Quake3World

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 5:45 am**

obsidian, I know this is off topic, but please keep the post here at LEM for a week or so. To then move it to "Technology & Troubleshooting". Thanks.

Intro

Well after looking at the more recently released game hardware requirements, especially those of Witcher III it has become clear that I need to start to look into building another PC from scratch, after 6 years. My present i7 920 PC with Win7Pro 64bit, works perfectly fine, but the new console generation will make the games become ever more laggy and pretty much not run even on very low settings.

Over at Technology & Troubleshooting one can still read up on the great help I got for my 2010 PC build: AEon needs a new PC. Hopefully obsidian and also Foo will help me again get a quality rig planned out.

My present system (using Speccy for overview)

Code: Select all

Operating System
	Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
CPU
	Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
	Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
	6.00GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (8-8-8-20)
Motherboard
	ASUSTeK Computer INC. P6T DELUXE V2 (LGA1366)
Graphics
	HP w2207 (1680x1050@60Hz)
	MD20461 (1920x1080@60Hz)
	1024MB ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series (ATI AIB)
Hard Drives
	75GB INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC ATA Device (SSD)
	466GB SAMSUNG HD502HJ ATA Device (SATA)
	466GB SAMSUNG HD502HJ ATA Device (SATA)
Optical Drives
	HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22LS50 ATA Device
Audio
	SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio

Goals
I am trying to put together a list of currently relevant hardware for a new PC, creating it from the ground up, using affordable, quality, stable hardware that will last for the next 6 years or so. A game machine that runs Witcher III on ultra settings well now. I do not care for over-clocking and I'd rather pay more for better hardware that lasts. I was thinking of spending around 1500 EU to 2000 EU.

This will be a pretty good game machine that can run really hardware-hungry open-world games on high/ultra settings. With the appropriate quality hardware, everything else I usually also do like level design, internet, programming should pretty much automatically also be possible.

So after 6 years of not looking into hardware at all, I am also wondering what have become available and affordable and is actually of use.

A question of Windows?

Should I get Win7Pro 64bit again for the new build, or should I be brave and go with Win10Pro 64bit now?
And what would the implications be for switching over to Win10? Last time I was very apprehensive switching from Win XP to Win 7, but with the multi-core systems that was a very very good thing to do and I did not regret it once.

The next Intel CPU?

Old hardware: Intel Core i7 920 2.67GHz 4800MT/s S1366 8MB 130W BOX. Works really well and was really fast back then.
What Intel CPU should I get now?
- What are the new concepts, socket, and what clock rate would one get now?
- Is more than Quadcore relevant by now? 6 years ago >4 cores was exotic.
- Witcher III suggests: Intel CPU Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz
- "Intel Core i7 4790K 4x 4.00GHz So.1150 BOX" (€ 338,26) seems to sell like heck and seems affordable... though what is up with the
  "Intel integrated gfx"? Who needs that?

Apparently the latest AMD GPU Radeon R9 seems to be all the rage?

Old hardware: 1024MB Powercolor Radeon HD5850 PCS+ GDDR5 PCIe 2.1 (MB has 2.0!) 760 MHz. This, back then, gfx card has been working really well, and I suspect the 1 GB VRAM is the major thing letting it down with games that use HD textures today. Rage e.g. was totally on edge with 1 GB VRAM.
Apparently PCIe 3.0 is the latest bus specification for gfx cards, so I'd want to get a card and a mainboard that supports this.
Initially I wanted to get 2GB VRAM, but after reading some games are getting dangerously close to 3GB(+) VRAM requirements. So 4GB+ seems to be the way to go?
My 15m cable system uses a DVI-D cable for my main monitor HP w2207 (1680x1050@60Hz) and a HDMI for the MD20461 (1920x1080@60Hz) one. And I'd prefer to keep them as they are. So the card needs DVI and HDMI... from what I have seen so far this should not be an issue since the AMD cards come with those ports normally.
I noted a new cable standard for the 2560x"1440" monitors... at some point a much higher resolution monitor might be something I'd like, especially if my HP w2207 starts to have problems. Apparently the new "interface" is the DisplayPort (DP). Can this be recommended? The cards I looked into all also seem to have the DisplayPort integrated, IIRC, even my present card has it. My problem would be to get 2560x running on some form of 15 meter long cable though.
Some window shopping on Amazon made me find these two cards:
- PowerColor AXR9 390 8GBD5-PPDHE AMD (ATI, PCI-e, 8GB GDDR5 Memory, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort) (€342)
- 8192MB PowerColor Radeon R9 390 PCS+ Aktiv PCIe 3.0 (mindfactory, €330)
Both are affordable, just barely IMO, and even have 8GB VRAM.
Alas I am not clear which of the above and the many other AMD cards I should be getting. The latest Fury have really out of this world pricing of 500€-800€ IMO. Any tips, suggestions here appreciated.

What mainboard from ASUS should I be getting?

Old hardware: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 X58 S1366 ATX. With the old gfx card, a SATA II system of drives, and on-board 5.1 sound, but alas only USB 2.0, the mainboard has been money well spent.
I had SATA II for HDD, SSD and the DVD burner. I take it the new standard is SATA III? So I hope one can get the above three devices from SATA III, or is that pointless for e.g. the DVD burner?
In the last few years I have been using an USB 2.0 external HDD (at my table, away from the main PC), connected via 15m long "active" cable and USB hub. That is fine, but when working on Satellite Receiver videos in the GB size range, USB 2.0 is simply too slow. So I will be wanting have a mainboard that supports USB 3.1.
Surround 7.1 audio by now is probably normal, though I only have a 5.1 amplifier. But ASUS on-board sound has been really good, so that would be my path again.
I noted that some of the mainboards now have on-board gfx. To me that seems to be a complete waste of money, since I will be getting a pretty high-end gfx card anyway. If possible, I'd like to avoid having redundant stuff on the mainboard if possible.
ATX still seems to be the form factor for mainboards? Or was there any advantage to mATX?
I looked around a bit and found these "stealth covered" mainboards:
- Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1/USB3.1 Mainboard Sockel 1150 (ATX, Intel Z97 Express, 4x DDR3 DIMM Speicher, USB 3.1)
- Asus TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1/USB 3.1 Intel Z97 So.1150 Dual Channel DDR3 ATX Retail (€230)
I looked into the latter and it seemed to be a pretty good board, alas it only has 4 SATA III internal connectors, and I was hoping for 6 (for a 2nd SSD and possibly a Blu-ray drive).

What memory should I get?

Old hardware: 3x2048MB Mushkin Blackline DDR3-1600 CL7 Kit "Black Frostbyte".
If I went with the Asus TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1, it would need to be dual-channel memory. Since 2x4GB is not enough, I'd go with 2x8GB. (I prefer to leave two of the 4 DDR3 DIMM slots unused for better cooling.)
That board is compatible to DDR 3200, 3100, 2933, 2800, 2666, 2400, 2133, 2000, 1866, 1600 MHz. So is it a good idea to go all-out and get the DDR 3200MHz 13-15-15-35 or DDR 12-15-15-35 4x4GB memory? Or is that too expensive and possibly unstable? Alas my preferred 2x8GB only goes up to DDR 2800 MHz.
I find the whole timing numbers and choosing of memory really confusing.

Solid State Drives and HDDs?

Old hardware: 80GB Intel X25-M G2 Postville 2.5" SATA Retail (80 GB, 250 / 70 MB/s; €194,64). If I stay with Win7Pro 80GB is enough, but with Win10 more might be mandatory.
I will be getting a SSD for the main C:\ drive again, since this really speeds up the boot time, and helps the OS get things done more quickly. And again I was very happy with the Intel drive. I normally have none of my games on this drive, just the Win7 and the main tools, so usually have about 22 GB of free space on it.
I'd probably, conservatively go with a 160 GB by now, or more if that is possible around the €200 price range.
So where are SSDs at now? Should I still get an Intel?
Old hardware: Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ, 500 GB, 7200rpm, 16 MB Cache.
What sort of HDD should I be getting by now? The above Samsungs (I had two installed) worked really well, though by now I'd be going for two 1 TB ones. For HDDs I try to stay away from cutting edge stuff that is untested and unproven, and try to be conservative, by not putting everything on one sinple HDD.

