Potential New Gaming Build - Looking for Advice

[Daiyus]

It's been a long time since I built my last rig. It was the first one I'd ever built. It was done on a budget as and when I could source parts, and thus was actually built over the course of two years. It's got some relatively nice kit in it; a 128GB Samsung Pro SSD as a boot drive, a 4Ghz Bulldozer AMD processor, 8GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM and a Ghz Edition Radeon HD7870 (albeit with a mere 2GB VRAM).

 

However the old girl is starting to show her age. Fallout 4 runs at Medium settings, as did GTAV. Whilst far from being unplayable I've decided to at least research a new build. The idea is that if I can get enough money together I could actually build a proper rig in one hit. One that's powerful, but not over the top, but still with a bit of flash for e-gloating with my mates.

 

So here goes:

 

Processor: Intel Core i7 4790K 4GHz Socket 1150 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor [fastest Intel processor I can find. I'd pair this with a Corsair closed loop liquid cooler]

Motherboard: Asus Z97-A Socket 1150 VGA DVI HDMI DisplayPort 8-ch audio ATX Motherboard [well praised motherboard, good feature set, but not overly expensive]

Graphics Card: EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid GAMING 6GB GDDR5 DVI-I HDMI 3x DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card [this is where the expensive for "cool factor" comes in. I just love these closed loop systems. Plus the GTX 980 Ti is fairly future proof with 6GB VRAM]

 

I'd also pick up some new Corsair Vengeance RAM at 2400Hz; Two sticks of 8GB. That leaves two lanes open for the same again if I need to go up to 32GB (which I highly doubt). There's also power supply, a new blu-ray drive, new case and cooling solutions to worry about, but I'm pretty happy with those selections on a price/quality standpoint. I'd re-use the SSD from my current as the boot drive and re-use my current 1TB 7200RPM spinning platter for storage; at least until the larger SSD's come down in price a lot.

 

Of course there's also the option to pick up an MSI GTX 970 with 4GB VRAM and use something like this; but even 4GB VRAM these days is starting to come up short.

 

While slightly expensive in areas (notably the graphics card) I think this system should keep me viable for gaming at 1080p for a good 4-5 years especially with the liquid cooling extending the lifetime of the parts. Any thoughts?

Edited December 9, 2015 by Daiyus

[mark5916]

This system is capable even for 4K gaming, and it will last a while for sure...

 

For 1080p gaming this system should be enough for the next 5 years. Of course only time will tell... :wink:

[minc3meat]

It's been a long time since I built my last rig. It was the first one I'd ever built. It was done on a budget as and when I could source parts, and thus was actually built over the course of two years. It's got some relatively nice kit in it; a 128GB Samsung Pro SSD as a boot drive, a 4Ghz Bulldozer AMD processor, 8GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM and a Ghz Edition Radeon HD7870 (albeit with a mere 2GB VRAM).

 

However the old girl is starting to show her age. Fallout 4 runs at Medium settings, as did GTAV. Whilst far from being unplayable I've decided to at least research a new build. The idea is that if I can get enough money together I could actually build a proper rig in one hit. One that's powerful, but not over the top, but still with a bit of flash for e-gloating with my mates.

 

So here goes:

 

Processor: Intel Core i7 4790K 4GHz Socket 1150 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor [fastest Intel processor I can find. I'd pair this with a Corsair closed loop liquid cooler]

Motherboard: Asus Z97-A Socket 1150 VGA DVI HDMI DisplayPort 8-ch audio ATX Motherboard [well praised motherboard, good feature set, but not overly expensive]

Graphics Card: EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid GAMING 6GB GDDR5 DVI-I HDMI 3x DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card [this is where the expensive for "cool factor" comes in. I just love these closed loop systems. Plus the GTX 980 Ti is fairly future proof with 6GB VRAM]

 

I'd also pick up some new Corsair Vengeance RAM at 2400Hz; Two sticks of 8GB. That leaves two lanes open for the same again if I need to go up to 32GB (which I highly doubt). There's also power supply, a new blu-ray drive, new case and cooling solutions to worry about, but I'm pretty happy with those selections on a price/quality standpoint. I'd re-use the SSD from my current as the boot drive and re-use my current 1TB 7200RPM spinning platter for storage; at least until the larger SSD's come down in price a lot.

