Getting back in the game!

xehr

xehr

xehr

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So I was shocked to realize the other day it is now 7(!) years since I built my current gaming rig, and it's time for an upgrade. The reality finally hit home yesterday when I bought a game which would not run because my GPU will not support Direct X 11!

So, the real point of this thread is to get some initial advice on what sort of range I should be looking at.

I have spent the morning looking at lots of X99 rigs, and the whole X99 vs Z97 debate, etc.. But here's the thing:

I don't really do a lot of gaming any more (stupid work :( ) and will mainly just be using it for standard tasks plus the odd game. So should I really be spending ~$2000 on a PC?

I don't have an issue spending that (maybe work isn't so bad after all :) ) but is it a good idea?

The main aim I have is to build something as future proof as possible. I don't have a lot of time to keep up with the latest parts and upgrade where necessary so it is highly likely this PC will sit unchanged for the next 5 years, and I want something that can withstand that.

This is why something with X99, DDR4, etc.. appealed to me originally.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
 
Are you from the US or the UK? Prices differ greatly depending on which side of the pond you are on - Especially if you live near a Microcenter in the US.

I don't think X99 is a necessity if you plan for the rig to last for 5 years in all honesty, any of the Haswell i7s (Z97 chipset) will last just fine - And if you plan on going for the i7-6700k (Z170 chipset), you may as well go for X99 chipset as it's near enough the same price but you get two more cores and four more threads.

The thing is - It's probably not worth it to spend £1500~ on a PC now if you don't game much, but £1500 of components now will not be anywhere near that price in 5 years time - Nor will they perform on a similar level with current games as they will with games released in 2020.
 
Hi Rowlii, thanks for the reply.

With the future-proof goal in mind, a Z170/X99 build is appealing more than Z97 currently due to DDR4 support.

I'm in the UK currently where 5820K and 6700K seem to be roughly the same price. Most things I've read seem to prefer the 5820K and perhaps it's better for the 6-core seeing as I probably won't be upgrading any time soon?

I'm also reading a lot of good things about the GTX 980TI in terms of future-proofing but the cost does start to add up!

With 5820K and GTX 980TI it's hard to get much under £1500 it looks like, but maybe that's not so bad for 5+ years and I've barely spent anything since building this machine in 2008..
 
Hi again,

I tend to see pcs as investments over the years - So rather than it costing me £1500 up front, it's actually costing me £400 per year or something like that, which settles my mind on spending ludicrous amounts!

You're correct with the 980Ti, the card is a beast, and it put the GTX 980 into a really awkward position in my opinion. Anyone willing to spend £150 on top of a GTX 970 should probably be saving a little extra and putting £120 towards a 980Ti.

Something like this is a really top end PC at the moment, you wouldn't get much better performance for the price at all:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 980Ti Herculez OC 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N98TV-1SDN-N5HNX) £499.99
1 x Gigabyte X99-SLI - Intel Core i7 5820K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle ***£50 Saving*** £441.98
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Full Tower Case - Black £119.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £94.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black (TPKD416GM2400HC16QC01) £89.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £69.95
1 x Toshiba 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA200) £53.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £24.97
Total : £1,395.85 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



If you planned to add another 980Ti in the future (which you said you'd like to leave it untouched for however many years), you'd need a different power supply, but otherwise you could not go wrong with this as a £1,400 build.

I don't think I am missing anything but it also feels like I'm missing something incredibly obvious. The case, of course, is a very personal preference, but I just chose one of the most popular and well-regarded cases out at the moment.

Edit: Found what I'm missing. A CPU cooler. If you wish to make the investment on a 240-280mm All-In-One cooler, you can expect an overclock of roughly 4.4GHz on a 5820k. On an air cooler, such as the one above, I'd expect more around 4GHz.
 
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Thanks again for the reply.

Have mulled it over a bit more, and think I will cut back a bit on the GPU. Think my days of high-end gaming are more or less over and I don't do any video editing or anything like that.

Am now pencilling in the following:

CPU - i7 5820K (275)
GPU - GTX 970 (250)
MoBo - MSI X99S (200)
PSU (100)
DDR4 4x4GB (100)
250 GB SSD (80)
1TB HDD (40)
Case (60)
Air cooler (50)

for a total of 1175. Thoughts? Is this a decent set-up or is it too unbalanced skewed by that CPU?
 
Hi again,

Since your days of high end gaming are up, then no, I don't think anything is particularly wrong with that. I'm assuming you are playing at 1080p, right?

The X99S is £160 and the X99A is £170 the last I checked, the X99A comes with USB 3.1, which is something I would get if I was aiming for futureproof.

For comparison, look at the GTX 680/660Ti benchmarks here: http://www.techspot.com/review/991-gta-5-pc-benchmarks/page2.html - Those are 2012 GPUs on a 2015 game, I'd say they hold up pretty well, so I don't think you will particularly have a problem within the same timeframe on a 970 :)

Either way, it's a pretty nice build, and 6 cores/12 threads are going to last you a very long time at the current rate of progress. A GPU is easy to upgrade in the future - A lot easier than CPU, and inevitably the motherboard at least.
 
Great tip on the Motherboard - will go for the X99A.

What is the standard for storage these days? Most popular seems to be to have a smaller (250GB) SSD coupled with a 1TB+ HDD.

