Build critique

[KRyn]

Anyone have any interest in double checking what components I have selected?

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Anyone know someone who works at MemEx N.E? They are the only store in Calgary that has all the parts in stock for my new build.

Also anyone have any interest in double checking what components I have selected?

I don't know anyone good a Memex anymore now that Hakkola quit, but I'd be happy to critique the parts list.

[revelations]

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Anyone know someone who works at MemEx N.E? They are the only store in Calgary that has all the parts in stock for my new build.

Also anyone have any interest in double checking what components I have selected?

mem ex does this as well if you order online - just add to the comments "please check compatbility"

However - if you need to tweak the build for price optimized use in a certain instance, please post the parts here.

[KRyn]

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/qrYRgw

Plan is to use my 970 until next gen cards drop. Have been running an over clocked 2700k up until now. Plan to keep my next processor for hopefully as long.

[revelations]

You havent mentioned the primary/secondary usage of the system. For eg. I am building a system that should max out customized /modded versions of GTAV at 1080p with ultra realism turned on.

[KRyn]

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You havent mentioned the primary/secondary usage of the system. For eg. I am building a system that should max out customized /modded versions of GTAV at 1080p with ultra realism turned on.

Gaming mainly and chopping up and editing GoPro videos are the main uses. Currently gaming at 1080p, no real interest in 4k.

[Gman.45]

I have 2 8700k and a 6850 gaming station we're going to upgrade too, I'm just waiting for the new cpu and MBs (9900k and the new 1180/whatever too), to kill all birds with a couple stones. Your build looks very solid though, I have many of the same components, including the cooler and m.2s. I know everyone says not to bother with 32gb of ram, but I ran into a program recently that greatly benefits from using 32 over 16 especially in VR, just be sure nothing you play/use has a similar increase in performance with the RAM increase. If you aren't into VR, I think 16gb should be fine, just consider that is all if you ARE into VR, or plan to be, especially with driving/cockpit games, where I've noticed a significant improvement with more ram.

For your stated purpose, 8700k will be really good for you, I've been using the same for a year now, great cpu/platform for the $ - if the new 9700/9900k chips were coming out in early q4 2018 I'd say wait for those for sure, but it looks like they're being pushed to 2019 as of the rumor/news today.

[KRyn]

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For your stated purpose, 8700k will be really good for you, I've been using the same for a year now, great cpu/platform for the $ - if the new 9700/9900k chips were coming out in early q4 2018 I'd say wait for those for sure, but it looks like they're being pushed to 2019 as of the rumor/news today.

Hmmm... Maybe I do want to wait?

https://wccftech.com/intel-9th-gen-c...ctober-launch/

https://www.pcgamesn.com/intel-leake...q1-2019-launch

https://segmentnext.com/2018/08/01/9...coffee-lake-s/

[Mitsu3000gt]

Sorry I just saw your PM now so I might as well reply here.

CPU: Wait for 9900K if you can - stay on top of rumors for release dates. Not only will it have a soldered IHS (FINALLY - even $200 Ryzens have this), but you should be able to easily get all 8 cores at 5GHz which will be awesome especially for the video editing you want to do.

Cooler: That is a good cooler if you are planning a big OC. Otherwise I would consider a Noctua NH-D15 which outperforms a 240mm AIO and you won't have to ever replace your AIO or risk a leak (their anti-corrosion additives wear off over time). Either would be fine depending on what your end game is, that is a great AIO if you go that route with a big OC or don't like the aesthetics of air.

Mobo: I would wait for the Z390 chipset and 9900K. I am an Asus fan as they usually have better VRMs and BIOS but you need to look at every board individually. If you are planning a crazy OC with that 360mm cooler, I would get the mobo with the beefiest VRMs you can find which is probably an Asus ROG/Maximus. In this case it looks like the AORUS 7 is also an excellent board.

https://www.overclock.net/forum/atta...chmentid=99753

RAM: You might want 32GB if you do a lot of video editing and if you keep your computer for a long time. That is good RAM, as is Trident Z if you need an alternative - they use Samsung DIMMS, have great compatibility and OC well. Looks like you're going for aesthetics anyway with the RGB 3200Mhz is the sweet spot for sure. If you go with 8GB DIMMS you can make up your mind later but those CPUs do not support quad channel RAM.

