Suggest specs for a new computer :)

[EvaDK]

Hm, I have some specific build to ask you people about:

(looking at the site, and translating to english)

View attachment 672433
CPU, Memory, Hard Drive, Gfx card. Build says it comes with 8GB ram but you can alter it (as in buy then, I suppose) to up to 64GB (so I should, if I choose this, ask for 16GB, or more?)

I will post other builds too, pls help ^^

And a second one, with NVME: (@EvaDK , @Moff Jerjerrod and others)

View attachment 672434

Maybe this second is decent? Here are some more stats:
View attachment 672435

It's not dreadfully expensive, but at the upper edge of what I am willing to pay (700 euros).
It also has built-in wireless wifi (which I will ask at the store about, given I use a mobile anyway)

The second build is perfectly acceptable for a budget PC; you need 16GB RAM as a minimum imo. Just note that the chipset is the most basic one for the CPU, so the motherboard might only come with two RAM slots and 1 PCI-E slot - which is what you need, but it doesn't offer much room for upgrades with more RAM. Check the specs; if the motherboard only has two RAM slots and if you can choose which RAM sticks to buy - it might be an idea to buy one 16GB stick instead of two 8GB sticks, because you can then buy another 16GB RAM stick later and then upgrade your PC to 32GB in total.

If you have a bit of money to spend in the budget, upgrade the SSD to a 1TB or 2TB NVMe SSD. 512GB only will become a bottleneck quite fast as @RobAnybody writes. Check if the motherboard has a second slot for an extra SSD, but I would doubt that an AMD A520 comes with it.

The GPU is acceptable for most games in 1080p; I have the GTX 1660Ti in my gamer laptop and it can run most games I play at +100fps. The 1000/1600 series still works, but it's an oldie by now. Some hardcore players still play with a GTX1080 GPU because it was so damn great.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

I would say go for it. You can always put a load of RAM later. The rest is perfect.

 

[Kyriakos]

The second build is perfectly acceptable for a budget PC; you need 16GB RAM as a minimum imo. Just note that the chipset is the most basic one for the CPU, so the motherboard might only come with two RAM slots and 1 PCI-E slot - which is what you need, but it doesn't offer much room for upgrades with more RAM. Check the specs; if the motherboard only has two RAM slots and if you can choose which RAM sticks to buy - it might be an idea to buy one 16GB stick instead of two 8GB sticks, because you can then buy another 16GB RAM stick later and then upgrade your PC to 32GB in total. [IMG alt=""]https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif[/IMG]

If you have a bit of money to spend in the budget, upgrade the SSD to a 1TB or 2TB NVMe SSD. 512GB only will become a bottleneck quite fast as @RobAnybody writes. Check if the motherboard has a second slot for an extra SSD, but I would doubt that an AMD A520 comes with it.

The GPU is acceptable for most games in 1080p; I have the GTX 1660Ti in my gamer laptop and it can run most games I play at +100fps. The 1000/1600 series still works, but it's an oldie by now. Some hardcore players still play with a GTX1080 GPU because it was so damn great.

Thank you!!! I will ask them if the ram is upgradeable.

 

[Moriarte]

Maybe this second is decent? Here are some more stats:

Yes, it is quite good. I don't like your graphics card choice though (GTX 1650). In this day and age 4GB of video RAM could be restricting in gaming and otherwise. I suggest spending 70 bucks more to get the RTX 3050, where you get 8 Gigs of vRAM and access to contemporary goodies, like Nvidia DLSS (more fps in games!), ray tracing and AI tensor cores. It's not an absolutely critical thing, but you have an otherwise solid build with a paper-thin GPU. GPU is a centrepiece of modern PC, it's worth it to cut elsewhere, but get a decent modern GPU.

Bigger SSD would be nice. A terabyte or two. But you can absolutely survive with a small 512GB stick, provided you keep computer in order. I know I have. There are USB flash drives on sale, which can solve further problems. I recently bought a 256GB USB 3.2 stick for 20-something Euro.

Do you account for a computer case and monitor?

 

[lymond]

You don't want anything lower than 512g SSD

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, it is quite good. I don't like your graphics card choice though (GTX 1650). In this day and age 4GB of video RAM could be restricting in gaming and otherwise. I suggest spending 70 bucks more to get the RTX 3050, where you get 8 Gigs of vRAM and access to contemporary goodies, like Nvidia DLSS (more fps in games!), ray tracing and AI tensor cores. It's not an absolutely critical thing, but you have an otherwise solid build with a paper-thin GPU. GPU is a centrepiece of modern PC, it's worth it to cut elsewhere, but get a decent modern GPU.

Bigger SSD would be nice. A terabyte or two. But you can absolutely survive with a small 512GB stick, provided you keep computer in order. I know I have. There are USB flash drives on sale, which can solve further problems. I recently bought a 256GB USB 3.2 stick for 20-something Euro.

Do you account for a computer case and monitor?

I already have a monitor (bought it last year). Case? I think it is already included in the price
Hm, I can't really spend much more than 700 euros. Don't plan to play games that require that powerful a card. And looking online it seems that modelling with Blender doesn't need above 4GB card ram for anything that isn't full 3d animation of large scenes (as in a 3d movie), which I don't do (I model images or small animations).

