Building a gaming system

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy

(4) The Haswell Overclocking Guide from overclock.net is the best resource I know for overclocking your cpu:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1411077/h...ith-statistics

Though they're talking about Z87 and Z97 Haswell, not X99 Haswell-E like you have. I'd imagine it's not too different. Just have lots of patience.

Also, you should under no cir stance delid your processor. This works very well for lowering temperatures in some standard i5 and i7 from Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, and Skylake sometimes because Intel uses thermal paste between the actual cpu and the heatspreader (the heatspreader is what you're putting your heatsink on), and occasionally there can be a gap between this paste and the heatspreader. I have no idea why they did this instead of using solder between the heatsink and cpu like they did Sandy Bridge and before. Maybe they wanted to nerf overclocking because Sandy Bridge chips overclocked like madmen. And it probably saves them a few cents per cpu.

In an i7-5820k you have solder between the cpu and heatspreader instead of the thermal paste that would be there in something like an i5-3570k, i7-3770k, i5-4670k, i7-4770k, i5-4690k, i7-4790k, i5-5765c, i7-5775c, i5-6600k, or i7-6700k. If you try to delid you'll break the ing core most likely since they use the solder.

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy

(5) One other thing I might mention. Being that we might be pretty close to to new gpus being released, you might consider going with an EVGA Nvidia graphics card. EVGA offers a program called Step Up that allows you to trade in any gpu you bought for a new one within 90 days, only paying the difference in price, as long as you register your card with them within 14 days of purchase. The EVGA card that would be the equivalent of the R9 390 is the GTX 970:

I have a slightly older version of this card (same gpu chip, but mine has a different cooler and weaker power delivery), and it's great for 1080p. This one will almost certainly overclock a lot better than the one I have now due to the better power delivery, and mine I can get to 1420 MHz stable. This card will likely be stable at 1500 MHz.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814487088

Or you could go all out with an EVGA 980 Ti, which is quite a bit stronger than the R9 390. (about 35-40% better at 1080p).
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BX4LKOQ/?tag=pcpapi-20

I would still get the 390 over the 970 if you don't care about the new gpus coming out, it's slightly better than the 970 right now and will probably age better because it's stronger hardware (the 970 has better drivers, which is why it keeps up with the 390 right now). But if you want one of the new 16 nm gpus EVGA is the way to go, as long as they release before the end of July (EDIT: oops, I mean June), that is. The 980 Ti is a complete overkill monster right now for 1080p, it really makes more sense for 1440p.

One other advantage with EVGA is their warranty support is supposed to be first rate unlike most other companies that build the add in boards for gpus. I have never had to deal with it myself, but DJR210 has.

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy

I'll share some stuff about gpu overclocking later on when you have your system built. That is done all in software, no screwing around in the BIOS.

[DJR210]

EVGA RMA process was easy as . They had my RMA processed in 30 minutes on a Sunday.

[RandomGuy]

Got it. Thanks. Yet again.

Something to watch/read on my lunch hour. Been sort of watching some basic videos with my 13 YO, like "what is USB", because he has been asking some questions. This should be an interesting family project.

My dad used to teach me car maintenance and repairs... Now I get to try and teach my kids not to be scairt of getting into the guts of a computer. Fun times.

[DJR210]

Got it. Thanks. Yet again.

Something to watch/read on my lunch hour. Been sort of watching some basic videos with my 13 YO, like "what is USB", because he has been asking some questions. This should be an interesting family project.

My dad used to teach me car maintenance and repairs... Now I get to try and teach my kids not to be scairt of getting into the guts of a computer. Fun times.

Watch Neweggs "how to" series on YouTube.. That's how I learned.. Its 3 parts but is very clear and informative.

[baseline bum]

The Broadwell-E Xeon E5-2600v4 series was released today.

https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/...fact-sheet.pdf

These would be lousy for gaming cpus due to the low clockspeeds, but their release means the Broadwell-E i7s that will be awesome for gaming should be out soon. Though I doubt they'll be as good as the i7-6700k, and the major news with them will be the ability to get an unlocked 8-core X99 processor (i7-6900k) for less than the $1000 the 8-core i7-5960x sells for. The Broadwell-E equivalent to the i7-5820k is the i7-6800k and it should be very similar to the 5820k, but seems to have an extra 100 MHz clock bump at stock vs the 5820k (pretty meaningless). The regular Broadwell i7-5775c was actually a bit of a downgrade over the Haswell i7-4790k, so I doubt the i7-6800k will be worth waiting for, RandomGuy, though it would work on your motherboard.

[baseline bum]

Anyone have Firewatch? That looks pretty funny.

