Need a little advice

NyteRyder

NyteRyder

NyteRyder

Associate
Joined
24 Sep 2016
Posts
9
Location
Sol 3
Hi everyone,

Need a little advice on a new desktop for gaming. Mainly play things like Fallout, Doom, X-Com, Galactic Civ, Dota2 and FIFA with the odd racing game thrown in. Current laptop is coping okay but I'm not spending as much time up and down the country anymore so think it's time to up the power. This is the what I've got so far:

Case - In-Win 805 Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black
Motherboard - MSI Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
Processor - Intel Core i5-6600K 3.9GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM
CPU Cooler - Corsair Hydro Series H100i v2 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060025-WW)
Memory - Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C16 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2A26
Graphics Card - Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Edition 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Solid State Drive 1 Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU)
Mechanical Hard Drive 1 Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM001)
Power Supply - XFX XTR Series 850W 80 Plus Gold Fully Modular Power Supply
Case Lighting - NZXT Hue+ RGB Dual Channel LED Controller - Black
Operating System - Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
Mouse - Razer Mamba Chroma Wireless Professional Gaming Mouse
Monitor - Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34" 3440x1440 IPS Curved Widescreen LED Monitor - Midnight Black

Total = £2,412.76

Is this complete overkill?? Nothing wrong with a little overkill though. Anything I could change to make it a better build? Or maybe even just more economical? Don't want to go above £2,500 in total for system and monitor. Below £2k without sacrficing too much "oomph" would be amazing.

Thanks in advance :cool:
 
You seem pretty excited by the stuff you are buying, only have two recommendations:

CPU Cooler should either be a custom water loop or a decent heatsink... Noctua, Akasa, beQuiet and others produce heatsinks that will last longer and perform just as well as AIO liquid coolers. The pursuit of lower temps is pointless, and AIO are the hallmark of that rather silly pursuit.

Power Supply could be chosen better by my standards. You want something that has Gold 80+ rating and a good warranty which Seasonic, Enermax and Corsair provide but I have yet to see anything better than the Corsair HXi series PSUs with their 10 year warranty and good support from Corsair. I would not settle for a 5 year warranty from a company renown for bad customer service.

Everything else looks awesome. Overkill indeed, but if it puts a smile on your face when you walk into the room then why not? I've spent a similar amount on my systems, and I don't regret it.
 
There's nothing wrong with overkill, my system was equally ridiculous when I bought it and my next upgrade will be no different.

Only thing I will say it that although the monitor is good, the 1070 may struggle to get above 40fps on it. The monitor is also not G-Sync, if that makes any difference to you.
Dell do make really good monitors though.
I second Nox's comments on the cooling and PSU, if it were me I would be looking at Artic Cooling as their Liquid Freezer 240 gets rave reviews for both temps and noise, or rather the lack thereof.
Apologies if I'm telling you stuff you already know.
 
Thanks Noxvayl, I'm crazy excited about this. Just trying to not take as long as it took me to decide on my laptop a few years ago. What would you say to these Swaps:
Power Supply - Corsair RM Series RMi 850 '80+ Gold' 850W Modular Power Supply (CP-9020083-UK) (can't find the HXi series on the build page I'm looking on, but will keep an eye out for them)
CPU Cooler - be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler
 
Thanks Stazbumpa. Was looking for G-sync ultrawide 34" monitors but could only find 2 and both are a little too expensive for me really. I was hoping dells new ultrawide would have it but sadly not. I could sacrifice the mouse and maybe downgrade a few parts to fit a £1k monitor into the budget I guess, but the thought of it makes me weep a little inside.
For cooling I just need something which will do the job well and quietly. Can't find the Artic cooling solution you mention on the build page but will keep an eye out for that too.
 
Oh, and will I really need to look at the 1080 to get decent frame rates on such a monitor? I've spent weeks talking myself out of spending on the 1080.... The monitor only has a 60hz max refresh rate. How much difference does this really make?

Any and all suggestions are welcome
 
Thanks Stazbumpa. Really helpful article. Yeah, I think I'll stay with the 1070 for the moment. Maybe go SLI in a year or 2 if needed. I wanted the X34 really bad but couldn't justify the extra expense and then the missus put her foot down.... She'd prefer to put the money towards VR
 
Yeah the 1070 looks like the better bet for your current spec, and as you say you can always SLI it later when the prices drop a bit. You're lucky that the wife is keen on what you're doing, all I did was tell mine how much the x34A was and I've been on the sofa ever since.

