CPU For The Sims 3 & 4 - AMD or Intel?

[Gmr_Chick]

Thanks for clearing that up for me, McSteel and GR. So basically, next to all the marketing, most of them are basically no better than "normal" motherboards.

McSteel, when you mentioned the bit about flashy colors and tacky branding, for some reason ASUS' ROG line immediately popped in my head

 

[Naito]

but one thing to have in mind, good mobo now, g3258 now and something like i5, but most likely cheaper in the future, prices do go down, so if we add some resale value, Op wont loose to much money on it anyway.

The three boards GhostRyder listed and the one I listed are all very good boards with pretty much the same feature levels. The choice is really between colours, brand preference, and of course price. All will easily handle even an OC'd i7. Intel CPUs hold value very well, even secondhand ones which aren't even supported by the current chipsets anymore. Not much will be saved here unless you find someone selling one cheap, which of course brings warranty into it. Having said that, the resale of a $60 CPU won't be that much - possibly around $40-50, but adds the trouble of having to sell it, postage, etc.

of course if budged allows buy at once all you can, but we talking like @GhostRyder said 1/3 of the price. How much is 4690k? ~ 200$, vs 60$ for g3258? + many games will run similar. pure budget minded logic

Yeah, a G3258 is a brilliant chip and will run OPs current games, but what if Gmr_Chick runs into a similar problem she is having with Sims 3, with Sims 4 in the future, where the layers upon layers of mods, DLC and expansions push the dual core to the limit. Games in no time will require fast four cores, especially after late next year or H1 2016 when Skylake's mainstream desktop cores will be quad core minimum. Following your logic; $120 board + $60 CPU and say a $60 SSD intially, then a within 12 months or so purchase and i5 when inevitably the dual core isn't enough, for say $200. That's $440 excluding any possible resale. What I'm saying is skip all this stopgap measures and go straight the best core system OP can afford to which OP can then always add 'peripheral' components such as SSDs, HDDs, or even a better CPU cooler too. Sure, my suggestion costs more upfront with say $320 (without rebates/excluding post) for CPU and MB, before the possibility of a $60 SSD purchase to help overall performance and responsiveness (really, once stuff is loaded into RAM, SSDs don't have that much impact on the system, mainly load times (i.e before RAM is loaded)), but this overall total is $380 for the life of the core system with no fussing around with selling stopgap components. Besides, while I think OC'ing should never be ruled out, Gmr_Chick has mentioned she is not too keen on doing so and the viability of the G3258 relies heavily on overclocking to get the most from it.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

And the debate continues.

Ok, at this point, I consider the SSD a "luxury" item - not mandatory, but a nice thing to have. Would I like one? Sure. Is it worth sacrificing a better-performing i5 for a Pentium-K (or even a top-end i3)? To me, not really. I can always get an SSD later, but right now I don't see the "need" for one. Aside from Sims 3, my games load pretty quickly.

So now it seems like I'm in favor of the i5 yet again.

 

[GhostRyder]

And the debate continues.

Ok, at this point, I consider the SSD a "luxury" item - not mandatory, but a nice thing to have. Would I like one? Sure. Is it worth sacrificing a better-performing i5 for a Pentium-K (or even a top-end i3)? To me, not really. I can always get an SSD later, but right now I don't see the "need" for one. Aside from Sims 3, my games load pretty quickly.

So now it seems like I'm in favor of the i5 yet again.

I still think you should go the Penitum K route and an SSD over getting the locked i5 and eventually just get yourself an unlocked i5 (Z97 is compatible with Broadwell as I recall) which is the next generation chips. I would suggest getting a Pentium K and SSD, overclocking the Pentium, and then sitting on what you have for a year or so. As I stated before the games that are CPU dependent still prefer the first 2 cores anyway which means if you have strong enough cores then that's enough to run the game fine. Now lately games are starting to lean towards using 4 cores which is noted but I think saving the money and getting an SSD with the unlocked Pentium chip and overclocking will make for a better experience overall.

The alternative of course would be the i3 as a good midway point (A high clocked variant) and that will also give you ample performance in games for a good long time.

