Nightblazer Posted May 9, 2018 Share Posted May 9, 2018 (edited) I'm looking to build a new PC and get a new monitor. I was thinking of one to play swtor on either 4K or 1080p just depending on the price. Just looking for hardware suggestions for a build or if it would be better to get pre-built instead. Essentially I want to play in 4K or 1080p at Max settings at 60fps. What is recommended hardware for either option: CPU? Graphics? SSD? Ram Monitor? Etc. Edited May 9, 2018 by Nightblazer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 9, 2018 Share Posted May 9, 2018 Recommended? No idea. I built this, and I can get at least 60 FPS on max-of-max Ultra 1080p in *most* situations. It won't hold 60 in leafy warzones like Yavin, though CPU: Intel i7-7820X. Motherboard: MSI Raider X299 RAM: 32GB DDR4 3000MHz in two sticks of 16GB Graphics: NVidia 1808 Ti Disk: 2TB classic disk I needed the storage, so no SSD for me. It's still pretty quick on load times. Note: NOT CHEAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 12, 2018 Share Posted May 12, 2018 Quick addendum: If you want to go 4K rather than 1080p, be aware that switching from 1080p to 4K on the same machine will approximately halve your frame rate. The graphics card must 'throw' four times as many pixels per frame, but there's a bit ol' pile of stuff per frame that is the same no matter what the resolution, so FPS does not scale down in proportion to the rising number of pixels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeweledleah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 (edited) 4k is not worth it for swtor alone. I ended up going downward not only becasue performance was just absolutely awful (bear in mind, I can run newer games in 4k on the same machine with steady 60fps), but also becasue scaling in 4k was a complete and utter mess. UI didn't scale properly at ALL. SWTOR is just not at all optimized for 4k. at least in my experience. Edited May 13, 2018 by Jeweledleah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightblazer Posted May 13, 2018 Author Share Posted May 13, 2018 4k is not worth it for swtor alone. I ended up going downward not only becasue performance was just absolutely awful (bear in mind, I can run newer games in 4k on the same machine with steady 60fps), but also becasue scaling in 4k was a complete and utter mess. UI didn't scale properly at ALL. SWTOR is just not at all optimized for 4k. at least in my experience. So would it be better to stick to 1080p? Is so which video card would be best for 1080p at 60fps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeweledleah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 So would it be better to stick to 1080p? Is so which video card would be best for 1080p at 60fps? personaly i tend to prefer nvidia, 1070 or higher, I believe TI is a step up? whatever you can afford really. SSD is probably as important as video card, becasue that is what affects your loading times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 personaly i tend to prefer nvidia, 1070 or higher, I believe TI is a step up? whatever you can afford really. SSD is probably as important as video card, becasue that is what affects your loading times. SSDs ONLY affect loading times, and will do nothing either for or against frame rates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeweledleah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 (edited) SSDs ONLY affect loading times, and will do nothing either for or against frame rates. given how many loading screens there are, don't you think its important? and its not just loading screens, its also, loading the environmental details and npc's. I never said framerates are affected by SSD, all I said that SSD speeds up loading times. which IMO is very VERY important as well. Edited May 13, 2018 by Jeweledleah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 given how many loading screens there are, don't you think its important? and its not just loading screens, its also, loading the environmental details and npc's. I never said framerates are affected by SSD, all I said that SSD speeds up loading times. which IMO is very VERY important as well. They are important, up to a point, but I would suggest not mixing two different things. The questions there were about framerates and similar, and you introduced the comment about SSDs. Someone who doesn't know much about such things might think something like this: "SSDs mentioned in answer to a question about framerates ===> therefore I should get an SSD to improve my framerates". It's an incorrect conclusion, but it's a *reasonable* one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeweledleah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 They are important, up to a point, but I would suggest not mixing two different things. The questions there were about framerates and similar, and you introduced the comment about SSDs. Someone who doesn't know much about such things might think something like this: "SSDs mentioned in answer to a question about framerates ===> therefore I should get an SSD to improve my framerates". It's an incorrect conclusion, but it's a *reasonable* one. I see where confusion comes. when I was replying, I also kept original post in mind which was asking about all the components including ssd's. as ssd's are still significantly more expensive then HHD or hybrid drives, I thought I should mention them as far as their importance. so that OP doesn't decide to invest the bulk of their budget into a videocard thinking it will make more difference than