What is the cost of the computer you use to run Second Life?

[Gopi Passiflora]

I built my computer and added parts as time went on. I'd say the initial cost was around USD$1000 but the extra parts were about another USD$500-1000. So about USD$2000 total?

Some of the Initial parts: AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB RAM, NVidia GeForce 1660 Super, Hard Drive

Some Parts I added later: An additional 16 GB RAM, 2 NVMe SSDs, a SATA SSD, and an NVidia RTX 4070. 

[Rolig Loon]

I have no idea at this point. My machine was custom built in 2007 for something like $1000. Since then, I have upgraded memory and replaced the hard drives, the power supply, the graphics card (3 times), the motherboard, the case, the monitor (several times), and the keyboard (more than several times). I don't think any of the original components are still there and I haven't kept track of the cost of upgrades (inflation-adjusted or not).

Oh, and I replaced routers and modems a few times, and am now on fiber optics so no longer have a modem.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I have no idea at this point. My machine was custom built in 2007 for something like $1000. Since then, I have upgraded memory and replaced the hard drives, the power supply, the graphics card (3 times), the motherboard, the case, the monitor (several times), and the keyboard (more than several times). I don't think any of the original components are still there and I haven't kept track of the cost of upgrades (inflation-adjusted or not).

Oh, and I replaced routers and modems a few times, and am now on fiber optics so no longer have a modem.

So, basically you're sailing through SL on the ship of Theseus?

[Luna Bliss]

I bought my new one less than a year ago, at the cost of $2000.  I wanted a mid-range one that would be adequate longer than the cheaper ones  would provide (costing around $1000). I don't really like the hassle of upgrading, so will just run this PC until it dies.

[Love Zhaoying]

Cost? My firstborn!

[Rolig Loon]

49 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

So, basically you're sailing through SL on the ship of Theseus?

Exactly. Or, to use the lumberjack's example, I'm still using the same axe but I've replaced the handle and the blade a few times.

[Rick Nightingale]

Prices are a bit different in rip-off Britain so I'm not sure can be compared with dollar prices. However, I've been pricing an upgrade recently.

My current, home-made, main PC is now ten years old based on the MB and CPU it still has. It was close to top level when I built it but life has changed a lot since then. It's had upgrades (SSDs, max'ed the ram to 16GB, GTX 1080Ti GPU). It still runs SL OK but with the latest Firestorm PBR beta, the system and GPU fans are ramping up and getting noisy a lot more than previously. GPU use is close to 100% and 80 Celsius much of the time.

By contrast, my PC for everything except graphics-heavy stuff (because integrated Intel GPU) is an HP mini (size of a medium paperback book) with an i7-13700T CPU, 64GB RAM, 8TB NVME and external Dragonfly DAC and lives bolted underneath a little side table in the lounge here. That cost £1500 including the extras I installed, about 3 months ago when my previous little one bit the dust completely. It runs SL like a Citreon 2CV runs a formula one race, even on absolutely minimal graphics settings and no PBR.

Replacing the main one with something worthwhile for SL and just the few games I sometimes play (Witcher 3 mostly; fortunately (for my wallet) I'm not really a gamer) would cost around £2000 for the parts. The only thing I can re-use is the case, and maybe an SSD for slow bulk storage. Spending less wouldn't make much sense; I would just want to upgrade. Upgrading is partly prompted by the fact that it is so old. At some point it's going to start failing; like the monitor I'm writing this on which now flickers badly for a minute or two every time it's powered on. I might as well build something new and decent rather than play fix-it with the old one. That's if I can find the money, and justify it for a PC that now only runs SL and related software like Blender, Photoshop, etc. and an occasional game.

I could really do with knowing if SL is going to be around long enough to justify buying a PC for it 🤣

Edited April 25 by Rick Nightingale

[Love Zhaoying]

My gaming notebook was under US$1000 (2022 model, bought 2023).

[Carolyn Zapedzki]

Mines a year old, it cost £1,900, I have just copied the sales email to make it easier.

Lian Li Lancool 215 Snow RGB Gaming Case

Choose your CPU

Intel Core i9 11900KF, 8 Core, 16 Thread, 5.3GHz Turbo

Choose Your Cooler

Thermalright Assassin X120 WHITE Air Cooler

Choose Your Motherboard

Asus PRIME Z590-A ATX Motherboard +£41.66 (Incl. Tax +£49.99)

Choose Your Graphics Card

MSI Ventus 3X RTX 3080 10GB Graphics Card - BLACK

Choose your Power Supply

Corsair RM750e 750W Gold Rated Modular PSU

PC Memory Upgrade Dual DDR4

Corsair 64GB Vengeance LPX (2x32GB) 3200Mhz DDR4 +£133.32 (Incl. Tax +£159.99)

Choose Your Primary SSD Storage Drive

Adata SU630 240GB SSD - SATA

Choose Your Secondary SSD Storage Drive

No Drive

Choose Your Additional Hard Drive Storage

Seagate Barracuda 2TB Hard Drive +£33.32 (Incl. Tax +£39.99)
 

Li

 

[Chic Aeon]

Mine is an Alienware that I got during COVID and the 3070 chip shortage. It was the most expensive computer I had ever purchased at something like 2300 USD  maybe (over 2000 for sure when I am more in the 1700 range).  It is doing very well still .  

