Building First Gaming PC

[wege12]

Hi guys! I am in the market to build my first ever gaming PC. I’ve always wanted to do this and now that I have the budget, I plan to make it pretty powerful. I’ve put together a possible build and would like to know what your guys’ thoughts are on it. The two items I know I need some guidance with are the motherboard and the case, so please let me know if those are sufficient. Thank you!

CPU: Intel i7-5820K
GPU: AMD R9 Fury X
Hard Drive: SanDisk 120GB SSD
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (4GBx2)
PSU: EVGA SuperNova 750W GOLD
Disc Drive: LG 14x Blu-Ray Burner Rewriter
Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Liquid CPU Cooler H60
Motherboard: MSI Computer ATX DDR4 LGA 2011-3 Motherboard X99S SLI KRAIT EDITION
Case: NZXT Phantom ATX Full Tower Black and Green


1. The main use for this PC will be primarily Full HD gaming, consuming media (Blu-Ray,Streaming, Music), and the occasional video conversion
2. My budget tops out at $1,800
3. I live in the United States
4. Not buying parts outside of US
5. I prefer to use AMD for my GPU and Intel for my CPU
6. No parts being reused
7. I do plan on overclocking both my GPU and CPU
8. I will be using this PC at 1080p resolution
9. I would like to have this PC built by the end of August at the latest
10. I will need to purchase Windows software to install

 

[monkeydelmagico]

You running a high mhz monitor? for vanilla 1080 it seems a bit overkill.

 

[wege12]

You running a high mhz monitor? for vanilla 1080 it seems a bit overkill.

Negative, I'll be gaming on my 42 inch 1080p 120HZ TV (almost positive it only accepts 60HZ signal) at first. But I plan to use VSR and I want to build a PC that won't need to be upgraded for awhile. Plus, as soon as 4k OLED TV's become affordable, I will upgrade to one of those.

 

[Ken g6]

Plus, as soon as 4k OLED TV's become affordable, I will upgrade to one of those.

Planning to do 60Hz 4K over HDMI, then? All AMD GPUs may have problems with that.

Unfortunately because Tonga lacked support for HDMI 2.0, the same is true for Fiji, and as a result you can only drive 4k@60Hz displays either via DisplayPort, or via tandem HDMI connections. The good news here is that it will be possible to do active conversion from DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 later this year, so Fiji is not permanently cut-off from HDMI 2.0, however those adapters aren’t here quite yet and there are still some unresolved questions to be addressed (e.g. HDCP 2.2).

All Nvidia 900 series cards have HDMI 2.0.

 

[Termie]

A couple tips:

- The memory you picked is incompatible with your build. You want a 4x4GB DDR4 kit.

- You should get a much bigger, much faster SSD. The MX200 or Evo 850 are good choices. Aim for the 500GB-class drives.

Also, keep in mind that the Fury X is currently unavailable and likely will be for a while. And generally for your purposes (HDTV), a 980 Ti is a better pick.

 

[wege12]

Planning to do 60Hz 4K over HDMI, then? All AMD GPUs may have problems with that.

All Nvidia 900 series cards have HDMI 2.0.

By the time I purchase my 4k TV, there should be DP to HDMI 2.0 adapter so this isn't a big concern to me.

A couple tips:

- The memory you picked is incompatible with your build. You want a 4x4GB DDR4 kit.

- You should get a much bigger, much faster SSD. The MX200 or Evo 850 are good choices. Aim for the 500GB-class drives.

Also, keep in mind that the Fury X is currently unavailable and likely will be for a while. And generally for your purposes (HDTV), a 980 Ti is a better pick.

Thank you for pointing that out about the RAM. Also, I'm not interested in the 980ti for a few reasons. One, I don't care for Nvidias business practices. Second, I believe the Fury X will have much longer legs than the 980ti due to driver optimization and DX12 taking full advantage of the forward thinking GCN architecture.


Is there a cheaper alternative to the motherboard I have picked out without compromising on system and overclock capabilities?

 

[Termie]

You might be able to save $20 or so going with one of ASRock's boards (Extreme4 or Extreme6 are good picks), but honestly, most manufacturers are now switching over to USB3.1 models, which adds $20 back onto the price. The older model you listed is therefore a good deal.

 

[mfenn]

By the time I purchase my 4k TV, there should be DP to HDMI 2.0 adapter so this isn't a big concern to me.

