Anyone Else Buying New PC for Civ7?

[Gedemon]

With the other games I play, my PC is ready for civ7. Only the CPU is starting to get a bit old (almost 4 years), but I'll wait for my next GPU change to upgrade everything (I usually change the CPU every 2-3 GPU)

 

[Riconatic]

The x3D series (variants? models? what on earth do all the acronym suffixes actually mean?) of CPUs do look good. Does anyone know how much they sacrifice non-gaming and single-thread performance in return for gaming? I'm considering one, but I also run a fair bit of code and I don't want compilation or numerical simulations to be too slow... Also dome aren't available outside the US sadly, and even those that are can be limited to just a few resellers.

For anyone looking at more advice, I usually trust Toms Hardware: their articles are precise without being unreadable, and they do make recommendations based on price point and end use - although I think they overestimate the specs that people actually need for most things. Userbenchmark is to be avoided, they have a ridiculously anti-AMD bias. Also, if you're buying parts for upgrade or to build your own, GPUtracker will find the best deals for any specific part you tell it available in your locality (works for everything, not just GPUs).

There's a lot of advice and recommendations on the web for building / buying a PC. That's very helpful for sure, but most of it is really encouraging you to over buy: people who write those sorts of blogs / articles / reddit posts are really into their computer hardware and get excited about the latest gen and newest spec. You don't have to be, unless you want to turn building (and having) a PC into a hobby of it's own, rather than a tool for another hobby (ie, gaming). Think of it like cars: lots of people rave on about the latest Lamborghini, when for most people even an entry level BMW would exceed requirements, and a midrange Ford might be just fine.


As an aside on energy issues, the main advantage of using less power is that it gets loss hot, which means less annoying noise from fans and less chance of the computer throttling itself to prevent it melting. But it also has a real cost associated with it! Assuming energy prices of ~€0.1 per kWh, a computer that averages ~400W usage which you use for 8h a day (ie, it's both your gaming on home-office PC), you'll spend about $1000 (the cost of a decent PC) over the 9-10 years you might hope the PC will last. In other words, the total electricity cost will be about equal to hardware cost! My numbers were a little pessimistic, but it's an order-of-magnitude estimation,

Hit on apps is not too bad:

From: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d/27.html

X3D in model name refers the 3D v-cache technology.

And 3D cache models are readily available in europe too: https://geizhals.eu/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d-100-100000910wof-a2872148.html

I believe there is one selected model that are US Microcenter speciffic and EU mindfactory speciffic 7600x3d. But in all and any case I would not be building 6-core comp today.

 

[Black Gate]

By the time the game is out, my machine will be about three years old. I was thinking I might get a GPU upgrade next year after seeing if Nvidia releases anything good, but I should be fine regardless.

The x3D series (variants? models? what on earth do all the acronym suffixes actually mean?)

The X means it's a little faster than the base model... assuming that there is a base model. A few generations back, it also meant it was the more power hungry option. Nowadays, mostly meaningless. 3D just means the cache is stacked on top of the CPU instead of next to it, which means there's more of it. Being able to put more files on cache helps for gaming performance, but otherwise there's no sacrifices for performance elsewhere - they are a fair bit more expensive after all.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

No, I'm buying it because Europa Universalis V is coming soon and, unlike Civ VII, I love everything they announced about that game. Probably the first and only time I will preorder a game, even though I always advise against it.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

I just built a new one last year. Retirement prezzie for me.
All new except the vid card, will replace that when the 5090 comes out.
That'll be it for a number of years. (retired now)

Full specs on my twitch page. (too lazy to copy it) ;p

 

[TheGrayFox]

The rig I built 5 years ago is still quite capable so I won't need to

Considering that the game is also being designed to accomodate the Switch's hardware/multiplatform release, I doubt it will be too intensive for any computer with a dedicated graphics card bought within the last decade

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I will definitely need to get a new one if I want to play it on PC, but I'm contemplating just going console this time; I ended up playing VI on console more than PC because I managed to get some friends into it, and they're planning to get VII as well. Might upgrade further down the line since it's obviously a superior singleplayer experience on PC, depends how much it grabs me.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Me thinking of buying a new PC to run a new game:

 

[AntSou]

I've been delaying upgrading my gtx 1060 going on 8 years now, because somehow it keeps on handling the games I play. I think not having to use vsync helped a bit in extending the longevity.