 

I did find a sim that made it crash this week. I am pretty sure it was the very pretty but extremely heavy sim.  That is the only issue I have had.  

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800 8-Core Processor               (3393.62 MHz)
Memory: 16310 MB (Used: 219 MB)
Concurrency: 16
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.4355)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 8192 MB

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 31.0.15.3619
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 536.19

 

PS if you  have the option of getting Win11 pro I think you will have fewer issues then Win11 home == at least that seems to be what is happening for friends compared to mine (I had no choice LOL)  This on my notebook. If you haven't had Win11 Glary Utilities is DEFINITELY YOUR FRIEND.  I hope my desktop lasts me a very long time.  
 

Edited April 25 by Chic Aeon
spelling an adding info

[BilliJo Aldrin]

25 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

Mine is an Alienware that I got during COVID and the 3070 chip shortage. It was the most expensive computer I had ever purchased at something like 2300 USD  maybe (over 2000 for sure when I am more in the 1700 range).  It is doing very well still .  

 

I did find a sim that made it crash this week. I am pretty sure it was the very pretty but extremely heavy sim.  That is the only issue I have had.  

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800 8-Core Processor               (3393.62 MHz)
Memory: 16310 MB (Used: 219 MB)
Concurrency: 16
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.4355)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 8192 MB

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 31.0.15.3619
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 536.19

 

PS if you  have the option of getting Win11 pro I think you will have fewer issues then Win11 home == at least that seems to be what is happening for friends compared to mine (I had no choice LOL)  This on my notebook. If you haven't had Win11 Glary Utilities is DEFINITELY YOUR FRIEND.  I hope my desktop lasts me a very long time.  
 

Don't forget, Win 11 has a built in AI that will monitor everything you do and will report you to the authorities if you stray.

[diamond Marchant]

I use a 15" Lenovo Legion 5 laptop purchased in July, 2021 for $1300 USD.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (2592 MHz)
Memory: 32676 MB (Used: 2077 MB)
Concurrency: 12
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.4291) 
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 4096 MB

(We don't need no stinkin' Win 11!)

Edited April 25 by diamond Marchant

[Rick Nightingale]

6 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Don't forget, Win 11 has a built in AI that will monitor everything you do

That's why I run a locked-down LTSC with extensive hardware and personal firewalls and local DNS.

Edited April 25 by Rick Nightingale

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Don't forget, Win 11 has a built in AI that will monitor everything you do and will report you to the authorities if you stray.

Some of our AI's will die of boredom, mine sure will!

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

I've owned 3 laptops over my 14 years in SL and never bought a new one. Definitely no more than $800. My newest used laptop runs SL just fine with all the bells and whistles and on wi-fi.

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Don't forget, Win 11 has a built in AI that will monitor everything you do and will report you to the authorities if you stray.

I have as much as possible turned off and opt out of all the Microsoft wants me to do. 

Resistance if futile unfortunately. If they care I am watching 10 years of the newer Hawaii Five O and reading the PERN books I don't mind.   

Edited April 26 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[Katherine Heartsong]

The main PC gaming rig I use to run SL was pre-built back when finding a 3000-series nVidia card at retail was near impossible. Five years maybe now? About $2500 at the time.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

lol.  Is this whole thread just a way for people to measure their...?

A mid-range laptop will run SL just fine.  No one needs to spend $3000 to login and have a great time.  It's like those posts bragging about 300fps.

To quote one of our frequent forum posters, "That's nice."

Maybe we could argue about what's most important for a good experience instead of how much we spent.  Video cards? Memory? Internet connection? Cooling fans?

[Jackson Redstar]

1200-1500 build your own PC will be good for SL. SL is diminishing return too I recently rebuilt my system I did back in 2012 and went from a gtx1080 to a rtx 3070, Barely a difference in FPS performance But because I do alot of video was worth it for rendering. Point is you don't need to get to crazy to build a decent machine for SL

[Kathlen Onyx]

41 minutes ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

lol.  Is this whole thread just a way for people to measure their...?

A mid-range laptop will run SL just fine.  No one needs to spend $3000 to login and have a great time.  It's like those posts bragging about 300fps.

To quote one of our frequent forum posters, "That's nice."

Maybe we could argue about what's most important for a good experience instead of how much we spent.  Video cards? Memory? Internet connection? Cooling fans?

LOL Totally agree. I also find it interesting that some of the same people that complained that  it would show Premium Plus status on their profile or POF have no issue at all revealing what their computer set up is like and how much it cost.  

Also the original post question has nothing to do with SL at all so not sure why it's allowed.

