improve present computer.
- Thread starter EJB
- Start date
johnwhelan
Well-known member
GTX 1050 ti 6,332 on the 3 d benchmark. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
RTX 3060 16,591 so there will be a notable difference. 10,000 is considered reasonable but I like the RTX 3060 personally.
Cheerio John
RTX 3060 16,591 so there will be a notable difference. 10,000 is considered reasonable but I like the RTX 3060 personally.
Cheerio John
Check this out:
UserBenchmarks: Game 194%, Desk 113%, Work 198%
CPU: Intel Core i7-11700K - 111.9%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070-Ti - 177.2%
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 457.6%
SSD: Samsung 870 EVO 1TB - 133.9%
SSD: Samsung 870 EVO 1TB - 133.2%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4 3200 C15 2x8GB - 84.4%
MBD: Asus PRIME Z590-A
Default settings, not overclocked!
Rob.
UserBenchmarks: Game 194%, Desk 113%, Work 198%
CPU: Intel Core i7-11700K - 111.9%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070-Ti - 177.2%
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 457.6%
SSD: Samsung 870 EVO 1TB - 133.9%
SSD: Samsung 870 EVO 1TB - 133.2%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4 3200 C15 2x8GB - 84.4%
MBD: Asus PRIME Z590-A
Default settings, not overclocked!
Rob.
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Am I missing something? How would you upgrade the current machine to this other than throw everything out and start over? Which benchmarks are you using?
Thanks John
Silly question! Buy some new components, indeed, throw your old gear out and buy new - a vast improvement methinks!
Benchmark: https://www.userbenchmark.com/
Rob.
The biggest difference I have noticed in my new rig is the change in the video card. From a GTX960Ti to an RTX3060Ti. Both rigs had/have 16GB RAM and an i7 CPU (but different generations). Trainz does not make any use (yet) of the ray tracing technology built into the RTX but the lack of stutter and the smoothness of builtin animations on demanding routes with the sliders set at or near maximum has been most noticeable.
I am also running two monitors, both at max resolution (Trainz Plus on one and Google Earth or Web based instructions on the other).
I am sure that the other technical differences between the two rigs have also played a part.
I am also running two monitors, both at max resolution (Trainz Plus on one and Google Earth or Web based instructions on the other).
I am sure that the other technical differences between the two rigs have also played a part.
Purely from the graphics card point of view the nvidia 3070Ti is a quantum leap from the my previous nvidia 1060 card, not to mention the upgrade from the intel i5 4670k to the i7 11700k! Both make Trainz run silky smooth, but, having said that, no matter how up to date the hardware is, unfortunately it doesn't fix the dreadful experience of the TRS2019 SP4 upgrade!
Rob.
Rob.
so reading these remarks i could probably get if i could find one a rtx and replace the cpu and motherboard later and have a peretty good rig? i went to best buy to get the rtx at $99. but some body bought all they had and is probably selling them on ebay. that's what the floor person said. i'm still looking. my gtx 1050 does alright but it is dated and i would like to upgrade the gpu at first. then the cpu maybe after Christmas and mobo also
thank you for your replies.
ejb
being on fixed income i kinda have to behave until after Christmas
thank you for your replies.
ejb
being on fixed income i kinda have to behave until after Christmas
Thing you need to check is that an older CPU doesn't bottleneck say an Nvidia RTX 3070.
This works for me
UserBenchmarks: Game 133%, Desk 94%, Work 138%
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X - 92.2%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080-Ti - 145.6%
SSD: PNY CS900 240GB - 81.3%
SSD: Crucial MX500 1TB - 117.6%
SSD: Crucial MX300 525GB - 100.5%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB (2018) - 110.1%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB - 113.1%
HDD: Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB (2013) - 93.1%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000 C15 2x8GB - 82.4%
MBD: Asus PRIME B350-PLUS
All that cost me was a new CPU, to replace the Ryzen 5 1600, which was cheap on a daily deal. ;o)
This works for me
UserBenchmarks: Game 133%, Desk 94%, Work 138%
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X - 92.2%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080-Ti - 145.6%
SSD: PNY CS900 240GB - 81.3%
SSD: Crucial MX500 1TB - 117.6%
SSD: Crucial MX300 525GB - 100.5%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB (2018) - 110.1%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB - 113.1%
HDD: Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB (2013) - 93.1%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000 C15 2x8GB - 82.4%
MBD: Asus PRIME B350-PLUS
All that cost me was a new CPU, to replace the Ryzen 5 1600, which was cheap on a daily deal. ;o)
johnwhelan
Well-known member
The video benchmark mentioned is one that N3V mentioned. TANE and TS19 are heavily dependant on the GPU. I don't see the relevance of userbenchmark.
