Sherdog PC Build/Buy Thread, v5: Stop Thinking of Your Router as a Peripheral

[Edgar Allan Hoe]

I couldn't help but do a bit more research tonight. How does this look? I plan on buying parts over the next month and a half, and can swap out some things if I find a great deal, so I imagine that price will come down a few hundred bucks? I feel like it may be overkill but give me a bit more futureproof over say a 4790k/980

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/z8K47P

Questions (in addition to what anyone wants to tell me)

Do these gaming towers have external memory card slots on them, like SD?
Do I need this much RAM/does it help (I see a lot of other builds with 16GB)?
Can I go with a smaller SSD (is 500GB overkill)?
Should I make the PSU larger in case I decide to SLI later (partspicker lists me at 744W if I add a 2nd card)?

PSU tier list -> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

That PSU is a tier one supply so it's really good. That said, you will want at least 850W for 2x 980ti if you want to err on the side of being safe. Even with a solid PSU, running them with 750W is tempting fate.

I would also recommend spending the extra few bucks to get the Hybrid version of the 980ti. I have 2 of them and they stay below 50C and are practically silent. Overclocking them is a piece of cake. You can raise the voltage with worrying about the temps.

As for that CPU, it runs cooler than the 4790K but don't expect any noticeable performance increase other than a slightly higher 3D Mark score. But, if you can afford it, go for it. Like I said, the Skylake chips have a small process so they run cooler.

 

[Hank The Tank]

Cool. It looks like you are willing to spend more money . Nice choices on your parts list.

The Fury X is a good card. The Zotac Amp Extreme is going to be faster in almost every circumstance thought.

Why 2x 1TB hard drives?

I would go with larger SSD for sure. You will fill it up easily.

A friend of mine swears by AMD and keeps telling me that the Fury or Fury x2 will be a lot better because of HBM, more so once DX12 gets more popular/games written for it from the floor up. I don't know enough to offer a counter point or agree with him.

What else do you put on your SSD? People keep telling me just OS.

I added a second because why not when I'm building it, only $40 more, then my buddy said I should RAID them since my wife does graphic design work.

PSU tier list -> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

That PSU is a tier one supply so it's really good. That said, you will want at least 850W for 2x 980ti if you want to err on the side of being safe. Even with a solid PSU, running them with 750W is tempting fate.

I would also recommend spending the extra few bucks to get the Hybrid version of the 980ti. I have 2 of them and they stay below 50C and are practically silent. Overclocking them is a piece of cake. You can raise the voltage with worrying about the temps.

As for that CPU, it runs cooler than the 4790K but don't expect any noticeable performance increase other than a slightly higher 3D Mark score. But, if you can afford it, go for it. Like I said, the Skylake chips have a small process so they run cooler.

I updated it last night, here is my parts list currently.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/NDzNMp

What is the difference with the hybrid version?

Thanks to both of you guys

 

[Cygnus A]

A friend of mine swears by AMD and keeps telling me that the Fury or Fury x2 will be a lot better because of HBM, more so once DX12 gets more popular/games written for it from the floor up. I don't know enough to offer a counter point or agree with him.

What else do you put on your SSD? People keep telling me just OS.

I added a second because why not when I'm building it, only $40 more, then my buddy said I should RAID them since my wife does graphic design work.



I updated it last night, here is my parts list currently.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/NDzNMp

What is the difference with the hybrid version?

Thanks to both of you guys

I would call your friend a fanboy. I have run nothing but AMD graphic cards for the past 10+ years, but I recently jumped ship to Nvidia because AMD just cannot keep up and they keep failing to deliver. Their cards run hotter, draw more power, and under perform the equivalent Nvidia cards. I am trying to be more impartial these days when it comes to brand loyalty.

There is nothing wrong with choosing the Fury X but do your research first. Like I said.. I was a huge AMD believer for a very long time and after about 6 months of research on the current cards decided to pick up the Zotac 980 ti AMP Extreme. It is the fastest card out of the box period. The AMD Fury cards cannot even overclock, while the Nvidia cards are boosting almost 50% faster without issue.

The AMD card might do better if you plan to run multiple cards for 4K resolution.AMD seems to scale better when you are running multiple cards, but that is also an iffy situation. Some games do not even support multiple graphic cards.

HBM is the next generation memory type, but even with it AMD is not outperforming Nvidia....DX12 is a whole different discussion and right now it is impossible to determine what is going to happen with it. Memory isn't everything.

I dont see either the Fury X or 980 ti having problems running any game in the next several years at 1440p resolution. If you want to make the jump to 4K that is an entire beast. But if your wife does a lot of photo editing.. i bet she would love an ultrawide (ive got mine on order):

Put everything on SSD except storage. (OS, programs, games, etc..) SSDs are cheap these days so there is no excuse not to use them.

