Best PC to run the Sims

I'd be happy to help you find something that works for you. Would you like some links to specific computers that would work well with both games? If so, just list your budget and country, as well as any other details that matter to you—desktop or laptop (and do you need to budget for a monitor as well), other games you'd like to play or apps you'd like to run, any large collections of movies, music, etc. that you'd like to be able to store.

Or, if you prefer, I can write out the specs you'd want in a new system, so that you can look yourself.

@puzzlezaddict I think links would be perfect.
Budget up to 1000 I prefer a desktop.
Country US. I don't play any other games on PC.
I had being looking at this one but wasn't sure
https://skytechgaming.com/product/azure-2/
Thank you for replying ?

That's an excellent price for a computer with an Nvidia 2060, and SkyTech is always a good choice for people who want to make the most of their budget. I do want to point out, in case you weren't sure, that a 2060 is overkill for both TS3 and TS4, not that there's anything wrong with that. The processor is more than strong enough for both games, plus whatever multitasking you'd want to do alongside them. Getting 16 GB RAM is nice too.

Just so you have more ideas, here are a couple of other possibilities to consider. They're certainly not better than the one you found, but they are cheaper, and they'd run the games on ultra graphics settings as well.

This one, at $635, is the lowest I'd go. Its AMD RX 580 is just enough for ultra graphics settings, it has a slightly stronger processor than the one you found, and it has only 8 GB RAM, not that you couldn't add more yourself. (A single 8 GB RAM stick might cost you less than $50, but you'd want to make sure you matched the model already installed in the computer.)
https://www.amazon.com/SkyTech-Archangel-Gaming-Computer-Desktop/dp/B07JYF2394

This one is $730, with the same processor you found, and an Nvidia 1660, which is enough for ultra settings with room to spare. It also has only 8 GB RAM.
https://www.amazon.com/SkyTech-Shadow-Computer-Desktop-GeForce/dp/B07RG74BS9

Both these computers are available on the SkyTech website as well, although for a higher price, and Amazon offers free shipping.

The best option with a 1660 ti, the next card down from a 2060 (and of course better than a 1660 without the ti boost), is $850. It also has 16 GB RAM, but paying only $50 to upgrade to a 2060 is a pretty good deal. Still, in case you want to see:
https://skytechgaming.com/product/legacy-mini/

Finally, I poked around CyberpowerPC's website, because why not. There are a couple of excellent deals right now, and with the right configuration and the right daily sale, you could actually get a system with a 2060, 16 GB RAM, and a 500 GB SSD for just under $900. This doesn't include tax or shipping though. What it does include is a better motherboard and power supply, and faster RAM, as well as the option to pick exactly the hard drive(s) you want, not just size and type but brand. Just as importantly, it includes a significantly stronger processor, one of the new AMD models that's much faster than its predecessors.

Interestingly, the downgrade to a 1660 ti would only save $45, and getting a 1660 would save $91. It's probably because people are so excited by the 2060 Super that the regular 2060 is falling in price.

Anyway, it's something to consider. Otherwise, you'd do very well with the model you picked out, and any of the computers on this list should have no trouble handling everything TS3 and TS4 could throw at them.

@puzzlezaddict thank you so much I really appreciate your help.

@puzzlezaddict What would be the best PCs to run both games with all extension/stuff packs with a price limit of 2000? thank you for any help!

@ashlisims221 Are you talking about $2,000 U.S.? Because that's much more money than you need to spend, unless you have other plans for this computer as well. Would you like to play other games, or do anything demanding like edit videos? Do you want a desktop or a laptop? If you'd prefer a desktop, would you like the cheapest good option, or would you prefer to pay a bit more to get better quality components, so you have room to upgrade later? I'd be happy to look around for you, as soon as I know what you want.

Would a Lenovo B5400 work for TS3 or is that not good enough? I sadly doesn't have any other working computer yet since my brother's desktop is infected by viruses and needs to be cleared out

@AlexyPower Unfortunately, how a Lenovo B5400 would run TS3 falls somewhere between "not very well" and "not at all." It came in a few different configurations, but even the best graphics card offered wouldn't be strong enough to handle the most demanding Sims 3 expansions (Pets, Seasons, then Isla Paradiso and Into the Future). The lowest-end graphics chip that came with this model might not even run the base game. It looks like one configuration came with only 4 GB RAM, which is not enough, and all of the processors are dual-core, so they'd struggle just to run TS3 and Windows at the same time.

None of that takes into account the age of this computer or how well it's been maintained over the years. Some laptops hold up better than others, partly with extra care and partly due to luck, but you couldn't expect any five year old laptop to run as well as it would have when it was new. So while it's impossible to say exactly how this one would run Sims 3, you're unlikely to get the play experience you want.

If you have the option to wait for your brother's computer to be fixed, that's probably the better way to go.

"AlexyPower;c-17234039" wrote:
Would a Lenovo B5400 work for TS3 or is that not good enough? I sadly doesn't have any other working computer yet since my brother's desktop is infected by viruses and needs to be cleared out

@AlexyPower - Like the previous poster said, the Lenovo B5400 came in a number of different configurations, so the question is, which one of those have you got?

If you want anyone to be able to give you a more definite answer you'll have to run a DxDiag report on your computer, copy it all, upload it to Pastebin and put a link to it in your next post here.

How to gather information on your PC using DxDiag.

Since you're still a new member I don't think you can post links properly, so you have to put a blank space between h and t like I've done below.

h ttps://pastebin.com/NwV1XQsq

@puzzlezaddict - Where are you looking for information about the Lenovo B5400? I looked here at the Lenovo official site, but it's not very detailed about the specs.

@SuzyCue72 That's the first site I found, minus the Swedish that I wouldn't understand, but there were also several reviews of that laptop model, all of which listed the specific configuration being tested. I even saw a couple of those laptops on sale.

At any rate, even assuming the most favorable configuration (i5-4200M, Nvidia 720m, 8 or 16 GB RAM), that hardware wouldn't have run the entire game very well when it was new. It's reasonably likely that all packs could technically have run, but with lots of lag, frequent crashes, delays in rendering, and a generally poor play experience, even on low graphics settings. The GPU would simply not have been able to handle all the data it was asked to process in anything resembling a timely fashion. The base game and a few early packs probably would have been fine, especially if the game wasn't running on ultra.

And all that's with the best possible configuration. It looks like most of them don't have a dedicated card at all; the cheapest has only the very weak chip integrated into the Pentium 3550M. That chip would be completely overmatched by even a handful of packs, and even the fully patched base game alone might not have run very well.

Plus, hardware ages, and laptop hardware usually doesn't age particularly gracefully. It's impossible to say how much the performance of this particular computer might have dropped off in the last several years, only that it certainly has.