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

I built mine in December of 2019, right before hardware prices went thorugh the roof.  I spent $700.  Since then, I upgraded the video board to a 12Gb 3060, to run Stable Diffusion and experiment with LLAMA and other AI stuff.  I also got a gaming monitor with 1ms latency, and 165mhz refresh a little while ago because it was on sale on Amazon for like $75 or something stupid.  I think it was for prime day.  I don't expect to need to upgrade again for a long time, because it seems like developers are only just now learning to use my hardware's capacity, with multi-threading and CUDAs and all that stuff.

Ryzen 7 2700X
32Gb 3000mhz RAM
RTX3600 with 12Gb VRAM
1TB, and two 2TB SSDs
AX WiFi with good AX router (sent the crappy Verizon router back)

@Cinnamon Mistwood is right, though.  You don't really need a high end system to game.  You certainly don't need a high end system for SL.  I think SL users usually do have high end systems, though, because SL users are usually digital creatives.  Most of us at least attempt to use Blender at some point.  I'm not an expert in anything Adobe, but I am competent with most of the common adobe programs.  I tinker with photography, graphics, video editing, music production, and all that fun stuff.  Sometimes I'm making stuff for SL, sometimes I'm making it for fun.  I do web scripting and some programming for fun, too.  I think most SL users are like that.  A lot of us aren't, though, and there is nothing wrong with that at all!  It's great that SL can run on a potato.  Most of us just don't really take advantage of that feature.

[gwynchisholm]

It’s an 11900k, 64gb of ram and 16gb a770 at its core. Overall cost to build was around $1400? Nothing crazy 

Though this things primary purpose isnt sl, sl runs on anything. My partners PC I assembled for them as an upgrade is an i5 11400F with 32gb of ram and a GTX titan X pascal. And they still play in 1600x1200 so it doesn’t matter, at all. 
 

But I have a lot of hardware in general, it’s a hobby, there’s like 30 video cards on shelves in my living room. SL will comfortably play on some very low end hardware. I play this game at max settings in 4k all the time, but most people I imagine are like my partner and will put the game into toaster mode visually in 1080p or lower resolutions just because they don’t care if the shadows look pretty, or are even there. And with that performance target in mind, you could get SL playing well on your average cheap used business laptop from a few years ago, entry level desktop hardware, sub $500 used PC builds, etc.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

@Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobiaif my enjoyment of SL involved music production or video, I definitely would need a better setup.   Those are specialized tech needs.  My mid range computer does fine for photography and has a solid connection.  I rarely crash and people (and their clothes) rez quickly. My fps is usually between 30 and 70. I normally run one notch below the ultra graphics setting and 200+ draw distance if the region isn't too crowded.  I'll go for the higher settings temporarily for a photo.

I consider myself an average SL user.  One of the ones we'll need to encourage to increase numbers inworld.

The forum has a lot of very tech savvy people, as it should since people come here for advice. I have a feeling, if we looked at the makeup of today's user base, that most residents are just like me.  Midrange is fine for a large number of people. 

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

23 minutes ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

@Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobiaif my enjoyment of SL involved music production or video, I definitely would need a better setup.   Those are specialized tech needs.  My mid range computer does fine for photography and has a solid connection.  I rarely crash and people (and their clothes) rez quickly. My fps is usually between 30 and 70. I normally run one notch below the ultra graphics setting and 200+ draw distance if the region isn't too crowded.  I'll go for the higher settings temporarily for a photo.

I consider myself an average SL user.  One of the ones we'll need to encourage to increase numbers inworld.

The forum has a lot of very tech savvy people, as it should since people come here for advice. I have a feeling, if we looked at the makeup of today's user base, that most residents are just like me.  Midrange is fine for a large number of people. 

Oh yeah, I forgot I also have a fancy audio interface to connect my guitar and midi keyboard, and other special gadgets.  Also, an Occulus Quest 2.

You make a good point, that more people are probably on mid or low end systems now!  You really don't need a high end PC for SL, or even for AAA gaming, any more!  I think that idea happened in the late 90s/early 2000s, when people actually did have to upgrade their hardware to play the latest games (can it play crysis?  LOL).  Things have changed, but our attitudes didn't.  Intel, AMD, and nvidia marketing departments aren't really motivated to disabuse us of that misconception.

That last game that came out that made me go "I can't play that on my system" was Star Citizen, during it's kickstarter, more than a decade ago.  I've built two new computers since the Star Citizen kickstarter, and Star Citizen is still in beta, today.  Even on graphics intensive games, with fancy ray tracing that requires gagillions of CUDAs, you just drop the graphics quality a bit and you get 60fps.  AAA games still look great, and play great on mid or low end systems.  Especially since companies like LL offload so much rendering work to the cloud now, and are also getting better at multi-threading.

I think this video explains the situation best.  It's 3 years old, but the point is still valid.  You don't need a monster work station to play video games.

 

[Dorientje Woller]

1 hour ago, Jackson Redstar said:

1200-1500 build your own PC will be good for SL. SL is diminishing return too I recently rebuilt my system I did back in 2012 and went from a gtx1080 to a rtx 3070, Barely a difference in FPS performance But because I do alot of video was worth it for rendering. Point is you don't need to get to crazy to build a decent machine for SL

All depends on which viewer you are using.