New PC Build

[Samuraitech]

I have been thinking about and  saving for a new PC for about 2 years now.  My builds usually last about 5 years before replacement.  The current one lasted 6.

 

I spent several hours refreshing my data and pulled the trigger and ordered today.  All except the graphic card.  I have my heart set on a 2070 or 2080.  The RTX 2070 OC 3X 8G from Gigabyte runs about $519 right now.  I usually go with EVGA but stocks seem low on those and they cost about $50 more.  Here is what I ordered.  Hopefully none of these parts stick out to anyone as a "Homer Simpson" moment.

 

Power Supply - EVGA SuperNova 750 G3

SSD - Samsung 2TB 860 EVO

Memory 32 GB Total -  Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666 MHz.  4 x 8GB.  Had problems finding memory compatible with MB.  Their list may be out of date.

Mother board - Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra

Case ATX Mid Tower: Dark Phantom with six 120mm fans with LED.  Usually go with Antec, or Thermaltake or Cooler Master but this looked good and had more than 3 fans.  

CPU - Intel i7 8700K 6 cores with 12 threads, 4.7 GHz.  i9 still too pricey and this i7 performs pretty well.  Went with 8700k instead of 9700k as it has more threads.  Could always upgrade to i9 later.

OS - Windows 10 Pro on USB - Retail Edition.  Never bought Windows on USB before.  All you get is the product code.  Still need to down load Win10.

I will need to read up on taking out the bloat on this.    Coming from Win7 Pro which I really liked. 

 

I have my eye on a 2070 or 2080 graphic card.  Also on an Samsung 970 EVO Plus 3.0 x 4 1TB M.2 drive.  Wanted the M.2 drive for my OS but money is coming up short so I will settle on the the 2 TB SSD.  Is M.2 really a lot faster than a SATA III SSD?

 

I did look at the AMD Ryzen CPU's and Mother boards but I really like Intel and feel comfortable with that.  

 

I guess I am looking for confirmation on choices and maybe ideas for the graphic card.   I will be taking the EVGA 1070 out of my current machine and using it in the new build for the time being.

[Howarde]

Yup looks good, Yes m.2 with more than 3000 Mb/s of reading and write are better in theory better for everything.

In practice it might not be faster for everything, but for a modded skyrim it should be way faster

[Samuraitech]

The CPU in my current build is an Intel Core i7-4771.  I paid about $320 for it nearly 6 years ago.  It is listed now at $599.  Maybe I should sell my CPU so I can afford to buy the graphic card I want.  I only posted this as I thought it was funny that it has doubled in price.  Not sure why someone would pay that.  You can get an i9 on Amazon for about $472 now.

 

It looks like the Nvidia 2700 Super is the card for me.  It performs about 30% better than stock 1070 and is slightly better than the 1080 ti, which are still insanely high in price compare to the 2070 and 2080's.  

 

Does anyone know of any particular problems with the Gigabyte 2070 Super?  It is priced good at the moment.  I also considered the 2060 Super and RX5700 XT.  Both good cards.  The 2080 does not perform well enough for the difference in price.  Meaning I believe the other cards mentioned have more bang for the buck.

[Samuraitech]

So I got all the parts in for the new PC build mentioned above.  Most parts arrived 1 to 2 days after ordering but the CPU took 7 days.  I could not fire anything up until it arrived.

 

I am very pleased with the Dark Flash Phantom Case.  It has tempered glass sides and front.  It is clean and pretty with the 6 preinstalled 120mm case fans.  It is also very quiet.

 

I went with an EVGA 2060 Super XC Ultra graphic card.  I was going to buy a Gigabyte 2070 Super but graphic cards are selling out quickly on both Amazon and New Egg.  This model of 2060 is much improved over Founders addition 2060.  It has 8GB instead of 6GB of memory.  It has a full length main board just like the 2070 and 2080.  Regular 2060 was only a 3/4 length board with a heat sink tacked on the end to equal the length of 2070 and 2080.  This model has a full metal back plate for support that was lacking in original.  It has two fans instead of one.  It has both a 6 pin and 8 pin power connecter.  It is over clocked out of the box and comes with RGB.  Now I need to get a new monitor.  1920 x 1080 is far below what this new card can do.

