New to Sim Racing but seasoned racer with a rig question

[XLR_8]

I'm a NASA and WRL racer and while i should have been a sim racer long ago i never made the leap. I have a gaming system i built 1 year ago and want to know if it can run 3 panels at at least 100hz/1ms OR the Samsung 49" panel. I'd rather build a new system just for my OCD and not "sharing" systems with my daily PC which this but I have another laptop i could switch over to and make this machine dedicated.

I'm a bit worried the processor isn't enough and also that the vid card isn't up to snuff. It has 2 hdmi and 2 display ports so might be odd running 3 monitors not using the same ports.

Here's what I have now and would love some feedback.

Intel Core i5-8600K CPU @ 3.60GHz
G.Skill DDR4-2132 - 16GB - running @ 1066MHz for some reason
Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING
Asus GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
2 Samsung 960 evo SSD

 

[BrightCandle]

The CPU is fine, all of the racing sims are fairly lowly threaded and prefer Intel/clockspeed anyway. It's not the latest but its more than sufficient. The RAM is normal, a bit slow but it wont matter too much. The clockspeed is normal, all ram is double data rate (DDR) so runs at half the clockspeed it says, ie 1066 is the clockspeed x 2 for double data rate = 2132 rated speed.

The GPU, on the other hand, is underpowered for triple screens with a decent drop in graphical performance. Something more like a 2080 or even a 2080 ti would be better, the more the better as triple screens can be very hard to drive and 100 fps at that is going to be tough.

As to the ports DP v HDMI it shouldn't matter much, the triple screen features works across them you just need to make sure the monitors you have support both and do so at the resolution and frame rate you want. I would also personally add gsync into the mix, that is one of the best advances in graphical quality in the last decade and well worth having.

 

[Ruttman98]

If you don't want to plunk down the cash for an RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 ti, a used GTX 1080 ti will run triples well. You won't get the latest implementation of ray tracing (few games even utilize it), but you're looking at a $375-$425 for a 1080 ti from Ebay or the like versus closer to $1000 for the newer RTX cards..

 

[XLR_8]

Thanks all! I'll start looking around, seems like my current card is still worth some cash too.

Any idea if it would run the Samsung 49"?

 

[Pappa_G_27]

Thanks all! I'll start looking around, seems like my current card is still worth some cash too.

Any idea if it would run the Samsung 49"?

Your current setup should allow you to run a single screen no problem. If you want triple screens though you need a GTX 1080 at minimum, but better yet a 1080ti or higher (rtx 2070 super, 2080) a 2080ti will future proof you.

The CPU you currently have will be fine for a few more years. ACC may be the only game that pushes it to its limits but even then it will work.

A ram speed upgrade wouldn't hurt, but shouldn't make a huge difference for Sim racing.

 

[Ruttman98]

Look for some threads about forum members' impressions of the Samsung 49" curved monitor vs. triples, especially with regard to peripheral vision and mirrors.

If you are confident that you want to go the 49" monitor route rather than triples, it might be worth seeing how the GTX 1060 performs first before upgrading the GPU.