SSD: 970 EVO is the no-brainer SSD right now. I would have picked the same. No need for larger than 512GB IMO unless you play tons of huge game all at once. Make sure your mobo still has a full bandwidth PCI-E 3.0X4 slot available after any additional drives are connected or you won't get max speed on that SSD. Additional storage where speed isn't a priority is so cheap it's almost unbelievable so I wouldn't go 1TB if you don't absolutely need it for applications/games.

Case: If you want a better case that is also sound deadened, go with the Fractal Design R6. Higher quality, tons of room/options and similar price if not cheaper. It's available with a window too if you want.

PSU: EVGA's G3 PSUs are arguably the best on the market right now. They are made by SuperFlower and use their Leadex II platform which is basically industry standard and get near perfect scoring from JohnnyGuru. Great choice.

GPU: Definitely wait until August 20th and either go with an 11 series or get a deal on a 10 series.

Going to be a beast of a system


---------------------

I bought another high end system back in June and dealing with MemEx was an absolute chore. First they had a look at all my price beats and made a big deal about probably not being able to do any of them (they ended up all working, unsurprisingly). They also made me physically write down all my price beats on one of their sheets because my PC Part Picker printout wasn't good enough for them. I then had to argue about IPR for 10 minutes with someone obviously so desperate for commission that all logic went out the window. Finally they tried to tell me that my cooler choice was inadequate and the CPU would "run faster" with a water cooler at base clocks without OC . I eventually got everything I wanted at the end of it all but I was there well over an hour. If I didn't need the PC in short order I would have walked out and gone to a different location. They also wouldn't install W10 for me (even though I was paying them for it) unless I bought one of their copies.

[Gman.45]

https://wccftech.com/intel-9th-gen-c...ctober-launch/

Rumor for today is Oct this year for the new i9/i7 cpus. I'd wait in your spot Kryn, what's a couple months to get the newest tech coming out. Everything I've read (rumors) show it should be worth the wait and that the cost won't be outrageous for the i9 9900k. I plan on building 2, and hope that the new 1180/whatever is out by then as well, and will buy 3 of those cards and sit on them for the i9 builds, and just run them in my current 8700k systems. Again, your build is solid either way IMO, all decent components. I almost left my regular Asus ROG MB and tried that Aurus MB, but didn't, and am running Asus Max Heros. The lighting on the Aurus is really nice, I saw one running in the shop. Gigabyte makes really good quality components, had a couple of their 1080ti cards before, and they were excellent.

Agree regarding the PSU, Seasonic (harder to find around here) or eVGA is what I'd buy, we have 3 eVGA 1300 G2 that we got in 2016 and are powering our 3 systems, still ticking along perfectly, and that's running SLI 1080ti and TitanXP cards and lots of drives per system. Seasonic builds some of Corsair's PSUs, you just have to research them, but the eVGA is probably as good or better now anyway, despite the "bulletproof" rep Seasonic has.

What monitor are you using? If you don't have a 144hz unit, IMO budget for and get one, even for 1080p, it makes a massive difference in all types of gaming. I prefer the IPS units, I've been using the Asus/Acer Gsync 27 and 34" units for our 3 systems, and just got the 4k 144hz Asus pg27UQ last week. Yes, it cost three thousand dollars with the warranty extended for 2 years. Yes, it's worth every dime IMO. Still, you don't need to go that overboard to see a huge increase from 60hz gaming, there are tons of sub 400 dollar options around for 27" 144hz LCDs.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Agree regarding the PSU, Seasonic (harder to find around here) or eVGA is what I'd buy, we have 3 eVGA 1300 G2 that we got in 2016 and are powering our 3 systems, still ticking along perfectly, and that's running SLI 1080ti and TitanXP cards and lots of drives per system. Seasonic builds some of Corsair's PSUs, you just have to research them, but the eVGA is probably as good or better now anyway, despite the "bulletproof" rep Seasonic has.

