New PC for second life - will this be great?

[uk89201]

Hey

I currently have a iMac that runs ok mid setting okay in firestorm - not so well in busy areas (mainland) and crawls if I have two instances of firestorm running in parallel. 
 

I’m looking to get something specifically for second life. Budget around £3500. I understand that CPU performance is the most important thing. I’ve built a quote and before I go ahead with the purchase, could you please let me know if you see any obvious issues with this configuration running on ultra with high draw distances in a busy area?

 

 

Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready!

PSU
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIESTM SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)

Cooling
Corsair H115i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

RAM
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (4 x 16GB)

GPU
12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 - HDMI, DP

HD1
2TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 520 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe 4400MB/W)

HD2
4TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 530MB/sW)

 

 

Thanks!

[RunawayBunny]

I am not good with my computer configuration knowledge, but here is my configuration and FPS might give you a idea and allow you make comparison:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz (3696.01 MHz)
Memory: 16313 MB
Mother Board: ROG MAXIMUS X HERO
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 980/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 4096 MB

FPS worse 35 / FPS best 50 / Limit 60 (Graphic High with local lights off).

It is outdated graphics card (GeForce GTX 980) but still performs good and gives enjoyable SL experience.. I think it is sufficient and smooth despite being old.

Edited March 6, 2021 by RunawayBunny

[Alwin Alcott]

19 minutes ago, uk89201 said:

Motherboard

ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready!

PSU
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIESTM SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)

Cooling
Corsair H115i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

RAM
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (4 x 16GB)

GPU
12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 - HDMI, DP

HD1
2TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 520 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe 4400MB/W)

HD2
4TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 530MB/sW)

for normal SL use a total overkill like shooting a mosquito with a bazooka...
taking half of that specs would still be a top SL machine.

my advice is to spend the rest of your money for other fun things...

[uk89201]

12 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

for normal SL use a total overkill like shooting a mosquito with a bazooka...
taking half of that specs would still be a top SL machine.

my advice is to spend the rest of your money for other fun things...

 

Thanks, good to know I could still get really good performance with less.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

The Ryzen 7 5800X, RTX 3060 and the 6 TB of SSD would account for about 1200 to 1500 $. Having to pay 3500 $ for this rig suggests that these components are being sold by a bunch of dirty scalpers.

You also may wanna double check if 550 Watts is enough for all that hardware. (It probably is.)

37 minutes ago, uk89201 said:

obvious issues with this configuration running on ultra with high draw distances in a busy area?

These are very decent specs, but depending on how much stuff people have rezzed out in an estate, you may still run up to <20 fps in SL, no matter how much money you pump into any computer.

37 minutes ago, uk89201 said:

64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (4 x 16GB)

You totally need not more that 16GB for SL. But it may come in handy if you need to do video production or heavy 3D graphics design.

37 minutes ago, uk89201 said:

2TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 520 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe 4400MB/W), 4TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 530MB/sW)

I'm not gonna judge you on the amount of storage, and it's always nice to have a lot of it, but for SL alone this is just enormous overkill. For most other tasks too. I'd rather invest in some decent backup storage and go 1 + 1 TB, or 2 + 2 at most.

In summary: I'm pretty sure there's computers with similar specs out there that are about a 1000 $ cheaper.

And if it's just for SL: 16 GB RAM and 2 x 2 TB SSD are more than enough for years to come.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[uk89201]

20 minutes ago, RunawayBunny said:

I am not good with my computer configuration knowledge, but here is my configuration and FPS might give you a idea and allow you make comparison:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz (3696.01 MHz)
Memory: 16313 MB
Mother Board: ROG MAXIMUS X HERO
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 980/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 4096 MB

FPS worse 35 / FPS best 50 / Limit 60 (Graphic High with local lights off).

It is outdated graphics card (GeForce GTX 980) but still performs good and gives enjoyable SL experience.. I think it is sufficient and smooth despite being old.

Thanks, good to know - especially that you're getting good frame rate with i7 & 16mb RAM.

[uk89201]

3 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

The Ryzen 7 5800X, RTX 3060 and the 6 TB of SSD would account for about 1200 to 1500 $. Having to pay 3500 $ for this rig suggests that these components are being sold by a bunch of dirty scalpers.

You also may wanna double check if 550 Watts is enough for all that hardware.

These are very decent specs, but depending on how much stuff people have rezzed out in an estate, you may still run up to <20 fps in SL, no matter how much money you pump into any computer.

