Looking for some advice on my first PC...

[TheMastersSon]

For most games especially older ones like Skyrim, CPU speed matters more than number of cores. E.g. a 4GHz i5 will easily outperform a 3.4GHz i7 etc. So shoot for the fastest CPU speed you can afford and don't worry about the generation/number of cores/hyperthreading/etc.

 

The video card decision is a good one imo, personally I'd shop around for a new or lightly used 980 or 970 instead of the 1050Ti for an interim video card. Older games including Skyrim don't require DX12 and performance-wise you'll be far ahead with a 980 and still slightly ahead with a 970 compared to the 1050 Ti:

 

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-980-vs-GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti

 

Also I like the idea of buying used these days, it's a great way to avoid contributing anything to Nvidia's coffers during this mass extortion. The latest news is that Bitmain (and others) this quarter are releasing mining-specialized chips that will (or should at least) obsolete high-end video cards for this purpose:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/26/analyst-slashes-amd-nvidia-price-targets-on-new-cryptocurrency-mining-chip-from-china.html

Edited March 31, 2018 by TheMastersSon

[TheFirebird]

Thanks for the advice! I had a look around at the 980, and they seem to be quite a bit more expensive than the 1050, around £500 compared to £150 for the 1050Ti, so not sure that's an option I'm afraid!

[flyddon]

Hello FireBird,

 

So now that you have an understanding of what's what and how much it is. Here are some of the why's and what to know items.

 

SSD is just about an absolute must have thing... with prices going way down compared with normal HDD... get an SSD 500Gb or bigger. in fact get a 250gb for your c: and OS and a second 500gb for your gaming and mod stuff.

 

Video card, the naming or numbering of the cards tells you a story XX50 or XX60 or XX70 are lower performance in that series For Nivida a GTX 1050 or GTX 1060 is about the same as a GTX 980, I say about the same... a rule to go by is get the highest in the series you can afford, meaning you would be better off with an GTX 980 than a GTX 1060. ***Note right now, at least in the US, video cards are over priced and out of stock because of all the demand due to cyrpto bit mining.

 

CPU I7 is better than I5, I9 is better than I7 (I have i7 4790K 4 GHz CPU and it runs the s#*! out of Skyrim and FO and I also do modding with no problems)

 

PSU a 650 is the lowest I would get. 850w would serve you better.

 

Cooling depends largely on GPU and CPU

 

Also be forward looking.... Cyberpunk 2077 is coming and we all will most likely have to upgrade our current system to maintain the ability to play on High or ultra setting, so go ahead and get that second job to pay the 1000w PSU and GTX 1080 Ti hybrid GPU with 11gb and don't forget to get at least 16gb Ram.

Lastly, monitor... you can spend all this money on all the cool things but if you have a crappy monitor or a TV you will be wasting you money, or at least not getting the full benefit.

 

My setup if you like

i7 4790K 4 GHz CPU -
Crucial Ballistix Sport 16gb DDR3-2400 Ram -
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB
ASUS Z97-AR MoBo
Monitor: Dell S2716DG (displayport/G-sync)

EVGA SuperNOVA 850 watt

[TheMastersSon]

CPU I7 is better than I5, I9 is better than I7

That's generally true for future-proofing a new system, but not for older games including Skyrim. Look at the benchmarks, what matters is CPU speed, not generation or core count.

 

I didn't know the 980 was holding its value so well. How about the 970? You'd still be better off compared to a 1050Ti imo.

[Thandal]

Re: Video cards -- For my most recent upgrade I went with the ASUS GTX 1060 w/6GB VRAM. Glad I did.

 

Paid <US$400. Seems to hit the sweet spot between the extremes of (low) price and (high) performance for all the games I play. :thumbsup:

[jones177]

Hi

 

I would say that the GTX 1060 6gb is the best choice for 1080 modding. If you don't mod games the GTX 1060 3gb is fine.

 

I would take a GTX 980 over a GTX 1060 3gb. My 980 ran my heavily modded Skyrim with ENB at 60fps at 1080p resolution. If I had stayed at 1080 resolution I would not have stopped using it. It also got me through Witcher 3 at 1440 resolution with frame rates in the 50s. No stutter. No lag.

I skipped Nvidia 700 series because they went with 3gb vram. I learned with my GTX 680 4gb that Skyrim/modded needed more.

 

The GTX 980 ti is the card that put me at 60fps at 1440 resolution. It also could run Skyrim SE with Reshade at 4k resolution in the high 40s with a i7 6700k & never dropped into the 30s. If you can find one cheap, get it.

 

For CPUs it depends on how heavily you want to mod. For Bethesda games IPS is better than more cores. The minimum I would go is 4 cores, 8 threads. My old i7 2600k did fine but I would get drops into the 30s in the usual places. The i7 2600k's cores are about as strong as a Ryzen 5 1600x so that would be the miniium modern CPU for me. The Ryren 7s have more cores than the 5 1600x but IPS is about the same or lower.

I replaced my i7 2600k with a i7 8700k. If you want no drops in your games, get one.

 

Heavily modded games like to be on SSDs. The only alternative I know are 10,000rpm HDs. Even though a 10,000rpm HDs can't load windows much faster than a regular HD, thier burst reads are SSD fast.

In 2016 my WD 1tb Raptor died. I tried to replace it with a WD 5tb Black. My heavily modded Fallout 4 became unplayable with stutter & lag. Within days I replaced it with a 1tb SSD & my game was back to being playable again.

If you only want to mod lightly, a performance HD is fine. I gave my WD 5tb Black to my Son. He only adds a few mods to a game. He is having no issue with it.

 

 

Later

[SirSalami]

I find that the pcpartpicker website is indispensable when putting together a new system these days: http://www.pcpartpicker.com

 

See their community submitted configurations for general ideas. Good luck and have fun!

[TheFirebird]

Thanks so much everyone for all your help and advice, it's been invaluable. I went with the following build:

 

Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6GHz 6-Core Processor

be quiet! - Shadow Rock Slim 67.8 CFM Rifle Bearing CPU Cooler

Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory

Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Seagate - BarraCuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

SeaSonic - 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

Phanteks - Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case

Asus MX239H 23" IPS HD LED-backlit LCD Monitor

 

and the all important: ASUS GTX 1060 Dual OC 6GB video card. found it in a bundle with the motherboard and a 250GB SSD for about the same price I could have got the mobo and a less good card, so seemed like a good deal! Need an extra cable for the 2nd SSD, so it's not in yet, but it's nice to have an extra. Also it's good to know that games like to run from an SSD, so I'll make sure it's on one! (I do plan to mod pretty heavily...)

 

I put it all together at the weekend, made sure I followed all the precautions re static and so on, used the manuals and online guides and videos, everything went perfectly, except it won't turn on. :wallbash: It's now at the PC repair shop for them to look at because I gave up. The guy there couldn't find anything wrong with it, and had no idea why it wouldn't work, so now we're waiting for their expert to take a look. I'll let you know what happens!

[HeyYou]

Only suggesting I would make is: Go with two sticks of ram, for either your 8gb (two 4gb sticks) or 16gb. That way, the "DDR" feature of the ram actually works. (double data rate.)

[TheFirebird]

Oh, really? I was planning to get another stick at some point anyway, but didn't realise that it required two to actually be DDR... Thanks for the heads up, I wonder if that could be what's preventing it turning on?