 

Of course there's also the option to pick up an MSI GTX 970 with 4GB VRAM and use something like this; but even 4GB VRAM these days is starting to come up short.

 

While slightly expensive in areas (notably the graphics card) I think this system should keep me viable for gaming at 1080p for a good 4-5 years especially with the liquid cooling extending the lifetime of the parts. Any thoughts?

 

You've clearly done your research. Like mark5916 said, that's going to be at least a few years of future proofing.

As far as the GPU, I personally own the GTX 970, and it does really well on all Ultra High settings... but for how long? If your goal is to make your dollar last longer, go with your original choice in GPU!

[Daiyus]

Thanks for the tips guys. I've decided that I'll probably buy new hard-drives as well. My current rig is sat in the family living room acting as a media centre. I'm planning on moving my gaming rig up to the bedroom so I can be out of the way when I want to play. That means my wife can entertain or use the large TV to watch what she wants while I'm gaming. Due to this I'll be leaving my current rig where it is with a few minor adjustments to turn it into a full time HTPC. My wife isn't very tech savvy, or patient with tech, so I think I'm going to have to leave the SSD in there just so she doesn't get wound up turning the thing on now she's so used to the boot up speeds.

 

I think I will opt for the GTX980Ti. While £200 more expensive than getting a GTX970 and liquid cooling it myself, I'll save that money by not having to drop another £300+ in two years.

 

The whole rig, including a new 27" monitor for the bedroom is coming in at around £1700 on E-Buyer (although I'll shop around when it comes to actually purchasing). Given that's not a small amount of money I think realistically I will have to break it down into phases and build over a period of time just so I don't freak my wife out (she's going to hate the fact I want to do this anyway; "Your current computer works! Why do you want a new one?!", "We can't afford it!", blah, blah, snore):

 

[Phase 1] 27" Monitor, and accessories. This allows me to actually move my gaming out the way while we use the laptop to drive the TV when needed temporarily.

 

[Phase 2] Case, power supply, case fans, hard-drives and optical drive. All the the big things that need to be put in before mounting the motherboard.

 

[Phase 3] Motherboard, processor, CPU cooler, and RAM. Everything I need to get the system running. I'll dump my old Radeon HD7870 in to get gaming up to speed, and then modify my old rig and reinstall it back into the living room (probably using an old GTS450 that I scavenged a while back for my PC at work, that'll give an HDMI output).

 

[Phase 4] Drop over half a grand on that glorious GPU! Hopefully by the time I get to this point in the build process it'll come down in price a little.

 

So there we have it; my new gaming rig. I know I said I was happy with most of the other components, but if anyone has any advice I'd definitely welcome it.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Daiyus

[mark5916]

Even if Pascal it's on the way, i thing the 980Ti will serve you well for the next years ro come. Of course only time will tell.

 

----------------

 

Also an advise: Corsair is one of the best manufacturers as PSU concerns (of course not all Corsairs are top notch), but in this setup i thing the EVGA SuperNOVA G2 is a better choice, it you are willing to pay a little more.

 

It comes with an 10 year warranty, and it's an outstanding PSU.

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/630113-evga-supernova-850w-fully-modular-80-gold-power-supply-220-g2-0850-xr

 

 

-----------------

 

What i would recommend over the above mentioned EVGA PSU is the AX860 Platinum series from Corsair.

 

It's the creme dela creme what Corsair has to offer, and is ground-breaking in any way possible, so a top-notch performer.

 

Maybe the best PSU out there in his price category. !!!

 

Also a second advise. You can be cheap on a GPU or ram memory modules and even on a mobo, but you don't wanna be cheap on the PSU.

