AMD Based Machine

S

Sjcampbell

New member
The Minister of War and Finance has given the nod to a gaming machine. :)

Currently I use Bootcamp on a 2020 iMac but the graphics performance is wanting. I struggle to keep it above 20 FPS even with the new and excellent Metal support. So here are the specs of a mid range box. As I come from a Mac background and it’s probably been 30 years since I’ve built a PC your comments would be appreciated.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU cooled by the Deepcool Gammaxx GT cooler
MSI B450M Tomahawk Max II Motherboard
PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT Hellhound 12GB graphics card
16GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3600MHz memory
500GB Samsung 970 EVO NVMe SSD,
2TB Seagate Barracude hard drive
Phanteks Eclipse P400A Airflow Plus D-RGB Tempered Glass Black Case
Windows 10.

This is prebuilt and tested system but some mods are allowed.

Cheers
Steve

 
The important thing is the GPU. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php normally a score of 10,000 is reasonable for TANE / TS19, and your choice is certainly up there. Personally I run an 8 gig RTX 2070 card that seems to run quite well. I'm not sure what the real world performance increase of going from 8 gigs to 12 gigs would be.

500 mb SSD I might prefer a terabyte.

Just to check the price performance I might take a look at the Dell G5 gaming desktops and see what they offer for the same dollar value. Check the GPU 3 D score. I'm not certain that a brand name cooler really adds that much to the performance. The CPU to some extent irrelevant provided it can feed the GPU. N3V I suspect run nVidia GPUs for development so at a given price point I would expect an nVidia card to run their software more smoothly.

Cheerio John
 
The system you listed there is a beast, to be frank with you. I'm jealous. That should easily run TRS19 at max settings.

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For a CPU, an AMD Ryzen 5 or Intel i5 would be the minimum, but the Ryzen 7X is definitely a great choice.

I can vouch for an NVMe SSD. I just replaced my SATA SSD with a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus and the difference is amazing, even from one SSD to another. Of course, my Trainz content directory alone is over 500 GB so it will have to stay on the secondary HDD.

My secondary HDD is a 4TB WD Blue. It works, but it's only a 5400 RPM drive so it isn't the fastest. That's where my Trainz content is stored and any games I don't play often enough to take up space on the SSD. I didn't do my research there - I saw it on sale for US$50 and thought "hey, why not". It may get swapped for a faster one at a later date.

So right now, the GPU's gonna be the hard part and might actually make a prebuilt worth it. Thanks to parts shortages, scalpers, and crypto miners, it's very hard to find a good GPU on store shelves right now. Expect to pay well over - maybe even double - MSRP online. I'm still plugging along with an 8GB PNY GTX 1070 XLR8 I bought a few years ago for about US$400 and it still runs TRS19 great at high-to-ultra settings with only a few minor hiccups. A GTX 1070 or 1080 would work great, a 20- or 30- series would be even better if you can find one. Here in the US you have people camping outside Microcenter the nights before they get their trucks to be first in line to get all the GPUs. I haven't had the best of luck with AMD GPU's. I felt really let down by an RX 480 that struggled to run T:ANE at high settings, and if I recall it was rather similarly priced to the 1070. I hear the new RX 6000 series are screamers though, so maybe I just need to get with the times.

If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to help.
Matt
 
epa said:
The system you listed there is a beast, to be frank with you. I'm jealous. That should easily run TRS19 at max settings.

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My secondary HDD is a 4TB WD Blue. It works, but it's only a 5400 RPM drive so it isn't the fastest. That's where my Trainz content is stored and any games I don't play often enough to take up space on the SSD. I didn't do my research there - I saw it on sale for US$50 and thought "hey, why not". It may get swapped for a faster one at a later date.

If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to help.
Matt
Click to expand...

Whenever you go with a Platter Drive instead of SSD, try and get 7200 RPM, they are not always available, but when they are, I try to use them.......I have used 5400 for decades, and never liked that speed........:(

I should qualify one other thing here, too, I would always use a Platter for secondary and or backup, only for the fact, that you can burn out SSD sectors because they are not quite designed for as many re writes like a Platter Drive is......:wave:
 
Ok. Ready to pull the pin :D

i took the wise advice and upgraded the NVMe SSD to 1TB. I might put a SATA SSD in at a later date but we also have a synology NAS that is the backup server for our Macs and will also be for this unit so a SATA SSD is not urgent. After my wife and I being professional photographers, we know that backup is critical.

Cheers
Steve
 
I agree with 'epa' yes it is quite a beast and most desirable but a question (and I don't know the answer). Would a slightly lower spec CPU and with the monies saved, a higher spec GPU, provide a better Trainz experience? Enjoy, Peter
 
wilts747 said:
I agree with 'epa' yes it is quite a beast and most desirable but a question (and I don't know the answer). Would a slightly lower spec CPU and with the monies saved, a higher spec GPU, provide a better Trainz experience? Enjoy, Peter
Click to expand...


Which is why I suggested comparing it to the Dell G5 at the same price point and I might go nVidia on the GPU.

Cheerio John
 
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