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AMD or Intel CPU for a new "Swtor only" rig? (June 2021)


LeeloBhaal

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AMD Ryzen processor

 

Current performance king is AMD. A Zen 3 5600 would be enough for swtor, but if you want to future proof a little bit, the sweet spot is Zen 3 5800.

 

Sadly the whole system build is more often than not, more expensive than Intel now because of the chip shortages across all industries.

 

Intel still make good CPUs for gaming and you won’t really notice any difference in swtor.

 

The OP should probably just shop around and see what the best bang for your buck is between AMD & Intel based on what’s currently available in your area because RRP prices are all pretty meaningless while we have a chip shortage and a few percent performance difference might cost you way more than it should.

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I found nothing up to date - so i ask you frankly:

 

How should my new rig look like for only Swtor gaming.

Money doesn't matter.

 

Keywords:

 

- Single Core Performance

- "old game engine"

 

and so on...

 

Thx in advance :)

 

AMD hands down. I had an i9 10900k OC to 5.2 and I got lucky enough to land a 5900x and a Dark Hero. AMD hands down they are the gaming king atm. Sold my i9 10900k on ebay and never looked back.

 

Super happy I did it. Not just for swtor but compressing files and all other aspects of the computer. Intel does not have anything at all that competes. They cant even beat the Ryzen 5800x. They come close but AMD is you best bet for gaming atm. They blow intel out of the water in work station task.

 

Go for the 5900x if not on a budget. If on a Budget get the 5800x. Just get a good cooler like the Arctic Liquid Freezer ii 360. Its cheap and the best on the market

 

The 64MB game cache makes 5900x hands down the best gaming CPU on the market for your dollar

Edited by Zergnaut
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I recently built a new computer.

 

Ryzen 7 3800x

32GB RAM (overkill for what I use it for...but...why not)

and using a super old video card from probably over 10 years ago... Radeon HD 6800 (because I'm not paying scalper prices for a video card, nor am I going to buy a new system to yank the card out)

 

Works great for my 24" 1080P screen.

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Thx for all the answers. :)

 

I am not on a budget - but i want to avoid using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut only for Swtor :D

 

Then a AMD zen 3 5600x would be more than sufficient with 16gb ram, 1TB SSD (the new WD black 850 is good) and a mid range graphics card if you are only using one monitor at 1080p. If you are using multiple monitors higher than 144hz, you’ll need something higher to drive them.

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Thx for all the answers. :)

 

I am not on a budget - but i want to avoid using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut only for Swtor :D

 

Regardless of what you do on your PC the ryzen 9 5900x is hands-down the best processor for your money it gives you the best of both worlds gaming and desktop performance. Intel has absolutely nothing to compare to it and on top of that it's just your best bang for your buck. I build gaming rigs for a living and the 5900x is what I recommend to most of my customers.

 

The 5900x is also going to age a hell of a lot better than any of the other processors a AMD or intel has to offer. So in other words it's going to be your best investment and give you the longest possible time before you will need an upgrade and I stress the word need

Edited by Zergnaut
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I'll chime in and add to the chorus for AMD

 

I recently built a new machine with a 5800X and it is wonderful.

 

Until Intel figures their crap out, I suggest everyone stay away from them. Even though they still perform decently, they need to impersonate a space heater to do it.

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I'll chime in and add to the chorus for AMD

 

I recently built a new machine with a 5800X and it is wonderful.

 

Until Intel figures their crap out, I suggest everyone stay away from them. Even though they still perform decently, they need to impersonate a space heater to do it.

 

Sadly, it’s only the newest Intel generations doing that. My old Intel i7 5770k OC to 5.0Ghz produces less heat than their new CPUs and is faster in games like swtor.

 

I’m personally holding out my next upgrade till next year when AMD release zen 4 with the new AM5 socket. I would only suggest buying now if your current system can not cope or breaks and you can’t get replacement parts.

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My Ryzen 7 works happily enough for me for gaming and w/e else i find myself doing. I've gone from Intel Pentium to AMD Athalon to Intel IDR because the naming got confusing to me and finally back to AMD. The chip shortage/data miners certainly played havoc with my plans to upgrade my graphics card last year. The projections for a relief to the shortage keeps moving like the Covid open the country target. It hasn't hit the CPUs as bad as the GPUs at least here in Canuckistan.
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I’m personally holding out my next upgrade till next year when AMD release zen 4 with the new AM5 socket. I would only suggest buying now if your current system can not cope or breaks and you can’t get replacement parts.

 

I agree. If you don't ABSOLUTELY NEED, like for your job, a new computer your best choices right now are either to not buy a new computer, because prices are utterly insane right now, or check out the used market and hope that you find someone who has a decent rig but is clueless enough about current prices that they'll sell it to you for what would have been normal used prices in 2018-2019.

 

Keep in mind that SWTOR is not demanding on hardware, and a mid to high end rig from 2-6 years ago will do just fine with it. The game engine isn't likely to change requirements either.

 

If component prices return to normal in a year or two by holding off you'll save enough money to be able to buy a nice gaming computer and still have enough left over to give it a hefty mid-life upgrade a few years later.

