New PC Build - Soliciting Advice

[LoicFarris]

Hey Guys,

I haven't built a PC in 2 years and I'm thinking I'm going to build a new machine in March-ish (bonus time) time-frame. This will be an all new PC build as the current machine is going to be used by my kids. I already know which case I want but I'd like to know what you all would recommend for the guts. I'm trying to keep the cost at approximately $1400.00 bucks or less. To give you an idea, I stay at the lower end of the price curve, IE I won't pay $50 or $100 bucks more for a 10% performance increase. I could also give two shits about bragging rights.

I game on a 42 inch 1080p screen, but have considered picking up a 4k, that said if being able to run SC at 4k requires I bump my budget up substantially then I'll stick w/ 1080p. I plan to run two additional monitors off the main-board GPU as well, unless it's smarter to run them off the dedicated GPU. These side screens will be 1080p, no need for 4k there as they're for displaying Discord and OBS.

Overall this system is used for gaming, however it is also used for video editing... the render process there cares about CPU & GPU power as it'll leverage the cycles off of your GPU to render more quickly. I edit in 1080p however if I wind up gaming in 4k I'll do game videos in 4k.

I can't think of anything else, here are the current system's specs. The only upgrade since it's original build was the addition of a 500GB SSD listed below.

• ASUS ROG Maximus IX Hero Z270 LGA1151 DDR4 DP HDMI M.2 USB 3.1 ATX Motherboard
• Intel i7-7700K (4.20Ghz)
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
• G.SKILL TridentZ Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 4133 (PC4 33000)
  • It says DDR4 4133, but when I try to run it at 4133 the system becomes seriously unstable and SC won't even start, so it's running at 2133.
  • If anybody is geeky enough to help me troubleshoot this I'm game. I haven't done it because I have 4 kids and my free time is well... limited, plus I'm a 22 year IT veteran and when I get home I just want shit to work.
  • I think I'd rather save $$ and get RAM rated for 2133 vs wasting money on ram that I was supposed to be able to clock higher. That said if we can get this system to run the RAM at 4133 and it's that big of a difference I'll do it.
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• Samsung HDD 2TB (I forget the model)
• EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G3, 80+ GOLD, 750W Fully Modular, Compact 150mm Size, Power Supply
• Phanteks Evolv PH-ES515E_BK Satin Black Aluminum / Steel ATX MidTower Computer Case
  • I plan to buy the new version of this case... love it, highly recommend it unless you need an optical drive.

This has been a rock solid build, no issues what so ever, it set me back between $1400 - $1500 when it was originally built case included. It'll run SC at max graphics since 3.8 & SSOCS between 30 and 80 FPS depending on where I am and on a good day I don't drop below 45 fps. Believe it or not I've hit 70 FPS in Lorville and A18, so it's hard to tell if the perf drops are on my end or the games lack of optimization. Again I could care less about bragging rights, having been a videographer / editor for longer than I've been in IT I know there is little to no benefit beyond 60 FPS for the human eye unless you're planning on editing footage in slow motion.

I look forward to what you all have to suggest. I'm not loyal to Intel or Nvidia, I buy whoever is the most powerful and best bang for your buck at the time.

 

[OuTLaW66613]

Lol... So I'm literally in the same boat... Or ship lol.
I will say this... Everything I have looked up online "recommends" 32gb for video production....... Even tho most peeps are using 16
And from what I understand it boils down to rendering time... And how quick it moves through those programs.

One site a friend turned me onto was https://pcpartpicker.com/... Sweet site! Virtually build your PC, see power draw (so you can buy proper psu) and price... Even gives an option to buy all the parts from what ever site is cheapest right there!

Here's mine...

Outlaw Rig - AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Cougar Conquer ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

Outlaw Rig - AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Cougar Conquer ATX Mid Tower

pcpartpicker.com

... Yes I know price is outrageous!... I had to sit the fuck down for a minute lol...but imma buy parts over a 4 to 6 month period (only way I could get a rig like that)... Imma build that rig if it kills me!

 

[Cool-Hand-Luke]

Hey Guys,

I haven't built a PC in 2 years and I'm thinking I'm going to build a new machine in March-ish (bonus time) time-frame. This will be an all new PC build as the current machine is going to be used by my kids. I already know which case I want but I'd like to know what you all would recommend for the guts. I'm trying to keep the cost at approximately $1400.00 bucks or less. To give you an idea, I stay at the lower end of the price curve, IE I won't pay $50 or $100 bucks more for a 10% performance increase. I could also give two shits about bragging rights.