[ElNono]

Anyone have Firewatch? That looks pretty funny.

Installed it, gave it 15 mins of my attention, promptly deleted it...

[Wild Cobra]

I must be a mental case, but then so many of you would agree with that...

I have been contemplating building a super-fast computer. I don't need it, it's just... why not? I have the money to do so. I simply allocate my spare resources to things that are more important to me. Lately, the thought of a very fast system has intrigued me.

Anyone know what the best build would be for ~ $3k?

Maybe the difference of going higher or lower than $3k?

$3k would be no sweat.

[baseline bum]

I must be a mental case, but then so many of you would agree with that...

I have been contemplating building a super-fast computer. I don't need it, it's just... why not? I have the money to do so. I simply allocate my spare resources to things that are more important to me. Lately, the thought of a very fast system has intrigued me.

Anyone know what the best build would be for ~ $3k?

Maybe the difference of going higher or lower than $3k?

$3k would be no sweat.

What do you want to do with it though? If it's just to play Kerbal Space Program you could just buy a monster of a monitor and a cheap gpu like a GTX 950 / 960 or R9 380.

[Wild Cobra]

What do you want to do with it though? If it's just to play Kerbal Space Program you could just buy a monster of a monitor and a cheap gpu like a GTX 950 / 960 or R9 380.

I have been contemplating buying two 4k monitors. I don't play many games, but you never know when that may change. If there are good car racing games, I would go for that. I loved Gran Turismo 5, but thought GT6 sucked. I love the fact I can flawlessly play blurays on my laptop with the 950m graphics.

last family get-together, my father said I'm one of those people that don't stop with what I need, but go "all the way." It's true. I don't need my XPS 8700, but I like it real well. I didn't need my '00 Camaro Z28, but I loved driving it. Same with my '02 WS6 that I sold to a friend last year. I was thinking of buying a cat, but damn... I do have limited resources and higher priorities for my money than a $60k+ car. Even the Camaros are more than I want to spend, and back seat legroom doesn't accommodate adults well like the 4th generation Camaros and Trans Ams do.

I will, mul ask like crazy. Sometimes I will have over 20 browser windows open, several excel sheets, and anything else that suits me at the moment. Often, I will be streaming something on my other monitor or playing a bluray at the same time. My GTX 720 gets a little glitchy with this much action.

When my daughter needed a laptop for college, with architectural design as a major, I got her a HP 8000 series laptop, which at the time... 2004?... was $1,200. It was still a great computer until last year when it wouldn't do some newer things. A few years ago, I bought her a Toshiba Satellite, for $1k, which at the time, has the 2nd fastest GPU available for a laptop. Her studies in Architectural Design needed faster 3d rendering. She was so happy with it. I didn't spend the extra $200 for a laptop with the fasted GPU, because it consumed about twice the power, and I was concerned about heat buildup. Anyway, I got her old XP laptop and just recently replaced it with my MSI Leopard GP70 Pro 486. This old laptop still is nice. I have used it for video capture with my USB video borescope investigating inside engines and transmissions. Not bad considering the speed required for video, even though it is only a 480P camera. It was cool, looking at the damage of a broken rod inside the LS1 engine.

I'm good with going overboard on a computer. They are viable for a longer period of time if they are top of the line.

[Wild Cobra]

I will, at a minimum, put a 960 GPU in my XPS 8700. I'm speaking of another computer.

[Wild Cobra]

So Baseline... ElNono... Cry Hovoc...

How would you spend $3k for a computer. Monitors not to be included. That's a separate line cost. Just the computer build.

[RandomGuy]

Here is a video showing installation of the NZXT Kraken x61, which is the water cooler I'd recommend for that case and cpu.

Wierd. "install the thing, then plug everything in EXCEPT the USB header... then install the software... THEN plug in the USB header 'or you'll have problems down the line' "

A two-stage installation for the cooling unit? As if this whole thing isn't going to have enough to plug in and keep track of.... sheesh. This stuff was a lot simpler in 1998. (says crotchety old man) You whipper snappers and your fancy water cooled computers. In my day we used sticks and twigs, and thought we were lucky not to catch fire.... heh

(reads MB manual, and watches a few more youtubes..)

More impressed with the case, now that I have the whole thing apart. Very modular and flexible.

(edit)

Wierd that the cooling unit sucks air into the unit from the top... to the bottom, which means it exhausts heat INTO the unit.... and is sucking air/dust in through the top, into the fins. Seems like you would want to do that opposite. There is already a big-ass intake fan that is filtering the air.

You would get a lot less dust in the unit, if it was drawing already filtered (if a bit warmer) air in.

[ElNono]

Trick question, tbh... I mean, you can blow $4.5k on one of the newest v4 Xeons alone, with 22 cores, but the baseline CPU speed is fairly low (2.2GHz IIRC), but you do get the PCIE3 bandwidth...

Getting the computer to "feel" the fastest you can buy is probably not that complicated based on a few items: Fast CPU, high speed RAM (and for that you need a high speed memory bus), PCIE 3.0 with enough independent lanes, a PCIE SSD that runs exclusively on 4 those lanes, and then it's all about the GPU and internet connection...

But that's the "general" stuff, after that it really depends on what you want to do. If you're looking to drive 2 4K monitors at a solid refresh rate, that's all largely GPU bound. Your GPU will matter, and you definitely want to have enough video ram. You might want to consider a dual card setup too. In turn, that option will determine what kind of motherboard you'll be getting and maybe even the CPU type (if you're going to use dual 16x PCIE lanes, you might have to look into chips/chipsets that have 40 PCIE lanes. An M.2 PCIE SSD can suck up 4x lanes, for example).

And then if you're going to be doing web-browsing, the bottleneck is going to be your ISP... You can have the fastest refresh rate and GPU money can buy, but if the pages don't load quick enough, it won't matter, tbh...

Those are basic pointers, and we can go into more detail and hone in based on some of those rules, but you gotta know what you want to do with it. Frankly, the the industry has moving from "fastest" to "performance per watt" for a while, since Moore's law has been difficult to overcome lately. You still get incredibly fast and efficient stuff, but long gone are the days of just saying "let me just buy the most expensive stuff" and that translating to the fastest system.

[RandomGuy]

RandomGuy

(4) The Haswell Overclocking Guide from overclock.net is the best resource I know for overclocking your cpu:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1411077/h...ith-statistics

Though they're talking about Z87 and Z97 Haswell, not X99 Haswell-E like you have. I'd imagine it's not too different. Just have lots of patience.

Also, you should under no cir stance delid your processor. This works very well for lowering temperatures in some standard i5 and i7 from Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, and Skylake sometimes because Intel uses thermal paste between the actual cpu and the heatspreader (the heatspreader is what you're putting your heatsink on), and occasionally there can be a gap between this paste and the heatspreader. I have no idea why they did this instead of using solder between the heatsink and cpu like they did Sandy Bridge and before. Maybe they wanted to nerf overclocking because Sandy Bridge chips overclocked like madmen. And it probably saves them a few cents per cpu.

In an i7-5820k you have solder between the cpu and heatspreader instead of the thermal paste that would be there in something like an i5-3570k, i7-3770k, i5-4670k, i7-4770k, i5-4690k, i7-4790k, i5-5765c, i7-5775c, i5-6600k, or i7-6700k. If you try to delid you'll break the ing core most likely since they use the solder.

Delidding sounds a lot like the kind of stuff I will be very leary of doing as a novice. No worries.

(reads guide)

Holy that is complicated. I will read it all, but this is making me not want to mess with the system after I get it built/working. The number of variables and settings increases the risk that I will get something wrong out of ignorance. (sigh) Ah well. Part of this is to teach my kids a bit, so the complexity isn't a deal killer, it just means I have to use more of my precious free time than I would like.

[Wild Cobra]

Wierd. "install the thing, then plug everything in EXCEPT the USB header... then install the software... THEN plug in the USB header 'or you'll have problems down the line' "

A two-stage installation for the cooling unit? As if this whole thing isn't going to have enough to plug in and keep track of.... sheesh. This stuff was a lot simpler in 1998. (says crotchety old man) You whipper snappers and your fancy water cooled computers. In my day we used sticks and twigs, and thought we were lucky not to catch fire.... heh

(reads MB manual, and watches a few more youtubes..)

More impressed with the case, now that I have the whole thing apart. Very modular and flexible.

(edit)

Wierd that the cooling unit sucks air into the unit from the top... to the bottom, which means it exhausts heat INTO the unit.... and is sucking air/dust in through the top, into the fins. Seems like you would want to do that opposite. There is already a big-ass intake fan that is filtering the air.

You would get a lot less dust in the unit, if it was drawing already filtered (if a bit warmer) air in.

I was dismayed by a few things when watching the video. I have to wonder how good it really is.

1) proper assembly means you start all screws/bolts before tightening any of them. Small issue, but it goes to technical competence of the engineering staff making the video.

2) Looks like neoprene tubing, though it could be something else. I would expect silicone or tygon tubing for better longevity, but then, maybe it is good tubing.