I seem to recall JCitron doing some comparisons and the GPU temperature went up whilst the CPU temperature went down compared to TS12. In other words the GPU is far more important than the CPU. It does depend on the content you're running but normally an i5 won't bottleneck the performance and a score of 16,000 in sufficient to run most things well. Having said that if you let me pick the assets in Trainz I can bring any system to it's knees. Conversely Middleton for laptops run on integrated graphics with a benchmark score of just 332, just don't expect speedtrees to show up.
I think the cost of replacing the GPU will give an acceptable level of performance at a much lower cost than replacing the entire system.
That ASRock board appears to have an interesting M2 connector for SSD so that might be worth exploring in the future. Running from a fast SSD lets things load faster into the game.
When running Trainz I'd expect the SSD you've got the Trainz software on to make a difference, around 1% in frame per second, and possibly the operating system so why would you need a third SSD to run Trainz?
Your $1,200 RTX 3070 Ti benchmarks at 22,629 by the way, a $770 RTX 3060 ti 19,686 and the $700 RTX 3060 16,591. I'm running an RTX 2070 which scores 16,095 and trainz runs reasonable well on it so I think any of the RTX cards mentioned will be fine, the RTX 3060 ti does look interesting though. Pricing is Newegg.com in US dollars this evening by the way.
Cheerio John
yes i have two m2 on the asrock board. both are working just fine but i still have 2019 on a i tb ssd and assets on a 2 tb with backups on other ssds. i really would hate to start over with all the assets acquired since the beginning. now to keep hunting a 3060 or 3070 at a reasonable price. $100 is out of the question when best buy was listing them at $400.00. i put myself on a waiting list best buy but i am flexible for another source. strange when you find one for 5oo they are out of stock. on ebay there are plenty of the for $i000 or more. anyway thank you again
ejb
ejb
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Realistically stay with what you have. TS19 will run on lower end machines so select your content carefully. Avoid using more than four different speedtrees, cut the distance you're viewing at. Be ruthlessness about running assets with no LOD, if you must run one you can build an LOD yourself. If you can bring yourself to run UK stock take a look at my 17_5 items. They use repetition to reduce the load on the machine. Canal boats and barges are interesting, no moving wheels to add load to the machine, no track. Again mine are a basic hull which is repeated then the bits on top get added. Quite machine friendly. Look through the track you use. It can have a major impact on performance. I'm not sure what Middleton for laptops uses but it was the lowest impact track we could find.
Each asset has an associated overhead with it. Take a look at aus house under my user name. If they work for you they are designed to give two houses for the overhead of one and the two houses are split so it isn't so obvious they are repeated.
Cheerio John
Improving PC performance ..... there are two main strategies:
1) Upgrade components, one by one, as they fail or no longer meet a performance need for their particular function.
2) Run a PC until it has too many failing components to replace economically then replace the whole machine.
You can apply this to many modern consumer not-so-durables, from cars to washing machines.
Which is "the best" strategy? It depends ......
Personally I prefer to use things that are not just reliable but reliable long term. This means that such things tend to be expensive to start with ..... but often have a lower cost-per-year over their lifespan. It helps if these things are also repairable. A lot of the cheaper modern fangles are not. They come as black boxes with no spare parts catalogue. (Even some highly expensive items are like this - consider the black boxes that are Apple computers).
But if one is an olde gimmer likely to pop-orf in the next 3 - 5 years, expensive long-lasting things may not be the best personal choice. On the other hand, if you're going to leave your super computer to an eager grandson ........ Then again, we may all be dead of weather in 5 years time.
**********
The last computer I had went to my grandson after I used it for 9 years and only ever had to replace the GPU (which early TANE stressed so much it died of heat). It's still going now and is likely to for a few years yet albeit not running TS19 in ultra mode. If I'd bought one at half the price it wouldn't have performed so well even when new; and would likely have cost a sizeable sum to upgrade to the standard of that 9 year-old.
