Author
|
Topic: The 'Build Me A PC' Thread (Read 860952 times)
|
Pennilenko
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3472
|
His new PC is going to be so snappy with what he ordered that it will blow his mind, even if he skips the M.2 drive.
|
"See? All of you are unique. And special. Like fucking snowflakes." -- Signe
|
|
|
schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
|
Oh man. The 960 is out? Huehuehuehue.
|
|
|
|
MisterNoisy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1892
|
|
XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
|
|
|
Hoax
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8110
l33t kiddie
|
|
|
« Last Edit: November 20, 2016, 05:29:22 AM by Hoax »
|
|
A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation. -William Gibson
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
A few things about your proposed build: * You really should get a new/better GPU. This build is likely to feel more like a side-grade rather than an upgrade without a better GPU. * Your Sandisk X400 uses a SATA interface, not PCI-e, even though it's in the M.2 form factor so you aren't getting a performance boost compared to a comparable 2.5" SSD SATA drive plugged into a conventional SATA port. You have to get an M.2 SSD that uses the PCI-e interface like an NVMe one to get that boost in speed compared to a SATA SSD. * If you plan on keeping this build for a while you might want to get Windows 8.1 instead. Windows 7 security fixes for regular people will end January 14, 2020. * As an FYI thing (doesn't really affect your current proposed build): the H170 supports 16 PCI-e 3.0 lanes which has to be used for multiple things including your GPU and it's likely that your GPU will actually be running on x8 instead of x16 because of that. However with your current graphics card it's highly unlikely you would notice a difference thanks to the boost in bandwidth between PCI-e 2.0 and 3.0 as you can only barely see a difference between x16 and x8 on a 1080.
|
|
|
|
Hoax
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8110
l33t kiddie
|
Thanks Trippy, re: GPU. I kinda knew that though the term side grade sure feels discouraging, luckily the old machine is just so long in the tooth that everything running clean and well will feel very upgrade. I just don't quite see say the GTX 950 as that tempting a buy unless there's a big price drop this weekend. I'm not going to go above 1080p gaming atm so I think sitting pat is an ok choice? If there's a particular card family I should be looking for I'd like to hear it. I know the 10XX's came out recently but I've almost never paid over $250 for a GPU and that's served me decently. re: SSD. Yeah oops. I'm still out of my depth on SSD's badly. I did spend some time looking around and come across people who say that game loading times just aren't taking advantage of the bleeding edge NVMe stuff. So maybe I consider a SATA 1TB SSD to be my eventual dumb storage but for now good enough? PCIe options seemed quite a price leap and fairly limited at this time. Does that mean I might as well save $40 and get an 960GB Ultra II? http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/SanDisk-X400-256GB-vs-SanDisk-Ultra-II-240GB/m81834vs2548If that's to be trusted it appears so? re: Windows. I will keep the build probably into 2020 but I can always buy a diff OS along the way. The only computer parts I consider too annoying to swap is the mobo+cpu and the case. I've never heard anyone say that 8 > 7, I thought the choice was between 7 and 10 for DX12? Should I just suck it up and deal with 10 then? I haven't paid attention to 10 since back when they tried to force upgrade a lot of people and that caused me some serious headache fixing other people's machines. re: PCIe lanes. I'm not a big fan of the sound of that if I'm sort of imagining I might use some of the lanes potentially to boost an SSD at some point though maybe I'm just inventing reasons to spend more money. Which takes me back to too annoying to swap parts. Should I just eat the $200 or so and get the K version unlocked CPU and find a better Z170 board with a stronger feature-set?
|
|
« Last Edit: November 23, 2016, 04:43:56 PM by Hoax »
|
|
A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation. -William Gibson
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
re: SSD. Yeah oops. I'm still out of my depth on SSD's badly. I did spend some time looking around and come across people who say that game loading times just aren't taking advantage of the bleeding edge NVMe stuff. So maybe I consider a SATA 1TB SSD to be my eventual dumb storage but for now good enough? PCIe options seemed quite a price leap and fairly limited at this time. Does that mean I might as well save $40 and get an 960GB Ultra II? http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/SanDisk-X400-256GB-vs-SanDisk-Ultra-II-240GB/m81834vs2548If that's to be trusted it appears so? The X400 1 TB is spec'd to be slightly faster at writes but otherwise they look comparable. re: Windows. I will keep the build probably into 2020 but I can always buy a diff OS along the way. The only computer parts I consider too annoying to swap is the mobo+cpu and the case. I've never heard anyone say that 8 > 7, I thought the choice was between 7 and 10 for DX12? Should I just suck it up and deal with 10 then? I haven't paid attention to 10 since back when they tried to force upgrade a lot of people and that caused me some serious headache fixing other people's machines.