You totally need not more that 16GB for SL. But it may come in handy if you need to do video production or graphic design.

I'm not gonna judge you on the amount of storage, and it's always nice to have a lot of it, but for SL alone this is just enormous overkill. For most other tasks too. I'd rather invest in some decent backup storage and go 1 + 1 TB, or 2 + 2 at most.

In summary: I'm pretty sure there's computers with similar specs out there that are about a 1000 $ cheaper.

And if it's just for SL: 16 GB RAM and 2 x 2 TB SSD are more than enough for years to come.

 

Thanks! The quote was less than my total budget (£3106, but that includes some extra stuff I've not included above like monitor, keyboard, mouse, webcam, speakers). I did choose a higher watt PSU but their site said 'no no you don't that choose this' - in different words haha.

Good to know more than 16gb RAM isn't really needed, I've read on some threads that the rule of RAM is you can never have enough. But, yes, I'd probably have a couple of instances of Firestorm running and Photoshop, so not too concerned about having more. 

Interesting point re the storage. I chose the fast SSD as primary since I've read SSD would also make SL smoother, but if I do bring along my OneDrive and PhotoShop stuff (sorry, I realise as I type this I said specifically for SL... maybe I should have said primarily hehe) or ever use this for any other things (other games) - the additional storage could be useful. I might change the second to a mechanical though.

I was concerned someone might say something like 'this graphics card is no good for SL' so this is sounding positive, thank you! Though, < 20fps no matter what in some areas, geez that's depressing haha.

[RunawayBunny]

1 minute ago, uk89201 said:

20fps no matter what in some areas, geez that's depressing haha.

This happens on my configuration but only for a few second after I enter very crowded SIM.. I don't feel any freeze - delay / control difficulty, its only appears on FPS numbers.

[Solar Legion]

You're going to get very mixed responses here, some incredibly biased as well.

On general RAM usage: More is often better as it allows for more and more multitasking and can compensate for resource hungry OSes.

The rest seems to be pretty nice and will allow for a lot more than just Second Life applications/usage.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

8 minutes ago, uk89201 said:

Good to know more than 16gb RAM isn't really needed, I've read on some threads that the rule of RAM is you can never have enough. But, yes, I'd probably have a couple of instances of Firestorm running and Photoshop, so not too concerned about having more. 

I hardly ever run Photoshop, Illustrator, Substance Painter, Blender, multiple browser tabs and Blender together with Firestorm, but when I do, I still can't fill up those 16 GB. As far as games go, this is the very first year, that there are a bunch of games that see a performance increase with 16GB over 8. If I'd ever had to buy a new computer somewhere this year, I would have to think very hard whether or not I'd get 32, or maybe spend the money on some other component.

[uk89201]

22 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

I hardly ever run Photoshop, Illustrator, Substance Painter, Blender, multiple browser tabs and Blender together with Firestorm, but when I do, I still can't fill up those 16 GB. As far as games go, this is the very first year, that there are a bunch of games that see a performance increase with 16GB over 8. If I'd ever had to buy a new computer somewhere this year, I would have to think very hard whether or not I'd get 32, or maybe spend the money on some other component.

 

CyberDuck, VSCode, Blender, Photoshop and Gyazo! I had to laugh... these are things I'm using too  

This is very good detail, thank you a lot I think I can certainly cut down the RAM then.

[Finite]

I have a 2080 Super which is a bit behind the 3060ti. Not sure how it compares to 3060 but I can play on Ultra settings in full sims pretty easily. I only run into problems if I hop around sims a lot at which point I just relog. The 3060 I assume should be just fine. I wish I waited a year though and got the 3080 super or ti  instead of the 2080...

Edited March 6, 2021 by Finite

[LittleMe Jewell]

I wouldn't take memory below 32G if you run lots of things concurrently and can afford it.  I currently have 16G and often wish I had more.  I tend to always have Firefox running with a dozen tabs, Chrome with a dozen tabs, plus 1-2 Firestorm viewer instances and maybe a photo editing app.  Once I start up Blender also, I start noticing that I'm taxing memory a bit and I need to start shutting some things down.  Granted, I pretty much never really need all of those things running at once - I just tend to not shut down things that I use frequently unless I need the memory to free up.  I do almost always have the various browsers and one SL viewer going at the same time.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

IF you get any GPU at all at the time... big if.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

22 minutes ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

IF you get any GPU at all at the time... big if.

