PC Hardware and building thread

[Akky82]

Well, looks like i have a bit more research to do, was mislead about how hard it is to watercool but after seeing that corsair setup i have 3 questions. Currently planning on a build, anything stick out in it or does it look fine (i havent been in the know for about 10 years when lwork started getting me laptops that were better than my pc at the time, there may be better/cheaper alternatives to something, especially dont know about ram):

- i7 8700 (was originally going for 8600k)

- Asus TUF Z370 plus gaming (was tossing up between this and gigabyte auros, but most people i talked to swear by asus for mobo)

- Corsair vengeance LPX 3000 DDR4

- Antec 80+gold Earth Watts 650W

- Samsung Evo 970 m.2 250GB

- WD Black 1 or 2TB

- Noctua NH-D15

- not sure on a case yet, was originally looking at corsair c270R, then a carbide 540 air, but this talk of fractal design has me interested, i like the meshify c.


Essentially, I'd like to use it for gaming, I've tried some games lately on my laptop (3rd gen i7, radeon m7600) and its struggling, then I found myself the reciever of a gigabyte 8gb gtx1080 windforce and a 27" monitor so the decision was made to build.


So the second question is, if Im not looking to OC, is there any reason I should spend the extra 70 bucks and get that corsair hydro H115i setup (or similar)? I'm sure I could do it all myself but money is a small factor I'm taking into consideration (ie getting just the next best bit for everything all adds up).

Third question, any realistic reason to grab 3200 over 3000 RAM?

Cheers in advance for any help.

[DELTAprime]

Well, looks like i have a bit more research to do, was mislead about how hard it is to watercool but after seeing that corsair setup i have 3 questions. Currently planning on a build, anything stick out in it or does it look fine (i havent been in the know for about 10 years when lwork started getting me laptops that were better than my pc at the time, there may be better/cheaper alternatives to something, especially dont know about ram):

- i7 8700 (was originally going for 8600k)

- Asus TUF Z370 plus gaming (was tossing up between this and gigabyte auros, but most people i talked to swear by asus for mobo)

- Corsair vengeance LPX 3000 DDR4

- Antec 80+gold Earth Watts 650W

- Samsung Evo 970 m.2 250GB

- WD Black 1 or 2TB

- Noctua NH-D15

- not sure on a case yet, was originally looking at corsair c270R, then a carbide 540 air, but this talk of fractal design has me interested, i like the meshify c.


Essentially, I'd like to use it for gaming, I've tried some games lately on my laptop (3rd gen i7, radeon m7600) and its struggling, then I found myself the reciever of a gigabyte 8gb gtx1080 windforce and a 27" monitor so the decision was made to build.


So the second question is, if Im not looking to OC, is there any reason I should spend the extra 70 bucks and get that corsair hydro H115i setup (or similar)? I'm sure I could do it all myself but money is a small factor I'm taking into consideration (ie getting just the next best bit for everything all adds up).

Third question, any realistic reason to grab 3200 over 3000 RAM?

Cheers in advance for any help.

Ok, so first thing is I recommend you don't get a TUF motherboard. While the Asus TUF series was a good choice several generations ago as they were built to last they are now incredibly cheaply built and contrary to the name are not expected to last very long. An Asus Prime Z370 board should be the minimum board to go with in the Asus lineup.

On the Intel side of things faster memory doesn't make a huge difference in performance unlike AMD where you need to buy very specific memory in order to achieve good performance.

Next are you certain want a locked CPU? If you can afford it the 8700k is the way to go but between the 8700 and the 8600k I'd actually recommend the 8600k. For gaming you don't need 12 threads and a higher single core clock like you can get with a very basic overclock of the 8600k will be more beneficial for gaming. You really only need the threads and cores of the 8700k and 2700X if you are doing things like video rendering, CAD or streaming. Yes it is very nice to have that little extra bump in perf from extra threads but it's not 100% necessary for gaming and I get the sense you're trying to do this cheap.

Also that Noctua cooler is fine for overclocking and perfect for a locked CPU. AIOs perform better, but they are not mandatory.

[Akky82]

Ok, so first thing is I recommend you don't get a TUF motherboard. While the Asus TUF series was a good choice several generations ago as they were built to last they are now incredibly cheaply built and contrary to the name are not expected to last very long. An Asus Prime Z370 board should be the minimum board to go with in the Asus lineup.