Blu-ray drives?

I still do not own a single Blu-ray disk, but over time have been wondering about buying some, to enjoy movies in full HD. I asked about them as internal drives for the PC, that I built 6 years ago, and Foo could not recommend it. So I dropped the idea.
Are Blu-ray players under Win7 finally something to try and get? Or maybe more so under Win10? This would be Sata III connected.

Tower

Old hardware: ATX Midi Cooler Master HAF Mini RC-922M-KKN1-GP - black (€83,15). The High Air Flow system helps keep the PC cool, even in those worst cases when a game is running for hours on end. Alas the 922 no longer is produced it seems.
I checked the new Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Midi Tower ATX (€89,94). It will let me fit even large gfx cards, and has all the advantages the 922 already had (e.g. place cables *behind* the mainboard).
So I will certainly be getting this tower, unless someone has a better suggestion.
It always annoyed me that any form of air filters (more like metal meshes) added to avoid having *all* the dust and dirt be pumped through the PC are so inconvenient to get at and clean. So that would be something neat to have. IMO, who really needs a quick-swap for a DVD burner or the HDDs... you connect them once and then keep them in the PC.

DVD burner

Old hardware: LG GH22LS50 SATA Black Retail. Back then I did not really care much about the DVD burner so I got this.
The SATA drive worked well, and was ripping CDs in good quality. The drive would be almost 6 years off the market now though. No idea what to do here... any suggestions?

2560x Monitor

Not really planned, but a nice hires monitor might be in the cards as well... 2560 x 1600 or so... would be something I'd be interested in.
The trouble as I see it was that these 2560x monitor where expensive, and seemed to be prone to pixel mistakes in hardware. Also the larger bandwidth required to feed them would probably not work with my DVI-D 15 meter cable (that has an active signal repeater after 10m). Not sure the HDMI-10-meter cable will work either.
Another issue seems to be the pixel size itself. If the monitor is not significantly larger than e.g. my 22" (1680x) the pixels get annoyingly small and difficult to read. My full HD (1920x) also is around 22", and already the pixels are getting a tad on the small side.
And I think there was some issue when playing games at that resolution, blur and such. Well at least when I looked into 2560x a few years back it was pretty punishing and not worth the bother to get one. Hope this has changed.
Any suggestions regarding such a monitor and what cable to use would help. Also was 120 Hz an option for these resolutions?

The Power Unit

I was quite happy with a Corsair PU... alas the 650W one I got back then gave up, got a second one and that failed too... only when I got a 850W one did it work properly. The modular cable system massively helps keep things tidy, and also cables from blocking the air flow in the tower.
I liked this one: 850 Watt Corsair RM Series Modular 80+ Gold (€139). Apparently they use very high quality components and save energy.
Back then 650W should have been enough to not break the PU, but are 850W enough to keep the system with the R9 and the other components running stable today? If there is the slightest chance a more powerful PU will keep the system more stable, I'd get that one.

Thoughts

All the other stuff is pretty much incidental, mouse, keyboard etc. If all fails I'll just keep using what I have been for the last 6 years. Though it really annoys me that the Cherry "classic" keyboard I got for my present PC, a black one had such crappy keys, whereas the 14-year-old cream Cherry keyboard still works just fine. Sigh... sometimes things do not get improved over time.

Any suggestions very much appreciated.

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 10:13 am**

A little input from me:

General:
- If you plan on paying 1500-2000 euro then a R9 390 is almost too cheap. Around one third of your total budget (or twice the price of your cpu) should be planned for your gpu. Its that important. The 980ti might be little too expensive but it would be the best card out there. The amount of memory is also dependent on the resolution you want to use. You will be perfectly fine with 4gbs (or even 3,5 like the gtx 970) if you only want to play 1080p. If you want to go for 1440p I would suggest more than 4 gbs. But be careful, the new fury and furyx (and fury nano) of AMD might only have 4gbs of RAM but it is HBM RAM which means that the RAM has higher bandwith and is therefore quicker accessible. So the fury might be for you if you really want to cheap out on the GPU.
- CPU is not as important anymore. Especially the i7 series is not always necessary for what you want to do. Its obviously a better CPU and if you can spare the money, do it. If not, put the money into the GPU. i5-4690 is almost as strong as the i7-4790 in games and is 100 euros cheaper (just an example). Another fact: A lot of CPUs come with integrated graphics nowadays. It doesnt really hurt but it can lead to issues with drivers sometimes. Star Wars Battlefront for example has problems detecting which GPU to use and always defaults back to the integrated graphics. Most of these problems get patched really fast and there are work-arounds.
- Your mother board pick is way too expensive for what you want to build. The sabertooth series is absolute top of the line - best of the best. You dont want to overclock so thats another factor why you wouldnt need such an expensive motherboard.
- 8GB memory are enough for now. I personally wanted to save a little money and add the other 8GB later on. Its easy to upgrade. You can go for 16GB of course (its not that much you are saving). The higher glock on memory (3200) is almost a non-factor for your purposes. If you want to put more money into your ram you should make the jump to the next level and go for DDR4-Ram. But youll run into motherboard incompability fast.
- If you plan on installing your games on the SSD you definately want to get more than 160 GB. You can get a Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB for 150 euros (the 250gb = 82 euros) And you want to install the new titles on SSD because of loading times.
- I personally dont even have a drive in my computer (only an external DVD-Burner). But I have to say that i watch movies almost exclusively online or in cinemas.
- 16:10 monitors are underrepresented on the market (especially 2560x1600). The better offers are 16:9 monitors (or the new ultrawide stuff). If you dont want to spend a ton of money on your monitor AND want to go 2560 (like me) there is almost only one monitor that fits your bill (Dell UltraSharp U2515H). I almost spent double the time researching monitors than the other components for my build. It has only 25 inches which means it is one of the smaller high resolution screens. I dont have any problem with it, its the perfect size for me but i suggest you go to a store and look for yourself (thats always the best advice for monitors).
- The amount of PSU wattage strongly depends on your graphics card choice. I have a Corsair RM650 and it works perfectly fine with my MSI R9 390. If you had a Geforce Card you could use a 550 PSU. There is a huge difference in efficiency between AMD and Geforce. AMD cards need a lot of power and get really hot. Unfortunately i have a small case and i ran into heat problems because the r9 390 is one of (if not the) hottest video card.

-Windows is a question that I didnt even ask myself. Windows 10 will be the only supported windows in the future. And its free if you already have windows 7. Its not that different from windows 7 and way more advanced than windows 8 (or 8.1) in terms of usability. Its also freaking fast to boot up. I didnt have any compability problems since I have windows 10. But personal experiences may vary.
-Tower: The tower you want to use doesnt have front usb 3.0. If you are ok with always connecting your usb devices to the back then thats not a problem.

My suggestion:

Just for reference: I payed 1800 euros for my complete system and i had to buy a kind of expensive water cooler because I wanted a fancy slim case. This build includes a 130 euro keyboard and the 300 euro monitor.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($226.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H80i GT 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($77.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI Z97M Gaming Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston Savage 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($47.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($82.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($46.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card ($319.99 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Pandora MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($98.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Dell U2515H 60Hz 25.0" Monitor ($358.50 @ B&H)
Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K70 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1490.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-01 05:10 EST-0500

This took longer than expected ... But i hope i can help

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 1:59 pm**

The guy above me has a pretty good build, though I'd get a better PSU and probably a different case - maybe one from Be Quiet! Or a similarly silent one.

