A new floortop PC

So I'm turning 60 in a couple of days, and as a present to myself and with significant help (financially) from relatives, workplace and possible friends, I'm going to invest in a new PC. And this time I'll buy a high-end machine.

I will of course do my homework, but I'm also interested in your experiences, therefore a few questions:

1. The Nvidia GTX Titan Black is probably outside my budget, but is the difference between than one and a 980 significant?

2. What about the I7 4790K 4-core (4.0Ghz) vs. the 6-core I7 5930K at 3.5 GHz.

3. And what about water-cooling vs fresh Norwegian air for cooling?

4. Anything else worth considering?

pibbur who is not excited. Yet.

1. Don't even consider getting any Titan card now, the GTX 980 absolutely destroys it from a price vs performance standpoint. You're talking about a $1000 card vs a $600 card, and they perform almost the same.

2. I put a i7 4970k in my new system, and I can say that it's a phenomenal CPU for the price. Whether you need a 5xxx series CPU depends on what you'll be using that system for. Do you do any type of high-end content creation? If it's just for gaming, I'd say go with the 4970k.

Keep in mind that a 5xxx series system will cost you a lot more. The X99 motherboards and DDR4 RAM you need for that series are significantly more expensive than what you need for the 4xxx series. Benchmarks don't show a huge difference in gaming performance though.

3. Water cooling is overrated imo unless you're going for an extreme overclock. I'm guessing you won't have any need for that though. I just use regular air cooling, and I live in a very hot climate. Your PC case should have at least 3 extra fans besides the fans on your CPU, GPU, PSU, etc.

4. SSD drive

Just a personal opinion from someone who has spent an embarrassing amount of money on video cards over the years - $300 is the most I'll ever spend on a card again (barring some specialty application). $300 spent today and $300 spent on a new card 2 years from now will beat the long term performance of any $600 card bought today. Hell, $200 today and $200 in 2 years will too. Of course if it's in the budget sometimes a little excess can be fun too.

pibbur who said:

1. The Nvidia GTX Titan Black is probably outside my budget, but is the difference between than one and a 980 significant?

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At this point I'd recommend a decent GTX 970 (like the MSI Gaming one or the ASUS Strix which come with the added bonus of fanless mode when idle). They come very close to stock GTX 980 performance so the €200+ price difference between the GTX 970 and 980 is not at all justified. I'd get a 970 now and then wait & see whatever AMD or nVidia release throughout 2015.

2. What about the I7 4790K 4-core (4.0Ghz) vs. the 6-core I7 5930K at 3.5 GHz.

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If it's just for gaming definitely the i7-4790K. I got one, too, and it's fast. I can also recommend the ASUS Maximus VII Hero ROG mainboard. An excellent combo for a high end gaming rig. Works for me at least.

3. And what about water-cooling vs fresh Norwegian air for cooling?

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Norwegian air should work fine . Seriously though, just about the only flaw of the 4790K is that it does indeed get quite hot so definitely get a high end air (my favorite air solutions come from Thermalright) or water cooling solution.
I'd say air if you want to stick to the default boost frequency (4GHz) and water if you want to try your luck with any kind of overclocking. Not likely you'll be able to push the 4790K very far though. You need a very well ventilated (and noisy) case to manage the heat as soon as any OC'ing is planned.

I would also advise against going absolute high end. Spend 1000 EUR if you must, but beyond that you'll quickly hit diminishing returns. I'd rather save that money for an upgrade down the line.

Your list is missing one of these nice Pro series Samsung SSDs with a 10 year warranty.

I recommend getting the new 8 GB version of the GTX 980… unless of course you want to follow the path of upgrading every 2 years, which is the most cost effective, but it is also fun to have something really cutting edge for awhile

GothicGothicness said:

I recommend getting the new 8 GB version of the GTX 980… unless of course you want to follow the path of upgrading every 2 years, which is the most cost effective, but it is also fun to have something really cutting edge for awhile

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By the time anyone will actually need 8GB of VRAM, there will be much faster cards available.

JDR13 said:

By the time anyone will actually need 8GB of VRAM, there will be much faster cards available.

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Of course, that is why I wrote unless you go for the 2 year upgrade path. Still there'll be some games with super HD textures or such where 8 GB can be enjoyable and 4 GB not enough.

Thank you all for your advice.

I wanted a high-end (not extremely high end) PC which I could keep for a while without having to upgrade. Additionally it would be "fun to have something really cutting edge for awhile".

Hence the 980. However I listened to those of you who recommended buying a 970, and upgrade after a couple of years. Which of course saved me money I could spen on other components.

