Chaos Project

General => Electronic and Computer Section => Topic started by: Soulshaker3 on June 11, 2015, 02:20:50 pm

Title: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 11, 2015, 02:20:50 pm
So I'm considering getting myself a new PC, and I have to buy every piece since my last PC is about 7 years old. I did a bit of research and I don't mind spending a little extra if this is gonna last one or two years more in terms of specs.

This is the list I made trought this website, it is very handy since it let's you know of imcompatibility issues and get builds from other people:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/t3P6ZL

I would like if possible to get it too arround $2000 without much of a performance loss. The first time I did the build it was about $3000 and I could get it to this this price, wouldn't mind to lower it a bit. I want have the SLI, just keep that in mind

EDIT: updated list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tRYrBm
EDIT 2: updated list V2: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fT7WTW

EDIT 3: updated list V3: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BTfHt6
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 11, 2015, 04:31:55 pm
my god your burning a fucktone of money on the SLI.

Look, unless your doing supercomputer or heavy video/3D rendering not just general gaming It's almost always better to get a single more powerful card then use lesser cards in SLI/Crossfire.

Also with DX12 around the corner, go with AMD Graphics cards. DX upuntill this point has be designed in such a way that Nvidia has been getting better performance by optimizing their chipset for it. at the sacrifice of performance in the more general computing space. AMD does the opposite and goes fore best performance in the general case. The result is that AMD cards are FAR FAR better at computations. DX12 has done something different and as a result AMD general computing architecture has paid off big time. A single 290X is AS FAST OR FASTER than a TitanX (When using DX12)

If the reason you want the SLI is for computing power in 3D / video rendering or super computing then you shouldn't being useing Nvidia cards right now, AMD has much better performance for lower cost (there is a reason the crypto coin mining almost exclusively used AMD cards, their an order of magnitude faster + cheaper). if your going for gaming then get a single GTX980 or a single 290X (I'd go for the single 290X, much cheaper and better DX12 performance). (personaly if it were my build Linux would also be a factor, Nvidia's Linux drivers are a pain in the ass, but then AMD's Catalyst driver are too. however AMD's opensource drivers work quite well compared to Nvidia's opensource drivers. If Linux isn't a concern for you ignore this.)

The SSD is unnecessary, long as a you have a HDD with good speed your barely going to notice the performance difference. and unless you going to try and cram you games onto the tiny 250GB of space you load times won't improve, and even if you did it would be marginal over a WD Black (not blue) edition drive. But if you really want fast windows boot times go for it.

16GB of ram is good, you wont need much more for another 5-6 years, you seem to have found a good price point for performance too.

CPU: personally I'd spend half the money for an AMD Octa/Hexacore that has 80% of the performance but you just Can't beat lintel at performance, you pay for it though.

Why are you getting a pci wired network adapter? you MoBo already has gigabit Ethernet...

personaly I would hate to have two different sized monitors bu to each their own. I assume you don't already have some 1080p monitors other wise there would be no need to get new ones.



CONCLUSION:

You pretty much at the hard limit of how much money you can spend and get top of the line performance without way overpaying. you can cut costs a fair bit and end up with BETTER performance if you pick you parts and brands correctly. Don't you dare try to spend 3 grand on a single PC build unless it tricked the fuck out with costume water cooling and shit. If you wen;r getting monsters too 2k would be too high.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 11, 2015, 04:46:44 pm
I had no idea DX12 was out to the public yet, and I remember seeing a video, where both a nvidia card and an amd card were benchmarking a game and I remember that the NVIDIA one was having a better performance. but I'll look into those AMD cards and I'll update the topic in a few minutes
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 11, 2015, 04:52:06 pm
I updated my post with stuff about your other parts. Take a look. DX12 will be out with Windows 10. but if your building a rig like this you should consider future performance, windows 10 will be out in 6ish months and DX12 games 2-3 months after that so...
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 11, 2015, 04:59:05 pm
Quote from: Ryex on June 11, 2015, 04:52:06 pm
I updated my post with stuff about your other parts. Take a look. DX12 will be out with Windows 10. but if your building a rig like this you should consider future performance, windows 10 will be out in 6ish months and DX12 games 2-3 months after that so...


