PC PC advice

The-Walking-Dad

The-Walking-Dad

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May be a hot topic just now, but I'm finally in a position to be able to get a new PC for my son. He loves 7DTD (zombies off, he's five) and Space Engineers. We're inheriting my grandad's old PC.

My question is, what would be considered minimum and recommended specs for 7DTD? Ideally I'd like to over-spec if possible (I don't have unlimited funds). I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to this stuff, just want to share gaming with my boy.

Thanks to any who take the time to offer advice!

 
Best check your processor first and if the motherboard is upgradeable. I would suggest 16gb memory if your mboard can take it and an ssd which will improve boot and loading times. Videocard will probably be the biggest outlay.

There are programmes online that will identify your gpu cpu motherboard etc, some will even tell you what you can upgrade to.

I'm running an old six core xeon with 24gb memory and a 6gb gtx 1060 gfx card with no problems so even a lot of older machines can run the game quite well.

Doing so on a budget is achieveable depending on your config, you may be able to get decent performance as it is. More likely you will at least need a video card.

 
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May be a hot topic just now, but I'm finally in a position to be able to get a new PC for my son. He loves 7DTD (zombies off, he's five) and Space Engineers. We're inheriting my grandad's old PC.
My question is, what would be considered minimum and recommended specs for 7DTD? Ideally I'd like to over-spec if possible (I don't have unlimited funds). I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to this stuff, just want to share gaming with my boy.

Thanks to any who take the time to offer advice!
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First off, awesome and good on you!

Secondly, do you plan to upgrade your granddad's PC for gaming, or will someone be using it while a gaming PC is built on the side?

I ask this because my mother gave me her old PC as well, and although it was made in the 2000's (06, IIRC), it was outdated and practically useless.

Regardless, I'd recommend atleast 16GB of RAM. You could get by with less, but 16GB will help run 7DTD and any of its mods easily (unless Starvation comes back, which recommended 32GB :S). Not to mention, 16GB is good for almost any other game out there.

Now in regards to GPUs, I have used a 1060, 1070, and 1080 over the past two/three years. The 1070 and 1080 work perfectly fine. My nephew is running the 1060, and we had to turn his 7DTD settings down to prevent crashes. 7DTD lets you alter numerous settings, so the game still looks fine after making necessary tweaks.

 
A ryzen 2600 or 3600 is more than plenty for this game (and any other game) and is priced nicely unlike Intel's equivalent. 16GB of ram is recommended (make sure it's supported by the motherboard in the QVL). GTX 1660 with an ACX cooler or better is recommended. Asus makes some pretty good Micro ATX motherboards, even the cheaper ones are still pretty good. Do keep in mind that you can get away with less than recommended, but the level of detail in the game could end up being from high settings to much lower. Also, make sure to have a well vented case and an SSD. 650 watts bronze rated power supply or better (I personally really like EVGA). Remember, if the power supply fails... it could burn out other components in the process, so don't cheap out on that. Power fluctuations happen all the time... a good power supply will manage it much better than a cheap one. And if there's any leftover budget, maybe an aftermarket cooler for the CPU as this game does apparently create a lot of heat on the CPU now.

After everything is built, make sure to update the bios for maximum stability and compatibility to the new CPU and then set the clock speed for the ram to the rated performance detailed in the QVL. Though, keep in mind that you might have to go slightly lower than rated speeds as not all ram is created equal.

 
With some graphical tweaks you can play this on an i3 2120, with 10GB RAM and an nVidia GTX 750 Ti :)

 
I just found this and it looks like Intel's prices are coming down for their x and or extreme editions:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14925/intel-cascade-lakex-for-hedt-18-cores-for-under-1000

I guess it will be available in November and the socket should still be 2066 as well as keeping the X299 chipset so no new socket motherboard necessary and using motherboards that have been in play for a while means you get to pick from a large amount of tested motherboard already out there.

The Core i9-10900X runs at 3.7ghz has 10 cores 20 threads and costs a mere $590.00. that Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X at $599.00 that I was looking at would have been my pick for a CPU until now.

Core i7-7820X Skylake-X - 3.6ghz 8 cores 16 threads.

I did not like the price and the low clock speed that the previous i9's were at, I could be wrong but I think clock speed is greater for gaming than cores and some i9s were clocked at 3.0ghz. The Xeon's while not for gaming also had low clock speeds of like 2.4ghz but in a server the low speeds would produce less heat and could use passive or low profile fan/heatsinks, so that makes sense.

I realize that the i9 is not necessary for gaming but at that price I cannot see any reason that it would a bad buy for a new build. Sure you can buy an i7 1155 (300 series) for $300.00 but for $290.00 you get the x series CPU unlocked with more PCI Express lanes better RAM support and greater motherboards with more features than the 1155 (300) series boards.

Pardon my ignorance of the AMD offerings, I honestly have not had an AMD possessor since the X2 4800+, after the Core 2 Quad I was an Intel guy and ignored AMD. The only Intel CPU I regretted was the Pentium 4 which was terrible.

