Best computer for sfm ?

[hbombz117]

I don't know much about computers all this talk of cores and gpu and cards completely lose me but what would you suggest is a good desktop or laptop for sfm. I'm on a budget of 700 dollars.

[Aquatimo]

I literally just got a new PC today, my CPU is an I5 7th gend (not sure about the specifics) and a GTX 1050. SFM runs perfectly and I got this for £830 from a local computer store. Try looking into those, as you could probably spend less on the CPU. Hope this helps :)

[Marco Skoll]

Frankly if you buy any decent modern gaming computer with plenty of disk space, it should be fine for SFM. You'll get more bang for your buck if you buy a desktop.

However, for absolute best performance, you'd really be best bribing the most geeky acquaintance you have using beer and pizza, then asking them to help you build a desktop gaming computer that slightly prioritises single-core CPU performance over raw GPU power, and a big hard drive.

Buying pre-made computers is at such a markup that even after the cost of the bribe you'd still get a better computer if you get a friend to help.

(If you're prepared to use some second hand parts, then you can build some pretty spectacular computers on a fairly tight budget).

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by DigitalPortal:

you could probably spend less on the CPU. Hope this helps :)

SFM is very CPU dependent, so it's not the best place to scrimp.

I've seen even an i7 4790K struggle with more demanding scenes, and at the time, that was the best possible CPU for SFM (and it's still in the top 5) - and that's not even counting the fact that this particular example was overclocked to 4.8GHz.

[episoder]

a 2 core cpu with hyper threading does sfm just fine. the beefier the Ghz the better tho. modern games can use more then that tho. think about that. a 4 core / 8 threader may be cool. the graphics card can never be fast enough. figure out your budget. the best graphics is the 1080ti right now.

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by episoder:

figure out your budget. the best graphics is the 1080ti right now.

Which would eat up all of (if not more than) his $700 budget on its own. :P

On that kind of budget, you're more likely to be looking around the 1050 Ti / 1060 mark.

Which is by no means shabby - my main machine is a compact all-in-one build running a 1050 Ti (the gutsiest card available in a low profile version), and it's entirely capable of running modern games on high settings at 1080p.

[hbombz117]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

Frankly if you buy any decent modern gaming computer with plenty of disk space, it should be fine for SFM. You'll get more bang for your buck if you buy a desktop.

However, for absolute best performance, you'd really be best bribing the most geeky acquaintance you have using beer and pizza, then asking them to help you build a desktop gaming computer that slightly prioritises single-core CPU performance over raw GPU power, and a big hard drive.

Buying pre-made computers is at such a markup that even after the cost of the bribe you'd still get a better computer if you get a friend to help.

(If you're prepared to use some second hand parts, then you can build some pretty spectacular computers on a fairly tight budget).

Thank you I really appreciate your help. Lol I don't have any friends that tech savvy either so I might just have to buy one. What brand and model would you recommend ?

[hbombz117]

Originally posted by DigitalPortal:

I literally just got a new PC today, my CPU is an I5 7th gend (not sure about the specifics) and a GTX 1050. SFM runs perfectly and I got this for £830 from a local computer store. Try looking into those, as you could probably spend less on the CPU. Hope this helps :)

Much thanks man I really appreciate your help

[MrXBX]

Reminder that SFM is a 32bit system.

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by hbombz117:

What brand and model would you recommend?

Being British, I can't really comment on American brands and suppliers.

Actually, to be honest, I can't really comment on British brand and suppliers either* - I normally assemble my computers myself using a complete mix of cheap and/or second-hand parts.

* Other than that I wouldn't touch Zoostorm again in a hurry. Their warranty support sent me a laptop back with the same version of the 8600M GPU as Nvidia had withdrawn and issued a replacement for to fix the exact problem I'd had to send it back for in the first place.

(The insides of the G86-770-A2 version basically melted when they got hot. Hence why the G86-771-A2 version was made, and was supposed to replace it...)

Originally posted by MrXBX:

Reminder that SFM is a 32bit system.

It is a 32-bit program, but it's still best run on a 64-bit system.

64-bit systems allow 32-bit programs to use all of their available RAM limits, as it means the program and operating system don't have to compete for the same limited 32-bit RAM space.

[The Custy (ON GAMING HIATUS)]

To anyone who thinks the 1080ti is the best card, they are sadly mistaken. AMD jumpstarted on their 500 series.. Yeah.

[episoder]

Originally posted by The Custy (ON GAMING HIATUS):

To anyone who thinks the 1080ti is the best card, they are sadly mistaken. AMD jumpstarted on their 500 series.. Yeah.

are you kidding? the 500 series? i thought those are relabeled 400er. and... the 1080ti IS the fastest card. 12.x gflops. only beaten by it's own full spec enterprise version. i thought it had 16 or something like that. can't remember.

anyway... on budget you can look at amd cards. i dunno much about all the specs and wth these days. i can't recommend anything. i'd just look at the gflops and memory bandwidth.

[The Custy (ON GAMING HIATUS)]

Originally posted by episoder:

Originally posted by The Custy (ON GAMING HIATUS):

To anyone who thinks the 1080ti is the best card, they are sadly mistaken. AMD jumpstarted on their 500 series.. Yeah.

are you kidding? the 500 series? i thought those are relabeled 400er. and... the 1080ti IS the fastest card. 12.x gflops. only beaten by it's own full spec enterprise version. i thought it had 16 or something like that. can't remember.

anyway... on budget you can look at amd cards. i dunno much about all the specs and wth these days. i can't recommend anything. i'd just look at the gflops and memory bandwidth.

Lol. The 1080ti is another scam card. And im not some biased team red (amd) either. The 500 series is not a rebranded 400 series. Otherwise i would not have mentioned it. Also AMD tends to develope cards that destroy nvidia. And example:

AMD r9 furyx2

AMD r9 295x2

AMD r9 490x

[Marco Skoll]

Any question of what's the most uber1337haxxorz graphics card is entirely irrelevant to this discussion - whatever it is, it's going to be:

a) way out of hbombz117's price range.
b) far more powerful than is necessary to run SFM (which is more CPU dependent)
c) out of date in a few months, so not of any benefit to any future person who by chance should decide to trust a random internet argument on the SFM boards about which graphics card they should buy.

[The Custy (ON GAMING HIATUS)]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

Any question of what's the most uber1337haxxorz graphics card is entirely irrelevant to this discussion - whatever it is, it's going to be:

a) way out of hbombz117's price range.
b) far more powerful than is necessary to run SFM (which is more CPU dependent)
c) out of date in a few months, so not of any benefit to any future person who by chance should decide to trust a random internet argument on the SFM boards about which graphics card they should buy.

Fair 'nuff. But there are good GPU'S for the money that can run sfm. I'd go with an amd r9 390 or a gtx 970. Powerful but nicely priced. Albeit the 390 is more suited for rendering in GPU intensive programs than the 970 due to its 8gb GDDR5 vram, but when it comes to sfm, both should do equally as well.

[Ocean]

I'm probably late to this but anyways, would a windows 7 with a core 3 work well? just wondering