Building a gaming system

[baseline bum]

so which one r9 390 vs 970 if u had to pick one for future proof gamin say 1-2yrs

Either is probably good for 1-2 years. No such thing as future proof on video cards though, especially since the ones coming out in a few months will be way better.

[DJR210]

Damn DJR210, I just saw the Steam Hardware Survey for Dec 2015 and I wondered if the Pascal 70 series card will be as badass as the 980 Ti for $300-$350 like the 970 was versus the 780 Ti. Before you say that's nuts, look at the Steam Hardware Survey from Dec 2015: GTX 970 is on top of the list of cards used.



Now look at the same survey from December 2013 when it was $200 and less cards like the GTX 660 and GTX 560 Ti leading, not counting the crappy Intel igpus:



So essentially Nvidia took the sweet spot from $150-$200 to $330 with the GTX 970, and made an enormous amount of money off it. Why wouldn't they do it again after they convinced people to almost double their gpu budget with the 970? ing everyone bought GTX 970s. If they're smart the next 70 series card might be pretty ing compe ive with the 980 Ti, especially considering the node shrink to 16 nm.

Interesting.

@ ty ass Intel graphics mother ers playing DOTA, the cheap bas s

[DJR210]

so which one r9 390 vs 970 if u had to pick one for future proof gamin say 1-2yrs

Even if an AMD equivalent was able to produce a few more frames, I'm still going Nvidia because it's what I'm used to.. Not to mention I have a G-Sync monitor

[baseline bum]

Interesting.

@ ty ass Intel graphics mother ers playing DOTA, the cheap bas s

Where the are the last two generations of AMD cards on this list?

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

[313]

Damn DJR210, I just saw the Steam Hardware Survey for Dec 2015 and I wondered if the Pascal 70 series card will be as badass as the 980 Ti for $300-$350 like the 970 was versus the 780 Ti. Before you say that's nuts, look at the Steam Hardware Survey from Dec 2015: GTX 970 is on top of the list of cards used.



Now look at the same survey from December 2013 when it was $200 and less cards like the GTX 660 and GTX 560 Ti leading, not counting the crappy Intel igpus:



So essentially Nvidia took the sweet spot from $150-$200 to $330 with the GTX 970, and made an enormous amount of money off it. Why wouldn't they do it again after they convinced people to almost double their gpu budget with the 970? ing everyone bought GTX 970s. If they're smart the next 70 series card might be pretty ing compe ive with the 980 Ti, especially considering the node shrink to 16 nm.

760 master race still going strong I see

hopefully the sweet spot stays around 300 though, I plan on upgrading this year but don't want drop too much on a card

[TDMVPDPOY]

if ur budget is 1500 max

is a high end AMD system better then intel system? i know amd parts are dirt cheap....

i notice clowns prefer intel cpu over amd...

anyone built a high end amd system yet? fx8350

[baseline bum]

if ur budget is 1500 max

is a high end AMD system better then intel system? i know amd parts are dirt cheap....

i notice clowns prefer intel cpu over amd...

anyone built a high end amd system yet? fx8350

The FX-8350 is a piece of for gaming. It's like $30 cheaper than a locked i5, the locked i5 performs way better, and the FX-8350 ends up being more expensive because you need a $90 board to run one when an i5 runs fine on a $50-$70 board, and you need to spend at least $25 on a cpu cooler since the stock cooler can't handle it while the stock coolers are fine on i5s. If you overclock the out of the FX-8350 you can make it run games a little better than an i3 but it will almost never touch even the lowest i5s like the i5-4430, i5-4440, and i5-4460.

AMD makes good graphics cards but their cpus are dog .

[Cry Havoc]

if ur budget is 1500 max

is a high end AMD system better then intel system? i know amd parts are dirt cheap....

i notice clowns prefer intel cpu over amd...

anyone built a high end amd system yet? fx8350

IMO right now your best bet is to go with an Intel processor, which destroys AMD, and an AMD GPU, which should be better future proofed for DX12 and offers equal/better performance per dollar to Nvidia.

However, the top end card right now is the 980ti without any reservation. It's better than the Fury X. We'll see how DX12 changes things.