Thank you for pointing that out about the RAM. Also, I'm not interested in the 980ti for a few reasons. One, I don't care for Nvidias business practices. Second, I believe the Fury X will have much longer legs than the 980ti due to driver optimization and DX12 taking full advantage of the forward thinking GCN architecture.

Sacrificing capabilities and betting on future optimizations that never come for the sake of making some sort of moral stand don't really make sense to me on your first ever machine.

On the GPU, my advice would be to go for the card that is available and won't need an extra adapter to go to 4K over HDMI.

On the CPU side, the i7 4790K makes more sense for a gaming machine because it has a much higher clock speed. The extra cores of the 5820K will sometimes make up for the slower clocks, but even then you'd just be drawing even with the 4790K. Not to mention that the LGA 1150 platform is much less expensive than the LGA 2011-3 one.

i7 4790K + Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI combo $447
G.Skill DDR3 1600 16GB $85

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If you do a system with DDR3, there is a decent Crucial kit. Does 1600MHz @ cl8.8.8.24 1.35v

Single 4GB stick, 33$ - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148654&cm_re=ddr3-_-20-148-654-_-Product

Single 8GB stick, 48$ - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148655&cm_re=ddr3-_-20-148-655-_-Product

only odd thing afaik is the 8GB module has a high tRFC secondary timing. it defaults to 208 at the advertised speed. my old kit did 59

 

[wege12]

Thank you guys for all advice so far.

By luck today, I was searching for the AMD Fury X on newegg and XFX happened to have some in stock. So in about a week, I will be the proud owner of a Fury X

 

[mfenn]

:thumbsup: Glad you found one!

 

[wege12]

After hearing your advice and doing a little more research, here is my updated build:

CPU: Intel i7-5820K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117402&cm_re=i7-_-19-117-402-_-Product

GPU: XFX AMD R9 Fury X (purchased)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...50742&cm_re=amd_fury_x-_-14-150-742-_-Product

Hard Drive: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB SSD
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rue&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_5&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4 2666
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rue&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_6&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

PSU: EVGA SuperNova 750W GOLD
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rue&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Optical Drive: LG 16x Blu-Ray Burner Rewriter
http://www.amazon.com/LG-WH16NS40-I...&qid=1437456163&sr=1-4&keywords=blu+ray+drive

Network Adapter: TP-LINK Archer T9E AC1900 Dual Band Wireless PCI Express Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rue&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_4&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Sound Card: ASUS Xonar DSX
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rue&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Liquid CPU Cooler H100i GTX
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rue&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_2&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI KRAIT EDITION LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=x99_motherboard-_-13-130-840-_-Product

Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 750D Performance Full Tower Case
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rue&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_3&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER


Any suggestions and/or comments are greatly appreciated. My main concern here is the motherboard. I'm not too experienced with motherboards and I just want to make sure that it has all the features I'll need and not decrease my overclocking potential in any way.

Thank you!

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Why that sound card?

 

[lehtv]

Also why the expensive WLAN? You can get a decent TP-Link dual band for half that price: http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WD...=1437488356&sr=1-6&keywords=tp+link+dual+band

 

[wege12]

Why that sound card?

I figured if I was going to build a high end PC, I might as well make sure it has some great audio processing. Do you think its unnecessary?

Also why the expensive WLAN? You can get a decent TP-Link dual band for half that price: http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WD...=1437488356&sr=1-6&keywords=tp+link+dual+band

I want a WLAN that supports the latest WiFi standard, which is AC.

 

[mfenn]

I figured if I was going to build a high end PC, I might as well make sure it has some great audio processing. Do you think its unnecessary?

I'm not precisely sure what you mean by audio processing. The actual signal processing is handled in software since Windows Vista. The only other processing that I can think of is the digital to analog conversion process, but if you are serious about having the best DAC, you would get an outboard one.

I want a WLAN that supports the latest WiFi standard, which is AC.

If 802.11ac support is a must have feature for you for whatever reason, then it'd be more cost effective to get a motherboard with built-in support like the ASRock X99 Extreme6/ac for $240 AR.

As mentioned above, the 5820K is actually a slower gaming processor than the less expensive 4790K. In the best case, they are even. So you're paying about $200 more for a platform which is at best the same.

 

[wege12]

If 802.11ac support is a must have feature for you for whatever reason, then it'd be more cost effective to get a motherboard with built-in support like the ASRock X99 Extreme6/ac for $240 AR.

