The perfect Factorio computer

[CureSafaia]

And what about a Ryzen 3 2200G with integrated graphics ?
It's been known to have a pretty strong integrated graphics and its CPU is not bad either, I don't think the CPU is i5 grade especially for Factorio though but i don't see it being that much of a problem when you see that low price.

I also saw a RX 550 4 GB the other day, not a strong GPU, but a lot of VRAM for that price, with a current gen i5 I can only see a perfect fit for factorio.

[BlueTemplar]

Just how low of a price ?
Integrated graphics might be kind of a waste in a full-sized desktop?
An older dedicated CPU and GPU might be better?

Though I guess that the PC could be built in steps :
- first a CPU or motherboard with an integrated GPU.
- then latter a better, dedicated GPU
- then later again a better CPU
(The motherboard has to be easily extensible to be able to upgrade the CPU and dedicated GPU in the next 5-10 years.)

[posila]

I mean. If I have to choose between a I5-8600k (6core/6thread @ 4.3GHz) and a I7-7800K (6core/12thread @4GHz) (expecting same IPC on each). Which one would you advise ? Higher clock or more core/thread ?
I got that in the "render preparation", higher thread is advise. But in the whole tick calculation ?

So I tried different number of prepare threads on i7-6700k at home and i9-7900X at work and past 6 threads I haven't seen any difference in prepare time, so higher frequency seems like better option if both CPUs have at least 6 cores.
I am not sure how hyperthreading plays in this - is 4core/4thread significantly better than 2core/4thread? I don't know.

[BlueTemplar]

But 6 is already quite a lot for a game ! How much improvement do you see going from 1 to 2,3,4,5,6 cores?

[zOldBulldog]

He won't be saving money in the long run if he buys overpriced, top of the line components -
(isn't an i7 complete overkill for anyone not with very specific computing work needs?
Heck, even an i5 is probably overkill, but might pay off in the long run - and would help with Factorio single core needs),
- when these components (RAM, SSD!) might become obsolete/much cheaper in just half a decade.

An SSD isn't essential, but so much of an improvement over an HDD as a main drive! And they got a lot cheaper and more reliable recently !
As long as he can afford at least a 128GB quality one (Samsung?), I'd recommend getting one. (He can always get a TB-sized storage HDD later.)

This is the kind of thinking i was hoping to trigger. Correct, he does not need top of the line, but a lot of components have dropped a lot in price and might be worth considering. He said he wants cheap, but he also titled the thread "the perfect dactorio computer", so it is obvious that he wants to have a good experience playing Factorio and we (and maybe even him) don't know what else he might use the computer for in the next couple years. As jap said, what he needs depends on how he plans to play factorio, and only the OP knows what that is (or might not even know *yet* if he has not reached that level of gameplay), and he will definitely end up with an unsatisfactory computer and expensive brick if he discovers that what he bought isn't enough for his needs in a year. In the end going "bottom price" is a gamble, and only he can decide how cheap he wants to risk going.

The wisest course of action for the cash strapped is to look at a few options in the range he can afford, try to figure out what is the cheapest option that "he thinks" will satisfy his needs, add at least 30% to account for the unexpected (like having estimated what is the cheapest wrong or increases in court demand due to patches over time) and get that option instead. That way he'll have a reasonable chance that the computer will last him long enough to be worth the investment. Anything less when trying to go cheapest will almost certainly end up backfiring.

[Dergonic]

I am not sure how hyperthreading plays in this - is 4core/4thread significantly better than 2core/4thread? I don't know.

Thanks for the replys, this is interesting and will definitively help me choose my next CPU

In a general matter, a 2core/4thread CPU is slower than a 4care/4thread (at same speed/IPC)
Hyperthreading is not doing exactly 2 actions on one physical core. There is a small amount of cycle used by the hyperthreading system itself.

So in a matter of Factorio, I would personally recommend
- I3-8350K (170€)
- I5-8600k (250€)
- I7-8700k (350€)
- I7-8086k (for those who won in lotery - 500€)

PS : Sorry, I'm an intel fan. I can't give advice/comparison on Ryzen CPUs



For anyone interested, here is the config I'm planning to purchase soon
- CPU : Intel core I5-8600k
- MB : Gigabyte Z370 N Wifi
- RAM : GSkill DDR4 3200 - 2*16Gb
- SSD : Samsung M.2 SSD 970 Evo 500Gb
- PSU : Cooler master RS 750
- Cooler : Cooler master ML120L
--> Total : ~1020€

I already have a 2Tb HDD and a GeForce GTW 970 that will be repurposed.
(Any advise welcome)

[zOldBulldog]

I am not sure how hyperthreading plays in this - is 4core/4thread significantly better than 2core/4thread? I don't know.