[DJR210]

IMO right now your best bet is to go with an Intel processor, which destroys AMD, and an AMD GPU, which should be better future proofed for DX12 and offers equal/better performance per dollar to Nvidia.

However, the top end card right now is the 980ti without any reservation. It's better than the Fury X. We'll see how DX12 changes things.

Nvidia innovation and support > Better price to performance ratio

[Cry Havoc]

Nvidia innovation and support > Better price to performance ratio

Not even going to get into it with you. Nvidia has had their own crop of terrible customer service lately. I have never had a problem with my AMD GPUs since my first card, and will continue to buy from them. Both NVidia cards I had blew themselves up.

[baseline bum]

I gotta say I was really impressed by that Polaris 10 card AMD showed at CES that uses half the power of a GTX 950 but was still playing Battlefront at the same settings, both locked 60 fps. I really think these 14/16 nm cards coming out in 2016 are going to be a big deal. As tempting as a 980 Ti looks to me right now, I'm just going to wait for Polaris and Pascal.

[Wild Cobra]

I gotta say I was really impressed by that Polaris 10 card AMD showed at CES that uses half the power of a GTX 950 but was still playing Battlefront at the same settings, both locked 60 fps. I really think these 14/16 nm cards coming out in 2016 are going to be a big deal. As tempting as a 980 Ti looks to me right now, I'm just going to wait for Polaris and Pascal.

My God.

I haven't kept up. Are they really doing 14 nm now? that is wild. I wonder what spectra and methodology is involved in the lithography process. I wonder just how much finer the planarization of CMP equipment has to be.

Sometimes I wish I was still an engineering tech doing that. When I left the semiconductor industry, they had 125 nm in production. They are almost 1/10 that now. Oh well, it's been 14 years now.

[baseline bum]

My God.

I haven't kept up. Are they really doing 14 nm now? that is wild. I wonder what spectra and methodology is involved in the lithography process. I wonder just how much finer the planarization of CMP equipment has to be.

Sometimes I wish I was still an engineering tech doing that. When I left the semiconductor industry, they had 125 nm in production. They are almost 1/10 that now. Oh well, it's been 14 years now.

Intel is actually already on their second generation of 14 nm CPUs, though their first (Broadwell) got delayed about a year and pretty much never launched on desktop (though it's used pretty heavily in mobile). Their second 14 nm generation Skylake chips are incredible though. Their desktop quadcores dropped from 84W to 65W and they all overclock like madmen on average, even on the stock cooler.

[RandomGuy]

The monitor is HD as in Full HD, e.g., 1080p? Does your monitor support 120 Hz or 144 Hz refresh rate, or is it 60 Hz? Because for a 1080p 60 Hz system, $1400 is an extremely high budget. Here is what I would consider a monstrously strong 1080p 60 Hz system for that kind of money: I think it would be a waste of money, though the CPU is really strong. It's a hexacore with hyperthreading that you'll probably be able to overclock to at least 4.2 GHz on the cooler I recommend.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($378.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X61 106.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($114.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: Asus X99-A ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($239.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($104.95 @ Adorama)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($159.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card ($329.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1428.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-17 16:52 EDT-0400

Assuming you have some old hard drives to use for data storage and that you can get a free case that can support a 360mm radiator in top for the CPU. You get an extremely strong CPU out of this as well as a really high end cooler. This is the best watercooler on the market unless you want to spend $200-$300 on the new ekwb all-in-one coolers coming out this month.

If you have a 120 Hz 1080p or a 60 Hz 1440p monitor, then definitely go higher end on the GPU, lower end on the CPU. Something like this would be much better for that use case, as it has much more graphical horsepower. I went a little over budget to fit in the cooler, which you'll want with a 4790k since it runs 4.2 GHz on all cores under load at stock speed. You can probably get it up to 4.4 GHz on all cores using a Hyper 212 EVO, but any higher and you're looking at liquid coolers most likely, and even the best coolers (like the one in the first build) probably won't get you any higher than 4.7 GHz.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($327.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-E ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($92.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($159.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ Video Card ($669.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($78.50 @ Amazon)
Total: $1429.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-17 17:31 EDT-0400

