Are these gaming PC's at Costsco a good value? Looking for a sim racing PC.

Sim racing isn’t my area, but I know enough about it to know that different games weigh on the CPU/GPU differently. What are you playing?

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Sim racing isn’t my area, but I know enough about it to know that different games weigh on the CPU/GPU differently. What are you playing?

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Mostly iracing, Assetto Corsa Competizione, and Richard Burns Rally.

Thanks for the feedback!

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I mostly agree with, GG, but water cooling is pretty overrated for the price/performance. A good traditional heatsink/fan is going to perform just as well at a much lower price.

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As a general rule, I would agree. With that said, a "good" air cooler is no longer all that much cheaper than a solid no frills water cooler: LINK

And for something like sim racing which puts a heavy, extended load on the CPU as a rule, I would probably prefer water, all things considered.

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If you want "big" screen gaming, you'd want a 4080 or better. So $1000 or more for just the graphics card.

That's likely going to mean a $2,000 minimum for a pre-built. (Likely $2500 with quality components.)

If this seems too much, then stick with the $850 PC and give it a try. Pretty sure Costco will accept a return for full refund as long as you do it within 90 days. (Check to make sure.)

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I don't think I agree with this. As I mentioned, CPU is generally more heavily taxed in sim racing, outside of VR, and that holds for the titles he listed. He absolutely doesn't need a 4080 for 4k non-VR sim racing. He could comfortably use a 7900xt and could probably bump down to a 7800xt without issue.

I just quickly spec'd this out, without looking at the prebuilts he listed, as what I would consider to be a very good build that would last for years. Knock off another $200 or so to downgrade to the 7800xt:

PCPartPicker Part List: LINK

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D 3 GHz 8-Core Processor ($188.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($90.08 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($53.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Klevv CRAS C910 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($55.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Speedster MERC 310 Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB Video Card ($679.99 @ Newegg Sellers)
Case: Corsair 3000D AIRFLOW ATX Mid Tower Case ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair RM750e (2023) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1343.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-09-15 11:54 EDT-0400

ETA: OP, the 4060 you have in the OP simply doesn't have enough VRAM to play in 4k. Honestly, it's just a terrible card that should be avoided by everyone no matter their usage case

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Not a bad system. I'd probably spring for a 7800x3d CPU, because (like you said) the CPU is a big bottleneck when a lot of cars are on the screen.

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Certainly better, but the 5700x3d is much better from a price to performance perspective. Was spec’ing out within that context. If I knew what my budget was I would potentially expand out, if for no other reason than long term platform upgrades.

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As for heat dissipation. Something like a peerless assassin is a great heatsink for like $35. Peerless Assassin Heatsink

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Nothing wrong with it. But like I said, for long session cpu intensive gaming, I think $55 is worth the vastly better heat soaking capacity of a 360 AIO.

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The GPU you selected is also very good, but I'm admittedly a bit of a NVIDIA fanboy.

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So am I, if for no other reason than I typically do very high setting RT gaming with DLSS upscaling. But sim racing isn’t usually super interested in the former and usually performs visually poorly with the latter, so I thought it worth the $400 in savings, as long as the card had sufficient VRAM to push 4k.

But overall, completely understand where you’re coming from

Sim racer here, below are my setup specs:

Sim Rig Specs:
GT Omega Prime Cockpit
Simucube 2 Sport Wheel Base
Balkn Rev3 GT Wheel
Fanatec ClubSport 320 Round Wheel with V2 Hub
Heusinkveld Sprint Pedals
Heusinkveld Sequential Shifter
Sim Racing Studio Wind Simulator
Vibration Haptics controlled by SimHub

PC Specs:
CPU - Ryzen 7 7800X3D
GPU - Nvidia 4080 Super Founders Edition
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2x16)
M.2 SSD - WD Black SN850X NVMe 1TB and 2TB
CPU AIO - Arctic Liquid Freeze III 360
Fans - LianLi Uni Fan AL120 V2
PSU - Corsair RM1000x
Case - NZXT H9 Flow
Monitor - Samsung Odyssey G9 49" 1440P 240Hz

I play Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione

I average 200+ FPS with 30+ cars on track at 1440p.

Most PC sim titles require a lot of CPU to keep the frames up with a lot of cars on the track, the GPU will allow frames to keep up with the CPU..

Both the PC's you noted will have a GPU bottle neck on 4K (meaning you wont get benefit of the monitors resolution and may have screen drag/lag)

PC Bottleneck Calculator

Hope this helps.

Thanks all for the help!

I'm pretty handy but have never built a PC before, I have disassembled and modded my iMacs before (SSD hard drive upgrades, fixed macbook batteries, etc).

Do you think I could build the PC myself or is it best to spec and buy from a place like ibuypower?

Once again thanks for all the helpful input above!

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Thanks all for the help! I'm pretty handy but have never built a PC before, I have disassembled and modded my iMacs before (SSD hard drive upgrades, fixed macbook batteries, etc). Do you think I could build the PC myself or is it best to spec and buy from a place like ibuypower? Once again thanks for all the helpful input above!

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I could teach someone who has never seen a computer before how to build one in a few hours.

You would be fine after watching a 10m YouTube video once all the way through, then playing it again as you build, pausing at each section.

Plus we’ll help you if you need. But picking out the parts is the hard bit. Building a pc is mindlessly easy.

I agree with what Josh said.. Building is pretty easy and there are TONS of youtube and twitch vids for How To on every level of build.

Use PC Part Picker to find your parts and then share your list here and we can make suggestions on parts.

PC Partpicker

From my experience of parts:

AMD processor AM5 Platform (7600x or better)
MSI motherboard: I really like the MAG B650 Tomahawk
DDR5 600Mhz 32Gb Ram. I really like Corsair Vengeance
WD or Samsung M.2 SSD at least 1TB
Corsair Power Supply (PC part picker will tell you what size you need)
Thermallight CPU Coolers
Fractal Design or NZXT Mid Tower Case
MX6 Thermal Paste
120mm case fans (Antec makes a 5 pack of RGB fans for $40)
Plenty of cheap options for Windows 11

Now a GPU: Here is where the money gets spent - if you are going to stream, get an Nvidia, if not, get a Radeon.

Use the PC bottleneck calculator I linked earlier and set the parameters to "Graphic Card Intense Task"
Set your monitor resolution and the CPU you are comfortable buying
Then start selecting Graphic Cards and run the calculator.. Keep changing cards until you find one you can afford that will match your CPU/Monitor resolutions that stays within the 5% tolerance. Buy that card.


OR, look up Zach's Tech Turf and/or iBuypower and buy something built.

Hope this helps!

Adding on to your partpicker specs, I have a 7600x and Radeon RX 6750 XT. My rig is decidedly mid-range, and it runs ACC on ultra settings with no issue on my 34" ultrawide (not 4k). I'll be real interested to see how it runs AC:Evo.