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[MR_G]

It's hard to make the right choice when you are completely ignorant on the subject. I'm leaning in the direction of just getting a Dell, with an i7-6700 processor. I can go two directions. One  model has 16GB, 2133MHz, DDR4 and uses a NVIDA GeForce GTX 750Ti w/ 2GB GDDR5 card, and the other model has 16GB Dual Channel 1600MHz DDR3L and uses an AMD Radeon R9 360 w/ 2GB GDDR5 card.
The ideal situation would build my own computer (or have one custom built), but without the knowledge, I'd probably muck it up.
My old computer runs with integrated 256MB video, and seems to run passible with the VP Mod, but runs pretty slow with the CUP Mod.

[Paulo Hirth]

   
   
  I recomend this site, worth read all before start your computer:

http://www.tomshardware.com/t/build-your-own/

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hard-drives,3.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/t/memory/

http://www.tomshardware.com/t/power-supplies/

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2015/-18-3DMark,3709.html

[Captain Dawson]

Hello Mr. G.

I just went through this a few months ago, and I started numerous threads discussing optimal computers. It would do you good to look at these. Pay attention specifically to Storebror's replies.

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,52515.0.html

The second one is about laptops, but most of the responses are applicable to computers in general.

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,51297.0.html


There are several other threads, but I haven't time to find them now.
Ultimately, I ended up with this Cybertron Palladium PC, based on the tips everyone gave me. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=1VK-01JD-000E5
At the current sale price, $959, it is the best value "high quality" computer I have ever found. (Ignore the "sale ends" pitch. I've watched it for months, and it will always go back on sale.) I'm using it now and it is truly an outstanding machine. On the Newegg site link I listed, you can even customize the computer. (And the price!) If your budget is below $1000, I would go for this one.

The best advice I can give you is, don't fall for the gimmick computers, and as Paulo said, you should always reasearch about this stuff before you buy.

[MR_G]

Thanks....This is what confuses me. The newegg computer uses an i5 3.3Ghz, with 8GB DDR4, while the Dell has an i7 4.0Ghz with 16GB DDR4. The newegg has a better card, with a GTX1060 6GB GDDR5, while the Dell has a GTX750Ti with 2BG GDDR5........It's about the same price as the Dell, but will the better card make up for the other differences???

[Captain Dawson]

Thanks....This is what confuses me. The newegg computer uses an i5 3.3Ghz, with 8GB DDR4, while the Dell has an i7 4.0Ghz with 16GB DDR4. The newegg has a better card, with a GTX1060 6GB GDDR5, while the Dell has a GTX750Ti with 2BG GDDR5........It's about the same price as the Dell, but will the better card make up for the other differences???

Actually, if you could post a link of what you're looking at, it could give us a better idea of what to compare. 

Try using this site for various comparisons. Click the "Compare" tab to try a different combination. This site shows comparisons of multiple aspects of the GPU:

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-750-Ti-vs-GeForce-GTX-1060

As you can see, the 1060 is quite higher score on all aspects. Remember also the 750 video memory is only 2GB while 1060 has 6GB.

Did you see this yet?

If however you want to see smooth gameplay and not just perfect mode, but maxed out settings all around, then you need something with more than 10.000 3D Mark 06 points, that's for instance a GPU like the following:
From the 600 family a GTX660M or better (the tenths digit counts, the higher the better)
From the 700 family a GT750M or better
From the 800 family a GTX850M or better
From the 900 family a GTX950M or better (maybe a GTX940M will do, but not sure).

Best regards - Mike

The first digits show the series, (or oldness  ) and the second 2 digits show how "powerful" the card is so to speak. The 700 series cards are pretty outdated now. While that doesn't mean they're horrible, it means they may not be as great as newer ones. 1000 series is the newest to date, and offers the optimization of their technology I would assume. In benchmark tests obviously 1000 series performs better. Put simply, there is a wide gap between GTX 750ti and GTX 1060.

[western0221]

GeForce 750 was 2 generations old from the newest 1050/1060-1080 one.
Why Dell continues to sell such vintage card  ?


