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Mad Cow's Build a Killer Gaming Rig on a Budget Thread (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter Mad Cow
- Start date
X 1,572. So cool. And cable management is wonderful. I will try to post pics at some point.
GregR
Footballguy
Got my new gaming rig up and going as well.
Maximus VIII Hero mobo
i7 6700k quad core 4.0GHz, liquid cooling
1000W Corsair PSU
Dual 4GB GTX 970 graphics cards, overclocked.
16GB 2666Mz Corsair RAM
5-bay hotswap cage.
Have a 120GB SSD for the OS, and then reusing another 120GB SSD and a 4TB hard drive from my last cpu for gaming and data drives.
Origin Gensis case
Maximus VIII Hero mobo
i7 6700k quad core 4.0GHz, liquid cooling
1000W Corsair PSU
Dual 4GB GTX 970 graphics cards, overclocked.
16GB 2666Mz Corsair RAM
5-bay hotswap cage.
Have a 120GB SSD for the OS, and then reusing another 120GB SSD and a 4TB hard drive from my last cpu for gaming and data drives.
Origin Gensis case
Zasada
Footballguy
Zasada
Footballguy
I think I might get a 980Ti on Black Friday or Boxing Day. My gaming rig is a LGA2011 3820 w/32GB RAM. Feels like the only/best meaningful upgrade I can make is the video card (currently rocking a reference 7970 and I really want to get back to nVidia).
Also waiting for the perfect 30-32" 4K monitor. My 30" 2560x1600 Dell, while great, is due for replacement (just checked -- coming-up on 10 years with that, wow).
My days of "value" computing/gaming are long behind me, I guess.
Also waiting for the perfect 30-32" 4K monitor. My 30" 2560x1600 Dell, while great, is due for replacement (just checked -- coming-up on 10 years with that, wow).
My days of "value" computing/gaming are long behind me, I guess.
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
Coming back to this Zas. You have 4 mechanical HDDs, Are those all independent or are you running a raid? Looks like they are independent. How do you backup the data?
Zasada
Footballguy
Independent. I have a totally redundant backup server (built with mostly old hardware grandfathered from rigs of old) which I have mirror the primary whenever I think to do it. Aside from when its backing-up the server, I leave it 100% unplugged from the network and power. Thus I'm protected from power spikes.
It's a bit ghetto but effective and hard to complain about 1:1 backup vs Raid 5. The latter doesn't do much for you with power spikes because it might cook all the drives in the array and you're SOL then.
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GregR
Footballguy
Overkill for now, though my last rig I was going to have to upgrade the power supply to go with newer graphics cards in what I was hoping would be its last gasps of life. So I am hoping when this one gets to that point I'll have already left enough extra power to handle future cards.
Cooling is Origin Frostbyte, 240mm radiator.
The Tick
Footballguy
Any thoughts on where to get it from? What sites do you think would have a good sale on it?I think I might get a 980Ti on Black Friday or Boxing Day. My gaming rig is a LGA2011 3820 w/32GB RAM. Feels like the only/best meaningful upgrade I can make is the video card (currently rocking a reference 7970 and I really want to get back to nVidia).
Also waiting for the perfect 30-32" 4K monitor. My 30" 2560x1600 Dell, while great, is due for replacement (just checked -- coming-up on 10 years with that, wow).
My days of "value" computing/gaming are long behind me, I guess.
I've always been planning to buy an Alienware PC, but decided that I wanted to look at the 980Ti, but the upcharge for that alone would pay for most of the rest of a custom build, so I'm leaning towards building my own.
Zasada
Footballguy
No idea, really. Given that it's a premium card, history suggests that we shouldn't expect a screaming deal. So I'm just going to play it by ear and see what pops-up, if anything.Any thoughts on where to get it from? What sites do you think would have a good sale on it?I think I might get a 980Ti on Black Friday or Boxing Day. My gaming rig is a LGA2011 3820 w/32GB RAM. Feels like the only/best meaningful upgrade I can make is the video card (currently rocking a reference 7970 and I really want to get back to nVidia).