Seeing the supply problems earlier this year and guessing they would only get worse (along with the prices) I spent a silly amount of money on a new computer last April. It's basically the highest spec I could find that was actually available. It goes wizz (but not bang) and I expect it to last at least a decade without upgrade. An alternative would have been to upgrade the old one, part by part. Just getting the GPU I have now to put in the old machine would have cost nearly half the price of the whole new machine! And those prices are worserer now!
*****
So here's another feature of modern PC buying: buying a whole new computer is often a fraction of the cost of buying the same parts individually - and the nice PC seller puts it all together for you then gives you a good guarantee on a properly set up machine.
Lataxe, not allowed to buy anything else until 2057 now.
1) Upgrade components, one by one, as they fail or no longer meet a performance need for their particular function.
2) Run a PC until it has too many failing components to replace economically then replace the whole machine.
You can apply this to many modern consumer not-so-durables, from cars to washing machines.
Which is "the best" strategy? It depends ......
Personally I prefer to use things that are not just reliable but reliable long term. This means that such things tend to be expensive to start with ..... but often have a lower cost-per-year over their lifespan. It helps if these things are also repairable. A lot of the cheaper modern fangles are not. They come as black boxes with no spare parts catalogue. (Even some highly expensive items are like this - consider the black boxes that are Apple computers).
But if one is an olde gimmer likely to pop-orf in the next 3 - 5 years, expensive long-lasting things may not be the best personal choice. On the other hand, if you're going to leave your super computer to an eager grandson ........ Then again, we may all be dead of weather in 5 years time.
**********
The last computer I had went to my grandson after I used it for 9 years and only ever had to replace the GPU (which early TANE stressed so much it died of heat). It's still going now and is likely to for a few years yet albeit not running TS19 in ultra mode. If I'd bought one at half the price it wouldn't have performed so well even when new; and would likely have cost a sizeable sum to upgrade to the standard of that 9 year-old.
Seeing the supply problems earlier this year and guessing they would only get worse (along with the prices) I spent a silly amount of money on a new computer last April. It's basically the highest spec I could find that was actually available. It goes wizz (but not bang) and I expect it to last at least a decade without upgrade. An alternative would have been to upgrade the old one, part by part. Just getting the GPU I have now to put in the old machine would have cost nearly half the price of the whole new machine! And those prices are worserer now!
*****
So here's another feature of modern PC buying: buying a whole new computer is often a fraction of the cost of buying the same parts individually - and the nice PC seller puts it all together for you then gives you a good guarantee on a properly set up machine.
Lataxe, not allowed to buy anything else until 2057 now.
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@EJB,
Taking your budget into consideration, I would dismiss suggestions and thoughts of splashing out on RTX3000 series for now, much less any notion of a completely new rig.
Of course a whole new gaming PC would be nice, but so would a new Rolls Royce.
If all the other components in your opening post are functioning well, may I suggest a "New Old Stock" RTX2060/70 or even a used GTX1070/80.
Both will fit your budget much better and also match your i5-7500 very well in terms of minimal bottlenecking.
10 series cards are all out of manufacturer's warranty by now, but try to look for a non-miner card and negotiate for a shorter personal warranty and test it well once it arrives. There's a high chance you'll find a great deal this way. I bought a GTX1070 for $100 three years ago - and this was an ex-mining card - with a bit of TLC it's still running strong today.
I also recently bought another used non-miner EVGA 1080Ti for $250 for a friend's i5-9400 build, with very little bottleneck between CPU and GPU. For the budget-conscious, paying the ridiculous scalper markup for raytracing and a bit more power just isn't a sensible option for now, especially since the rest of your configuration won't allow the RTX card to perform at its full potential.
Taking your budget into consideration, I would dismiss suggestions and thoughts of splashing out on RTX3000 series for now, much less any notion of a completely new rig.
Of course a whole new gaming PC would be nice, but so would a new Rolls Royce.
If all the other components in your opening post are functioning well, may I suggest a "New Old Stock" RTX2060/70 or even a used GTX1070/80.
Both will fit your budget much better and also match your i5-7500 very well in terms of minimal bottlenecking.
10 series cards are all out of manufacturer's warranty by now, but try to look for a non-miner card and negotiate for a shorter personal warranty and test it well once it arrives. There's a high chance you'll find a great deal this way. I bought a GTX1070 for $100 three years ago - and this was an ex-mining card - with a bit of TLC it's still running strong today.