I did put watercooling on the CPU, and for the monitors nope, I don't have any 1080p monitors, I've a VGA 900p one that's 7 years old I think, removed the wired adapter tought the motherboard didn't had one.

Again to the monitors I'm quite relutant to get that 144hz one, don't quite know if the difference is very noticeable. I was considering instead of getting that monitor I'd have a 4K monitor but I'm still thinking of what should I do.

As for the CPU, I really think Intel is unbeatable for now in performance and I don't mind speeding $300 on a quad with 4 Ghz
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 11, 2015, 05:45:10 pm
some people swear by the >60hz monitors but I don't think they are worth it, as for 4k, don't touch it yet, the industry hasn't decided where it's going.

By water cooling I meant full COSTUME water cooling. as in you buy water blocks, a resovor, tubing, radiator, a pump etc. and hook it up your self on the CPU and GPU.

You can't really beat Intel at single core performance. For me personally the AMD 8350, a true 4GH ocacore, is more useful than the powerhouse of the I7 series because of multitasking and compilation stuff I do. but for Gaming ect the I7 will likely be better.


you still going to go for SLI? fair warning, multicard support in games is random. they have to explicitly support it for you to get any benefit and even then it's sometimes unstable.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 12, 2015, 04:14:56 am
No I'm not, I took it out of the build, I just take it out of the topic aswell. I think I might go for 2x 1080p monitors aswell,, games are smooth in that already.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 12, 2015, 04:38:33 am
Your list still shows the redundant ethernet card

Also I just noticed your 4 $15 hydrolic bearing case fans? You planning on replacing the ones that come with the case?  Cause you don't need to their good,  real good.

You might want to shop around on the 290x for a better price. That saphire one is on the upper end.  $360 would be closer to its true value. 
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 12, 2015, 05:09:09 am
Quote from: Ryex on June 12, 2015, 04:38:33 am
Also I just noticed your 4 $15 hydrolic bearing case fans? You planning on replacing the ones that come with the case?  Cause you don't need to their good,  real good.

You might want to shop around on the 290x for a better price. That saphire one is on the upper end.  $360 would be closer to its true value.  


Okay so I had no idea the case came with the fans already, that's less 60$.

I picked the saphire one cause it has double the memory than the normal 290x. Don't really know if those 90$ are worth. And I'm considering having a triple display with 3 1080p monitors, but that's highly unlikely I'll do.

Edit: Also I have no idea of the power of the 290x, can it run recent games with V-Sync 60 frames still? With DX12 comming out I'm pretty sure it will, cause it's like 300% of performance boost I don't know for DX11 tought.
Could get it under $1900 without the SSD and I don't see any significant perfomance loss. Nice job ryex
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 12, 2015, 05:40:48 am
the 290X is very powerful, It's what I have in my own rig. it can run recent games on Ultra smoothly. also I was wrong Windows 10 and DX12 are coming out next month. so DX12 games are going to becoming out very soon indeed.
take a look here:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
look for the R9 290x and you'll see that it's 12th on the chart and everything above it is a Nvidia card the GTX 970 and 980 are technically stronger
Those scores are Passmark scores which are weighted scores form performance in everything fron DX9 to DX11 in various scenarios. in real world performance in recent games the 290X outperforms the 970 by a small margin.

also Ya it's decently worth extra money for the extra video ram, especially if you want to be running multi-monitor setups. However that price is still real High for a 290x. a stock one would be around $300 flat that $360 was for the extra video memory. here have a link to a more appropriately prices model  (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202144)
a good price for if you don't really want the extra 4 gigs of video ram. (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9671724&SRCCODE=WEBGOOPA)
Realistically 4GB of video ram is more than enough most of the time. unless your trying to render across three monitors your not going to use it all. and even if you do go up to three monitors the 290x should be able to keep up just fine with 4GB according to the responses around the internet.

There goes another $175
Pick your parts for what your trying to do not just because the have good specs and you never overpay :P.

Glad to help, I don't like to see anyone overspending on a PC
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 12, 2015, 06:00:05 am
In my country a 8GB 290x is about 500€ = $750 which is insane. I might need to get an external website to get the parts of. A website that exports to Portugal, I was thinking in amazon but things might be overprice there. Any suggestions of a place to buy all this?