Also waiting for the perfect 30-32" 4K monitor. My 30" 2560x1600 Dell, while great, is due for replacement (just checked -- coming-up on 10 years with that, wow).
My days of "value" computing/gaming are long behind me, I guess.
I've always been planning to buy an Alienware PC, but decided that I wanted to look at the 980Ti, but the upcharge for that alone would pay for most of the rest of a custom build, so I'm leaning towards building my own.
Alienware makes nice rigs, but BYO (for me) is just so much more satisfying. You'll get a lower price, exactly the components you want, and the ability to upgrade much easier down the road.
Zasada
Footballguy
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
Zas and cow, what's your price is no obstacle cou of. Juice for a gaming rig today? I was thinking the skylake 6700 but it comes in about 3rd on the tech sites right now. Is the new socket a must for a new build now?
Zasada
Footballguy
Skylake as a gaming CPU doesn't make much (if any) of a difference vs the generation before or even X99. Unless you're doing some serious quad-SLI (price is no obstacle) gaming.
So, unless you're in $3K+ land for your gaming rig, just get the CPU that suits your non-gaming needs best.
Going Skylake now is more about getting the extra PCI-E lanes, DDR4 support, and things like hardware H.265 de/encoding. That's why I would recommend it.
If you really need cores, then go X99.
Personally, I'm still on X79 and considering a video card upgrade (from 7970 to GTX 980Ti). There's no need for me to replace my CPU right now. But if I was buying a whole new rig, I would definitely go Skylake.
Ignoramus
Footballguy
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
Sorry for the rampant typos. I guess what I was asking was if I'm buying everything from scratch should I be going skylake even if the x99 offers better value now. I think you are saying yes.
Zasada
Footballguy
Unless you're doing something that requires six or eight cores (e.g. mining, encoding, etc), then Skylake is by far the better value. For a gaming rig you can take the $ saved on the mobo/cpu (by not getting X99) and plough it into the video card.
Ignoramus
Footballguy
So the computer comes with a completely OP 180 W PSU, which means I now have to figure out what PSU will fit in this #####. I should have just started from scratch.
The Tick
Footballguy
So I'm starting to narrow down the parts for my new gaming PC, it will pretty much just be used for gaming, nothing else and I won't be doing any overclocking. Just trying to build a good strong gaming pc that should do 2560x1440 gaming well. I'm leaning towards not 4K at this point.
The biggest questions I haven't completely figured out are the video card and monitor. I'm looking at either a GTX980 or GTX980 Ti. Is going to the Ti wasteful overkill if I'm not planning on 4K? Also, when looking at video cards there are TONs of brands, what cards to people prefer. I was looking at something like:
EVGA GTX980 4GB SC Gaming
Are there brands considered to be much better than this? If I got the Ti I was just planning to get the NVIDIA branded one as it seemed price compatible, and as I said, I don't plan to do any overclocking.
For monitors I've looked at online reviews, and they are mainly recommending the $650 monitors if you want the 2560x1440. Any brand suggestions to use or not to use, Asus, Acer, BenQ, others.
The parts I'm more decided on are:
Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 350D Micro ATX - $98
PSU: Corsair CS550 550W ATX Supply - $80 (I think 550W is enough, but could push higher especially if I go with the Ti Card)
CPU: Intel Skylake I5-6600 3.3GHz - $230
HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $30
Case Fan: (included w/ case may update if I think I need more airflow or quieter)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 - $145
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB 2666MHz - $85
SSD: 250GB Samsung SSD Boot Drive (Already purchased)
HDD: 4TB Seagate Hybrid HDD (Already purchased)
Optical: No idea yet, just need a cheap one to load any disc games I have
OS: Win10, can you still buy win7 and free upgrade, or has that trick run out?
Any suggestions/comments on my current choices?