Still, I'd feel bad not suggesting a strong bang for your buck 1080p 60 Hz system: this would be a really strong 1080p 60fps system for way under budget. The CPU is a quadcore (no hyperthreading) that runs 3.5 GHz on all cores when under load. This is a really incredible CPU for $184. No overclocking though.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($183.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($91.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($37.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($159.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC ACX 2.0 Video Card ($319.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $848.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-17 17:36 EDT-0400

For 1080p 60 Hz gaming I think the MSI R9 390 is the best GPU out there, though the GTX 970 trades blows with it and uses 100W less power. For 1440p 60 Hz or 1080p 120 Hz gaming there is nothing that touches the GTX 980 Ti. For 4k 60 Hz gaming you'd need two GTX 980 Ti, which is impossible on a $1400 budget.

I'm always leery to buy the really high end GPUs though. For instance, in November 2013 Nvidia released the GTX 780Ti at $700. In September 2014 Nvidia released the GTX 970 at $330 that trades blows with the 780 Ti when they moved to from the Kepler architecture (GTX 6xx/7xx series) to the Maxwell architecture (GTX 9xx series), which are both 28nm. In mid-to-late 2016 Nvidia should be releasing cards based on the Pascal architecture at 16nm, and such a large process shrink often means a lot more performance. Plus they're likely to be using HBM2 memory that they're likely to run at much lower clockspeeds while still having larger bandwidth, leaving more room for upping the core clock while staying within their power usage targets. So seeing what they were able to do with Maxwell without a process shrink and using the same GDDR5 video ram, you can imagine what Pascal could end up looking like next year. And you may feel like a real sucker spending out the ass on the highest end card right now.

I wouldn't even look at the 12GB an X. For $1000 it's a re ed card now that the GTX 980 Ti came out and is barely cut down from it with 6 GB of vram instead. Even 6GB is overkill for 4k, much less 1440p or 1080p. The an X makes absolutely no sense. With 12GB of vram you'd think you might run three or four of them in SLI to game on three 4k panels at once, but even 4 an X's wouldn't run that well. So the 12GB is pretty much useless, especially when Maxwell sucks for double precision computing and thus you wouldn't want it for scientific applications.

Finally getting ready to pull the trigger, now that Xmas is over, and I got a new, higher paying job. (Flood set family back quite a bit, having to replace cars, had to delay a bit)

Any updates?

[RandomGuy]

... going to have to spend a few hours reading this thread to catch up. Solid gold in terms of information needed.

[baseline bum]

Finally getting ready to pull the trigger, now that Xmas is over, and I got a new, higher paying job. (Flood set family back quite a bit, having to replace cars, had to delay a bit)

Any updates?

Actually, there is a pretty big update. Right now you can overclock any Intel Skylake processor with a few different models of AsRock and MSI Z170 boards. There are official BIOS out to do oldschool BCLK overclocking like you used to need to do in the 90s and early 2000s before unlocked multipliers became a thing with Intel's K-series processors and AMD's FX. There are some downsides to it, namely AVX instructions won't execute with the BCLK raised from the stock 100 MHz, so BCLK overclocking isn't a good idea for for any kind of workstation use since AVX can be pretty important there. However games don't usually don't use AVX instructions, so that's not a concern at all for a straight gaming system. Another downside is you lose the ability to accurately measure your cpu's temperature. So you should absolutely never go above 1.3V vcore doing Skylake BCLK overclocking. Probably the biggest downside is you're going to have to really get your hands dirty in the BIOS doing BCLK overclocking. This type of old-school overclock is only viable on Skylake right now since they decoupled the PCIE clock from the CPU's base clock. On Haswell and before you couldn't go much higher than maybe 103 MHz - 105 MHz base clock since you could cause all sorts of errors with your GPU, but now that's been eliminated. But the memory clock is still tied to the CPU's base clock, so you have to be comfortable adjusting multipliers and timings in memory with Skylake base clock overclocking.



