@ashleykfc Sure, but I need a bit more information. Please list your budget and country, whether you want a laptop or a desktop, and any other details that matter to you, for example having a lot of storage or being able to run other apps or games.
USA, I want a desktop and my budget is no more than $1100. I think I need a good amount of storage because I use ALOT of mods and CC. I only play with cc and all of my sims have alpha cc (including cc furniture/build mode) and also I need good graphics because I want to use reshade in my game and run it on ultra setting without lag.
Packs I have right now (will probably get more soon):
Get to work
Get together
Get famous
City Living
Discover University
Seasons
Spa Day
Movie Hangout
Dine out
Bowling Night
Parenthood
Jungle Adventure
Laundry Day
Sims 4 is the only game I plan to play on it. Also, I make sims content (a machinima series on youtube) where I use a lot of custom downloaded animations, so I use OBS to screen record my game. Right now currently when I screen record my game and pan it looks a little choppy when I play it back, I think that is because my game gets laggy sometimes. Thank you for getting back to me, I hope this was enough info!🙂
@ashleykfc I split your posts into their own thread because the other one was a bit old. Not really too much, but sometimes threads more than a year old get closed, so it's easier to make a new thread for you and avoid the possibility.
Anyway, given your preferences, I think you'd want an Nvidia RTX 2060, or maybe an AMD RX 5600XT, as a graphics card, or at the very least an Nvidia 1660 Super. Sims 4 has fps drops, even without any custom content mods or Reshade or any other factors; that's just how it runs these days. There's no way to avoid it, even on the most expensive hardware. But you can at least build in a buffer so that the fps drops to, say, 70 or so rather than 40. So between the fps drops and all the extra content you're going to want to add, you'll benefit from a faster card than is strictly necessary. The faster GPUs (RTX 2070, RX 5700 and up) are more expensive.
The best option I saw for under $1,100 with an Nvidia 2060 is this one, for $940. It has 16 GB RAM, which it sounds like you'll need, and more than enough storage: a 512 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD. Its processor is quite good, not the best for gaming but more powerful than Sims 4 will ever need, and it has enough cores to support whatever else you're running alongside the game without affecting performance. In case you're curious, the CPU socket on the motherboard would also support one of the new high-end AMD processors (5000-series), if you wanted to upgrade at some point. I don't think you'd need to though, at least not for a while.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1601322-REG/cyberpowerpc_gma9020cpgv2_gm_ryzen_5_3600.html
This one is a bit cheaper, at $850, although you'd want to spend another $40 or so to double its 8 GB RAM. (This is about the easiest upgrade you can do to a computer; no special skills required.) Its processor is significantly faster for gaming, but it only has an Nvidia 1660 Super; the 2060 is about 25% faster in games. It also has a smaller SSD, although that's still enough for all your Sims 4 content; you'd just need to shift the files you didn't use frequently to the large HDD.
There are plenty of variations like both of these, but they're either more expensive without an upgrade, or they compromise on the hardware in some way, or both.
If you want a stronger processor and a faster graphics card, the cheapest option I found was this one, for $1,050. It has 16 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD/1 TB HDD.
https://www.newegg.com/lenovo-90nc001sus-legion-tower-5/p/N82E16883994684?Item=N82E16883994684
If none of these are what you want, there are a couple of custom builds available from Dell and HP that would work. They're not as cheap as the above options, but if you're for example looking for a 1 TB SSD, that's doable. Here are the base models, if you want to play around with the options:
https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-pavilion-gaming-desktop-tg01-1160xt-8mp64av-1
In both cases, upgrading to an Nvidia 1660 (regular or Super) is a reasonable price; the 2060 might put your over budget, depending on the other options you select. I'd also stick with 8 GB RAM and add more yourself, rather than paying $100 for the company to do it for you.
If there are other details that matter to you that these don't cover, let me know, and I'll take another look. And if you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
Hi, so I read that the sims is a more CPU intensive game than a GPU one. So the computer I'm looking at has the CPU: 3.6 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core and GPU : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 with 6 GB GDDR6 VRAM. Would you say those are good to handle my game if I used reshade + with over 30gb in my mods folder?
@ashleykfc Sims 4 is actually much more GPU intensive than CPU intensive. This is true of most games, with the exceptions being those like Cities: Skylines that require a lot of off-screen simulation. Sims 4 is more CPU intensive than Sims 3, which is a common comparison to make, but that's about relative demands.
To answer your question though, I think a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RTX 2060 would be more than fine, perhaps even a bit of overkill. But that should give you plenty of overhead to account for more demanding expansions, high resolution custom content, and Reshade. I would guess you'd probably never see a performance issue except when the game engine itself has a problem, which is unfortunately inevitable on any system. For the rest of the time, you should be more than fine.
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