New computer build for SC

Sirus7264

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So I am planning on building a new desktop to play SC in 4k at its best. Here is what I am planning on getting and I would like to know if anyone had any other suggestions and good deals out there in the world for the components I am laying out. Most likely I plan to buy all of this on black Friday this year as we all know in America it is the pinnacle to buy anything that is expensive

I9 7900X (10 core 4.5 ghz turbo boosted awaiting Tom's hardware reviews on this bad boy)

X299 board (TBD nothing set in stone and cant find any prices as of yet)

1080ti NVidia graphics card (Possibly 2 for SLI depending what updated benchmarks are when they are tested on the I9 if there is some type of actual improvement above 50%)

1x 500 GB M-2 SDD

1x 1TB SSD(Most likely WD)

49 inch Sony 4k TV(already have it!)

1xBluray player(UHD player if I find one at a good price)

4x16GB DDR4 2666 memory(or 3200 still deciding)

900 Watt power supply

Liquid cooling system for CPU

Some Test Squadron and star citizen Stickers to make it look cool.
 

I_MIKE_I

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Uhm... with that kind of build I assume budget is not any kind of concern for you... but still let me mention:

SC is not a Game yet, it's just a Alpha and neither has content nor optimisation to show right now - altough some is announced for 3.0.
Right now, on a full Server, you will still be creeping around 20FPS no matter how strong your System.

By the Time SC will be in a stage where you can make permanent progress (i.E. earn Ships), every System announced today will be at least one Generation behind - meaning it's obsolete to go for it now only to play SC.

So, leaving the sane part aside:

1. I can not recommend the Kabylake X / Socket 299. There are simply too many odd-choices by Intel and the whole thing seems half-baked.
For example, according to some fairly reliable sources, they now use thermal paste under the heatspreader rather than soldering it.


2. Playing on 4k right now with 2 1080Ti is a Gamble. Some games like RotTR scale very well, others not so much, some even manage to get less FPS in SLI.

Based on Benchmarks I've seen, I think it's fair to say that a single 1080Ti will hover around 50-70 FPS with some spikes depending on the Game in 4k. I think a 33,33...% improvement would be a fair estimation for SLI, meaning you'd look at roughly 66-99 FPS in "average" Games.

But SC isn't really a average Game and that's the point: SC will have settings for GPU about 2 Generations away, while Games like RotTR or GTAV were designed for GPU way before the RX and Gforce 10XX Series, which both marked huge leaps over previous generations.

I'm not saying you can't reach way over 60FPS in 4k with SC, but you would at some point have to make compromises... and I think making compromises after having bought such a system would not be a desirable thing.

3. Which System do you currently own? If it's good (which one would expect from someone asking for advice on such high specs) I'd really advise against such a step now. If you do not own a proper Gaming PC or something upgradable to one, I'd suggest building a "cheaper" PC to go by and build another one once SC releases. Quite likely, this will give you a better PC while both combined will cost less.
 

Thalstan

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If we should be offering you congratulations on winning the lottery, or getting a $20,000 bonus (after tax) and you have absolutely nothing better..than yeah...go ahead. Especially if you are streaming, making Youtube clips, or other things that will require a lot of HP.

The question is...why now? Why are you building a PC now?

If your old PC is either 6+ years old with no upgrades available, or if your old PC has gone to that great trash-heap in the sky, then yeah...build what you want.

But don't think that building this PC will solve all your issues.

Why the i9? Is SC even optimized for multi-core processors at the moment (doubt it). Can it take advantage of it?

How much of the lag is on CIG's end at their severs? A lot I would say.

For instance, think their method of removing ships from the pads isn't to despawn them, but to actually eject them into space. I've seen some servers where it looked like a graveyard of spinning ships. (this spinning will also be putting a lot of stress on the server)

If you can afford to do this again in 3-4 years OR...you are a professional gamer and will be using this system for a lot of other stuff..go ahead and build it. If not, consider something a bit more down to earth. An i7 can be had for $300. Much less than the $1,700 price tag I've seen for just the i9 CPU.

Oh, look at beefing up the power supply. Actually look at the efficiency curves. Lots are most efficient at the mid range of their output. Putting in a bigger PSU (which will be cheap compared to the rest of the system), might be better for you and give you more room to expand later.

Oh, and check out boards with U.2 interfaces. the M.2 is great, and the U.2 will expand that to other form factors. Both have the same access speeds. As for the SSD itself, look at the actual read/write speeds are. Those have a better indication of the speeds it will give, and not all SSDs are equal.