it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightblazer Posted May 16, 2018 Author Share Posted May 16, 2018 I see where confusion comes. when I was replying, I also kept original post in mind which was asking about all the components including ssd's. as ssd's are still significantly more expensive then HHD or hybrid drives, I thought I should mention them as far as their importance. so that OP doesn't decide to invest the bulk of their budget into a videocard thinking it will make more difference than it does. I definitely want to get an SSD as well. Been wanting to upgrade to one. I definitely would like fast load times in screens as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darevsool Posted May 17, 2018 Share Posted May 17, 2018 A SSD is almost as important as a good video card. I don't pvp a ton, so the 60FPS benchmark isn't the most important thing to me, but I also have 3 monitors that I play the game on. My resolution is 5780x1080 and it runs pretty smoothly all things considered. The SSD help with load times is HUGE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eoshadow Posted May 20, 2018 Share Posted May 20, 2018 (edited) I'm looking to build a new PC and get a new monitor. I was thinking of one to play swtor on either 4K or 1080p just depending on the price. Just looking for hardware suggestions for a build or if it would be better to get pre-built instead. Essentially I want to play in 4K or 1080p at Max settings at 60fps. What is recommended hardware for either option: CPU? Graphics? SSD? Ram Monitor? Etc. - What is your budget? $1000, $2000, $3000? (most important question, money determines all, especially since you are adding a 4k monitor on top of a PC) - Are you buying parts new or used? - Are you planning on playing other games at 4k at high settings or editing photos or video? (4k SWTOR really doesn't look that much better, maybe a tad sharper but we are working with graphics from 2011...) - How competent are you at building your own computer? Edited May 20, 2018 by Eoshadow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightblazer Posted May 22, 2018 Author Share Posted May 22, 2018 - What is your budget? $1000, $2000, $3000? (most important question, money determines all, especially since you are adding a 4k monitor on top of a PC) - Are you buying parts new or used? - Are you planning on playing other games at 4k at high settings or editing photos or video? (4k SWTOR really doesn't look that much better, maybe a tad sharper but we are working with graphics from 2011...) - How competent are you at building your own computer? I've been looking into it a bit and I'm probably just going to stick with a 1080p setup. I play to buy new parts and I've built all 3 computers I've used. As long as I can get 60 fps with 1080p or as close as I can will be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phalczen Posted May 24, 2018 Share Posted May 24, 2018 I've been looking into it a bit and I'm probably just going to stick with a 1080p setup. I play to buy new parts and I've built all 3 computers I've used. As long as I can get 60 fps with 1080p or as close as I can will be great. There was a nice article on Tom's Hardware … they tested a number of different builds at 4K. This isn't the article I read, but it is a decent summary and appears to be more recent: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-ti,4972.html For a single card solution for 4K I think you are looking for a GTX 1000-series or equivalent. That article above mentions GTX 1080Ti as "best at 4K" but I run dual SLI-linked GTX 980Tis and I have minimal problems running 4K at 60 fps. During busy operations fights I will occasionally hang for about 20 seconds, and more rarely completely crash and have to reboot the computer, and I think there could be a heating issue at play. I blame user error more than the hardware. The original article I read said dual GTX 980Ti outperformed solo GTX 1070 at 4K (there was no 1080Ti back then) and the 1000 series was still pretty expensive so I went with the 980TIs instead. You can save on anti-aliasing by running 4K which gets you some performance speed without sacrificing quality, and the screen real estate for your swtor user interface opens up quite a bit relative to 1080p. That's where the biggest advantage is in my opinion. I also have an Acer predator laptop I got through Costco that has a GTX 1070 and runs SWTOR in 4k at 60 fps without issues. The graphics card hierarchy table lists equivalent models within a brand and between nvidia and amd. But as there is nothing that is more than 3 tiers above 980Ti right now, I'm not looking to upgrade. The writers at Toms Hardware say that you won't notice much difference if your graphics card is only one or two tiers above what you are currently using. I don't know how true that is, but that advice guided my spending for years now as they've updated that hierarchy table over the past 6 years and its saved me money overall as I only buy when the technology is advanced sufficiently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSkate Posted June 2, 2018 Share Posted June 2, 2018 (edited) So would it be better to stick to 1080p? Is so which video card would be best for 1080p at 60fps? I use a GTX1060 3Gig card and at 1080p SWTOR runs at 100+ FPS 90% of the time with most settings maxed out. I have never seen my FPS drop below the upper 50s, even in raids. So, I would recommend a GTX1070 or 1070Ti at the very most for 1080p gaming. Edited June 2, 2018 by TheSkate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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