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 2:10 pm**

Dangel,
thank you for putting so much effort into the reply... very much appreciated.

Many things are quite interesting insights, and reflect a different philosophy when buying a PC. As an example, I usually get the best affordable GPU up to a max. of 300 EU, since in my experience the prices for the very top end GPUs drop about 6-12 months later and that really annoys me. Another thing that makes the very top end GPU less appealing are unstable drivers, so you end up beta testing them, instead of working on a stable platform. So you see your maximum performance for the EU is slightly at odds to my, good to very good but not best performance that is stable and less a waste of money. Well only slightly.

I should mention, since I forgot, that I will probably be building the PC sometime in April, or possibly around the next Steam Summer sale, so it is off by 2-5 months. Obviously at that time another detailed check on what is out and at what price would need to be done again. Note... that is my plan... I might just get weak and buy the new hardware in a week or two and buy Witcher III at full price... "oh, the horror"

Note also... my Monitors, mouse, keyboard,printer are in one room, connected to the tower via 15 meter long cables, actually a floor down, so I work in absolute silence. So I'll need to find out if a 2560x monitor can even be connected over that distance.

GPU price related to CPU price, required memory and e.g. 1440p
Interesting point of view, to spend massively more on the GPU. As mentioned above I understand your point of view, e.g. for Fallout 4 the devs mentioned that GPU is more important than the CPU. The amount of memory is indeed tricky, I love my 8.5-year-old HP w2207 with all its flaws, and that ironically only has native 1680x1050, so I would be able to get away playing with even less than 3 GB of VRAM. So as you mention 4GB should be OK.

GTX 980 Ti
I am not a huge fan of Nvidia GPUs... and find 700+ EU for a GPU insane.... but you kept the build under 1700 EU so splurging on such a top line card might be something to think about. I found the comment on the Nvidia cards wasting less energy and more importantly getting less hot very insightful, since I prefer to have a system running cool by default.

At least in theory I always was slightly jealous of the Nvidia folks, letting them play games with massive use of Physix in games, Mirror's Edge was such an example, long ago. Though I think using Physix in newer games was never mentioned that much or used? Hmmm...

I also play Reflex, well I built a few maps for it, and having an insanely fast Geforce GPU that could then be used to compile Reflex map lighting much more quickly would also be nifty.

I'll probably need to very carefully read up on driver issues with the GTX 980 Ti. I seem to recall folks playing certain games, latest drivers installed, and still having really bad performance. Interestingly I read on Tom's Hardware that AMD seems to be poised at lowering the prices for their Fury series.

Fury(X) using faster HBM RAM
Aha... guess I'll need to read up on some tests at Tom's Hardware to see how much of a difference that makes. BTW... reading up on things I did not quite understand what the "Fury Nano" was supposed to be good for? Just smaller packaging or what is the idea behind the Nano card?

i7 series
Probably nostalgia... but pretty much like you would not skimp on the GPU, I'd prefer not to on the CPU.

CPUs come with integrated graphics nowadays, issues detecting main GPU
I read that for several cases, and at the time did not understand the issue, now it became clearer. So the question is can one get a fast i7 that does not have integrated graphics? Or would I just have to live with the "extra" that never really gets used.

Sabertooth series is absolute top of the line...
Yeah... that will take a bit of more research. I also noted that it does a lot of stuff I really do not care about at all. Though a best cooled mainboard, that does not tend to bend, may have its plus side.

8GB memory ... for now
My builds are very static... I put effort into cleanly building the PC and then when it works, I do not touch it at all... "never change a running system" and such. The issue being also that extra RAM may be hard to come by from the same maker after 3-4 years. So it is important to me to have enough RAM not for 2-3 years, but more like 6+ years. So by now I am pretty much sold on 16 GB.

DDR3 at 3200 MHz and low yield, and DDR4
Good to know that buying more expensive faster-clocked memory yields less than one would hope. And DDR4 seems to be pretty new on the market? If so, I'd avoid that then.

SSD and size (500 GB+) and games
I planned to use a smaller SSD for C:\ to keep the boot drive as compact as possible. This used to be a good thing for defragmenting, until that became redundant for an SSD. But psychologically, it helps to keep the OS on C:\ and the main tools, but keep games off that drive to not redundantly also backup your game content, when you do a backup of the system.

What I did do e.g. for RAGE, I copied the Steam game folder of Range onto my SSD temp folder there, and then hard-linked it from the Steam folder. Worked well... so you are right that games do profit from an SSD, saving was also quicker if I noted that correctly.

I'd like to have two SSDs to be honest with your comment in mind. One smaller, possibly better quality for the C:\ drive and another one D:\ for Steam and other programming/level editing. The 500 GB SSD would be the size I presently use for the D:\ drive and that would be enough. Come to think of it a smaller 250GB SSD I'd like to use as a scratch drive (downloads, converting images)... hmmm that would leave F:\ as my only HDD (1TB) as mostly archive space. Could be a way to go for me.

"And you want to install the new titles on SSD because of loading times."
That seems indeed to have become worse lately.

Only an external DVD-Burner.
That is a very interesting point. Since in my present PC I have the CD ripper DVD drive I need from time to time after buying music CDs, I'd not really need it on the new PC. And I already have an external DVD burner connected to the remote (my desk) USB hub. The main reason for skipping on an internal DVD burner would be not having more than 4 SATA connectors. Well something to think about.

Dell UltraSharp U2515H at 1440p, 25"
The various heights on those monitors had me confused, thanks for clearing that up, i.e. mentioning what is actually sold mainstream. Looks like a really nice monitor, I actually had looked at Dell monitors a while back, apparently it's possibly to tilt it in all sorts of directions. Definitely something I might want to have

.

I'd try to connect it via 10 meter HDMI cable... though I suspect that will fail. How do you connect your monitor? I am guessing the cable length is the sturdy 3 meter max. Might need to use HDMI 1.4, and the gfx card would require that as well... hmmm. No direct DVI-D connection possible though... so an alternate connection be via DisplayPort.

R9 power consumption (heat) vs. Geforce
Good to know, will stick with 850 W just to be sure... hopefully.

Windows 10
Thanks for your personal experience with Win10... helps me feel slightly less unnerved about it.

Tower HAF 912
Good point about the USB 3.0 connectors not being in front, kinda dumb actually. But I will be connecting a 15 meter active USB 3.0 cable to the back side of the PC to connect up to my then new desk/monitor USB 3.0 hub. So not a feature I will miss.

CPU cooler
Not quite sure I'll be getting one. I was pretty happy with the i7 920 one out of the box, and would use the one that comes with the i7 4790K... since they have these convenient plasteleen strips without messy paste use required.

Keyboard
Nice keyboard, I was thinking of maybe getting some ergonomic keyboard for a change. Your K70 looks interesting, though having W,S,A,F and 1-6 or so coloured would detract me, even though I can type without looking at the keyboard. What I like, seeing the image of yours are the keys, they seem very high quality, i.e. they have distinct "pressure points" ("Druckpunkt" in German).

I am typing on a 14+ year old Cherry MX 3000. You cannot get that any longer

... 6 years ago I wanted "cool" black one, and got the Cherry G81-3000LPCDE-2 black. The latter turned out to be complete crap. Totally mushy keys, and I keep missing them, because the area each can be tapped is slightly larger than on my old board. So a modern, good keyboard would be on my list too.

So... thanks for the feedback, I learned quite a few things, neat

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:58 pm**

Cable:
The cable length would be a little problem. Diplay Port is the standard in computer gaming because its fast and easy but it only sustains full capacity up to 2 meters. So you would have to fall back to hdmi 1.4 (which supports up to 10 meters full bandwith). DVI is by the way not any better. Everything falls short after a view meters with HDMI being the best. It works well for you because you dont use high resolutions but if you want to up your resolution you might run into problems. All GPUs that are interesting for you support HDMI 1.4.
I personally use Display port because the cable came with my monitor but as you said its 3m long.