Finally, like a stereo system, your computer will be limited by the weakest component. If you are really going to put down the cash for a monster CPU like that, be sure the rest of the components can more than handle it. Get the more expensive and faster memory. Get 2x the video cards, or a Titan XP if you only get one. (honestly - get 2 1080Ti if you are only getting 1 Titan) Convert to or buy a liquid cooled video card. get 64 gigs of RAM (or 128 if they offer it in a more expensive MB)

Even if you get all of the above...you will probably still be pulling 20FPS in the PU like the rest of us...until at least 3.0

Oh, and make sure your case is going to be able to handle all the heat and equipment you are putting inside it. A bad case that has bad airflow design will cause you major heat related issues.
 

Sirus7264

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Thanks for the input guys currently I'm currently sporting my alienware R2 laptop with the 970 GTX and I7 4710 HQ.(8 cores turboboost of 3.5GHZ) and it is lagging not only in SC but several other games that are new and updated old. As I play a lot of different games and I am planning on also learning 3D modeling from a coworker of mine who is really deep into it I decided its time for an upgrade. SC is only one reason and I believe that if I upgrade to the I9 10 core at 4.5(Only $1000 for chip) that should satisfy system requirements later for SC closer to release date(maybe 3 years down the road) This also leaves me room to upgrade to anything in the X299 board configuration. The reason SLI is not performing very well at the moment on most games is not due to the power of the GPU but due to what's called Bottlenecking due to the CPU not being able to handle anything above 1 1080ti card(about $700-800 depending on cooling for each card). With the release of the New I9 it has 44PCI slots and you will be able to run both cards under the x16 link on the X299 board. Will this improve the FPS of the 1080TI under SLI? there is nothing for sure yet but after release we will defiantly see something about it. If there isn't an improvement of the cards in this condition then yes I will only buy 1 card.

As for the amount of cores in the system this is because I do streaming on my free time(even though I don't get many viewers it's still fun for the ones that I do get.) for lots of games and do not like any FPS drops below 60 if I can manage it.(Better streamer viewing no one wants to watch a game in 30 FPS). The reason I do not plan to get the fastest DDR4 memory is there is no true benefit currently for anything past 3200.(recommended is 2666 for the I9 from intel along with many others from tom's hardware. Yes there is a bit more benefit but not enough to pay that much out of your pocket). As for money it is not really an issue but, i am responsible and i do not like to waste money where its not needed (such as a titan X) as I make enough to get what I really want but don't want to overbuild until 3 years from now when SC becomes a reality and I give up any free time I have for it(not to mention trying to save up for Javelin on the next sale as long as it still has LTI which I suspect or any other surprise huge ships almost half way there!). Also i'm not buying anything until black Friday like I do for any large purchases except this case which I got for free from a friend. So in 3 years then I would just need to do a simple CPU swap and Graphics card upgrade in these conditions and everything should be fine.

Lastly it is expected with this Core war currently going on from intel and amd that games and all applications are going to become(and currently are being made) to multi-process in the very near future.(1-2 years) Word on the street is saying that games are already being rewritten to function on multiple cores.
 

I_MIKE_I

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Thanks for the input guys currently I'm currently sporting my alienware R2 laptop with the 970 GTX and I7 4710 HQ.(8 cores turboboost of 3.5GHZ) and it is lagging not only in SC but several other games that are new and updated old. As I play a lot of different games and I am planning on also learning 3D modeling from a coworker of mine who is really deep into it I decided its time for an upgrade. SC is only one reason and I believe that if I upgrade to the I9 10 core at 4.5(Only $1000 for chip) that should satisfy system requirements later for SC closer to release date(maybe 3 years down the road) This also leaves me room to upgrade to anything in the X299 board configuration. The reason SLI is not performing very well at the moment on most games is not due to the power of the GPU but due to what's called Bottlenecking due to the CPU not being able to handle anything above 1 1080ti card(about $700-800 depending on cooling for each card). With the release of the New I9 it has 44PCI slots and you will be able to run both cards under the x16 link on the X299 board. Will this improve the FPS of the 1080TI under SLI? there is nothing for sure yet but after release we will defiantly see something about it. If there isn't an improvement of the cards in this condition then yes I will only buy 1 card.

