New PC time, need some advice.

[Rifter]

Time to upgrade the old girl, if i have a sig still(haven't logged in for years)its in there. If not its a i7 930@4.2ghz, and 2 GTX 460 in SLI, also OC'ed. I have been paying zero attention to PC parts for last 6-7 years since i built this, as this PC still to this day does whatever i ask of it, so that's why i need advice badly ive only done a few days of research to get caught up. Will purchase in 2-3 months im just starting this project. Budget say under $1600 CDN, willing to spend a little more if i can gain alot of performance for a little extra cash.

Im going to reuse everything i can, including case, PSU, sound card, monitor, speakers, mouse/keyboard, most of the HDD's. Heatsink too if it will fit on modern CPU's.

I intend to purchase new the following so thats what the budget covers, intend to OC to squeeze as much performance for the $ out of this rig:

CPU(intel i7 6700k?)

RAM(thinking of getting the fastest 16GBx2 DDR4 i can find)

MOBO(Z170 chipset i think is best?, open to suggestions on this)

GPU(looks like 2 of the upcoming Radeon RX480 in CF might be best bang for buck? Or single GTX 1070/1080?)

SSD(or SSD's im open to RAID) for OS drive(s), the samsung drivers seem to be getting good reviews lately, that said my current intel SSD has performed flawlessly. Any other brands i should look for here? Looking for just a simple 256-512GB capacity just for OS and main apps.


Must haves/Dealbreakers include:

VR compatible, will be purchasing oculus rift or equivalent VR system within next 6 months. I've been told SLI/CF is way to go for VR instead of one GPU, is this true?

Lots of USB3, USB 3.1 ports, M2 maybe not bad idea either.

Multi monitor support, want to be able to drive at least 3 Displays, one 4k, rest 1080p is ok.

Power consumption, as you can tell by my rig its kinda like the anti power consumption rig especially in its OC'ed state. Great for heating my computer room in the winter but makes it unbearable in here in the summer when my CPU cores can get into the low 90's while encoding after the room heats up, would love to get power consumption down if at all possible, perhaps not total deal breaker but will be a huge factor.

Uses of PC:

Gaming(upgrading to 4k monitor within few years, want to plan for that)

Digital photography, both still and video editing as well as the real CPU intensive task encoding/compressing, my i7-930 has probably spent more time doing this task since i put it together than anything else, consider this easily 80% of the CPU time spent.

Typical web surfing,office apps, etc.

Thanks guys.

 

[Ken g6]

If you want to OC and do video encoding, you should get more cores. It's about 1-2 months too early to be planning this, but here's an idealized build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: *Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($496.98 @ DirectCanada)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler (Purchased For $0.00)
Motherboard: *MSI X99A Raider ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($254.12 @ Amazon Canada)
Memory: *G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($150.21 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($238.98 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: *EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Classified ACX 2.0 Video Card ($569.99 @ NCIX)
Case: Corsair 600T ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $0.00)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 850W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $1710.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-07 18:40 EDT-0400

That 980 is my guess on the price of a 1070 in Canada. A single 1070 should be all you need for VR - their new "simultaneous multi-projection capability" should make two images almost as easy to display as one. Unless games don't implement that. It may be too early to tell still.

Your NH-D14 may not have a bracket for LGA2011, but you can get one easily.

Edit: If you have to drop something, switch to a 500GB Samsung SATA SSD.

 

[xLegenday]

I would build something like this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/MJbvKZ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/MJbvKZ/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($443.98 @ DirectCanada)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($47.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170 Extreme4+ ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($244.50 @ Vuugo)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($79.50 @ Vuugo)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($238.98 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Canada Computers)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($64.99 @ Canada Computers)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($64.98 @ DirectCanada)
Total: $1244.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-08 08:34 EDT-0400

If your going to overclock, then you might like to have this one instead as their are more overclocking friendly. Also added a HDD for storage besides the M.2 drive.
For the VGA, I would pick 480x2 (CF) and go with it. Looks like they are coming at 199$ which looks like will be a great deal.

 

[Rifter]

I would build something like this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/MJbvKZ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/MJbvKZ/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($443.98 @ DirectCanada)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($47.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170 Extreme4+ ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($244.50 @ Vuugo)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($79.50 @ Vuugo)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($238.98 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Canada Computers)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($64.99 @ Canada Computers)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($64.98 @ DirectCanada)
Total: $1244.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-08 08:34 EDT-0400

If your going to overclock, then you might like to have this one instead as their are more overclocking friendly. Also added a HDD for storage besides the M.2 drive.
For the VGA, I would pick 480x2 (CF) and go with it. Looks like they are coming at 199$ which looks like will be a great deal.

That motherboard looks like a good one, i am also considering the MSI Z170a SLI plus it looks like a good board to me. Anyone else have any motherboard suggestions?

If i can reuse my NH-D14 i will do that, its already lapped and ready to go if i can mount it, its sporting 2 brand new Panasonic fans i put on it a few month ago when the original noctura fans finally gave up the ghost.

The RX480 in CF is looking to be the best price performance right now, but we dont know what availability and actual early days pricing will be yet. The 1070/80 or 1060(im assuming this is coming soon?) SLI might win the day if nvidia drops prices quick to compete with the RX480. Time will tell on the GPU selection so im less worried about it until closer to purchase time.

