Looking to buy or build a new PC and Valheim is the target--need helpful suggestions.

[jux2pose]

So, got my wife hooked on Valheim, and we love playing together, but one of us (guess who!) is now stuck on an old crappy laptop that gets like 10fps playing on rock-bottom settings.

We're willing to invest in a new PC to be able to enjoy the Valheim experience together. I don't need a monster PC, but I don't want to waste my money on a potato that lasts only for this game, either.

It's my understanding that the requirements and recommended settings for Valheim are pretty forgiving, so I was considering getting PC without a GPU FOR NOW and using integrated cpu graphics (intel core i5 being the minimum, I think?) until I get a real graphics card later. This strategy makes sense to me because of the currently-falling price of gpu's.

That said, I don't know much about requirements and I always need to refresh my memory on how to build my own pc every time I get the idea to do so.

Can anyone tell me if this is a sound strategy, and if not, make suggestions on what would do the trick for Valheim now but be upgradeable for the future?

Ideally we'd spend $500- $700 (monitor and peripherals not included).

Appreciate any help yall can give!

[Requimatic]

Don't make the mistake of getting an i5; I see people with them constantly having issues with performance in games ranging from Valheim to numerous others.

Spend a little extra and get an i7+ that can handle multi-threaded operations. Ideally, something 4 Core/8 Thread, 6 Core/12 Thread.. or better. The 8700/8700K is an outstanding CPU that would serve you well. I use an 8086K, which is essentially a cherry-picked 8700K, and have had zero issues with any game since its release. (Paired with a 1080 Ti)

I cannot stress enough to stay away from an i5 if you intend to game at all. Alternatively to Intel, there are always equivalent or better-for-the-price AMD CPUs which would be more than adequate for this game and others. (And also better than an i5)

As far as falling GPU prices are concerned, whenever you decide to buy one, be SURE you aren't getting a "refurbished" or "re-certified" GPU. Chances are it came from a Crypto miner that dumped their 4+ GPUs on to the market with the hilarious crash of Crypto.

Edit: do a little research, check out benchmarks (Passmark Software specifically has benchmarks of basically everything from low to ultra high end on their website), and make sure that whatever CPU you pick is paired with a good motherboard with a lot of supporting features. I also highly suggest an SSD of some kind, be it SATA or PCI-e nVME.

[electricdawn]

In opposition to the poster above I say that CPU does not matter as much. MUCH more important is a good GPU.

Internal GPUs do NOT cut it for Valheim!

Do yourself the favor and get a good dedicated GPU. Doesn't have to be anything superfancy, I would always go for something mid-range, so you should spend AT LEAST like 250 300 Euro/Dollars for a GPU, more like 400.

With CPU, a good mid range CPU, whether AMD or Intel is good as well. An i5 is fine, even an i3 is probably enough. Still, I would go for the i5.

I don't take part in the Intel/AMD wars (Apple M1 is better than both anyway). It doesn't matter which one you choose, as long as you're in a certain price range, you will get fairly similar results. Forget benchmarks, you will not notice any difference.

Don't skimp on the motherboard as well, again, good mid-range board is recommended. Don't go too cheap. 16GB RAM is minimum nowadays. M2 ports is needed as well for fast NVME SSDs. You'll need it for the inevitable dreaded world save stutter.

A good gold rated power supply is not that expensive, but is much more reliable than cheap stuff. I have a Corsair 600W PSU and had no problems so far. That's the minimum wattage I would go for.

Yes, all of that together will set you back about 900 Euro/Dollar. Trust me, you will want that.

You buy cheap, you buy twice.

Edit: Just saw that a RX 6500XT from AMD is available for about 180 Euros. For that price, even if it is the lowest of the low, you can probably get nothing better. Anything better will set you back at least twice the price.

Also, do NOT buy any of the GTX 1050 or GTX 1630 series. They're inferior to the 6500XT and cost sometimes even slightly more.

That said, my wife still uses her trusty GTX 1050Ti and has no problems playing the game. So, YMMV.

Edit2: I'm currently playing this on an UNDERclocked i5-6600K, with either a RX 6500XT or a GTX 1070Ti. Both the i5 and the 1070 need their thermal paste renewed, that's why I underclock the i5 and limit the power consumption and max FPS on the 1070.

Still works, FPS is nothing wild, but very playable for me. Graphics are fully cranked up, resolution is 2560x1440.

Edit3: The RX 6500XT can't play in the same league as the 1070Ti, even though the 1070 is like six years old and the 6500XT is still fairly new. So, for the 6500 resolution is set to either Full HD, or even 1600x900. With post processing sharpening enabled in the Adrenalin software by AMD the picture still looks crisp and the game is very playable, even at max settings.

["Fascinating!"]

My girlfriend's ex recently got a decent PC with a 5500XT inside for something like $600 at WalMart. He too was trying to game on an aging PC (from around 2007) and asked for some guidance.