As for the amount of cores in the system this is because I do streaming on my free time(even though I don't get many viewers it's still fun for the ones that I do get.) for lots of games and do not like any FPS drops below 60 if I can manage it.(Better streamer viewing no one wants to watch a game in 30 FPS). The reason I do not plan to get the fastest DDR4 memory is there is no true benefit currently for anything past 3200.(recommended is 2666 for the I9 from intel along with many others from tom's hardware. Yes there is a bit more benefit but not enough to pay that much out of your pocket). As for money it is not really an issue but, i am responsible and i do not like to waste money where its not needed (such as a titan X) as I make enough to get what I really want but don't want to overbuild until 3 years from now when SC becomes a reality and I give up any free time I have for it(not to mention trying to save up for Javelin on the next sale as long as it still has LTI which I suspect or any other surprise huge ships almost half way there!). Also i'm not buying anything until black Friday like I do for any large purchases except this case which I got for free from a friend. So in 3 years then I would just need to do a simple CPU swap and Graphics card upgrade in these conditions and everything should be fine.

Lastly it is expected with this Core war currently going on from intel and amd that games and all applications are going to become(and currently are being made) to multi-process in the very near future.(1-2 years) Word on the street is saying that games are already being rewritten to function on multiple cores.
lol... I think I get the picture now...

1. Don't buy Alienware... ever.

2. Your Laptop's GPU us notably weaker than a GTX 1050, just to put it into perspective.

3. The "i7" from your Laptop is in ideal state somewhere around first Gen Desktop i7 but most likely getting throttled knowing Alienware. Also that "8 core 3,5ghz" doesn't exist. It has 4 Cores/8 Threads and normally operates at 2,5ghz base-clock.

4. "Wanting to learn 3D Modelling" is quite a stretchable definition... but in general most people "wanting to learn" complicated things as a hobby will give up before anything comes from it.... I'd dare saying the ratio on anything losely related to game development is well over 90%.

5. Neither SC nor what I would understand as a learning expirience in 3D Modelling would justify this kind of system... and unless I'm mistaken, you would need dedicated GPU for this stuff like Nvidia's Quadro cards, which in turn aren't really good for games.

From what I get from your posts, I think you're simply not a person that has build PCs or been confronted with the details for long (please don't take it as an insult), since the System you wrote down has pretty much nothing to do with what you would actually need.

6. Thinking you can just upgrade a few parts in the future "if needed" is a bit delusional, especially when starting out with a high-spec intel build.
Frankly, I expect Intel to drop this socket just as fast as they did their 1366 socket back then.


You said you're starting to stream, which makes the following suggestion even more viable:

Get a "normal" Gaming PC and once SC releases, use that one for Streaming via a capture card.

With normal Gaming PC, I refer to:

Ryzen 1600 or 1700
GTX1060 6gb/RX580 8gb or GTX1070 (or Vega?) ... altough you can go for a 1080ti if you really want it that badly.
Personally, I think a MSI board... but that's personal preference.
At least a SSD (OS and Games) and a HDD (storage)
Obviously a good PSU and Case.

That's going to be a quantum-jump from your Laptop and roughly around or above the specs of many of our streamers.

Once SC comes out or you find 3D Modelling to be your thing, you can still upgrade and use this one for streaming.... just the money you'd save in a year or two of using that PC will easily cover the cost.


PS: Even if Intel and AMD spam more cores on the market, there's a limit to where it makes sense for Developers, since CPU Bottlenecking isn't too serious. And don't forget that the "mainstream" CPU for Intel remains the i5 and below with 4 cores and no Hyperthreading afaik.... according to steam, almost 45% of steam-users use Dual-Core CPU (i3, GXXXX and so on).

The "average" consumer simply won't buy "Gaming" PCs... not to mention that those are also quite far from the specs of your typical prebuild system... which is what a lot of people use.
 
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DirectorGunner

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Oh gawd no!
Don't go X299!!! For the love of all that's good!
Don't do it!
Watch this, everyone

Threadripper is the way to go for this CPU product cycle depending on final price point.
I've been team blue since 1989... I'm going team red this time around because of intel not stepping up to the plate with their response product line offers. We've gone too long with intel getting big and fat, dragging their ass, because AMD couldn't come up with something to trump intel.
Intel now shows it's bullshit market fixing (really intentionally holding back innovation like this should be illegal) and AMD might just be the winner this coming decade. In any event, x299 is a dumb chipset, don't get it. Find other build options.
 