 

[Devon68]

Well yeah performance over SSD id defensively the way to go. I was thinking about getting a ssd as well, but don't really need it yet even thou my Pc takes about 1:45 to start up fully.
If it's in your budget get an i5 instead of an i3. They are starting to say that some games like far cry 4 wont even start on a intel G3258 or any dual core cpu for that matter.

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

So now it seems like I'm in favor of the i5 yet again.

Then do it! That is great choice. Choose a nice Motherboard..You will exceed your $300 budget but not much. All this time discussing you could have had an i5 built and playing SIMS by now. Merry Xmas to you...go big or go home! May as well throw a nice SSD in there as well.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Ghost Ryder, if I got the Pentium-K and a good Z-97 board, what would be a safe overclock with a Seasonic X560? Also, on the Intel ARK page, under Memory Specifications>Memory Types, it says the Pentium-K only supports DDR3-1333. I have DDR3-1600. Is this a problem?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I have Sims 3 (updated to latest versions of most if not all expansions and a ton of custom content) and Sims 4 (updated all the way) installed on my computer, much to my significant other's delight. My configuration is listed, so check it out for reference.

I can tell you from personal experience that trying to keep up with EA's halfhearted stabs and lukewarm potshots at bug squashing and optimization is next to impossible.
While not the fastest ever, my machine isn't exactly slow by any stretch of imagination. Yet it struggles in the Sims 3, and pretty obviously too. Trying not to be lazy, I tried running vanilla TS3 (no custom or official expansions/content added), fully updated, and it runs no better. Graphic settings had little to no effect (it seems the HD7950 is more than adequate at 1080p), and various neighborhoods have shown no clear performance pattern - sometimes everything runs smoothly while other times it's laggy, choppy and skippy.

OCing my CPU further, to 4.4 GHz, netted no appreciable gains. Also tried moving another 8GB dual channel kit from a second machine, no tangible difference.

Sims 4 on the other hand runs smooth and crisp right out of the gate. Possibly Maxis' deeper involvement played a role there.

If you'd like to stay under budget and don't much care for typical AAA titles (especially latest CryEngine, Unreal Engine etc. games) I suppose the Anniversary Pentium will do just fine. However, there are games out there - current, today's games - which will flat out refuse to even start with less than 4 cores. Some of them can be coaxed to accept 2C/4T CPUs, but with a visible performance hit. Perhaps holding out a bit longer + maybe selling your current parts to get some funds back, thus attaining needed funds for an i5 and a solid motherboard, might be prudent...

## EDIT ##

Oh, one more thing. Compared to using a standard HDD, having a fast SSD helps alleviate some missing texture problems and helps, to a degree, with lots of scrolling the screen around. It doesn't do much to help with load times, though. This refers to the Sims 3, of course.

The Sims 4 both loads much faster and clearly reads terrain data quicker with an SSD, so it's a worthy investment. Not to mention overall system speedup elsewhere...

Just curious, have you ever had Task Manager performance tab open during the lags? In my case, one core was always maxed out when the gameclock stopped for a significant amount of time. I'm curious if it did the same to you.

As I pointed out previously, a 10% (4 GHz to 4.4 GHz) overclock isn't going to change much because whatever is causing the delay can take 10+ seconds. You won't really notice if it was 1 second quicker because it's super annoying once it gets past 2. XD


I'd be curious to know if The Sims 4 is multithreaded better than The Sims 3.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

I'd be curious to know if The Sims 4 is multithreaded better than The Sims 3.

I know the CAS demo I have ran a helluva lot smoother than Sims 3's Create A Sim mode, but I don't have the actual TS4 game yet so I can't say how well it runs. Even so, until an Expansion Pack is released and thus added to the workload, we won't know if it'll suffer the same problem as 3 did the more Expansions were added on.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

That's due to caching (reading from HDD/SDD), not CPU load. Most of the CPU burden comes from the simulating itself (especially NPC sims). If they didn't move it to a separate thread if not highly parallelized it (create a thread for each sim), it will eventually get bogged down the same way The Sims 3 does.