Integrated Graphics:
I wouldnt pay much attention to it. You cannot choose your CPU by this criteria. If there are integrated graphics it just brings a little bonus that might never be used but could be handy sometimes. Imagine your GPU dies? You can fall back to your CPU.

Physx:
As far as i remember the only two games that supported physx in the last two years were Witcher 3 and the newest Batman game. Now that AMD released their new driver frontend they also have an equivalent to Nvidias shadowplay which is used to capture videos and stream without losing performance (maybe up to 5 fps max).

Nano:
The Fury Nano is AMDs take on getting into couch gaming. All the hardware producers want to build a "console-killer". A lot of case manufacturers released small form factor cases the last view years and the overall goal is to build a computer as small as a console but silent and really powerful (hence the desktop video card in small form factor).

Motherboard:
If you buy a nice case with good airflow and a decent cpu cooler you will never ever need to cool your motherboard. And if mounted correctly pretty much any motherboard wont bend (except the bad sheep obviously).
The motherboard i chose for you has 6 SATA ports.

DDR4 is pretty new yes

SSD:
I wouldnt' buy two SSDs just because you want to install your OS on one of them and games on the other. You will have lots of free space on your OS SSD that is not used. The same goes for the gaming SSD. Imagine you have 30 GBs left on each of them and your new game needs 40 GBs. You cant install it on any of them but if you had one with the capacity of both you could. But thats your choice. If you really want to you can go for an Intel for your OS (they are known as the best) and Samsung for games. Although I still refuse to believe that the price difference is justified. The intel 180 gb costs as much as the samsung 256 gb.
btw: You can install your games on a different hard drive than your steam installation. You can change the installation destination in steam preferences.

Keyboard: Dont get fooled by the pictures: standard configuration is all black keys. I bought the k70 because its sturdy, has an aluminium plate, is easy to clean and doesnt have all the fancy RGB LED 998890!!!!111 million color stuff and thousands of macro keys. Only simple multimedia keys with a neat metal slider for volume control. Corsair keyboards are known as one of the best out there. But you need to look into which key switches you want. The K70 is available with blue, brown and red switches. The blues have good haptic feedback and a nice (but crazy loud) click sound (kinda like your old cherry i guess). The red ones have a lower pressure point low haptic feedback, low noise and are used for professional gaming because you can press the keys faster. Brown is inbetween the two and i use them myself. I also bought noise dampeners so the keyboard is not as loud.

GPU: The 980ti is basically an amped down titan x. So the technology behind it is by computer standards fairly old. I cant imagine a lot of driver problems. If there is a GPU producer that continually has driver problems its AMD. Any particular reason why you dont like Nvidia? 700 euros for a single pc component might sound really expensive but the pc market has changed. If you want to play good games, get a good GPU, almost all of the other components are not really important. CPUs became so strong that they are overkill for games while the demand for more GPU power was rising.

Ich nehme mal an du bist Deutsch? Habs trotzdem auf englisch geschrieben weils erstens ne gute Übung für mich ist und es zweitens für andere auch interessant sein könnte

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 5:47 pm**

HDMI 1.4 best chance for 2650x and 15meter cable
The good thing is I do not need to stress myself about that really, I could get the Dell and e.g. use it on another PC where short cables are no problem, letting me retro-fit the Dell to my new main PC at some point.

I have been ordering cabels from Kabelmeister.de and would then check if they have any active signal boosters for HDMI 1.4. Good to know that 1.4 is standard for the newer gfx cards. Thanks for clearing up the cable details.

Integrated Graphics help if GPU dies
Again good to know, so no time wasted looking for a solution without intGra. And you are right, I had a GPU die on my ages ago, on my MMX 200... and suddenly you'd have no video.

Physx ... rarely seen in modern games
For Witcher III - the main benchmark for what I want to run really well, to future-proof my hardware - a GeForce then might be nice. And the latest Batman game is also on my wishlist, and that was the other hardware hungry game I am aware of. Just Cause 3 and Far Cry 4 both are probably not quite as resource hungry or Fallout 4 (fixed).

Motherboard and cooling
Admittedly that also was never an issue on my present hardware due to the HAF 922 I am using. The only component that got pretty hot was the AMD HD 5850, and the CPU i7 920 rarely. I actually have an ugly suspicion that those fancy board "covers" will get stuck full with dust at some point and the overheat even more badly. Just a guess though.

Interesting that you don't seem to shop at Mindfactory.de though, I usually order most of my hardware there, along with from KMelektronik.de.

MSI Z97 GAMING 5 Intel Z97
Downloaded the manual and checked it out. I noted the 6 SATA III in the manual. That would give me more flexibility. Your choices clearly would make my PC rather pepped up in look, black and red... not and issue, just an observation. I actually like that look. Still I am old-school and would prefer to get an ASUS mainboard, again tradition, all my PCs had one. Though which one is still the question.

SSD and space on them used
You are right, it would actually be even worse, my Win7 takes up 50 GB after 6 years (the save games are hard-linked to my D:\ drive), so the 250 GB drive would be 200 GB empty, and a 250 GB costs only 10EU more than a 120 GB, a waste. But a 120 GB Intel might be fine for that "extra security blanket". Ironic, the gaming SSD should be 1 TB and the boot SSD 120 GB or less. The Samsung SSDs are really popular in sales on Amazon.de, and I can believe them to be very well made as well.

Games on a different hard drive than your steam installation.
Many years ago I migrated Steam onto my game drive, on D:\, and recently Steam indeed asks where to install the games, apparently you could have a Steam folder containing games any every drive you wanted, never tried that out though.

Corsair keyboards
Something to think about... might give the red one a try. This would be a case of ordering all 3 keyboards, trying them out and sending back the two that fall short... though I hate to do that to suppliers. Just noted that my Cherry keyboard does not actually have a "Druckpunkt", I just tap the keys, never full press them. And the key do slightly click, but not like on the really old IBM keyboards. I do seem to prefer to have relatively reduced surface area that you hit on each key, e.g. making it easier to not accidentally hit more than one key.

GPU and Nvidia
I had a Geforce 256 and worked with a Geforce 3 and 4 and all of them where always a disappointment when using them at their prime, too darn slow. I got a Radeon 9700 Pro and then a X800 on my PC previous WinXP PC... and the 9700 was on top (well near it) for several years so I really loved that card back then. My present PowerColor HD 5850 (by default slightly overclocked) has also been working really well for at least 4 years. The past two it started to get a bit "laggy with some games". At the time when I got the above, they where perceived as better than their GeForce equivalent. So its just I never experienced a GeForce being the better choice when it came to building a new PC. I used to not like Intel, but after the Athlon 900 disaster in a not so expensive PC build ages ago I have been very happy with an Pentium 5 2.54 GHz and then present i7 920, they just worked, whereas the Athlon was flaky. Maybe it is time to go mainstream with Nvidia and the 980 as well...

But I am letting myself slowly be convinced otherwise regarding the GXT 980 Ti. BTW, why did you get a R9 instead of the 980? Too darn expensive at the time?

Ich nehme mal an du bist Deutsch?
Jau.

Again thanks for the detailed informative replies. Since I pretty much ignore hardware development after I have built a PC for several years, I am pretty much behind the moon. So experience based on having kept up with the changes and having even tried them out is invaluable to me.

If anyone can be bothered to read all this, I am pretty sure some thing can be learned from all of this.

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 7:11 pm**

Now that you mention it i see the color scheme. I didnt even realize. The red and black are just really popular colors in the gaming community (asus republic of gamers, MSI, AMD etc)

You surely meant fallout 4 and yes far cry 4 is not graphically demanding. It even ran on my laptop (if only barely). You also have to note that the only feature that is nvidia specific in witcher 3 is hair physics. It looks amazing but kills my r9 390 (if i had a 980 it would run perfectly).

