What do you upgrade or replace next?

What do you upgrade_.jpg

Where would you spend your money?

  • Upgrade the monitor and PC

  • Purchase a direct drive wheelbase and rim

  • Upgrade the PC and purchase a VR headset

  • Purchase a new cockpit and monitor

  • Upgrade the PC and purchase a new rim/s

  • Other


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When it comes to upgrading your sim racing equipment there are so many options, it can be daunting to decide where you should spend your money. Of course there are many people out there that don’t have to worry about where they spend their money.

For the rest of us, we want to make sure we get the best bang for our buck.

It doesn't matter who you speak to, they will most likely have a differing idea. Some sim racing friends might say that you need a direct drive wheel base, others may say a good set of pedals are more important than an upgraded wheelbase.

It can get even more nuanced than this, you might be advised to upgrade your PC but stick with Intel as they perform better on a single core, or you must buy a RTX GPU so you can utilize NVENC in OBS.

There are many ways to upgrade and everyone appears to have a differing opinion, so wouldn't it be great to take a middle of the range sim racing setup and see where the RD community would upgrade or replace.

Let us imagine for a moment that you own the following sim racing hardware and you are fortunate to have come into some money - £1500, $1960 etc.

And with permission from your nearest and dearest you are able to spend this amount upgrading your current setup.
  • 27” monitor, capable of 120 Hz but only displays a max resolution of 1920 x 1080.
  • ART Simulator Cockpit (XL RS variant), which is a steel frame and pre-drilled for Logitech, Thrustmaster, and Fanatec.
  • Your PC is 4 years old, with the following specifications (very generic specs FYI) - i7 8th gen, 16GB RAM, GTX 1080 GPU - middle of the road motherboard, 650w PSU
  • Thrustmaster TS-PC Racer Ferrari 488 Challenge Edition - no extra wheels
  • Thrustmaster T-LCM Pedals
About author
Damian Reed
PC geek, gamer, content creator, and passionate sim racer.
I live life a 1/4 mile at a time, it takes me ages to get anywhere!

Comments

That's better than what I have right now - so why upgrade ?

Yeah, I know it's a theoretical scenario. In that case: the monitor. 27 is way too small. And HD is not enough anymore.
 
Litterally Just upgraded my ram from 16GB Single Channel to 32 GB Dual channel for £55. Did think being on Single channel was holding my CPU back, and that going to Dual channel just might clear up my stutters with 30 cars on track in ACC on high gfx settings (infact I got it with ACC in mind specifically), but holly heck did I get a bit more bang for my buck than that! Now running 50 cars on track with Epic gfx settings. I am one happy bunny! Think next I'd possibly think about a bit better CPU then gfx card. My Fanatec CS 2.5 wheels good for mo, but would like DD in future.
 
I count myself very lucky and tbh I can't think of anything else to upgrade now. Did all mine throughout the pandemic with nothing else to spend my money on. Got the Samsung 49" widescreen, 8020 aluminium rig, heusinkveld sprints, Simucube 2 pro plus 2 wheels and also updated my PC with the Ryzen 5800x + Rtx 3080 ti combo. All in the space of 12 months. Think I'm done and my girlfriend hasn't thrown me out yet....
 
The PC is still decent for today's standard. You won't be pushing high on ACC with triple monitors however.

I would get 2 more monitors of the same model i already have and some alu profiles to make a triple monitor stand. Your vision into the simracing world is the most important thing. This setup could easily do triple screen iracing, AC, AMS2 easily.

Then if I have enough budget leftover, I'll sell the ART and get a simlab alu-rig GT1 cockpit. The rest can be upgraded in the future.
 
Definitely a pc for me, the old hp envy has been upgraded a few times and has served me well. So in time for AC2 in 2024, a new one and possibly some fanatec gear will be purchased
 
The brain matter out of my brain.
For real, i think i recall a lot of serious simmer youtubers say that for a more immersive experience and better laptimes you should stop looking into the wheel/pedals and look more into what you sit on. A good cockpit with a barely OK wheel/pedal set is a lot better than an office chair on a fantastic wheel/pedal set and i find myself agreeing with it. Specially since the people that want to be into sim racing want to be in it for the immersion.
 
Few days ago I bought myself i7 12700K and ASUS TUF Z690 D4 , no more fps drops in AMS 2 and no more stuttering in ACC
 
Surprisingly even spread in the survey. For me, it's direct drive wheelbase plus new wheel, but only because I've already upgraded my rig to DIY aluminum, my VR headset to a Reverb G2, and my pedals to HPPs (and I'm DIYing a shifter). It all depends what you've got right now I suppose.
 
I'm going to mount surround speakers to upgrade the old 2.1 set. But still waiting for simlab to have their custom sized alu profiles back in stock. They're out of stock since December now.
 
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Premium
My racecraft! :laugh: I'm currently working on "upgrading" my braking skills first... got load-cell pedals a year ago and a (surprisingly good) elastomer mod last month. The investment has given me much better feeling and modulation and took me from being, erratically, about 6 seconds behind the fastest guys, to now being, consistently, just 2-to-3 seconds back. Next purchase: time! I need more practice to make it stick and eventually close the rest of the gap. :coffee:

Oh, and I may be the only one waiting for TM's DD wheel... hoping the price is right... :D
 
maybe the seat. The cockpit could be replaced, but honestly, it is so straightforward that Im finding trouble or justification to do it.
 
Premium
Definitely PC. Upgraded the monitor to a ultrawide last year and love it. My PC is a potato with a RX580 and a i5-2500K(overclocked though) that is definitely getting long in the tooth. I was actually shopping around yesterday for what I want to do. Obviously no GPU upgrade with the current market. Hopefully someday that will improve again, otherwise gaming will have to move to somewhere else(steamdeck probably).
 

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Damian Reed
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What's needed for simracing in 2024?

  • More games, period

  • Better graphics/visuals

  • Advanced physics and handling

  • More cars and tracks

  • AI improvements

  • AI engineering

  • Cross-platform play

  • New game Modes

  • Other, post your idea


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