 

The Noctua NH-D15s is exceeding my expectations.  I have only used the cooler that came with the CPU before.  The i7 8700K did not come with one probably because they can run so hot you will need a better cooler.  The DH-D15s is very large and imposing looking and they really need another color for fan other than brown.  My CPU currently is 25 Deg C and usually stays around 26 on average if not playing a game.  In Fallout 4 I was running Performance Monitor and it had one peak sample of 41 Deg C.  Most samples were 35 or lower.  

I just got Steam and Fallout 4 running again yesterday.   It is now running on an SSD NVme 1TB drive.  This MB has 3 M2 slots.  One could even install SSD's only in the M2 slots and probably have a pretty clean system.  I have a ridiculous number of drives currently.  A carry over from the old system.  I will probably replace the 2 and 3TB HDD's with a single 4TB SSD.  Those are used for archives.  Mostly Mods.

 

Now all I need to do is get used to Windows 10.  

[Joe Pineapples]

I would have waited if possible,new Nvidia cards are coming, as is a new Intel CPU,gonna pick up a bargain 2070s off EBay or they might force a price down on the Radeon 5700 XT ( which will outrun my 1070TI

 

 W10 well there's the dilemma, old games don't run and there's no point trying to install W7 on modern hardware,get W Pro if you can,Samsung 1 TB SSD's are a decent buy at the moment,picked up 5 myself,don't need a 2080 for gaming at 1080p have a look at Ben Q monitors if your gaming at 1080p

 

Case i would have gone NZXT ( budget permitting ) M2 SSD's are still expensive but fast

 

Otherwise you've got a decent system which can be upgraded

https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/guru3d-winter-2019-pc-buyer-guide,1.html

 

[Joe Pineapples]

ahh VR ....gives me a goddamn headache ( cause I'm old and need glasses ) as for ram there's really no need to go over 16G 2666 mhz unless your overclocking and then the temps start to cut in,Black drives are faster but with the price of SSD's coming down i can't see the point,unless your case can support extra drives

 

Corsair is the best ram I've ever used,make sure it's QVL for your board,I would have upgraded the PSU 80 Plus  800w more is better,Crossfire  and SLI are  dead don't bother

 

Should be noted I'm bored and while I want to upgrade I'll wait,XMas is coming

[Samuraitech]

[Guest]

The RX 2000 series is a really bad choice, more so now with the Navi cards. The RX 5700XT will perform better in most games and costs less.

 

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-2070-vs-AMD-RX-5700-XT/4029vs4045

 

Intel CPUs are also pretty meh. Some of them (including mine) needed to be delided because Intel cheaped out with crappy thermal paste instead of soldering. The i7 8700K is not soldered and you will eventually need to delid it to push some overclocking.

The new AMD Ryzen CPUs are fantastic for a good fair price; I would consider them instead.

 

Do you really need 32 GB for a desktop PC? I am still on 8 GB and I never run out of RAM. I would get 16 GB now and eventually, if you really need more, get two more sticks.

 

And finally if you go Win10, make sure to remove the bloatwares ( https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater ). You will still be vulverable to MS' data mining though.

If you are not a developer and do not rely on specific Windows tools, you might consider a Linux desktop with wine.

[Samuraitech]

darkhighlander:

The Phantek Evolv X case does look nice.  I posted the Dark Flash Phantom case I purchased above.  I am pleased with it but they need to rethink the SSD mounting on the backside of the mother board.  The SSD's don't sit as nice in the designated spots as they should and the wire connections are tight.  The Phantom case has glass on all sides except top, bottom and back.  Dust will not stick to it and it is still clean after ten days or so of running on my desk.

 

I almost went with a regular SSD for my OS.  I am really glad i went with an NVme M2 drive.  The Gigabyte Auros MB has 3 M2 slots.  You could go with all M2 drives with that MB and not deal with any wires.  M2 drives are as easy to install as RAM with this MB.  If I remember correctly an NVme SSD is about 7 times faster than a regular SATA III SSD.