I indeed do shop at mindfactory.de. What makes you think I dont?

Motherboard:
The thing is that i dont have any personal expierence with asus so I can only offer what ive heard and read online.
Cheap Asus
Sabertooth Asus
Both should be fine but the cheap one is from a new line where they wanted to target price-conscious gamers.

Keyboard:
You can test the switches on other keyboards as well. Just go to your local Saturn or Mediamarkt. They dont have corsair keyboards but the switches are the same in most mechanical keyboards. Just pull one of the keys off and look which colorcode the switch has. The feeling of pressing the button is basically the same on every keyboard. Thats why Cherry is so well known for their key switches. A few years ago there was almost no competition. Every keyboard would have cherry mx switches. Now razer produces its own green one and there is some indian manufacturer who produces switches for the new logitech keyboards (romer-g).

GPU:
I am exactly the opposite of you. Me and my dad always had Geforce cards right up to the point when i built my own computer for the first time. No money equals cheaper card so I went for the ATI hd 4650. The card itself had good reviews etc and it had the power. But when GTA IV came around the problems started to arise. ATI wasnt able to deliver good drivers for years. Almost none of the top games would run smoothly because they failed to get their stuff working properly. Then AMD rebranded the whole thing and since then they are trying to get their market share back but not with much success. When they released the R7/9 2xx series almost all of them (except the 290/x) were rebrands from their old hd 7000 series. So just the same chip but with higher clock and more memory etc. The same happened when they released the R7/9 3xx series. They re-released the 290/x as new cards. Admittedly they did give them more power but it was still the same architecture for years. Meanwhile Nvidia was still ahead and managed to land a hit with the maxwell architecture. Extremely high efficiency, very low power consumption and heat emission. But im not here to give history lessons why am I talking so much.
The Fury is the first new GPU from AMD and it seems like the version without X is really good and beats the 980. So if you want to have more power than the 970 or r9 390 but dont want to spend 700 euros for a 980ti than this is your go to card. The fury x was supposed to beat the 980 ti but is substantially behind in every aspect so its not worth the money (as far as the reviews tell me

)

I was on the fence of buying a 970 because the 980 has a bad price to performance ratio when compared to it. But then AMD released their R9 3xx series and the 390 had 8 gbs of ram and was overall stronger so I decided to give it a shot because I wanted to play in 1440p in the future (first one on the list was witcher 3

). Now i have the heat problems (which i should have seen beforehand, my fault) and some driver problems with star wars battlefront. Im not really convinced by the card but its not bad. I should have gone for the 970 but now its too late. But i have to say the new driver software is pretty good.

Btw, dont only listen to me. I can give you general directions, but i think i dont have to tell you this. You look into the details yourself.

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 7:30 pm**

I liked to read the background info on Nvidia... that AMD seems to be stagnating until the Fury line was released. And I admit it would be nice for once to have the absolute top end GFX card. I am weakening.

It is really frustrating to get used to something and then not be able to rebuy it. I used to use a Logitech MouseMan Wheel for ages... then they stopped building it. My instagib aiming never was as good as with a "heavy metal ball" in the mouse. So for the heck of it bought a MX-518, just to try an optical mouse... well 6 years on I have become used to that, and like the location of the extra mouse buttons... but you no longer can get it, unless you pay 170 EU or so for it. Boooo! Sigh... might have to rip out the mouse of my current PC and reuse it on the next one, and attach some junk mouse to keep the then old PC working. The currently available mice from Logitech don't really appeal to me, especially when the change the location of the extra mouse buttons to totally nonsensical locations, WTH? Well maybe I'll wack out and get a "Mass Effect"-like mouse: Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury FPS Gaming Maus (the N°1 bestseller on Amazon.de).

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2016 8:05 pm**

Im also used to my current mouse. I had this mouse from a chinese manufacturer (can't remember the name) and it was absolutely amazing for the prize. 35 euros and it was better than my two razer mice i had before. I had it for 2 years and then it broke because it dropped from about 10 meters on a concrete floor. I searched for it for days and couldnt get a hold of it until i found out that sharkoon is producing nearly the same mouse. Since then (4 years ago) im a happy user of the Sharkoon Fireglider. Only drawback is that the macro software is not as intuitive as the higher tier ones but i dont use them anyway. I can feel your pain, if i ever have to get a new one and they dont sell them anymore ill be really sad.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 2:23 am**

I haven't seen Foo in years.

If you remember, I have the same motherboard and CPU. Still running it in fact, but with a few upgrades. Here are my current specs:

Windows 10 Pro
Intel i7 920
Asus P6T Deluxe v2
Corsair HX620w PSU
16GB RAM
New: 480GB Samsung Evo SSD
Bunch of HDD's
Newest addition: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5

IMO, the current CPU and motherboard is still pretty decent so I haven't felt the need to upgrade it. The bottleneck was my GPU so since updating, I've been playing some very new titles with no issues. Star Wars Battlefront has some pretty intense requirements, so with the new card I'm running it at high settings with stable frames without breaking a sweat. This card is much cooler and uses less power than my old card, and the fans stay off for passive cooling most of the time.

A new CPU/motherboard will offer some minor benefits like USB3 (alternatively, shove in an expansion card), and while CPU's are a LOT faster I find software requiring that kind of power to be mostly lacking. If you do any seriously heavy CPU intensive processing (video processing, heavy software compiling, etc), this may swing you in favour of a new CPU/motherboard upgrade. But other than that, it's still not a bad processor.

Windows
Windows 10 is pretty awesome. It certainly looks different, but it's super fast. If you have Windows 7, it's a free update. The update does take a long time to download but it's non-destructive so all your files stay in place. Personally, I downloaded the installer from Microsoft, loaded it on a USB drive and did a clean install to my new SSD, sounds like you just keep your OS and a few apps on your main drive, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to do a clean install too.

Processors
All Core i7 processors now have integrated graphics. As long as your motherboard has a PCI-e slot, you can just pop in whatever GPU you want and use that instead. For gaming, a modern i5 is plenty of power (or stick with your current i7). As mentioned above, CPU isn't a very big bottleneck these days.

GPU
I have always gone with nVidia GPUs. Better drivers IMO and they are currently better on performance than any AMD offerings. My GPU comes with DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort (useful if you are going to upgrade to a higher than HD and/or high frame-rate display). I have no idea about AMD GPUs, I personally stay away from them. I paid under $500 CND for my Asus.

Motherboards
I'm a bit out of the loop with motherboards, but they are mostly as good as each other. New PCI-e and SATA buses are only marginally faster and you won't see much real world difference than what you have now. Essentially, the old standards are plenty fast already and isn't a bottleneck.

Memory
Timings are mainly marketing and for some of the 1337 overclockers/people-with-too-much-money. You won't notice a difference. Extremely fast clock speeds are useful for overclocking, if you're not doing that then you can stick with cheaper RAM. More RAM is better to an extent, 16GB should be far more than enough.

Storage
For SSDs, Intel is still good. Samsung is good. OCZ, Kingston, etc. Not a huge noticeable difference anymore, the tech is stabilizing and has dropped significantly in price. Get a 500GB. HDDs is really get whatever capacity you need for whatever is cheapest/best value.

Two rules:

Expect ALL HDDs to fail, so make sure you have data redundancy in any shape or form. My company outsources work to a company (OnTrack) that does data forensics, and we charge $1600 to pull data off a dead drive. Just buy some spare drives and back stuff up.
RAID is not a form of backup (delete a file off a RAID volume and it's still gone). We charge $300+ for a software recovery.