 

The PSU powers up all your components. If the PSU doesn't work as steady as possible your hardware will fail overtime in a "physical" and logical" way. :wink:

Edited December 10, 2015 by mark5916

[Daiyus]

Great tips again mark5916, thank you. I guess I've just got a bit complacent with my luck on the first build. I picked up a cheap (£50) PSU without really thinking about it the first time round and it's served me well. I've always had people tell me to not buy cheap cases either (again, something I ignored last time). While I love the idea of having everything bleeding edge I'm sure you can tell I've tried to save money is as many areas as possible (emphasis on "tried", this is still ludicrously expensive). For that reason I cannot warrant spending an extra £60 for the Corsair Platinum. The EVGA looks like an excellent bit of kit though; thank you for recommending it.

[obobski]

Just some thoughts:

 

1) Blu-ray for PC is nothing I'd bother spending the money on. Playback software is still generally sketchy, and there is no software being released on Blu-ray (at least that I'm aware of). There are much more cost effective vehicles for back-up vs BD-R too. You honestly barely need a DVD drive in a modern computer, as so much is done as exclusive digital download.

 

2) I wouldn't regard Maxwell as "future proof" (I hate "future proof" as a discussion/concept/etc because its a total fallacy) - the lack of proper DX12 support being the biggest potential pitfall. It's also a fallacy to assume that because "its fast" it will "outlast" slower cards; GPUs go out of support as generations, not based on their performance. So when the 960, 970, etc have driver support culled, so will the 980 and 980 Ti, and when applications demand increased feature-sets, the 980 and 980 Ti will also be in the same boat as the 960/970/etc. Because of the non-support of DX12, it is likely that Maxwell will end up in a weird "limbo purgatory" where it has significant overall throughput but is culled from HCLs sooner than otherwise-competitive products due to lack of feature support (there are historic precedents for this, like the Voodoo 5, Radeon X, and Radeon HD 2900). Overall I wouldn't regard any card as "future proof" and would not regard "its really expensive and awesome today it will save me money" as sound reasoning - long-game strategy says you stick with mid-range to upper-mid-range (e.g. GTX 970) and upgrade when the next one (or the one after that, depending on context) comes out, as opposed to spending similar money to two cards on the "high end" model that will go out of fashion/style/support right alongside its lesser brothers.

 

2a) "What graphics card would you suggest then?" -> I'd go with a Radeon, personally, as they offer better price-performance value (and have for a few years, since nVidia went completely off the deep-end with pricing). The 290/390 are still more than sufficient for contemporary gaming (especially if you're not after 4K+), and if that's not good enough, Fury X is a proper monster.

 

3) VRAM requirements are stupidly overblown/overhyped these days. The myth that "we need 6GB" or "we need 12GB" (or even "we need 4GB") has gotten utterly out of control. Simple fact is, R9 295X2 is still the fastest graphics card in the world (and the new Fury X is close to it as well), and has "only" 4GB of VRAM (same for the Fury). It still maintains a healthy lead over Titan X in most benchmarks. The fact is that 32-bit code simply can't use "all that VRAM" and while there are a few 64-bit games out there, none of them show significant and marked performance improvements when compared apples-to-apples across platforms with more VRAM (IOW yes the GTX 980 Ti is faster than your 7870, but it having 6GB of VRAM vs 2GB of VRAM has very little to do with that overall; the faster GPU on the other hand makes a BIG difference). Thinking having all that extra RAM "ahead of time" will somehow buy you points in the future is also flawed reasoning (see #2).

 

4) The Intel CPU is a significant upgrade (the AMD is old and represents a bottleneck even to your 7870), but the 4790k isn't worth the extra cash unless you specifically do tasks that benefit from Hyperthreading (gaming is not generally one of them). You can go with a 4690 or 4670 and enjoy the same level of performance (if 4770 is available at a lower price in your neck of the woods, that would also be a candidate).