Thalstan

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Ok, don't know where you got your price, but Wired is saying 1700 https://www.wired.com/2017/05/intels-new-processors-built-high-powered-future-pcs/

Now, for the question.

What experience do you have building your own PCs?

My own experiences and then recommendations:

I have built all my own PCs since 2002 ish. I also build PCs for my wife, by mother, sister, nephews, and uncle. I've build really high end systems and bare bones. Even with all this, I don't know everything as I am not a PC manufacturer. I just assemble the stuff they want.

Liquid cooling is almost a must these days. Fortunately, there are many good solutions. I use Corsair.

For a PSU, get one rated several hundred watts (2-300) above what you want to actually use. This will boost your efficiency and provide a reserve. This is especially true if you think you might go SLI in the future. In that case, add in the power requirements of the second card before calculating your reserve. If you go corsair, you might consider getting a motherboard with a number of internal USB ports. This way you can use corsair's software (corsair link) to monitor your PSU and your CPU temp.

Get a case big enough for what you want. Too many people try to fit big machines into tiny spaces. That said, a smaller, better airflow optimized case is better than a large tower that has a bad cooling design.

Get at least one platter (spinning disk) for backups and your music files. You don't need to spend a lot of dosh on Solid State storage just to play iTunes. You also don't want to take up all that storage space with your backup files. That's what spinners are for these days. You should be able to get 3TB for about 100 bucks or so.

Not all M.2 cards are the same. For instance, the Samsung EVO 850 and 960 are very different in terms of speeds. Spend the extra money and get the 960. Otherwise, just get a regular SSD utilizing SATA 6.

If you want to keep your system a long time, you might want to boost your SSD from an EVO 960 to a 960 PRO from Samsung. This has a longer life with more read/write between failures.

MSI, ASUS ROG, and Gigabyte are all good names, but they all have lots of different motherboards. Make sure you get the right one for your needs. At least a Z270 (not a 170) Even at the Z270 level, there are lots of different options. Get the one you need...like 4 memory slots instead of just 2.

Finally, the GPU is much more important than the CPU these days. My rule of thumb is you spend at least as much on the GPU as you do on the CPU...and 2x your CPU cost is optimal. (excluding cooling, MB, etc) adding in the MB and liquid cooling, the GPU should cost about the same as you spend on those three components for a balanced machine.

That means if you want a 1080Ti...an i7 7700k is probably better choice. This gives you 4 cores and 8 threads.

Don't forget you need to buy windows and maybe office or some other productivity software.

Finally, get INTEL/Nvidia. I don't trust AMD and I find Nvidia makes a solid device.
 
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Thalstan

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After some research...

if you can. And ONLY if you can...hold off 1 year. Build an i5 with a 1060 video card if you absolutely have to, then give it to your mom/dad/brother/sister/in-laws/work friend/etc as a birthday/winter holiday present.

Then, after all this is sorted out by next year, build your screamer. (no, I don't think it will be sorted by Christmas)

Just remember, there is always something better coming out, but it sounds like a lot of stuff coming from intel is half baked. Give it some time.
 

Shadow Reaper

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We should have a single thread stickied to the top where you guys can all give advice.

I am hoping to build a PC for the first time in a decade. I currently use a Mac, and don't game; but intend to in another couple seasons. I am not planning to use the machine for much other than SC. One of the questions I have asked several times and not received an answer to, concerns the utility of a largish, curved touchscreen. I am impressed by the 40" touchscreens and it seems to me if I can tap the screen where I want to fire a gun or missile, this could be very effective. OTOH, I would usually be moving my entire arm, and a mouse might be faster.

Has anyone here ever used a touchscreen for gaming?
 

I_MIKE_I

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We should have a single thread stickied to the top where you guys can all give advice.

I am hoping to build a PC for the first time in a decade. I currently use a Mac, and don't game; but intend to in another couple seasons. I am not planning to use the machine for much other than SC. One of the questions I have asked several times and not received an answer to, concerns the utility of a largish, curved touchscreen. I am impressed by the 40" touchscreens and it seems to me if I can tap the screen where I want to fire a gun or missile, this could be very effective. OTOH, I would usually be moving my entire arm, and a mouse might be faster.

Has anyone here ever used a touchscreen for gaming?
I don't think a touchscreen would work at all for SC... even if you get it to recognize the input, you'd sit half an arm lenght from a 40" screen which will not be pleasant unless you run insanely high resolutions.

