New Desktop question

[ccowan2126]

I finally sold the last of my N-scale layout that I recently disassembled :'( . I have around $600.00 so far to put towards a new desktop with room for future upgrades. I am considering an AMD FX 4100 @ 3.6ghz CPU with 8GB of DDR3. I am looking for all opinions regarding the following video cards: AMD Radeon HD 6450; AMD Radeon HD 6670 or an Nvidia GT 520 all with 1GB of video ram. These are all very inexpensive cards to start (anything is better than my Dell 1545 laptop) with future upgrades as warranted over the next few years. I am also considering staying with TS2010 instead of moving up to TS2012. Any and all opinions are welcome.
Probably will wait until just before Christmas to see what shakes out in the retail market.
Thanks.

 

[RoysTrainz]

I finally sold the last of my N-scale layout that I recently disassembled :'( . I have around $600.00 so far to put towards a new desktop with room for future upgrades. I am considering an AMD FX 4100 @ 3.6ghz CPU with 8GB of DDR3. I am looking for all opinions regarding the following video cards: AMD Radeon HD 6450; AMD Radeon HD 6670 or an Nvidia GT 520 all with 1GB of video ram. These are all very inexpensive cards to start (anything is better than my Dell 1545 laptop) with future upgrades as warranted over the next few years. I am also considering staying with TS2010 instead of moving up to TS2012. Any and all opinions are welcome.
Probably will wait until just before Christmas to see what shakes out in the retail market.
Thanks.

Hey fellow Tenneseean,
You forgot the most important item for a new desktop which is an SSD to run TS12 only DO NOT STAY with 2010 complete waist of time ( no I not work for them just my personal opinion and experience!)
Today i posted again my specs of my 3 year old dekstop I use for development and heavy testing so its not what you look for but try to get close enough on graphics board GTX 580 preferable and SSD intel I use. I wanted to upgrade more SSD but in Thailand at the moment hard to get and yes year end could bring some nice surprises on the market for sure. Check out my thread for more info on the spec and why
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...Rocky-Mountains-2011/page43&highlight=joosten

good luck with it and don't run into it to fast wait if possible for year end or close to it just a few month to spare maybe a lot of savings and some change to buy and run my route

Roy

 

[RRSignal]

I finally sold the last of my N-scale layout that I recently disassembled :'( . I have around $600.00 so far to put towards a new desktop with room for future upgrades. I am considering an AMD FX 4100 @ 3.6ghz CPU with 8GB of DDR3. I am looking for all opinions regarding the following video cards: AMD Radeon HD 6450; AMD Radeon HD 6670 or an Nvidia GT 520 all with 1GB of video ram. These are all very inexpensive cards to start (anything is better than my Dell 1545 laptop) with future upgrades as warranted over the next few years. I am also considering staying with TS2010 instead of moving up to TS2012. Any and all opinions are welcome.
Probably will wait until just before Christmas to see what shakes out in the retail market.
Thanks.

The GT520 and 6450 are very low-end cards. The 6670 is ok. It'd save up a few more bucks and get a nVidia 550 Ti.

 

[cascaderailroad]

Probably one of the best indicators of a desktop quality, is if it has greater than a cheepo 300 Watt Lite-On power supply ... as with a higher wattage PS, the choice of many high end video cards are usable ... I only had a choice of 3 video cards because of my low end power supply.

Many people have taken an old XP PC and popped in a $80 super high wattage PS, a $150 video card, and added some more RAM (@ 5GB) ... and wa lah ... super computer.

You only need @ 3Gb-4Gb RAM for Trainz

A 500Gb Hard Drive is all you really need ... but you can go higher

The CPU speed of greater than 2.7Ghz is recommended.

I belive that Intel is better than AMD

 

[N33]

This may help

I believe that Intel is better than AMD

It all depends upon what you use your computer for. For high end gaming such as Battlefield 3 and Crisis 2 then yes Intel is the way to go if you have those games and Trainz. For the average user of Trainz who doesn't use high end games, requires raw cpu power and needs a cpu with a lot of cores for multi-core programs (such as Pro tools), AMD is a cheaper alternative.