EDIT: I will go with double 1080p monitors I made up my mind on that, so the 4GB one is more than enough, I was kindda scared the 4GB wouldn't keep up with the 3 1080p monitors but with 2 it should have no problem. So the price now should be arround $1650

The 4Gb one is 320€ but I don't want to end up paying 2 for the price of 1, still need to do a lot of research where to buy those.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 12, 2015, 06:04:09 am
double check you got all my edits I talked about video ram ect.

frankly I've NO idea how to get all your parts to Portugal. I'd try the usual retailers: Tiger Direct, Amazon, Newegg ect. and see what happens after shipping ect.
this page might help too. there is a section on Portugal retailers, a cursory glance says prices are a bit inflated but not by much.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/358998-31-worldwide-online-computer-parts-stores
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 12, 2015, 06:18:33 am
I knew most of those websites already, but all of them are overprice, for the CPU which is $330, it costs here 360€ which is roughly $500/550, which is more than I would like to pay for a CPU.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 12, 2015, 06:29:03 am
you could attempt to pay someone in the US to buy and then ship the parts to you / assemble the PC in the US and ship it to you, but that's a risky move. the parts might not survive the second trip intact and DOA /RMA parts would be a bitch. + I've no idea why kind of money it would take to ship a full intact computer from the US to you, you might spend what money you save on shipping. I think you might just be stuck with higher prices because of where you live. Shop around and see what you find. perhaps wait for a sale.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 12, 2015, 06:53:08 am
So I made a rought estimate and it gets for 1621€ approx: $2100. Some parts I had to change since they aren't sold here.
Here's the pic:
Spoiler: ShowHide
(http://i.imgur.com/iE2tv6D.png)

Missing the 290x cause it's out of stock, but in this website it sells for 390€
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Blizzard on June 12, 2015, 11:32:41 am
Let me just quickly add this and then I'm out of the topic. xD

- >60Hz monitors: I agree with Ryex, I think it's just a fad. The only point where it does make sense is if you are so fast at pressing buttons that shooting or clicking would make a difference in competitive gaming. But otherwise stay away from it.

- 4k monitors: Stay away from it. Full-HD looks great and 4k won't be mainstream for another few years. It's not worth it.

- Monitors in general: You don't need 2 if you don't plan on using it as a work station for software development. If you want it for multimedia and gaming only, one big monitor would be a better choice. And you can always buy second one later if you change your mind.

- CPU: Ryex already said it. AMD will give you cheaper stuff, but if you want cutting edge, Intel is the way to go. But unless you need it for gaming or something other CPU-intensive (game development or compiling code), you might want to consider an AMD after all. Though, if you are going to run a virtual machine, Intel is far better at that.

- GPU: What Ryex said. AMD are the better choice, NVidia is generally overpriced. Especially with DX12 (and Mantle!), AMD will take over the market. They already power both Xbox One and the PS4. Think about that. But SLI and Crossfire aren't worth it. You'll pay double, but the performance will be increased maybe 40%. I've read an article about that stuff. I can't remember where, but there's tons of other problems as well with SLI/Crossfire.

- RAM: Yeah, 16 GB is enough for some time. Also very useful if you want to run VMs. I upgraded my laptop to 16 GB just recently. Worth it. Also lets you open a gazillion tabs in web browsers since for some reason websites these days need 50 MB each to run. >_>

- HDD/SSD: While an SSD will speed up your booting time insanely, don't get it if you just want it for booting. Or get a small one like 128 GB. e.g. At work I have my OS on a 128 GB together with our project files so compilation is faster and VS boots up much faster than on my home laptop. It's really worth it in this case. I'm also planning to get a 500 GB SSD for my home laptop. I'll put the OS on it together with my projects and my VM (booting it up and shutting it down is often a hassle, especially suspending it since it has to dump all 4 GB of RAM onto the HDD and renders my laptop almost unusable for at least 20 minutes).
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 12, 2015, 12:10:00 pm
Quote from: Blizzard on June 12, 2015, 11:32:41 am
- Monitors in general: You don't need 2 if you don't plan on using it as a work station for software development. If you want it for multimedia and gaming only, one big monitor would be a better choice. And you can always buy second one later if you change your mind.

