[Solved] New high-end desktop configuration

[stanzlavos]

Hi All

I hope this is the right place to post this question.

I am building a new desktop. Major use : gaming, photo editing (lightroom/photoshop/zerene stacker), and maybe some Matlab as well. And I will be definitely overclocking. Please provide your inputs :

Intel 3.5 GHz LGA 2011-v3 i7 5820K
---- UPDATE: Concluded that the the small improvement in performance (if any) got from the 5930K is not justified by its price difference from the 5820K. Also, the 5960X is almost 3 times the price of a 5820K and looks like for my purpose (gaming/photo editing/no too extensive matlab), it would be an overkill.

Asus Rampage V Extreme
---- Have a few other cheaper options. Should I stick to this ?
---- I think this has inbuilt fan controller that can be used to control the liquid cooler fans as well ?

G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4 F4-2800C15Q-32GRBB 32GB
---- UPDATE: Moved down from 64GB. Should I go for the 3000Mhz ones ?

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 4GB SLI OR Asus STRIX GTX970 DC2OC 4GB DDR5 SLI
---- UPDATE : Concluded that it would be better to wait for the GTX1080/GTX1070 to be available. Also, a few new CPUs are in the pipeline as well ?

Corsair Obsidian Series 450D (Mid) OR
Corsair Obsidian Series 750D (Full) OR
---- Mid or Full tower ? As I understand, these should be able to fit the CPU cooler easily. Slightly inclined towards to 750D.

Corsair RMx Series RM750X - 750 Watt
---- UPDATE: Moved down from 1000W. Even with SLI, I guess 750W would suffice.

Samsung 850 EVO 250GB (OS)
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB (Games & Apps)
WD Black WD4003FZEX 4TB (Storage)
---- Maybe I could use a 128GBfor the OS ?

Cooler Master Nepton 240 M Cooler OR
Deepcool Gamer Storm Captain 360 AIO Cooler OR
NZXT Kraken X61 RL-KRX61-01 Liquid CPU Cooling OR
Corsair H100i Cooler OR
Corsair Hydro Series H110i GTX 280mm Extreme
---- Slightly inclined to the Deepcool for the red fans, rubberized fan frames and the looks of the pump (with LED) It also comes with a fan hub.

LG 24MP77 24 Inch LED FHD IPS Monitor
---- Will move to a 1440P display if budget permits.

The budget comes to around 230K (INR) (close to 3400 USD).

Now, I am planning on this assembling myself (my first complete assembly !!!). So, apart from your opinion about the configuration itself I would also need you guys to tell me if everything here would fit in properly.

* The ASUS Rampage Mobo should have the required number of ports for the fans I suppose (that is what I understood)
* The power supply should easily fit into the 750D or 450D ?
* Same question regarding the Liquid cooler radiator ?
* Same question regarding the graphics cards ?
* Should I take out the thermal compound that comes on the Liquid cooler ?
* IC Diamon "7 carrot" OR Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound ?
* Any of you happen to know any good vendor in Bangalore who might give me a good discount ?

Awaiting inputs from all of you.

Regards
Nubin Stanley

 

[mnewsham]

Before I say literally anything else, the 5930k is a total waste of money, especially for someone not getting triple or quad GPUs.

Dual GPUs run at FULL bandwidth on a 5820k and the 5820k is SEVERAL hundred dollars cheaper, the only difference between the 5820k and 5930k is the 5930k has more PCI lanes, but you wont be using all of what the 5820k has, so there is NO reason to get the 5930k.

5820k or 5960x, NEVER get the 5930k.

Also, you should be waiting for the GTX 1080 or 1070, and Broadwell-e comes out very soon (i7-6850k)

 

[stanzlavos]

Before I say literally anything else, the 5930k is a total waste of money, especially for someone not getting triple or quad GPUs.

Dual GPUs run at FULL bandwidth on a 5820k and the 5820k is SEVERAL hundred dollars cheaper, the only difference between the 5820k and 5930k is the 5930k has more PCI lanes, but you wont be using all of what the 5820k has, so there is NO reason to get the 5930k.

5820k or 5960x, NEVER get the 5930k.