I just realized that the motherboards will need bios updates at the very least to support the new processors. So it will not be that easy to just add one to an existing 2066 motherboard. They may even need to use a new line of motherboards that support the features of the new i9. Well it was exiting until I realized that.

Here is one such motherboard: https://www.gigabyte.com/Press/News/1722

 
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May be a hot topic just now, but I'm finally in a position to be able to get a new PC for my son. He loves 7DTD (zombies off, he's five) and Space Engineers. We're inheriting my grandad's old PC.
My question is, what would be considered minimum and recommended specs for 7DTD? Ideally I'd like to over-spec if possible (I don't have unlimited funds). I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to this stuff, just want to share gaming with my boy.

Thanks to any who take the time to offer advice!
Click to expand...
So great that your 5 year old is getting his first experience with PC gaming! I was about that age when my brothers and I inherited my grandpa's TRS-80. Our first games were loaded from a cassette tape! XD

Sounds like you are giving Grandad's old PC to your son? I suspect that his PC is a prefab, not custom build? Do you know the age, manufacturer and model? Above all, we will need to know whether or not the computer needs to be or can be upgraded to support the game. Most older people have minimum specs on their machines. Unless Papa is a gamer and your boy is inheriting the elder statesman's aging "Beast Rig" :) you may have some issues upgrading to play newer versions of 7DTD.

This is the offiical minimum and recommended specs from the support page:

Minimum

OS: Windows 7 or Higher (64-bit)

Processor: 2.4 Ghz Dual Core Cpu

Memory: 8 GB RAM

Graphics: 1 GB Dedicated Memory

Direct X: Version 10

Network: Broadband internet connection

Hard Drive: 12 GB available space

Sound Card: Direct X compatible

Recommended

OS: Windows 7 or Higher (64-bit)

Processor: 3.0 Ghz Quad Core CPU or faster

Memory: 12 GB RAM

Graphics: 2 GB Dedicated Memory

Direct X: Version 10

Network: Broadband internet connection

Hard Drive: 12 GB available space

Sound Card: Direct X compatible

Most important specs to pay attention to are Processor (speed), Memory and Graphics. Based on my experience you should do okay right now with the Official Recommended specs aside from graphics. For that I would recommend something that has at least 4gb of VRAM (as opposed to the 2GB officially recommended) and you can go up to 8gb on a budget: Radeon 570

Good luck and have fun with the upgrades!

 
Thanks all, I've known we have a great community for years and you've all come forward to prove me right. I don't know the specs of grandad's PC yet, I'll post them when I get it. It's at least a better chance of getting a gaming PC than buying one outright at the moment.

 
Thanks all, I've known we have a great community for years and you've all come forward to prove me right. I don't know the specs of grandad's PC yet, I'll post them when I get it. It's at least a better chance of getting a gaming PC than buying one outright at the moment.
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The first issue I discovered with an old PC is the way it connects to internet. Not so long ago, you had to call the phone company to install a modem (? not sure if that's the proper word) into your PC, then use their brand internet. Nowadays we either plug an ethernet cord directly into our PC or connect wirelessly. Gotta love how far we've come in such a short period of time.

 
The current RAM prices should be considered also. I actually planned on 16GB but seeing that 32GB DDR4 cost as much as my old 16GB DDR3 did, im am getting 32GB now. Never been that low on price from what i know.

I am going Ryzen 5 3600 on a B450 MSI Tomahawk Max, Crucial Ballistix 3000CL15 RAM (very good for RAM OC, Ryzen profits from fast RAM a lot) and a Seasonic Focus GX550 Watt (550W for GPU Upgrade next year). Keeping my GTX1070 and SSD.

 
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Single Rail is standard for PSU´s. Haven´t seen any test of a single rail that suggests it´s not enough. From what i know only bequiet! goes with 4 rails when talking the big names in the business.

 
I have a 7 year old mid class gaming pc. The only new part is a propper new 6gb graphics card. I get almost 60 fps...

 
May be a hot topic just now, but I'm finally in a position to be able to get a new PC for my son. He loves 7DTD (zombies off, he's five) and Space Engineers. We're inheriting my grandad's old PC.
Click to expand...
You have gotten plenty of PC advice, so I won't add to that.

HOWEVER...

I have to commend you for a zombie dad pun in your forum username. :D

 
Bought my son his new PC (couldn't update the inherited one, too old) and we're looking forward to our first game tonight. Thanks all!

 
One thought on the old pc. It might be too old for playing the game but is it good enough to use as a home server for the 2 of you?

You give the specs and someone could surely figure out if it will work good enough for a home 7DTD server. That way it's not thrown out and you get to set your game to exactly how you want without having to host it on yours or his computer.

 
One thought on the old pc. It might be too old for playing the game but is it good enough to use as a home server for the 2 of you?
You give the specs and someone could surely figure out if it will work good enough for a home 7DTD server. That way it's not thrown out and you get to set your game to exactly how you want without having to host it on yours or his computer.
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+1. I myself did that with my sister's old FX8320 based computer and it runs great as a game server.

 
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