These days. most PCs come with an adequate CPU to game on. I would aim for a 6 core if you can swing it. The internal GPUs will be better than that laptop experience, but not too much (in terms of Valheim). I havbe a fairly new 6 core laptop with a decent iGPU and it barely plays Valheim at 20 FPS. If you can find a deal on a PC with pretty much any dedicated GPU, you should be in good shape. This is assuming it's going to be played at something like 1920x1080 or 2560x1080. 1440p and up needs more GPU.

If I google "5500XT gaming PC", I get links that show some 6 core CPU PCs paired with RTX3060 and 5500XT for $650/ $700. Many in that price range only have 8gb of ram so I would upgrade that to at least 16gb (or buy 16gb) or look for systems with at least that much to begin with.

I would say anything with a relatively recent 6 core CPU, 16gb of ram and some kind of video card can be had for your budget and might even be good to go for some time.

[Sockwallet]

I agree the best option is a pre made gaming computer right now.Shop around and wait for a good deal. I built a gaming rig 6 months ago and it was 1500 $ Canadian because the 3070 was still in short supply. Get a dedicated GPU for sure , the 1650 is about the lowest I would go for GPU and get a good monitor.Cheap memory affects game performance, try to get 3200 Mhz 16 gig and you will be happy. Fast memory gives me about 15% more FPS. Valhiem desperately need optimisation and the devs need to up their game on unity engine, its not a total dog, No mans sky looks good ( gameplay another issue).Get advice from some geek friends, always the best route.

[electricdawn]

I think the GPU shortage really changed the way how you purchase a decent and fairly cheap computer... *head scratch*

[Ryzilynt]

I built a new pc about 2 weeks ago , went with a Ryzen 5 5600x , asus tuf gaming mobo , a nice case that came with 3 rgb fans and a tempered glass door, a 1tb m.2 nmve drive, 750 watt modular (gold) PSU, an rtx 3050. 16 gb vengeance pro rgb ram 3200. The board supports pcie 4 and has 2 m.2 slots.

Valheim screams at 60-100 fps with everything at max settings. So does pretty much everything else.

About $12-1300 in parts + a copy of win 11. (I didn’t want to go to 11, but all I had easily available. Haven’t had any problems)

[UncleAcidic]

I think you're gonna need a GPU. I'm not a hardware expert but I do know that this is a GPU heavy game, not a CPU heavy game. I get about 100-125fps out in the world and about 60fps in my larger bases. in my huge creative builds it can get down to like 40. Pretty good and i'm only running a Ryzen 5 1600 with a 1060 6gb. So you don't need to spend too much but you do need a dedicated GPU. the GPU shortage is over as hell so you should take advantage.

[Steely]

a 1060 6GB is all you need.

[electricdawn]

I have a 1070Ti and even that sometimes struggles to keep constant frame rates. So I would not say that a 1060 can play the game with everything maxed at even Full HD with constant FPS. Because even my 1070Ti can't.

On oceans and in open ranges, yes, but in areas where you've built a lot, FPS will dip into their 20's sometimes.

[Grimwald]

Start from your monitor and work back. If it's a 1920x1080 then your specs are not going to be expensive. However if it's a 3840x1600, or 3840x2160, it will cost a lot more.

[Marshal]

Originally posted by electricdawn:

I have a 1070Ti and even that sometimes struggles to keep constant frame rates. So I would not say that a 1060 can play the game with everything maxed at even Full HD with constant FPS. Because even my 1070Ti can't.

On oceans and in open ranges, yes, but in areas where you've built a lot, FPS will dip into their 20's sometimes.

What's your CPU and RAM?

[electricdawn]

RAM is good enough at 16GB, but yes, my CPU is a bit on the older side and currently underclocked till I get my new thermal paste. It's an i5-6600K, still not a slouch, but a few years on its back.

Wish that IG finally released a Mac version so I can dump this good ole' PC and go back to my Mac.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Got a 970 with 16 go ram and a 7 years old i7, and it's running fine on my rig. Actually my entire rig is 7 years old (got it custom built in 2015).

I just had to limit fps to 60 because even though my rig is waterrcooled, it was making my fan run wild without that setting.

I also get a small stutter when an automatic world save occurs.

[electricdawn]

I expect my computer to run it better once I've applied the new thermal paste and I can go back to clocking it normally. The 1070Ti is going to get new fans and thermal paste as well.

We'll see how it runs then. Should be in tomorrow! :D

[Marshal]

I would upgrade the CPU when possible. Single core performance has improved greatly since then. I went from a 4th gen i5 to a 10th gen i5 and noticed an increase in performance and now have no stutter issues.

Another thing to note is i5's now have hyper-threading included whereas in the past it was reserved for i7's and up. You can thank Ryzen for that.