I game on a 42 inch 1080p screen, but have considered picking up a 4k, that said if being able to run SC at 4k requires I bump my budget up substantially then I'll stick w/ 1080p. I plan to run two additional monitors off the main-board GPU as well, unless it's smarter to run them off the dedicated GPU. These side screens will be 1080p, no need for 4k there as they're for displaying Discord and OBS.

Overall this system is used for gaming, however it is also used for video editing... the render process there cares about CPU & GPU power as it'll leverage the cycles off of your GPU to render more quickly. I edit in 1080p however if I wind up gaming in 4k I'll do game videos in 4k.

I can't think of anything else, here are the current system's specs. The only upgrade since it's original build was the addition of a 500GB SSD listed below.

• ASUS ROG Maximus IX Hero Z270 LGA1151 DDR4 DP HDMI M.2 USB 3.1 ATX Motherboard
• Intel i7-7700K (4.20Ghz)
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
• G.SKILL TridentZ Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 4133 (PC4 33000)
  • It says DDR4 4133, but when I try to run it at 4133 the system becomes seriously unstable and SC won't even start, so it's running at 2133.
  • If anybody is geeky enough to help me troubleshoot this I'm game. I haven't done it because I have 4 kids and my free time is well... limited, plus I'm a 22 year IT veteran and when I get home I just want shit to work.
  • I think I'd rather save $$ and get RAM rated for 2133 vs wasting money on ram that I was supposed to be able to clock higher. That said if we can get this system to run the RAM at 4133 and it's that big of a difference I'll do it.
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• Samsung HDD 2TB (I forget the model)
• EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G3, 80+ GOLD, 750W Fully Modular, Compact 150mm Size, Power Supply
• Phanteks Evolv PH-ES515E_BK Satin Black Aluminum / Steel ATX MidTower Computer Case
  • I plan to buy the new version of this case... love it, highly recommend it unless you need an optical drive.

This has been a rock solid build, no issues what so ever, it set me back between $1400 - $1500 when it was originally built case included. It'll run SC at max graphics since 3.8 & SSOCS between 30 and 80 FPS depending on where I am and on a good day I don't drop below 45 fps. Believe it or not I've hit 70 FPS in Lorville and A18, so it's hard to tell if the perf drops are on my end or the games lack of optimization. Again I could care less about bragging rights, having been a videographer / editor for longer than I've been in IT I know there is little to no benefit beyond 60 FPS for the human eye unless you're planning on editing footage in slow motion.

I look forward to what you all have to suggest. I'm not loyal to Intel or Nvidia, I buy whoever is the most powerful and best bang for your buck at the time.

That's a solid system.
You did a great job two years ago.
I'm thinking you'd be hard-pressed to duplicate that in 2020 the same $1,500.

 

[Cool-Hand-Luke]

8 out of 10 7700k will overclock to 5 gigahertz. I believe that Asus motherboard has an automatic overclock feature that will get you into that ballpark.
But unless you delid And repaste that CPU and apply a monster CPU cooling solution I would not do it.

View: https://youtu.be/VkT2SYl5xpY

 

[LoicFarris]

8 out of 10 7700k will overclock to 5 gigahertz. I believe that Asus motherboard has an automatic overclock feature that will get you into that ballpark.
But unless you delid And repaste that CPU and apply a monster CPU cooling solution I would not do it.

View: https://youtu.be/VkT2SYl5xpY

Yeah there's no OCing going on with this rig. I'm too lazy "at home" to deal w/ maintaining a water-cooling system, so it's all fans. The CPU fan/heat sync was an after-market buy I can't remember what it was, I grabbed it after the fact from Micro-Center.

That's a solid system.
You did a great job two years ago.
I'm thinking you'd be hard-pressed to duplicate that in 2020 the same $1,500.

Hmm you've got me wondering if maybe the Kids need to wait then. Now I do price-shop hard, and didn't get all the parts from the same place. I'll more than likely have to do the same thing again.

 

[LoicFarris]

My first stab at a build, looked at CPU benchmarks vs the AMD and wound up at the 9700K, I need to really look at GPU benchmarks. I did load this one up w/ 32GB of RAM vs the current build. So I think I can get it down to 1600.00 if I half the RAM and nuke the SSD. The case is full price, it was on-sale when I build this rig and cost me half the current price. I went w/ a reduced wattage PS because the website showed I wasn't even consuming 450 watts.

EDIT: I just looked at the benchmarks between the 2070 and 2080. I'll be sticking w/ the 2070, the 2080 only gets you an 11% - 16% performance increase which is not worth the addition $250.00 cost.