Also, you should be waiting for the GTX 1080 or 1070, and Broadwell-e comes out very soon (i7-6850k)

* I am talking in terms of Indian Rupee now. The diff between the prices of the 5960X and the 5930K is around 40K. The diff between 5930K and 5820K is 17K. If I drop from 64GB RAM to 32GB, I can save another 13K. SO total savings of 30K. If I could shave of some other components, I could move the 5960X ? So 5820K + 64GB RAM or 5960X + 32GB of RAM ? I guess I could add some more RAM later if the need arises ? And I hope as the 5960X is as overclockable ?
* Wouldn't the SLI 970 give better performance ? At least, if I need to move to a high res display in future ? And I am not sure how long I will have to wait ? And the SLI would look cooler (dumb, but yeah !!!).
* And again, how long a wait for the 6850K ? And what would be the price point ?

 

[mnewsham]

SLI is garbage, most games will never support it, only go SLI if you have money to burn and just want to show off your e-penis. Buy the highest end SINGLE GPU you can afford (for your budget).

I would get 5820k and 32GB(4x8GB) of RAM, I highly doubt you will use more than that, but if you do, you can always buy more later.

6800k, 6850k, 6900k, and 6950x are supposed to release Soon™, but I am not sure if there is a hard date set yet. 6800k is going to be ~$400-450 USD at launch I expect.

 

[stanzlavos]

SLI is garbage, most games will never support it, only go SLI if you have money to burn and just want to show off your e-penis. Buy the highest end SINGLE GPU you can afford (for your budget).

I would get 5820k and 32GB(4x8GB) of RAM, I highly doubt you will use more than that, but if you do, you can always buy more later.

6800k, 6850k, 6900k, and 6950x are supposed to release Soon™, but I am not sure if there is a hard date set yet. 6800k is going to be ~$400-450 USD at launch I expect.

* First of all, there won't be much showing off. Maybe a photo in group at best.

* I am hearing so much mixed responses about SLI. From the research (not that very extensive) I have done :
---- SLI would scale better when using high res displays.
---- The technology has come very far now and seem to be performing quite very well these days. Going above 2 cards seems to be "not advisable".
---- There are quite a lot of games that perform well on SLI. And most games, though at initial launch don't perform so very well, are often patched to give better performance. And I do see a a lot of titles that support SLI and I am interested in.
---- What I can afford is a GTX980 (or the GTX980 Ti at best). And I have seen a few game plays and many benchmarks that shows the dual 970 blowing a 980 out of the water.
---- The ones I am looking at has 4GB VRAM. Hopefully that will not be a bottleneck soon ?
---- DirextX12 is supposed to improve SLI a looooot ?
---- I guess playing on a single 970 wont be unplayable ? As in, I could just turn off SLI or something if the need arises ?
---- But knowing that in many games SLIed 970s would perform much better than a single 980 and the fact that it is better for higher res displays, I tend to be inclined towards the SLIed 970s.
---- One thing I could do is maybe have a single 980 and then add one more down the line. This is slightly unlikely from my end and there is also chance that a single card has come out then that beats SLIed 980s ? Who knows ?
---- The price for two GTX970s is a little less than a single GTX980 Ti. (are there multiple variants of the 970 ? Am I looking at the wrong one. Please check my first post for the model)
---- Are these enough justifications for me to stick to the SLIed 970s ?

* Did you mean 5960X + 32GB RAM ? If you meant the 5820K itself, then I think I would stick to 64Gb (even then the money I spend would come down since I am moving away from the 5930K ). Some of the photo editing apps hog a lot of memory.

* I don't wanna wait very much. If over the course of me finalizing the spec and getting quotes from different vendors, something new comes up, I will see.

 

[UsandThem]

That's not how SLI sctually works, (outside of theoretically).

A card in SLI does not give twice the performance.

A 970 SLI will be slightly faster than a GTX 980ti in some tests, and slower in others.

A 970 SLI will not come close to the performance of one GTX 1080.

At this point if you don't already own a GTX 970, it makes no sense to buy two to SLI.

And that's not even factoring in what the GTX 1070 will do when it is reviewed and released.

Now really isn't the best time to spend $2000 on a gaming PC. But if you can't wait a few weeks, go for it.