Even if you'd do it in a turrent and only focus on firing, you'd block your own vision while touching the screen... and I think it will wear your arm out quite fast and everyone will think you just fapped too much.
 
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Sirus7264

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lol... I think I get the picture now...

1. Don't buy Alienware... ever.

2. Your Laptop's GPU us notably weaker than a GTX 1050, just to put it into perspective.

3. The "i7" from your Laptop is in ideal state somewhere around first Gen Desktop i7 but most likely getting throttled knowing Alienware. Also that "8 core 3,5ghz" doesn't exist. It has 4 Cores/8 Threads and normally operates at 2,5ghz base-clock.

4. "Wanting to learn 3D Modelling" is quite a stretchable definition... but in general most people "wanting to learn" complicated things as a hobby will give up before anything comes from it.... I'd dare saying the ratio on anything losely related to game development is well over 90%.

5. Neither SC nor what I would understand as a learning expirience in 3D Modelling would justify this kind of system... and unless I'm mistaken, you would need dedicated GPU for this stuff like Nvidia's Quadro cards, which in turn aren't really good for games.

From what I get from your posts, I think you're simply not a person that has build PCs or been confronted with the details for long (please don't take it as an insult), since the System you wrote down has pretty much nothing to do with what you would actually need.

6. Thinking you can just upgrade a few parts in the future "if needed" is a bit delusional, especially when starting out with a high-spec intel build.
Frankly, I expect Intel to drop this socket just as fast as they did their 1366 socket back then.


You said you're starting to stream, which makes the following suggestion even more viable:

Get a "normal" Gaming PC and once SC releases, use that one for Streaming via a capture card.

With normal Gaming PC, I refer to:

Ryzen 1600 or 1700
GTX1060 6gb/RX580 8gb or GTX1070 (or Vega?) ... altough you can go for a 1080ti if you really want it that badly.
Personally, I think a MSI board... but that's personal preference.
At least a SSD (OS and Games) and a HDD (storage)
Obviously a good PSU and Case.

That's going to be a quantum-jump from your Laptop and roughly around or above the specs of many of our streamers.

Once SC comes out or you find 3D Modelling to be your thing, you can still upgrade and use this one for streaming.... just the money you'd save in a year or two of using that PC will easily cover the cost.


PS: Even if Intel and AMD spam more cores on the market, there's a limit to where it makes sense for Developers, since CPU Bottlenecking isn't too serious. And don't forget that the "mainstream" CPU for Intel remains the i5 and below with 4 cores and no Hyperthreading afaik.... according to steam, almost 45% of steam-users use Dual-Core CPU (i3, GXXXX and so on).

The "average" consumer simply won't buy "Gaming" PCs... not to mention that those are also quite far from the specs of your typical prebuild system... which is what a lot of people use.
So much to answer with all of these posts. So ill start with this one first.

1. at the time i bought that alienware which was i believe 3 or 4 years ago now. that rig was top of the line and honestly i very much liked it. The only things i didnt like are the graphics card was not a dedicated nvidea video card it was support for the built in intel hd card which was complete nonsense. also it did not have an internal cd rom. It still runs 90% of my applications with no problems and i could get away with it for probably another year with no issues. im primarily moving out of it because i want to get back to desktops because lets face it desktops are just better in general just not portable and ive been playing in the laptop world for the last 3 computers ive had.

2. the gtx 1050 is not going to handle 4k which is why im getting the 1080ti if you compare the specs and the benchmarks on toms hardware and anandtech.com you will see the difference. like i said ill only get 2 and put them in sli only if after the i9 release and the driver update shows at least a 50% improvement. as most of us know as of the 1080ti sli is dead and worthless.

3. yes that was my mistake its a quadcore hyperthreaded 8 the base clock is 2.5ghz with turbo boost 3.5 ghz(decreases active cores to increase speed of other coes so switches to 1 core to operate at 3.5 by changing cycle times automatically) so yes 2.5 with all cores active as the base hence one of many reasons im upgrading.
4. This is not my first attempt at 3d modeling and i do enjoy doing things of these sorts. as for making a game thats not my goal. this is just because its fun and enjoyable my friend/coworker has been doing this a very long time and is currently making an animated movie which ill assist him in as i learn how to do it. just because i play games doesnt mean thats purely all i like to do with computers lol i jump around and try new things all the time. shouldnt judge a book by its cover.