On the Intel side of things faster memory doesn't make a huge difference in performance unlike AMD where you need to buy very specific memory in order to achieve good performance.

Next are you certain want a locked CPU? If you can afford it the 8700k is the way to go but between the 8700 and the 8600k I'd actually recommend the 8600k. For gaming you don't need 12 threads and a higher single core clock like you can get with a very basic overclock of the 8600k will be more beneficial for gaming. You really only need the threads and cores of the 8700k and 2700X if you are doing things like video rendering, CAD or streaming. Yes it is very nice to have that little extra bump in perf from extra threads but it's not 100% necessary for gaming and I get the sense you're trying to do this cheap.

Also that Noctua cooler is fine for overclocking and perfect for a locked CPU. AIOs perform better, but they are not mandatory.

Hey thanks for the reply, I was actually looking at a prime board (not really digging tuf yellow but im not fussed about looks or RBG), it's mainly friends from Singapore swearing by asus and lamenting that they're so expensive over there. Also one friend that works for ubisoft was mentioning about games in the future using more cores/threads (not sure on the terminology) and noted that some mmorpg Blessed online is using the lot at the moment on a 7th gen i5 (I may be misunderstanding). Point is, 70 bucks is 70 bucks and the more Im reading today the more likely I am to go with 8600k because Im sure it wont be any time soon that I'll have to worry.

Back to the board, any recommendations for another brand? Say gigabyte? auros ultra gaming at 239 seems reasonable, or just an auros with 3 slots for 209. My sister in law runs a shop and though she's doing more ipad/iphone repairs lately she always recommends gigabyte for builds she does for customers (I'd prefer to do it myself, surely a mechanical engineer can put together his own pc right?), plus I'mnot sure I want her knowing exactly how much I'mspending, because the wife certainly wont... Also CAD will more than likely be on the table but dont think it will be often enough to be worth it (not even enough to get away with tax claim at the moment).

[DELTAprime]

The Asus Z370 Prime-A and MSI Z370 Tomahawk are in a similar price bracket to the TUF boards, maybe spend a little extra (around $250 vs $230) and get something like the MSI Z370M Pro Gaming AC. You really get what you pay for with motherboards. That said you don't need to spend the type of money I do on motherboards with the Asus ROG Maximus and Crosshair series boards to get something decent. Also you pay a little premium with Asus products vs Gigabyte, MSI and Asrock.

Also don't worry about games using all threads and cores of a CPU any time soon. The only big titles in recent times that are hammering the CPU to the point you need more cores and threads are Watch Dogs 2 which is poorly optimised on PC and Assassin's Creed Origins which has an overly aggressive DRM scheme that uses 100% of the spare CPU cycles to make sure you're not pirating the game. In both cases it's an unrealistic example of how games run. Most games still use 4 threads maximum with most using less and the 8600k has 6 threads plus it can be clocked higher with very basic overclocking allowing for much better gaming performance.

EDIT: Also what's your budget?

[Akky82]

The Asus Z370 Prime-A and MSI Z370 Tomahawk are in a similar price bracket to the TUF boards, maybe spend a little extra (around $250 vs $230) and get something like the MSI Z370M Pro Gaming AC. You really get what you pay for with motherboards. That said you don't need to spend the type of money I do on motherboards with the Asus ROG Maximus and Crosshair series boards to get something decent. Also you pay a little premium with Asus products vs Gigabyte, MSI and Asrock.

Also don't worry about games using all threads and cores of a CPU any time soon. The only big titles in recent times that are hammering the CPU to the point you need more cores and threads are Watch Dogs 2 which is poorly optimised on PC and Assassin's Creed Origins which has an overly aggressive DRM scheme that uses 100% of the spare CPU cycles to make sure you're not pirating the game. In both cases it's an unrealistic example of how games run. Most games still use 4 threads maximum with most using less and the 8600k has 6 threads plus it can be clocked higher with very basic overclocking allowing for much better gaming performance.

EDIT: Also what's your budget?

1600 give or take (including win10) have to replace the hard drive in my laptop to hand-me-down it to my wife because her old hand-me-down laptop is pretty much gone (battery, screen, some keys (damn kids heh), slow as). My laptop has a small ssd (older 190MB/s ~225GB) at the moment, it wont be enough for her.

