Which one would you use?

[MadMummy76]

My sim racing seat and wheel has been sitting unused since last December when I sold the PS4 Pro and GT7 from under it.
But now that I replaced my aging TV I also have a spare TV, so the opportunity is given to set up a sim racing rig in one corner using a spare PC.

The target is sim racing games like Assetto Corsa, Project Cars 2, BeamNG, etc to play at 1920x1080 targeting 50+FPS.

I have four spare PCs, but two of them are instantly eliminated as being either too old, or too low performance to even try, so that leaves the other two:

Candidate 1: ASUS ROG Gaming laptop with i5-7300HQ (4 Thread 4 Core Kaby Lake, max boost: 3.5GHz), 16GB DDR4-2133, Gefore GTX1050 Mobile 4GB
Candidate 2: Shuttle SX79R5 Barebone with E5-2670 (16 Thread 8 Core Sandy Bridge, max boost: 3.3GHz), 16GB-DDR3-1333, Geforce GT1030 OC 2GB

Obviously with candidate 2 there is the possibility to upgrade the GPU, but the the maximum usable size is: 267mm x 98mm x 34mm. It would need to be something cheap, sub $250 for 1080p. The question is how much of a bottleneck the old system would be for a new GPU.

Vote away...like this is the most important vote you ever taken

 

[Grimlakin]

While a newer generation GPU would do some of the heavy lifting, when I had a 2600k running a 1070, and jumped to a 7700k CPU my FPS in games I played literally doubled. So there was a definite CPU bottleneck. Generations matter when it comes to that. Not to mention the need for higher bandwidth I/O.

My vote is to build a low tier gaming PC (as 1080P isn't high tier.) And most of the games you're concerned with would run just fine with a low to mid tier card for 1080p especially with DLSS or FSR.

Maybe a last or current gen i5 (Depending on memory costs), or AMD 5800 or 5600x (to save on memory cost) or if those have levelled out a 7600?

Pair it with a NVME PCIe 3.x storage and you should have more than snappy enough load times.

I honestly think you'd suffer from some I/O latency with either of the systems you've suggested above.

 

[MadMummy76]

While a newer generation GPU would do some of the heavy lifting, when I had a 2600k running a 1070, and jumped to a 7700k CPU my FPS in games I played literally doubled. So there was a definite CPU bottleneck. Generations matter when it comes to that. Not to mention the need for higher bandwidth I/O.

Before doing a new build I'd definitely try just upgrading the GPU, I mean I can reuse that even if I go for a new platform later.

My vote is to build a low tier gaming PC (as 1080P isn't high tier.) And most of the games you're concerned with would run just fine with a low to mid tier card for 1080p especially with DLSS or FSR.

Does FSR or DLSS even work at 1080p? I don't think so, and if I buy something even remotely modern I doubt it would be needed at all

Maybe a last or current gen i5 (Depending on memory costs), or AMD 5800 or 5600x (to save on memory cost) or if those have levelled out a 7600?

No way I'm going that high, the 5800 would be better than my main PC and the 5600X not far behind. I'm thinking 5500, or maybe 5600, but that's the absolute ceiling. For Intel the i5-11400F would be the best in this price range, but it is outperformed by even the 5500 for much cheaper. Or the I3-13100F, which is the fastest in single thread, but I'd not buy a 4 core CPU in 2023.

The more interesting question to me however is GPU. My initial suggested price gives two options as I see it: RTX 3050 8GB on NVIDIA side or RX 6600 8GB on the AMD side and maybe if I'm stretching the budget then RX 6650 XT.

Looking at benchmarks eliminates the 3050 completely so the race is between the 6600 and 6650 XT.

Pair it with a NVME PCIe 3.x storage and you should have more than snappy enough load times.

I honestly think you'd suffer from some I/O latency with either of the systems you've suggested above.

I don't think storage is a factor though, these are older games that don't do much IO after the initial loading phase, I'm not planning to play anything with UE5 on it. As for load times I couldn't care less if I shave off 3 seconds to make it 6 instead of 9.

 

[Grimlakin]

I don't think storage is a factor though, these are older games that don't do much IO after the initial loading phase, I'm not planning to play anything with UE5 on it. As for load times I couldn't care less if I shave off 3 seconds to make it 6 instead of 9.

My entire concern and suggesting with a higher speed drive is texture pop in. Now maybe that will be eliminated with 1080p gaming... but that first lap in some games can have some unfortunate hitching if you have issues with texture loading. Now if you've ran the game on similar hardware and know that isn't an issue then never mind of course.

And yea going with a new GPU now to test with so you will KNOW if you need the added cost of everything that comes with a newer generation CPU I vote whole heartedly to go for it.

 

[MadMummy76]

My entire concern and suggesting with a higher speed drive is texture pop in. Now maybe that will be eliminated with 1080p gaming... but that first lap in some games can have some unfortunate hitching if you have issues with texture loading. Now if you've ran the game on similar hardware and know that isn't an issue then never mind of course.

I think the whole storage thing is blown way out of proportion, these games would work exactly the same on a spinner too, apart from slower loading times. Maybe the latest AAA games actually need NVME storage, but I'm not even convinced of that yet. IDK if anyone did actual testing for that, although I have no idea how would you measure pop-in objectively and reliably.

 

[Grimlakin]

I think the whole storage thing is blown way out of proportion, these games would work exactly the same on a spinner too, apart from slower loading times. Maybe the latest AAA games actually need NVME storage, but I'm not even convinced of that yet. IDK if anyone did actual testing for that, although I have no idea how would you measure pop-in objectively and reliably.

To be fair even in my NVME based system.... I've often noticed LOD 'pop in' meaning as I'm moving around the texture quality kind of updates like.. "Oh crap missed that one!" sort of thing. It FEELS like pop in though it's really LOD being adjusted in an odd manner to me. So really THAT's what I'm referring to by pop in.

On modern systems and engines the real only other pop in is based on server sync and positioning updates.

 

[MadMummy76]

To be fair even in my NVME based system.... I've often noticed LOD 'pop in' meaning as I'm moving around the texture quality kind of updates like.. "Oh crap missed that one!" sort of thing. It FEELS like pop in though it's really LOD being adjusted in an odd manner to me. So really THAT's what I'm referring to by pop in.

On modern systems and engines the real only other pop in is based on server sync and positioning updates.

That kind of pop in is not fixed by or caused by slow drives, that's just the game engine being weird.

 

[MadMummy76]

So I've ordered a RX 6650 XT. We'll see what happens.

 

[MadMummy76]

So I've installed the card:



It was tight, but it fits, but the fans were too close to the side, so I didn't even try running it before cutting a hole:



I didn't want to cut into the already perforated part that's why it only goes to 3/4 of the fans.
But I couldn't stomach leaving it like this, so I made a cover:

 

[MadMummy76]

So I've ordered a RX 6650 XT. We'll see what happens.

I could've ordered a RX 7600 with the same design as it literally released days before I made the order, but saw that it is basically a sidegrade from the 6650 XT, the only area where it shows an uplift is computing, which is exactly what I did not want to use it for, so I've decided I'd rather not pay 15% more for nothing.

 

[Grimlakin]

Let us know if it meets your racing sim needs!

 

[MadMummy76]

Let us know if it meets your racing sim needs!

I'm pretty sure it's overkill, I ran a few benchmarks, and it's far beyond what I expected. Shadow of The Tomb Raider averages almost 70FPS on highest with RT.

 

[Grimlakin]

NICE man I'm happy for you!

 

[MadMummy76]

Here are some charts, I know 3DMark is frowned upon nowadays, but it's either this or installing a hundred different games to get a general idea.