The Corsair AX line are the only ones that are high-end Seasonic designs. Every other Corsair model (AXi, RM, HXi, HX, CX, etc. etc.) are Flextronics, Channel Well Technology, or Great Wall OEMs. The Corsair/Seasonic AX line is equal to the Superflower Leadex II's in EVGA's "3" series units. I have an AX860 because the EVGA G3's were sold out everywhere in the city when I did my build, but the EVGA G3's are cheaper with a better warranty (10 yrs vs 7) for a similar quality product. I had an old EVGA P2 PSU fail on me and they overnighted me a new one over Christmas - you cannot beat that customer service, and it's faster than Memex's often worthless IPR.

[KRyn]

That settles it, I will wait for next generation CPU and GPUs. I will likely get you both to go over my build whenever launches.

As you are both ASUS enthusiasts, what is their best board (from the ROG series) for overclocking that isn't loaded with unnecessary features? Dual M.2 seems valuable to me. I assume When I was comparing ASUS boards with the Aorus 7 it seemed like the closest comparable board was nearly $100 more (ROG Apex?). I picked the Aorus 7 for its high end VRMs and ability to over clock extremely easy. Thus my wanting the X72, also I have giant ass Phanteks on my current CPU and it is ugly and clutters my case. The AIO coolers look so much cleaner. With how well cases are designed and all the RGB lameness I want to make my next rig look good as well.

I looked for Seasonic but it doesn't look like Memory Express carries that brand. Good to know I picked the next best thing.

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What monitor are you using? If you don't have a 144hz unit, IMO budget for and get one, even for 1080p, it makes a massive difference in all types of gaming. I prefer the IPS units, I've been using the Asus/Acer Gsync 27 and 34" units for our 3 systems, and just got the 4k 144hz Asus pg27UQ last week. Yes, it cost three thousand dollars with the warranty extended for 2 years. Yes, it's worth every dime IMO. Still, you don't need to go that overboard to see a huge increase from 60hz gaming, there are tons of sub 400 dollar options around for 27" 144hz LCDs.

Currently have a 24" 144hz monitor, would like to get another or maybe 27" in the future. But again, 1080p gaming is all I am after right now. Jeebus, your current setups are insane and future ones sound crazier. Do you find value in upgrading every time a new series drops? Do you just sell all of your used equipment as soon as you upgrade? I guess it is still worth top dollar and not an antique like my 2700k.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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I looked for Seasonic but it doesn't look like Memory Express carries that brand. Good to know I picked the next best thing.

You can find the odd Seasonic model on Newegg sometimes but Canadian Seasonic selection is essentially zero (other than Corsiar AX series which are easy to find). EVGA G3's are top notch, you aren't making any sacrifice there at all and if anything goes wrong you're covered. Like I said, the only reason I have an AX860 (which is an equally outstanding PSU) was the G3's were out of stock haha. I got a good price beat on it too. They actually make a pretty cheap fully modular PSU that surprisingly is available in Canada that I am going to use in an upcoming Mini ITX Ryzen 2400G build but would not be suitable for yours (https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...tPicker%2C+LLC)

The best Asus boards for overclocking are also usually loaded with features as well, you can't really buy a board with their best VRMs and VRM cooling without all the fanfare.

From what I have read that Aorus 7 actually has the best VRMs for the money, but the best VRMs are on the Asus ROG MAXIMUS Series. All the boards you are looking at will easily sustain a 5Ghz OC or similar, but the better boards have bigger heatsinks and will have lower VRM temps. It's probably not a big deal unless you want to spend the extra cash.

It might be different with the X390 boards if you wait for the 9900K but Asus usually has the best VRM design if you are willing to pay for it. The MAXIMUS HERO is the cheapest way into that product line.