I wouldn't mind but I haven't actually bought it yet.......
 
Keen isn't the word. She can't wait for me to order it. She loves gaming too and want's something pretty fancy. Her laptop won't run her current favourite game (Fallout 4) so she knows she'll pretty much have mine once the desktop rig arrives
 
Lucky you.

I might get mine to allow me to upgrade my PC internals next year, but I'll need to give her my current rig for that to happen.

Carrot and stick, and all that.
 
You don't need a 850w psu. A quality 550w psu would be more than enough. Even if you went SLI 1070 in the future a 600w psu would still be more than enough. I have a 1070 and in most games total system power never exceeds 250w at the wall. Even running benchmarks it rarely goes past 280w at the wall.

I would choose a better case as well. In-win cases are all about the looks and things such as cooling are a afterthought. The 805 only has a single 120mm exhaust fan at the rear and no fans at all in the roof. Even the psu has to sit with the fan facing up as they haven't put a vent in the bottom for it. The Phanteks cases are a much better choice and much better value as they actually think about the functional design of their cases.
 
A decent quality RGB lighting kit is under £15 sadly you have to shop around, but at least they are cheap with no buggy software or garish plastic boxes with an LED.

As Pasty says, the 850w PSU is overkill, a quality 550w maybe 650w will do and the EVGA models seem a great deal, personally I would try and avoid dual cards, but I am in a similar situation to you, having one 1070 as I wanted a G-Sync monitor, budget blown due to sharing an account with a woman and an overkill 1000w PSU from a previous crossfire project about to be pressed into service for a single 1070.

Phanteks, Corsair, etc, there are a good few cases out there that offer an excellent build experience with superior cooling. I cannot fault my Phanteks or NZXT experiences with suitable hardware.
 
Thanks guys. Gave me some food for thought there. Have made a few alterations based on your suggestions:

Case - Bitfenix Aurora Midi Tower Case - Black Window
Motherboard - Asus Maximus VIII Ranger Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
Processor - Intel Core i5-6600K 3.9GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM
CPU Cooler - be quiet! Dark Rock TF CPU Cooler - 135/135mm
Memory - Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C16 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2A26
Graphics Card - Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Edition 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Solid State Drive 1 Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU)
Mechanical Hard Drive 1 Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM001)
Power Supply - Cougar GX V3 600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
Operating System - Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
Build Time Standard Build Systems - Dispatched within 7 working days
Monitor - Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34" 3440x1440 IPS Curved Widescreen LED Monitor - Midnight Black
Total = £2,052.80 (Dropped the mouse after getting the "are you kidding" look followed by eye rolls.)

Wondering about a few things though. Firstly the case. Does anyone have one of these or another made by Bitfenix? If so, how does it perform airflow, noise and temp wise? Should I consider additional fans?
Secondly, the gpu. Is there really a vast amount of difference between the different 1070 cards available?
Thirdly, the power supply. Are Cougar good? Wanted a corsair but couldn't get the 550w or 650w '80 Plus' Gold version. Is cougar a decent replacement?
 
NyteRyder said:
Thanks Stazbumpa. Really helpful article. Yeah, I think I'll stay with the 1070 for the moment. Maybe go SLI in a year or 2 if needed. I wanted the X34 really bad but couldn't justify the extra expense and then the missus put her foot down.... She'd prefer to put the money towards VR
Click to expand...

You're so lucky to have a wife who, instead of saying

"You want to spend HOW much on a computer?"

says

"I want to use more of the budget for a VR headset"

That's so awesome. Have fun playing games together. You only live once!
 
I would go with a £15 cooler, 2400 memory and a cheaper mobo in order to change the i5 to an i7. [Or shave off money elsewhere etc]
 
I've heard good things about BitFenix, not used one myself. I'd always go for some extra fans myself, the standard fans are generally lower quality (so louder) and you can adjust the airflow by using different fan slots.

I personally like simple case designs like the Corsair 550D or Fractal Design Define S, most Corsair and Fractal cases I like to be honest- also Coolermaster.

I've not heard of Cougar before... Check this website out: http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/PSUReviewDatabase.html

I'd look at the Seasonic G or X series, Superflower Leadex Gold, beQuiet Dark Power or Enermax Revolution if you can't find a suitable Corsair PSU. I'm a long time user of Enermax and have built machines with Corsair and Seasonic PSUs so they all come highly recommended.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom