Trying to get into Sim Racing

<(Multi)>

<(Multi)>

<(Multi)>

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So, about 25-30 years ago (yes really) as a kid I was massively into what I suppose was ‘sim racing’ or its very early beginnings; Grand Prix 3, Grand Prix 4 (Geoff Crammond) and the early EA Sports F1 games etc. This was when you had to upload a hotlap onto the internet and join a league table. Amazing!

Anyway, now in my early 40’s, I keep seeing YouTube videos of Le Mans Ultimate, Assetto Corsa Evo and they look fantastic. I’ve now by my own games room and wanted a nice like sim section with Fanatec wheel.

PC wise, I’m running an old-ish Intel i7 12700, 16GB RAM, RTX3050.

Can someone point me in the direction of where to go with this please? Is the CPU acceptable for today’s gaming? I know the GFX card could do with upgrading (budget £400-450, maybe 500).
RAM wise, is 16GB okay? If not, would an additional 16GB to make 32GB be okay. Back in the day, I have a feeling 2 sticks of RAM was ideal and 4 sticks was an issue (this was 2005 when I was building PCs)

My aim is to run Le Mans Ultimate, in a high-medium quality, 1080p res.

Any advice welcome.
 
Could you give this a read and pop a filled in template here please:

Read first: Build and Upgrade Advice + Template!

Disclaimer: Are you intending to build the PC yourself? Please let us know what your intentions are: (1) You are building your own PC, or will have someone doing this for you (2) You want OCUK to build your custom PC (3) You want an off-the-shelf PC As computer enthusiasts, we normally...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

It'll really help us get you started.

Regardless, if you only have £400-500 to spend and are on a 12700 you should be able to keep the CPU judging from some brief research on the games. A GPU upgrade could be an idea, but we'd need to know what power supply you're running as an absolute minimum.
 
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I'd just buy the game and give it a try.

You'll soon know if there's a problem running to your satisfaction.

In theory, a 12th gen i7 is plenty enough and a 3050 8GB can do 1080p high/med in the majority of games.

16GB is also fine for the vast majority, depending on how much multitasking there is (e.g. not 100 chrome tabs opened).
 
Gray2233 said:
Could you give this a read and pop a filled in template here please:

Read first: Build and Upgrade Advice + Template!

Disclaimer: Are you intending to build the PC yourself? Please let us know what your intentions are: (1) You are building your own PC, or will have someone doing this for you (2) You want OCUK to build your custom PC (3) You want an off-the-shelf PC As computer enthusiasts, we normally...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

It'll really help us get you started.

Regardless, if you only have £400-500 to spend and are on a 12700 you should be able to keep the CPU judging from some brief research on the games. A GPU upgrade could be an idea, but we'd need to know what power supply you're running as an absolute minimum.
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Thanks for the help.
The PSU is a Corsair CX550 (550W). I see this may limit my Graphics Card choice.
 
my 13500 ran lmu at 5120x1440 with no issues but have a 9070xt, i left lmu to go iracing, both are cpu intensive but lmu needs decent amount vram as well if i remember, 8gb could/will borderline if 1440 or higher
 
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Quartz said:
With that budget look primarily at getting yourself a decent (low end but non-toy) racing wheel and pedals. I'll leave recommendations on those to the experts.
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have to agree, something like g29 to start with n more importantly loadcell pedals, can get say LC pedals around £150 for 2 pedal set.
 
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Quartz said:
With that budget look primarily at getting yourself a decent (low end but non-toy) racing wheel and pedals. I'll leave recommendations on those to the experts.
Click to expand...
Ohh sorry. I should have said. I was budgeting for a wheel, pedal, frame/cockpit set as a different budget. Mainly the Fanatecs CSL set, seems to be 800£.
Hence the PC budget being towards the lower end. It sounds like the CPU I have can stay a bit longer. What does £450 buy second hand these days for RAM and/or GFX?
 
I'm far from an expert compared to many on here however I was recently in a very similar boat. I was looking to upgrade from a Ryzen 5600, 16gb ram, rtx2060 for SIM racing, specifically AC Evo, AMS2 and LMU.
I kept the CPU which I believe is slower than yours, and the RAM as the general consensus seemed to be that 16gb is sufficient (and who wants to pay current prices for RAM if you can help it!), and put my funds into the GPU and PSU. I picked up a new rx9070-non xt as the jump from an rx9060xt seemed to be worth the price difference. I think that OCUK have some B grade rx9070 for £500 at the moment.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/b-gr...pci-express-graphics-ca-bg-gra-pwc-04020.html

This seems to work well for a single monitor at 1440p. I was worried about being CPU limited however all the above games run well in high/maxed settings and I've not noticed any issues in race starts, including night with weather. I've also been tinkering around with VR and it runs well though I've not tried some of the more taxing scenarios.
I did look at 2nd hand options, rtx4070 were tempting around £400ish, but as said above you'll need to factor your PSU into any of these options.
 