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I agree. If you don't ABSOLUTELY NEED, like for your job, a new computer your best choices right now are either to not buy a new computer, because prices are utterly insane right now, or check out the used market and hope that you find someone who has a decent rig but is clueless enough about current prices that they'll sell it to you for what would have been normal used prices in 2018-2019.

 

Keep in mind that SWTOR is not demanding on hardware, and a mid to high end rig from 2-6 years ago will do just fine with it. The game engine isn't likely to change requirements either.

 

If component prices return to normal in a year or two by holding off you'll save enough money to be able to buy a nice gaming computer and still have enough left over to give it a hefty mid-life upgrade a few years later.

 

Yeah, looks like some graphics card prices are dropping in price since demand in Chinese bitcoin mining has nearly stopped. My suppliers tell me the new whole sale pricing for the new stock being delivered is around 20-30% cheaper. Sadly, CPUs and MBs probably won’t see any significant reduction this year and neither will memory. SSDs have already seen some good price drops the last 12 months and will probably go down another 10-15% by fall.

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I'm running this game on ultra with an i5-8600k overclocked to 5 ghz. Ryzen might be the best now, but it's hardly necessary to run the game well. Though I imagine you will be future proof with AMD's Ryzen no matter what updates they make to this game. Edited by Rion_Starkiller
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I'm running this game on ultra with an i5-8600k overclocked to 5 ghz. Ryzen might be the best now, but it's hardly necessary to run the game well. Though I imagine you will be future proof with AMD's Ryzen no matter what updates they make to this game.

 

Mine is ryzen too, not sure of the specs, but the reason I went with ryzen is a lot of people were giving it great reviews, and a few people in here were saying swtor ran better in ultra with it.

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If you don't ABSOLUTELY NEED, like for your job, a new computer your best choices right now are either to not buy a new computer,

Unless you're self-employed, if it's for your job, you don't buy it yourself anyway. You get your employer to buy it. Any employer that insists that I buy my own computer for the job will get shown the Large Finger Of Salutation.

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- Single Core Performance

- "old game engine"

 

and so on...

At this point, it doesn't really matter. AMD and Intel have similar performance. The main thing is clock speed within the brand (compare the performance of Intel vs AMD, not the clock speed). Get the fastest CPU you can afford. That's usually something like a AMD 5900X or an Intel 10900K.

But, start from an AMD 5600X or and Intel 10400K and go up from there.

 

For a budget build, get an AMD 5600G APU and use the APU graphics until (if ever) you get a discrete graphics card.

 

(for those who may wonder, I'm just so bored at the moment (while I eat and drink my coffee), I've got nothing better to do than post here. 😉 )

Edited by JediQuaker
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The current king for single threaded performance is the i9-11900k. If you are building specifically for swtor, it will get you something like 10-12% more FPS. SWTOR is CPU bound (and only uses two threads) even with low end GPUs.
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(for those who may wonder, I'm just so bored at the moment (while I eat and drink my coffee), I've got nothing better to do than post here. 😉 )

 

Isnt that why we all post here ;) plus I’m in lock down again in Australia. Covid is the gift that keeps giving.

 

But on topic, your assessment is correct when choosing a CPU.

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The current king for single threaded performance is the i9-11900k. If you are building specifically for swtor, it will get you something like 10-12% more FPS. SWTOR is CPU bound (and only uses two threads) even with low end GPUs.

 

That’s only true if you don’t OC your CPU. My old i7 5770k is still as good as i9-11900k in this game. I still average 150FPS using 3 monitors on my GTX 1080 and usually my FPS is 210+ (which is max for swtor) and only really drops in pvp.

 

I’m only considering an upgrade cause my motherboard is developing an intermittent bug that’s slowly getting worse. It’s not affecting performance, it’s a USB port issue. Otherwise I’d never need to upgrade my PC in the foreseeable future to only play this game.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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That’s only true if you don’t OC your CPU. My old i7 5770k is still as good as i9-11900k in this game. I still average 150FPS using 3 monitors on my GTX 1080 and usually my FPS is 210+ (which is max for swtor) and only really drops in pvp.

 

I’m only considering an upgrade cause my motherboard is developing an intermittent bug that’s slowly getting worse. It’s not affecting performance, it’s a USB port issue. Otherwise I’d never need to upgrade my PC in the foreseeable future to only play this game.

 

Do you mean 5775C or 4770k? Either way you are talking about a CPU that doesn't overclock all that well and is 3-4 generations old IPC-wise. The 11900k is around 20 percent faster clock per clock than Skylake (6700) and Skylake was about 20 percent faster than Haswell (4770k). My minimum fps with a 4.3ghz OC 4770k was around 15 fps in PVP. With my i5-10600k at 4.8ghz all cores, it's around 28 fps. The i9-11900k would be almost 30 percent faster than my 10600k with minimal overclocking. Conceivably it could be the first CPU that can stay above 30fps in even the heaviest cleave in pvp.

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The real answer is it doesn't matter as swtor is a dx9 game and they run two instances of swtor.exe just to get around the ram limitations of dx9. I have a i9-9900k and a rtx 2080 ti and the game still drops frame rates down into the 30's and sometimes 20's in certain areas of the game.

 

Its a poorly made engine.

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