3) Did I miss it? Is it strait water cooling? For longevity, I would expect something anti-corrosive like a 70/30 mix of car antifreeze to water.

[DJR210]

i7 6700k, SLI 980 Ti, 32 GB RAM, the rest doesn't make much difference

[Wild Cobra]

Trick question, tbh... I mean, you can blow $4.5k on one of the newest v4 Xeons alone, with 22 cores, but the baseline CPU speed is fairly low (2.2GHz IIRC), but you do get the PCIE3 bandwidth...

Getting the computer to "feel" the fastest you can buy is probably not that complicated based on a few items: Fast CPU, high speed RAM (and for that you need a high speed memory bus), PCIE 3.0 with enough independent lanes, a PCIE SSD that runs exclusively on 4 those lanes, and then it's all about the GPU and internet connection...

I'm understanding of the increasing cost vs. minimal improvement. I'm looking for opinions of what the best parts to consolidate are, for the best price/performance, trying to limit my total cost at around $3k.

But that's the "general" stuff, after that it really depends on what you want to do. If you're looking to drive 2 4K monitors at a solid refresh rate, that's all largely GPU bound. Your GPU will matter, and you definitely want to have enough video ram. You might want to consider a dual card setup too. In turn, that option will determine what kind of motherboard you'll be getting and maybe even the CPU type (if you're going to use dual 16x PCIE lanes, you might have to look into chips/chipsets that have 40 PCIE lanes. An M.2 PCIE SSD can suck up 4x lanes, for example).

Yes, two high end GPU's will likely be the end result. I also agree with the higest number of memory lanes. If I recall, some time back when I mentioned the memory channels using the 2011, you were one that scoffed at the idea. Do you still feel the same way? Didn't you also say 1920 x 1200 was a pushed 1920 x 1080 when I bought my WUXGA monitors?

Things change, people learn and change their opinions over time. You seem to have more intelligent thoughts when in this category than most, so i would like your opinion. Though you are wrong at times...

And then if you're going to be doing web-browsing, the bottleneck is going to be your ISP... You can have the fastest refresh rate and GPU money can buy, but if the pages don't load quick enough, it won't matter, tbh...

Yes, I know. I have pretty good speeds normally in the internet, and when my page loads are slow, it appears to normally be source limitations. Not my speed or response. not as fast as some providers, but I'm next to the bottom end rates at $69.95/mo. I normally get just over 60 mbs, and normally under 12 ms ping. It's more than I have needed so far.

Those are basic pointers, and we can go into more detail and hone in based on some of those rules, but you gotta know what you want to do with it. Frankly, the the industry has moving from "fastest" to "performance per watt" for a while, since Moore's law has been difficult to overcome lately. You still get incredibly fast and efficient stuff, but long gone are the days of just saying "let me just buy the most expensive stuff" and that translating to the fastest system.

Yes, Moore's law has been challenged time and again, then some paradigm shift occurs again. When I was involved with the engineering aspects of CMP in the early 90's, it was CMP that allowed sub micron line widths for chip designs. The next barrier was when transistors only got to be so many atoms in size, they stopped acting like semiconductors. Time and again, the industry overcome so many obstacles. I was on occasion maintaining the process prototype equipment for an Intel Skunkworks guy, working with copper memory design back in the mid 90's. When did copper interlinks become common? a bit after that... Here is a paper on Copper Damascene process, that I was exposed to years earlier:

http://ireap.umd.edu/ppm/Papers/JES00706.pdf

I have forgotten more about semiconductor designs than most people ever have known, and haven't been involved or updated much since 2002.

[baseline bum]

Wierd. "install the thing, then plug everything in EXCEPT the USB header... then install the software... THEN plug in the USB header 'or you'll have problems down the line' "

A two-stage installation for the cooling unit? As if this whole thing isn't going to have enough to plug in and keep track of.... sheesh. This stuff was a lot simpler in 1998. (says crotchety old man) You whipper snappers and your fancy water cooled computers. In my day we used sticks and twigs, and thought we were lucky not to catch fire.... heh

I didn't see that part. I have never heard of doing that. That video is for an older version, the Kraken x60. You could always go with a Corsair H110i GTX instead, they're really similar coolers and I have never heard of doing a two stage install with it.

(reads MB manual, and watches a few more youtubes..)

More impressed with the case, now that I have the whole thing apart. Very modular and flexible.

Yeah, I ing love the case. I can't stand small cases that are hard to work in, I love having a full tower.

Wierd that the cooling unit sucks air into the unit from the top... to the bottom, which means it exhausts heat INTO the unit.... and is sucking air/dust in through the top, into the fins. Seems like you would want to do that opposite. There is already a big-ass intake fan that is filtering the air.