@lymond , the second build (which I will likely end up buying) has that.

I am interested in more people commenting on the card with 4gb, though. Is it that bad, if one isn't into the type of games that need more?

 

[lymond]

Seems fine except for the GPU RAM. I think it is worth upgrading that a bit as already noted above by Moriarte.

 

[Kyriakos]

Damn it

Hm, is this any better? (costs 50 euros more)

Card has 6 mb ram instead of 4. SSD has slightly less space. CPU may be a bit worse too (?) compared to the previous one, which has these specs:

 

[lymond]

Yeah, a computer is an investment. I understand the financial aspect, but you really want something that is gonna last a while and not be a dinosaur. My laptop is about 7 years old now, and I still don't see myself upgrading it any time soon as it is plenty. It is worth spending a little extra dosh now.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yeah, a computer is an investment. I understand the financial aspect, but you really want something that is gonna last a while and not be a dinosaur. My laptop is about 7 years old now, and I still don't see myself upgrading it any time soon as it is plenty. It is worth spending a little extra dosh now.

So, is the new one I posted better or worse than #2? (included specs of #2 in the end of my post )
(sorry for tagging you again, @EvaDK , you just seem to know what you are talking about So pls compare the two I posted in #28 if you don't mind...)

 

[lymond]

IMO it is worse. I'd never go lower than an i5 and Intel GPUs blow. That is not a gaming rig at all but pretty much a casual home computer.

 

[lymond]

I think Ryzen is going to give you the best bang for buck.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think Ryzen is going to give you the best bang for buck.

Ok
Btw, I saw in the site that they indeed split the 16 GB ram to two memories. I suppose they can use one 16 GB stick for the same price? (is this really better? Will it be more difficult to change if not, in the future?)
Also, should I be looking at any special fan?
Btw, going from 8GB stick to 16GB stick seems to only cost 25 euros, so that isn't an issue (but would it really matter if I have more?)
More space would cost another 20 euros, but again is half a terrabyte that easy to fill up?

Re the fan, they only list this as an option to upgrade it (can't find what it uses without the upgrade)

It only costs 5 euros, of course, so was wondering if it is anything good/better ^^

 

[lymond]

RAM is generally one of the cheaper components and is easily expandable. Whether you get with one vs the split would IMO depend on the number of slots you have. If you have limited slots I'd go with 16gb now, then later you can get another 16gb if you wish. More RAM never hurts but 16gb should be sufficient....32gb would be nice.

Don't know much about fans these days since I use laptops. Since it appears you are not doing high-level gaming, I'd not worry about anything fancy in that regard.

edit: I think the last point was about the SSD, right? Depends on what you do and what you store. 512gb SSD is fine for me...actually my laptop as a smaller 128gb and a 512gb, with the smaller holding system files. If you have space issues, you can always expand later by adding a second drive or just getting an external drive. I'd say just go with the 512gb for now unless you fine an amazing deal on a tera.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well ok, I will ask at the store (I am sure they won't be into selling me more stuff unless they honestly think I need it ), but a 5 euro fan is a bit suspicious regarding if it makes a difference. I certainly don't want the thing to be making a racket, of course.

 

[lymond]

Oh..I'm sure they are strictly forbidden from up-selling

 

[Kyriakos]

Oh..I'm sure they are strictly forbidden from up-selling

The only model I managed to find with 8GB card, and not too expensive, already costs 200 euros more, arriving at 900. I think I will pass.

 

[Moriarte]

Btw, I saw in the site that they indeed split the 16 GB ram to two memories. I suppose they can use one 16 GB stick for the same price? (is this really better? Will it be more difficult to change if not, in the future?)

I don't think you'll ever need more than 16 gigs of RAM in this overall configuration. You will hit other bottlenecks sooner than the bottleneck of RAM. The thing with RAM sticks (if you're interested) is that they come in pre-configured sets. Mixing and matching RAM sticks often leads to serious errors. Also, as a general rule, less RAM sticks means less things that can break.

Also, should I be looking at any special fan?

Some CPU's come with a fan, so check if there is a fan in the package. They are generally considered sub par, sometimes noisy, etc. But they'll do the job. Later you can get a better cpu fan, if that's what you like. Or even install a liquid cooling system, if you, like me, enjoy serenity of super quiet and super cool computing.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'd like to thank you all for your help...
You'd been really great.
I have a final question. Given that the disk space can be upgraded to 1 terra (from half that) for only 20 euros, do you think I realistically need it?
In other words, what kind of programs would fill up such a space? (maybe some very high end games would need hundreds of gigabytes, but I don't really plan to install such)

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

I'd like to thank you all for your help...
You'd been really great.
I have a final question. Given that the disk space can be upgraded to 1 terra (from half that) for only 20 euros, do you think I realistically need it?
In other words, what kind of programs would fill up such a space? (maybe some very high end games would need hundreds of gigabytes, but I don't really plan to install such)

It's better to go for SSD with say 300 or 400 GB of storage.