Other stuff

BluRays are so hopelessly tied up in DRM you can't reliably play them on a computer without something taking a shit on your system. Avoid. DVD-drives: there is zero innovation here, this is obsolete technology, use your old one if you still need it.
Towers: whatever floats your boat. It's purely cosmetic. You can keep the guts of your computer in a pile on the floor and will still work. Only thing I can say is get something with decent filters to keep the dust out. Or just use your old case.
Monitors: Windows doesn't do well with high pixel density scaling. Macs are better in this regard. High resolution monitors are nice if it's on a larger screen. High Hz monitors are amazing. Get one. I'm thinking hard about getting an Asus MG279Q - High resolution, high Hz, IPS display panel, etc., tad pricy. Or if you have money, Dell has a new OLED display that sells for about $4000 US that is the end-all of all monitors.
PSU, use your old one. If anything, modern hardware is now more efficient and stresses a PSU less.

What I would do
Keep your old stuff unless you really have a need for a new system. Upgrade your GPU and SSD. Install Windows 10. Use all that extra money you save and spend it on a swanky new monitor.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:19 am**

obsidian, as always your level-headed feedback is much appreciated.

Last evening I did some BioShock Infinite image sorting 3000+ of them, and a few other things and noted how well everything still runs on my present system, that I modelled pretty much after yours and did not regret it one moment. From games like RAGE and Skyrim (HD texture packs), it became pretty clear that the largest bottleneck is the 1 GB VRAM on my gfx card and the 6 GB main RAM. After reading Dangel's and your comments we seem to be in a "historically" new and interesting time where changing the CPU and the mainboard for once is *not* the absolute nessessity but pretty optional. And as I seem to have learned, the GPU bus specifications did not change much, so I can even plunk-in a GTX 980 Ti on my old ASUS board and that should work (since your 970 should be pretty similar). This is pretty uncanny.

Your comment on data backup is also timely. Only Sunday did I order another USB 3.0 external 4GB drive, since before I do anything, I want to update and backup everything on my present system. The idea was to do so in preparation for the new PC, but also just to be sure all the important new things I created are safe. So backup on HDD, but I will also be burning a set of DVD-Rs as a fail safe.

Alas, I really do not want to meddle with a perfectly running system, and since Win 10 seems to be the way to go I would pretty much be wanting to do a reinstall of the system from the ground up anyway. I really prefer to have a fully functioning PC parallel to the new PC, e.g. I do a huge amount of configuring on tools, and that would let me look up how I did certain settings. To quickly set up things the way I am used to. Luckily my most powerful and most used tools: Directory Opus (file browser), UltraEdit (programmer's editor) and TheBat! (email client), all have an export setting that lets you save *all* settings into a file. On the new PC you just do a base install, load those "config" files, and your new PC works exactly like the old one. Alas there are probably some 50 other tools that need some manual configuration love. Plus I'll have to see how Win 10 differs.

Your specific hardware upgrades make absolute sense, and it would make sense for me to go that exact path. But call it loyalty or superstition, I'd like to keep the old PC I love the way it is. Come to think of it my Dad, who has a pretty slow Aldi PC already was asking if he could have mine, since the Aldi one he has seems to lag out from time to time (Windows 7 Home background updates apparently totally lock it down lagging down Firefox or OO Documents).

I am convinced now that getting the GTX 980 Ti is the right thing to do, though I really hope the 6 GB VRAM is not outdated in 2 or so years. And since you got 16 GB RAM, "I needs that as well"

.

I haven't seen Foo in years.

I checked, his last post was 8 months ago: 06-04-2015 08:44 AM.

I have the same motherboard and CPU.
Me being the happy copycat back then. I really find it uncanny that our really old mainboard can handle your GTX 970. You also seem happy with the Samsung Evo, to me they look "solid" (slight pun) and of good quality. So I can go pretty much all-out with several SSDs this time round.

Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5
I see you go with ASUS on the GTX as well. My PowerColor gfx card was a leap of faith back then, but it ran slightly OC compared to reference boards by default and has been working well all this time, so another leap of faith is in the cards. What do you think of the MSI Geforce GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G?

I read up on the GTX 980, on Tom's Hardware: low energy use, stays relatively cool, and is pretty fast, so seems all good. Since you have been using a GTX some time without issues that bodes well for drivers.

CPU's are a LOT faster
So there is that... so far I almost felt they did not really speed up much. Then again going from a 2.64 GHz system to 4 GHz should be noticeable, well during boot time "at least"

. Ironically, I would only use USB 3.0 for the external HDD used for backups / achieving, and it's not like that drive would become a work horse. My printer, mouse, keyboard could probably care less using a USB 3.0 hub (if and when I get one).

4+ Core CPU - More cores a topic?
Are there even any CPU out there with more than 4 cores? Or they these more for server farms and the like? Do more cores make sense in any way?

Storage - no longer critical what manufacturer you pick (mostly)
I'll definitely get the 500 GB from Samsung for Steam, and probably take another look at a much smaller Intel as boot drive.

Backups, and RAID
Good... trying to do that... always felt RAID was evil so won't go anywhere near that.

Software to duplicate the boot drive
Under WinXP I had an old Norton Ghost tool that let me backup the complete C:\ drive into one large packed file (that actually fitted on one DVD, thus my instinct to try to keep the C:\ as compact as possible). That really worked well. But how does one create a duplicate of the boot drive on another drive (same sized ideally)? E.g. buy 2 SSD boot drives, and from time to time clone the main drive on the 2nd one? Under Win7 or Win10 what tool would do that job?

Luckily I never really had any serious issues under Win7, but under XP I had to reinstall an older full drive backup 2-3 times over the 8 years back then. The Win7 backup tool built in, is pretty messy creating several folders. Cannot say if it really works either, since I never had to use it.

Other stuff
OK... so Blu-ray is "no touchy"... fine. Just noted my good old LG DVD burner no longer exists but a follow up is even cheaper and seems to do the same, so getting that, no problem.

"Monitors: ... High resolution monitors are nice if it's on a larger screen. High Hz monitors are amazing. Get one. I'm thinking hard about getting an Asus MG279Q - High resolution, high Hz, IPS display panel, etc., tad pricy. Or if you have money, Dell has a new OLED display that sells for about $4000 US that is the end-all of all monitors."
It is kinda ironic that my 1680x1050 monitor works nicely, and avoids all the high resolution bandwidth issues so "elegantly". Getting a high power GPU then almost gets killed by a possibly then 2560x1444 (double the pixel count) monitor. So in the latter case getting a really expensive GPU is not optional but mandatory.

I have been wondering about the 120 Hz monitors as well and how much difference that would make. Asus MG279Q seems to have 144Hz... that sounds good, but it makes me nervous again, since I need it to run on some form of 10 meter, ideally 15 meter HDMI cable setup. I seem to have found a repeater that should work well, but that usually is for 60Hz... not sure the repeater can handle the 144 Hz. Luxury problem... yes.

And that pixels start to get very fine could be a issue for me wearing glasses. A back of the envelope calculation:

Code: Select all

                          Pixel       Monitor            Pixel
                          Diagonal    Diagonal           per cm/"
HP w2207     1680x1050 ->  1982       56cm     (22")     35    90
Aldi         1920x1080 ->  2203       60cm     (23.6")   37    93
Dell U2515H  2560x1444 ->  2939       63,5 cm  (25")     46    118
Asus MG279Q  2560x1444 ->  2939       68,58 cm (27")     43    108

I am used to 35 px/cm and on the desktop that is fine (DVI-D). On the 1920x monitor (HMDI) the 37 px/cm, at least to me, is notable but still OK. I'd not really want to use it as my primary monitor. Note the 1920x was a cheap Aldi one for 150 EU or so, but as a secondary monitor it is absolutely fine.