5. lol i dont take this as an insult. like i said this system will be active till i begin to get bogged down again.(going to be awhile i dont care if new stuff comes out you only upgrade when your pc is starting to have issues performing tasks which is why you always overbuild as this new socket is just comming out this isnt going away awhile cpus come and go things like ram, drives, and other components stretch a very long time depending if you take care of them.) Ive been building computers since the 286. As for AMD ive had lots of problems with just about every AMD component ive ever had which is why i stick with intel and nvidea every last one of them has lasted me from start till finish evertime. as for graphics cards my coworker has told me a 1080ti is way more than enough as 3d modeling is focused on using multiple cores to perform rendering the more cores you have the faster your render times hence why im getting 10 core i9.(should be a healthy balance of heat distribution in comparison with the 18 core intel(there is no purpose for me to get 18 unless im going to really get deep into 3d modeling).

6. Like i said im building ahead not what is the current spec. and i dont only stream sc i stream anything i play as i advertise sc at the same time to try to get new players interested. i dont plan to stop streaming till sc comes out as that will not help me get new followers and build my stream crowd.

now as that is answered the I9 7900x which is going to be 1k is listed here which comes out this month.

https://hothardware.com/news/intel-core-i9-7980xe-18-core-monster-cpu-reportedly-scheduled-for-later-this-year

I was thinking about the threadripper as it will most likely be about the same price as the i9 7900x but with more cores there are more heat issues i suspect its going to have some heat issues and as i have said before ive had alot of issues with amd in the past (i even gave them another shot 2 latops ago and it had a huge range of issues from overheating to alot of crashing.)
 

Shadow Reaper

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I am curious if there is anyone here who understands the cores issues as would relate to Software Defined Radio and Cognitive Radio. One can look at what is availalbe in SDR COTS items, but in designing next generation power systems capabillities for things like radar and encrypted UHF communications, anyone have a belief about the utility of these newer, higher number of core processors? Especially for spacecraft, it is nice as with the new Apple i7 chip, to be able to switch off some of the cores and leave just the hyper efficient ones running, and then switch on all the cores when you need to rock and roll. Is anyone familiar with SDR with that sort of i7 quad-core type capability? Is there an intel version like this that switches off cores to save power?
 

Jolly_Green_Giant

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I have a 1080 Ti and can tell you it will not run things on ultra at 4k. Most games are moving away from SLI support so I'm not sure I would recommend getting 2. I watched a couple videos on the x299 chipset and its CPU's and after the hype wore off, it seems to be that it will not be a solid platform anytime soon, as it is a rushed release to counter AMD. PERSONALLY, I would build a system with a single 1080 (for cost, you can get them sub 400usd) or 1080 TI on the x99 / 2011v3 chipset for now with 16-32gigs of DDR4 2666 and a samsung 950 series M.2 SSD. Wait until the next release of cards from Nvidia comes out and the x299 chipset becomes more established before you drop a ton of money. What I told you to get is what I have, and I cannot reasonably even think about upgrading right now for any reason other than I'd want to piss money away before I spent even more money in a year or two down the line just to spend a lot of money on something worth upgrading to.
 

Shadow Reaper

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I get that, but that is the argument people have used from the days of the 8086 and 8088 processors, to not buy the latest processor. Hell, folks used that argument to stay with CPM before MS DOS came out.

Sometimes you just wanna blow huge chunks on too much 'puter.
 

Sirus7264

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i wont be buying until november so that gives them sometime to work out the bugs in the x299 chipset i havnt seen to much about it yet other than they got thunderbolt to properly opperate. but with most rushed releases theres always bugs to patch im waiting for the benchmarks to get published and a bit closer to the november time frame as everyone knows thats when you buy your computer gear. do you have thst video on the x299 available also which companies manufactured them those issue boards? ive been a gigabyte kinda guy since the old days but im leaning twords asus as it seems they have been getting there stuff together the last decade or so. as for the 950 thats the one ive been looking at for an nvme should be enough space for os and major games then a side ssd for other random stuff. a quick question on that though can nvme cards be run in a raid array? if so ill pick up another a bit more in the future. As for the 1080ti ive only heard good things but i do know that in mgs 5 benchmark along with some reviews the fps does drop to the mid 30s on ultra high settings in 4k. a few of the IT guys at work have said its a great buy though if im going to be playing in 4k the card does perform well and they have been impressed which doesnt happen often. i dont believe a new card will come out for a bit and i can live with the cost. if something comes out that destroys it in testing then ill just give that one to my brother in law. there will always be better computer equipment that comes out a year or even 6 months later that will top what you get and prices will always fluctuate. cant let that stall you all the time because by the time that comes out poof something else such as a motherboard will be announced and you have to wait 6 months to a year later for that. ill be satisfied with what i get then next time im running low again ill just upgrade.
 
