My first expensive PC

Hi all!

I have build quite a couple of PCs before, for both me and my family, but for those I always looked for reduced prices and deals etc. to keep it at around 500-700 bucks. Now this time I want to go all out and looking at how the graphics card prices are slowly dropping, this appears to be right time.

Budget. How much are you willing to spend?
5000€ for everything, this means budget should include computer, 2 Monitors, VR-Headset (I have mouse and keyboard already), Operating System. While I do have Mouse and Keyboard, if there is money left, I would consider upgrading to a mechanical keyboard.

Where do you live?
Germany

What will you be using your Glorious computer for?
Mostly Gaming, some basic image editing using photoshop (drawing maps, usually size of pics will not exceed 5k x 5k)
My dream would be to make this PC powerful enough to run Star Citizen 60FPS in VR (even at reduced graphics/resolution settings).

Do you plan on going for custom water-cooling now, or in the future?
I would at consider watercooling, if it is the right solution for me.

What size monitor are you looking for, and what resolution? Screen type (IPS, S-IPS, TN, etc.) ,hertz (60, 120, etc.)
No particular preference for Screentype hertz, however I don´t like my Monitors TOO large. I would be rather happy with either a 22’ widescreen or 24’ widescreen.

Current build, lifted from logical increments: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/YzHNcY

I was confused about all the different models of 8GB 1080, so any assistance on which one is the right one for me, would be very helpful! Also, I am considering upgrading to 2x1080ti if budget permits.
Same goes for Case. I got the same case I selected in above build from a friend, and was super happy with it, as there was space for everything. Logical Increments recommends the X version, but I don´t really see the difference.

I have no idea when it comes to monitors, as I usually simply used whatever I had at hand…

At the point of writing this, I have not looked at your parts list. So my proposal may be very out there (or not, who knows?).

As PCPartpicker: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/P4m8r6

  • Ryzen7 2700X
  • Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4 (to save you the mounting kit hunt)
  • ASRock X470 Taichi
  • GSkill FlareX 4x 8GB (May want to obt for something confirmed working on AM4 at rated speed)
  • Samsung 960Evo 500GB M.2
  • Samsung 860Evo 500GB 2.5" SSD
  • 2x WD Gold 4TB (Aren´t we all data hoarders?)
  • EVGA GTC 1080ti (Save yourself the CF/SLI hassle, it is amazing from the tech enthusiast point of view but that is about it)
  • Phanteks Enthoo Pro
  • SeaSonic Prime Gold 1000W (PSU calc said 860W, so I went full 1k)
  • LG DVD/CD writer (might want to ditch this?)
  • 2x LG 27UD68-W (4k 60Hz monitors, seen them in person, look great)
  • HTC Vive

Total: 4290,56€
Could get a nice keyboard and mouse, headphones and DAC with that…


Your parts list is interesting. I would not take Ryzen 1000 series or SLI. And the case is not my cup of tea.

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Find some used apple cinema displays. Totes worth it.

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Yup. Go for the 1080Ti. Since 560Ti SLI hasn’t been worth it imo (octothorpe goodtimes).

Only thing I’d suggest against is the Ryzen. I had terrible experiences with Ryzen both on Mobo and processor side. Most of my issues occurred on Linux which was attributed to wrong distro/wrong kernel/wrong DE pissing match. Windows I would get weird lag in some games but that stopped after a while. I later read others saying the same thing so I don’t know, but have been a kink that got worked out.

Thank you very much! Yes my parts list is pretty much copied from Logical Increments, the 3rd highest tier to leave some money for mostly the monitors.

I will be fine with one SSD and one data grave, I´m one of those people who will then instead go for an external harddrive, if I need addtional space (I´m currently on a 2TB harddrive, and I manage to keep 900gigs free consistently).

The main reason I was thinking to go for SLI was for VR, but if it doesn´t help with that I will gladly go for one more powerful card, as I will get more milage out of it while not playing in VR (I mostly played borderless windowed and use the second screen to watch videos, so I would not be able to take advantage of SLI outside of VR anyway).

Is the Phanteks case nice and large?

Yep, I will ditch the DvD writer, no point in having one.

Any recommendations for slightly smaller monitors? I lose the mouse pointer on those ginormous screens :slight_smile:

Now keyboard I will have to test in a store anyway to see what type I like, so I´m not going to ask for recommendations here.

There is no need to spend 5K my friend, the following build will set you back 3450€ and it includes a mechanical keyboard. Have a look.

CPU - Core i7 8700k: This is a no brainer, you said mostly gaming, this is the best CPU known to mankind for that purpose.

CPU cooler - Corsair H115i: High preforming AIO, comes with okay fans, you can run 5GHz 24/7 on this.

Motherboard - MSI Z370M Gaming PRO AC: mATX cause it has everything you need and enough PCIe slots. Mid to high end board, will offer decent overclocking support.