hellforleather said:
I'm far from an expert compared to many on here however I was recently in a very similar boat. I was looking to upgrade from a Ryzen 5600, 16gb ram, rtx2060 for SIM racing, specifically AC Evo, AMS2 and LMU.
I kept the CPU which I believe is slower than yours, and the RAM as the general consensus seemed to be that 16gb is sufficient (and who wants to pay current prices for RAM if you can help it!), and put my funds into the GPU and PSU. I picked up a new rx9070-non xt as the jump from an rx9060xt seemed to be worth the price difference. I think that OCUK have some B grade rx9070 for £500 at the moment.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/b-gr...pci-express-graphics-ca-bg-gra-pwc-04020.html

This seems to work well for a single monitor at 1440p. I was worried about being CPU limited however all the above games run well in high/maxed settings and I've not noticed any issues in race starts, including night with weather. I've also been tinkering around with VR and it runs well though I've not tried some of the more taxing scenarios.
I did look at 2nd hand options, rtx4070 were tempting around £400ish, but as said above you'll need to factor your PSU into any of these options.
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Very helpful post. Thank you!
 
hellforleather said:
Well sort of, I didn't spot that you'd previously posted your PSU. I think both of the options I gave need more than 550W
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What’s a good power rating these days for a PSU then? It’s such a learning curve from when I was last building PCs, no one really cared about a PSU back then.
 
The 12700 will be plenty for sim racing. I've had no issues on a 12600K or Ryzen 5600.

I've had no problems with 32GB of RAM but as others have said I would try it before thinking about buying more at current prices.

On the GPU side I run a 6900 XT at triple 1440p and have no complaints about performance. My friend runs a 4080 on a single 4K screen for sim racing and we both have problems with performance in the same sims - early access stuff like AC Rally which is pretty unoptimised at the moment - so I haven't felt much need to upgrade yet.

In terms of wheel I would avoid anything gear or belt driven like the G29, etc. and go straight for a direct drive wheel, load cell brake, and a decent rig. The rig/cockpit is the most important thing, then the brake, then the wheelbase itself.
 
<(Multi)> said:
What’s a good power rating these days for a PSU then? It’s such a learning curve from when I was last building PCs, no one really cared about a PSU back then.
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I just checked and Power colour recommend a 650W PSU for the card I linked.
There is a PSU calculator on OCUK here:
OCUK PSU Calc
However I found that it tends to give numbers below the GPU manufacturer recommendations. I presume there's some margin in the recommended power to account for varying systems?

I bought a 750W PSU to give a bit more margin.
 
hellforleather said:
I just checked and Power colour recommend a 650W PSU for the card I linked.
There is a PSU calculator on OCUK here:
OCUK PSU Calc
However I found that it tends to give numbers below the GPU manufacturer recommendations. I presume there's some margin in the recommended power to account for varying systems?

I bought a 750W PSU to give a bit more margin.
Click to expand...
Very handy using the calculator

Have you experienced any issues with the 9070XT? It seems to be near enough to my budget, but initial research had seen people often mention driver issues with AMD cards. The 5070 is only 12GB of RAM which seems strange as the 5060 is 16GB.
 
<(Multi)> said:
Very handy using the calculator

Have you experienced any issues with the 9070XT? It seems to be near enough to my budget, but initial research had seen people often mention driver issues with AMD cards. The 5070 is only 12GB of RAM which seems strange as the 5060 is 16GB.
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Mine is the 9070 non-xt and I've had no issues with it, there's a big old 9070 owners thread in the graphics card forum which I found useful before I purchased.
At the time I figures that a 12Gb card would be sufficient for everything I wanted to play now however I plan to keep it for quite a while so 16Gb is a little more future proof.
 
Tediore said:
The 12700 will be plenty for sim racing. I've had no issues on a 12600K or Ryzen 5600.

I've had no problems with 32GB of RAM but as others have said I would try it before thinking about buying more at current prices.

On the GPU side I run a 6900 XT at triple 1440p and have no complaints about performance. My friend runs a 4080 on a single 4K screen for sim racing and we both have problems with performance in the same sims - early access stuff like AC Rally which is pretty unoptimised at the moment - so I haven't felt much need to upgrade yet.

In terms of wheel I would avoid anything gear or belt driven like the G29, etc. and go straight for a direct drive wheel, load cell brake, and a decent rig. The rig/cockpit is the most important thing, then the brake, then the wheelbase itself.
Click to expand...
Buying a direct drive is I think a risk as the person may not take to SIM racing hence why a cheap wheel. Some of best still use like g29 wheels
It's the load cell brakes that make the biggest difference and can be had cheap. Can get started with cheap wheel n lc brakes for under 300 quid if wheel used, very few go straight to direct drive to start with.
Just what I have learnt, I went g29 to start with then made mistake of going R5, R9 is where I am now and is perfect for me.

Just my 2 cents:)
 
Tediore said:
The rig/cockpit is the most important thing, then the brake, then the wheelbase itself.
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Interested why you think the rig/cockpit is the most important?
It’s only recently I’m hearing more and more comments that it’s all in the pedals. You naturally, and incorrectly always assume 1) Wheel 2) pedals 3) cockpit. It would appear I’m wrong.

My plans had been Fanatec DD 8mm base and pedals, not sure on the wheel yet. The V1.5 cockpit and seat for £329. Then upgrade to the V3 pedals at a later date. Any thoughts on that plan welcome.
 
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