 

[Oliver Sullivan]

I JUST finished a new build. Everything was cheaper on Amazon (vs Newegg). I did splurge for the i9 Intel CoffeeLake CPU, EVGA Hybrid GTX 2080 Graphics card, and 64 RAM. So mine was more pricey ($3k) - but you can price a nice build at 1500-2k still. Just triple check that CPU Chip, and RAM are compatible with the Motherboard you go with, and your PSU has enough juice.

 

[Cool-Hand-Luke]

I've hear the 2070 super is in a sweet performance to price point. Might be worth considering.

Here's one factory overclock and RGB for 500 bucks with rebate.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ULTRA GAMING 8GB GDDR6 - Newegg.com

Buy EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FTW3 ULTRA GAMING, 08G-P4-3277-KR, 8GB GDDR6, iCX2 Technology, RGB LED, Metal Backplate with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

 

[LoicFarris]

I've hear the 2070 super is in a sweet performance to price point. Might be worth considering.

I just looked at the benchmarks on the 2070 vs 2070S and it's approximately an 8% difference for $60.00. So I may dig around an see if I can find it for say $30-40 bucks.

I JUST finished a new build. Everything was cheaper on Amazon (vs Newegg). I did splurge for the i9 Intel CoffeeLake CPU, EVGA Hybrid GTX 2080 Graphics card, and 64 RAM. So mine was more pricey ($3k) - but you can price a nice build at 1500-2k still. Just triple check that CPU Chip, and RAM are compatible with the Motherboard you go with, and your PSU has enough juice.

Nice, that makes sense. Sounds like a nice build, I'm supporting a family of 6 on just my income, so when I build a PC I still go for best bang for my buck. If I were single with my present day income that would be pocket change to me. So far I've just used the website that @OuTLaW66613 recommended to match some parts and done benchmark research on a few parts. I'll dig in and verify that everything is the best fit when I start buying stuff.

 

[Cool-Hand-Luke]

Here's a handy gpu chart that I've used in the past

PassMark Video Card (GPU) Benchmarks - High End Video Cards

Video Card Benchmarks - Over 1,000,000 Video Cards and 3,900 Models Benchmarked and compared in graph form - This page contains a graph which includes benchmark results for high end Video Cards - such as recently released ATI and nVidia video cards using the PCI-Express standard.

www.videocardbenchmark.net

 

[Radegast74]

Hate to be PC Part - y pooper (ha ha) but why not go with a pre-built rig with about the same specs for $1500...and if you want to do some building, throw in a water cooling solution, extra 16GB of RAM, and an NVMe drive with the $250 you saved, at your convenience. Oh, and this $1500 price includes the Windows key...

 

[Joehockey]

@LoicFarris
You know, I love posts like this. You plan a build every 2 years around $1500 and pull the 3 year spread but always end up stretching it to about $2000. It's so neat to see how people plan their build timing!

Anyway, if I were building something at that price right now, this is what I would put together after making adjustments to what you had planned.

OK. The obvious Intel vs AMD fanboy vs fanboy argument is rampant on the internet today. I personally lean my way towards AMD since my 2500k died and Intel stopped inovating. I think the price to performance from most bigger review sites have the 3700x going toe to toe with the 9900k for most things only to very slightly fall behind on some games at 1080p resolutions. So I saved a bit there as well as increased the likely performance overall. X470 is the "cheaper" AMD mobo build but it's 100% capable everything below an overclock 3900x so long as you have updated the Bios so we saved a touch there as well. Ryzen uses RAM like nitrous so the higher speed sticks I chose would be the better option.

I'm currently running a 1700x with a 1080ti 32gb ram at 1440p and generally parked around a 50fps average in the PU. Most games that aren't massively heavy or at least well optimized I can comfortably hit 120fps more often than not. This is why I save a touch on a couple of things without skimping on performance, and bumped up to the 2080. As well, since you're already on 1080p now, I'd personally make the move to a 21:9 or 32:9 if you have it in the overall budget. I think the ultra wide and super ultra wide monitors are massively more impressive than just a 4k monitor. Especialy when it's just another 27" screen (assuming you were looking at a monitor and not a tv). Granted this is just my two cents worth.

My super hopeful thinking says I'll be picking up DDR5 ram is going to start making it's way into the market next year so I'll probably hold out for a build til fall next year and see if I can snag a 1440p 32:9 at a good price.

 

[LoicFarris]

@LoicFarris
You know, I love posts like this. You plan a build every 2 years around $1500 and pull the 3 year spread but always end up stretching it to about $2000. It's so neat to see how people plan their build timing!

