Building a gaming system

[DJR210]

Splinter Cell: Blacklist.. New voice actor aside, great ing game.. Executing a perfect ghost run is hard af. Game runs great too, averaging about 115 FPS with everything but AA maxed

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy, here is the first leak I have seen for GTX 1070 performance. Their GTX 1080 leak I posted here was absolutely dead on the money from what the reviewers found when their reviews were actually published a few days later.



This is going to be a of a deal at $380 I think. Two caveats:

(1) Nvidia will release a Founders Edition card June 10th at $450, and that will likely be the only one available June 10th. I'm not sure if the Founders Edition cards will all be $450, or just the ones sold directly through Nvidia. The Founders Edition card will likely suck for overclocking like the Founders Edition 1080 does. These reference cards (what Nvidia called them before they made up the Founders Edition name and jacked up the price) generally don't have good enough power delivery to give much of an overclock. Aftermarket cards will correct this (Gigabyte G1 Gaming and EVGA FTW are very good), but they may not be out for a month or two after the GTX 1070 launch because Nvidia wants to keep their cards close and prevent leaks (looks like they have failed there though), and the add in board manufacturers like EVGA, Asus, and Gigabyte probably won't have full info about the GTX 1070's chip until close to launch. The Founders Edition cards should be fine if you don't want to OC, especially considering the GTX 1070 is a 150W card vs the 180W GTX 1080 is rated at. But you're paying that $70 price premium in basically an early adopters tax.

(2) The GTX 1070s are going to sell out very fast any time anyone gets them in stock, so if you want one and see it in stock at newegg, amazon, frys, or another store you trust, get it.

[DJR210]

Imma throw one on the Best Buy card whenever they get it

[baseline bum]

Imma throw one on the Best Buy card whenever they get it

No CODEX for hardware

[baseline bum]

Hopefully I'm wrong and we see aftermarket cards quickly after launch like we did with the 970 and 980 in September 2014. For those two there were a ton of aftermarket cards on launch day.

[baseline bum]

ElNono man, I saw your video.



Can you PM me your 1070 results when Nvidia sends you the review sample? Thanks.

[baseline bum]

Looks like Witcher 3 is finally getting that E3-level graphics upgrade in the new DLC

[baseline bum]

Holy the EVGA GTX 1080 SC ACX 3.0 is ugly as .



I'm a little disappointed to see it only has the 8-pin for power. I was hoping for an 8+6 which might indicate they put really strong power delivery in it. I bet it uses the reference Nvidia board like the early GTX 980 ACX 2.0 cards did last generation.

[baseline bum]

Yeah, it's a reference board.



You can tell from the Nvidia logo on the board just above the PCIE connector. An EVGA board would have the EVGA logo on the board instead like in this pic.



I guess it's not surprising this early on we'd see only reference boards.

[Cry Havoc]

Holy the EVGA GTX 1080 SC ACX 3.0 is ugly as .



I'm a little disappointed to see it only has the 8-pin for power. I was hoping for an 8+6 which might indicate they put really strong power delivery in it. I bet it uses the reference Nvidia board like the early GTX 980 ACX 2.0 cards did last generation.

the were they thinking?

I mean at the end of the day it's just an aesthetic on something you're only gonna see a few times a year, but it's the idea behind it... it doesn't really sell itself like a new piece of tech should.

When I took my tri-x 290x out of the package it was ing glorious.

[baseline bum]

The EVGA GTX 1080 FTW uses a dual 8-pin, so it must have a custom PCB. This will probably be one of the best air cooled 1080s.

[baseline bum]

, the EVGA GTX 1080 FTW is going to be $680, and the EVGA GTX 1080 ACX 3.0 will be $650. What a ripoff. The Asus Strix GTX 1080 looks like it'll be a great deal at $620 though, especially looking at the pcb here, looks like it's going to have really robust power delivery:



And the three fan cooler should keep thermal throttling from being a problem.

