Best Gaming computer PC Setup for Second life?

[WereBeast Alpha]

Hello there I am coming into some extra funding and looking to upgrade my desktop. Nothing cheap but anything under $2,000 USD is preferred within my budget.

So far i plan on getting a NVIDIA 1650 Graphics card but don't know if GTX or RTX is much more better for gaming. (I play Skyrim, Sims 4, ESO ETC) type games. 

I plan on as far as getting AMD Ryzen 5 Processor, 16 GB of RAM, 1TB Hard drive and Asus motherboard. My main question is what parts work with this type of setup and does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you for the help. 

[Henri Beauchamp]

The NVIDIA GTX 1650 is a really cheap (in all accounts) card... I'd go for a GTX 1660 at the minimum. Of course, it depends as well on your monitor resolution (the GTX 1660 is OK for a full HD monitor, but certainly a little weak for a 4K one).

The difference between GTX (16x0) and RTX (20x0 or 30x0) cards is that the latter can do real time ray tracing: totally useless for SL, but it makes some (not all, by far) Windows AAA games supporting it look prettier.

As for the CPU, go for an octo-core (true cores, not just ”8 threads”= 4 cores+SMT) if possible (even for SL, viewers can now use more cores to rez things faster), and one with the best mono-core performances you can find for the price (the viewers are mostly CPU-limited, and the faster the CPU, the better the frame rates).

As for the motherboard, Asus is known for their premium... price !  You can get the same performances and quality from other makers, at a significantly lower price. I'd personally go for an ASRock or a MSI; put the money you save from the MB into the GPU or CPU...

You might want to wait a month or two to buy your stuff, however: NVIDIA, Intel and AMD are about to announce their new GPUs and CPUs, so there will be discounts on the former generations, soon after the new models hit the market.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Jackson Redstar]

I recently re-built my PC recently right around that amount. Intel i7, RTX 3070, 32 gig ram, 2 - 1TB SSD .m2 hard drives

Now that graphic card prices have returned somewhat to normal, I'd get as new as a card as you can, (for SL Nvidia is the best choice) AMD processor is fine, but on Win11 32 gig ram is really needed, and a good SSD HD

One other thing to note with the new performance code in the Linden viewer beta and FS beta - the graphic card will really ramp up with shaders and shadows on in SL so get a card with really good cooling on it

 

[Jenna Huntsman]

19 hours ago, xxVi3perxx said:

NVIDIA 1650 Graphics card

As Henri says, this card is probably a little too gutless at this point. You'd be better off going higher-end.

Check prices for AMD GPUs as well. Geopricing is definitely a thing, so you may find an AMD GPU will give a lot more bang-for-buck than a Nvidia card where you live.

19 hours ago, xxVi3perxx said:

GTX or RTX is much more better for gaming

Neither, really. RTX is more of Nvidia's flagship lineup, but they charge a premium for it. The headline feature of RTX vs GTX is Ray Tracing, something which SL (or any of the other games listed) don't make use of.

19 hours ago, xxVi3perxx said:

AMD Ryzen 5 Processor, 16 GB of RAM, 1TB Hard drive and Asus motherboard.

This is okay, but I'd say get an SSD over a hard drive.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I can only recommend intel, since amd is not what I consider "gamer" quality.     but 16gb ram,  512/1tb ssd,  1070gtx.  those would be my gotos.

[arabellajones]

17 hours ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

This is okay, but I'd say get an SSD over a hard drive.

It depends a bit what you are doing, but a large hard drive is worth having as well as an SSD. It doesn't have to be an internal drive, USB and Network connections to an external drive are fast enough. And while I have used an SSD for my SL cache, the write-load on an SSD from a cache can certainly be argued about. I don't have a definite best answer, but I would hesitate about an SSD-only system.

[Henri Beauchamp]

10 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I can only recommend intel, since amd is not what I consider ”gamer” quality.

While I would discourage any SLer to buy AMD graphics cards (as well as the upcoming Intel ARC ones, which are just a bad joke), due to their sub-par OpenGL performances, AMD processors are nowadays just as good as Intel ones, especially in the performances/price and performances/power consumption ratios.

Yes, you may find Intel CPUs that, thanks to their mono-core maximum (turbo) performances can beat AMD ones, but it comes at various costs and not only the money related kind of cost, but also a lot of heat to dissipate (good luck to cool down the best Intel CPUs on air, for example; even Noctua solutions are challenged)... There's also the P/E cores mixing in newer Intel CPUs, which is in fact a degradation in multi-core performances (as well as a headache with core affinity tweaking to get the ”good cores” to get dedicated to the software needing speed), when compared to previous generations and to AMD's solution.