Basically these are the threads you will want to follow and pour through:

https://www.overclock.net/forum/6-in...hread-134.html

The ROG APEX and HERO both have very good temps and the APEX is apparently better if you want to do high RAM OC but you're looking at $440 for the APEX which is getting up there. If you aren't going to do any crazy 24/7 OC you're probably just fine with the Aorus 7 which is a good value all things considered.

I am running an Asus TUF Mark 1 for my main X299 build and I got my 7820X to OC to 4.7Ghz on all cores on my first try with no issues or crazy temps. It stays under 70C under load with a Noctua NH-D15. The Asus Rampage boards are like $700 so I went mid/upper-tier and it was totally fine.

[Gman.45]

I ran the Sabertooth MB on my x99 builds, TUF boards are great, so are the ROG and the Aurus, you can't really go wrong with either depending on what features you need or want.

I ran Noctua D14 on my 5930k builds a few gens back, great air coolers, a bit loud when cranked up, but with headphones I don't really care about that anyway. I had a phobia about AIO coolers, after having a big catastrophe with a custom look h20 failure once, but so far so good with the 3 we're running right now.

Kryn, I just cycle our gaming systems whenever a big new CPU or GPU platform comes out, usually every 2 years right now, but it's been as short as 1 year and as long as 3 since 2010, since we've had 3 PC gaming stations wherever we call home, plus a couple gaming laptops. My nephews and nieces were in constant battle over using our gaming system, which limited my own time on them when we had the kids, so we just built 2 more pretty much identical (in performance at least) systems, and just upgrade them along the way. We either give away the upgraded parts/systems, sometimes sell them like in the case of the 4 1080 cards we had as they were still worth about 2500 bucks for all 4 when we upgraded to the ti/Titan cards. One thing I won't be doing again for the foreseeable future is going SLI. SLI is dead IMO, which sucks, as I was a long time 2/3 gpu builder, but there just seems to be no point, especially since with both the Rift/Vive and Odyssey VR units, SLI doesn't even have supporting profiles for when VR headsets are in use. I hope that changes in the future, and that game builders and nvidia will support SLI again in a way that makes it conducive to spending 2 or 3x on GPUs, but for now, no way.

The used market on various sites in Canada is fairly lively, I've had no trouble selling/shipping stuff like the 3 Vives we sold off or the GPUs and MB/CPUs in the past when I chose to do so. Canadian Hardware Swap on the reddits, a few other sites like HardwareCanucks, etc, I've had good luck selling there.

[msommers]

Keep this thread updated when the time comes please, Ken. It'll help future noobs builders like me as a point of reference

[schocker]

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The AIO coolers look so much cleaner. With how well cases are designed and all the RGB lameness I want to make my next rig look good as well.

What you do is you start with an AIO, and then you end up going all out and doing a custom cpu/gpu loop for way more than you think you will spend

You could save some money if you want an AIO on a 240 as that is more than enough for just a CPU. Rule of thumb is kind of 120 mm of fan for cpu or gpu with an additional 120 mm if you are overclocking, so CPU 120 mm, overclocked 240 mm etc.

Also, if you want to get an 11xx nvidia card without paying an early premium you can always pre-order the founders editions straight from nvidia. They do have blower style coolers though which get quite loud due to single fan at high rpm. I bought mine that was as I was water cooling anyways.

[KRyn]

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What you do is you start with an AIO, and then you end up going all out and doing a custom cpu/gpu loop for way more than you think you will spend

You could save some money if you want an AIO on a 240 as that is more than enough for just a CPU. Rule of thumb is kind of 120 mm of fan for cpu or gpu with an additional 120 mm if you are overclocking, so CPU 120 mm, overclocked 240 mm etc.

Also, if you want to get an 11xx nvidia card without paying an early premium you can always pre-order the founders editions straight from nvidia. They do have blower style coolers though which get quite loud due to single fan at high rpm. I bought mine that was as I was water cooling anyways.

Been there, done that and never again. Had a custom loop on my 2700k that leaked and destroyed my graphics card at the time. Thus I went to the big ugly Phanteks cooler. Plan is for ridiculous over clock, thus Kraken X72.