The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, on the CAS front, would benefit most from being 64-bit with aggressive caching of sim assets (model, textures, sounds, etc.). It being 32-bit, the moment CAS exceeds 4 GiB worth of content, they have to run to the HDD/SDD to fetch more data to render what you're looking at.

 

[XSI]

Ghost Ryder, if I got the Pentium-K and a good Z-97 board, what would be a safe overclock with a Seasonic X560? Also, on the Intel ARK page, under Memory Specifications>Memory Types, it says the Pentium-K only supports DDR3-1333. I have DDR3-1600. Is this a problem?

memory will not be a problem. safe overclock 4-4.2 you should be absolutely fine. your powersupply is ok for more.

 

[GhostRyder]

Ghost Ryder, if I got the Pentium-K and a good Z-97 board, what would be a safe overclock with a Seasonic X560? Also, on the Intel ARK page, under Memory Specifications>Memory Types, it says the Pentium-K only supports DDR3-1333. I have DDR3-1600. Is this a problem?

If you run the stock cooler like I do temporarily on my personal Pentium K 4.0ghz is more than safe temp wise. With that PSU you would be safe even up to its max overclock possible. It does only support 1333 however you can manually set the overclock of 1600mhz in the bios and it works just fine no problems. I ran a set of 1866 temporarily and it was fine even running that (Though beyond 1600 I have heard it can be a bit more luck than anything).

A good Z97 and that chip would be a great investment for now because like I said waiting until broadwell comes out and you have some spare cash will allow for an awesome chip later down the line along with the fact that like this it is still awesome in games.

 

[Keullo-e]

My ex-girlfriend played Sims 3 without problems on my old #2 PC, Intel E2140 @ 2.93GHz, 3GB RAM, HD3870 with some OC. IIRC it was maxed out at 1360x768 (TV as a screen)

 

[Black Panther]

My ex-girlfriend played Sims 3 without problems on my old #2 PC, Intel E2140 @ 2.93GHz, 3GB RAM, HD3870 with some OC. IIRC it was maxed out at 1360x768 (TV as a screen)

Performance of TS3 depends mainly on how many expansion packs you have. The game also ran fine for my daughter on an E8400, 4GB RAM and HD5970, when she had around 4 expansion packs. Then when she got Island Paradise the problems started and the game lagged like crazy even with the E8400 overclocked to 4Ghz and with the game installed on the SSD. It runs fine for her as long as she doesn't go into the Island Paradise lot.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Did everyone have a great Thanksgiving (and subsequent food coma? lol)

Been keeping track of all the new posts, doing more research, questioning myself on what I truly want in terms of this upgrade. And the short answer is: I do have an interest in overclocking, though slight. Who knows, maybe that'll change once I get into it. That said, because of my budget of $300, that ultimately leaves me with the Pentium-K -this is where a local Micro Center would help, because then I could get an i5-K off the bat - but at least I'll be getting a better Z97 board out of it AND possibly an SSD.

Here's to hoping I don't have any regrets - I'm going with the Pentium K.

 

[Schmuckley]

Did everyone have a great Thanksgiving (and subsequent food coma? lol)

Been keeping track of all the new posts, doing more research, questioning myself on what I truly want in terms of this upgrade. And the short answer is: I do have an interest in overclocking, though slight. Who knows, maybe that'll change once I get into it. That said, because of my budget of $300, that ultimately leaves me with the Pentium-K -this is where a local Micro Center would help, because then I could get an i5-K off the bat - but at least I'll be getting a better Z97 board out of it AND possibly an SSD.

Here's to hoping I don't have any regrets - I'm going with the Pentium K.

I don't think you'll have any regrets.
What mobo though?
Pentium K is my fave chip out of..3930k,3570k,and g3258

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?

 

[BiggieShady]

Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?

I would go with i5 K especially because you mentioned sims 3 is not the only game you play, and some of this year's games simply refuse to run on dual cores. Z97 board and i5-4670K would be my choice these days. There is a price difference to pay, but I always rationalize that getting a shiny new platform is kind of a rare occurrence

 

[LiveOrDie]

Intel for any think AMD sucks

 

[Schmuckley]

Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?

Yes it would make sense to get a z97 board..if you like to overclock.
or you could go with a decent h81 and Pentium K.
tbh..those little chips will run just about anything smooth..
clocked @ 4.4 or more
I did read that far cry 4 checks to see if you have a dual-core and will not run with one.
However, I'd bet that's artificial.
It appears you're on a budget...
This is a quality z97 board on the cheap: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138408

or..h81: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138406

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Ok, after I nearly shit myself earlier while playing with OCing my FX-6100 and it would no longer POST @ 4500 MHz, I'm not sure overclocking is for me, lol. Seriously, I was kinda freaking out - like "oh shit, I broke it!" So, I believe I will just go with a locked i5 and either a B85 or H97 board.

 

[Schmuckley]

so much TMI

 

[GhostRyder]

Ok...there's been a wrench thrown into my original plan to get the Pentium K - I know, shit or get off the pot, lol - and that is my gut feeling that even with an OCed Pentium-K, it won't be enough for running Sims 3 or 4. Keeps nagging at me. So here's a compromise: getting the highest clocked i3 or i5 I can get. Would the upgrade path still be there? Would it make sense to get a Z97 board in order to keep my options open?

Ok, after I nearly shit myself earlier while playing with OCing my FX-6100 and it would no longer POST @ 4500 MHz, I'm not sure overclocking is for me, lol. Seriously, I was kinda freaking out - like "oh shit, I broke it!" So, I believe I will just go with a locked i5 and either a B85 or H97 board.

I think your over thinking it, like stated by others and myself overclocking is nothing that special or hard to a point where you have to freak out and on top of that the Pentium K is still an awesome chip for the money. If your computer does not post when you overclock it, then there is probably not enough voltage to the chip (well theres a lot of reasons but that is normally the basic reason) which means it just needs more. If it won't post all you have to do is reboot it once or twice more and it goes back to normal in most cases and in a worst case you just remove the bios battery for a second which will return the bios to its stock state removing any and all issues from your changes then you can move on from there.

My advice is to pick what your comfortable with but in all honesty if you go with something new and want to explore overclocking the Pentium K would probably be the best starter chip for you to work on. Its very easy to work with and honestly runs cool enough temps are never a real issue even on the stock cooler up to 4.0 ghz (Like my personal one currently is). If you do not want to take the risk then I would say get the highest clocked i3 you can as that will game just fine for awhile.

Also on the FX 6100, it just needs voltage but I do not think your board is great about handling that, try sticking to 4.0ghz as your reference in getting that stable then work from there.

 

[qubit]

@Gmr_Chick I'm sorry, I haven't read through the whole thread, just the first few posts, so sorry if I'm a bit off track.

Just wanna say that I think you should get the best Intel CPU you can, other than the hyper expensive E versions. This means a 4790K which is reasonable priced for what you get. Fact is, that the game takes ever increasing CPU power what with all the add-ons and new versions, so it will always slow down over time. Hence, getting the fastest CPU and overclocking it to a good 4.5GHz or so will really accelerate the game and make it run smoothly, plus make your PC that little bit more future proof. You'll also want to ensure that you get a motherboard with the top Intel chipset for it too, for overclockability.

Finally, I recommend NVIDIA graphics cards too when it comes time to upgrade, because I have so few problems with them, performance is great, plus some great enthusiast features. I've not had an AMD graphics card for about 5 years now, but from what I can tell by reading the forums around the web, they're still more glitchy than NVIDIA.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Yes, I do tend to over think things, like this for example My guess is most people don't over think about something like a CPU. They just buy the best one that fits their needs and move on. At any rate, if I get an unlocked CPU, I'll probably have to get another PSU as well because most boards now take an 8 pin CPU connector and mine only has one half of the original 8/4 pin connector because my dad got rid of the other 4 pin connector while he was sleeving my cables. I'd really feel safer with a bigger PSU anyway.

If I don't really care about Broadwell and M.2, could I just get an i5-4670K and a Z87 board?