New Computer: Input invited

C

ccowan2126

Member
I have been away since late 2018 after selling most everything I owned and living full-time in a Travel Trailer, I own a copy of TANE (from back in the Kick Starter campaign days) having moved back into an apartment and am contemplating a desk top purchase. I am on a fixed income and had previously bought an iBuyPower desktop in December of 2012 and was very satisfied with it after upgrading the power supply and graphics card. I am considering another one with the below specs from Amazon for around $1100. Any input would be welcome. You can see my old computer specs in my signature!

Also, how does TANE compare to whatever the latest version of Trainz is.

(Intel i7-10700F 2.9GHz, NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti 6GB, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 240GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Wi-Fi Ready, Windows 10 Home)


Thanks,

Connel
 
I'd take a look at the Dell G5 with NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6. It came up with 12% the price of $1,279.99 a few seconds ago. The only reason I suggest it is they have a reasonable reputation on the reliability and cooling side.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php gives you the comparison. Same assets in TANE TS19 with the same viewing distance should give you a few more frames per second in TS19. Having said that assets built for TS19 maybe more demanding.

Just be aware that a 1660 ti card from Newegg.com costs at least $900 so your amazon product might cut a few corners somewhere. I might continue with your existing GTX 660 for the next few months and hopefully the prices will come down.

Cheerio John
 
johnwhelan said:
I'd take a look at the Dell G5 with NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6. It came up with 12% the price of $1,279.99 a few seconds ago. The only reason I suggest it is they have a reasonable reputation on the reliability and cooling side.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php gives you the comparison. Same assets in TANE TS19 with the same viewing distance should give you a few more frames per second in TS19. Having said that assets built for TS19 maybe more demanding.

Just be aware that a 1660 ti card from Newegg.com costs at least $900 so your amazon product might cut a few corners somewhere. I might continue with your existing GTX 660 for the next few months and hopefully the prices will come down.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

But Dell will buy graphics cards in bulk OEM so they don't pay anywhere near $900. There's an opened but unused 1660 Ti listed on an auction website for £410.

Having said that, this review of the G5 isn't flattering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEdCpRTLQTE
 
lewisner said:
But Dell will buy graphics cards in bulk OEM so they don't pay anywhere near $900. There's an opened but unused 1660 Ti listed on an auction website for £410.

Having said that, this review of the G5 isn't flattering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEdCpRTLQTE
Click to expand...


I think my comment would be that the Amazon supplier would be paying close to that $900 mark. I agree with you about Dell buying in bulk. If you choose the right benchmark you can prove virtually anything. In this case he mentioned he'd gone for a top of the line model which to me implies lots of heat. Would a custom build for the same price be better on the cooling side? Unlikely, Dell traditionally were good on the cooling side.

I like to run Dell refurbished workstations and drop in a decent graphics card they run cool but you're talking of $1,000 for the machine and another $1,000 for the GPU which isn't quite what the OP had in mind money wise. TANE and TS19 push the GPU not the CPU so I'd expect the CPU would run cooler.

An architect once told me the costs on a custom build house were roughly 25% higher than a batch built by builder so don't expect to save money on a custom built house. I think these days you can say the same about computers.

Cheerio John
 
I have put together several different builds on PC Part Picker.com with various brands that I trust and come up somewhere in the neighborhood of the price for a built and tested system. I don't see the point in building one on my own and then have problems when I spent the same amount of money. Like I said above, the iBuyPower computer I bought in 2012 worked fine in the beginning. I upgraded the graphics card and power supply myself along with another cooling fan and got pretty good results running TANE with some high end third party assets. I sold that computer in December of 2018 when we went full-time RVing (no room for it in the camper). With more room in the apartment I need a system to run TANE/TRS2019, Flight Simulator and Farm Simulator. Looking to spend around $1200 for now, with possibility of upgrading some components down the road as needed.

Thanks for both of your inputs, fellas.
 
You may want to have a look at NZXT's building service. They have a flat $99 build fee, all their parts are quality, and there are a variety of options to fit most budget requirements. They have prebuilts as well although I don't know what availability is on those. The configurator is pretty straightforward and they've been getting generally good marks for build quality and customer service. https://www.letsbld.com/

Also, Linus Tech Tips did another secret shopper series a few months back and reviewed Dell, HP, iBuypower, Cyberpower and a couple of boutique builders. It was interesting, especially on the customer service end, or in some cases, lack thereof. You can find that on YouTube if you are so inclined.
 
johnwhelan said:
I think my comment would be that the Amazon supplier would be paying close to that $900 mark. I agree with you about Dell buying in bulk. If you choose the right benchmark you can prove virtually anything. In this case he mentioned he'd gone for a top of the line model which to me implies lots of heat. Would a custom build for the same price be better on the cooling side? Unlikely, Dell traditionally were good on the cooling side.

I like to run Dell refurbished workstations and drop in a decent graphics card they run cool but you're talking of $1,000 for the machine and another $1,000 for the GPU which isn't quite what the OP had in mind money wise. TANE and TS19 push the GPU not the CPU so I'd expect the CPU would run cooler.

An architect once told me the costs on a custom build house were roughly 25% higher than a batch built by builder so don't expect to save money on a custom built house. I think these days you can say the same about computers.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

I build my own computers and my current one is something of an antique since I built most of it six years ago and the most recent upgrades have been an Nvidia RTX 2070 GPU and two Samsung M2 SSD's. If I was looking to buy a computer and had cost in mind I would be buying a high quality used machine from a reputable seller with lots of good feedback. When I looked for the Dell G5 it showed on the Dell website as "not available".
 
lewisner said:
I build my own computers and my current one is something of an antique since I built most of it six years ago and the most recent upgrades have been an Nvidia RTX 2070 GPU and two Samsung M2 SSD's. If I was looking to buy a computer and had cost in mind I would be buying a high quality used machine from a reputable seller with lots of good feedback. When I looked for the Dell G5 it showed on the Dell website as "not available".
Click to expand...

Dell has different availability and prices for different countries. One problem in the US at the moment are the tariffs Trump brought in to protect the US industry. That hasn't helped the GPU prices. A used high quality machine from a reputable supplier they're quite rare and the GPU will need replacing at current costs on Newegg.com that's practically the price of a new machine. That would be my approach as well but a Dell workstation which has room for a decent GPU and a decent power supply is over a $1,000 and to be honest they have nothing suitable such as a Dell Precision 7910 Tower today. Some workstations and machines are better as far as room inside for a decent GPU and a decent power supply than others. You do need to do your research on them. If bitcoin falls out of favour we might see some movement on prices.

Cheerio John
 
I don't think tariffs have anything to do with the price increases. My former boss lives in Thailand and I had him look for prices on graphic cards last week. The prices he is seeing are just as high there as they are here. For example, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti that I bought here for $200 two years ago is selling there for $349 now. Same card, same maker. I would guess this is a case of demand outstripping supply.
 
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