Building my new PC

Hardware Build a PC
1

Hello, good people of level1techs forums!

It is time for me to build a new pc and i want to hear your opinions on what should i get.

My budget is looking around 1300 EUR (if we can lower the price thats even better) for both computer and monitor. My time on computer will be spent playing games and working. The goal is to run all the new games at minimum 1080p 60fps and the ones to come. For some time at least. But I will use computer for studying/working too. And mostly it will be programming and work with 3D graphics.

Overclocking?

Not sure, haven’t done it before and probably wont start now. As the pc will be running 8-12 hours a day and the room temperature in summer is crazy high.

Water-cooling ?

I dont see any reason to have water-cooling.

Work/study details.

Im currently working and doing rendering with Blender but might still pick up other softwere for rendering. But i think if im putting down 1000 EUR for a computer it should be able to run games and everything else.

I think i have gave enough information, so you can have a vision on what im doing. :slight_smile:

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Ok so the PC build:

For CPU and mother board i think it has to be i7 7700k with Asus ROG Strix Z270 °F. Or Ryzen 7 1700 with Asus Prime X370 Pro. Not sure which!

For GPU i think GTX 1080 is a good pick but i dont know if i can manage to get in budget. Maybe GTX 1070 ?

If i know what motherboard,cpu and gpu i will have i think rest should be easy.

P.S As i wrote this i may have to increase my budget which i can, it just means i wont order pc now. But we might be able to push it up to 1500 EUR. But thats max

2

I’m typically one of the few not beating the Ryzen drum, since most people are mainly gaming, and in gaming the Intel side still offers a little better result, but for rendering, ryzen is the better choice as the i7 7700K is only ~88% of the raw performance in tasks that thread with little overhead (the gap closes a tiny bit at max achievable over clocks, but Ryzen is the winner still). The only thing you really need to be careful with on ryzen is its a new platform, so some motherboards have high failure rates right now (but not all, read reviews) and its picky with which ram, otherwise the two fit into basically the same system.

If the gtx1080 is worth it depends on the screen you have (or are buying) and how much you care about maxing out details. Its really too weak for 4k, but is a beast 1440p card, that will drive high refresh rate monitors in most games.

A gtx1070 will be plenty at 1080p, it will drive high refrsh rates in many games, and if you have a screen for it, 1440p in older titles.

The gtx1060 on the other hand is not going to exceed 60fps 1080p on ultra in games anymore, so while its still a great card for the money (especially in a 3gb trim with cheaper cooler due to its low TDP).

If your wanting to get G-sync, also consider the option of going the more powerful (and not even badly loud on the refernce blower if you don’t overclock, thanks to factory 210w) Vega56 and a freesync display, as G-sync adds a LOT to the display cost, so you can typically afford the price bump in graphics, and if you actually want the games in the game bundle you can still find cards in stock (although you do basically pay a typically sort of price for those games, so outside of keeping cards in stock instead of mining ts not a crazy good deal). If you where not considering g-sync or freesync, then disregard this and get the Nvidia card.

Also don’t fear overclocking, 80% of the gains come from 20% of the effort, so picking a conservative voltage setup (read online), and nudging clock-speeds till it crashes in a benchmark (or doesn’t make it to the OS to load one), then jumping back 100mhz and testing again… on your final test I’d run overnight, that way you can be pretty sure its not the cause of any issues you have further down the line. You can do better than this, but its diminishing returns, so its only really for the fun of it.

3

This is one idea and is on budget. You get a really nice PSU, an M.2 for the OS and a 4TB for storage. You should get some really decent render times out of it and no doubt the 1080P 144hz monitor should be pretty smooth with a 1070.
Where I cut corners was the EVO 212 cooler which is a really decent air cooler. Though, If you get into Overclocking, you are going to want to eventually go with water. You CAN do a bit with the EVO, but I doubt you will reach the chips best. You may also need a separately available adapter. The case is not bottom end and is just “In budget” You can look at some that may suit you better.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/DkWNM8

1 Like
4

Good build,

The nitpicks being, the cost will go up a little when you try get it all from one merchant, but you could always drop down to like a 4tb HDD to make it work. Also the panel is only 60hz, not 144hz in the link.

But I certainly put my +1 behind this as something OP can guide there build off.

5

crap, I meant o link this one, which may not be available outside the US.

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6

GTX 1070 with a 25" 2560x1440 display hits 1500 Euro.