Also, CPU Cooler: it seems like something the Noctua NH-D15 is very well respected and can achieve some pretty incredible temperatures (~20-22C idle). I don't mind spending £65 on it but is it worth it considering my modest build? No overclocking planned or SLI and I'd rather not have to get a giant case to fit the fan.

Would something like the £25 unit suggested earlier do me fine or is it worth splashing out for a high end cooler?
 
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What you have listed is what I would call standard - There's not much else to gain from going way higher in terms of SSD, unless you are a speed freak. The HDD capacity depends on what your goals are for the PC? Do you do a lot of video editing where storage would be handy, do you have a NAS, etc?

250GB is sufficient for a medium sized Steam library, and SSD prices are relatively cheap for what they are nowadays.
 
At the moment I have 2 x 500 GB HDD and that is about right space-wise.

I think I will go with 250GB SSD + 1 TB HDD.

Also, I edited my post too late so including my second question below:

Also, CPU Cooler: it seems like something the Noctua NH-D15 is very well respected and can achieve some pretty incredible temperatures (~28-30C idle with 5820K). I don't mind spending £65 on it but is it worth it considering my modest build? No overclocking planned or SLI and I'd rather not have to get a giant case to fit the fan.

Would something like the £25 unit suggested earlier do me fine or is it worth splashing out for a high end cooler?

Thanks again for all your helpful advice :)
 
Seems we are about the same on the hard drive usage, sounds like a good way to go if I were you :)

As for the CPU cooler, Noctua coolers are pretty much the best you can get, their coolers, and fans, are highly regarded by many. There is a recent review on air coolers here - http://www.anandtech.com/show/9415/top-tier-cpu-air-coolers-9way-roundup-review - The Noctua comes out on top, with the SilentiumPC Grandis XE1236 coming out as the best value, however I am not sure on its Socket 2011 compatibility.

The Coolermaster 212 is also well regarded for its cheap and cheerful aspect, it's good for its price point, but spending more will obviously unlock better options.

Case clearance and such is also a thing you need to watch out for, the Noctua cooler is huge for instance.

My advice is to search based on what you need from a cooler. Do you plan to extensively clock the CPU? Or just get it to a steady 4GHz-ish and leave it at that?
 
Am not planning any extensive OCing, and not overly bothered about noise (don't want something very loud but does not have to be silent).

Happy to spend a bit more for quality.

I would prefer to keep the case a bit smaller than my current machine this time if possible. Hopefully a small-ish mid-tower and so that probably rules out the "top tier" coolers like those in the review you linked (they all look absolutely huge!).

Possibly the Noctua NH-L12?
 
Google whatever case you wish to purchase followed by 'cooler clearance', should tell you how big of a cooler can fit in it.

You'd be surprised I think, a lot aren't as big as they look.
 
The more I look into it the more it seems like a mATX motherboard is what I should be getting..

Unlikely to SLI or require a big cooler, and the cases are more compact which is what is a plus for me
 
Thanks, it looks like the EVGA Micro 2 is the best option since it comes with USB 3.1 output so that's probably what I'll go with
 
So I am pretty much settled on:

MoBo: EVGA X99 Micro 2 Micro-ATX
CPU: i7 5820K
GPU: Nvidia GTX 970
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4) 2400 Mhz DDR4
SSD: Crucial MX200 250GB 2.5" SSD
HDD: Western Digital Caviar blue 1TB 3.5" 7200 RPM HD
Case: Corsair Air 240
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D9L

Which leaves only the PSU.

I have assumed 4 x 120mm fans and added a few USB devices etc on the OuterVision calculator which recommends a 500W PSU.

Didn't expect this to be so low, do people think 500W will suffice? I was expecting to need around a 650W PSU for 5820K + GTX 970?
 
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It depends what 970 you get, some consume not a lot of power at all, some are slightly more.

I don't see a reason not to get a 600W PSU tbh, you won't need that much, no, but it's still nice to have the headroom.
 
xehr said:
So I am pretty much settled on:

MoBo: EVGA X99 Micro 2 Micro-ATX
CPU: i7 5820K
GPU: Nvidia GTX 970
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4) 2400 Mhz DDR4
SSD: Crucial MX200 250GB 2.5" SSD
HDD: Western Digital Caviar blue 1TB 3.5" 7200 RPM HD
Case: Corsair Air 240
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D9L

Which leaves only the PSU.

I have assumed 4 x 120mm fans and added a few USB devices etc on the OuterVision calculator which recommends a 500W PSU.

Didn't expect this to be so low, do people think 500W will suffice? I was expecting to need around a 650W PSU for 5820K + GTX 970?
Click to expand...


Be careful with your choice of GTX 970 in that case as some are too big. Anything with heatpipes such as the MSI Gaming will probably be too big for the side panel to go on. The EVGA cards fit without any issues.

You should be fine with a 550W/650W psu. I would look at EVGA G2/GS or SuperFlower.

I would also go with the Crucial BX100 or Samsung 850 EVO over the MX200.
 
This is a good tip and something I noticed reading around last night.

Apparently with the heatpipes the MSI GTX970 is too high to fit in the Air 240 but the EVGA/Gigabyte models fit fine.

I've decided to go with the Gigabyte after reading some comparisons.

On the PSU: I will go with 650W I think just for some headroom, have never had a problem with corsair so am thinking of the RM 650W Gold+?

Lee: Interesting, why do you suggest the BX100 over the MX200? I read that the MX200 is an upgrade on the BX100 in terms of speed and it seems the price is quite similar.
 
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