[DELTAprime]

1600 give or take (including win10) have to replace the hard drive in my laptop to hand-me-down it to my wife because her old hand-me-down laptop is pretty much gone (battery, screen, some keys (damn kids heh), slow as). My laptop has a small ssd (older 190MB/s ~225GB) at the moment, it wont be enough for her.

Ok, so here's a list that should be good for you that's under budget. Note I used PC Case Gear for the prices as they are not the cheapest therefore keeping it 100% under budget. So since you're in Brisbane going into you're local Umart should let you get them cheaper as Umart is a cheaper retailer.

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/xgrMFt

I went with the 8600K as although there are people that are screaming "6 threads isn't enough" when you actually look at benchmarks single core clock is king and there is no real difference between the 8700K and 8600K.

The Noctua cooler you went with is perfectly adequate for a 5ghz overclock at 1.35ish volts which is a very safe overclock. You won't have your CPU go up in smoke with that speed and voltage.

The Strix motherboard is Asus and it's a very highly guarded one.

The memory you went with is fine for gaming.

While there is nothing wrong with a 970 Evo, by going to a MX500 you get double the capacity for a similar price and the extra speed of the 970 Evo is lost on non-data heavy workloads like gaming and operating systems.

The WD Black is faster but it's loud, the WD Blue is quiet but incredibly slow. The WD Red however is quiet, fairly fast and super reliable.

The case is your choice but the Meshify C is cheap, looks amazing and is highly regarded.

PSU is where you don't want to cheap out. A bad PSU will literally kill your components so a very highly regarded brand like Corsair or SeaSonic is much preferable.

Windows 10 Home is all you need, don't waste your money on Pro.

[Ralph Wiggum]

It's been about 7 years since I last upgraded my PC so decided to treat myself:

Intel I5 8500
Gigabyte H370 Aorus Gaming 3 motherboard
16GB Corsair 2400 RAM
Galax 1070ti

Everything runs nice and smoothly, given I'm only on 1080p...my next step will be a 1440 monitor.

[Akky82]

Ok, so here's a list that should be good for you that's under budget. Note I used PC Case Gear for the prices as they are not the cheapest therefore keeping it 100% under budget. So since you're in Brisbane going into you're local Umart should let you get them cheaper as Umart is a cheaper retailer.

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/xgrMFt

I went with the 8600K as although there are people that are screaming "6 threads isn't enough" when you actually look at benchmarks single core clock is king and there is no real difference between the 8700K and 8600K.

The Noctua cooler you went with is perfectly adequate for a 5ghz overclock at 1.35ish volts which is a very safe overclock. You won't have your CPU go up in smoke with that speed and voltage.

The Strix motherboard is Asus and it's a very highly guarded one.

The memory you went with is fine for gaming.

While there is nothing wrong with a 970 Evo, by going to a MX500 you get double the capacity for a similar price and the extra speed of the 970 Evo is lost on non-data heavy workloads like gaming and operating systems.

The WD Black is faster but it's loud, the WD Blue is quiet but incredibly slow. The WD Red however is quiet, fairly fast and super reliable.

The case is your choice but the Meshify C is cheap, looks amazing and is highly regarded.

PSU is where you don't want to cheap out. A bad PSU will literally kill your components so a very highly regarded brand like Corsair or SeaSonic is much preferable.

Windows 10 Home is all you need, don't waste your money on Pro.

Just an update here, finished the build 2 weeks ago, I went with the rog strix, 8600k, 16gb, corsair psu, fractal meshify c and crucial 500gb.

Haven't bought another hdd yet though, the list from partpicker had no price for the psu so was actually over budget but besides that I also went for the corsair hydro h115i just on a whim after seeing the box for the noctua cooler and being told yeah its huge.

It was a tight fit, about 5mm between the fans on the rad and the gtx1080 but it all looks great, spent a lot of time making sure it was neat, good changes since I last built a PC (the cables routing through the bottom/back of the case and popping through holes to the mobo for one).

So far so good, havent seen my graphics card above 64 degrees or any core over about 35 (avg about 28-29). Thanks for your help, my sister in law who tuns a computer shop (but just buys from msy/umart anyway) asked me to buy stuff and get her to put it together but i did it all myself and surprised her (wasnt hard), also replaced the keyboard/hdd on my old laptop to hand it down to my wife.