1080p:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (€199.90 @ Caseking)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (€30.79 @ Aquatuning)
Motherboard: ASRock - X370 Killer SLI ATX AM4 Motherboard (€138.36 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€139.89 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Hitachi - Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€57.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: XFX - Radeon RX 480 8GB GTR Video Card (€327.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro M ATX Mid Tower Case (€79.90 @ Caseking)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - EVO Edition 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€72.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case Fan: be quiet! - Pure Wings 2 61.2 CFM 140mm Fan (€9.79 @ Aquatuning)
Case Fan: be quiet! - Pure Wings 2 61.2 CFM 140mm Fan (€9.79 @ Aquatuning)
Monitor: Asus - VC239H 23.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor (€149.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1311.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-09-04 18:02 CEST+0200

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7

The 480 isn’t really good for gamers, the 1060 does better in most games for less money. Otherwis neat though… I especally like the quiet case fans ect withing the price… didn’t think about that as I was doing my own version now, so will revise. 1600 vs 1700 is a step down for blender though… 8 cores to 6.

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8

I would look at the non-k cpu’s. Some retailers in the states have been slashing prices on intel cpu’s to compete with Ryzen which actually narrows the price difference but it may be different where you are shopping.
Generally people keep monitors longer and it’s importance is under appreciated. Go big!

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9

So i have done some thinking… to get in 1500 EUR range, i put this pc up.

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/v4FFVY

I should be able to get my gaming performance with 1080p and 60 fps. No idea how many new titles I will be able to play but, what can you do. As for rendering i5 will have to do. What do you guys think ? And i have to questions.

  1. Is this build good if im not rendering ?
  2. Is this build good if im doing some rendering ?

P.S Building this pc i put gaming my first priority and rendering second.

EDIT: Or should i keep the set and switch cpu to ryzen 1700 with Asus - PRIME X370

10

You don’t need a GTX 1070 for 1080p gaming. An RX 480/580 or a GTX 1060 will be more than enough for a few years at least. Heck, even an RX 470/570 will result in an enjoyable experience at 1080p.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_rx480_gtr/4.htm

That case only comes with one 140mm fan. Two more in the front as intakes is a good idea.

A Ryzen 5 1600 (200 Euro) has 6C/12T. It will obliterate the i5 at rendering and it can keep up with the i5 when gaming (sometimes beating it).

2 Likes
11

Regarding the gtx1060, pretty much true of current popular titles, judging off twtich homepage right now, PUBG is the most popular now and you’ll get averages ~70fps high settings at 1080p with the 1060 , followed by destiny2 (70-90 depending on area), the a bunch of easy to run Esports optimized titles you’ll have plenty of FPS (LOL, Hearthstone, Dota2, CS:GO, Overwatch). Next up is Tome Clancy’s rainbow 6 (86fps), GTAV (~90fps), WOW (~145fps), and so on for all the first 29 games by current veiwers.

However in the next 10 you then you get to Dead by Daylight, and your talking 40fps, dark souls (59fps), black desert online (48fps). In the 30 after FFXIV (50fps) and in the final 31 of the top 100 Witcher3 (56fps). So a few drop below 60, but you can drop settings to get back without too much resulting loss of quality.

However a LOT of the other games are only in the high 60’s to high 80’s FPS, so if your rocking a high refresh rate monitor I’d consider starting with more than the gtx1060, and because 1440p isn’t really playable in demanding titles, I’d save the money and get the 3gb version unless the two are very similar in your region. Also the 580 and especially 480 do worse in many titles at 1080p (they do better at 1440p, but still not enough to be close to 60fps in demanding games) I’d personally leave them to miners right now unless you get a really good deal.

As for upcoming games, its anyone’s guess how hard they will be to run. Its always a contest between using the higher average PC performance to give better looks and modern optimizations allowing you to do more with less. For example Vram, there was a huge trend to big card amounts (the 1060 3g launched later, so the current NVIDIA lineup originally had 6gb 1060, 8gb 1070, 8gb 1080, 12gb 1080ti) yet while most games will use lots of Vram if you have it, FPS doesn’t seem to fall massively when running on much less (and even the 900 series had MUCH less, with the 980 only having 4gb, so half the closest to similar performance 1070, and memory compression has gotten better since then too, you get similar amounts into the 3gb version of the 1060 as the old 980 did). Will this become a binding requirement now that higher card amounts are common? Maybe, or maybe other factors like shader core counts remain more of a limit of current gen cards performance. Regardless the most played games aren’t even the newest anyway, so if you have to drop settings if something new and demanding comes out its unlikely the end of the world.

12

If gaming on a PC with the absolute maximum level of visual quality is the only thing you know:

  1. You are doing it wrong.

  2. You have money to waste.

Any game that truly benefits from a high refresh monitor is going to run fine on RX 480/580, or GTX 1060 (6GB). I would personally do the RX 480/580 over a GTX 1060 (6GB), if the price is the same. The 480s/580s are more capable cards and will likely do what any GCN card has done in the recent past: outlast Nvidia’s older gen cards.