Another goal was to get me a machine which could easily be recobnfigured, upgraded, whatever years from now. So I wanted a case with enough space, and very good cooling, and a PSU with extra power.

These are the key componentst I ended up with, based on recommendations here and from other sites (yes, I do read other websites than rpgwatch (not the codex)):

• Cooler Master HAF X Big Tower Black, 4 external fans
• Corsair RM850, 850W PSU
• Intel Core i7-4790K CPU
• ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VII HERO, Socket-1150 mainboard
• MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming graphics card
• Crucial MX100 512GB SSD

Blu-ray reader will be taken from my old PC, same with a 3TB hard drive (quite new, and relatively fast).

BTW. The old PC will still be with me, mainly as a Linux rig.

pibbur who is happy that the new monster went on a christmas sale today, just before he ordered it.

@pibbur who: Excellent choices there. My second PC also lives inside a Coolermaster HAF-X. It's a little dated case by now (unless there is a newer revision?) since it doesn't have real USB 3.0 ports on the front panel but then again I've never had a use for more than the board's USB 3.0 headers either so who cares... it's definitely a decent case for a well ventilated high end rig.

GothicGothicness said:

Of course, that is why I wrote unless you go for the 2 year upgrade path. Still there'll be some games with super HD textures or such where 8 GB can be enjoyable and 4 GB not enough.

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I'm constantly monitoring my VRAM usage via MSI Afterburner and just about the only game I've ever seen use lots of VRAM is Star Citizen which is in alpha and far from optimized yet. Skyrim pretends to be using a lot but that seems to be allocated VRAM and not actually used VRAM.
Granted, I have not played Shadow of Mordor yet which IIRC was the first game to require (or recommend) 6GB VRAM for ultra textures but that reeked of poorly optimized console port rather than a real technical requirement.

It's actually amazing how many games, even with the highest settings in 1440p (my monitor's native res) and AA cranked up all the way, use fairly little VRAM.
For example Assassin's Creed 3, which I'm playing right now in full DirectX 11 glory with TXAA, HBAO and all the bells and whistles turned to max, is using ~1500 - 1800MB of VRAM max.
Or Risen 3... PB's engine leads a very frugal life at requiring just over 1GB (often times it's in the 850MB - 1GB range) with everything maxed.

VRAM is vastly overrated. This might change with more SoM-type poorly optimized games of the new console generation where the devs can't be bothered to save VRAM (like "hey we got 8GB unified RAM so why waste time optimizing for nothing"). But for now 3GB - 4GB VRAM is just fine and it's reasonable to wait until 6GB or 8GB VRAM cards become the norm rather than plunking down huge amounts of extra cash on lotsa VRAM you'll never need.

There are according to spec 2 USB 3 ports on the front, at the top of it.

pibur who thinks some may be interested to take a look at it here: https://www.komplett.no/cooler-master-haf-x-big-tower-sort/599984?CKS=PCW, and would advice Norwegian challenged watchers (poor souls) to scroll down a bit.

That sounds indeed like a fine machine you're building, and I'm also thinking about building one, maybe even similar to that. The only issue I have is, it would be mainly built to handle Witcher 3 in all it's glory (hopefully). And that's why I'm probably going to go with the 980 Gtx from Asus. Seeing as the Witcher 3 is coming in May next year, I'd hate to have to upgrade again just to be able to push the game to the maximum settings. And I hope they're optimizing it to run decently on max settings (even though I am thinking they'll probably have some uber-sampling settings like TW2 had, which will probably bury the 980 gtx) on that card, seeing as it's the most powerful to date.

And I'd wait until May, but GTA5 is also coming out in Janurary, and I'd like to see that on the new machine as well.

@pibbur who: Yes, it is true that the front ports can be turned into 3.0 ports but you have to use that adapter cable (shown on that page you linked to on the right hand side) to convert the internal USB 3.0 ports to external ports. It's been a while since I built that PC but from what little I remember, it was a pretty weird solution and added to cluttering up the case with cabling.
That's why I personally decided against it and just used the board's back USB 3.0 ports... or a singular port rather, because the only USB 3.0 device I am using is an external HDD for backups.
Oh well. No big deal in the end I would guess. What matters more with a case like that is the space and the ventilation and both are excellent as I can attest .

danutz_plusplus said:

That sounds indeed like a fine machine you're building, and I'm also thinking about building one, maybe even similar to that. The only issue I have is, it would be mainly built to handle Witcher 3 in all it's glory (hopefully). And that's why I'm probably going to go with the 980 Gtx from Asus. Seeing as the Witcher 3 is coming in May next year, I'd hate to have to upgrade again just to be able to push the game to the maximum settings. And I hope they're optimizing it to run decently on max settings (even though I am thinking they'll probably have some uber-sampling settings like TW2 had, which will probably bury the 980 gtx) on that card, seeing as it's the most powerful to date.