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Bruttle

Space Marshal
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Aug 20, 2016
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Bruttle
I may not have the most applicable advice, but here's my $0.02. To preface this I need to state that I am not, nor will I ever be, the kind of guy that is drawn to the new shiny. I find that the shiny new toys tend to come grossly overpriced, full of problems, and sold to us using fancy terms designed to vastly overstate the benefits of the thing. This trend is for quite a few markets, but in this case we are talking about the PC components.

So for me, I buy around the 2 year mark. There is a pricing trend I shoot for. As you move up the pricing chart, you usually see large jumps in speed for little jumps in price. Right around the 2 year old market, that trend reverses. You see small jumps in speed for large jumps in price. That's what I aim for. Once I find that mark, I build a proper PC.

By proper PC, I mean a PC without bottlenecks. You can have the fastest CPU in the world, but it'll be bottlenecked if you don't balance your components and you end up unknowingly trying to push the contents of a proverbial swimming pool through a straw. Over the years (been building PC's since I was 11 which was 27 years ago) I have seen almost every single component of a PC serve as that bottleneck. This is wildly prevalent in the prebuilt PC market. They tend to spend all they can on the shiny bits (cpu, gpu, mem), but then skimp on everything else (gpu, mobo, hdd, etc.). The result is a machine that is much slower than it should be. They are usually grossly overpriced too because of the aforementioned shiny bits.

Back to the point. I usually build my (and my wife and daughter's) pc for around $1500 each. This doesn't include monitors and peripherals, just the main box. I balance the specs and make sure that everything works right. That means finding out the power draw of each component and getting a PSU that will run them all with room to spare. That means looking up all the benchmark data. That means looking into all those different specs that each component has, knowing what they mean, and making sure they all match. Additionally, there is usually a discrepancy between those specs when they first come out, and what everyone finds out is the real story after two years. There's time to iron out the bugs.

A few years back, I handed a friend a challenge. I was drunk and talking trash about the next new thing that was coming out. He was completely sold on the new shiny bit and had ordered it the moment it became available. I called him an idiot (and a few other names) and challenged him to a pc build. I was about to build a new pc and told him to come back in two weeks with all his receipts and his shiny new pc. We would then benchtest his new pc vs my new pc and see whose came out on top. After two weeks we put it to the test. Sad to say, his won. He got, on average 10fps higher and his pc booted 7 seconds faster. I lost $10 that day.

What I did win, was bragging rights. Because although his did run faster, I had spent ~$1,400 on my new PC and he had spent over $4,000. He had spent $2,600 more and only got an average of 10fps and a 7 second faster boot. I mean, there's more to the story, but that's the basics. The biggest, baddest, new, shiny bits aren't always as good as they are made out to be. Sometimes the rest of the components aren't ready. Sometimes the programming hasn't caught up. Sometimes it's just too new and buggy to run all out. Regardless, something is usually holding it back no matter how hard you try and you end up making small gains for the price of big money.

Now, I don't want to make any assumptions about your income. You could have just tons of money lying around. For me though, a few thousand is still a thing to be carefully considered. I personally make a choice to spread it around a bit than spend it all in one place. But like I said, that's me and my budget and I don't want to make assumptions. Regardless, do what makes you happy because that's the real secret of life.

For your list though, I would caution proper care regarding the PSU. At 900 watts, you may find that a bottleneck after everything you plan on putting on there (multiple SSDs, water cooling, tons of ram, etc.). I would suggest running the numbers real quick and making sure you don't need 1k or better. Also, getting a gold rated PSU is huge. Having two ssds seems redundant as well. Are you sure you don't want just the 1tb ssd and then a 5+tb disk? I am running just a 500gb ssd right now and it's too small for all my games. It didn't seem like it would be when I got it, but eventually it was. My new rule for a main drive is "always get far bigger than you think you need".

So those are my $0.02.


EDIT: Sorry about writing a novel there. I got kinda carried away...
 

I_MIKE_I

Space Marshal
May 7, 2016
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I_MIKE_I
So much to answer with all of these posts. So ill start with this one first.

