After more than a year gaming on my notebook (PC died) I am finally going to build a PC again.
I have been waiting a bit to have a little bit more money at my disposal, as I want to get some VR hardware.
I considered AMD but like @Fridge over there I am a bit torn. My last AMD PC was a long time ago.
My current idea right now is this:
Intel i5-9600K (pretty good single core performance, overclockable if need be, six cores should be enough so an i7 would be not worth the additional money IMO)
32GB of RAM, 3200MHz (32GB just to be on the safe side, you can never have too much RAM. I am not sure whether the 3200 is worth it compared to the 3000, maybe not, I looked at a few benchmarks and they didn’t look too different. But not that big of a price difference either.)
Some main board, I have no clue which one. I liked ASUS in the past but every company out there has produced crap or great boards at some time. Any opinions?
Some CPU cooler, probably in the 50-60€ range. I am most likely not going to overclock right away, I rarely overclocked my PCs in the past.
RTX 2070 Super I am pretty set on that one. Barely over 500€ and it seems to be very solid in performance, even beating the much more expensive 2080 in some cases. I know the only real graphics card for VR out there is the 2080ti, but I am just not spending that amount of money, and I am not going to wait another two years for VR. I’ll rather live with less visual quality.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB M.2 SSD That’s just too good to not take. The other drives will be my old Samsung 840 250GB SSD and two HDs for mass storage (also from my old PC). The slower SSD will be for windows (I don’t care if it boots a few seconds slower, I want the fast one for a few games (such as DCSW)
700W power supply. Should be enough I guess? I will let the shop (I will let them build it) check the one from my old PC which is a 700W and probably still OK.
Win10 home (meh. I guess for gaming I just have to)
For the case I will use my old one, it’s still good. I will also use my old optical drive. And if it doesn’t work anymore… I have an external one, if I need one at all.
That should put the PC into the 1500€ range, which is good because I don’t want to significantly exceed 2000€ including the VR headset.
As for the VR headset, it will almost surely be a Rift S.
Looks good to me, i5’s are usually pretty good value for money.
Pretty curious how that RTX 2070 Super stacks up against a plain 1080 card. Might be time to swap out mine?
For the CPU cooler, have you taken a look at one of the big double tower coolers from Noctua, eg. NH-D15? They are really effective, and very quiet.
Infact I just put back in my old NH-D14 after I got tired of the pump noise from a Corsair H100i AiO watercooler. I think the CPU temp is all about 1 degree or so higher now, and I can’t even hear it’s running.
Coolers: Never tried a high end air cooler, didn’t like the bulky look anyway. Always used Corsair AIO’s. Out of all I owned and have known friends buy, only one failed (my brother’s) and it’s at least 5-6 years old.
RAM: 32GB is good. DCS in 2D high settings for me can push the system to 20-21GB in use. I got 3200 as it was on sale.
Mobo: I stick by Asus now, my old Sabertooth P67B3 was wonderful and my new Maximus XI Formula is also a beast (you likely don’t need this monster with built in WiFi etc). I like ASUS’s BIOS though, it’s super easy to work with.
CPU: i7 (Or dare I say, i9) will mainly benefit multitasking. If you don’t do a lot at once, or say…render video, the i5 should serve you well.
GPU: my 1070ti does very well (non-VR), I would gather a RTX should hold up even better.
PSU: If it’s in working order, and not really old - save some $$. I think I have an 850 watt covering my system, and that’s even overkill.
SSDs: Since you have a good Samsung (just older) SSD already, this May not apply - but I got a lot better smoothness from DCS by having Windows on my M.2 drive. Most micro-pauses for my system stemmed from C (on a cheap SSD) having longer access times (DCS was on another SSD). It’s like everything has to wait for Windows. If you hadn’t had hiccups with it though, your plan is reasonable.
A couple counter points:
Fast SSD for Windows helps everything, side benefit to DCS.
Fast SSD to DCS helps…DCS, side benefit to some other things (say virus scans, backup, updates etc.)