In fact, and starting with Zen 3, and especially for mid-range computers, AMD CPUs are most often a better choice than Intel's.

Today's announced Zen 4 also would apparently (this will have to be confirmed with serious benchmarks) beat hands down all Intel existing CPUs; let's see how Intel's Raptor Lake will counter-strike, but I am already considering a Zen 4 to replace my main PC i7-9700K CPU in the coming months...

Edited August 30, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Modulated]

11 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I can only recommend intel, since amd is not what I consider "gamer" quality.     but 16gb ram,  512/1tb ssd,  1070gtx.  those would be my gotos.

Tell me you haven't ever used a modern AMD cpu without telling me you have never used a modern AMD cpu.

[Aishagain]

As far as CPUs are comcerned, performance vs cost leaves AMD a clear winner at present.  For ultimate performance a fast i7 is probably the best (the jury is out on the i9 for technical reasons, not to mention the eye-watering price) but the AMD Ryzen 9 3900 and 3950 beat Intel in nearly every performance parameter and their multi-core and multi-thread performance is unbeatable.  I have used both Intel and AMD and while neither are perfect I suspect AMD win for SL.

AMD GPUs are still a way off NVidia in OpenGL performance so for SL they are de rigeur in my experience (I've used both).

Bearing in mind that most folks want their rig for both SL AND general gaming the choice is less clear due to AMD GPU performance on anything BUT OpenGL, but if SL is the focus (as it is mine) it is no contest, even though NVidia are busily trying to trash their own reputation with poorly coded drivers in recent months.

A good PC for SL will need CPU cooling for sure and GPU cooling if you can afford it.  16GB plus RAM is a must, 32 is better and 64 must be nice, SSDs for your Main drives are by far the best option now, despite the above reservations - I have used all-SSD systems for 5 years now.

SL was until very recently CPU bound and so a good CPU was required backed up by a decent, if not stellar GPU (I use an NVidia GTX1660Ti with an AMD Ryzen9 3900 CPU).  It seems good to me.  Whether the recent changes to the Second Life rendering code will change that is debatable.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Aishagain

[bigmoe Whitfield]

nvm, not relevant to SL,  personal bias, so removing what I posted.

Edited August 31, 2022 by bigmoe Whitfield

[arton Rotaru]

I'm currently running a Ryzen 5 5600x @4,65 Ghz (boost) with an Asus GTX 1660Super X3 Gaming OC 6GB, 32GB (4x8) Corsair Vengeance LPX @3200 Mhz on a MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus board. Be Quiet 700 Watts PSU w/CM, Samsung SSD 860 Pro in a Be Quiet Pure Base 500DX case (with 5 140mm case fans).
It's my first AMD system. I always was an Intel fanboy as well, but I'm more than happy with that Ryzen CPU. I got it for 200 Euros, and it runs like a beast with just 65W TDP.

The 1660 Super I bought just before the prices for graphics cards went through the roof, though. I got that brand new for 252 €.

That's round about a 1000 € altogether and, it looks super nice in that 500DX case as well. 😙

[sandi Mexicola]

On 8/30/2022 at 10:58 AM, Modulated said:

Tell me you haven't ever used a modern AMD cpu without telling me you have never used a modern AMD cpu.

😁

[rasterscan]

On 8/28/2022 at 9:49 PM, xxVi3perxx said:

, 1TB Hard drive  does anyone have any suggestions?

If you can afford an SSD hard drive, they are fast as can be. Best 'upgrade' I ever did. A hard drive as fast as RAM

[sandi Mexicola]

39 minutes ago, rasterscan said:

If you can afford an SSD hard drive, they are fast as can be. Best 'upgrade' I ever did. A hard drive as fast as RAM

yes, huge difference

[Jenna Huntsman]

On 8/30/2022 at 5:16 PM, Aishagain said:

AMD GPU performance on anything BUT OpenGL

This is no longer true as of AMD's 22.7.1 drivers - OpenGL performance issues have been fixed. (There are some other issues, but nothing that affects SL right now).

[Henri Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

This is no longer true as of AMD's 22.7.1 drivers - OpenGL performance issues have been fixed.