 

I also bought Corsair Vengeance memory but wish I could have bought 3200 MHz instead of 2666.

 

I wanted an i9 CPU but I am not paying those prices and there is not enough performance in my mind for what you pay.  I will wait until they increase the performance a little more and then replace the 8700K.  I got the 8700K because it has hyper threading and is easier to tweak. 

 

If you go with air cooling for your CPU than the Noctua NH-D15s is performing very well.  It does not have pretty lights but I think they were more concerned with performance.

 

I want to start tweaking the speed of the CPU but have never done this and am a little afraid.  Gigabyte has dire warning messages that pop up when you go into the EasyTune in the App Center.  I know the 8700K can be tweaked to 5 GHz with no problem, even 5.2 or 5.3 but you need to be very careful at those speeds.

 

What is really holding me back right now is my monitor.  1920 x 1080 is the highest resolution this current monitor supports.  The 2060 plus graphic card will go a lot higher.  I spent all my PC budget on what I have and will need to wait on the new monitor.

 

Would I want a 2080 Ti?  Who wouldn't.  I had about $1800 to 2K to do a completely new system and had to budget accordingly.

 

Windows 10 has not been so bad so far.  Still getting used to it but I have managed to set it up to look almost like Win7.  The install of the OS and drive setup and formatting was much easier than Win7 or previous systems.  I went with WIN10 Pro on a USB Memory Stick.  Worked great.

 

I know I can now do greater frame rates now, but Bethesda games don't like going faster that 60 FPS, so I usually limit that in the ENB Local.ini file.

I can't believe how much my Gen4 i7 CPU was holding me back.  My last system had a 1070.  It was a good card but I would get stuttering in both Skyrim and Fallout 4.  This was caused by my CPU and not my graphic card.  My current build does not even blink at Ultra settings in both games.  I was pretty much pegged at 60 FPS even in downtown Boston in Fallout 4.  It did drop to about 45 to 48 FPS when I started to use HDT SMP in Skyrim LE.  HDT PE (Did I say that right?) was fine.  Stayed at 60 FPS.  I could not run SMP very long with my old system before CTD so I guess that is an improvement.

[Samuraitech]

50 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

The RX 2000 series is a really bad choice, more so now with the Navi cards. The RX 5700XT will perform better in most games and costs less.

 

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-2070-vs-AMD-RX-5700-XT/4029vs4045

 

Intel CPUs are also pretty meh. Some of them (including mine) needed to be delided because Intel cheaped out with crappy thermal paste instead of soldering. The i7 8700K is not soldered and you will eventually need to delid it to push some overclocking.

The new AMD Ryzen CPUs are fantastic for a good fair price; I would consider them instead.

 

Do you really need 32 GB for a desktop PC? I am still on 8 GB and I never run out of RAM. I would get 16 GB now and eventually, if you really need more, get two more sticks.

 

And finally if you go Win10, make sure to remove the bloatwares ( https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater ). You will still be vulverable to MS' data mining though.

If you are not a developer and do not rely on specific Windows tools, you might consider a Linux desktop with wine.

 

I did strongly consider the Ryzen CPUs.  If Intel comes out with a really good CPU in the next few years that fits an LGA1151 slot, then I made a good choice.  If they stay the course than I will wish I had gone with AMD. I have always used Intel and got tired of waffling back and forth.  PC parts also get snatched at this time of year, so the deals are good but decide fast.  My last system also had 32 GB.  Do I need it? Probably not but memory is cheap and I always just fill all four slots and forget about it.

 

I have been saving links to web sites about unbloating WIN10.  I have not gotten serious about it yet because I am still trying to get my games back together.  Fallout 4 I just moved the whole MO2 folder over so that was up and running fairly quickly.  I had too many files to do that for FO4, Skyrim and Skyrim SE.  I almost have Skyrim back together and work on the rest later.

