Finally Building A New PC

Hardware & Tech Questions
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So after my graphics card died a few months ago, I have been with out a PC. I thought my laptop and Xbox one would suffice but Neither has DCS or X Plane. I am missing my flying. So after a wonderful chat with the girlfriend about computers etc. We decided in February I can get a graphics card, which will get my old computer up and running but then I can continue buying parts till I get a new computer.

I came up with the following parts list,

Main thing I am looking for is Playing DCS, Truck Sims,and X Plane, Hoping to have graphics close to max if possible. VR is a thought as well but not a necessity

Any thoughts or suggestions? This would be my first build ever. I am looking to “future proof” as much as possible. Also 16 GB of RAM is a start, a few months after the build is complete I would probably add another 16 if I can.

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looks good man. that thing’d hack VR nicely.

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Just quick feedback (as in don’t read to much into it, just some thoughts):

  • For gaming you might be able to trade off that i7 7700K for an i5 8600K as similar prices. DCS and most games don’t really use the cores of an i7 that much, and probably won’t for a while. Clock speed is still king for gaming and then you’re on a Coffee Lake futureproof for a bit.

  • That 250 GB SSD is a bit small in the future. If you can shave any money off the old spinney hard drive and put it towards a bigger SSD you won’t regret it 6 months from now (as games are getting so big, it’s a pain to shuffle SSD stuff around).

  • A 1070 is a good card for 1080p gaming. If you are keen on 4k and that sort of thing next year then stretching for a 1070ti and 1080 is worth it (frog with the obvious ‘spend more money’ terrible advice just there). A 1070 works well for VR in DCS, although not everything maxed or anything.

  • I haven’t used a DVD drive in a very long time. Unless you plan on writing them, couldn’t you just image old disks and save that cash?

  • Windows 10 is still a free upgrade from any old Windows 7 key you have.

It will be good to have you back and flying again @weaponz248

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That build will wreck any game out at 1080p maxed, no problem. I have a very similar system (i7 6700k) and it dominates. I cant speak to higher res or VR, but the 1070 is more than enough. To reiterate what has been said, single core clock speed is more important than hyperthreading in most games today, so I would go for the fastest chip you can afford, I imagine that one will overclock nicely.

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might splurge for the fastest memory you can afford also, i know the prices are crazy right now.

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Im out of the loop on 4k but will DCS be a 4K title or will it take years for that? Not sure I’d want to shell out the cash for a 1080 if DCS wont be on the 4k boat for awhile

To be honest I was going to use it for a boot drive and use the other one as a storage drive.

so the I7 with a 4.2 ghz isnt as good as the I5 with a 3.6 ghz? Just curious,

I havent either but kinda feel bad for not having one lol I dont plan on using it at all just wasnt sure if I would need it or not for the build and drive installs.

Thats good to know, I got my old key somewhere.

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4k as in some new monitors use 3840x2160 resolution, which then pushes the need for a better graphics card. DCS works on those sorts of resolutions. Unless you are keen on a new fancy monitor as well then you’ll be fine.

I try to only run real massive stuff like X-plane ortho off of SSD, everything else like 15GB game installs really benefits from being all SSD. DCS 2.5 will be at least 25GB, so that boot drive starts to fill up. :slight_smile:

With an overclock, as the new i5’s can get to 4.5 GHz on air cooling ok. If you aren’t keen on overclocking in general then just get the best base GHz clock you can. While it is not a 1:1 comparison between generations of CPU purely on clockspeed, it’s within 10% or so.

I’m not sure for how long (or if it will ever actually close of as a way) but there’s this way still.

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So is there a need for the old style harddrive or should I just go SSD?

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Get a cryorig h7 for your cpu cooler instead of that hyper. The cryorig outperforms the old hyper mainstay, and is almost universally the new recommendation from my research.

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With respect to the hard drive situation, it really depends on storage needs vs $$. I still have a big spinny because I need the space and frankly even though TB ssd prices are lower than before they are still very expensive, especially in Canadian funds. I’d love to be on all ssd.

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All the benchmarks for both gaming and workstation stuff would recommend the 8600k over a 7700k. and a future upgrade path with 8700K
Also cheaper :slight_smile:

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So this is where I always get confussed. Cores vs threads vs ghz.

If I’m not mistaken cores are physical while threads can be virtual or are virtual.

So does more cores equal better performance automatically?

Also does a 6 core 3.6 ghz chip have 6 cores at 3.6 ghz or is the 3.6 split up among the cores to equal 3.6?

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Each core has that frequency.
But that doesn’t mean it is faster for any given application.
It is complex.

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I believe it’s complex.

But for laymen terms, 4 cores running at 4.2 ghz vs 6 cores running at 3.6 ghz. The 6 core would be on par if not better, because the 2 extra cores would make up the .6 ghz difference or am I missing the point completely on core speeds?

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Yes, but the reason we are being so cautious in saying it is ‘completely better’ in a clear and concise way is that it depends on what you are doing / playing. If you are editing video and it uses extensive multi-core multi-threaded abilities then the i7 is probably better. If you are playing lots of different games and configure the i5 to run at a higher clock speed then the newer platform intel i5 is probably better. If you just play DCS (which relies on pure clock speed rather than cores) but then don’t want to overclock the i5 even a little then it’s harder to say ‘this one is definitely better’. :slight_smile:

Here’s another way to compare:

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In that particular example my money would be on the 4 cores actually, at least if we are talking about gaming.
There are not many games yet that use more than two or three cores. The fourth is used by your operating system and any additional ones do nothing.

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The i5 8600k runs at 4.3 GHz on stock clock speeds for gaming with the in-built turbo mode. I don’t think the ‘4.2 GHz vs 3.6 GHz’ is helping.

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The new i5 seems to be pretty awesome, yes.

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Good info on the core vs hyperthreading debate. I was in a similar boat with my previous build, and decided on an overclocked i5 vs an i7. The 6600k running at 4.5 ghz would beat a stock i7 on pretty much every game. With all this being said, if you aren’t going to be aggresively overclocking, you can generally make an i5 (regardless of generation) easily run faster than a stock i7 core speed.

Fast forward a year, and I have replaced the i5 6600k with an i7 6700k. The thing I noticed is that at stock voltage, the i7 reaches higher clock speeds. My chip is running at 4.5 ghz with out touching the voltage. So the biggest thing I got was a heat reduction. I havent noticed a performance gain over the i5, so it may be negligible. I’m sure i could push this i7 closer to 5.0 ghz though, and that would be a noticeable difference, I just dont want to mess with the temps and voltage.

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Indeed I was concerned by erroneous facts. Also worth mentioning the higher ram speeds available to the z370 boards. I sincerely think I made the correct choice of cpu on a performance and cost argument.
In real world gaming I don’t imagine any difference than that can only be detected by benchmarks.