The biggest questions I haven't completely figured out are the video card and monitor. I'm looking at either a GTX980 or GTX980 Ti. Is going to the Ti wasteful overkill if I'm not planning on 4K? Also, when looking at video cards there are TONs of brands, what cards to people prefer. I was looking at something like:
EVGA GTX980 4GB SC Gaming
Are there brands considered to be much better than this? If I got the Ti I was just planning to get the NVIDIA branded one as it seemed price compatible, and as I said, I don't plan to do any overclocking.
For monitors I've looked at online reviews, and they are mainly recommending the $650 monitors if you want the 2560x1440. Any brand suggestions to use or not to use, Asus, Acer, BenQ, others.
The parts I'm more decided on are:
Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 350D Micro ATX - $98
PSU: Corsair CS550 550W ATX Supply - $80 (I think 550W is enough, but could push higher especially if I go with the Ti Card)
CPU: Intel Skylake I5-6600 3.3GHz - $230
HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $30
Case Fan: (included w/ case may update if I think I need more airflow or quieter)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 - $145
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB 2666MHz - $85
SSD: 250GB Samsung SSD Boot Drive (Already purchased)
HDD: 4TB Seagate Hybrid HDD (Already purchased)
Optical: No idea yet, just need a cheap one to load any disc games I have
OS: Win10, can you still buy win7 and free upgrade, or has that trick run out?
Any suggestions/comments on my current choices?
JerseyToughGuys
Tough Guy
antithesis question:
How does this integrated video card:
AMD Radeon R9 M395 graphics processor with 2GB of GDDR5 memory
Configurable to AMD Radeon R9 M395X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
stack up against current dedicated cards?
How does this integrated video card:
AMD Radeon R9 M395 graphics processor with 2GB of GDDR5 memory
Configurable to AMD Radeon R9 M395X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
stack up against current dedicated cards?
The Tick
Footballguy
Going for a bump here. My memory should arrive today, and the case just went on sale (along with a bunch of other corsair stuff for an amazon daily deal) so that will get ordered today.
Only changes from my original list are that I'm planning to up the PS to either a 750W or 850W supply, considering between EVGA, Corsair, and Seasonic, EVGA and Seasonic seem to have a pretty good price point, and still seems like a quality brand, looks like you pay a bunch extra for the corsair stuff (unfortunately the supplies I'm looking at aren't part of that amazon sale). I'm planning to use the higher W in case I ever want to do dual video card in the future. Could be an easy upgrade 2 years from now, likely will never do it, but for $20 or so, why not have the option.
Still waffling on the video card choice. EVGA is probably my preferred vendor still, for no other reason than availability and some pretty good prices. I'm now looking at their FTW cards (one of their higher level overclocked ones) $520 for the 680, and $640 for the 680Ti.
Still looking for opinions on graphics card vendors if anyone has any first hand experience with different vendors. I haven't built my own PC in 20 years, so I don't know what the general feelings are on quality across the different guys, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI... etc.
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TheAristocrat
Footballguy
I'm running with the EVGA GTX970 and it is a thing of beauty. Absolutely love this graphics card.
I think you'll like the 980. Can't help with comparisons to Gigabyte or MSI. Always been a EVGA guy.
I think you'll like the 980. Can't help with comparisons to Gigabyte or MSI. Always been a EVGA guy.
need2know
Footballguy
Got a new gaming laptop coming from sager later this week.
17.3" Full HD IPS Matte Display with G-SYNC Technology (1920 x 1080)
- Guaranteed no dead or partially-lit pixels for first 30 days of purchasing
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU with 8GB GDDR5 Video Memory
- 6th Generation Intel® Core i7-6700K Processor ( 8MB Smart Cache, 4.0GHz)
- IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- Windows® 10 Pro 64-Bit Edition Preinstalled
- 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 SDRAM at 2133MHz - 2 X 8GB
- 250GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD - as an OS Drive (Primary Drive C)
- 1TB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
- Killer Dual Band Wireless-AC 1535 M.2 AC Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Module
- 330W 110V/240V autoswitch AC Adapter
So excited. Been rolling with an older sager model for 5 years so was in need of an upgrade.