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy, looks like promising news on the GTX 1080 prices. There was a lot of concern that with Nvidia charging $100 over MSRP for the worst version of the card (the Founders Edition, aka reference model) the good versions of the card would have that price premium over MSRP too. That thankfully hasn't been the case so far. For Asus their Strix 1080 is $620 for the standard model and $640 for the version with a factory overclock. For EVGA their ACX 3.0 is $650, their FTW is $680, and their Classified looks to be $700 (the Classified cards are extremely high end and meant for serious overclocking with water cooling and even liquid nitrogen). These cards should be releasing in a week or two, so that's more good news. No worries about waiting a month after launch to see good aftermarket cards hit the market. These aftermarket cards are way better because:

1. They run cooler, so you won't have to worry about the card slowing itself down to keep from overheating like the Founders Edition cards need to do.

2. They often have much better power delivery, so you won't run into voltage limits as quickly when overclocking. With that said, EVGA ACX 3.0 looks like it has the same weak power delivery as the Founders Editions. The Asus Strix, EVGA FTW, and MSI TwinFrozr cards look to have much more robust power delivery.

3. They run a lot quieter while also cooling better. Blower style cards like the Founders Edition have only one fan that has to run at a very high RPM to suck air in through the bottom and eject it out the back of the case. But these aftermarket cards blow hot air off the gpu and into your case. It sounds bad, and it is if you have a small case with bad airflow. Your case, the Phanteks Enthoo Pro, is huge and has great airflow, so that heat expelled from your gpu an into the case will be carried away and outside the case pretty efficiently by the channel of air you case has from the big 200 mm front intake fan and the 140 mm back exhaust fan already in it. So these axial fan aftermarket cards are far better for your setup.

4. The aftermarket cards are cheaper. Nvidia figured out people will pay a premium for that look in their Founders Edition cards even though the card performs worse. $700 for the worst version of a $600 card is ridiculous.

So similar should hold for the GTX 1070. You won't be stuck paying $450 for it, probably a lot closer to the $380 MSRP.

[RandomGuy]

RandomGuy, looks like promising news on the GTX 1080 prices. There was a lot of concern that with Nvidia charging $100 over MSRP for the worst version of the card (the Founders Edition, aka reference model) the good versions of the card would have that price premium over MSRP too. That thankfully hasn't been the case so far. For Asus their Strix 1080 is $620 for the standard model and $640 for the version with a factory overclock. For EVGA their ACX 3.0 is $650, their FTW is $680, and their Classified looks to be $700 (the Classified cards are extremely high end and meant for serious overclocking with water cooling and even liquid nitrogen). These cards should be releasing in a week or two, so that's more good news. No worries about waiting a month after launch to see good aftermarket cards hit the market. These aftermarket cards are way better because:

1. They run cooler, so you won't have to worry about the card slowing itself down to keep from overheating like the Founders Edition cards need to do.

2. They often have much better power delivery, so you won't run into voltage limits as quickly when overclocking. With that said, EVGA ACX 3.0 looks like it has the same weak power delivery as the Founders Editions. The Asus Strix, EVGA FTW, and MSI TwinFrozr cards look to have much more robust power delivery.

3. They run a lot quieter while also cooling better. Blower style cards like the Founders Edition have only one fan that has to run at a very high RPM to suck air in through the bottom and eject it out the back of the case. But these aftermarket cards blow hot air off the gpu and into your case. It sounds bad, and it is if you have a small case with bad airflow. Your case, the Phanteks Enthoo Pro, is huge and has great airflow, so that heat expelled from your gpu an into the case will be carried away and outside the case pretty efficiently by the channel of air you case has from the big 200 mm front intake fan and the 140 mm back exhaust fan already in it. So these axial fan aftermarket cards are far better for your setup.

4. The aftermarket cards are cheaper. Nvidia figured out people will pay a premium for that look in their Founders Edition cards even though the card performs worse. $700 for the worst version of a $600 card is ridiculous.

So similar should hold for the GTX 1070. You won't be stuck paying $450 for it, probably a lot closer to the $380 MSRP.

Noted.

I will hold off and get the video card last, let the dust settle a little.
Probably order the CPU/cooler this weekend.

[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.

Might be able to get everything except the video card...

(edit)

Our one credit card is paid off. Figure it is worth it to put the kit and caboodle on the card to get the rig running sooner, then pay it off next month.

, got a long weekend, so I will take the plunge.

Any last minute edits, before I push the shiny red button tomorrow?

[baseline bum]

Noted.