That's currently a big issue for people who want to upgrade, yes.

You can check the current prices at the GPU Sadness Index page:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gpu-pricing-index

[Nova Convair]

I can easily fill up 16 GB and use even more, depends what I'm running. If you are at places with many avatars and want to see them with high settings you need a bit more ram for every FS instance.

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, uk89201 said:

Hey

I currently have a iMac that runs ok mid setting okay in firestorm - not so well in busy areas (mainland) and crawls if I have two instances of firestorm running in parallel. 
 

I’m looking to get something specifically for second life. Budget around £3500. I understand that CPU performance is the most important thing. I’ve built a quote and before I go ahead with the purchase, could you please let me know if you see any obvious issues with this configuration running on ultra with high draw distances in a busy area?

 

 

Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready!

PSU
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIESTM SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)

Cooling
Corsair H115i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

RAM
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (4 x 16GB)

GPU
12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 - HDMI, DP

HD1
2TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 520 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe 4400MB/W)

HD2
4TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 530MB/sW)

 

 

Thanks!

So  £3500 which is 3500 British pounds, because you Brexited and don't have euros anymore, correct? is US $4,844, correct? I checked the currency rates over and over again because that is a figure of money I would spend on a used *car*, not a computer. I would spend it on *rent* for many months or maybe *the part of my medical bill not covered by insurance* for a "dental implant" for example. It's not a figure I would bring anywhere near "a game" or even "a platform". 

So, I would spend maybe $800 on a computer from Best Buy. If Best Buy has computers that are of the $4,844 variety with all kinds of things on them, I haven't seen them. Maybe they keep them in the back?

Yes, in 17 years, I've had computers that were even in their day $1600 so that I could have a lot of storage capacity or news sites with videos very speedily or whatever, and also play SL. But I haven't found any real appreciable difference between the $800 and $1600 computers for that purpose. I do wish LL would make a product that is a computer that plays their game, bundled with their game. I realize that is a completely hilarious concept, but some computers come with Facebook already installed, you know? It's not THAT wild.

WHEN they do that, I will realize that really, their game is meant for people who can spend $3200 on a computer and understand where I fit in their ecosphere. Yes, I will realize that I can go to Little Korea or New Egg, or whatever groovy geek place there is out there, and have a geek build me a computer. I actually did that once years ago when my son shorted out the motherboard trying to install a graphic card with an un-grounded screwdriver when he was 9 years old. So the geek built me a computer for $328 with a stolen Word license. It broke.

Another time when my computer broke because the government of Turkmenistan, apparently, crippled it with viruses and destroyed its content, a geek computer repair fellow with a security expertise wiped it and fixed it and suggested that I simply buy a new one, and never install Skype on it, but I have to use Skype to call people in places like Afghanistan. He then looked over everything I wanted on my computer and asked me about secondlife.exe and I showed him my servers. That isn't any kind of virus door, of course, even if you sometimes have to disable a virus program to enable it -- which I have found AVG doesn't make you do. I use AVG instead of Kaspersky because I think the Czechs (who first created AVG which was later bought out by Avast, also a Czech company) probably know more about keeping viruses out than Russians, who sometimes make them so they can fix them. Just my own parochial take on this situation.

So this geek was in absolute, stunned, shock. He couldn't believe that a lay person who was dumb enough to put Skype on their computers and become vulnerable to viruses and spying and buys a computer at Best Buy could decide to return certain pixelated items on their simulator because they had collision properties. I mean, he was a good example of a, shall we say, informed but not Second Life playing geek who had Paladin status in WoW, for example, like my son does now, who can now install a network without losing everyone's electricity as Tesla did once on Hudson St.

Actually, last time I bought a computer I was in lockdown, and this was even before the pandemic. I couldn't get out to Best Buy which is not exactly near my house but a bus ride away. My son recommended to me a "blazing game computer" which has blinking lights on the box and the mouse. That seems unnecessary, and I know from long experience that "gaming computers" actually can't play SL sometimes. That the last time I got a cheap Best Buy computer, I had to ask them to substitute the weak graphics card in it with a more expensive one, plus a fan, to compensate for the heat generated for that more fancy graphics card, bring the total I believe still to under $1000. Because there wasn't a single computer on the shop floor that had anything with SL's graphic specs even at their lowest.

