Looking for a PC build for sim racing.

Hello,

As the title suggests, I am looking for a build that can handle racing simulators at high detail settings and 1080p resolution, if possible.

Regarding games, my focus is strictly on titles like Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Project CARS, and similar sims. I have no interest in shooters or any other genres.

My main requirement is a high-quality case; I want the tower to look nice and feel well-built.

I plan to purchase exclusively from Dell or Best Buy, as they are the only ones offering up to 36 installments via Mastercard.

My maximum budget for the PC would be $1667, keeping in mind that I could pay $500 in cash. I might also consider buying certain parts used from eBay if it makes sense, such as a graphics card.

I already own the steering wheel, monitor, and other peripherals.

Up until now, I have been running a Core 2 Duo E8400 with 4GB of RAM and a GTX 250, so I am hoping to upgrade to something significantly more powerful.

Thank you.🤷

Intel Core i5-4440 Processor, 3.1GHz, Haswell - Best Buy
Gigabyte GA-B85M-D2V Motherboard (S1150, DDR3, VGA/DVI, USB3.0/USB2.0, LAN, SATAIII/SATAII) mATX Retail - GA-B85M-D2V
Crucial DDR3 8GB 1600MHz Memory, Original retail
Toshiba Hard Drive, 500GB, 7200rpm, DT01ACA050
Akyga AKY004BK Gamer Case, Color Fan/12cm, No PSU
Silverstone Strider Essential ST50F-ES AC 90-264V, DC 3.3/5/±12V, 500W, Retail, Active PFC, 1x120, Efficiency 80%
Gainward GeForce GTX 760 Phantom Graphics Card, 2GB GDDR5

Total price: $5,$34 Dell

With the used graphics card:

http://www.craigslist.org/listing/graphics-card-example

-$167... and in that case, you could grab a 1TB Toshiba drive, an XFX 550 w power supply, and a Zalman Z3 case. You'd end up with a nearly identical setup. I guess rFactor 2 would run on high HDR OFF, AA x2, hitting 150+ FPS at 1680x1050, maybe even reaching 350 FPS on certain tracks. Assetto Corsa might perform a little worse than that, though.

Thanks,

I forgot to mention that I have an external USB hard drive, so if we could go with an SSD instead—I've heard they are significantly faster. My apologies.

Man, I’m telling you, crimsonstag84 might just be the absolute best person on the planet to ask about this.

crimsonstag84 said:-$167In that case, you could just grab a 1TB Toshiba drive, an XFX 550 w power supply, and a Zalman Z3 case. With those parts, you'd have a setup that's almost identical to this one. I guess you'd see rFactor 2 running on high HDR OFF with AA x2 at 1680x1050, probably hitting 150+ FPS consistently—maybe even up to 350 FPS on certain tracks. Assetto Corsa might run a little less smoothly than that, though.

neonpuma7 said:Thanks,

I forgot to mention that I actually have an external USB hard drive, but if it’s possible to go with an SSD instead—I've heard they're way faster. Sorry about that!

That’s just how it goes, I guess.$67But if you grab a used graphics card, I guess you’re still staying within budget. It would probably look something like this:

I guess I picked up an Intel Core i5-4440, 3.1GHz, Haswell at Best Buy.
Gigabyte GA-B85M-D2V mATX motherboard (LGA 1150, DDR3, VGA/DVI, USB 3.0/USB 2.0, LAN, SATA III/SATA II) Retail
Crucial DDR3 8GB 1600MHz memory, original Retail.
I guess I'm looking at the Zalman Z3 mid tower case.
Thinking about picking up an XFX 550 w power supply? This one features EasyRail technology—it’s the P1-550S-XXB9 model.
SanDisk X110 128GB SSD, 2.5" 7mm, SATA 6Gbps. Sequential Read/Write speeds sit at 505 MB/s and 445 MB/s respectively, with a max IOPS of 81,000. It uses MLC memory and comes in the Retail version.

Total comes to $3.$220

Then you could just pick up a used GTX 760 for maybe $130 or so.$467.

Timothy Kim60 said:Honestly, man, crimsonstag84 might be the absolute best person to ask about this specific issue.

Why is that?

Anyway, thanks crimsonstag84. I’m heading out on Monday to pick up the PC without a dedicated GPU. From what I understand, that i5 has integrated graphics, so I should be able to use those initially until I can afford a used card.

I actually found a GTX 660 at Best Buy for $333 listed as used—it still has a year of warranty left. There is also an MSI R9 270x on Craigslist for $333.

So, I suppose the setup crimsonstag84 put together is the only real alternative. What about using AMD?

neonpuma7 said:Why?

Thanks, crimsonstag84. I’m picking up the PC on Monday—it doesn't have a dedicated GPU yet, but if I'm reading this right, that i5 has integrated graphics. I guess I can just run off the onboard video for a bit until I track down a decent used card.

I think I spotted a GTX 660 at Best Buy for a decent price. $333 It's used, but still has about a year of warranty left. I think there's an R9 270X listed on eBay for... $333 It’s from MSI.

I guess what crimsonstag84 put together is really the only way to go. But honestly, what’s the deal with AMD?

I've been diving pretty deep into this lately. 😬

Yeah, there's an onboard graphics chip you could probably make use of.

The GTX 660 should be fine, though you’ll probably have to dial back a few settings compared to what you'd get with a GTX 760. I'd personally steer clear of the AMD cards, since they don't seem to play as nicely with rF2.