17.3" Full HD IPS Matte Display with G-SYNC Technology (1920 x 1080)
- Guaranteed no dead or partially-lit pixels for first 30 days of purchasing
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU with 8GB GDDR5 Video Memory
- 6th Generation Intel® Core i7-6700K Processor ( 8MB Smart Cache, 4.0GHz)
- IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- Windows® 10 Pro 64-Bit Edition Preinstalled
- 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 SDRAM at 2133MHz - 2 X 8GB
- 250GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD - as an OS Drive (Primary Drive C)
- 1TB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
- Killer Dual Band Wireless-AC 1535 M.2 AC Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Module
- 330W 110V/240V autoswitch AC Adapter
So excited. Been rolling with an older sager model for 5 years so was in need of an upgrade.
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
My ncases arrived this week finally. I need one more power supply then I'm building the server and a new gaming rig! Hopefully next week. I'm going to have a ton of questions on the server Zas!
Biggest question right now is black or silver for the gaming rig? Leaning silver.
Biggest question right now is black or silver for the gaming rig? Leaning silver.
The Tick
Footballguy
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
I pretty much stole Zas' specs. I7 6700, 16gb of DDR4, 500gb Samsung SSD and I'm using my current video card (770?? Copeman is that right? You have the box) for now. I'll post the full specs when I'm home. I ordered the parts in December! I didn't realize it would take so long for the cases to arrive. They are super sweet though. About the size of a 12 pack.
The Tick
Footballguy
Nice, yeah I started there, but as I kept looking I decided to get out of the ITX form factor. My PC sits under a desk, so I found a smallish corsair case that I'm going with, so I'm still not a big tower, but it seemed to get me into cheaper parts and a little more wiggle room on cooling options. You are right though, that ncase does look f-ing sweet. Think I'm still planning to stick with the i5 also.
Then I'm pretty much blowing all those savings on the biggest graphics card available, kinda excited for that
.
Zasada
Footballguy
I have never had a video card die on me. From any vendor.
MaximumPC just reviewed the Zotac 980ti Amp Extreme ($670 @ BH). Got one of their rare "kick ###!" awards. Basically the fastest out-of-the-box 980Ti on the market right now. I would seriously consider that if you're not waiting for Pascal (could be a long wait).
Zasada
Footballguy
I love walking into my office and seeing my NCase / ITX server sitting dead-silent. Found a program that will shut the HDDs down entirely and the mobo I use also shuts the fans down entirely at idle. Same for the PSU. So at idle there are no parts moving in the case whatsoever. When the CPU/HDDs spin-up, then there's noise but that's with a purpose.
Since I last chatted about my server I have added 5 IP cameras around my house and BlueIris monitoring software on the server. Pretty cool stuff. Can look-in on my house/cats remotely from anywhere and any motion around any of the cameras gets recorded/saved. That server is truly becoming the electronic hub of the house.
The Tick
Footballguy
No way I will be waiting for the Pascal, but that does sound like a big tech bump and may be interesting. Can't imagine it will be until late this year at best that the product line is fully out with all the variations, but that could make me consider starting this box with something like a 970 saving a couple hundred bucks and anticipating a jump a year from now. I'll have to consider that.
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Zasada
Footballguy
The Tick
Footballguy
GTX1080 released today in limited SKU's. As Zas said this thing just looks to be a beast. I'm likely going to sell the GTX970 I bought a couple months back, for probably not much..., and grab one of these when some more of the SKU's are available. I didn't think they'd be around until later in the year. I should have just held off my gaming built, but already had so many parts on hand wanted to finish the build to get it running and make sure I wasn't sitting on any dead parts.
ETA: Looks like interest is so high on these that EVGA's website isn't really working right now.
ETA: Looks like interest is so high on these that EVGA's website isn't really working right now.