I also recently bought another used non-miner EVGA 1080Ti for $250 for a friend's i5-9400 build, with very little bottleneck between CPU and GPU. For the budget-conscious, paying the ridiculous scalper markup for raytracing and a bit more power just isn't a sensible option for now, especially since the rest of your configuration won't allow the RTX card to perform at its full potential.
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johnwhelan
Well-known member
Improving PC performance ..... there are two main strategies:
1) Upgrade components, one by one, as they fail or no longer meet a performance need for their particular function.
2) Run a PC until it has too many failing components to replace economically then replace the whole machine.
You can apply this to many modern consumer not-so-durables, from cars to washing machines.
Which is "the best" strategy? It depends ......
Personally I prefer to use things that are not just reliable but reliable long term. This means that such things tend to be expensive to start with ..... but often have a lower cost-per-year over their lifespan. It helps if these things are also repairable. A lot of the cheaper modern fangles are not. They come as black boxes with no spare parts catalogue. (Even some highly expensive items are like this - consider the black boxes that are Apple computers).
But if one is an olde gimmer likely to pop-orf in the next 3 - 5 years, expensive long-lasting things may not be the best personal choice. On the other hand, if you're going to leave your super computer to an eager grandson ........ Then again, we may all be dead of weather in 5 years time.
**********
The last computer I had went to my grandson after I used it for 9 years and only ever had to replace the GPU (which early TANE stressed so much it died of heat). It's still going now and is likely to for a few years yet albeit not running TS19 in ultra mode. If I'd bought one at half the price it wouldn't have performed so well even when new; and would likely have cost a sizeable sum to upgrade to the standard of that 9 year-old.
Seeing the supply problems earlier this year and guessing they would only get worse (along with the prices) I spent a silly amount of money on a new computer last April. It's basically the highest spec I could find that was actually available. It goes wizz (but not bang) and I expect it to last at least a decade without upgrade. An alternative would have been to upgrade the old one, part by part. Just getting the GPU I have now to put in the old machine would have cost nearly half the price of the whole new machine! And those prices are worserer now!
*****
So here's another feature of modern PC buying: buying a whole new computer is often a fraction of the cost of buying the same parts individually - and the nice PC seller puts it all together for you then gives you a good guarantee on a properly set up machine.
Lataxe, not allowed to buy anything else until 2057 now.
PCs are a bit more modular than a washing machine or even a car. Basically you have a motherboard and you can plug things into it.
I have a laptop than ran Win 10 perfectly until Microsoft started with its upgrades. The choice was either more memory or a new laptop to run anything. The memory was a $50 upgrade and it's been running quite happily for some years now. I understand Microsoft and Intel would like everyone to purchase new computers for win 11. Realistically my funds tend to trickle in and it is easier on my wallet to do a few upgrades over time than shell out for a new machine.
On the GPUs often the latest GPUs use less power and have better performance so it makes sense to extend the life of a computer to switch one in. The old CPU. memory and disks are probably perfectly adequate to continue to use. If you don't have a grandson to pass them on to you add to the e-waste pollution problem. GPUs are expensive and in normal times I'd spend roughly half my budget on the GPU. These days GPU prices are insane and it makes sense to hold off until they come back down to earth.
Cheerio John
Although they're primarily sellers of PCs and therefore anxious to persuade us to buy one, this article from Chillblast makes some sense:
https://www.chillblast.com/learn/how-to-get-an-nvidia-rtx-3000-series-gpu-in-2021/
It argues that in a world where PC components are both hard to find and often stupidly expensive (law of supply & demand etc.) it makes more sense than "usual" to buy a whole new PC if what you have is in some way inadequate for your needs. Especially if it's the GPU that's the problem.
Of course, an upgrade of just one component such as the power supply or the memory/storage might be sufficient to one's computing needs as well as working better with the other extant components in the case But the situation often arises that a new component of increased capability (say to run Trainz at a better frame rate and without stuttering) can't work to it's full ability because of a bottleneck in the end-to-end system, down to another aging component of not-so-good performance. So you have to replace that too. Then you discover the power supply isn't good enough; or your swishy new GPU is throttled by the motherboard's slow comms........
If computers were like washing machines (no real change in performance levels, just components wearing out) then PC component replacement would always make much more sense than buying a whole new machine. Unfortunately, PC components become not just "worn out" but also inadequate for the higher demands of the latest software being run on them.