 

[Cygnus A]

What is the difference with the hybrid version?

Ok so Nvidia makes a baseline 980 ti card. Then all of their partners take that card and make various versions of it. Some use the standard Nvidia circuit board, while others make completely new circuit boards while just using the Nvidia CPU chip.. That is why there are like 30 different 980 ti cards to choose from.

The hybrid card uses the standard Nvidia board but adds in a liquid cooler.

 

[Hank The Tank]

Ok so Nvidia makes a baseline 980 ti card. Then all of their partners take that card and make various versions of it. Some use the standard Nvidia circuit board, while others make completely new circuit boards while just using the Nvidia CPU chip.. That is why there are like 30 different 980 ti cards to choose from.

The hybrid card uses the standard Nvidia board but adds in a liquid cooler.

I see, is it necessary to do that when I'm already adding a liquid cooling system, should I stick with the zotac?

That monitor is pretty sexy, I'll stick with my 27 and 22 inch monitors for now and look to upgrade in the future.

I think I'll look to get the current parts I have on there during sales, if I find something that is different but a huge price drop and comparable to what I have I'll swap it out.

Are there good PC parts sales for black friday and cyber monday usually? Or should I start collecting as much as I can now?

thanks

 

[Cygnus A]

I see, is it necessary to do that when I'm already adding a liquid cooling system, should I stick with the zotac?

That monitor is pretty sexy, I'll stick with my 27 and 22 inch monitors for now and look to upgrade in the future.

I think I'll look to get the current parts I have on there during sales, if I find something that is different but a huge price drop and comparable to what I have I'll swap it out.

Are there good PC parts sales for black friday and cyber monday usually? Or should I start collecting as much as I can now?

thanks

The liquid cooler you are buying is for the CPU. The hybrid 980 comes with a smaller one for the GPU. This is personal preference. Both cards will be amazing. But the price increase isn't going to help you any on the hybrid (i.e. it will not be faster than the Zotac).

I am not sure about black friday deals.. Who knows what they will be. But you can find sales along the way including big rebates.

 

[Hank The Tank]

The liquid cooler you are buying is for the CPU. The hybrid 980 comes with a smaller one for the GPU. This is personal preference. Both cards will be amazing. But the price increase isn't going to help you any on the hybrid (i.e. it will not be faster than the Zotac).

I am not sure about black friday deals.. Who knows what they will be. But you can find sales along the way including big rebates.

How would you compare these to the other one I posted? I'm staring to get a better understanding for everything now that I'm doing more research, but I don't know how applicable some things are and how future uses would be.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rqvfWZ

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/CP4dkL

 

[Cygnus A]

How would you compare these to the other one I posted? I'm staring to get a better understanding for everything now that I'm doing more research, but I don't know how applicable some things are and how future uses would be.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rqvfWZ

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/CP4dkL

I still dont understand why you are buying 2x hard drives? Are you wanting to RAID those? Because I thought you meant RAID the SSDs.. A single SSD is going to be faster than RAIDing of those regular HDDs..

 

[Hank The Tank]

I still dont understand why you are buying 2x hard drives? Are you wanting to RAID those? Because I thought you meant RAID the SSDs.. A single SSD is going to be faster than RAIDing of those regular HDDs..

those aren't really important, it was just for extra storage not for stuff I'll be using. I can see myself filling up a 1tb so I added a second to be safe, they are only like $40 so I figure might as well buy 2 now instead of adding one later. I'll probably end up with a 500GB ssd when all is said and done.

 

[Cygnus A]

those aren't really important, it was just for extra storage not for stuff I'll be using. I can see myself filling up a 1tb so I added a second to be safe, they are only like $40 so I figure might as well buy 2 now instead of adding one later. I'll probably end up with a 500GB ssd when all is said and done.

OK. That is a solid build for sure. You will be very happy with it.

 

[Hank The Tank]

OK. That is a solid build for sure. You will be very happy with it.

Did you see the other 2? I swapped out Z170 for X99 and had the 5820k on one and the 5930k on the other, everything but the CPU and mobo are the same. Just wanting to see if it is worth it in the long run to go with one of those instead.

thank you sir

 

[SSgt Dickweed]

I'm pretty dumb with PC specs. I have played AC: Blackflag recently and midway the game kept crashing after a couple minutes of play. I downloaded MSI Afterburner to underclock the Graphics card and then I was able to play the game but it still crashes every couple of hours. I don't think my build is that good, and the Graphics card is prolly damaged. I want to beef up my PC to play Fallout 4 but I want to replace only what I need to and keep as much parts as I could to minimize spending. What should I do?