If you do for AMD @ccowan2126, I would wait and get the Pile-driver when it comes out. Up to 35% performance increase over the bulldozer. This may well be a tad expensive when it comes out, but will be worth it for the performance increase.

On SSD's, the general consensus is that Trainz runs quicker on them. I will agree there, but if you are like me and do a lot extra besides Trainz such as: 3d modeling, programming and Audio editing and video editing, there currently is no SSD big enough for me . Looks like I'm sticking with my 4tb Hitachi drive.

If you do for SATA hard drive, make sure it is at least a 7200rpm drive. This gives you faster access times at a cheaper price than an SSD. SSD's are still quicker but are more expensive for less memory space.

Ram is recommended at 3GB for 32bit system's and 4GB or more on 64bit system's.

Graphics cards can be an issue. Radeon cards are cheaper and deliver slightly lower performance than an Nvidia card but are still seriously good for their price. Nvidia is the way to go if you use Cuda accelerated programs, their cards just tend to be a tad more expensive than AMD and draw more power.

It all depends upon how much you are willing to spend, what you do aside from Trainz and whether you require serious computing power. I recently budgeted my next year upgrade, it was £1500 . Of course, that may not really happen but it wasn't cheap.

Many people have taken an old XP PC and popped in a $80 super high wattage PS, a $150 video card, and added some more RAM (@ 5GB) ... and wa lah ... super computer.

That's not a bad idea actually, I sadly cannot do that do to the software I run requiring 64 bit architecture.

Regards

Johan

 

[ccowan2126]

Thanks, fellas. Good info.

 

[malikrthr]

That's funny. I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 also. Plan on building an AMD gaming PC to run trainz 2010 on flawlessly. For three years, I have ran trainz 2006, classics 1 and 2 and trainz 2009 on the Inspiron 1545. Has done good with trainz even though it has an IGP.

 

[malikrthr]

You almost forgot another thing. What about partitioning the C drive. Once that is done, the main drive would be divided so one portion could be for trainz and the other could be for the operating system and everything else. I heard that for trainz, there is a performance increase or fps increase if you partition the hard drive.

 

[Robert2d6]

The GT520 and 6450 are very low-end cards. The 6670 is ok. It'd save up a few more bucks and get a nVidia 550 Ti.

I have a Nividia GTX 550 TI ( about $130) and I get frame rates in in the 50's and 60's. Great card.

 

[bunkerrattmk2]

for the price if you go with a AMD cpu get the 4170 i really like it for a cpu ,stock 4.2 out of the box and a little overhead for more overclocking .

AMD fx4170 cpu quad core unlocked /zalman cnps9700 cpu cooler
ASUS m5a97 motherboard
8 GB crucial ballistix tactical tracer ddr3 1600
HIS radeon 6790 iceq x turbo
WD veliciraptor 10.000 rpm 74 gb trainz only
nzxt 2m sleeved led kit blue
creative x fi extreme gamer sound card
ultra lsp 750 watt psu
asus dvdr rw
2 x 100 gb maxtor sata 7200 rpm hdd's windows 7 64 bit\raid 0
thermaltake full amour all steel case/250mm side intake/2 120 mm front intake /1 120mm rear exhaust/1 90mm rear/1 90mm top exhaust fan's
razer death adder usb mouse
saitek eclipse keyboard
logitech 5.1 speakers
acer x213h 22inch wide lcd
1 wd 2tb external storage drive usb3.0

 

[N33]

Give it a few months

for the price if you go with a AMD cpu get the 4170 i really like it for a cpu ,stock 4.2 out of the box and a little overhead for more overclocking.

I would wait and get the Piledriver aka FX 8350.

If however you can't wait then get that processor. It's really good for Trainz and I've heard an awful lot of positive things about that processor.

Regards

Johan

 

[N33]

@Robert2d6

I've heard some amazing things about that card. Apparently the MSI version is the best go for, something to do with afterburner software and stuff.

I personally use a GTS 450, It'd be great if my Processor and ram were better :/

Regards

Johan