How much computer do we need?

[johnwhelan]

I got asked about what to buy so I ran some comparisons. The Intel B580 GPU has been having some exposure on Youtube. 12 gigs of memory and a 192 bit bandwidth, some of nVidia's recent cards have a 128 bit bandwidth, the 8 gig RTX 4000 has a 256 bit bandwidth so I wondered how it would perform.

For my sins I have four Dell refurbished 5820 workstations lying around, quad channel memory, three have 32 gigs of memory one has 128 gigs of memory. One 18 core has an 10 gig RTX 3080, an 8 core has an RTX 2070, a four core has an RTX 4000 and another 18 core has an RTX 4000.

I ran the 2023 Logan Beck session on all four machines, all the settings were high, draw distance 8000 meters. 30 fps, This is a UK layout nothing special. I substituted a recent EDH6 loco and carriages which `re PBR and the numbers didn't really change that much.

RTX 3080 1920 by 1080 31% of the GPU and 1.8 gigs of the GPU, the CPU is around 2 to 3 percent

RTX 2070 1920 by 1080 35% of the GPU and 1.8 gigs of the GPU, the CPU is around 6 to 12 percent

RTX 4000 18 core 39% GPU 2 gigs of the GPU, CPU 2 to 3 percent.

RTX 4000 4 core 39% GPU 2 gigs of the GPU, CPU 19 percent.

A lot depends on the content but Logan Beck seems fairly mainstream to me.

Any thoughts?

Thanks John

 

[pdkoester]

I dunno, seems like my GTX 1080 and 12400F combo with DDR5 6000 32GB and 980 Pro 1TB SSD seems good enough for my needs. I don't know if the generated fake frames is a thing with Trainz, like it is in other games. I do have the draw distance maximum setting. Some other settings are not maximum. But, it looks good enough. You see how it looks if you check what items I posted pictures of.

 

[lewisner]

It depends whether you want a computer "just sufficient" or what you would like. I'm 66 and a couple of months ago 3 friends in a similar age group died. The wife of the man next door died of cancer and now he's a hermit. You can't take it with you so it doesn't hurt to have something better than you need.

 

[johnwhelan]

It depends whether you want a computer "just sufficient" or what you would like. I'm 66 and a couple of months ago 3 friends in a similar age group died. The wife of the man next door died of cancer and now he's a hermit. You can't take it with you so it doesn't hurt to have something better than you need.

It's nice to see a youngster in the forums.

Cheerio John