 

I you go to Benchmark.com the Nvidia 2060 plus is high on the list for "bang for your buck".  The RX 5700 XT was on my list of graphic cards.  There is only a 2% difference in overall performance between an RX5700 XT and a base 2070.  A  2070 super outperforms the RX 5700 XT by about 8 to 9%.  I used my old Nvidia 1070 as a baseline and compared it with the cards I was interested in.  A 2060 Super is almost exactly the same performance as the RX 5700 XT.  The RX 5700 will be better in some games and the 2060 plus will be better in others.  Not a bad choice either way. 

 

I did look at your benchmark performance link.  That was comparing against a base 2070,  The 2070 plus is nearly even with the RX 5700 XT.  What's funny is try the one I bought.  The RTX 2060 plus against the RX 5700 XT.  It is rated higher.  I think they take price into consideration as well as pure performance.

 

Anyway we will see how things go with this system.  I am pleased so far.  Things have been very stable.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, Samuraitech said:

 

I did strongly consider the Ryzen CPUs.  If Intel comes out with a really good CPU in the next few years that fits an LGA1151 slot, then I made a good choice.  If they stay the course than I will wish I had gone with AMD. I have always used Intel and got tired of waffling back and forth.  PC parts also get snatched at this time of year, so the deals are good but decide fast.  My last system also had 32 GB.  Do I need it? Probably not but memory is cheap and I always just fill all four slots and forget about it.

Unlikely. This is why I never change my CPUs between setups. By the time it becomes relevant for you to change it, you will need a new motherboard for the new socket.

The problem with deliding is voiding your warranty, so yeah, it's a pain in the ass if you can't find one of those pre-delided with warranty.

By the time you need to switch that 8700K, hopefully ARM will be available for desktop gaming aswell. Past time for us to ditch crappy and ancient x86.

 

As for 32 GB, well, I'm just a programmer and I am not a consumist, since I don't really play these new games nor do I use any software that requires that much RAM, I prefer not to waste my money on something that I'll never end up using.

RAM disks are interesting, but you would spend money on something that you wouldn't notice most of the time (assuming you've a fast SSD for games). You also would need to load the data into the RAM after every boot, as RAM is volatile.

 

34 minutes ago, Samuraitech said:

I you go to Benchmark.com the Nvidia 2060 plus is high on the list for "bang for your buck".  The RX 5700 XT was on my list of graphic cards.  There is only a 2% difference in overall performance between an RX5700 XT and a base 2070.  A  2070 super outperforms the RX 5700 XT by about 8 to 9%.  I used my old Nvidia 1070 as a baseline and compared it with the cards I was interested in.  A 2060 Super is almost exactly the same performance as the RX 5700 XT.  The RX 5700 will be better in some games and the 2060 plus will be better in others.  Not a bad choice either way. 

 

I did look at your benchmark performance link.  That was comparing against a base 2070,  The 2070 plus is nearly even with the RX 5700 XT.  What's funny is try the one I bought.  The RTX 2060 plus against the RX 5700 XT.  It is rated higher.  I think they take price into consideration as well as pure performance.

You'd only mentioned the RTX 2070 in the original post, which is what I compared against.

Regardless, the RTX 2000 is an unfinished and problematic series that served as prototype for Nvidia's RTX core.

They are too expensive, RTX isn't too well developed and used yet and many of them either arrived with defects or died earlier.

Stuff like that is the reason I got myself a GTX 1660 until there is actually a decent high range model in the market.

AMD is the best one right now for mid range cards. However, I did not find a reason to spend that much money when I am not playing the newer stuff and went for the lower end mid range, which unfortunately AMD has no new cards on (GTX 1660 is the equivalent of ATI's RX 590, which is older, hotter and has no room for overclocking).

[Samuraitech]

17 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

Unlikely. This is why I never change my CPUs between setups. By the time it becomes relevant for you to change it, you will need a new motherboard for the new socket.

The problem with deliding is voiding your warranty, so yeah, it's a pain in the ass if you can't find one of those pre-delided with warranty.

By the time you need to switch that 8700K, hopefully ARM will be available for desktop gaming aswell. Past time for us to ditch crappy and ancient x86.

 

As for 32 GB, well, I'm just a programmer and I am not a consumist, since I don't really play these new games nor do I use any software that requires that much RAM, I prefer not to waste my money on something that I'll never end up using.