Nope. Windows OpenGL drivers have simply caught up with what was seen under Linux with Mesa. But AMD OpenGL performances are still MUCH lower than NVIDIA's, and the fact that, unlike for what happens for NVIDIA's drivers, the ”GL core profile” does not bring any speed bonus with AMD cards, makes the gap only (much) larger with what you can achieve with equivalent (in either price or GPU generation) NVIDIA hardware...

1 hour ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

There are some other issues, but nothing that affects SL right now

The new AMD Windows drivers lack OpenGL extensions that existed in their former drivers... Thing is, there is never any such problem with NVIDIA; if you are not convinced, look at the viewer code, and notice how many workarounds are in place for AMD/ATI (and Intel) OpenGL incomplete/bogus/limited implementations...

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Go for a minimum of an Nvidia GTX 1660 Super. Easily enough for SL and also for 1080p PC gaming. For higher resolutions and gaming with ray traced lighting, go RTX 3000 series instead.

Found some data that shows the most popular GPU used for PC gaming is the Nvidia GTX 1060, a six year old GPU!

I find it interesting that the current generation of new GPU's barely make the top ten of the list.

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Lyssa Greymoon]

2 hours ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

This is no longer true as of AMD's 22.7.1 drivers - OpenGL performance issues have been fixed. (There are some other issues, but nothing that affects SL right now).

Maybe it's helped the cards AMD is selling today, but those drivers did jack ***** for my old but still allegedly supported RX550. 

[Jenna Huntsman]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Nope. Windows OpenGL drivers have simply caught up with what was seen under Linux with Mesa. But AMD OpenGL performances are still MUCH lower than NVIDIA's, and the fact that, unlike for what happens for NVIDIA's drivers, the ”GL core profile” does not bring any speed bonus with AMD cards, makes the gap only (much) larger with what you can achieve with equivalent (in either price or GPU generation) NVIDIA hardware...

The new AMD Windows drivers lack OpenGL extensions that existed in their former drivers... Thing is, there is never any such problem with NVIDIA; if you are not convinced, look at the viewer code, and notice how many workarounds are in place for AMD/ATI (and Intel) OpenGL incomplete/bogus/limited implementations...

If we go back to this thread the consensus for the (admittedly, small) test was the bottleneck was no longer the GPU, whereas it was with previous driver versions:

I'd agree more testing is required, but I'd also say that it's an unfair judgement to completely write off modern AMD cards.

[Henri Beauchamp]

20 hours ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

If we go back to this thread the consensus for the (admittedly, small) test was the bottleneck was no longer the GPU, whereas it was with previous driver versions:

Err... NO !

The only consensus was that it was normal that, on the same computer (yours), and in this particular scene, you got about the same fps rates with the Cool VL Viewer and Firestorm beta (which also got the ”performances” improvements), simply because the C++-level optimizations in my viewer won't make large enough a difference in a relatively heavy render scene.

However, I demonstrated in that thread that with an older and less powerful hardware than yours (only a GTX1070Ti which is 2 generations behind your Radeon RX 6900 XT, which would be equivalent in hardware power/capabilities to an RTX 3080), I obtained the same results as what you get with your modern computer. Again, this is the fault of AMD's lame OpenGL drivers, and nothing else.

20 hours ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

it's an unfair judgement to completely write off modern AMD cards

If you do not want to accept simple facts, then I'm afraid you will invariably make wrong judgments...

My advice is, if you can, to borrow a NVIDIA card from a friend, stuff it into your PC, and see by yourself the differences in OpenGL performances.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Jenna Huntsman]

49 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

However, I demonstrated in that thread that with an older and less powerful hardware than yours (only a GTX1070Ti which is 2 generations behind your Radeon RX 6900 XT, which would be equivalent in hardware power/capabilities to an RTX 3080), I obtained the same results as what you get with your modern computer.

Which would be indicative of a bottleneck elsewhere - as you mentioned in that thread, my CPU is fairly evenly matched to yours, and we were getting roughly about the same framerate.

51 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

My advice is, if you can, to borrow a NVIDIA card from a friend, stuff it into your PC, and see by yourself the differences in OpenGL performances.

I'll give it a go the next time I'm on a similarly spec'd Nvidia machine, but that isn't often.

[Henri Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Which would be indicative of a bottleneck elsewhere - as you mentioned in that thread, my CPU is fairly evenly matched to yours, and we were getting roughly about the same framerate.

No, because with an equivalent NVIDIA card (RTX 3080 or even 3070) to your current AMD card in your PC, you'd have beaten mine hands down.