Building New PC - Technical Help Appreciated

[Gareth]

Hey guys,

 

So I'm looking to invest in a new Gaming PC. My one is 5 years old now, its still good but I want to be able to play new games at high Graphics with good FPS and so on. I will primarily be using the PC for gaming, the rest will be; streaming live, recording gameplay, editing videos, uploading. That is it. I will be keeping my current PC next to my new one for all the other stuff you need a PC for.

 

I have a flexible budget but obviously I don't want to spend too much. So far the build I am contemplating is this:

 

    Case:       NZXT H440 Red/black    PSU:        750w Bronze Corsair  CXM    MOBO:       MSI Z170 Gaming Pro    CPU:        i5 6600K    CPU Cooler: NZXT X31 Water Cooler    Memory:     8GB 3000Mhz DDR4 RED    SSD:        240GB M.2 Sata Patriot SSD    HDD:        3TB 7200rpm HDD    Graphics:   Asus GTX980 Strix    OS:         Windows 10 64 bit

 

Now I am thinking about changing a few things and need your ideas on them.

Working down the list: 

• The PSU I am thinking of getting a 850W as 3 years down the line when my settings go from ultra to high/medium I want to throw in another Graphics card, and I don't want the power to be a limiting issue.
• Will that MOBO support SLI?
• Regarding the CPU I am thinking of the i5 6600K vs the i7 6700K.
• With the GPU how much difference is in the GTX 980 Strix to the GTX 980 Ti?

Thank you guys for taking the time to help out with this. I'm hoping to get everything soon so I can build it within one to two weeks!

[X3ntr]

Hi Gareth

I've done some PC building myself and regarding the list of purposes for the rig I would consider the following:
 

• Swap out that PSU if you plan on going SLI in the near future
• Although an i5 is fine for gaming, you'll want the i7's hyper-threading when it comes to streaming/recording and gaming on the same machine.
• 8GB memory is a good start but you might want to increase this for intensive video editing.
• The motherboard supports both Nvidia SLI and AMD Crossfire

 

For the GPU I'd say stick with the 980. Unless you plan on going triple monitor or 4K resolution you won't need it.

This is just my humble advise, there are probably people here who know a lot more about this
Have fun building!

[alganthe]

^

perfectly said, except for the processor, stick with an i5 unless you do very intensive video / image editing or 3D rendering, or you compress incredibly massive files.

For the CG unless you find a ti in promo stick with the standard 980

 

Slight note, the MSI gaming motherboard usually include the ABSOLUTELY SHITTY killer network drivers.

[fir_nev]

Working down the list: 

• The PSU I am thinking of getting a 850W as 3 years down the line when my settings go from ultra to high/medium I want to throw in another Graphics card, and I don't want the power to be a limiting issue.
• Will that MOBO support SLI?
• Regarding the CPU I am thinking of the i5 6600K vs the i7 6700K.
• With the GPU how much difference is in the GTX 980 Strix to the GTX 980 Ti?

Thank you guys for taking the time to help out with this. I'm hoping to get everything soon so I can build it within one to two weeks!

 

That draft is one powerful machine!

• Go with higher power. Up to 1000W for such setup. Need to match second GPU's power consumption
• From what I heard, i7-6700K is having shortage still(?) Might want to wait for that if you are not in a rush?
• 980Ti can still outperform my 970 (if I decide to SLI it). I recommend that. Comparisons between 980 and 980Ti
• Yes. As quoted in MSI website:

   

  MULTI-GPU with Steel Armor: Steel Armor PCI-E slots. Supports NVIDIA SLI^™ & AMD Crossfire^™

   

[Stuffedsheep]

A few points.