Windows 10 is fine if you don't mind Microsoft doing everything they can to force you give up as much information about your usage as possible. 8.1 with the Start Menu fix (or a 3rd party add-on) would be better if Microsoft spying on you bothers you. re: PCIe lanes. I'm not a big fan of the sound of that if I'm sort of imagining I might use some of the lanes potentially to boost an SSD at some point though maybe I'm just inventing reasons to spend more money.
Which takes me back to too annoying to swap parts. Should I just eat the $200 or so and get the K version unlocked CPU and find a better Z170 board with a stronger feature-set?
If switching to a Z170 setup would significantly delay you getting a new GPU my advice would be to stick with your planned H170 setup. Edit: wording
|
|
|
|
Hoax
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8110
l33t kiddie
|
|
A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation. -William Gibson
|
|
|
MisterNoisy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1892
|
Trippy covered all of the big stuff, but I just wanted to say that I hope you're buying that extra 200mm fan for the top - it won't fit in the side/door mount of the Phantom with a big air cooler.
|
XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
|
|
|
Abagadro
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12227
Possibly the only user with more posts in the Den than PC/Console Gaming.
|
So decided to upgrade piecemeal and went with new keyboard and headphones first because I could use them on my current system. Got a mechanical keyboard and am liking it but it is fucking LOUD. Good thing my headphones are noise canceling.
I keep wanting to pull the trigger on a new system build but I'm caught up with a combination of analysis paralysis looking at the newest shiny component and insecurity that I will fuck up the build.
|
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
-H.L. Mencken
|
|
|
Torinak
Terracotta Army
Posts: 847
|
Post the specs and I'm sure people will chime in if there's anything majorly borked. Things like "that cooler can't fit into that case". I'm still chugging along with a 5-yr old system because CPUs just haven't gotten faster (and may be about as fast as they can get, which is depressing). Best I could hope for is a ~35% theoretical boost, and that's just not worth an upgrade.
|
|
|
|
Cyrrex
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10603
|
Yeah, I find that my "old" i7 4770k is up to pretty much whatever I throw at it. Hell, I even have a mobile i7 (950 maybe?) from the very first generation in my crusty old laptop, and it also still tears shit up. I am, however, getting a new 1080 card for Christmas. The 970 I am replacing is still a great card, but I am going all-in on VR and that should give me a huge boost.
|
"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
|
|
|
Abagadro
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12227
Possibly the only user with more posts in the Den than PC/Console Gaming.
|
Oh I've had some good feedback from folks here so I'm not worried about technical compatibility. More just my ability to bend things and generally fuck up while devolving into being Rage Dad.
|
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
-H.L. Mencken
|
|
|
Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
|
Oh I've had some good feedback from folks here so I'm not worried about technical compatibility. More just my ability to bend things and generally fuck up while devolving into being Rage Dad.
It's really all in the switch type with mechanical keyboards. I have cherry blue keys, which give me a very retro feel but are VERY loud. Brown or red keys are both more sensitive (require less depression distance) and are a little quieter. I've adjusted to the loudness of the keyboard, but have to use push-to-talk on all of my voice coms.
|
"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
|
|
|
MisterNoisy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1892
|
Depending on the mechanical switch type, there may be some noise you can't get rid of (blue switches will always click), but you can install o-ring dampers to knock the edge off, particularly the 'clack' from bottoming out the keys. It's a bit fiddly, since you have to pop each keycap off and put a ring on the stems.
|
XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
|
|
|
Bungee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 897
|
Basically what Dave said. I am however aware that long term it might be better to just get back to a desktop for gaming purposes, too. We'll see, got 4 months to figure it out (I'd buy the laptop + external gpu in Canada while I'm there).