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13

More capible how exactly? They have lower game FPS on average, and are the more mature drivers so its not likely they will get more improvement in future than the 1060. Also unlike the 1060 the 580 is being replaced with a totally different architecture thats already on the market, so your making some huge assumptions to think it’ll outlast the 1060 when things like my gtx750ti are still getting perfectly good support and new game optimizations (despite having 2 replacements out already).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no NVIDIA fanboy, I’d go vega if it had a dog in the fight, but at current pricing and performance even the Vega56 is above the 1070, so unless you need a frame sync tech (thus can justify not paying the premium for G-sync) its not really an option here.

14

Personally I like Radeon software much better, just moved to a Vega 56 from a 1070 (a sidestep really), but a 1070 is way overkill for 1080p60 unless you want to brag that you’re running Ultra settings. Knocking it down a notch gains a ton of frames with almost zero noticeable graphical fidelity, especially if it’s a 27" or below screen. I max out everything on a 1080p ultrawide and neither the 1070 nor the Vega get very warm (but that’s what I like).

Joker did a good comparison on High vs Ultra (pay attention to framerates at his test resolutions and the GPU’s used):

Edit: an 8GB Powercolor RX580 is 100 euro less than the selection of 1070, and a 6GB 1060 can be got for as low as 289. Either would do a great job.

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15

You are right. The GTX 1060 does outperform the RX 480/580 when you average out all the FPS from all the games.

My argument for the OP is not to buy a RX 580 over a GTX 1060, or vice-versa. My argument is don’t buy a GTX 1070 to run a 1920x1080 display at 60Hz.

For this price range, either a GTX 1060 or a RX 480/580 will do fine. I had a 1500 euro build with a GTX 1070 and a 25" 2560x1440/60Hz display. When I see his build at that price (1500) with a i5/GTX1070/and a 1920x1080 display (60Hz), it bothers me a little. It is his money in the end, so he will do as he wants.

I drop mass storage to keep it near 1500 Euro. That can be added in later:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (€199.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (€30.79 @ Aquatuning)
Motherboard: ASRock - X370 Killer SLI ATX AM4 Motherboard (€138.36 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€146.99 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card (€475.24 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro M ATX Mid Tower Case (€79.90 @ Caseking)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - EVO Edition 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€72.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case Fan: be quiet! - Pure Wings 2 61.2 CFM 140mm Fan (€9.79 @ Aquatuning)
Case Fan: be quiet! - Pure Wings 2 61.2 CFM 140mm Fan (€9.79 @ Aquatuning)
Monitor: AOC - Q2577PWQ 25.0" 2560x1440 60Hz Monitor (€269.62 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1528.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-09-06 06:35 CEST+0200

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16

Whoa there!

Do not go with the i5. You either want a processor with a lot of cores to speed up physics simulations and CPU rendering or a high IPC CPU to speed up blender’s single threaded workloads. Yes those exist. Blender is written in part in python and thus contains quite a few single threaded operations. So you’ll want either the R7 1700 or the 7700K - I’d recommend the former.

You do need a 1070 for rendering. Not sure why everyone here is trying to push for faster CPUs instead of GPUs but you’re doing it wrong. Most rendering happens on the graphics card so you’ll want to invest a lot of money into it. The 8GB of memory can also come in handy when dealing with large scenes.

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I understand that some of you think that GTX 1070 is overkill. When i was selecting parts I wanted to get 1440p and 144hz monitor. And then play video games at 1440p with high frame rate. But then it went out of price range. So i thought I will get 60hz monitor now with idea to use it as secondary monitor later when i get 1440p one. Does the build make sense now or should i cut corners some where and get 144hz monitor ?

Ohh and i think i will switch for the ryzen 1700 as drop in frame rates are small and as a workstation it’s much better. But now a question rises. Are the system stable now ? Because i read that there were problems with motherboard. Are they fixed now ? I didn’t see any recent problems with Ryzen systems.

18

Depends on what you are rendering. I don’t have experience with video editing, or rendering images… but the CPU will sometimes be faster, sometimes the GPU will be faster… and sometimes a combination of the two will yield the best results.

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As I have been saying, my 1500 euro build has a GTX 1070 and a 2560x1440/60Hz monitor in it… along with a 6 core/12 thread CPU. Mass storage can be added later as needed, and a second 2560x1440/100Hz+ can also be added later.

Yes, Ryzen is stable.

I am not saying: Go with my build. Just using it as an example.

These are not cheap: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=256001440&sort=price&H=85,240

20

There are a few reasons for using the CPU to render: For one not everything is supported on GPUs yet. For example volume rendering and subsurface scattering was only supported on the CPU initially in cycles. Another reason is that very large scenes may not fit into GPU memory. The GPU will always beat the CPU in the performance department though.

Originally people was ecstatic about possible performance improvements and would tell you that GPUs were 100x faster than CPUs. That proved wrong of course and now people are saying that GPUs are not faster at all.
GPUs are faster than CPUs. A lot. Just not 100x.

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