RAM disks are interesting, but you would spend money on something that you wouldn't notice most of the time (assuming you've a fast SSD for games). You also would need to load the data into the RAM after every boot, as RAM is volatile.

 

You'd only mentioned the RTX 2070 in the original post, which is what I compared against.

Regardless, the RTX 2000 is an unfinished and problematic series that served as prototype for Nvidia's RTX core.

They are too expensive, RTX isn't too well developed and used yet and many of them either arrived with defects or died earlier.

Stuff like that is the reason I got myself a GTX 1660 until there is actually a decent high range model in the market.

AMD is the best one right now for mid range cards. However, I did not find a reason to spend that much money when I am not playing the newer stuff and went for the lower end mid range, which unfortunately AMD has no new cards on (GTX 1660 is the equivalent of ATI's RX 590, which is older, hotter and has no room for overclocking).

Thank you for your input.  I may regret the intel decision but I don't think I made a made choice with the RTX 2060.  Unless they start having mass failures down the road.  I usually go with EVGA for Nvidia because they are a little bit better than the other brands.  Have not had one fail yet and they have a trade up program.

 

I wish some of this info had come my way a couple of weeks ago as I have already built my system.  I am posting now to help other people that may be facing the same decisions.

 

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Samuraitech said:

Thank you for your input.  I may regret the intel decision but I don't think I made a made choice with the RTX 2060.  Unless they start having mass failures down the road.  I usually go with EVGA for Nvidia because they are a little bit better than the other brands.  Have not had one fail yet and they have a trade up program.

 

I wish some of this info had come my way a couple of weeks ago as I have already built my system.  I am posting now to help other people that may be facing the same decisions.

 

If that changes anything, my old EVGA 970 GTX started failing after 3 years (past warranty) and fully died after 4 years. I must add that I am not your average user and that the card while overclocked was running under good conditions (never went above 80c, cleaned often, etc).

 

My old Sapphire ATI HD 5770 is still operational after almost a decade without any issues and with barely any maintenance on my part (I rarely clean that PC because it's super old).

 

I also only saw your post today (also wasn't aware when I did my first post that you were already done), sorry about that. Otherwise I would've written what I did before.

[Samuraitech]

24 minutes ago, Hawk9969 said:

If that changes anything, my old EVGA 970 GTX started failing after 3 years (past warranty) and fully died after 4 years. I must add that I am not your average user and that the card while overclocked was running under good conditions (never went above 80c, cleaned often, etc).

 

My old Sapphire ATI HD 5770 is still operational after almost a decade without any issues and with barely any maintenance on my part (I rarely clean that PC because it's super old).

 

I also only saw your post today (also wasn't aware when I did my first post that you were already done), sorry about that. Otherwise I would've written what I did before.

I have used ATI or I guess now AMD graphic cards in the past.  It was a good card.  An ATI Radeon HD 4850.

ATI at that time had a rather primitive web site compared to Nvidia.  I always felt left out looking at all the flashy Nvidia stuff.  Maybe not so bad now.

 

The Ryzen CPU's however are another matter entirely.  Buying a Ryzen CPU would be a good choice and would give you more money towards a good graphic card.  It used to be CPU's were the most expensive part of a PC.   Now it is the graphic card.  For gaming level machines at least.  The Bit Coin farmers have made the prices go up to ridiculous levels.  A decent graphic card should not cost $400 to $500. 

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Samuraitech said:

The Bit Coin farmers have made the prices go up to ridiculous levels.  A decent graphic card should not cost $400 to $500. 

BitCoin GPU mining hasn't been profitable since 2011-2012. The 2018 GPU shortage was due to Ethereum GPU mining, but that's also no longer profitable. Prices should've normalized this year, but when you only have 2 companies competiting in an extremely difficult to enter market, you will still get some pretty shitty prices. Hell, AMD isn't even competing in the high range GPU market, so Nvidia is just rolling around; Take a look at how expensive G-sync monitors are.

 

My GTX 1660 cost me about 250 shekels and I actually felt pretty lucky on this deal since I am in South America and I couldn't find them for less than $300.