 

5) I'm not a fan of cheap all-in-one water coolers - especially for a CPU that doesn't require extreme cooling to begin with. Go with a quality air cooler and eliminate the potential maintenance item. If you're going water, do it right and go custom; if that looks like too much work, go with air - you can get fantastic results, a very quiet system, and its more or less maintenance free.

 

6) Don't get a cheap case. That doesn't mean spend $400+ though; there's plenty of good options in the $100-ish range. I like Lian-Li but a lot of people want something flashier. Generally my advice would be to avoid stuff that's mostly plastic (it may be fine today, but in a few years it may get brittle and snap apart on you), and to avoid the modern trend cases that put a solid wall right behind a tower of (worthless) front intake fans, often with mounts for hard-drives "stacked" there (*lots* of modern cases do this). It will yield a machine that you can throw ten fans at, and still never achieve entirely great cooling performance - for the kind of hardware you're describing, quite honestly, a single intake and single exhaust fan in a logically laid out fashion is more than sufficient.

 

7) The whole "SSD boot drive + everything else on a mechanical drive" thing is a waste of money IMHO. So what that it can load Windows faster on start-up? That has no bearing on anything else, and if you're loading all your games and other applications onto the mechanical drive because its the only one with capacity, they don't see ANY benefit (if they were on the SSD they could potentially enjoy faster load times too, but the SSD has *zero* impact on computationally-bound tasks (e.g. it won't help frame-rates)).

 

Eight) Don't buy a cheap PSU.

 

9) 32GB of RAM is a total waste for gaming, but may not be for other kinds of applications. 16GB is a fine choice if the budget can take it, otherwise 8GB is perfectly acceptable. There is no material performance benefit to the ridiculous high-clock stuff (e.g. 2400MHz) vs more conservative parts (e.g. 1333MHz or 1600MHz) - just go with whatever is cheapest in the 8-16GB range and that gets you dual channel.

 

Rationale behind all of these changes is price-performance efficiency; you have a good start but can knock quite a bit of cost out of this thing by dumping needless buzzword compliance features and making some more conservative choices on hardware selection, without sacrificing much (if anything) in terms of performance.

 

Sources:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/15

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/16

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8227/devils-canyon-review-intel-core-i7-4790k-and-i5-4690k/5

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X/1.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/fallout_4_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html (this is on an Intel CPU; don't expect these #s to align perfectly with your AMD as a result; even the 290X and GTX 770 are more than capable of running this game)

Edited December 10, 2015 by obobski

[Daiyus]

Thanks for all the advice obobski. You certainly make a lot of sense in many areas.

 

Regarding Blu-Ray, it's a technology I want to support. Coming from a background where decent internet is non-existent, and even now downloading a whole game is an overnight affair, physical media has a huge place in my life; I'd really like to see developers distribute PC games on Blu-Ray, just as they do for Xbox One and PS4 thus avoiding problems as shown by MGSV and Fallout 4 where only a fraction, if any of the game actually comes on the physical medium. I've been using Blu-Ray to play movies on my current rig for years without too much hassle. Once I get a half decent bit of software that'll run on Windows 10 I'll carry on doing the same.

 

Your points on futureproofing are extremely insightful. Still being a relative rookie when it comes to building PC's I really can see what you're saying here. I guess I'll always have to accept that no matter what I do I'm never going to be ahead of the game. Given the kind of pricing I'm looking at for this build I'm actually tempted to abandon it and build a HTPC for my living room instead; that'll give me the QOL improvement I'm looking for by moving the gaming rig out of the living room and give my family what they need. Once that's done I can save £1000 and build a new gaming rig with whatever is best at that time for the money; I don't have the cash lying around now and will need to build in stages, meaning my first components will be out of date by the time I get the last ones. Of course I'll take your advice on the RAM when the time comes to research the new build.

