucks.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JkgcjX

That has all of the same parts, more storage space, and adds in a sense of accomplishment once you're done putting it together. You can use the $100 bucks you save to get a nice mechanical keyboard, or a better graphics card, or whatever you wanna do with it.

Knock yourself out if you wanna swap the case for something you like more.

Having only just built my first PC less than a month ago, I gotta say that it's tremendously fun.

 

[HKS racer]

Is there a chance I can play pCars on good settings and frame rate (60fps) on a modern gaming laptop? My budget is around 1000 - 1200 euro.
Any laptop gamer out there?