Thanks for the replys, this is interesting and will definitively help me choose my next CPU

In a general matter, a 2core/4thread CPU is slower than a 4care/4thread (at same speed/IPC)
Hyperthreading is not doing exactly 2 actions on one physical core. There is a small amount of cycle used by the hyperthreading system itself.

So in a matter of Factorio, I would personally recommend
- I3-8350K (170€)
- I5-8600k (250€)
- I7-8700k (350€)
- I7-8086k (for those who won in lotery - 500€)

PS : Sorry, I'm an intel fan. I can't give advice/comparison on Ryzen CPUs



For anyone interested, here is the config I'm planning to purchase soon
- CPU : Intel core I5-8600k
- MB : Gigabyte Z370 N Wifi
- RAM : GSkill DDR4 3200 - 2*16Gb
- SSD : Samsung M.2 SSD 970 Evo 500Gb
- PSU : Cooler master RS 750
- Cooler : Cooler master ML120L
--> Total : ~1020€

I already have a 2Tb HDD and a GeForce GTW 970 that will be repurposed.
(Any advise welcome)

Excellent balance of price and function. Well done!

The only suggestion I might add (if the Gigabyte motherboard doesn't already support it) is to have the memory slots available for future expansion to at least 64GB of RAM. This because the rapid drop in RAM prices is letting developers feel free to increase the memory demands of applications.

[eradicator]

The only suggestion I might add (if the Gigabyte motherboard doesn't already support it) is to have the memory slots available for future expansion to at least 64GB of RAM. This because the rapid drop in RAM prices is letting developers feel free to increase the memory demands of applications.

You must be living in a fantasy world. Because real world memory prices are up, not down (read the news about shortages for various smartphones and graphics cards). https://geizhals.eu/?phist=1413561 And contrary to CPU cycles, unused RAM has no benefit. And the "developers increase memory usage" is "pic or it didn't happen".

priceup.png (33.15 KiB) Viewed 5558 times

[zOldBulldog]

The only suggestion I might add (if the Gigabyte motherboard doesn't already support it) is to have the memory slots available for future expansion to at least 64GB of RAM. This because the rapid drop in RAM prices is letting developers feel free to increase the memory demands of applications.

You must be living in a fantasy world. Because real world memory prices are up, not down (read the news about shortages for various smartphones and graphics cards). https://geizhals.eu/?phist=1413561 And contrary to CPU cycles, unused RAM has no benefit. And the "developers increase memory usage" is "pic or it didn't happen".

priceup.png

Maybe I do live in a fantasy world. Every time I've bought memory I got more and for lower price than the time before. But then... I don't buy it very often. In any case, argument for the sake of argument is pointless.

The important thing is to have room in the motherboard to upgrade memory without upgrading the motherboard. You can usually find motherboards with that ability without paying anything extra or for just a minimal difference.

[posila]

But 6 is already quite a lot for a game ! How much improvement do you see going from 1 to 2,3,4,5,6 cores?

So my previous message was based on chaning "Max render threads" slider in graphics options and watching preparation times under show-timing-info in debug menu (F4).

But since you asked, here are benchmarks of average and median times of render prepare step (measured over 1200 frames of paused game, measured on i9-7900X)

Code: Select all

~25000 sprites
 1 thread>  avg: 4.658 ms,  med: 4.555 ms
 2 threads> avg: 2.653 ms,  med: 2.624 ms
 3 threads> avg: 2.424 ms,  med: 2.373 ms
 4 threads> avg: 2.117 ms,  med: 2.105 ms
 5 threads> avg: 1.862 ms,  med: 1.836 ms
 6 threads> avg: 1.765 ms,  med: 1.757 ms
 7 threads> avg: 1.630 ms,  med: 1.634 ms
 8 threads> avg: 1.494 ms,  med: 1.484 ms
20 threads> avg: 1.277 ms,  med: 1.270 ms
     
          
~70000 sprites
 1 thread>  avg: 14.077 ms,  med: 13.449 ms
 2 threads> avg:  7.476 ms,  med:  7.429 ms
 3 threads> avg:  7.162 ms,  med:  7.119 ms
 4 threads> avg:  5.876 ms,  med:  5.837 ms
 5 threads> avg:  5.148 ms,  med:  5.135 ms
 6 threads> avg:  4.510 ms,  med:  4.497 ms
 7 threads> avg:  4.280 ms,  med:  4.287 ms
 8 threads> avg:  3.958 ms,  med:  3.958 ms
20 threads> avg:  3.211 ms,  med:  3.211 ms

[CureSafaia]

[...]