Anyway, if I were building something at that price right now, this is what I would put together after making adjustments to what you had planned.View attachment 14741

OK. The obvious Intel vs AMD fanboy vs fanboy argument is rampant on the internet today. I personally lean my way towards AMD since my 2500k died and Intel stopped inovating. I think the price to performance from most bigger review sites have the 3700x going toe to toe with the 9900k for most things only to very slightly fall behind on some games at 1080p resolutions. So I saved a bit there as well as increased the likely performance overall. X470 is the "cheaper" AMD mobo build but it's 100% capable everything below an overclock 3900x so long as you have updated the Bios so we saved a touch there as well. Ryzen uses RAM like nitrous so the higher speed sticks I chose would be the better option.

I'm currently running a 1700x with a 1080ti 32gb ram at 1440p and generally parked around a 50fps average in the PU. Most games that aren't massively heavy or at least well optimized I can comfortably hit 120fps more often than not. This is why I save a touch on a couple of things without skimping on performance, and bumped up to the 2080. As well, since you're already on 1080p now, I'd personally make the move to a 21:9 or 32:9 if you have it in the overall budget. I think the ultra wide and super ultra wide monitors are massively more impressive than just a 4k monitor. Especialy when it's just another 27" screen (assuming you were looking at a monitor and not a tv). Granted this is just my two cents worth.

My super hopeful thinking says I'll be picking up DDR5 ram is going to start making it's way into the market next year so I'll probably hold out for a build til fall next year and see if I can snag a 1440p 32:9 at a good price.

Oh I used to be exclusively AMD for the longest time then I found my self back on the Intel band-wagon. I read about the performance drops w/ AMD regarding 1080 resolution, what % impact are we talking like 8%, 15%? It's funny because I don't "need" a new machine right now. It's mostly a motivation so I don't have to lug my nephew's computer back and forth from his Dad's when he stays with us on the weekends, and my kids are getting into CG Animation... So it's an excuse to blow... like you said 2k on a new build and drink away the buyer's remorse.

Hate to be PC Part - y pooper (ha ha) but why not go with a pre-built rig with about the same specs for $1500...and if you want to do some building, throw in a water cooling solution, extra 16GB of RAM, and an NVMe drive with the $250 you saved, at your convenience. Oh, and this $1500 price includes the Windows key...

I haven't actually looked at a pre-built machine in over 20 years outside of laptops. The only exception was to shut some dude up who was bragging incessantly about his Alienware calling it the "play anything" machine. Turned out my box was better by a large margin and he paid nearly double for his. Anyway, back to the point, I'll have a look at the screen you posted and see if I can beat it or not with a self built machine.

Here's a handy gpu chart that I've used in the past

PassMark Video Card (GPU) Benchmarks - High End Video Cards

Video Card Benchmarks - Over 1,000,000 Video Cards and 3,900 Models Benchmarked and compared in graph form - This page contains a graph which includes benchmark results for high end Video Cards - such as recently released ATI and nVidia video cards using the PCI-Express standard.

www.videocardbenchmark.net

Oh nice that's very helpful actually. Thanks for sharing this!

 

[Cugino83]

Hmmm...
Considering that you'll be also using the system for video editing and that most of the game start to use several core instead of only one I'll ge for an AMD solution: the new Ryzen are preatty solid, have more core/tread that for video editing are good, and don't reqire the extra cash for the "overcllocking ability" that Intel require (AMD CPU are all full unlock).

32 Gig of RAM are a must have nowaday especially for video editing you'll have a benefit, fast RAM is mandatory if you'll go for an AMD solution...
Also, if you are not planning yo upgrade the RAm in the future and the MB support it, get a 4 stick kit: you'll use all the channel of the MB and have more bandwith, that is good for video editing.

 

[wmk]

I've hear the 2070 super is in a sweet performance to price point. Might be worth considering.

Here's one factory overclock and RGB for 500 bucks with rebate.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ULTRA GAMING 8GB GDDR6 - Newegg.com

Buy EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FTW3 ULTRA GAMING, 08G-P4-3277-KR, 8GB GDDR6, iCX2 Technology, RGB LED, Metal Backplate with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

@LoicFarris Absolutely, as Luke says, 2070 Super is a much better choice than 2070 at the moment.
I built a new PC not a while ago and bought overclockable MSI Gaming X Trio; I can't see it at newegg, so I guess it's been replaced by the "Z" model:

MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Video Card RTX 2070 SUPER GAMING Z TRIO - Newegg.com

Buy MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB GDDR6 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Video Card RTX 2070 SUPER GAMING Z TRIO with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

I love mine; it's fast, super quiet and cold.