Re: Best pc for the sims 4 with the highest settings A LOT OF MODS & expansi

@Maisha7197  Sorry, I got the motherboard specs a bit wrong there.  (I was going by memory from when I first looked them up.)  The actual specs are as follows.

The Asus is the one with fewer SATA ports, 4 instead of 6.  That's still plenty though.  It also doesn't have a USB-C port on the back.  Spec sheet:

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-Z390-P/specifications/

The first MSI has six SATA ports but only one M.2 socket, which will be used by your SSD.  Again, this is only an issue if you think you might want to add more parts later.  Spec sheet:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z390-A-PRO/Specification

Your current motherboard has four SATA ports and zero M.2 slots.  It also uses USB 2.0, which is somehow (because naming conventions are silly) three generations behind the USB 3.1 gen 2 ports that the other boards have.  Here's the full spec sheet for your board:

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c01925534

In case you're looking for it, here's the next MSI board up:

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z390-GAMING-PLUS/Specification

By the way, I can see why your computer struggled so much with Cats & Dogs: not enough RAM, plus an integrated graphics card that would already have been struggling with Seasons.  This one should be a world apart.

Edit:  Sorry, I forgot to add that the basic DVD player is £10 extra.  But some cases wouldn't support adding one, so the actual price might be a few pounds higher when you account for getting a case with enough room.  (A few as in less than £10, but I'd have to check each one manually.)

@puzzlezaddictI think I’ll just go ahead with the MSI Pro seeing as the only problem is it’s unavailability in being upgraded in future (which I don’t really care about)

edit: I definitely think I’d want a DVD player (even if it is basic) and I’d also want the 6-in-1 card reader that I currently have if possible? And do I have to pay for ports at the front? (I looked through each motherboards specs and they only mentioned ports on the back). I’m asking because I like having one to plug my headphones into and two extra for usb 

Aswell as that, I’ve decided a want a midtower but for some reason cannot figure out which ones have the optical bays / drive space (since I’m wanting a DVD player and possible a 6-in1 card reader)

edit: I’m talking about cases now, sorry forgot to mention

@Maisha7197  The motherboard specs list the back connectors because those connect into the board itself, as in, the back panel is a part of the motherboard that's showing through a cutout in the case.  For the front connectors, there's a cable from the case that plugs into the board, and that's how the data is transferred.  So what front connectors you have will depend on what the board supports, but also what's built into the case.  All cases should have a headphone jack and a couple of USB ports on the top.  The MSI supports USB 3.1 (or 3.0) and 2.0 on the front.

The DVD drive and card reader situation is harder to resolve though.  Each one occupies a 5.25" drive bay, and many cases don't even have one.  There's only a single case that has 2 of them, the Cooler Master Mastercase MC500.  It's £44 more than the cheapest cases.  (By the way, the easiest method of checking whether a case has the necessary drive bay is to select one that does, add the DVD drive, and then go along trying to select other cases.  Any case that doesn't have one will throw an error.)

By the way, I believe this is the internal card reader Cyberpower offers; I can't tell what the external option is supposed to be.

http://www.akasa.com.tw/search.php?seed=AK-ICR-14

External DVD drives and card readers are not all that expensive.  For example:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/External-Portable-Optical-Rewriter-Netbook/dp/B01H3XX666

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CSL-external-Maximum-Simultaneous-reading/dp/B015O55NRK

(I didn't sort by price, just by what google threw me that looked okay.  Check the reviews though.)  Both of these use a USB 3.0 port, so it would be easy enough to plug either one in when you needed it.  You could get one built into the computer and an external version of the other, or get both external versions.

And MSI makes some excellent motherboards.  Here's an overview with a couple of pictures, if you want to know what it will look like.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13407/intel-z390-motherboard-overview-every-motherboard-analyzed/51

@puzzlezaddictIt’s obviously easier to just go ahead with buying both externally and using them externally (I don’t use those parts often on my current computer anyways but I did have a use for them at one point. So, just incase, I thought I’d get those same things).

Edit: I might actually get atleast an internal dvd thing with a compatible case as that’s much more easier to configure but I’ll just go with external for the card reader. Also, the MSI motherboard does look really good and well made.

@Maisha7197  Alright, I went with the only inexpensive case that also had a 5.25" bay for the DVD drive.  Since I wasn't sure whether you wanted internal wifi or not, I saved one configuration with the high-speed wifi adapter, and one without.  (And of course you can always get a USB wifi adapter later, if you need it.)

with wifi:  http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/1750384

without wifi:  http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/1750382

Take a look, and let me know if you want to change anything.  I would definitely order soon though, maybe today if you're comfortable, just in case the low price of this particular system is in fact an error.  Even if it isn't, prices can change quickly.

I'll be around later if you have questions, so feel free to keep asking.

@puzzlezaddictThank you so much for all the help and your answering to my many many questions! And I think I’ll be going for the £540 with WiFi but maybe not today or this week? Is that too late :/

@Maisha7197  The links I sent you will be good for a week, and then I'd need to redo the configuration.  There's no guarantee the price would hold up though, which is why I recommended buying now if you could manage.  I still wonder if someone is going to get into work tomorrow, notice the low price, and raise it by £200.  There's no way to tell until it happens.  I'm not trying to rush you, really, but like I said, the next cheapest system with the same parts would cost over £700, and that make me nervous that this price is a temporary fluke.

@puzzlezaddictI’m starting to notice that more and more people are viewing and ‘xp’ing things from this thread. I feel like this could potentially lead to atleast one person buying ‘my’ configured pc, do you think CyberPower would get suspicious about this and feel the need to put the price up? Seeing as this configured pc is kind of like a jackpot for what it’s worth :/

edit: suspicious over loads of people being interested in one custom-built PC. (Assuming that the people viewing are clicking on the links and becoming interested). This worry has only come up as I’ve been sent several emails to let me know that people have been giving Xp to certain posts in the thread...

@Maisha7197  I think you're referring to BlackjackWidow, PugLove, SheriGR, and EuphorialQueen?  (There might be others I haven't seen.)  They're regular helpers here, and I think they're just reading along for their own curiosity.  The XP is them being nice.  As for whether any of them might order your configuration, I think that's highly unlikely.