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Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
The Tick
Footballguy
I don't know if the 1070 also came out today, that will have a lower price point, but the 1080's out today are all the full price "founder's edition" at $699, but a lot of the other ones coming out in the next couple weeks should be in the $600-$650 range.
ETA: 1070 definitely not out yet, with conflicting news on it's price point, but somewhere between $350 and $450 range. Some early reports say it may overpower the 980Ti cards that are in the $600 range. But a lot of this is just rumors as I don't think many people even have it for review yet.
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Zasada
Footballguy
That's a great setup. If you wanted to save a few $ you could easily go with a less-premium mobo and heatsink. Depends how serious you are about overclocking.
But other than that option, you're looking at a sweet rig.
Borden
Footballguy
I might be the most computer illiterate person that has posted in this thread so I apologize in advance. Mobo I figure is mother board. I only picked that mother board because it says "mini ITX" and I read in this thread that guys seemed approving of this. Other than that I'm not far off of just a random guess.
Heat sink, from what I read in my google search, is the cooling fan (or cooling system). I'm okay with spending the extra few dollars on that one. This will be going in my living room as it will be replacing my PS4 and cable box and from what I understand the extra money is for noise reduction. If that's even what you're talking about.
Also, thanks for taking the time to look and the feedback.
The Tick
Footballguy
Strange, I see an empty sheet when I click on your link. Agree on the 1070 card now, that is probably the place to be.
My system is pretty quite now and I paid $30. My micro ATX motherboard was $150, and has been great.
The Tick
Footballguy
In my gaming rig news, I just upgraded this week to an EVGA GTX1080 SC graphics card. Haven't been able to really test the damn thing out yet because I'm having a hard time finding a monitor I want. So hopefully I'll have something in the next couple days and be able to see what this thing can do, pretty excited for it.
Still leaning towards 2560x1440 and not going 4K, I think for the 27 inch monitors I'm looking at 4K won't make that much of a difference.
Still leaning towards 2560x1440 and not going 4K, I think for the 27 inch monitors I'm looking at 4K won't make that much of a difference.
Mad Cow
Welshers and Dawdlers Beware!
Yeah, the 1070 is a monster. That said, I have a very nice 1070 still sitting in a box 2 weeks after getting it because I have not had time to throw it into my home rig with the 970. If I were building today for high end, the 1070 is money. If you want to save some cash, the 1060 is great, as well.
If I were building today for high end, the 1070 is money. If you want to save some cash, the 1060 is great, as well.
Borden
Footballguy
Try this.
Your prices are about the prices I'm looking at for each. I was originally planning to go more on the budget end of things but switched to a value approach. Value being the best performance to price ratio. I'm okay with switching out piece by piece as things go out of date but I don't want end up having to switch out everything all at once.
Mad Cow
Welshers and Dawdlers Beware!
Why a mini-ITX mobo with a large case? I would get a bigger mobo with better features since you have the room.
abbottjamesr
Footballguy
I've been using a 27" QNIX 1440p monitor I got off the egg for about a year now. It's been really nice for the money < $300. It was easy to overclock to 98 hz which is a nice improvement and a noticeable improvement over 60hz. I have a GTX1070 that I just received and BF4 in Ultra looks good at ~ 100 fps. There was an option to get a monitor with guaranteed zero dead pixels for like $10 more. I opted for that and it arrived with no dead pixels.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4JH22E7419&cm_re=qnix-_-9SIA4JH22E7419-_-Product
It seems there are cheaper options now but I don't know much about them.
The Tick
Footballguy
Video card seems REALLY expensive, it looks like you are in Canada, but everything else seemed kinda in line, where the video card is like 2x what you would be paying in US dollars.
Only other comment would be on the HDD 256G isn't all that big of a drive for a gaming machine. I'd recommend getting a smaller SSD for a boot drive then getting a larger 1-4TB either mechanical or hybrid driver as your "games library drive"
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