Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread - Page 594

On February 17 2016 13:10 Mr. Wiggles wrote:
Hey! So I actually made a post here a little over a year ago asking for advice, and got some good answers, but one thing led to another, and I never actually ended up building a new PC. I swear I'll follow through this time, haha. Below is my original post, somewhat edited to be up to date.

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What is your budget?

~$2000 CAD (There's flex room here if needed, and less is fine ) I'm not sure how the current fall of the Canadian Dollar has affected prices, so I might have to raise this a little.

What is your monitor's native resolution?

Currently 1920x1080, but I'd like to be able to scale up to higher resolutions.

What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?

DotA 2, Total War games, Paradox strategy games, various AAAs, fighters, Kerbal space program, a bit of everything, really.

I'd like to play on High-Ultra settings, where reasonable.

What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?

Software development, So, text editing, building software, testing software. Compiling large projects, either partial or full builds. Running VMs on occasion. I do some work with AI, so this involves lots of simulation, training, long running processes. Basically, lots of memory/cpu hungry threaded tasks.

Do you intend to overclock?

If the benefits outweigh any potential drawbacks, yes.

Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?

Is this worth it? Are the performance benefits actually widely supported and cost efficient?

Do you need an operating system?

No, I'll probably end up dual booting Windows and Linux (Probably Fedora).

I'd like to run Linux by itself, but I'm not sure if the support's there enough yet from most game developers. I'll probably just use Windows for games that don't have native support.

Linux is free, and I can still get a Windows license through DreamSpark or whatever it's called now.

Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?

I'll need one monitor. This doesn't necessarily need to come out of my budget, but any savings on the build could be put towards a monitor. This doesn't have to be 1920x1080.

I'd probably be using this as my main monitor.

If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.

I think I'd prefer nvidia for GPU brand. As far as I'm aware, the nvidia proprietary driver has the best performance under Linux currently and for the foreseeable future.

What country will you be buying your parts in?

Canada.

If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.

I'd prefer to buy locally where possible. Probably http://www.memoryexpress.com/ local store. If there's a part not available locally, I'd consider it. I just don't like dealing with returning parts by mail if there's a defect, and shipping is slow.

Memory Express price matches pretty much any vendor that ships from within Canada, so any parts you find I can probably buy at the same cost locally.

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I also have two cats and a dog, so anything you could suggest to eliminate dust/hair problems would be good, especially if it could affect temperature regulation or air-flow. Any tips?

Any help or build suggestions are very much appreciated. Thanks!

On February 20 2016 02:03 Mr. Wiggles wrote:
So, would something like this seem reasonable based on my reqs in the post above?

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/bKPkhM

Like I said, I don't really have any experience with builds, so I'm not sure what I should be looking for in general when picking something like a mobo, cooler, or case for example.

This is maybe a little more expensive than I was aiming for originally, but I think the difference is mostly accounted for by the currency changes.

On February 20 2016 03:31 bluegarfield wrote:


Given heavy load on the work side (VM, simulation, etc) you may want to consider switching to i7-5820K and X99 motherboard for even more cores. This will of course increase the budget by quite a bit, so consider dropping from 980Ti to 970 instead. At 1080p gaming, a GTX970 is good enough. Knowing that you are planning to play beyond 1080p, but I feel performance/price value is never good at the top end, especially when next gen GPU (pascal) is coming out in about 6mths. I think that money is more well spent on the i7-5820K and save cost by buying GTX970 and be satisfy with 1080p gaming, for now. When Pascal cards come out, you can consider selling your GTX970 and upgrade.

Also, I will probably pick this psu over the one you have, just because I am paranoid when overclocking. Not that the one you pick is bad, but this one is just better http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-220gs0650v1. Actually, seem like EVGA NEX is rated quite low, so probably avoid it if you want to overclock. Still safe to use if zero overclock though

general ideas regarding picking components:
- motherboard: look at chipset (Z170, H170, X99 etc) for overclocking capability. Then connectors that you might need (number of USB3.0 or USB3.1, USB-C, thunderbolt, intel/killer lan port, wifi, m.2, etc), then SLI capability if you plan to buy 2 GPU. For overclocking, there is this information regarding VRM that you need to pay attention to, but I am not well-versed in that. Just google the board to find if it has > 4 true power phase.
- cooler: thermal performance, noise, ease of mounting and price. For cheap good air cooler, look for CM Hyper 212, Cryorig H7. More expensive and higher end one, Noctua NH-D14, NH-D15 or Thermalright silver arrow sb-e. I have only tried CM Hyper 212 and Noctua NH-D15 cooler, the Noctua cooler is 10times easier to mount, definitely has better performance, but also a lot more expensive T_T. No idea about AIO watercooler, but they are much more expensive compare to air cooler. Also, better check if the cooler size fit into the case.
- case: look for something with good air flow, enough drive bay and fan mounting for your need, cable management and aesthetic may be? Some case are easier to work with than other, but should not affect decision much


edit:oosp, missed other question.