I think today's good cost performance is GeForce 1060 or 1050 (Ti).
If you can pay a bit more .... 1060 is recommended.
If not able to pay so much .... 1050 Ti or 1050.
GeForce 1050 is the lowest video chip in nVIDIA line-up, but having almost the same performance to 960 with lower power consumption. In comparing 700 generation .... maybe near to 770.

[Captain Dawson]

GeForce 750 was 2 generations old from the newest 1050/1060-1080 one.
Why Dell continues to sell such vintage card  ?

A very good question Western. And not just Dell, several other companies are selling new machines with extremely outdated GPUs along with newer generation CPUs.

I had more to say yesterday but the internet cut out. 

So as for the other aspects,

CPU: I'm not sure what CPU the machine you're looking at has but I'm assuming a i7-6700 or lower, since it's most popular right now and anything with above i7-6700 gets to be pretty pricey these days. You can use this site to help you compare the single thread performance of specific CPUs by a point scale: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html Single thread is really the only thing that matters for CPUs in IL-2:

See:

What should be the requirements (if any) for CPUs? Is i5 series good enough, or do we need i7 series?

Now that we're talking about Notebook processors, the answer cannot just be one or the other, it depends.
Notebook CPUs have many specs to take into account for the one thing that counts for IL-2:
Single Thread Performance.
This is all that counts, nothing else.
You can see a chart showing how different CPUs perform on single thread operation here:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

You will soon notice that it's not that easy to spot the Notebook CPUs.
The fastest one is the Intel Core i7-4940MX @ 3.10GHz with 2193 Passmark points.
2nd place is Intel Core i7-4930MX @ 3.00GHz with 2160 points.
3rd place is Intel Core i7-4910MQ @ 2.90GHz with 2160 points (yep, surprise surprise, 100MHz less but same points on single thread operation).
4th place is an i5 then, the Intel Core i5-4340M @ 2.90GHz with 2104 points.
There's another 6 or so i7 mobile CPUs on the following places before the next i5 comes up (Intel Core i5-4330M @ 2.80GHz, 1925 points).

Aynthing below 1800 points won't make you happy with IL-2 on large missions, so you should really take a look what CPU precisely is working in that laptop of your choice and check it's single thread performance from the above given list first.

My old 2700+ and 970 can run IL-2 balls out. The issue is your graphic tweaking.

You're comparing apples and oranges.
You talk about desktop CPU/GPU, the TS was asking for mobile ones.

What about working Intel graphics HD 6200 (GT3 class) with OpenGL 4.3 API? Will it work with third Nvidia shaders (perfect mode)?

No.
Intel HD is a no-go for IL-2.
The reason is that Intel focused on DirectX support, their OpenGL drivers can be considered "alpha" ones at best and none of them works (correctly) with IL-2.

Best regards - Mike

You'll see quickly that the i7 in many cases is not necessarily always better than the i5. My i5-6600K CPU (K means overclocking) is basically the king of [reasonably priced] i5 series CPUs. It has a score of 2139 on single thread performance, higher than many i7s. Unless you're looking at an *expensive* i7-6700K, (2340 points), or another equally overpriced i7 CPU, the i5-6600 or 6600K is more powerful and more reasonably priced for the value. For example, the popular i7-6700 has 2155 points, slightly more, but see what happens if you select an i7 CPU on that Cybertron PC link previously posted. +$500, all with the same given machine.    And you will usually see a similar difference on other comparable computers as well.

RAM difference between 8 and 16GB is not really all that significant in terms of return for the money. CPU/GPU power is the most important for IL-2, assuming no trashy motherboard etc.

There are a lot of other aspects you need to look at when buying a PC. Do you want something with a new SSD? You could have 1 minute loading time instead of 10 minutes. Personally, I would research every significant part in a machine I'm seriously considering. Lots of gimmicks and traps there are.     You must be careful.