I will hold off and get the video card last, let the dust settle a little.
Probably order the CPU/cooler this weekend.

If you're nervous about watercooling, an exceptionally good air cooler is the Noctua NH-D15. It's almost as good as the top water coolers and better than the low end and midrange watercoolers.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608045



It's huge, but it'll fit in your case, and Noctua coolers are really easy to install, they have easily the best mounting hardware in the business.

Have you bought the RAM yet? You'd probably want to go with lower profile RAM if you get this air cooler just so you don't have to move the outside fan up too much. There is no difference between high profile and low profile RAM when it comes to performance. The big heatsinks on modern RAM are strictly for show, you never see them on server RAM for instance.

[baseline bum]

Might be able to get everything except the video card...

(edit)

Our one credit card is paid off. Figure it is worth it to put the kit and caboodle on the card to get the rig running sooner, then pay it off next month.

, got a long weekend, so I will take the plunge.

Any last minute edits, before I push the shiny red button tomorrow?

It has been a long time since I posted that build and of course prices have changed since then. What do you have already besides the motherboard and the case?

1. The CPU is absolutely the one to buy, it's a tremendous value for a six core and it's an extremely powerful cpu.

2. The cooler is excellent if you want to do water cooling. If not the Noctua NH-D15 I recommended above is excellent also. The bling factor of watercoolers is nice and your kids will probably be impressed more, but the NHD-15 is very good also. They will perform pretty similarly.

3. You can probably find a better deal on RAM now, but I won't recommend a set until you're sure whether you want to go watercooling or air.

4. The SSD is absolutely the best one for the money still, so definitely get that.

5. Obviously don't get the R9 390 anymore. Back in September it was really strong but the GTX 1070 and Polaris 10 are about to all over it for similar prices. The GTX 1070 launches on June 10th though. We should see some reviews on it pretty soon and I'll PM you if I see any preorders. The GTX 1080 launched a few hours ago and it's long since sold out.

6. The power supply I recommended is massive overkill now. I recommended a 750W EVGA G2 because the R9 390 is a very power hungry card, something like 275W TDP. GTX 1070 and Polaris 10 should be around 150W. A good 550W-650W power supply will be more than enough and will save you a few bucks. Let me look up some prices on models I like and see what looks good.

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy, this is the RAM I'd recommend if you're doing the aircooling with an NH-D15 (they also have red or blue if you don't want black, but they're the same RAM):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233740

It would also be great RAM for it you use the watercooler instead, but this kit is maybe $5 cheaper and also very high quality if you plan on watercooling (I'd get the lower profile LPX kit above for air cooling though)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231822

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy, for power supplies this is a really strong unit that will give you tons of overclocking headroom for your cpu and gpu, assuming you go for a GTX 1070 or Polaris 10 graphics card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151118

Seasonic power supplies are amazing. I am on my third one since 2001. The first was still great 7 years later when I bought a new one for more power, the second was still great 6.5 years later when I bought a new one for more power, and this third one is holding up great more than a year and a half later.

It's on par with the EVGA unit I recommended before quality wise, but no point in paying an extra $20 for the extra 100W when you won't come close to needing it with a 150W gpu instead of a 275W gpu though. That EVGA G2 has a ten year warranty though while the Seasonic has five years. Those are both pretty good, most high quality power supplies come with three year warranties.

The 650W EVGA version of the psu I initially recommended comes with a 7 year warranty, and it is also excellent:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817438054

Six of one, half a dozen of the other: either of these are really good.

EVGA has a lot of different lines of 80+ gold power supplies though, so don't think you're getting the same quality if you buy a different model of EVGA power supply:

EVGA G1: mediocre, made by FSP
EVGA G2: excellent, made by Super Flower
EVGA GS: good, made by Seasonic
EVGA GQ: reviews are good so far, but I don't trust them since they're made by FSP

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy man, it ain't looking good for AMD today. They had an event in Macau for the Polaris launch and someone posted a photo they took of the NDA agreement everyone there had to sign, which listed an expiration date of June 29th. This is absolutely devastating news, this card should already be ready to go and they won't have a new card launch for more than a month after Nvidia's GTX 1080 launched today.

