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Finally decided to buy a proper PC to play S3, but what should I buy?
Silvakristiina
Posts: 444 Member
Hi!
I have finally decided (after ten years, maybe) to put my student loan to good use and buy a PC that actually runs the Sims 3, fully and fast. And not only the base game, but all the Expansions, Donwloadables and maybe about three times as large amount of CC. The problem now is, after making this totally insane, richbitchy decicion to waste my money, that I have no idea what should I buy. Through years I've been mistaken to tell the customer service people that I'm going to play the Sims 3, and they've checked the requirements of the base game and then sort of refused to believe that they have nothing to do with the actual need I have for the PC to run the game. I'm hopelessly ignorant about the technology running the game, so I thought that there must be at least someone who knows both about Sims 3 and PC's in here.
So, is there a tech nerd around, who would help a co-simsnerd in need?
I have been watching this Lenovo Legion Y520T, that has GeForce GTX1060 3GB, Core i7-8700,16GB RAM,256GB PCIe SSD,1TB HDD, of which I understand pretty much that it has a 8. gen i7 processor and a terabyte of memory and those are a good thing, and that it costs waaay too much. I'm willing to pay for a proper PC with value worth the money, but hot chokolade, these cost about a monthly salary...
I have finally decided (after ten years, maybe) to put my student loan to good use and buy a PC that actually runs the Sims 3, fully and fast. And not only the base game, but all the Expansions, Donwloadables and maybe about three times as large amount of CC. The problem now is, after making this totally insane, richbitchy decicion to waste my money, that I have no idea what should I buy. Through years I've been mistaken to tell the customer service people that I'm going to play the Sims 3, and they've checked the requirements of the base game and then sort of refused to believe that they have nothing to do with the actual need I have for the PC to run the game. I'm hopelessly ignorant about the technology running the game, so I thought that there must be at least someone who knows both about Sims 3 and PC's in here.
So, is there a tech nerd around, who would help a co-simsnerd in need?
I have been watching this Lenovo Legion Y520T, that has GeForce GTX1060 3GB, Core i7-8700,16GB RAM,256GB PCIe SSD,1TB HDD, of which I understand pretty much that it has a 8. gen i7 processor and a terabyte of memory and those are a good thing, and that it costs waaay too much. I'm willing to pay for a proper PC with value worth the money, but hot chokolade, these cost about a monthly salary... 2
Comments
Just kidding, of course.
That machine would be fine for all of TS3, but that doesn't mean it's the best choice or the best value for the Euro.
Processor: You don't really need an i7 that strong on desktop for this game, a quad core i5 will do fine. But the extra power is not going to hurt (except the price tag). Do you have any other intended uses, now or in the future, for this computer?
RAM: At least 8 GB. With 16 GB, this one is more future-proof. I wouldn't buy a new PC with less than 16 GB these days.
Graphics: At least an Nvidia GTX 1050 in that series or the AMD equivalent. This one has a GTX 1060, that's better than recommended. Any higher than that would be overkill for TS3, although again may have other uses in the future if you play or will play other graphics intensive games.
Storage: This one has two internal drives, a 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD. The SSD would constrain your space for TS3 and all expansions too much and too soon unless it's at least twice that size. If you go with this configuration, I would suggest installing the game on and redirecting the user Documents folder to the larger HDD. If you can get a larger SSD (or add one later), that's great too but would drive the price higher.
Branding: Yes, Lenovos tend to be high priced for what you get. I can only quote US prices right now, a desktop similarly configured, not that brand, would start at around $850-900 (USD), plus monitor if needed. Less if we don't have the SSD.
@phoebebebe13 - Any words of wisdom to add for a player in Finland or do you see anything on that site in particular that looks like a better choice?
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The sad truth is, that I really have no other use for the PC...
If @phoebebebe13 has some recommendations, I'd be thankfull to hear them out too
Not to say I wouldn't have any use for one but would have to see specs on a particular model to really judge. One doesn't always get the quality one is paying for with the fancy upper end brand names. These certainly looked pretty though, if that's any kind of a factor.
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I was always just curious about the Voodoo computers. BUT, since they are so pricey, I never bought one.
thank you for your input igazor
Ram - 8 GB RAM
Processor AMD A9-9400 Radeon R5, 5 Compute Cores 2C+3G 2.4 GHz
(I don't know much of what this means)
Windows 10 Home
I'm wondering how many expansion packs I can run on this before I start running into problems? I'm thinking of getting some more (watching for sales or multi-packs -ie WA/Gen)
I'm running 5 expansion packs a a bunch of mods and CC. The Sims has never run better.
I inherited my brother's gaming system with 16 GB RAM and 8 Compute Cores (He was a mega gamer - I ended up wiping the hard drive and starting from scratch. That was easier than uninstalling all the stuff I didn't want). Many years ago, he tried out The Sims (notice lack of a number), got me hooked on it, then gave me his disk when he got tired of it. I wonder how many expansion packs I could run on that thing.
The brother's gaming system would be unknown unless we knew more about its specs in turn.
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Dogs
Birds
small animal collecting
Unicorns, raccoons, etc.
I don't want Pets
Cats
computer lag
Cats
Cats
(I'm not into horses either, but it isn't really a negative)
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Lenovo is "just" a brand name. The company makes lower end, middle, and top of the line models for both laptops and desktops like most other major computer manufacturers. We can't really give a system credit or take much away for having a certain brand name or not when assessing expected game performance and of course some players will find that their games perform better than expected, some not as well.
It's not entirely typical for a $540 laptop plus the cost of the RAM upgrade to be able to run all (or almost all) EPs quite that well, so I would have to say you have been fortunate with that one. And, of course, different players have different play styles and expectations within the game so no two of us really put our computers under the same load as each other even though we are all playing the same game here.
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Processor: At least 2.4 GHz, most i5 or i7 or the AMD equivalents will be fine but it's best to avoid the U-series processors on laptops as they usually aren't strong enough and aren't made for the kinds of stress we put our systems through while playing.
RAM: At least 8 GB, but more would be better especially if one wants to run anything else (e.g., a web browser) alongside the game.
Graphics Card: At least a GTX 1050 mobile in the current series or the AMD equivalent. Older cards are fine too if they are strong enough within their own series, but they don't make or at least it would be unusual to see new laptops with the older cards anymore.
Drive Space: At least 500 GB. SSDs are great, but they drive the price tag up and don't do any good if they are too small (256 GB or under) on which to install and work with the game and its tools and content.
Case/Cooling: Under-specced and lower range laptops are not meant for gaming and will tend to not have sufficient cooling systems, which can lead to all kinds of performance issues and overheating.
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