[MR_G]

Thanks...This is the sort of thing that gets my head spinning. I didn't know that the GTX 750Ti was that old, but wouldn't an i7 4.0Ghz with 16GB DDR4 be much better than an i5 3.3Ghz, with 8GB DDR4????

This is what I was looking at (The $999 one)
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/compare?ocs=fdcwvmax104b,fdcwvmax105b,ddclot223bmon

Yeah, i7-6700

[Captain Dawson]

Thanks...This is the sort of thing that gets my head spinning. I didn't know that the GTX 750Ti was that old, but wouldn't an i7 4.0Ghz with 16GB DDR4 be much better than an i5 3.3Ghz, with 8GB DDR4????

This is what I was looking at (The $999 one)
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/compare?ocs=fdcwvmax104b,fdcwvmax105b,ddclot223bmon

Yeah, i7-6700

I completely didn't understand this stuff at all until I started researching it and asking questions here on SAS. 

From the page you linked:

up to 4.0 GHz

 

PassMark single thread tests https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html are showing 3.4 Ghz for the i7-6700. The 6700K is the one with 4.0 Ghz. Yeah I don't care for "up to" marketing techniques lol. Who cares what it gets "up to" if it never really does? I would pay more attention to the testing results then the marketing.

The i5-6600 and 6600K are showing 3.3Ghz and 3.5 Ghz respectively, and nearly on par with the i7-6700 for ST points. Remember the 6600K has overclocking, and the 6700 does not unless you have the K variant. I should mention here, the Newegg page shows the 6600 CPU, but in reality Cybertron gave it to me with a even better 6600K, usually quite a bit more expensive!

wouldn't an i7 4.0Ghz with 16GB DDR4 be much better than an i5 3.3Ghz, with 8GB DDR4????

Higher Ghz does not always translate to higher ST performance, as you will see on the PassMark link. Remember "up to 4.0Ghz" does not mean in will literally have that. The tests are literal. My family pays for 200Mbps internet, and I get 20Mbps because they didn't tell us only expensive devices can use the fast 5Ghz connection. 

I would venture to guess that 16GB RAM is better than 8GB RAM, but that isn't as important as having a good GPU to handle the graphics.

If you haven't realized by now, you probably will want something with a good combination of parts rather than one or two good parts and maybe a few outdated ones. The computer can only be as strong as its weakest part. The GTX 750 is very outdated, and sub-par in my opinion.

Put simply, if you don't have a decent GPU, you will never be happy in IL-2. The CPU in this Dell is barely better in points, and the RAM is not extremely important to IL-2. By contrast, a Cybertron Palladium, (for less money I might add) has the newest GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 graphics, 3.5Ghz i5-6600K overclocking processor, a very fast 240GB Solid State Drive in addition to a 1TB drive. The only thing I see the Dell wins with is the RAM, and the Cybertron can have 16GB RAM if you just click the customization box for it. I personally believe Cybertron has a higher quality product, after owning computers from both manufacturers myself. You can always upgrade the graphics later, but the cost of a newer GPU alone combined with the Dell would already put you over the price of a even better machine.

I'm not trying to sell you on a Cybertron, there are many other great computers out there that might be better than the Dell. But personally, I think that Cybertron has the most powerful combination of parts for the lowest price and the best value over all.

Just my two cents. Or more like 102 maybe...

[MR_G]

Thanks.......I have a lot of homework to do.

[Captain Dawson]

You're most welcome! For something this expensive, it's important to make sure you make a good choice.   

Don't let it take up too much time though like it did me. 

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I started at least 5 threads a while back on picking computers that you might want to look at as well.

Have fun with 'homework'
-Captain Dawson 

[MR_G]

Now I found a Dell that looks a little "better".
i5 6400 processor 4-cores, 6MB cache, Turbo boost 2.0, up to 3.3GHz.
460 Watt power supply
NVIDA GeForce GTX960 2GB GDDR5
8 GB DDR4
1 TB 64MB Cache SATA 6Gb/sec
$980.

And then there is another one with the same processor and power supply, but with
NVIDA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5
Same memory & HD.
$1130.

Not sure if a SSD is cost effective.