Spec a Rig for Xmas

frog61

frog61

frog61

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10 Sep 2014
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Hi all
So I'm looking at getting a Gaming Rig around Chirstmas time, so plenty of time to save and speculate on what best to get.

Primarily interested in FPS games, ideally 4K gaming if thats ever possible.But a good sized monitor woudl be ideal as well.

So I hear a lot about 4K gaming has not quite come of age yet, the ideal 4K 120Hz refresh doesnt like like it will here this year at a reasonable price, so doyou think gthe ROG swift PG278Q, the PG27AQ or Acer XB270HU. Appreciate an assorted list, and only Asus PG27AQ is 4K, tho possibily not 120hz.

Any thoughts or comments?

GPU side, well I am leaning towards the 980Ti, seemingly better on the £ per performance than the newish titan around. I am no expert, but I presume with Xmas sales, both maybe reduced in price, leaving me some opportunity to buy 2 980TI?

My budget probably will be around £2500-3K utter max.

Any thoughts, realise this should probably wait another 3 months, but starting to put ideas down.
 
By the time we get to Q4 2015, hardware will have already changed a lot. And at that time we'll have more info regarding Pascal. Any rig you got specced now would be so out of date which would be a waste given the budget you've specified.
 
cpu - 6 core 5930 haswell-e on x99
mboard - asus / gigabyte if you dont need the features then simpler is better/cheaper.
gpu - 2x 6GB 980ti - dont think on past experience people would recommend crossfire unless on budget. If you are going to sli than reference is recommended for heat dissipation unless water cooling.
boot hdd - >=256GB PCIex4 M.2 SSD perhaps SM951 AHCI or NVMe..higher capacity if it fits all your needs else a secondary data drive.
sound card -> for headphones? gaming mboard with headphone amlifyer, less is more for heatflow. hdmi out to amp?
memory - no advantage in spending more..if same price then go for faster cant hurt..lowest CL rating is of most interest...but not worth paying more for.
monitors - G sync seems to get good write ups so i would definitely test this.

Musings,
win 8 can be upgraded to 10 and may have better support for M.2 (perhaps applies more to NVME)
nvidia product not due to change by christmas except, non reference coolers may be better for single gpu setups..
cases not much recent experience, but antec performance one series have had good production values..
dual gpu wont come into budget, 980ti seems a good price point for this budget
avoid watercooling unless an enthusiast due to required maintenance, half way house aio coolers dont seem to have as good noise profiles as big air (although its very close one way or tother now it seems, if going to be regularly tinkers inside/moving pc or dual gpu then aio value becomes a stronger proposition.)
dropping for skylake-s h170 may offer better value for 100% gaming (2xgpu), especially as h170 supports lots of pcie 3 from chipset, but if not just gaming more cores is king, and in time 6 cores might be very useful for gaming/dx12.
psu doesnt need to be 1KW, but im labouring under the (mis?)apprehension then higher capacity are quieter at typical draws.

Sound card assumed not required as using hdmi out to amp?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus X99-S - Intel Core i7 5930K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle ***£30 Saving*** £694.98
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 980Ti "Reference Design" 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GTX980TI-6GD5) £599.99
1 x Asus PG278Q ROG Swift 27" G-Sync 144Hz Gaming Widescreen LED Slim Bezel Monitor - Black/Red £599.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Platinum" Power Supply - Black £165.95
1 x Samsung SM951 256GB M.2 PCI-e Gen3 8Gbps x 4 Solid State Drive (MZHPV256HDGL-00000) £155.99
1 x Antec P380 Performance Series Windowed Tower Case - Black/Gun Metal £152.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-06949) £116.99
1 x Crucial 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-17000C16 2133MHz Quad Channel Kit (CT4K4G4DFS8213) £113.99
1 x Noctua NH-D15 Dual Radiator Quiet CPU Cooler with two NH-A15 Fans £77.99
Total : £2,678.84 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

 
Last edited:
Thanks Gin
May need to cut out one of 980Ti's to afford a monitor!
Sound card would be required, tho, have only been using a Bose Companion 5 with the the old PC, was thinking about using the same again?
Probably prefer water cooled, though flexible on best options.
I like to SSD options, can you have more than one of these? thinking one for OS and the other for games?
 
Hopefully Skylake will be out by Christmas.

The Gigabyte Black Edition has a free upgrade within 3 years.

http://bk.gigabyte.eu/EN_bk_UK_Ireland.html


YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI GeForce GTX 980Ti Gaming 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G) £575.99 (£1,151.98)
1 x Acer Predator 4k2k XB280HK 28" G-Sync Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £499.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK - Devil's Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£15 Saving + Gigabyte Free Upgrade ** £399.98
1 x Crucial BX100 500GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT500BX100SSD1) £145.99
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Full Tower Case - Black £119.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £114.95
1 x Corsair Hydro H110i GT 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060019-WW) £99.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury Red 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FRK2/16) £99.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £79.99
1 x CableMod E-Series G2 & P2 Cable Kit - Black / Red £69.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £61.99
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Multicolor LED Strip - 2m £16.99
Total : £2,888.34 (includes shipping : £22.20 Ex.VAT).

 
yup a fast pcie ssd is not critical for a 100% gaming pc, but at that budget it seemed of the right 'class'.

two ssds is an even more expensive luxury...given that higher capacitys are usually cheaper/GB and perform better, i think the new Z170s are going to support 2 M.2 PCIex4 Slots as standard.

A much better value halfway house would be a PCIeSSD solely for OS + perhaps a game with really long load times due to disk subsystem, and a sata SSD for other games...PCIex4 SSD is at least half as good value and all just to load up an os/game quicker..hard to justify...or better things to spend budget on..
 
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