Mostly, in core/thread count ryzen 3 = core i3, ryzen 5 = core i7, but AMD is a little behind in single core performance while being better in multithreaded, which make them less powerful in game, does not mean they are bad, they also have slightly better price around here.

I am building a new rig soon as well
Ryzen 5 2600, Gigabyte GA-AB350N Gaming wifi, 16 GB of Corsair vengeance LPX and a Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB NVMe SSD.
I'm going mini-itx but for now I will reuse my micro ATX case with the bequiet PSU and cooler, also I have a RX 480.
8 GB of RAM is still enough to game on my old system today but 16 is the minimum to go for a new one to me, so I don't see 32 being a necessity in this system lifetime but I can't predict the future and the price of 32 GB is absurdly high and not down like the other said right now, might as well buy 32 when needed to replace 16 when RAM price comes back to normal if it does so, so I really hope the guy who say you should make sure to be able to upgrade to 64 GB of RAM is just being really really really pessimistic, I don't see RAM usage being THAT significantly impacted by unoptimized development like CPU usage is.

I think the middle range CPU with a middle range GPU is the sweet spot right now for a gaming PC, but as I said earlier, if someone only want to play factorio, maybe a Ryzen 3 2200G or its stronger version is enough ? Or like an i3 or i5 with a cheap but well furnished in VRAM GPU like a RX 550 4 GB ?

[Dergonic]

Excellent balance of price and function. Well done!

The only suggestion I might add (if the Gigabyte motherboard doesn't already support it) is to have the memory slots available for future expansion to at least 64GB of RAM.

Thanks

I do agree with you. A 4 Ram slot Motherboard would have been more intersting for furter purpose.
In the specific case, I have one limitation : I need a mini-itx motherboard (for personal reason) and I did not manage to find a 4 slot minit itx moterboard.

[eradicator]

I do agree with you. A 4 Ram slot Motherboard would have been more intersting for furter purpose.
In the specific case, I have one limitation : I need a mini-itx motherboard (for personal reason) and I did not manage to find a 4 slot minit itx moterboard.

The way Dual/Quad channel memory works, you couldn't really really stick two additional bars into the two empty slots several years later anyways, you'd have to buy a 4*16 kit and throw away the current 2*16 or suffer preformance loss. So, if you ever need 64 in the future maybe you're lucky and they started selling 2*32 by then.

@posila:
So if i get that right render_preparation affects UPS...in which case 1-2 ms difference from 4 vs 8 threads is pretty impressive, given that even on_tick heavy mods usually only use at most 1ms (on my system anyway).

[SilverShadow]

I think it's better to stay with your current GPU until it became obvious that it can't cope with the task. As for CPU, I would look at Ryzen 3, but here(https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... ed_fpsups/) was stated that "Ryzen is not a good processor for Factorio". If so, then you should look at i3 8th Gen. Maybe you also can use your current PSU in the new setup.

Mostly, in core/thread count ryzen 3 = core i3, ryzen 5 = core i7, but AMD is a little behind in single core performance while being better in multithreaded, which make them less powerful in game, does not mean they are bad, they also have slightly better price around here.

Also, if compare not only CPU prices, but (CPU + mobo), then AMD price per single core performance is basically the same as on Intel. It may depend on market fluctuations, though.

[Edit] Deleted i5 7th Gen advice

[Jap2.0]

He won't be saving money in the long run if he buys overpriced, top of the line components -
(isn't an i7 complete overkill for anyone not with very specific computing work needs?
Heck, even an i5 is probably overkill, but might pay off in the long run - and would help with Factorio single core needs),
- when these components (RAM, SSD!) might become obsolete/much cheaper in just half a decade.

An SSD isn't essential, but so much of an improvement over an HDD as a main drive! And they got a lot cheaper and more reliable recently !
As long as he can afford at least a 128GB quality one (Samsung?), I'd recommend getting one. (He can always get a TB-sized storage HDD later.)

True, he probably does want a SSD (I have my OS on a SSD and games on a separate partition on a HDD, but he could probably fit both on one SSD).

But 6 is already quite a lot for a game ! How much improvement do you see going from 1 to 2,3,4,5,6 cores?

In addition to what Posila said, you also have to remember that if you only have one or two cores, some of that will be taken up by the OS and background processes. Quad core (often with 8 threads) is fairly standard, and beyond that it's significant diminishing returns in terms of both price and Factorio performance.

[Zanthra]

How much performance impact does CPU cache size have on performance as the entity count grows? Has prefetching improved to where it is not a concern?

[adamwong246]

Just a reminder- you actually don't need amazing hardware at all. I beat vanilla handily on an ancient macbook air with just 4 gigs of Ram and the only slowdown was during autosave.