So, arrived in the True North and I kinda dropped the external GPU idea for now but want to keep the option open by getting a laptop with the necessary ports for future investments (VR). I only play World of Warships, DotA2 and some strategy stuff anyway and none of that needs high end graphics. Kinda eyeing Asus' Zenbooks now but honestly didn't have a clue how overrun the "kind of gamer" laptop segment is, so am very open to suggestions (max 1300 USD). Also, is there any decent price comparison site for Canada? Would I be better off buying in the US and picking it up on a planned trip anyway?
|
Freedom is the raid target. -tazelbain
|
|
|
Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
|
I don't know that 'VR experience' and '1300 USD for a complete system' are compatible.
|
|
|
|
Bungee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 897
|
I don't know that 'VR experience' and '1300 USD for a complete system' are compatible.
With 'necessary ports' I meant USB 3.1 for future external GPU investments to be able to use VR.
|
Freedom is the raid target. -tazelbain
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
Basically what Dave said. I am however aware that long term it might be better to just get back to a desktop for gaming purposes, too. We'll see, got 4 months to figure it out (I'd buy the laptop + external gpu in Canada while I'm there).
So, arrived in the True North and I kinda dropped the external GPU idea for now but want to keep the option open by getting a laptop with the necessary ports for future investments (VR). I only play World of Warships, DotA2 and some strategy stuff anyway and none of that needs high end graphics. Kinda eyeing Asus' Zenbooks now but honestly didn't have a clue how overrun the "kind of gamer" laptop segment is, so am very open to suggestions (max 1300 USD). Also, is there any decent price comparison site for Canada? Would I be better off buying in the US and picking it up on a planned trip anyway? NVIDIA has their recommended "VR Ready" specs here: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/vr/system-requirementsWhile a mobile GTX 1060 GPU qualifies as VR Ready (assuming the rest of the laptop specs are okay) and would fall into your price range I personally would get a laptop with a GTX 1070 if I was to get another gaming laptop. The performance difference is significant.
|
|
|
|
Bungee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 897
|
Thanks for the input but maybe to clarify again:
The laptop shouldn't be VR ready itself. All I want is a solid laptop for mostly playing non-high end stuff (so really needn't be more than a 960M I guess) but with at least 1 USB-C port for future upgrades to an external GPU which would then make it VR ready.
|
Freedom is the raid target. -tazelbain
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
Okay it feels to me like you are trying to "future proof" your laptop purchase for a technology (eGPU) that you don't fully understand and is also a moving target[1]. Given your large budget you may be better off just getting something now that can run VR stuff rather than paying extra later for an enclosure. If you still want to go the eGPU route what you want is either a laptop that has a Thunderbolt 3 port (not a USB 3.1 port[2]) or an Alienware laptop with its proprietary Alienware Graphics Amplifier port, or both if you get an Alienware laptop with both a TB3 port and the proprietary amplifier port. Both TB 3 and the Alienware port provide direct access to 4 lanes of PCI-e 3.0 which is what is used to communicate with the GPU in the external enclosure. Alienware's solution has the advantage in the port is dedicated for the GPU rather than being shared with whatever else may be connected through the TB 3 port but of cousre you are tied to Alienware laptops and their enclosure. The latest (R3) base model Alienware 13 with GTX 1050 is $999 and has both TB 3 and the Amplifier port. Otherwise here's a spreadsheet with other laptops with TB 3 or GA ports. [1] Some older enclosures use Thunderbolt 2 but Thunderbolt 3 is the interface officially supported by Intel for eGPUs. [2] And a Type-C port doesn't tell you if it's a Thunderbolt 3 port -- it may just be a regular USB port. I.e. Thunderbolt 3 always uses a Type-C connector (currently) but a Type-C port on the laptop may or may not support Thunderbolt 3.
|
|
|
|
Bungee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 897
|
You're dead on in that I didn't understand the reliance on Thunderbolt and especially the USB 'behind-the-scenes' involved there... Big and thanks though, that list is gold. Now all I need is a half decent price comparison site for US and/or Canada (I am a bit spoiled by skinflint for the European market).
|
Freedom is the raid target. -tazelbain
|
|
|
Reg
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5271
|
You're probably better off buying it in the US if you can sneak it back across the border without paying duty. (Should be easy to do with something like a laptop as long as it's not in its original box.) Generally, Canadian prices for literally everything are higher than in the States even after the exchange rate is taken into account.