After some more research it appears as though the OEM blower style cards aren't worth it in a larger case with good air flow. I will likely pull the trigger on a 1070 equivalent card in the 11XX series. I can never justify going all out and getting the top of like 1k cards.

@Gman.45 How do you justify buying the 1080ti (plural) and Titan cards? The fact that you sold a 1080 to upgrade to a 1080ti is crazy.

@msommers Will do, I am going at this with the buy once, cry once mentality. Hopefully I can get at least 5+ years out of my next computer.

[Gman.45]

@Gman.45 How do you justify buying the 1080ti (plural) and Titan cards? The fact that you sold a 1080 to upgrade to a 1080ti is crazy.

Since I started online gaming back in the Quake2/Starcraft/Rainbow6 days, I've always made sure to have the very latest hardware, and have always cycled/upgraded as soon as possible when new tech comes out. Always, for 20 years now - longer as I was into PC gaming back in the 286 days in the very early 90s, and always bought the newest 386, then 486 PCs, and super VGA monitors, etc. I made decent $ my working life, and inherited a lot more, but even when I was making only 50k for a couple years in my early 20s, I still never compromised on PC gaming as it was one of my 3 big hobbies.

I have $1500 worth of flight sim controllers for each PC from Virpil and VKB, and 3 Rifts, (sold 3 Vives), and 3 Samsung Odysseys. That's not counting all the headsets, dacs, mechanical keyboards, etc I've collected and bought over the years, plus an example of every flight hotas ever made, and several of some of them like the TM Warthogs. Then add in 1100-3000$ LCD Gsync panels for 3 systems - should give you the picture of how little a deal it is to sell off 4 1080s in 3 machines and move them up to the newest cards, 3 tis and the latest Titan. I drew the line at the $3000 Titan V as it has no advantage in gaming over the other cards. If it had 20 or 30% improvement, I'd buy them, but it doesn't, so I haven't, and am waiting for the 1180 and new 9900 like I said.

[The_Rural_Juror]

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Since I started online gaming back in the Quake2/Starcraft/Rainbow6 days, I've always made sure to have the very latest hardware, and have always cycled/upgraded as soon as possible when new tech comes out. Always, for 20 years now - longer as I was into PC gaming back in the 286 days in the very early 90s, and always bought the newest 386, then 486 PCs, and super VGA monitors, etc. I made decent $ my working life, and inherited a lot more, but even when I was making only 50k for a couple years in my early 20s, I still never compromised on PC gaming as it was one of my 3 big hobbies.

I have $1500 worth of flight sim controllers for each PC from Virpil and VKB, and 3 Rifts, (sold 3 Vives), and 3 Samsung Odysseys. That's not counting all the headsets, dacs, mechanical keyboards, etc I've collected and bought over the years, plus an example of every flight hotas ever made, and several of some of them like the TM Warthogs. Then add in 1100-3000$ LCD Gsync panels for 3 systems - should give you the picture of how little a deal it is to sell off 4 1080s in 3 machines and move them up to the newest cards, 3 tis and the latest Titan. I drew the line at the $3000 Titan V as it has no advantage in gaming over the other cards. If it had 20 or 30% improvement, I'd buy them, but it doesn't, so I haven't, and am waiting for the 1180 and new 9900 like I said.

That is some serious hardware to play leisure suit larry.

[Gman.45]

That is some serious hardware to play leisure suit larry.

Hah, hadn't thought of that game in a long, long time.

DCS/Digital combat simulator, probably the biggest resource hog of any PC game - IE I get 45fps or less in VR with a 8700k running at nearly 5.0 and a Titan with the Odyssey headset. Worse when playing PvP online, struggle to keep that 45fps when lots is going on.

Lots of news about the new x399 motherboards released in the last day, some pretty decent boards from Asus/MSI have had their details released, Gigabyte as well, the new Aurus looks fantastic. Lots of great options from several brands coming.