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I'm holding out for the GTX 980 Ti. It's supposed to be released sometime in Q1 2015, and I've read that it'll be a significant jump in performance over current high-end cards.

Unfortunately, I'm quite sure it will also come with a "significant jump" in pricing, too . The $200 difference between GTX 970 and 980 is silly and I don't think that the 980Ti will be that much faster than a 980 (there is only so much you can do on the still current 28nm node). I'd expect +20% performance max but easily another $150 or $200 over the 980.

However, there are rumors that AMD might finally strike back with Fiji so nVidia might be forced to adjust their pricing... or not because there are also rumors that Fiji might require more expensive water cooling. And then there is always the possibility of price fixing. Just because nVidia and AMD got caught in the past doesn't have to mean they are no longer doing it. They've probably just become better at avoiding to be caught.

Anyway, on a whole it's way beyond high time we finally move on to 20nm or 16nm (there were rumors recently that at least nVidia might skip 20nm entirely). Damn Apple sucking up all 20nm capacities for themselves. Could everyone just stop buying iPhones and iPads for a few months, please, and spare a thought for us PC enthusiasts?

I'm also waiting for the 980ti.

If rumors are to be believed and who knows if they are its supposed to be 50% faster than a Titan black. Which would be a significant upgrade over a stock 980.

Unfortunately there are also rumors that it's release could slip to late 2015 or early 2016.

So who knows.

The 980 Ti (working title) isn't going to be 28nm. They're aiming for 16nm (depending on yields), and it's going to have a 384-bit memory bus. Like sakichop mentioned, it's supposed to be around 50% faster than a Titan Black. The release date is kind of iffy though, and there's no telling when it's actually coming out. I just hope it's before TW3 is released.

The 50% speed increase is probably a slight exaggeration, but I expect it to be a bigger jump from the current generation than the 900 series was from the 700 series.

One thing I know for sure though is that I would never go back to AMD. They're more competitive against Nvidia than they are against Intel, but there is still a significant gap between them imo, and more developers cater to Nvidia.

JDR13 said:

One thing I know for sure though is that I would never go back to AMD. They're more competitive against Nvidia than they are against Intel, but there is still a significant gap between them imo, and more developers cater to Nvidia.

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I respect your personal feelings, though I have always liked AMD video cards. I have never owned a Nvidia card and I have never seen the reason why to spend the extra money on them.

CelticFrost said:

I have never owned a Nvidia card and I have never seen the reason why to spend the extra money on them.

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Well it's kind of hard to make a comparison if you've never owned one.

I owned quite a few AMD (when they were ATI) cards since the late 90's up to about 6-7 years ago. I had a pattern for awhile where I would flip-flop between ATI and Nvidia. In the end, I just think Nvidia is slightly higher quality in most aspects. I always had less compatibility issues, glitches, etc. with Nvidia, and their driver releases are more frequent.

I'm also a big fan of anti-aliasing in games, and Nvidia's cards always seemed to do that a little better. Plus, with an Nvidia card, it's easier to force AA in games that don't officially support it.

JDR13 said:

Well it's kind of hard to make a comparison if you've never owned one.

I owned quite a few AMD (when they were ATI) cards since the late 90's up to about 6-7 years ago. I had a pattern for awhile where I would flip-flop between ATI and Nvidia. In the end, I just think Nvidia is slightly higher quality in most aspects. I always had less compatibility issues, glitches, etc. with Nvidia, and their driver releases are more frequent.

I'm also a big fan of anti-aliasing in games, and Nvidia's cards always seemed to do that a little better. Plus, with an Nvidia card, it's easier to force AA in games that don't officially support it.

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I can see your point, though I have never had any issue's. Maybe it goes back to the days of ATI I don't know. All I know as long as I can play the games I wan to play now of days.

Long past are the days where I have felt the need to have the latest and greatest...though TW3 is bring those thoughts back.

I think it was the year 1994 and I spent almost 7200.00 on a system...PC gamers are nuts when it comes to our games.

Most ever on a video card was for Counter Strike back I want to say in 1999ish and it was 1400ish...

$4000ish is the limit for my new system and it most likely will be a laptop when I know for sure when TW3 is released.