 

[mnewsham]

Yup you basically picked the WORST moment to build a PC, we are literally 6-8 weeks from a whole new generation of both CPU and GPU.

 

[stanzlavos]

That's not how SLI sctually works, (outside of theoretically).

A card in SLI does not give twice the performance.

A 970 SLI will be slightly faster than a GTX 980ti in some tests, and slower in others.

A 970 SLI will not come close to the performance of one GTX 1080.

At this point if you don't already own a GTX 970, it makes no sense to buy two to SLI.

And that's not even factoring in what the GTX 1070 will do when it is reviewed and released.

Now really isn't the best time to spend $2000 on a gaming PC. But if you can't wait a few weeks, go for it.

* I did not think it would give twice the performance. Apart from the fact that I read about it, I am quite sure they won't scale linearly.

* Yes, I agree. Maybe diff results in different tests. Unfortunately, in most of the benchmarks I saw, the SLIed 970s showed better numbers. And in many games (should have been the ones that are "SLI optimized" ), it was better performing.

* I guess I will wait for it now. From what I read, the price points are very good (in the US at least) ? $600/$380 for GTX1080/GTX1070 ? If we get it for the same price points here in India, I guess I'd take two 1070s and SLI 'em. but most probably, its gonna highly over-priced here in India.

Anyhow, I will wait out till I hear something. Meanwhile can you guys go through the rest of the config ?

 

[UsandThem]

Anyhow, I will wait out till I hear something. Meanwhile can you guys go through the rest of the config ?

I'm not sure I would be the best one to offer advice on your build.

To me, it looks like you want an overclockable top-of-the-line gaming machine that will dabble in photo editing.

I know the 5960x is perfect for professional productivity work or enthusiast users, but for gaming it performs roughly the same as i7-6700k, but costs $650+ more. Even the 5930k is $200+ more than the 6700k. That's not even factoring in the $450+ motherboard.

I say decide what you want to spend, and select your components on what you feel like you need to accomplish what you want to do with your PC. If you are willing to spend $3,400 on a computer, you should be able to easily build a nice one.

Maybe a 5960x user here will stop in and give their opinion, but I'm not that person.

 

[stanzlavos]

Updated the first post with whatever is concluded so far.

 

[MongGrel]

Yeah, I'd recommend cooling your jets there a bit OP and holding off and doing more research atm, especially if your a first time builder.

 

[stanzlavos]

I'm not sure I would be the best one to offer advice on your build.

To me, it looks like you want an overclockable top-of-the-line gaming machine that will dabble in photo editing.

I know the 5960x is perfect for professional productivity work or enthusiast users, but for gaming it performs roughly the same as i7-6700k, but costs $650+ more. Even the 5930k is $200+ more than the 6700k. That's not even factoring in the $450+ motherboard.

I say decide what you want to spend, and select your components on what you feel like you need to accomplish what you want to do with your PC. If you are willing to spend $3,400 on a computer, you should be able to easily build a nice one.

Maybe a 5960x user here will stop in and give their opinion, but I'm not that person.

* First of all, about the high budget : it's a dream come true. Hard earned money.

* I did a quick check. The 5820K and 6700K come almost in the same price range ? And I think that 5820K is the better performer of the two (seems like that from benchmarks at least) ?

* I could definitely use some inputs on the rest of the config.

 

[MongGrel]

Yup you basically picked the WORST moment to build a PC, we are literally 6-8 weeks from a whole new generation of both CPU and GPU.

This.

 

[stanzlavos]

Yeah, I'd recommend cooling your jets there a bit OP and holding off and doing more research atm, especially if your a first time builder.

I have picked out stuff for others. But this would be the first time I am spending this much for myself.

And yes, more research. Please do comment on the rest of the config.

 

[stanzlavos]

Updates in the first post.

 

[giantpandaman2]

I don't see a reason to get an EVO 250 and 500 when you could just as well get a single 1 TB for the same amount of money. I'd either just get a 250GB EVO and a 4TB HDD or get a 1TB EVO and a 4TB HDD.

Do you have air conditioning? Are you overclocking? If you have air conditioning and you don't plan on overclocking then you don't need to get a water cooler. A large air cooler would be find and just as quiet.

