i’m very open to anything i just want something that runs super smooth with all the packs and mods i’ve just heard it’s cheaper to custom build so i was just trying to start from there and thank you again!
@abigailevelynn__ Sorry for the late reply. I got caught up in something last night and didn't have time to do a thorough search.
Anyway, I did search tonight, and the high-end custom builds are, as I expected, a bit out of your preferred price range. The reason is likely the shortage of graphics cards: the newest ones are almost impossible to find, the last generation models are going for twice their usual price, and everyone's desperate. That's also the reason that building yourself might not work out well—paying $600 for a normally $250 GPU is annoying even when price isn't an issue.
For context, an Nvidia 1650 should run Sims 4 smoothly on ultra settings, and a 1660 or faster (or an AMD 5500XT or faster) would be overkill. In practice, the game has its own slowdowns no matter how fast the hardware, and although more powerful components can buffer the effects to some degree, the issues with the game engine itself will still limit performance. So you may think it's worth the extra price to get a 1660, or even a 2060, but maybe not; it's about your preference.
There are two main options that would work here. One is to get a prebuilt system, and the other is to configure a computer from Dell or HP. For the prebuilt systems, there are lots of options with a 1660 of some kind, and very few with the somewhat faster (~20% in gaming, but it varies a lot by game) 2060. Both Dell and HP have models that can be upgraded to include a 2060; the price would be a bit over $1,100 with a 2060 and more like $850-950 with a 1660, depending on the other components you wanted. You could spend some of that money on a stronger processor, planning to get a faster graphics card to go with it in a few years, but that's not necessary for Sims 4 and never will be.
As for the prebuilt options, this is not an exclusive list, just a few good options for you to look at. I can write more about any of these, or the differences among them, if you'd like, but first please let me know what direction you're thinking of going.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/6424476.p?skuId=6424476
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1560344-REG/msi_codex_r_10si_003us_gaming.html
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1597600-REG/asus_ga15dh_bs562_bs562_ryzen_5_3600x.html
https://www.amazon.com/iBUYPOWER-Computer-Revolt-9330-i5-10600K/dp/B08FPT92JD
https://www.amazon.com/Desktop-GeForce-i5-10400F-Lighting-GT12-0020/dp/B088HJSMYR
https://www.amazon.com/GL10DH-Desktop-GeForce-Windows-GL10DH-AH762/dp/B07X1TZT85
And if you don't see what you want, you could also wait a few weeks for more options to come back into stock. The desktop market has a lot of turnover in a short amount of time, especially now with the scarcity of graphics cards.
i’ll check these out after work thank you so much!! you are honestly a life saver i’ll be in touch later today 🙂
okay so i think i would wanna go with a 1660 what does overkill necessarily mean for the game? is it just kinda extra to get or does it negatively affect my game?and also is this considering mods? like should i get 1660 since i do want a bit of mods? also since i want mods what size storage should i look at? i can afford going over 1100$ i just kinda wanna stay in that range you know also i looked at al the computers and i tried to understand but i honestly don’t so if you’re able, can you break down these computers that you sent me for me? thank you so much for working with me i really appreciate it! have a great day 🙂
@abigailevelynn__ When I say overkill, I mean that a computer or one of its components has more power than Sims 4 needs or can even reasonably use. So while someone might want to buy, say, an RTX 2070 or 3060 ti for other games, those cards would be wasted on Sims 4. It's not a bad thing, just a question of rapidly diminishing returns above a certain point.
Mods mostly tax the processor, not the graphics card, although a few mods do come with visual components that require some extra graphics processing. (Think of ones that add skin details or the like.) All the processors in the computers I linked should be able to handle whatever mods you want to use, and a 1660 of any flavor should also be completely fine.
However, the game engine itself will get bogged down from time to time no matter how fast your hardware is. This is exacerbated by mods, which increase the amount of data to be processed. There is unfortunately no good way to get around this; it's just how the game is built. As an example, with Eco Lifestyle NAP voting enabled, when each voting session closes, the game will need to tabulate the votes and apply the relevant info to all affected sims. You might well notice some lag or a short freeze at that time, with or without mods. If you do have mods though, and some of them are adding to the overall load on the game engine at that time, the lag or freeze will be more pronounced.
In theory, the stronger your processor, the more quickly issues like this get resolved. In practice, the game engine itself is the limiting factor to some extent, and there's only so much fast hardware can do. Having a processor with a higher clock speed (more calculations per second) will help, but more processor cores won't: Sims 4 can only use four cores at a time. (If you're doing other tasks while playing, the other cores can handle those and free up resources for the game, but unless the workload is particularly heavy, six CPU cores is more than enough.)
All this is to say that you can spend more money on better components, but you're looking at diminishing returns. I would say a 1660 is worth the extra cost above a 1650, and a 2060 might be worth an extra $100 but maybe not $200. For processors, an i5-10600KF is almost exactly as fast as an i7-10700 until you're actually using all eight of the latter's cores, so spending an extra $150 on a 10700 is a waste as far as Sims 4 goes. Even the i5-10400 is only about 8% slower in gaming if you don't intend to manually overclock, and a Ryzen 5 3600 about 3% slower than that, so you may not notice any practical difference among the options.
RAM and storage are comparatively easy: if you otherwise like a computer but think it doesn't have enough of one of these, you can add it yourself, now or later. It's cheap and easy, so this shouldn't be a reason to cross off an otherwise quality option.
Still, the question is what you want to spend, what you think is worth your money. Think about the above info, decide what's worth your money in general, and if you have more specific questions, please feel free to keep asking.
sorry for the late reply but thank you i will!