RAM - G.skill Ripjaws V 16GB 3200MHz: For your use case i don’t think you will max out 16GB, I suggest start with that and if it’s not enough add another kit.

System drive - Samsung 960 EVO 500GB: One of the best out right now, 970 around the corner but doesn’t offer big upgrades.

Storage - Western Digital - Caviar Black 4TB: Reliable high performance HDD.

GPU - EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2: Go with a 1080Ti and do not bother with SLI, it is not worth it.

Case - Fractal Meshify C Mini: A compact but roomy case, good airflow and fairly neutral looks.

PSU - SeaSonic PRIME Ultra Gold 850W: It’s good.

Gaming monitor - Asus - PG279Q ROG Swift 27.0" 2560x1440 165Hz: This has G-sync and high refresh rate and it’s one of the best gaming monitors on the market, you need this in your life, trust me. I definitely recommend going with 27" over 24", it’s a better fit for the resolution IMO.

4K monitor - LG - 27UD58-B 27.0" 3840x2160 60Hz: Don’t have experience with this one, but seems to offer good price/performance according to reviews and ratings.

Keyboard - Rosewill - RK-9000V2 BR: Cherry MX Browns, pick your flavour.

I think this build is gonna be excellent for your needs and it leaves you with 1550€ to spend on Reeperbahn.

3 Likes

The other guys nailed it pretty much… from a certain point of view (high fps gaming on todays existing titles).

I’d personally go for Ryzen over the 8700k as i believe that 8 cores will be more future proof than 6 slightly higher clocked cores in the future.

However, both are under budget… and i think you can do better… if you take the future into account.

With the remaining money i’d consider the step to a Threadripper 1900x.

Why?

More options for RAM expansion (8 slots - RAM is super expensive right now, so more options for future are better imho). More lanes for high speed PCIe SSD or M.2 storage expansion as SSD prices continue to fall. More options for CPU upgrades if you feel 8 cores aren’t enough in 12-18 months time. StoreMI support.

The 1900x gets a bit of an undeserved bad rap in my opinion. No, it’s not much faster than an 1800x, but that’s not the point. The point is that it gets you onto the X399 platform.

It gets you far more options for expanding memory down the line (instead of having to buy 2x highly expensive modules today to leave yourself growth room) - and the platform additions in terms of extra m.2 slots, extra pcie, future CPU upgrades, etc. are in my opinion worth it.

Especially considering your budget.

No, a 1900x is not the fastest gaming CPU money can buy on today’s titles. But right now we are at the turning point. Throwing better IPC and higher clocks at the problem is no longer working.

With meltdown and spectre, future CPUs are going to be even harder pressed to improve IPC (due to requirements for additional security checks on speculative execution, etc.), and clocks have basically hit a wall. We’ve gone from 4.5 to 5 ghz overclocks on air in the past 7-8 years. There’s not much left in the tank for silicon clocks.

Thus - the future is increased core count. This is why DX12 and Vulkan are a thing (multi-threaded rendering pipeline). Future software will need to be more multi-core aware in order to make meaningful progress. This is also why even intel have shifted to 6 cores for the high end mainstream CPU (after sitting on 4 cores for the past decade) and why they’re shipping up to 18 cores for HEDT.

A 1900x will run any game out there today “well enough” (unless you’re an incredibly niche twitch 1080p gamer or like running contrived benchmarks that don’t represent reality), and you’re on a far more capable platform for the future.

2c.

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Yep that would be a pretty neat trip, and I always wanted to visit Hamburg :wink:

That’s actually something I completely didn’t think about. Since my previous PCs were always low budget ones, I’d just keep my Hard Drives and gift away my old PC and simply buy a new one. But since I’m dropping a serious amount of cash into this one, it would be a good idea to future proof it.

I like the idea of more cores in general, but it still looks to me that games have been terrible when it comes to make use of multiple cores up to now. Let’s hope that the “multi-threaded rendering pipeline” will help with that. So yes let’s go for one with more cores.

Agree with you on the RAM prices, I was already wondering why the RAM I got for my last PC was basically half of what it costs now.

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games have been pretty bad at multi core thus far because they can get away with it - multiple threads in code is “hard”. “hard” code is expensive code to write and maintain, so if you can avoid it and get the performance required without it then that’s what you do.

but … all the “easy” steps for performance improvement have been taken at this point. ipc and clock improvements aren’t coming like they used to. hell, even mobile phones are multi core now.

i didn’t just mention threadripper as being more relevant for the future - compared to the 8700 i’d say ryzen 2700 is also a better choice. because those extra threads will be more useful on future software.

but yes, definitely the x399 platform gives you more options. if the 1900x is too slow, threadripper 2 should drop soon. which will have ryzen 2000 series enhancements. and even within a generation you have between 8 and 16 cores available so far to step up to as software catches up.