http://videocardz.com/60373/amd-pola...s-on-june-29th

It's starting to look like GTX 1070 is the only card worth considering unless AMD drastically lowers the price of the Fury X. The Fury X is currently selling for $600-$650, and it will have to drop to $350-$400 to make anyone buy it over a GTX 1070. And Fury X is an extraordinarily expensive card for AMD to make, since

1. It has a 596mm^2 die. A die this big is crazy expensive to produce. The bigger die you have, the worse your yields get (eg number of good chips vs number you throw away), as any defect in the silicon at any one area takes down a larger percentage of the wafer the dies are cut from. It's the main reason manufacturers keep trying to go to smaller transistor sizes. For comparison sake GTX 1070 has a 314mm^2 die and should outperform the Fury X.

2. The Fury X has HMB1 memory, which is more expensive than the GDDR5 the GTX 1070 will use.

3. The Fury X has a watercooler made by Cooler Master. I can't imagine that cooler costs them less than $50.

I don't think AMD can turn a profit or even break even selling a Fury X at $400. If these Polaris cards aren't launching until after June 29th I have to really consider how long AMD is even going to be able to stave away bankruptcy.

[baseline bum]

Damn my XBox 360 wireless controller dongle died on me and it's hard getting used to AC Revelations on mouse and keyboard. What's the best dongle to get? You use one right, ElNono?

I can't believe I can't use my wired charge kit to play on like a wired 360 controller unless I have a working wireless dongle. I hate Microsoft.

[ElNono]

Damn my XBox 360 wireless controller dongle died on me and it's hard getting used to AC Revelations on mouse and keyboard. What's the best dongle to get? You use one right, ElNono?

I can't believe I can't use my wired charge kit to play on like a wired 360 controller unless I have a working wireless dongle. I hate Microsoft.

This is the one I bought:
http://www.amazon.com/wireless-Gamin.../dp/B00BV72X1U

Working great on Windows 10, tbh...

[baseline bum]

This is the one I bought:
http://www.amazon.com/wireless-Gamin.../dp/B00BV72X1U

Working great on Windows 10, tbh...

Thanks man, you're one of the good illegals.

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy man, a review for the GTX 100 just came out, but it's in French.

http://www.clubic.com/carte-graphiqu...al-gamers.html

I'm a little skeptical since I can't imagine the NDA is up (otherwise we'd have 100 reviews out), but the results are right on par with reference an X. If these hold up I would try to preorder the GTX 1070, though not the $450 Founders Edition. The overclocking looks pretty ty from these results, so I don't think I'd spend too much extra for highend boards like EVGA FTW, MSI Gaming X, Gigabyte G1 Gaming, etc. But you do want an aftermarket axial fan card. I imagine the EVGA GTX 1070 ACX 3.0 will sell for $390 ($10 over MSRP) since they're officially selling that version of their GTX 1080 for $10 over MSRP ($610).

[baseline bum]

RandomGuy
DJR210
313

So Nvidia claimed the 1070 would beat the an X. Let's see if this holds:

Firestrike
1070 by 8% over an X at 1440p
1070 by 8% over an X at 1080p




Unigine Heaven
GTX 1070 by 6% over an X at 1440p
GTX 1070 by 11% over an X at 1080p




Ashes of the Singularity (DX12)
1070 by 9% over an X at 1440p
1070 by 7% over an X at 1080p




Batman Arkham Knight
GTX 1070 by 2% over an X at 1440p
GTX 1070 by 1% over an X at 1080p




Battlefield 4
GTX 1070 by 5% over an X at 1440p
GTX 1070 by 7% over an X at 1080p




Bioshock Infinite
an X by 1% over GTX 1070 at 1440p
GTX 1070 and an X even at 1080p




Dirt Rally
GTX 1070 by 5% over an X at 1440p
GTX 1070 by 3% over an X at 1080p




I'm not posting the The Division graphic, since in the graphic it shows an X beating 1070 handily while in the article they say the 1070 beats an X by a decent amount in The Division



Hitman (DX12)
GTX 1070 by 9% over an X at 1440p
GTX 1070 by 13% over an X at 1080p




Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
GTX 1070 by 3% over an X at 1440p
GTX 1070 by 6% over an X at 1080p




So this card looks like a ing monster.