Lataxe
https://www.chillblast.com/learn/how-to-get-an-nvidia-rtx-3000-series-gpu-in-2021/
It argues that in a world where PC components are both hard to find and often stupidly expensive (law of supply & demand etc.) it makes more sense than "usual" to buy a whole new PC if what you have is in some way inadequate for your needs. Especially if it's the GPU that's the problem.
Of course, an upgrade of just one component such as the power supply or the memory/storage might be sufficient to one's computing needs as well as working better with the other extant components in the case But the situation often arises that a new component of increased capability (say to run Trainz at a better frame rate and without stuttering) can't work to it's full ability because of a bottleneck in the end-to-end system, down to another aging component of not-so-good performance. So you have to replace that too. Then you discover the power supply isn't good enough; or your swishy new GPU is throttled by the motherboard's slow comms........
If computers were like washing machines (no real change in performance levels, just components wearing out) then PC component replacement would always make much more sense than buying a whole new machine. Unfortunately, PC components become not just "worn out" but also inadequate for the higher demands of the latest software being run on them.
Lataxe
Agreed.
I often did component replacement upgrades to keep an older system "going" in my younger (and more cash-strapped) years but this never involved the more difficult or risky upgrades such as new motherboards or CPUs. Swapping video and RAM cards, adding Ethernet cards (when you needed a separate card for networking), etc was the limit of my expertise. But that has limitations, as you pointed out, such as "bottlenecks" and inadequate performance for the increasing demands of software and user expectations. Purchasing a brand new system was a rarer event than today.
My last 4 or so system upgrades have been completely new PCs, spaced about 4 years apart. Each upgrade was obviously more expensive than simple component upgrades but each one involved upgrades to the motherboard, CPU, GPU, HDD, and other system components all at once - plus the peace of mind from the manufacturers warranty and access to their regular free driver, BIOS and other system and firmware updates. So I have been able to mostly keep pace with the latest system developments without the hassle and risks of performing DIY surgery on my expensive systems.
In my current new system (now a few months old), Trainz Plus "flies" like no other version has before.
But each to their own.
There is the ever more pressing matter of creating landfill, profligate using-up of resources, planet-rape to get them and all the rest. Consumer goods such as PCs and similar are a serious offender against our global and growing need to stop mad over-consumption. But how to square one's wants for a faster and more capable machine with a desire not to waste good but older/inadequate (to us) resources?
One approach is to give up the wanting for them. Or don't give in to the pressure to buy "needful things". Personally I don't have any kind of mobile phone or a host of other modern gubbins that most seem to "need".
Another approach is to put as many wants as possible into a single want-provider machine. A PC is good at this since it's basically a universal machine. In our house there is no separate television, tele signal processing box, hi-fi stuff etc.. The fancy PC does it all. And there's only one - no laptop etc..
Another anti-wasteful approach is to buy things of high quality and over-spec that might be far more than you "need" today but will continue to be good for increasing demands going many years into the future. Instead of "good enough (today)" you buy "far more than I need (today)". My last PC went for over 9 years with no "upgrade" except a new GPU (when the old one died of Trainz heat) and a couple of cheap SSD additions to host Trainz stuff as the database grew. In truth I could have used this PC for another year or two but the grandson had heard me promise he'd get it when I got another. Gawd, those rascals can whine & wheedle one into compliance to their wishes!
Adding the tactic of finding a home for the still-useful old thing rather than putting it in the landfill is another anti-wastefulness tactic. It amazes me that people will send perfectly good things to the tip when there are organisations like Freecycle that will find a new home for them. Most surprising of all is the "reason" some landfillers give for not finding a new home for their no-longer-wanted things: "It's worth £nn so I'd rather bin it than give it away as someone will get something for nothing". Astonishing attitude!
*********
I have to make the new PC last at least 15 years now. But will I last that long? Will any of us!?
Perhaps if we all stop over-consuming (some chance!) I'll have a surviving great grandson that will like an old PC to fiddle with?Lataxe
I opted to upgrade the CPU in one rig from a Ryzen 5 1600, unsupported, to a Ryzen 7 3800X, 20% off from Scan on a daily deal, swapped the GTX980TI that was in it for the 1080TI in my i7 6700K rig runs TRS19 better than on the i7 both on 10 and even better on 11. Ignoring Raytracing I'd need a RTX3070Ti to gain any meaningful improvement over the 1080Ti and there are not many around other than at silly prices.
Just had an email from Scan, the 12 Generation Intels are now out.
Just had an email from Scan, the 12 Generation Intels are now out.
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