Advice for buying Gaming PC to run specific racing games

M

MaxD

New member
Hi There! Hoping someone out there can give this **** of a 43yr old some advice!
Currently, I use a decent HP laptop connected to m tv to play games like rFactor and NASCAR Racing 2003 (heard of them? - I hope so!) and use my wheel and pedals... Now, whilst these are both decent enough games, I want to upgrade and finally fork out a little more cash to be able to play predominantly rFactor 2 and potentially other racing games like iRacing and Assetto Corsa/Forza etc where the graphics are s*** hot in comparison to what I am playing at the moment.
Problem is, whilst I can see the recommended spec outlined for rFactor 2 on their website, attempting to then choose a gaming PC on this website seems to leave me bereft of brain cells for I find myself completely bamboozled with which is the right option for me to buy!
The recc spec for this particular game is:
  • CPU: 3.0 GHz Intel i5 or 4.0 GHz AMD FX or better
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • OS: Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10, with latest Service Packs.
  • VIDEO CARD: nVidia GTX 760 or AMD 7870
  • PIXEL SHADER: 5.0
  • VERTEX SHADER: 5.0
  • SOUND CARD: Yes
  • FREE DISK SPACE: 50 GB
  • DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2 GB
Ive got my wheel/pedals/tv all sorted and considering also buying a racing seat rig but in meantime, any advice on the actual PC unit I should purchase would be great!
Forgot to mention am thinking of a budget of roughly £1500?...
Many thanks in advance folks!

Max
 
Last edited:
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Heartfeltdawn

Active member
Hi Max,

I used to be a sim racer, sold everything I had when I moved to London a couple of years ago. Recently started a new job on a stonking salary as head chef of a new place and so the first couple of paychecks have gotten me back into the game. Forza on the Xbox One just wasn't cutting it so I gathered up my laptops and figured out what I could run and how.

First thing: a lot of racing games are not heavy on the graphics compared to your FPS. The best spec laptop I have now is a PC Specialist Cosmos 15.6" running an i5-8300H with a Gerforce MX150 2GB chip. It's not a graphics powerhouse at all. Testing today I found I could run RFactor 1 very happily, Raceroom likewise, Assetto Corsa was surprisingly good on such limited hardware, and iRacing... was actually rather shit. Suspect this is because iRacing doesn't offer particularly good auto-optimization of graphics compared to the other titles.

You say you have wheel and pedals sorted (mine come tomorrow, Thrustmaster TMX Pro and T3PA pedal set will do for starters) and you have a budget of £1500 for a computer. That's a serious wedge! For my needs, I'd be looking at a system along these lines:

Small form factor (ideally Fractal Core 500 case)
mini-ITX board (Asus ROG Strix 450i-gaming)
16gb RAM
Ryzen 5 3600
Noctua NH-U14S CPU fan (super quiet)
1TB SSD
No second drive: would install that when/if needed.
Graphics card of whatever type is powerful enough...

On my old system, I was running an Asus Strix GTX970. Plenty powerful enough for iRacing, AC etc.

So have a think about what you want beyond the physical spec of the components in terms of size etc.

Yours,

Andy aka a 41 year old ****.
 
S

SlimCini

KC and the Sunshine BANNED
Are you ever likely to play anything else or literally just those racing games? And just on your TV?

If just those games and you'll never want a quality monitor then you don't need anything too fancy or to spend your budget...

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 275Q QUIET CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME B450-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.1, 6Gb/s) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 Ti - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Keyboard & Mouse
PCS S300 USB MEDIA KEYBOARD
Mouse
LOGITECH® OPTICAL USB MOUSE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Price: £982.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/DArdjXnqex/
 
M

MaxD

New member
guys you are legends! Thank you!
SLIMCINI, just to answer your question, Im going to buy a racing cockpit to start with but aim is to buy a monitor and then another two and yes, I only play racing games lol
 
S

SlimCini

KC and the Sunshine BANNED
MaxD said:
guys you are legends! Thank you!
SLIMCINI, just to answer your question, Im going to buy a racing cockpit to start with but aim is to buy a monitor and then another two and yes, I only play racing games lol
Click to expand...
If you're going to buy three (1080p?) monitors in the short term you might want to up the gpu then.
 
H

Heartfeltdawn

Active member
And to get back to the OP: now running a R5 3600 desktop with a 4gb GTX960. Graphics maxxed out on iRacing, one monitor, 84 frames per second.
 
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