Gaming PC for Skyrim - max. 2000EUR/2200USD

[guk]

I don't suggest Xeon CPU's for gaming. They're made for completely different purposes (like high multi-threading applications (servers, rendering stuff)). i5/7 are just fine.

 

Not sure if I like the idea of an i5 without hyper threading, though. You might be losing overall system stability by having "only" 4 cores which will in turn be mostly used up when gaming.

 

Maybe you can drop Windows 8.1 because of the insane price and keep using 7 until 10 comes out and get the 4790k instead? Or do you need a new license either way?

 

For a German hardware site I suggest mindfactory, they're the cheapest yet best very often.

My current "guest pc" from 2008 would go into retirement either way, so i could use that Win7x64 Home Premium license. Bad for the person who might buy or get gifted the old PC, but whatever.

 

Well the core i7 is still worth considering if i can save money elsewhere, although i already accepted that the <2000€ target might be impossible with a gtx980 and fitting complementary hardware.

 

---> Any good suggestions for keyboard and mouse?

I need a durable keyboard with LED backlights, no macro keys.

 

 

I'm a bit sceptical about mechanical keyboards, because i first bought the Corsair Vengeance K90 which had EXTREME issues with ghosting after 1 year - not sure if "ghosting" is the proper term, but i had to correct every second word due to keystrokes either coming up 3-10 times or not at all. Then bought the Logitech G710+ which also has these ghosting problems now on the numpad.

 

Maybe i was just unlucky, but my old Logitech G19 still works as good as 7 years ago despite several beer- coffee- and lemonade showers.

Also any keyboard macro keys are wasted for me because

A) their placement makes it impossible to find them blindly

they always have different pressure points than the rest of the keyboard

C) games usually don't support the macro keys as keybindings, so you can't just bind G1-12 to your Skyrim spells for example

 

 

TL;DR = mechanical keyboard YES, but only if it is 100% certified to never suffer from those mysterious keystroke glitches. And the backlight is essential for gaming and watching movies in the dark.

 

For a mouse i probably could use one with macro keys on the side, i had the Logitech MMO mouse but that also stopped working after 1-2 years so i'm back to the MX518 (which also works perfect after 7 years). The mouse macro keys are just immensely convenient not just for the macros, but also if you want to play games like Diablo3 or WoW one-handed for a while.

 

 

 

And yeah the Geizhals listing is mostly convenient for the filters, wishlist and price overview ;-) But not a good idea to order at 7 different retailers to save 20€ on a 2000€ budget.

[nutluck]

Well if you stick with your Windows 7 that saves you 125, if you put half of that into your PSU you should be able to get something good in the 800-900w range. My current PSU is a Seasonic M12 2 Bronze Evo edition 850w and you should be able to get that for another 50 EU, which would still leave 75EU to put else where perhaps into the CPU. Though I am personally considering a i5 myself for my next build, I have not made up my mind.

 

As for mouse and keyboard I have a K350 Logitech keyboard, but I use a Logitech G13 gaming board for playing games on and the full keyboard for typing and surfing etc. A mouse I can't help with as I have never found a gaming mouse I like really yet. I use a Logitech M570 trackball for daily stuff, but I am still looking for a good gaming mouse I like.

[guk]

 

 

@Cell I agree if he plans to use the PC for other things a i7 is better but for gaming right now so few games use hyper threading that there is almost no performance difference in the i7 over a i5. I did a lot of looking into this lately myself and checked a lot of performance test and on most games the difference was 2-3 fps difference and considering the huge price difference that's nothing. Now I do agree that is likely to change as their is a few games that use hyper threading and if more start using it then there will be a much bigger difference.

 

@Guk The MSI motherboard has a pretty good on board sound card. Honestly I would for now hold off and see how you like the onboard one. If you use it for a month or two and want better you can always get a sound card later but I think you will be content with the onboard one.

 

I do agree with Cell in that if you can't keep your windows 7 for now. Supposedly Microsoft is going to let owners of Windows 7 and 8 update to windows 10 for free in the first month or two after release. So that could save you a lot in the long run, even if not I would hold off and buy windows 10 when it comes out over 8. (a note I am not a huge fan of windows 8, I prefer 7 myself)

 

The one thing on your list I don't agree with is your PSU, it is on the low end. It is enough to run your system but if you ever decided you want to do SLI cards etc you might run into issues. Also the PSU will be running at near max power when the PC is under a load which cuts the life some and heats the whole computer up.

 

Personally I would wait on windows 8 and use the money from that to get a much better PSU. I personally made the mistake of going with a PSU that was good enough the first time I built a PC and regretted that decision later. Since I had to get a new PSU long before I should have when I was updating my current PC. Which I have updated about as much as possible now which is why I have started to look into my next upgrade. Most of the parts I can use off my current one, mostly cause I bought better than needed with the idea of future updates in mind.