|
|
|
|
Abagadro
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12227
Possibly the only user with more posts in the Den than PC/Console Gaming.
|
So I finally, after dicking around about it for a solid 3 years, pulled the trigger and bought the components. Ended up going with this:
Corsair Carbide Clear 400C Compact Mid-Tower Case Intel Core i5 6600K 3.50 GHz Quad Core Skylake Gigabyte LGA 1151 Z170 2-Way SLI UEFI DualBIOS ATX DDR4 ATX DDR4 Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming Video/Graphics Card Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz Samsung 960 EVO Series - 500GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD Cryorig H5 Universal CR-H5A Mid Tower CPU Heatsink EVGA SuperNOVA 550 G2, 80+ GOLD 550W,
I'll let you know how I manage to fuck up the build after giving it a go this weekend.
|
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
-H.L. Mencken
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
gl hf did
|
|
|
|
Abagadro
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12227
Possibly the only user with more posts in the Den than PC/Console Gaming.
|
The geniuses at Corsair didn't include the accessory kit with the case so I don't have any screws to mount anything. EDIT: Found em, sneaky bastages.
|
|
« Last Edit: January 13, 2017, 02:47:19 PM by Abagadro »
|
|
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
-H.L. Mencken
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
Check everything inside the case itself to see if there's something taped inside like to a part of a drive cage.
Edit: LOL
|
|
|
|
Abagadro
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12227
Possibly the only user with more posts in the Den than PC/Console Gaming.
|
SUCCESS! Couple of hiccups notwithstanding that were pretty easy to fix, went pretty good. Had my boy help me so he could see the process and he is charged up for us to build his next desktop. Worst thing was my back getting sore working over the thing. Didn't do much in the way of cable management other than kind of routing them around stuff and making sure they aren't hitting any fans. Should I take the time to try to get them all fancy?
|
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
-H.L. Mencken
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
Edit: Grats!
I try to tidy up any cables that look like they may be blocking / impeding the flow of air through the case in my computers but otherwise I don't bother to make them all nice and neat looking.
|
|
|
|
Torinak
Terracotta Army
Posts: 847
|
Might want to make sure none of the cables will block fans if they flex in the future. That's bit me before; over time, a set of cables sagged just enough (or moved when the tower was bumped or relocated) to start clipping a fan.
Good cable routing can make future upgrades or repairs much less stressful, too. It's annoying if you have to unplug pretty much everything in order to replace the video card or add another hard drive/SSD.
|
|
|
|
MisterNoisy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1892
|
SUCCESS! Couple of hiccups notwithstanding that were pretty easy to fix, went pretty good. Had my boy help me so he could see the process and he is charged up for us to build his next desktop. Worst thing was my back getting sore working over the thing. Didn't do much in the way of cable management other than kind of routing them around stuff and making sure they aren't hitting any fans. Should I take the time to try to get them all fancy? Woo! I love finishing a new build. :) Torinak and Trippy covered the practical reasons for cable management, but I just kinda like making things look neat and clean. Modern cases make it pretty easy to do as well.
|
XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
|
|
|
Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
|
I've been Frankensteining my case for 9 years now....it's kinda bad at this point because I've never taken the time to fix anything. I just hang parts off the side, in some cases literally. I can't put the side on it right now because my SSD drive is just hanging off because I had to use a cable from a bay that would require way too much disassembly to reroute...
It's a decent pc but laughably terrible looking.
|
|
|
|
Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
|
GPU question: Is the 1070 really worth $150 more than the 1060? The 1060 seems to be in the financial sweet spot right now.
|
"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
|
|
|
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23620
|
Depends on the resolution you play at and whether or not you care about your frame rate never dropping below 60 fps. The 1060, as has been the case for their x60 cards, is at the sweet spot but the 1070 is significantly more powerful with 50% more processor cores and ~75% more computing throughput because of the additional cores and wider memory bus. Edit: typos Edit 2: here's a review that compares the 1060 and the 1070: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-pascal,4679.html
|
|
« Last Edit: January 20, 2017, 12:57:23 PM by Trippy »
|
|
|
|
|
Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
|
Thanks a lot!
|
"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
|
|
|
|
|