If you're interested in a really crazy bang for you buck system, check this article:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...be-overclocked

Something like an i5-6500 with an AsRock Z170 Pro4S board, 2x8GB DDR4-2666, and a GTX 970 would make a really strong 1080p gaming rig. I think the 970 tends to be better in single player games with lots of AI and since Nvidia's DX11 drivers have a lot less overhead than AMD's. If you're into multiplayer games the AMD R9 390 is a lot better though due to being significantly stronger than the 970 on a hardware level. Basically 970 is better if you play games that really use the CPU (so single player open world games with lots of AI like Fallout 4, GTA V, Witcher 3), while the R9 390 kills for stuff like Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront.

[baseline bum]

I really think Skylake is worth the premium now over Haswell, unless you're doing a Haswell-E build (eg, i7-5820k, i7-5930k, or i7-5960x). DDR4 is significantly faster than DDR3, it overclocks better, and memory speed really matters when you're cpu bound. If you want really simple overclocking though, buy a K-series chip (i5-6600k, i7-6700k, i7-5820k, i7-5930k, or i7-5960x) and overclock via the multiplier. Then you can just buy 2x8GB DDR4-2666 for Skylake and use the XMP profile or 4x4GB DDR4-2400 for Haswell-E and again use the XMP profile for the RAM (you want 2 sticks on Skylake since it's dual channel, four for Haswell-E since it's quad channel).

[baseline bum]

Also the i3-6100 is an incredibly powerful budget gaming CPU. Now that you can do BCLK overclocking with some AsRock and MSI Z170 boards it might be the best budget gaming CPU made since maybe the Celeron 300A.

[TDMVPDPOY]

u guys know inside the ssd case, the pcb is only like 1/3 the size of the case, and the storage flash chip is a size of a coin...

so u telling me they cant built a ssd with a pcb that fits that whole case and just fit as much storage flash chips onto it and put a price on it?

ive notice there is 2tb ssd out now...

[TDMVPDPOY]

Finally getting ready to pull the trigger, now that Xmas is over, and I got a new, higher paying job. (Flood set family back quite a bit, having to replace cars, had to delay a bit)

Any updates?

what monitor u have? no point investing in a high end gaming pc, and ur playing on some TN monitor 5ms 60mhz bull

[TDMVPDPOY]

I really think Skylake is worth the premium now over Haswell, unless you're doing a Haswell-E build (eg, i7-5820k, i7-5930k, or i7-5960x). DDR4 is significantly faster than DDR3, it overclocks better, and memory speed really matters when you're cpu bound. If you want really simple overclocking though, buy a K-series chip (i5-6600k, i7-6700k, i7-5820k, i7-5930k, or i7-5960x) and overclock via the multiplier. Then you can just buy 2x8GB DDR4-2666 for Skylake and use the XMP profile or 4x4GB DDR4-2400 for Haswell-E and again use the XMP profile for the RAM (you want 2 sticks on Skylake since it's dual channel, four for Haswell-E since it's quad channel).

the money u save by buying a lower kchip and overclocking it...u still need some decent cooling system....

[baseline bum]

the money u save by buying a lower kchip and overclocking it...u still need some decent cooling system....

You can actually use the stock cooler fine with the locked Skylake i5 and i3 when BLCK overclocking them. All the normal heat you generate stress testing the overclocks isn't there because of the AVX instructions being disabled when you do BCLK overclocking on Skylake.

[TDMVPDPOY]

baseline bum, @wildcobra, Cry Havoc

when it comes to gaming monitor and budget, u can only select one base on the limitations of ur video card

gsync monitor with 1440 or 4k monitor?

im looking for a good +27' 1440 monitor with gsync...any of u clowns using a 1440 monitor? or 4k?

[Cry Havoc]

baseline bum, @wildcobra, Cry Havoc

when it comes to gaming monitor and budget, u can only select one base on the limitations of ur video card

gsync monitor with 1440 or 4k monitor?

im looking for a good +27' 1440 monitor with gsync...any of u clowns using a 1440 monitor? or 4k?

Gsync is for nvidia. Freesync is with AMD.

I'd strongly perfer that considering most systems can't handle 4k atm. If you have a frame rate dropping, it'll look a lot smoother on a freesync monitor.

[baseline bum]

1440p, 4k, and gsync are three words you never associate with a budget system.