 

 

 

 

Well if you stick with your Windows 7 that saves you 125, if you put half of that into your PSU you should be able to get something good in the 800-900w range. My current PSU is a Seasonic M12 2 Bronze Evo edition 850w and you should be able to get that for another 50 EU, which would still leave 75EU to put else where perhaps into the CPU. Though I am personally considering a i5 myself for my next build, I have not made up my mind.

 

As for mouse and keyboard I have a K350 Logitech keyboard, but I use a Logitech G13 gaming board for playing games on and the full keyboard for typing and surfing etc. A mouse I can't help with as I have never found a gaming mouse I like really yet. I use a Logitech M570 trackball for daily stuff, but I am still looking for a good gaming mouse I like.

 

 

i5 vs i7, yea that's not really clear yet. The i7 would certainly allow better overall multitasking, and i could consider recording full quality gameplay videos without performance loss. The PC also needs to be rather future-proof, although a CPU can be much more easily replaced than let's say the mainboard or SSD (i hate having to reinstall/configure drivers or even the OS once everything works perfect).

So nothing set in stone yet, although it might be a bad idea to save on the CPU if i'd run into possible bottlenecks because of that. I actually just stabilized my current Skyrim-Screenarchery setup to stutter-free ~20-30 fps around Riverwood, then installed "Unique Grasses and Groundcovers" and went back down to 11 fps (Tranq ENB with uGrids 5). Gnarf... need more performance >[

 

For the PSU, i certainly want one with good ecological values (power saving) and option for SLI later. So the one i linked was just a random one with good ratings, and i'll gladly accept any recommendations.

Actually the PCpartpicker that LizabethE linked earlier is very handy because it shows an estimated power consumption, which you can approximately double to be safe on the stability.

 

 

I'm really torn about the sound.

First off i do have a musical education, so despite my best efforts to ruin my hearing with years of punk rock concerts in my youth, daily Walkman and later weekly nightclub partying, i still have an extreme sense for audio quality. So when i bought my last PC, the VIA and Realtek sounds were significantly worse than the Sound Blaster Z in particular with the Sennheiser PC 350 SE.

 

The sound from that headset is absolutely amazing, if you watch Blu-Ray movies like Interstellar or have a helicopter flying over your head in Battlefield, it actually feels like your whole body is vibrating ;-) Not a perfect studio sound but lightyears ahead of the average onboard chip + 50-100$ gaming headset. No idea though how the ALC1150 sounds compared to the VIA/Realtek chip from 3 years ago, and there probably are no mainboards without soundship anyway. So yeah maybe just start with onboard and see how it works, the sound card can always be added later.

 

I've been using Tom's Hardware for some 20 years as a guide, might want to check it out http://www.tomshardware.com/

Yep i actually also used their BIY forums to build several PCs in the past, it's just that they usually have no idea about Skyrim-specific requirements and just recommend the best "bang for the buck" config. But yes Tomshardware is a great site, also has a big german version.

 

 

 

Again thanks for all the input so far, we're getting somewhere :-)

Edited May 27, 2015 by guk

[nutluck]

If you plan to record on the same machine you play on at the same time, then I would recommend biting the bullet and getting the i7. In a case like that where you are recording while playing on the same machine I think you would see a noticeable performance difference. If you plan to just play games and general PC use and/or record on your old PC while playing on the new one then a i5 is what I would get, unless you just have the spare money. Then a i7 if you got the money anyways, there is no downside to going with the i7 over the i5 other than price.

 

As for PSU I did a lot of research and the one I got was very highly rated as one that ran cool and preformed very well for the cost. If you got the money one of the AXi Cosair series of PSU is likely your best bet and I would get a platinum rated one, again if you have the money. While from my research they are the best PSU, you pay for them. Best bang for the buck I found, was the one I got. It was the best one for the price and plenty powerful for now and future upgrades.

 

For the sound card, I really would try the onboard one on the MSI. In reviews they speak very highly of the onboard soundchips on the MSI boards as surprisingly good. Plus adding a sound card later is very easy and it is a expensive you can put off for now.

[ousnius]

That was what I meant with i7 vs i5. You might not notice a difference when only playing a game and doing nothing else.

But once you also record video of that game, or watch a YouTube video on your second monitor while playing WoW on the first, you will notice a difference because otherwise there are no cores/threads left.

 

Most on-board sound chips nowadays are pretty good, especially the ones of ASUS and MSI. A dedicated sound card will obviously always sound better, it just depends on how much compared to the good (or not) on-board. I use beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohm headphones and KRK studio monitors in combination with a 250€ external sound card myself. There's barely a difference between my ASUS' on board and the expensive sound card in listening quality. You might hear improvements with FLAC files or less latency (less straining on the CPU).