As mentioned above, the 5820K is actually a slower gaming processor than the less expensive 4790K. In the best case, they are even. So you're paying about $200 more for a platform which is at best the same.

I believe the 5820k is a much better investment, especially in the long term. I'm going to be liquid cooling my 5820k which will allow for overclocks equalling, if not surpassing, an i7 4970k stock frequencies. Plus, one of dx12's benefits is making the use of more cores much simpler and efficient.

 

[lehtv]

As mentioned above, the 5820K is actually a slower gaming processor than the less expensive 4790K. In the best case, they are even. So you're paying about $200 more for a platform which is at best the same.

Interestingly, there's some evidence to the contrary with high end SLI setups:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2440000

I'm not sure how trustworthy that source is and whether the difference in performance is strictly down to the processor and not the available PCIe lanes or something like that, or possibly even DDR4.

But for single GPU gaming on games that use four CPU threads effectively, 4790K with a mid range Z97 board does pack more oomph, both out of the box and overclocked.

 

[crashtech]

The main thing that has kept me from moving to a 5820K is that many users have ended up with samples that don't overclock well. Having an outstanding CPU cooler does not guarantee results. The only way to get guaranteed clock speeds is to buy from a place like Silicon Lottery, but personally I've been unwilling to pay the premium.

 

[wege12]

Yeah, I understand that a good cooler doesn't guarantee high overclocks.

Do you guys think a 750w Gold PSU would be enough for a Fury X and 5820k when both are overclocked?

 

[Ketchup]

Yeah, I understand that a good cooler doesn't guarantee high overclocks.

Do you guys think a 750w Gold PSU would be enough for a Fury X and 5820k when both are overclocked?

Depends on the brand.

The 5820K will probably overclock better, from where it starts. But you would have to be at a good overclock to get to the base speed that you would see with a 4790k.

Also, you mention the future a lot. If that is truly what you are looking at, wait for Skylake. In addition to being faster, it should also overclock MUCH better.
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/in...700k-versus-core-i7-4790k-cpu-benchmarks.html

 

[crashtech]

Depends on the brand.

The 5820K will probably overclock better, from where it starts. But you would have to be at a good overclock to get to the base speed that you would see with a 4790k.

Also, you mention the future a lot. If that is truly what you are looking at, wait for Skylake. In addition to being faster, it should also overclock MUCH better.
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/in...700k-versus-core-i7-4790k-cpu-benchmarks.html

Isn't it a little early to make OCing predictions? 5.2GHz is nice, but that is pretty obviously an exceptional sample. We don't know anything about what the numbers will be on average.

Also, from what I see, the percentage IPC improvement is not spectacular. Maybe it's enough that Sandy Bridge owners will be finally persuaded, but nothing to throw a party over.

 

[Ketchup]

I am predicting a very small step forward, as is typical with Intel lately. My point was that the OP wants a slower AMD GPU and an Intel CPU that is only faster in things he won't use it for, because he wants something that will be a good investment. Well, computer parts are never a good investment, but the next CPU and chipset would probably be more along his line of thinking.

A 4790k would be plenty of CPU for the OP for a long time to come. And since this is a gaming machine, use that water cooler you are getting for the video card, not the CPU. Overclocking this CPU doesn't help with gaming.

 

[crashtech]

^ No disagreement.

Looking at the proposed build again, I have to ask about the wireless connection. Wired for a desktop is so much faster and better. Given the smallish SSD being proposed, is there any thought to network storage? Is there any online gaming being considered? No wireless will beat the ping time of a wire. Getting the location wired might be a more future proof move than anything else.

 

[mfenn]

I believe the 5820k is a much better investment, especially in the long term. I'm going to be liquid cooling my 5820k which will allow for overclocks equalling, if not surpassing, an i7 4970k stock frequencies. Plus, one of dx12's benefits is making the use of more cores much simpler and efficient.

Compared an overclocked 5820K to a stock-clocked 4970K is hardly fair. As others have mentioned, having a water cooler does not guarantee high overclocks, that comes down to the luck of the draw.

DirectX 12 (and other "close to the metal" APIs) are focused on making draw calls more efficient, this is true. However, they're doing that in order to reduce CPU utilization on CPU-constrained platforms such as mobile devices and consoles. They're not going to suddenly increase the CPU requirements of PC games, in fact, the trickle down effect says just the opposite.