DaveNinja

send me your old one if you're going to throw it away, lol.

fumanstan

Haha, I actually need to figure out what to do with the old one. It's an HP ZR2740W, I still really like it but don't really have room on my desk for dual 27's.

Dan

Is there any reason to go with an i7-6700 for a gaming PC, or is the i5-6600 more than sufficient, assuming I'm also getting a Nvidia 980 Ti card and 32gb of DDR4 RAM? Plan is to play on a 1080p monitor, but may try to hook it up to my 4k TV to see how that works out...

flashburn

I'd make sure to buy the K version of any CPU you buy. Some people don't like "dealing" with overclocking, but if you buy a motherboard that is overclocking friendly, then they often have software to make it very easy to deal with. I recommend the Asus Republic of Gamers series of motherboards, they are great for overclocking.

If you can budget it, getting the i7 *should* be more beneficial in the future as more and more games are multi-threaded (especially with all of the new api's basically demanding applications to be written for many-core systems).

Ghym

An i5 would probably be fine, but like flashburn said, more games should be going multi-threaded, so it could give you a little bit better performance in the long run.

I'm also probably going with an i7-6700k. I'll probably go with 16GB of RAM and one of the Asus ROG boards. I've used Asus for years, and have had good luck with them.

I've been running an i5-2500k for 5 years now. Upgraded the video card to a GTX970 last year, and I've been able to run most things well at 1920x1200, but feel like it's getting time to upgrade. I'd like to upgrade the monitor also, but I'll do that later.

fumanstan

I'm still on a 2500K and pretty happy with it. Maybe next round of CPU's i'll finally upgrade

Also, plugging this

Dan

Thanks guys. I think I'll spring for the i7-6700k. I'll hold off until after the weekend, but I'm hoping to get everything purchased by next Monday so I can start building. Haven't done it in years, so this should be fun. I'm adding some liquid cooling to the mix because why not do something I'm completely unfamiliar with, right?

I'm still kind of confused about what I really need in a motherboard. You both recommend the ASUS RoG boards, but they seem... expensive? As long as it can enable some overclocking, has lots of USB ports, and allows me to add a second 980 down the road, I think that's all I need. On-board audio, too, I guess, but I'll be using headphones 99% of the time, not speakers.

Here's what I've got in my list so far. Feel free to give me tips on how to tweak it in one direction or another.

From my previous PC:
- Windows 10 Pro - I have a pre-existing license I can use for this
- cheap 1080p monitor. May replace with 1440/120Hz in a few months.
- 128GB Intel SSD. Small, but no need to replace right now...
- 1TB HDD
- Keyboard & Mouse

New components:
- Intel Core i7-6700K
- Corsair H100i v2 Liquid CPU Cooler
- Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI ATX LGA1151 (or an ASUS equivalent? I always bought ASUS in the past)
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3200 RAM
- EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Hybrid Video Card (liquid cooler pre-installed)
- EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Power Supply

All inside of:
- Fractal Design Define R5 - Black

fumanstan

I have a Fractal Design Define R4, love their cases

As for motherboards, i've always gone "cheaper" on them too and stuck with something in the $150 or less range. I just never saw the need for the more expensive ones, but then again I know I don't have much of an interest in going SLI either so I haven't needed more PCI-E lanes, fancier audio, built in wireless, and whatever else they like to throw in

flashburn

I have whatever the Fractal Design cube is for my server. Love the case. Cheap, well built, lots of expansion.

flashburn

Also, fuck Gigabyte. I don't care what the reviews say, I've been through like 4-5 Gigabyte motherboards over the years, and they always burn me. All sorts of weird firmware/bios issues, and some quality issues. I'm Asus for life at this point.

Personally I'd get an 80+ Bronze/Silver and use that money you saved to get an Asus RoG motherboard instead, especially since you're going liquid cooling, you obviously have overclocking in mind. They are worth it. Last I checked the ROI of Gold just wasn't worth the extra money. I know the cost of the RoG botherboards seems high, and as a person who always would go cheaper on motherboards, I would agree, until I actually got one. Everything from the build quality, to the features, to the bios, and the software, it's just all quality.

You could always do 2x8GB now, and add another 2x8GB in the future, if you're trying to be budget conscious.

You're smart holding off on buying an SSD. There's some shady shit going on right now with regards to pricing.

flashburn

Same here. I'm overclocked to like 4.3ghz and it's just still plugging away for the most part. I'm guessing next year once we see what AMD's Zen-based CPU's look like I'll upgrade to either that or Intel, depending on how they compare.

Dan

Good tips! I'll go easier on the PSU and go for an ASUS mobo with the extra cash. Still going back and forth on the RAM... you make a good point.

RichC2

What kind of shady shit is going on with SSD pricing? I picked up one of those 480gb for $110 the other day and can't complain, seems like they dropped quickly.

I agree w/ the Gigabyte comment. I had a similar issue where a firmware issue caused it to crash on a fairly regular basis, instead of fixing the issue or recalling the product, they released a new model and just swept the rest under the rug.

Have an MSI now, pretty happy with it.

flashburn

Basically for the last year or so prices have been stagnating. If anything you could find better deals a year ago than now.

RichC2

Ah, I haven't followed it too closely.

The bigger sizes seem to have dropped substantially over the last year, with the 1TBs hitting the $200 - $250 range and the 500tbs dropping down to the sub-$150 range.

flashburn

You could get 500GB drives for the same price a year ago. Not sure about the 1TB drives.

RichC2

Must have missed that, I remember looking for a 500gb around July of last year for under $180 to no avail.

Shagrath

I got my 960GB SSD in November for $220. That means they were the same price about 6 months ago. It was the right price for me, so it's all good.

I'd like to do a major upgrade (mobo/cpu/graphics card/ram) this year. I'll be able to reuse the case, hdds, heatsink and hdds, but it'll probably still cost me quite a bit.

Dan

Dumped the Gigabyte mobo and 850W Gold PSU and went with an ASUS RoG Maximus VIII Hero mobo and 850W Bronze PSU.

Price went up a bit, but I'm still comfortable with it. Still below $2k with tax if I buy everything from Amazon. But I'll search around early next week to see if I can get cheaper prices (shipped or local) anywhere else.

fumanstan

Was it Houston you moved to? If there's a Microcenter near you, they usually have excellent deals on CPU's, including extra money off on a motherboard. They should price match too, so they're pretty great for PC builds.

Dan

Yeah, Houston. Microcenter looks like the kind of store I've been looking for. Thanks! It's definitely close enough to make it worth the drive for a few things, at least.

Ghym

Yeah. Mine runs well, too. I'm just getting that itch to upgrade, since it's been so long. But since I'm playing lots of Stardew Valley at the moment, an upgrade right now might be a waste.

I go back and forth on upgrading yet.

Dan

So, I built my PC today
Still haven't installed the GPU, but that'll be tomorrow or Wednesday. First...

I ended up with 4 x 8GB DDR4-2666Mhz RAM. But the problem is that it only shows up as 2133Mhz in the BIOS. I updated the bios firmware (Asus Maximus VIII Hero, update 1504), but it's still not showing correctly. Is this just something I have to manually set? Seems weird that it wouldn't be the correct value right out of the gate.

Any ideas?

flashburn

Try with just two sticks and see if it changes. I've definitely seen RAM not report the correct speed before, but that was a long time ago. Otherwise, yeah, just try manually setting the timings/speed.

RichC2

Is it all exactly the same RAM or are you using multiple brands? There can be issues if you're using something with different CAS, but I doubt that's the issue here.