These are my specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460 CPU @3.20GHz 3.20GHz
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5670
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 (MS-7817)

 

[Edgar Allan Hoe]

The liquid cooler you are buying is for the CPU. The hybrid 980 comes with a smaller one for the GPU. This is personal preference. Both cards will be amazing. But the price increase isn't going to help you any on the hybrid (i.e. it will not be faster than the Zotac).

I am not sure about black friday deals.. Who knows what they will be. But you can find sales along the way including big rebates.

Yea, the Hybrid isn't very fast out of the gate but the temp protection and sheer quietness of it is so worth the price.

When I was gaming on my TV the noise wasn't a big deal but now that I game at a desk again the water cooling is so handy because GPU fans are small and thus, loud as fuck. I guess if he games with headphones the noise factor is moot but even then, it's a great feeling to know that you can raise the voltage of your card without worrying about the temp and thus, even louder fan noise.

I should also mention that EVGA sell their water cooling loop separately but all in all you only pay like $50 for the assembly and the waiting list for them is 2-3 months. As for 3rd party GPU cooling loops, that requires some serious dedication and risk.

 

[Edgar Allan Hoe]

I'm pretty dumb with PC specs. I have played AC: Blackflag recently and midway the game kept crashing after a couple minutes of play. I downloaded MSI Afterburner to underclock the Graphics card and then I was able to play the game but it still crashes every couple of hours. I don't think my build is that good, and the Graphics card is prolly damaged. I want to beef up my PC to play Fallout 4 but I want to replace only what I need to and keep as much parts as I could to minimize spending. What should I do?


These are my specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460 CPU @3.20GHz 3.20GHz
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5670
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 (MS-7817)

The assassins creed games crash for me as well, so don't take them as an indication that something is wrong with your system. Also, did you try just raising the power limit to 110% in Afterburner instead of underclocking? The power limit allows the card to draw maximum power so that should help with stability but still, AC games are not stable and so you shouldn't judge your hardware on them.

 

[jefferz]

When you overclock something how long do you let Prime 95 run before you decide it's stable?

 

[Cygnus A]

When you overclock something how long do you let Prime 95 run before you decide it's stable?

I generally run it for 30 minutes or so.

 

[Blayt7hh]

I'm pretty dumb with PC specs. I have played AC: Blackflag recently and midway the game kept crashing after a couple minutes of play. I downloaded MSI Afterburner to underclock the Graphics card and then I was able to play the game but it still crashes every couple of hours. I don't think my build is that good, and the Graphics card is prolly damaged. I want to beef up my PC to play Fallout 4 but I want to replace only what I need to and keep as much parts as I could to minimize spending. What should I do?


These are my specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460 CPU @3.20GHz 3.20GHz
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5670
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 (MS-7817)

Heheh that graphics card is at least 5 years old and it was lower end at the time it came out. That's a weird build sine your CPU looks like it came out in 2013.

You'll need to find out what your psu is, but clearly the gpu needs to go

 

[jefferz]

I generally run it for 30 minutes or so.

Thanks.

My first OC attempt. I'm kind of disappointed I couldn't go higher.

 

[SSgt Dickweed]

Heheh that graphics card is at least 5 years old and it was lower end at the time it came out. That's a weird build sine your CPU looks like it came out in 2013.

You'll need to find out what your psu is, but clearly the gpu needs to go

The assassins creed games crash for me as well, so don't take them as an indication that something is wrong with your system. Also, did you try just raising the power limit to 110% in Afterburner instead of underclocking? The power limit allows the card to draw maximum power so that should help with stability but still, AC games are not stable and so you shouldn't judge your hardware on them.

I bought the original PC build 5 years ago but the motherboard and processor deteriorated physically and I asked the repairman to salvage as much of the original hence the old GPU. But even after the change, I got the sense the three parts are not as compatible as they ought to be.

Aside from the AC game. My PC blacks out whenever I have multiple graphics using software like Skype and VLC running at the same time. I suppose the Graphics card lags behind the motherboard and processor so I really need to change the GPU for better overall performance aside from making my PC Fallout 4 compatible.

Is this a good plan?

On a different topic, I just System-restored my PC and it works well now. Once I restart it can I expect it to work just as well as it does now? Initially my problem was a windows update recovery error and I did the process below but when I restarted I couldn't login with my password to I did a System Restore.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139576-startup-repair-infinite-loop-recovery.html

Thanks for the help!

 

[CodCommando]

Here is the cables supporting the card:

Dammnit, that thing is huge, I wished to attach my M.2 Extension card on it, I think I may have to remove my USB3.1 extension card to fit it.:icon_neut