1. at the time i bought that alienware which was i believe 3 or 4 years ago now. that rig was top of the line and honestly i very much liked it. The only things i didnt like are the graphics card was not a dedicated nvidea video card it was support for the built in intel hd card which was complete nonsense. also it did not have an internal cd rom. It still runs 90% of my applications with no problems and i could get away with it for probably another year with no issues. im primarily moving out of it because i want to get back to desktops because lets face it desktops are just better in general just not portable and ive been playing in the laptop world for the last 3 computers ive had.

2. the gtx 1050 is not going to handle 4k which is why im getting the 1080ti if you compare the specs and the benchmarks on toms hardware and anandtech.com you will see the difference. like i said ill only get 2 and put them in sli only if after the i9 release and the driver update shows at least a 50% improvement. as most of us know as of the 1080ti sli is dead and worthless.

3. yes that was my mistake its a quadcore hyperthreaded 8 the base clock is 2.5ghz with turbo boost 3.5 ghz(decreases active cores to increase speed of other coes so switches to 1 core to operate at 3.5 by changing cycle times automatically) so yes 2.5 with all cores active as the base hence one of many reasons im upgrading.
4. This is not my first attempt at 3d modeling and i do enjoy doing things of these sorts. as for making a game thats not my goal. this is just because its fun and enjoyable my friend/coworker has been doing this a very long time and is currently making an animated movie which ill assist him in as i learn how to do it. just because i play games doesnt mean thats purely all i like to do with computers lol i jump around and try new things all the time. shouldnt judge a book by its cover.

5. lol i dont take this as an insult. like i said this system will be active till i begin to get bogged down again.(going to be awhile i dont care if new stuff comes out you only upgrade when your pc is starting to have issues performing tasks which is why you always overbuild as this new socket is just comming out this isnt going away awhile cpus come and go things like ram, drives, and other components stretch a very long time depending if you take care of them.) Ive been building computers since the 286. As for AMD ive had lots of problems with just about every AMD component ive ever had which is why i stick with intel and nvidea every last one of them has lasted me from start till finish evertime. as for graphics cards my coworker has told me a 1080ti is way more than enough as 3d modeling is focused on using multiple cores to perform rendering the more cores you have the faster your render times hence why im getting 10 core i9.(should be a healthy balance of heat distribution in comparison with the 18 core intel(there is no purpose for me to get 18 unless im going to really get deep into 3d modeling).

6. Like i said im building ahead not what is the current spec. and i dont only stream sc i stream anything i play as i advertise sc at the same time to try to get new players interested. i dont plan to stop streaming till sc comes out as that will not help me get new followers and build my stream crowd.

now as that is answered the I9 7900x which is going to be 1k is listed here which comes out this month.

https://hothardware.com/news/intel-core-i9-7980xe-18-core-monster-cpu-reportedly-scheduled-for-later-this-year

I was thinking about the threadripper as it will most likely be about the same price as the i9 7900x but with more cores there are more heat issues i suspect its going to have some heat issues and as i have said before ive had alot of issues with amd in the past (i even gave them another shot 2 latops ago and it had a huge range of issues from overheating to alot of crashing.)
1. The reason I said don't buy Alien ware is only because it's overprices AF... it's literally Dell with some eye candy.

2. I don't advise a GTX 1050... I just think that coming from a Laptop you kinda don't have the perspective on how powerful current "mid-range" Hardware is. However, even current top-end GPU in SLI do struggle in 4k, meaning 2 1080Ti don't mean you can play SC at max settings 4k and expect high FPS.

4. Could you ask him which hardware he uses? I'm fairly some of the professional Software requires stuff usually disabled on Consumer-grade CPU/GPU. Also, you'd definetely want to use ECC RAM if you want to use it professionally.

5. Overbuilding for "future proofing" isn't a good idea... it's always a waste of money if you go above the "what you need for the forseeable future" specs. I think I mentioned it before, but gaming / streaming in 4k is simply not reasonable with today's Hardware.. even if you'd get a Quad-SLI build to work with 4 Titan Xp, nobody would watch it because of the insane Data volume 4k 60fps would mean.... and "using multiple cores" has absolutely nothing to do with the GPU tbh.

Hell, even a lot of famous techchannels on YT basically said that x299 is a failure... and frankly, I'd unsubscribe the ones saying otherwise, as that would be a sponsored comment IMO.

As far as temperature is concerned, I assume you haven't seen AMD's TR4 Socket or processors yet?... they are quite big... :P
 
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