- CPU: Ryex already said it. AMD will give you cheaper stuff, but if you want cutting edge, Intel is the way to go. But unless you need it for gaming or something other CPU-intensive (game development or compiling code), you might want to consider an AMD after all. Though, if you are going to run a virtual machine, Intel is far better at that.

- GPU: What Ryex said. AMD are the better choice, NVidia is generally overpriced. Especially with DX12 (and Mantle!), AMD will take over the market. They already power both Xbox One and the PS4. Think about that. But SLI and Crossfire aren't worth it. You'll pay double, but the performance will be increased maybe 40%. I've read an article about that stuff. I can't remember where, but there's tons of other problems as well with SLI/Crossfire.

- HDD/SSD: While an SSD will speed up your booting time insanely, don't get it if you just want it for booting. Or get a small one like 128 GB. e.g. At work I have my OS on a 128 GB together with our project files so compilation is faster and VS boots up much faster than on my home laptop. It's really worth it in this case. I'm also planning to get a 500 GB SSD for my home laptop. I'll put the OS on it together with my projects and my VM (booting it up and shutting it down is often a hassle, especially suspending it since it has to dump all 4 GB of RAM onto the HDD and renders my laptop almost unusable for at least 20 minutes).


Monitors - I plan to do some streaming when I get this PC together so I might end up with the 2 screens, probably not.

CPU - Like you said intel is cutting edge in processor power, and one of the reasons I'm getting this PC is for gaming. I might end up doing software development here but I don't mind waiting a little more time.

GPU - No way I'm getting SLI/CrossFire now, before this post I tought it was worth. Now I realize it isn't.

SSD - I ended up not putting it into the list. So this should cut up the money I spend a fair bit
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Blizzard on June 12, 2015, 12:19:54 pm
I actually found where I read that: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/150524-is-crossfiresli-really-that-bad/

Quotei had two old amd gpus in crossfire and if i remember correctly i had about 40% increase in performance


Here's an interesting article about it as well: http://lifehacker.com/5994276/is-it-worth-it-to-run-two-graphics-cards-in-my-gaming-pc
You should definitely read these two before you make a final choice.

EDIT: This can be useful, too, but it gets more technical: http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1vujpc/what_are_the_pros_of_sliing_2_graphic_cards/
I think some of it is a bit of BS (like the rendering of 3-6 frames in advance), but still informative. And another quote with the 40% boost there:

QuoteWhat do you do? Also buy the GFX 1900 for 1'500 Buckazoids?
No! You go buy yet another GFX 700, which now is down to 300 Buckazoids and SLIFire it with your existing card, geting up to 40% more FPS out of your system.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Ryex on June 13, 2015, 03:48:31 am
The problem is that the senerio where the price per performance gained is lower for the GFX700 than for the GFX 1900 is actually kinda rare. normally it's cheaper and better performant to get the GFX 1900.

but that's neither here nor there. gland to know that despite never talking about it directly we've arrived at a similar philosophy for buying hardware Blizz.

Soulshaker, congrats on finding a Build you like fore the price you wanted. Glad we could help keep some $700 burning a hole in your pocket.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Blizzard on June 13, 2015, 06:00:02 am
I've had that philosophy for over a decade actually. People should buy hardware that fulfills the needs of what they plan to do with it. That's why I never bought a high-end GPU. I love gaming and so on, but I'm not that crazy about graphics. Especially when I'm on a budget and there are more dire things I need (e.g. a better CPU, more RAM, more HDD, etc.) Currently a laptop suits me the most as well. This is why I haven't owned a desktop PC in years either.
Title: Re: Opinions about my PC Build
Post by: Soulshaker3 on June 13, 2015, 09:08:17 am
Since I never had a high-end PC, I've always had the dream to get a PC where it could run things at the max smoothly. I don't mind to spend this ammount of money to get something that will last for 4 or 5 years, and upgrading it slowly after that time. I think this will fulfill my needs of "omg luk @ those graphix :V:"
I want to run unreal engine 4 really bad