With DX12, overclocking gives you negligible benefits in gaming. I doubt it would do much on even 2 card SLI. Really, OC would only be helpful on CPU heavy photoshop calculations. Without that requirement...you could drop down to a much cheaper MB as well as CPU Cooler. I realize you want a lot of fan headers...but you could just get a fan controller for an optical disk drive space.

Save the money and put it towards 1080/1070 or Polaris as well as a 2560x1440 IPS 120Hz monitor. For gaming, that's the sweet spot. I'd pick 90+FPS 2560x1440 over 4k 60FPS every time.

 

[stanzlavos]

I don't see a reason to get an EVO 250 and 500 when you could just as well get a single 1 TB for the same amount of money. I'd either just get a 250GB EVO and a 4TB HDD or get a 1TB EVO and a 4TB HDD.

Do you have air conditioning? Are you overclocking? If you have air conditioning and you don't plan on overclocking then you don't need to get a water cooler. A large air cooler would be find and just as quiet.

With DX12, overclocking gives you negligible benefits in gaming. I doubt it would do much on even 2 card SLI. Really, OC would only be helpful on CPU heavy photoshop calculations. Without that requirement...you could drop down to a much cheaper MB as well as CPU Cooler. I realize you want a lot of fan headers...but you could just get a fan controller for an optical disk drive space.

Save the money and put it towards 1080/1070 or Polaris as well as a 2560x1440 IPS 120Hz monitor. For gaming, that's the sweet spot. I'd pick 90+FPS 2560x1440 over 4k 60FPS every time.

1) Wanted a separate drive for the OS. Anyhow, will look into what you suggested.

2) No AC. And I am definitely overclocking. Why else would I get a liquid cooler.

3) DX12 details are shady for me as well. But SLI is definitely getting better. I do use Lightroom/Photoshop/Matlab.

4) Will get a 1440P display hopefully.

 

[giantpandaman2]

1) Wanted a separate drive for the OS. Anyhow, will look into what you suggested.

2) No AC. And I am definitely overclocking. Why else would I get a liquid cooler.

3) DX12 details are shady for me as well. But SLI is definitely getting better. I do use Lightroom/Photoshop/Matlab.

4) Will get a 1440P display hopefully.

1. Why? Most people have a separate drive for the OS only because the costs for a large SSD used to be prohibitive. Is it because you want to have a thrash drive for doing video or what not?

2. Ah, well, I guess if it's worth it for you. Without AC and given the heat levels in India right now...watercooling is definitely beneficial.

3. SLI might be getting better but game support is not. My guess is that as DX12 matures multi-GPU (even mismatched) might become more prevalent. Do I expect that to be common for the next 4 years...no. I really wouldn't bet a lot of money on that. High risk (money wise)...low reward...low chance of winning. A 1080 might be expensive right when it comes out...but it will drive down the prices of other video cards. Definitely worth it to wait. Maybe find a friend in Taiwan or China who can get it for cheap? (I haven't stayed up on this...but they used to be able to get new hardware for prices that matched the USA)

4. Not just 1440p, but 120Hz. 1440 120Hz monitors are pretty expensive though. Just thought you could save a lot on OC and watercooling and put it toward a better monitor and video card. Of course, that would change your computer's balance far away from productivity and much more toward gaming.

I guess it's better to prioritize productivity...

 

[MongGrel]

If you're spending $3400 on a system and you're worried about water cooling I'd build a dedicated loop rather than an AIO.

A good air cooler will still perform about as well as one.

Still not sure about you're fascination with SLI either these days, 1440 isn't exactly cutting edge these days.

I'd still think you need to research things more, but that is just my two cents.

 

[UsandThem]

* First of all, about the high budget : it's a dream come true. Hard earned money.

* I did a quick check. The 5820K and 6700K come almost in the same price range ? And I think that 5820K is the better performer of the two (seems like that from benchmarks at least) ?

Nothing wrong with spending money on a 'dream' system. Some of us did the same thing when we were younger, and some still like keeping up with the cutting edge of hardware. We all have things that we like spending money on......women, family, vacations, cars, booze, clothes, electronics, houses.

However, I am at a point in my life where I still like a fast computer. However, I like a fast and stable computer that is moderately priced (you can build a high-end PC for around $1500 or less). I just need it to be fast enough for my casual photo hobby, family video editing, and play games smoothly. It needs to perform well enough for me for roughly 4-5 years. I'm not uploading bench results or taking pictures of it for forums, or anything like that anymore.