I don't even have an SSD yet, for no reason other than I can't be bothered. The slowness isn't sufficiently slow to make me mad. Even total war warhammer loads within reason.

The fans beg me to put them out of their misery with loud sounds every time I turn the pc on. They sound really angry. But they still spin, mostly, so they don't get to retire.

I think the timing of Civ VII is appropriate and I'll finally have to upgrade buy a new pc... but it still meets the minimum requirements.

 

[Quintillus]

Does anyone know how much they sacrifice non-gaming and single-thread performance in return for gaming? I'm considering one, but I also run a fair bit of code and I don't want compilation or numerical simulations to be too slow...

The base clock speed is 7-12% lower (depending on the model in question), which is essentially the worst-case scenario, if the application that you are running does not benefit at all from the extra cache. That "always close to as good, sometimes significantly better" aspect is why they were able to command a significant price premium at launch, but nowadays a 5700X3D is $180 versus a 5700X at $150, with that 12% lower base clock on the X3D - a modest premium.

TechPowerUp did a Visual Studio test showing a difference in that range, and Phoronix tested compilation with the Godot engine and the Linux kernel that showed similar performance (note the 7700X is the 8-core equivalent to the 7800X3D). Tom's Hardware had worse results with LLVM, but the only apples-to-apples comparison they have is the 7950X vs 7950X3D, the top-end 16-core models, well beyond what most people need.

On the other hand, a good case can be made that unless you have a 4K monitor or a 120 Hz+ monitor, you will rarely be able to notice the benefits of the X3D models. There isn't really a wrong choice, especially for balanced workloads.

 

[pokiehl]

I built a new pc just for Civ 6. For Civ 7, I don’t need to because I recently one. Looking forward to 4k Civ 7 with HDR on my OLED!

 

[uppi]

I am slowly coming to the realization that it might be time to retire my trusty old GTX 960

 

[Krajzen]

No, instead I am going to stubbornly try to run it on my old PC while also trying the highest specs possible, cursing profusely and suffering from terrible performance yet refusing to yield longer than it's rationally expected

(I hate spending money)

 

[chaosprophet]

My current pc can probably deal with the game, even if no9t at the highest settings. Would love to upgrade but not much of a option for me right now.

 

[Disgustipated]

I built a new pc just for Civ 6.

Me too. I didn't splurge for the video card though since I splurged for the cpu speed and ram because I felt like that was the thing civ 6 needed. On my old computer I couldn't really play civ 6 on anything above a standard map. And my cpu and ram should still be good, but it's time to upgrade the video card/gpu.

I'd have to make room on my SSD for it though. I'm reluctant to remove Civ 6 from my SSD, but it may be time soon to take it off. I just don't want to lose my Hall of Fame if I end up moving it to my magnetic drive. I may play it again in the future. I'm still playing Civ 5 (which is on my magnetic drive) currently. Or maybe I'll take BG3 off my SSD.

 

[ombak]

Got my current PC in 2021. After leaving my previous job I expected to freelance some and I wanted to update the gaming PC, so I splurged a little. Had to wait a little due to back orders on my video card. So I won't have to upgrade at this point, but I was a little stingy with storage space, so I'm pretty fortunate it requires only 20GB. That means I'll be able to install Civ 7 on my main drive.

I am without my two-monitor set up since moving, but sooner or later I'll make adjustments to the space and be able to use both monitors so when Civ 7 comes around I can play the way I'm used to.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I'm pretty sure that my gaming laptop -- which I got during the pandemic -- should handle Civ7 at normal settings. I may get an external monitor on a Prime Day sale, to better display Civ7.

 

[Quintillus]

I just don't want to lose my Hall of Fame if I end up moving it to my magnetic drive.

No need to worry about that. The Hall of Fame lives at My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/HallofFame.sqlite - in other words, outside of the installation directory, along with the save games.

That concern was substantiated for Civ3, where both the Hall of Fame and the saves were stored in the installation directory. But at least saves moved to My Documents starting with Civ4 (not 100% sure about Hall of Fame, but likely that also moved in IV).

 

[Smellincoffee]

My current system is eight years old and its CPU is definitely showing its age, (despite GPU and SSD upgrades over the years) so either a major upgrade or a new prebuilt will be required for me to play, I Think.

 

[marius_kaparius]

Yes, I will upgrade for Civ 7