 

• I5 is good for gaming, I7 is good for rendering and processing(3d modelling and video processing/Streaming). I7 does not really improve much price/performance wise, you don't need the extra 4 cores.
• If you are going to go for SLI, do it from the start. SLI requires the exact same GPU chipset, and ideally the same or more VRAM. So to get the best performance out of it you need an identical card.
• Get atleast 16GB of RAM(prefereably in 2 sticks, because dual channel memory)
• According to the MSI website the "MSI Z170A Gaming Pro" supports dual SLI. and seen the size of the case, mobo and gpu it should fit with lots of room.
• Get dust filters for your case, even if you use liquid cooling. You may think it is not needed, but trust me, it saves you a lot of cleaning if you use an air can from time to time.

[TooTall]

I'll add my two cents cause i build a new rig about 2k(okay €) just before christmas.

core features of my build are:

 

650w PSU
gtx 980 ti

6700k

16gb DDR4

500gb ssd

1 tb hdd

500gb hdd
wlan card

sound card

 

(no optical drive though)

 

• psu: So i think even if u're planing to go sli in the future an 850w psu is more than enough.
  reason for that is the a corsair psu feature - the fan won't spin at low to mid draw. even at 100% cpu and gpu usage my dosen't dare to move.u also can use this little tool: http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator
• ram: As for ram get at least 16gb - u can turn off windows swapfile and save rw time on your m.2
• gpu: Unless you have nothing better to do with your money get the ti - but performance per dollar is way worse than on the 980

 

tl:dr

• Get at least 16GB RAM
• 850W PSU is enough for SLI (with 2 GPUs)
• Stick with 980

edith said: Don't buy Windows 10 - as far as i know u can still activate it with an old 7/8/8.1 key.

[Amentes]

If you're not planning to go above 2560x1440, you could make do with a 970. Keep the savings and use it to upgrade when the next gen GPUs arrive. Don't run multiple GPUs, it brings more trouble than it's worth.

 

6600k is plenty for gaming. Many games don't even >know< what Hyperthreading is.

 

8GB ram does the job, but if you're like me, running 20 Chrome tabs while gaming and multitasking other programs, you'll want 16.

 

Get a bigger M.2 or an extra SATA SSD. Modern games take room, and many of them will benefit greatly from being run off an SSD.

 

Don't go overboard on RAM. DDR4 is plenty speedy, and getting ultra-MHz RAM is a complete waste of money for gaming purposes.

 

As for PSU, that's something you could consider a future-proofing investment. I've run a rather expensive 1200watt PSU for 8 years now, and while it is massively overpowered for the task, all PSUs get less powerful with use. It was expensive when I bought it, but since this PSU has moved between builds, it has been a worthwhile investment in the long run. Something to consider.

[Gareth]

Thanks everyone for the help. I've taken some things under consideration and for now I have ordered these parts to come.

 

  Case      H440 Red/black  PSU       850w Bronze Corsair  CXM  MOBO      MSI Z170 Gaming Pro  CPU       i7 6700K  Cooler    NZXT X31 Water Cooler  Ram       8GB 3000Mhz DDR4 RED  SSD       240GB M.2 Sata Patriot SSD  HDD       3TB 7200rpm HDD  Graph     Asus GTX 980 Ti Strix  O/S       Windows 10 x64 bit

 

I will be doing a Benchmark test and let you know the results. Thanks for all the private emails that were sent my way too! Really appreciate every ones input!

[alganthe]

How are the NZXT cases cable management wise? They look pretty nice overall.

fun fact: there's only one reseller for NZXT cases in france, and they are pretty much always out of stock.

[ParabolicAJB]

Gareth,

 

Looks like you've ended up with a good build, I rebuilt my mATX PC into a Midi tower case recently with all-in-one Corsair H110 water cooler and improved cooling and have just got a new PSU and GTX970 so even though you've ordered, here's some advice from my experience which could help you (or others) in the future:-