You would get a lot less dust in the unit, if it was drawing already filtered (if a bit warmer) air in.

Nah, the way he installed it is with the fans pushing air from the inside of the case through the radiator and exhausting out the top of the case.

[baseline bum]

Delidding sounds a lot like the kind of stuff I will be very leary of doing as a novice. No worries.

(reads guide)

Holy that is complicated. I will read it all, but this is making me not want to mess with the system after I get it built/working. The number of variables and settings increases the risk that I will get something wrong out of ignorance. (sigh) Ah well. Part of this is to teach my kids a bit, so the complexity isn't a deal killer, it just means I have to use more of my precious free time than I would like.

It's easy, you just have to set an afternoon and evening aside for doing the really boring stuff, watching stress tests and all to figure out what is stable and what isn't. I have used this exact guide to overclock friends' systems before. I know DJR210 runs an overclocked CPU and I would bet Cry Havoc does also, I'd be surprised if they told you it was very hard to get a decent overclock in. This isn't 15 years ago when you had to change bus speeds and multipliers with jumpers and painting traces to make them conductive and when you could fry your processors easily. Nowadays everything is in BIOS and Intel CPUs will throttle to prevent damage when they sense overheating.

Your board also comes with software that will automatically overclock your system. I hate using the software stuff like that because it dials in too high of voltages and it's not hard to manually overclock in the BIOS if you're willing to spend a day locking in reasonable settings.

If you're really not going to overclock you should seriously return that board for a refund and get a Z170 board and an i7-6700k, since that chip runs 4.0 GHz at stock. Because an i7-5820k would be an enormous waste of money for gaming if you're just running it at 3.3 GHz, and an X99A motherboard is double the price of something you'd want to use for stock settings. You said you wanted to overclock and didn't care about power consumption so I recommended really high performance parts, but without the overclock that $380 i7 cpu and $200 X99 board won't even give as good of results as my $250 Xeon E3 and $100 Z97 board do for gaming. Of course with an overclock your system would blow my Xeon and Z97 board out of the water in cpu heavy games.

[baseline bum]

But that's the "general" stuff, after that it really depends on what you want to do. If you're looking to drive 2 4K monitors at a solid refresh rate, that's all largely GPU bound. Your GPU will matter, and you definitely want to have enough video ram. You might want to consider a dual card setup too. In turn, that option will determine what kind of motherboard you'll be getting and maybe even the CPU type (if you're going to use dual 16x PCIE lanes, you might have to look into chips/chipsets that have 40 PCIE lanes. An M.2 PCIE SSD can suck up 4x lanes, for example).

PCIE lanes are almost never a bottleneck from all benchmarks I have seen. I can only think of one game that shows any difference running at PCIE-3.0x16 vs PCIE-3.0x8 or PCIE-2.0x16, and that's Ryse Son of Rome which shows about a 10% difference in average framerate with a single GTX 980. Otherwise we're talking minuscule differences, like 0.2% or so. In Eurogamer's SLI benchmarks they have dual 980 Ti systems doing better with the 20 lane i7-6700k than with the 40 lane i7-5960x. Maybe we'll see a difference once the next big die cards come in 2017, but for now PCIE lanes don't seem to be a bottleneck unless you're trying to run 3 or 4 gpus in parallel (and the performance scaling on 3 or 4 gpus is horrendously bad even on 40 lane cpus).

[baseline bum]

So Baseline... ElNono... Cry Hovoc...

How would you spend $3k for a computer. Monitors not to be included. That's a separate line cost. Just the computer build.

If you're into racing games you might consider VR. Project Cars looks really enticing in this review.



I haven't played the game myself yet, but I think I have heard Cry Havoc strongly recommend it before, so maybe ask him. He also says in his experience using VR that he hasn't had the same kind of problems the reviewer in the video above did with getting sick after playing intense games for 15 minutes. To really run VR well you could just keep your current computer, put in a better power supply, and install a GTX 980 Ti, and you'd be golden for VR. If you want to play graphically intense games at 4k I'd wait for the new Pascal chips rumored to release at the end of May. Perhaps two GTX 1080 would be strong enough to deliver a really consistent locked 60 fps ultra gaming experience at 4k. Two GTX 980 Ti in parallel are already pretty close. You could save your cpu and buy a Z97 SLI board, or you could buy a Z170 SLI board and an i7-6700k plus new DDR4 RAM for a little more performance or if you want to pass your XPS system to a friend or family member.

[baseline bum]

I know I'm tempted to get an Occulus after that review, but I'm going to have to play with it for a while first before buying to see if it makes me sick.