Considering the exact same system, except I have a 2070 already.
Leaning towards Asus MB. The last one I bought has been on 24/7 for almost four years. Never an issue. Dang reliable. It’s too bad the z390 chip boards are so ugly with LEDs, but it’ll be in the case, so whatever.
Really seems this is the sweetspot bang for buck, although I haven’t ruled out an AMD 3600X. That one would save the cost of the cooler. It depends on which goes on sale on Amazon prime day.
Ahhhh…
I just read a bit about that.
Intel says 2666, that’s indeed the official spec, probably for legal reasons. Most gaming boards seem to support going higher and it seems it doesn’t only work, but it does bring increased performance.
Depends on the motherboard. 2x16 leaves room to add another 32 without having to replace the existing stuff. Download the manual and see what it says about running dual/quad channel. I run 4x8 myself, no issues there. Price may be a bigger factor depending what you can get for 2x16 or 4x8.
The thing is: I never upgrade my PCs.
I buy one, I am super happy with it for three years, then somewhat unhappy for the fourth year but tell myself it will still work (which it always did), and after the fourth year I replace it completely, keeping the old one as spare or giving it to my wife. (This time it was a bit longer, more than five years.)
The most likely thing to be actually upgraded is the Graphics card. But even that isn’t very likely.
I will probably just go for 4x8 and stick with it.
EDIT: The good thing is: I will be blown away by its speed.
Right now I am on a Laptop that cost me 2000 bucks (IIRC) four years ago or so. It is pretty fast, about as fast as my big PC. But compared to today’s PCs? Not fast at all.
Don’t fear!
That’s only the speed Intel certifies it too.
If the chipset on the board supports 3200, just enable XMP in BIOS to make use of it. (According to quick research I just did).
Should be okay so long as chipset and board accept it and preferably RAM is on the boards QVL list.
Yep, thanks for the confirmation!
It is really funny, I checked the i5, i7, and i9 families too, and haven’t found one that Intel certifies for more than 2666.
Ordered the PC pretty much as above.
Board will be from Asus, graphics card from Palit, cooler is a Scythe (a surprisingly cheap one but I trust the guy at the shop that it is more than sufficient for that i5)
And as always when I order something expensive I have an overwhelming feeling of dread that it will turn out to be crap.
The feeling usually disappears once I have the product.
Fingers crossed.
Thanks!
I played the waiting game for more than a year now. First it was “let’s wait for the graphic cards to get cheaper again (damn miners)”, then the prices didn’t drop so it became “let’s wait for the new generation” then AMD failed hard so decided to go for the RTX. Then I realized they still won’t get cheaper, and the Super series were announced.
So it became “let’s wait for the Super”. Now they are released and I am getting tired of playing on the Laptop (although I have to say the Laptop was definitely worth its money and made waiting a lot easier!)
My new PC is here and I am in the process of installing everything.
Hopped in the DCS Huey for a bit (not so many controls to set up ) and man that PC is definitely a lot faster than the old one.
Space Engine on the big monitor (I only had it on the Laptop until now) is a blast. Graphics maxed.
Also hopped into X-Plane11 (didn’t have to redownload, I had it on the hard disk from my old PC that I use) and it runs fine.
Next up: setting up my wheel and pedals for Dirt Rally, which for some reason didn’t run at all on my old PC so I only played it on a tiny Laptop screen.
Also going to try the new Star Citizen version, downloaded that last night.
Very curious about Total War Warhammer 2 as well, which runs pretty crappy on the Laptop.
One week left to play with the new PC, after that I will be on vacation for two weeks.
If the PC runs fine in non-VR I will get a Rift S, probably in September.
Unsurprisingly all games run a lot faster.
Dirt Rally is a blast, runs at >120fps.
X-plane and DCS run great as well as far as I can tell.
My Lizardmen army in Total War: Warhammer has never looked better.
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to really delve in because I am preparing got my vacation, but I am pretty happy.