I mean, you can get by with an FX 6300, I guess, but you always end up losing out in the long run.$67 It’s actually cheaper than the i5 version, plus you're starting out with a better processor. I guess you should probably look into overclocking it, too.
A friend of mine is running an FX 6300 paired with a GTX 760, and compared to my setup with an Intel Core i5-4440 and a GTX 760, he’s seeing about 10-15% lower FPS. It’s kind of weird, especially since rF2 and Assetto Corsa don't really push more than four cores that hard—I mean, rF2 barely even touches two.

P.S. Just so you know I’m being serious—check this out. 😁

[Link to image]

Oh, listen to him go! Honestly, NVIDIA is probably the better bet for those specific titles. I mean, the guy is basically at the top of his game globally when it comes to racing for prize money, and he really knows his way around hardware—so there you have it.

In that case, I'll go ahead and take his recommendation,

It's a great wheel. I currently have the Driving Force gt, but I'm planning to pick up a G25 and maybe some racing seats to really get things dialed in.

Up until now, I've spent my time playing GTR2, GP Legends, and the WTCC series. I was actually pretty decent at them, but I haven't driven anything in about two years. Now that I'm getting back into it, my hardware is definitely feeling outdated.🙂

I've been wanting to get into some F1 simulations, but honestly, I find the F1 series from Codemasters to be pretty garbage. The physics just aren't there, and if you turn all the assists off, the whole thing feels way too slow.

Kimberly Gomez34, if you could recommend a Hardcore simulation, I would really appreciate it—the more challenging, the better.

There's an ISI_2012 Formula mod for rFactor 2, and I think there's an RFT 2013 one too (though I'm not sure how demanding it is), but honestly, rF1 feels like a total baby compared to rF2. Especially regarding the racing line and grip—the difference when you're off-line is massive, making overtaking way more difficult... I definitely agree about CM games.

My old setup was a Driving Force gt, and I don't think a G25 is actually that much better. I’d probably just stick with the Driving Force gt and try to hunt down some Fanatec pedals to pair with it instead. But hey, if you aren't planning on competing at a pro level, you probably don't need them; a cheap G25 should work fine.

Oh, I am definitely being serious here. 🙂

There is truly nothing quite like the mental grind of trying to shave an extra tenth of a second off a lap time—visualizing the track in your mind, pinpointing exactly where to hit the brakes, figuring out how to get on the throttle earlier on the exit, and hunting for that perfect racing line.

Wrestling with the setup—tweaking caster, camber, differential settings, toe-in/out, tire pressures, ride height, and so on—is exhausting and incredibly difficult work, but pushing your driving to that absolute peak makes the effort worth it.

I guess I actually started this journey a long time ago; I was playing Microproseov GP1 or something similar back then, which shows you just how many years have passed. I finished the entire Gran Turismo 4 run on PlayStation and even pulled off a full 24-hour Le Mans stint.

I've had plenty of first-place finishes in the GTR series, and I’ll never forget those intense online battles at Watkins Glen. There is nothing like driving right at the absolute limit while an opponent stays glued to your bumper, just 0.5 to 1 second behind. Your whole body starts sweating, your heart is racing... there is simply zero margin for error.

I got married, had a kid, and now everything is slowly coming back into focus. It really is an addiction.

And I'm looking forward to some online showdowns once I get back into top form. 🙂

Even my username on this forum has its reasons; neonpuma7 comes from James Dean, and the suffix 130 is the number on his Porsche when he passed away.

It was a 1955 Porsche Spyder, weighing 550kg with 130hp, 🙂 which is where the number 130 comes from.

So 👍

I've definitely been in those situations before 😁

Even if we're drifting into off-topic territory now 😬

crimsonstag84’s setup is top-tier,

btw Amd fx is a losing game. Any money you save on the CPU itself, you'll just end up bleeding right back into a beefier cooler and a higher-end motherboard just to handle the overclocking.

If you want an alternative, a 750k or 760k series paired with an a88x chipset is actually a pretty sweet deal. You get the CPU and motherboard combo for less than the price of a standalone i5, and those chips overclock easily to 4.2-4.5ghz.

@crimsonstag84/">@@crimsonstag84,

I ended up following your recommendation with one slight change; instead of the Zalman, I picked up a Thermaltake Commander GS II case. I just picked everything up today, and my friend is over at his place putting it all together now, 🙂. There's going to be a bit of a break soon because of the big game, and btw, I also grabbed a Thermaltake contact 21 cooler.

I found a GTX 760 on eBay for $433. The guy agreed to drop the price to $140, so I'm heading out to grab it tomorrow.

You didn't even need the cooler... 😉

The case is a little subpar, but I guess it'll do. It might be a good idea to pop a single fan in the front—maybe a 140mm or a 120mm, though I wouldn't go over 1000 RPM if I were you.

I personally find the Thermaltake more attractive. To be honest, the Zalman looked pretty ugly in person, and I don't feel it’s particularly high quality either; the plastic feels somewhat inferior compared to the Thermaltake. The salesperson told me it was a Best Buy because of the triple fans, but everything else about it seems subpar to me.

As for the cooler, I guess the salesperson talked me into it. He also mentioned that I had assembled the configuration quite well, which I suppose refers to you, 🙂. I almost picked up an XFX R9 270 for $417, but I ultimately decided against it.

crimsonstag84, I appreciate the advice.

Assetto Corsa runs incredibly smoothly; I don't have Fraps running, but even at Full HD with high settings, there wasn't a single stutter, haha.

I picked up a used Asus GTX 760 for $433, and it's still under warranty with the full bundle.

Before this, my system was struggling like a newborn chicken, but now the difference is immeasurable.🙂

👍

Maybe we could squeeze in some summer drives somewhere 😛