Now at 2560x, the Dell with 46 px/cm would be a really brutal jump in pixel density (+31%). Not sure such small icons and writing on the desktop would be good. Will need to visit some Media store and check that out in reality I guess. So I would tend to go with a higher Hz larger monitor just to have a lower density 43 px/cm. But that would still be dense, but hopefully not quite as badly. So presently I'd tend to splurge more money and get the Asus MG279Q.

Wow, just got a measuring tape out, 27" is desk filling... but to have more space when programming / web side by side might be nifty. Playing games on such a large screen might actually be dizzying, since so much of your field of view is covered.

It's good to know that a new PC would not be able to cause any issues with my present monitors and cables, it would just work. So not sure when and if I'd try 2650x...

It really helps to get suggestions for hardware you guys would buy or have bought, helps me to see what is the "most" you can expect of them, and if any compromises are OK or go too far.

Keyboard and Mouse
obsidian, what keyboard and mouse would you recommend. I am trying to get a feel for what might suit me as newer alternatives to my Cherry MX 3000 and Logitech MX 518. For some reason I am running my optical mouse at 800 dpi, though I can do 1800 dpi. I don't use acceleration and always had issues with covering distance on the desktop quickly enough, but at the same time be precise enough to pixel draw in PS7 or properly select letters in text/programming code. Hmm... I use a really really old Quake3Arena Everglide (the sickle-shaped one), maybe the board is to rough? But in games using a railgun have issues precisely repeating a movement. E.g. move left slight, move back right slightly and the crosshair is not exactly as the same place, as if there is a precision lag somehow. Maybe I am just getting... but tips on the subject would be interesting. Obviously low FPS would cause such issues, but I am talking Q3A with rock solid maxfps at 125 FPS.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 1:43 pm**

Seems like money is not the problem

. The ASUS MG279q is an impressive monitor although its kinda strange to have a Freesync monitor but a geforce graphics card. I guess its not that important but as far as ive heard you can really see the difference using gsync/freesync.

As long as you dont plan on gaming in 4k you wont have any problems with the 6gb vram anytime soon.

More Cores are generally used in servers and obvisouly if you want to do a lot of different things at the same time. Look at this video if you are interested in the topic (regarding games): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVl8Eupbr_E

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:28 pm**

In terms of spending, if I am really convinced it would be the way to go I could spend up to 3000 EU. I would not want to, but if a really good monitor is worth it (i.e. as a long-term investment) and pushes the spending, heck with it. Though the $4000 on the Dell OLED monitor alone would definitely be beyond good and evil.

gsync/freesync
Had to read up on that, so it's basically about screen tearing. Not sure I really witnessed it consciously that often, because I'd have stuttering and other issues much more prevalently being an issue, and even trying to ignore that. Mad Max had a lot of lagouts (FPS drops)... and I seem to be able live with those, well had to. I imagine if you start to get used to ultra stable high FPS, with no other issues at all, than anything else would be notices and annoy. Hmm... I guess. But would turning on Vsync not fix that issue then, the tearing that is?

So the former (G-Sync) is Nvidia proprietary and the latter (FreeSync) free from AMD. So if I want the sync to work, I'd need to get a Asus ROG PG278Q (27"l) Monitor (WQHD, DisplayPort, 1ms, Nvidia G-Sync) schwarz or so to work with the GTX 980 Ti... with the ASUS MG279q the whole sync business would not be taken advantage of at all. Thus your comment? Good pointing that out. Was not aware of the whole matter at all.

Don't plan on gaming in 4k you wont have any problems with the 6gb vram
What is when you use two monitors. I would at the least have a full HD monitor running in parallel to the 2560x, well for the Windows desktop. I like having a static map image of the game I am playing shown on the 2nd monitor desktop. Does that have an effect or is the desktop pretty irrelevant?

1 Gfx Card running across two monitors in games?
I never looked into using two monitors using one gfx card other than expanding the Windows desktop. Is it even possible to run games on two monitors using only one gfx card? Would the GTX 980 Ti let you do that? I'd guess you'd actually want to connect 3 monitors, to not have the centre of the game between two monitors. Just wondering in general, since "SLI" was usually not done, unless you *really* have money to burn.

More Cores
The video seems to show more cores are either pointless, or worse actually get you lower FPS if you are unlucky. So a quad core with hyper-threading... the one I was looking into, the Intel Core i7 4790K, already seems to be "ideal". So as I understand it, core >4 is pointless for me?

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 4:25 pm**

Freesync wouldn't work with the nVidia card, but it is still a high framerate monitor, so assuming the card can push a steady 90+ FPS, you wouldn't need to enable Freesync/G-sync. The problem for me is that because I do a fair amount of graphics work, an IPS monitor is rather important, there are a ton of TN panels that are great for gaming but lackluster for accurate colour replication. So there has to be a trade-off somewhere. I'd rather have lots of pixels, high refresh, IPS, and sacrifice sync.

Acer's XB270HU is a similar monitor that uses G-sync, but it's also a lot pricier for no other reason. I'm still shopping around/waiting so I may see if there are any other competing products coming out.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 4:37 pm**

Most games stream texture data to the GPU, so having 4GB is usually more than enough. Gone are the days of cache and purge. Just having a second display showing desktop stuff has nearly zero effect.

There IS a difference if you want to have a game running on multiple monitors, but this relies heavily on whether the game supports it and with all those pixels you can expect to need more than one GPU. Not worth it given the handful of games that support this.

More cores is pretty useless for most desktop needs. Maybe if you're transcoding video on a regular basis or for some other purpose. Games operate largely off a single core.

If you're asking questions about keyboards, mice, cases, etc. these are really going to be about personal preference. Go to a store and try them out. It's entirely subjective so no one can tell you what you're going to like.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 4:54 pm**

Yes thats true. If you are constantly over 90 fps you wont notice much of a difference and over 144 its exactly the same image. However, that wont be the case with the kind of games you want to play. You might get around 50 fps on a fully maxed out witcher 3. This video here is perfect to see the difference (especially at around 1:20): G-Sync vs. V-Sync vs. No-Sync
You can decide for yourself if this is a problem or not. I mean youve lived with stutter and screen tearing all the time so you definately could live without it.

This is the only G-Sync monitor that I would recommend that has almost the same specs and price as the ASUS.
Dell S2716DG
I guess your decision between the two monitors will depend on one question. Do you need perfect color calibration for image editing or do you want a smooth gaming experience? Both would be the best but you would pay fortune for that

.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 6:23 pm**

I'm also in the process of upgrading visual pleasures. Got me a GTX970 last week as it was pricey enough and now am looking for a fitting bigger display than the one I have (24", 1680*1050). IPS it should be, least lag it should have, should fit the nvidia card ->G-Sync. And that's exactly where I landed from my own research:

obsidian wrote:Acer's XB270HU is a similar monitor that uses G-sync, but it's also a lot pricier for no other reason. I'm still shopping around/waiting so I may see if there are any other competing products coming out.

It has a "very good" score on Prad (german). Yeah, it is pricey, but it has very good features and I doubt it will go down much in the coming months. IPS still seems to be a slow market with the companies holding back on improvements/keeping the prices up.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 7:01 pm**

"This video here is perfect to see the difference (especially at around 1:20): You can decide for yourself if this is a problem or not. I mean you've lived with stutter and screen tearing all the time so you definitely could live without it."

Hmmm... at 1:20+... when the person at the hut is shown the right two images seem to stutter, the left one is very smooth. If that is it, G-Sync seems to help. And I could imagine that such a degree of smoothness is something one could get used to and then notice when no longer present.

To be honest colour quality would be higher on my list. I never really had a monitor that good it seems. Then again my 8 year old monitor has a yellow tinge, the edges have a glow on a purely black screen and the top of the screen is darker than the bottom (if you look down on the monitor its less so), even in PS moving a colour block layer up and down you notice the darkness change.

Well... no idea... luckily the monitor can wait.