 

Regarding the closed loop cooling systems; I've actually got one in my current build. They're pricey, sure, but the beauty of them is the don't need maintenance, unlike a custom loop. If I build a custom loop and fry my rig through a mistake it's on me; if a closed loop goes bang within the warranty then I'm covered. While I agree that air-cooling would likely be sufficient in the kind of builds I'm looking at it again comes down to a QOL choice. The liquid cooled systems are quieter, plus they will extend the lifetime of the parts. I'm well known for wanting to upgrade early, but I always find other uses for my old parts (I've done this plenty in other areas of my life). #

 

Once again, thank you for the tips. I think I'm definitely going to hold off on the upgrade until I have some real cash in hand and the next generation is here. Seems daft to spend so much on technology that's coming to the end of it's supported lifespan.

[obobski]

 

Regarding Blu-Ray, it's a technology I want to support. Coming from a background where decent internet is non-existent, and even now downloading a whole game is an overnight affair, physical media has a huge place in my life; I'd really like to see developers distribute PC games on Blu-Ray, just as they do for Xbox One and PS4 thus avoiding problems as shown by MGSV and Fallout 4 where only a fraction, if any of the game actually comes on the physical medium. I've been using Blu-Ray to play movies on my current rig for years without too much hassle. Once I get a half decent bit of software that'll run on Windows 10 I'll carry on doing the same.

 

 

The whole "support the technology" thing just looks like throwing money down a hole - physical media is largely dying, and that's (depending on your POV) fortunately, or unfortunately, just reality. I don't see software coming to Blu-ray or HD-DVD - they've had ten years to do it, and it isn't getting done. Of course it's your money to waste, but I don't see it as a worthwhile purchase.

 

 

 

Your points on futureproofing are extremely insightful. Still being a relative rookie when it comes to building PC's I really can see what you're saying here. I guess I'll always have to accept that no matter what I do I'm never going to be ahead of the game. Given the kind of pricing I'm looking at for this build I'm actually tempted to abandon it and build a HTPC for my living room instead; that'll give me the QOL improvement I'm looking for by moving the gaming rig out of the living room and give my family what they need. Once that's done I can save £1000 and build a new gaming rig with whatever is best at that time for the money; I don't have the cash lying around now and will need to build in stages, meaning my first components will be out of date by the time I get the last ones. Of course I'll take your advice on the RAM when the time comes to research the new build.

 

 

Correct. You will never be able to see into the future or anticipate what is coming or what will be needed, and there's no point in throwing a ton of money at it and hoping it sticks. If recent history is any indication, "next gen" will be yet more of the same. My advice, if you're after an HTPC and gaming setup, would be to get a new motherboard and CPU (Intel) and set that up for your gaming computer, and re-purpose the FX for the gaming machine. The performance benefits can be relatively large (see the benchmarks I linked that include AMD CPUs), and you could always upgrade the graphics card down the road if you felt the need (PCIe isn't likely going anywhere, and given that CPU performance is so stagnant for the last ~6 years, I doubt waiting another GPU generation would have any impact one way or another). Do keep in mind that nVidia has resorted to using artificial software/driver lockouts as a "stick" to get people to buy more (newer) GeForce product, so if you're after cost efficiency and longevity I'd probably go AMD (as long as the GPU is GCN-based they appear to be supporting it quite well). Of course nVidia may change in the future - I couldn't say one way or the other - but today this is what they're doing.

 

 

 

Regarding the closed loop cooling systems; I've actually got one in my current build. They're pricey, sure, but the beauty of them is the don't need maintenance, unlike a custom loop. If I build a custom loop and fry my rig through a mistake it's on me; if a closed loop goes bang within the warranty then I'm covered. While I agree that air-cooling would likely be sufficient in the kind of builds I'm looking at it again comes down to a QOL choice. The liquid cooled systems are quieter, plus they will extend the lifetime of the parts. I'm well known for wanting to upgrade early, but I always find other uses for my old parts (I've done this plenty in other areas of my life). #

 

My point is, any liquid cooling will never be as reliable as quality air cooling.