• The PSU is often over looked as it doesn't directly increase performance for £ spent, however it is important to get a good 'quality' PSU (wattage does not necessarily equal this).  The PSU you've chosen is fine and will do what you need of it although getting a Gold (or better) rated PSU will not just provide increased efficiency (cost less to run) but are generally made of higher quality components which will last longer and provide more stable power. This can be essential if overclocking or even just to get the best turbo boost performance from a CPU or GPU (e.g. Nvidia GPU boost will only get the max out of your card if there is sufficient power available).  based on this I just got a 750w Platinum rated unit for £92.
• I started with a 120Gb SSD and 500Gb HDD, I don't do video editing but soon found the SSD too small when BF3 had all addons released, I then got a 250Gb and found the same with BF4 and GTAV installed, add on top of that Arma3 and mods it was not enough, so I have my old 120Gb SSD for Arma3 and some other things.  120Gb SSDs can be found very cheap at the moment (£34.99!) and it's worth considering this in the future for either games or to use as a scratch disk for your streaming and editing.
• Also as said, the RAM speed makes very little difference (if any) to gaming performance so I'd opt for 16Gb of decent RAM (Crucial do deals direct on their website) which will help with nearly everything including video editing.
• As for the graphics card, generally buying the card with the best base clock and boost clock in class is a good way to go, also if you read some reviews you'll realise that spending more money can reduce the 'value' you're getting if you were to divide the FPS achieved in your favourite games by £-spent. (this does also work in the opposite way when buying the cheaper cards - the FPS achieved per £-spent will go down).  I'd advise against 4K at the moment, 1440p is a decent sweet spot.
• Windows 10 - you CAN'T activate it with a Win7/8 key, but you can 'upgrade' a genuine installation to Win10 for free, but you don't get a CD-key and it's bound to that PC forever (you can make changes to the hardware but may have to contact MS to get it re-activated).  I've been using Win10 for a few months now after upgrading from Win7 and in truth I currently prefer Win7 as it was cleaner and has less clutter I wasn't interested in, however I realise that Win10 will become the norm and has been reviewed as performing better than Win7/8.

 

I hope this helps and hope you have a straight forward build!

 

Regards, Alex.

[Amentes]

You don't need the performance boosts of Windows 10 when you're running 7 off an M.2

 

10 can FOAD, imo, I'll stick with my trusty 7 for as long as I can.

[fir_nev]

Gareth,

 

• I started with a 120Gb SSD and 500Gb HDD, I don't do video editing but soon found the SSD too small when BF3 had all addons released, I then got a 250Gb and found the same with BF4 and GTAV installed, add on top of that Arma3 and mods it was not enough, so I have my old 120Gb SSD for Arma3 and some other things.  120Gb SSDs can be found very cheap at the moment (£34.99!) and it's worth considering this in the future for either games or to use as a scratch disk for your streaming and editing.

 

Maybe he can spend few spare quids on acquiring Acronis to back up an image should he need to upgrade to bigger capacity drives? Saves the time to reformat like U did (if U went through it).

[ParabolicAJB]

You can use the backup feature of Win7/10 to do a system image and restore from that. As it happened I was using Samsung SSD which supply a free, very useful and easy software which can clone any disk/SSD to a Samsung SSD.

For me, that's a big reason to stick with Samsung SSD.

[ranarick]

 

• Windows 10 - you CAN'T activate it with a Win7/8 key, but you can 'upgrade' a genuine installation to Win10 for free, but you don't get a CD-key and it's bound to that PC forever (you can make changes to the hardware but may have to contact MS to get it re-activated). 

 

As of the november update (TH2 : 1511 ) you can actually install with a win7/8/8.1 key no problem . I do this at my work everyday never gave me any problem since TH2.

[fir_nev]

You can use the backup feature of Win7/10 to do a system image and restore from that. As it happened I was using Samsung SSD which supply a free, very useful and easy software which can clone any disk/SSD to a Samsung SSD.

For me, that's a big reason to stick with Samsung SSD.

 

*Looks for CD in SAMSUNG SSD box*

 

Wait. Or can we find it in SAMSUNG's portal? I have Acronis, that is why I pay little attention to it.

[ParabolicAJB]

It's called Samsung Magician, you can download it for free but it's limited to copying TO a Samsung drive.