Yes, I'm aware that instead of going to Best Buy I can go to Computer World, which closed many years ago or Datavision, that didn't, etc. etc. New York City is a city with sophisticated people in it and many stores that sell computers. I feel no compulsion to go to the Apple Store because I don't care for Macs. I totally get that there is some better place to go and spend less money, and only you know about it, and you aren't going to tell me -- or you will, and gloat. That's fine.

Still, my Best Buy computer, and later my Blazing Gaming Computer (I'd have to go look up its brand) play SL fine. That is, the problems I have with SL which Oz Linden used to witheringly describe as related to my set-up, in fact aren't, because most of the time it plays SL. Then it doesn't, and I know when the Lindens release another software update, it will. I realize for many, "my computer" is something they can always suspect and scorn, whereas "their software" is the main communion of their religion. I don't like these lights blinking and I can't turn them off. But yes, it does play SL with an AMD Radeon card. Yes, I realized certain software religions believe the AMD Radeon card is an abomination and prefer, I dunno, the other thing, I'd have to look up their names -- Nvidia -- is among the Seraphim and Cherubim.

OK, so I'm a norm, no need to listen to me. Carry on. But do realize that most people in SL go to Best Buy. They aren't going to spend more than $1000 or $1200 on a computer. And that's fine, because they value other things in life like "their groceries" or "their car payments" or "their rent". 

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Ted McGregor]

5 hours ago, uk89201 said:

GPU

12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 - HDMI, DP

Thanks!

Unless you are a Youtuber like JayzTwoCents , I seriously doubt you'll be able to obtain this GPU.

If you do, aside colouring me impressed, you will be paying hefty for it. Way too much.

Edited March 6, 2021 by TDD123
ETA

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Abandom topic.

[Maryanne Solo]

Well done!
PSU might be a bit lightweight. I would go 750w.
My ROG Strix only has 1 USB 3.2 port. But it is 2 years old.

[Bree Giffen]

The power supply is too small. You need maybe a 750W supply. 
 

It’s a good setup but excessive for SL. If you or other people in your house will use it for other types of gaming then it will be useful. 
 

I’ve always been a little leery of using an SSD with SL. An SSD has a finite number of read/writes which means it degrades faster if you constantly access the drive. SL constantly accesses the drive. With a regular game you pull all the assets from a game and then it stops because the level is loaded. With SL, you are constantly loading and unloading textures between your drive and the cloud. I have my OS and SL on an HDD and I have few games on an SSD. 

[Waiomao]

For anyone Mac curious, don't bother. Mac has a rubbish reputation for gaming, but it's a great machine for most other stuff. I use Mac, Windows, and Linux distros on various machines and have been disappointed with the latest Mac. I replaced my old Mac with a new one several months ago and am not happy with the performance, in SL and in other ways. It's a 27" iMac with an SSD and upgraded to 64 GB memory. Should be blazing, right? Meh. I'm guessing that my problem is the combination of "3.7 GHZ 6-core Intel Core i5" processor and "Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB" graphics card... definitely not gaming material. Maybe the new Mac chipset (that replaced the Intel ones) will help, but for anyone looking for a machine specifically for SL or gaming, don't bother with Mac. From my experience several Linux distros have been the fastest OSs (Mint's GUI is similar to Windows so will look familiar to most people), and though LL don't support a Linux version of SL viewer anymore there are Firestorm and others that work well.

[Odaks]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So  £3500 which is 3500 British pounds, because you Brexited and don't have euros anymore, correct?

Unfortunately, not correct!

The United Kingdom never adopted the Euro - never, ever. So, £3500 is 3500 pounds Sterling because it is!

[Prokofy Neva]

12 minutes ago, Odaks said:

Unfortunately, not correct!

The United Kingdom never adopted the Euro - never, ever. So, £3500 is 3500 pounds Sterling because it is!

Oh, thank you, I should have know that but didn't! 

[Drayke Newall]

9 hours ago, TDD123 said:

Unless you are a Youtuber like JayzTwoCents , I seriously doubt you'll be able to obtain this GPU.

If you do, aside colouring me impressed, you will be paying hefty for it. Way too much.

Buy MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X 12GB [RTX-3060-GAMING-X-12G] | PC Case Gear Australia

No idea if that is cheap in the USA ($652 USD) but in Australia with the great Australia Tax rort its regular price over here. Thats the higher end card as well cheaper ones are out of stock.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Drayke Newall