I'm also skeptical that warranty will cover all your other hardware. As far as a few other points:

 

A) The myth of quietness is just that, a myth. Air cooling can (and in my view should) be quiet or silent. I understand that the recent direction case-design and "custom PC building" has gone in the last few years means most air-cooled setups are lucky they aren't taking flight, but that's entirely unnecessary for cool and efficient operation.

 

B) The myth about "extending the lifetime of the parts" is also just that, a myth. Not much else needs to be said on this one, it just isn't true.

 

C) Air cooling shouldn't be regarded or painted as a "second class" or "low brow" choice, but again I entirely understand the direction that marketeers have taken us in the last few years, and that the "in" thing to do is cheap closed-loop systems, horribly designed cases, and other frivolous add-ons that make someone else a buck while not really benefiting you or your system's performance in the least.

 

Of course, as I've said before, it's your money and you can buy whatever you want - I don't really have any attachment one way or the other, since it's not my machine. This is just the result of my experience and opinions on the matter; do with that information whatever you feel is best.

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, thank you for the tips. I think I'm definitely going to hold off on the upgrade until I have some real cash in hand and the next generation is here. Seems daft to spend so much on technology that's coming to the end of it's supported lifespan.

 

See, I would agree in "holding off" until you can buy the machine (or at least the motherboard/CPU/RAM) at once (reason being that motherboards and CPUs are more or less tied together - there is no upgrade path for any recent Intel motherboard as they change sockets with every new release; RAM is fairly cheap and I'd personally rather not have a board and CPU on hand that I can't boot/test/use so I'd get the RAM too), but I wouldn't agree with "wait for the next generation when technology is coming to the end of its supported lifespan" - nobody said anything is "coming to the end." The point I'm making is that we're basically dead in the water these days (performance-wise) - Intel has released five or six generations of (roughly) equivalent performing CPUs, GPU performance growth is minimal (at best), and the only thing that's really prodded people along to upgrade is artificial software lockouts (a la nVidia) and replacing dead hardware. Your situation is a bit difference because of the AMD CPU - CMT will likely end up in the history books as another failed concept, and the unfortunate reality for today is that you have a very powerful CPU that performs very poorly (relative to the competition) in real-world workloads. The HD 7870 is no slouch, but it's certainly not the fastest kid on the block anymore - an upgrade there could very well make sense, but that's more of a "I can't tolerate not running full max ultra, I need full max ultra and it's worth X dollars to me" kind of thing, than a "I need a new card to support a new game" kind of thing. Swapping out your motherboard, RAM, and CPU can probably be done for under $500, and a new graphics card can be had for less than that - that'd give you a nice performance boost, and let the FX machine assume a role as an HTPC (and I wouldn't go with the GTS 450 or any other hot-running card for that; if the board doesn't have an IGP, pick up some cheap halfling card like GeForce 610 or Radeon HD 5450 - it'll make for a quieter, and more power efficient, system).

 

A random thought wrt the 7870 - I have no idea what they cost used (quick look on ebay and they're like $50-80), or if your present motherboard supports it, but you may give CrossFire X a try if they're quite cheap. It may be, by itself, be all the "kick" you're looking for in games, or it may still warrant the new Intel CPU/board. Just a thought to consider more than anything else (you may consider used hardware overall - a lot of older graphics cards take a dramatic depreciation hit and some nice deals can be had as a result).

 

 

 

 

[Daiyus]

Once again, thank you for the advice. I think I will re-purpose my current rig as the HTPC; the Radeon HD5450 seems like an excellent choice, and a bargain too to get the system up and running. I'm still toying around with components for my new build gaming rig, but your advice and support has definitely led me on a cheaper, more refined route. While I still disagree with you regarding blu-ray (although I do agree I'm completely against the tide here) the simple fact that I have a blu-ray movie collection and want to watch them without cluttering up the media unit with yet another peripheral that I'd have to teach my wife how to use (painful) it needs to be done through the HTPC.

 

Once I've got both lists together I'll post them up.