 

[UsandThem]

Uses of PC:

Digital photography, both still and video editing as well as the real CPU intensive task encoding/compressing, my i7-930 has probably spent more time doing this task since i put it together than anything else, consider this easily 80% of the CPU time spent.

Typical web surfing,office apps, etc.

Thanks guys.

The system Ken G6 put together would be better suited for your computer use if you are encoding and editing 80% of the time.

 

[Rifter]

The system Ken G6 put together would be better suited for your computer use if you are encoding and editing 80% of the time.

I realize this, and have been looking at alot of benchmarks comparing the i7 6700k to the 5820k.

My dilemma is i do want to get the most gaming performance possible out of this build for as long as possible, obviously as i dont upgrade often. And with me planning to add VR and 4k over the next few years without and further hardware upgrades i need to take 2-4 threaded performance heavily into account.

And from what i have seen a 6700k will be 10-20% faster in 4 core or less applications vs the 5820k.

Giving up 6 cores might be a compromise i have to make to get maximum gaming/VR performance, unfortunately. That said if i can stretch my budget perhaps 6850K is the way to go, so many options.

 

[UsandThem]

I guess it depends on what you want. If you do something 80% of the time, that should be your first priority. The 5820k is a little slower in gaming benchmarks, but excels at encoding and editing. It's no slouch at gaming though.

From what I have seen, the 5820k will not be 10-20% slower than a 6700k in gaming. Usually it is within striking distance of the 6700k, and even tops it in some games.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-what-is-the-fastest-gaming-cpu

There are several members on here with 5820k systems. You could probably search the forum and read up on it a little bit more before deciding.

 

[lukart]

That motherboard looks like a good one, i am also considering the MSI Z170a SLI plus it looks like a good board to me. Anyone else have any motherboard suggestions?

If i can reuse my NH-D14 i will do that, its already lapped and ready to go if i can mount it, its sporting 2 brand new Panasonic fans i put on it a few month ago when the original noctura fans finally gave up the ghost.

The RX480 in CF is looking to be the best price performance right now, but we dont know what availability and actual early days pricing will be yet. The 1070/80 or 1060(im assuming this is coming soon?) SLI might win the day if nvidia drops prices quick to compete with the RX480. Time will tell on the GPU selection so im less worried about it until closer to purchase time.

Yea, the EXTREME 4+ is pretty safe bet!
AMD said there will be plenty of cards on sale on the launch date, but from what we know it's going to be the 8Gb version which is higher than 199$, perhaps 249?

 

[Rifter]

I guess it depends on what you want. If you do something 80% of the time, that should be your first priority. The 5820k is a little slower in gaming benchmarks, but excels at encoding and editing. It's no slouch at gaming though.

From what I have seen, the 5820k will not be 10-20% slower than a 6700k in gaming. Usually it is within striking distance of the 6700k, and even tops it in some games.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-what-is-the-fastest-gaming-cpu

There are several members on here with 5820k systems. You could probably search the forum and read up on it a little bit more before deciding.

I was also taking into consideration the probable higher overclock on the 6700K, this should put it firmly ahead of the 5820k in 2-4 threaded situations.

 

[Ken g6]

I knew I saw a thread someplace recently about the possibility that games will need 6 or more cores in the future. [thread=2475842]It's about Ashes of the Singularity[/thread].

 

[Rifter]

I knew I saw a thread someplace recently about the possibility that games will need 6 or more cores in the future. [thread=2475842]It's about Ashes of the Singularity[/thread].

Yes i have been told that Direct X 12 will finally add true multicore gaming, and once devs optimize for it 6+ core systems will receive a significant boost in gaming. I understand the structure for adding this has now been released.

My thoughts on that though is PC devs are the laziest bunch of people on the face of planet earth, often doing absolutely horrible ports from consoles with zero optimization for PC, some games arnt even given enough time to remove the console control promts and tell you to hit start or x to close menu start game etc.

So my thoughts on direct x 12 revolutionizing PC gaming is that sure it may happen, in 2-3 years when the Direct X 12 consoles come out and the devs are forced into using DX12, until that time i doubt more than a handful of games will be optimized for DX12 and truly use multicore systems.

So planning for DX12 will be a focus next upgrade round, not this one, imo.

 

[Ken g6]

My thoughts on that though is PC devs are the laziest bunch of people on the face of planet earth

I resemble that remark.

often doing absolutely horrible ports from consoles with zero optimization for PC, some games arnt even given enough time to remove the console control promts and tell you to hit start or x to close menu start game etc.

That's not the devs; that's the business people.

Anyway, [thread=2476469]here's another thread[/thread] showing that six cores is at the very least not a disadvantage in many games, if you get a 1070.

 

[UsandThem]

I resemble that remark.

Resemble or resent?

 

[Ken g6]

Resemble or resent?

I'd like it to be something else but it is what it is.

 

[Rifter]

That's not the devs; that's the business people.

Do these business people not hire developers/coders to do the ports? Either way whoever is doing it my point is PC version release are an afterthought of most games nowadays, and we never see the true features of most video cards, or direct X version until the current gen consoles are running that hardware/using that version of DX.

So DX 12 multi core support will likely not be mainstream for some years to come.