 

About the keyboard - for me it was actually the other way around. I owned the Logitech G19, but after around 2 years you slowly felt it becoming old and keys dying off. I've been using a G710+ for 2 years without problems now. I took all keys out once to clean everything.

[guk]

Just gonna quickly post an updated config:

1 x Western Digital WD Red 2TB, 3.5", SATA 6Gb/s (WD20EFRX)
1 x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB, SATA 6Gb/s (MZ-75E250B)
1 x Intel Core i7-4790K, 4x 4.00GHz, boxed (BX80646I74790K)
1 x G.Skill TridentX DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR3-2400, CL10-12-12-31 (F3-2400C10D-16GTX)
1 x MSI GTX 980 Gaming 4G, GeForce GTX 980, 4GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort (V317-008R)
1 x ASUS ROG Maximus VII Ranger (90MB0IE0-M0EAY0)
1 x ASUS VX279Q, 27" (90LM00F0-B01670)
1 x ASUS BW-16D1HT schwarz, SATA, retail (90DD01E0-B20000)
1 x SteelSeries 6G v2, PS/2 & USB, DE (64227)
1 x Logitech G600 MMO Optical Gaming Mouse schwarz, USB (910-002865)
1 x EKL Alpenföhn Brocken (84000000029)
1 x NZXT H440 schwarz/rot mit Sichtfenster, schallgedämmt (CA-H440W-M1)
1 x Corsair Professional Series HX850i 850W ATX 2.4 (CP-9020073-EU)

Comments what i changed and why:

Samsung 850 Evo: Apparently the Evo series have the same longevity like the Pro series - similar price like the SanDisk i picked earlier but better reputation.
i7-4790K: Probably worth the extra money in the long run
ASUS ROG Maximus VII Ranger: The ROG boards from ASUS have a better soundchip, better layout and coolers, generally same performance (DDR3-3200 instead of 3300 but the RAM is only 2400 anyway) and only costs around 160€ in the EU for some reason, unlike the 250$+ that the pcpartpicker site is listing it
Corsair HX850i: 850W might be too much without SLI, but this sounds pretty nice with the platinum efficiency. Having the PC run long enough actually gets you the money back in power costs. Downgrade to 750W possible
EKL Alpenföhn Brocken: Personal recommendation + massive user popularity
Steelseries 6G v2: Sounds like a rock solid choice with MX-Black keys, no backlights though
Logitech G600 MMO: It was either this or the Razer Naga Expert 2014 MMO. Complaints about the Razer are that it is too small for larger hands and it has 1 button less (third big button in front on the Logitech G600).

One big problem is the availability of the MSI GTX980 Gaming 4. Might pick the ASUS STRIX just because of that.

Still taking feedback on the selection, and for these i could use general suggestions in the same price category:

• IPS Monitor
• HDD 2TB+ (Probably the WD Red is not the optimal choice for me)
• Blu-Ray Drive (ROM or Writer doesn't matter, nobody writes DVDs or Blu-Rays nowadays)
• 16GB RAM w XMP + 2x8 DIMMS and identical performance, the G.Skill TridentX seems to be hard to find in shops

 

Sitting at around 2300€ with everything except the OS. Speaking of which, if you have Win7 you can pre-order the free Win10 upgrade since today.

[nutluck]

For Ram I have G.Skill Ripjaw and have been happy with it.

[Vortec]

 I seriously wouldn't want a Hard drive that large for couple reasons, defragging the drive that size will take days as i recently encountered with one of my 1TB drives. Second reason is i'd rather have two 1 tb drives than one 2 Terabyte drive because if the 2TB drive goes down you lost 2TB as opposed to one of the 1TB drives.

 I've been watching prices of SSD drives of late and the one i got for almost $250 last June is about $130 on sale occasionally, seen 500mb SSD drives heading for $200 price range...worth it for me just for not having to defrag them and the speed .

 

 Good choice on the i7... future proofing.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti,4164.html. Todays review of NVidia's new GTX Titan, pay attention to what they say about the AMD 295X at end of article.

[guk]

Titan X / 980 Ti are available already, but no significant price drop on the GTX980s yet... definitely going to wait for next week at least

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti,4164.html. Todays review of NVidia's new GTX Titan, pay attention to what they say about the AMD 295X at end of article.

Thanks but buying an AMD card with Skyrim/ENB in mind is not a good idea

[nutluck]

The GTX 980Ti just came out give it a few more weeks and the normal GTX 980 cards should drop in price, just like the GTX 970's did a month or two after the 980 came out.