Since you have such a large budget to spend, and want a top-of-the-line computer regardless of how much faster it would be, your decisions should be pretty easy. You seem to have a decent understanding of the various computer parts. I'm not sure why you really need us for advice.

I'll just leave this thread with this: 5820k vs 6700k

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1320?vs=1543

You can also use it to compare the 5930k and the 5960x.

 

[stanzlavos]

1. Why? Most people have a separate drive for the OS only because the costs for a large SSD used to be prohibitive. Is it because you want to have a thrash drive for doing video or what not?

2. Ah, well, I guess if it's worth it for you. Without AC and given the heat levels in India right now...watercooling is definitely beneficial.

3. SLI might be getting better but game support is not. My guess is that as DX12 matures multi-GPU (even mismatched) might become more prevalent. Do I expect that to be common for the next 4 years...no. I really wouldn't bet a lot of money on that. High risk (money wise)...low reward...low chance of winning. A 1080 might be expensive right when it comes out...but it will drive down the prices of other video cards. Definitely worth it to wait. Maybe find a friend in Taiwan or China who can get it for cheap? (I haven't stayed up on this...but they used to be able to get new hardware for prices that matched the USA)

4. Not just 1440p, but 120Hz. 1440 120Hz monitors are pretty expensive though. Just thought you could save a lot on OC and watercooling and put it toward a better monitor and video card. Of course, that would change your computer's balance far away from productivity and much more toward gaming.

I guess it's better to prioritize productivity...

1) Well, ai am not sure if my logic would make any sense at all. It could also be that I did not put enough thought into it. Anyhow, what has happened with me in the past is that, I keep on installimg apps and games on to the OS drive and slowly the OS starts getting slower. Well maybe it was just because the space was coming down. And I have had issues with junk being left behind when un-installing stuff. So the idea was to have a small SSD to install the OS and never touch it again.

2) So, as I said, my first liquid cooler. Any suggestions are welcome.

3) I just hope that I don't have to wait for too long and that it comes out in India at a decent price point as well. After my "research" I am still inclined towards SLI (I knw, I knw...). But, I saw this video, and the way he was talking, sounded like an nVidia engineer. So, they seem to concentrating on two way SLI and looks like they are fixing a lot. Also, the way in which SLIed cards work is getting some new option as well. Anyhow, as of now, I'd just wait for the cards to come out and see some benchmarks and real world user reviews. And then decide. The 1080 seems to have something called DDR5X. No idea what that means exactly. So lets see.

4) Mmmm... let me see what I can do.

 

[stanzlavos]

If you're spending $3400 on a system and you're worried about water cooling I'd build a dedicated loop rather than an AIO.

A good air cooler will still perform about as well as one.

Still not sure about you're fascination with SLI either these days, 1440 isn't exactly cutting edge these days.

I'd still think you need to research things more, but that is just my two cents.

1) I did not notice the "AIO" in there. I hope you are talking about the Deepcool one. I had read about it and saw many videos as well. Looks like a dedicated loop to me. Anyhow, is that fine ? All of them costs around the same. And I am lottle worried if it would fit properly, which is why I am inclined towards the bigger 750D case.

2) This is one thing that I am doing for the wrong reasons maybe. I have always wanted one, it looks too cool and from the research I have done, it should still perform good.

3) I have heard of people saying that their SLI systems are working flawlessly. Maybe they are playing only SLI optimized games. I guess I don't mind being one of them. The newer generations cards and DirectX12 seems to be making SLI better. Yes, I do agree that this doesn't matter if the games are not optimized for it. Let's say I personally see a good future for the tech. And knowing that I can get better performance in games I play for the same money (I actually have a big backlog of games to complete and the titles I am interested in seems to SLI compatible), I have this inclination towards SLI. And again, a few wrong reasons too : I have always wanted one and it would look damn cool. I guess I wud get a single 1080 and then somewhere down the line convince myself to get a second one.

4) 1440P is the best I can afford as of now.

 

[stanzlavos]

I guess I have received enough inputs from this and other forums. Thank you all for the help.