[Samuraitech]

1 hour ago, Hawk9969 said:

BitCoin GPU mining hasn't been profitable since 2011-2012. The 2018 GPU shortage was due to Ethereum GPU mining, but that's also no longer profitable. Prices should've normalized this year, but when you only have 2 companies competiting in an extremely difficult to enter market, you will still get some pretty shitty prices. Hell, AMD isn't even competing in the high range GPU market, so Nvidia is just rolling around; Take a look at how expensive G-sync monitors are.

 

My GTX 1660 cost me about 250 shekels and I actually felt pretty lucky on this deal since I am in South America and I couldn't find them for less than $300.

A GTX 1660 on Amazon right now goes for about $200, so if I did my google search right you paid about $72 dollars?  That's a very good price!

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, Samuraitech said:

A GTX 1660 on Amazon right now goes for about $200, so if I did my google search right you paid about $72 dollars?  That's a very good price!

Lol, no. I'd paid about $250 for it. When I say "shekels", I am using the internet slang for money/coins.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, darkhighlander said:

I looked at lots of video cards as I am a serious gamer and wanted a good match for this CPU where bottleneck would be a minimum. Yeah I saw the reports on earlier 2080 models and was concerned a bit, but buying the 2080 TI on Amazon, I knew Returning it would be no problem. Let me just say this, the 11Gb EVGA FTW 3 2080 TI is a Fking BEAST. Seriously. I play EVERYTHING in 4k and Ultra Graphics. Red Dead Redemption 2 has lot`s of 1080 owners crying on Steam about performance. I just stuck it on 4k and cranked to Ultra....smooth as butter and looks Gorgeous!    Cyberpunk next year?  no worries on running it on max settings. 

I am sorry, but if you can't run games on max settings with an i7 9700K and a RTX 2080 Ti, there is something clearly wrong with the game. This hasn't much to do with the card but with the game you are running; Your build is a very high end one and IS SUPPOSED to run everything on max. Also add that the EVGA FTW3 is a premium card and one of the more expensive ones of this type.

 

2 hours ago, darkhighlander said:

I`ve had a few AMD cards and I bloody hate them !  From the crap drivers to the awful coil whine....just ugh.

Nope, I`ll stick to Nvidia now and my 2080 TI is very quiet, I can`t even hear it over my case fans....even under heavy load. Whatever I chuck at it, it just tears through. Coming from a 1070 the difference is HUGE. Can`t wait for when the Ray Tracing gets used more in future games, saw some demos and yeah it`s sweet.

Drivers were awful in the days of Catalyst; They've gotten much better since (Linux drivers still need some love though).

Coil whine is a brand issue, not a chip issue. Unless you are running a quantum chip, coil whine will come from the vibration from either the fan(s), the heatsink or both.

 

You will likely have to upgrade your RTX 2080 Ti for modern games making heavy use of ray tracing. For starters, only the RTX 2080 (Ti or not) would get decent performance in this situation, and even then, performance might degrade as ray tracing gets used more often. This is why the RTX 2000 series is a prototype, they aren't really meant to be used in a fully developed modern game making heavy use of ray tracing.

In any case, those Nvidia proprietary technologies are meh. Look at what happened to PhysX, Hairworks, FleX, etc; Only a handful of games use them and those features are added just as bonus. I wouldn't put my money on ray tracing becoming a trend.

 

2 hours ago, darkhighlander said:

I stopped using monitors a few years back. Running games on 4k with a 4k 50 inch Samsung is just...well anything less would be detracting from the overall experience. My jaw still droops playing Skyrim SE with a load of HD texture packs in 4k with Rudys ENB and Rustic Weathers. Looks like a Movie heh.

Here is another problem for Nvidia users. While Nvidia now supports VESA adaptive sync, Nvidia only supports it through DP (as per standard), while AMD has developed FreeSync which supports adaptive sync over HDMI.

I've a TV Monitor (which does not support DP) and I am stuck without adaptive sync support on a monitor that supports FreeSync.

G-Sync monitors are overpriced and HDMI is the standard for TVs, so no adaptive sync for those.