Posted: **Tue Feb 02, 2016 7:49 pm**

Well compared to your old monitor even the newer TN panels would look perfect. Maybe they release a new one the next few months that has both

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:56 pm**

A small side note: While updating the tools I have installed on the current PC, FireFox was updated to v44.0... interestingly and this may be news to a few folks there now exists a 64bit version of the browser, that would require a manual install, since the 32bit version we all have stays 32bit.

I have not tested it yet, but I could imagine some issues with the 32bit add-ons... hope I am wrong though.

All in preparation for the migration to the new PC with Win10 on it.

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:02 pm**

Just to murk up the waters a bit and possibly give you a bit more to think about :P

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/1 ... -cpu-2016/

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/1 ... ics-cards/

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:50 pm**

phantazm11 wrote:Just to murk up the waters a bit and possibly give you a bit more to think about :P
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/1 ... -cpu-2016/

Possibly faster CPUs from AMD after getting an Intel, affordable even more hires OLED Monitors, after just contemplating of getting a 2560x, my nice SSDs could turn out expensive and super slow due to 3D Xpoint tech...

Ain't it great... now I know why I build a PC and then look at no other hardware for several years...

phantazm11 wrote:https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/1 ... ics-cards/

Gotta love it... 28nm to 16/14nm transistor tech a-coming, HBM2 with 16/32 GB VRAM... 6 GB will look pretty drab and super darn slow. The improvements in VR could be nifty though.

I'll be brave... and ignore it all

Posted: **Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:36 pm**

OK... I put together a hopefully pretty final list.

Code: Select all

mindfactory.de
€ 692,98	6144MB MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail)
€ 340,49	Intel Core i7 4790K 4x 4.00GHz So.1150 BOX
€ 142,88	MSI Z97 GAMING 5 Intel Z97 So.1150 Dual Channel DDR3 ATX Retail
€  98,73	16GB G.Skill RipJawsX DDR3-1866 DIMM CL10 Dual Kit

€  79,90	250GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s	=> E:\ scratch drive
€  58,94	120GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s 	=> C:\
€ 149,87	500GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s	=> D:\Games
€  68,16	2000GB Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 64MB		=> F:\ archive drive + (C:\backup)

€  89,94	Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Midi Tower ohne Netzteil schwarz
€ 141,62	850 Watt Corsair RMi Series Modular 80+ Gold
€  30,00	Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Tower Kühler (Cooler)

€  15,53	LG Electronics GH24NSD1 DVD-Writer SATA intern schwarz Bulk

€  29,40	6x 0.50m SATA 6Gb/s Anschlusskabel SATA Stecker auf SATA Stecker Rot mit Arretierung
----------
€ 1.938,44

Amazon.de
€ 104,00	MS Windows 10 Pro 64bit DVD OEM (EN)
			http://www.amazon.de/dp/B010S3VVJW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=24AAXEAAUXIFR&coliid=I16V1TQQM2HIXH
--------
€ 104,00

Amazon.de (2/6/2016, already ordered)
€  43,99	Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury FPS Gaming Mouse with High Speed Fusion Engine (910-004069)
--------
€  43,99

Amazon.de (2/3/2016 - 1&2 5.2.2016, , already ordered)
€ 21,99		Cherry G83-6105 LUNDE-2 schwarz Tastatur USB 105 Tasten MS W95 D Schwarz [Amazon EU S.a.r.L.]
€ 19,85		CSL - TM137U optische Maus / vert. Ausführung | ergonomisches Design,  5 Tasten [CSL-Computer]
€ 75,95		Cherry G80-3000LSCDE-2 Tastatur PS/2 USB schwarz (deutsches Tastaturlayout, QWERTZ) [MEXXTRONICS!]
-------
€117,79

"Oh master" obsidian do forgive me, I have gone to the dark side by going with Dangel's suggestions .

I looked at what the hardware store of choice in Germany sells, and all the items recommended are top sellers and very highly rated. Whereas the ASUS mainboard has things I do not care for or are even missing (e.g. the 6 SATA connects), and the ASUS GTX 980 Ti also seems to be a bit strange and expensive feature-wise. I like the look of the MSI boards and having main board and GPU from the same maker too. My setup should look pretty cool, black and red. Not that I'd see any of that once the PC is closed, but it's about inner values... har

.

I thought about the "MSI GTX 980Ti GAMING 6G GOLDEN EDITION", though it had nothing I'd really need. So the normal version is good enough. Strange having trouble finding the "MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G" PDF manual online... for the main board that was no issue.

Question is, should I really use such a huge any heavy cooler, Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Tower, instead of the Intel boxed one? Only very rarely was I ever able to push the CPU to 99°C... it's not about the extra cost, more like "bending" the main board by attaching such a monster. Note again I am not planning to do any over-clocking at all.

Question: Hope the memory is fine...?!

Did I miss something? Or could something turn out problematic? Any suggestions welcome, thanks.

Posted: **Sat Feb 06, 2016 11:22 pm**

Ooooh *blush*

Seems like a good build although im not quite sold on the 3 SSDs but thats your choice and im sure its out of habit (my dad AND my uncle did the same).
For your questions:
- G.Skill is one of the most trustworthy memory manufacturers out there (never heard a single bad word about them)
- As far as i know the hyper 212 evo is the most sold cpu cooler ever. And its cheap as fuck. Furthermore you should never reach 99 degrees with your CPU. A good full-load temperature is around 60-65 degrees. Your boxed CPU cooler is fine, no doubt about that but a seperate CPU cooler makes sure that your whole case is ventilated to a certain degree. It spreads the heat and lets your case coolers do the rest of the work. You will be fine without it but with it you will be even more fine (if that makes sense). Bending the mainboard as an absolute non-issue (I dont know why you are so afraid of this).

Why did you order two mice and two keyboards? I guess for testing them out. The thing about the CSL mouse is that its just plain bad in ergonomics. My friend got one of those 5 years ago and he wishes he would have never bought it (it was quite expensive back then).

Posted: **Sun Feb 07, 2016 12:19 am**

Good to be assured about the memory and the cooler. I'll get the cooler and then decide about installing it or not. I'll also be able to check how well it fits into the tower.

Note my present ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 X58 S1366 ATX, does some form of airflow management around the CPU to cool the onboard chips it seems. The "out of the box" Intel cooler seems to push air away from the CPU across the "Kühlrippen" (cooling fins) on the mai board... The way your cooler looks, it seem to take the cooling away from the mainboard, and into the air stream from the front of the tower to back side fan of it. That would improve CPU cooling, but the cooling around the CPU, i.e. the cooling of the mainboard, would be less effective, IMO. So it will be interesting to see how that turns out.

About the keyboards... the Cherry G83-6105 LUNDE-2 (B) arrived a few days ago and I even replaced my old Cherry G80-3000LUNDE/01 (A) (the one I really like) with it. I did some reading and could find out a few things about the 3-letter-abreviations Cherry uses. LPC is "Black keys" = linear (supposedly) and the other keyboard Cherry G81-3000LPCDE-2 black (C) I bought 6 years ago, feels like it uses too strong springs: Making it really annoying to type. No feeling that you triggered the key, and not nearly light enough to "just react" like (A) will always do.

I could not find out what LUN stands for. (A) has no "click point" you can slightly tap it to get the key to trigger, so light typing and very precise typing possible. Now (B) should be the same as (A), strangely (B) has a Druckpunkt, but it seems to be based on "polymer keys", it feels that way at least. This quite unexpected.

It will be interesting to see how Cherry G80-3000LSCDE-2 (D) differs. LSC are supposed to be the blue keys with "Druckpunkt" as well, but mechanical. And it is a lot more expensive so it should be better still... hopefully.

I still think (A) is the best keyboard for me, but the "Druckpunkt" of (B) feels kind of right too. I am getting used to it pretty much. (C), also tested yesterday, I still cannot type with, I keep missing keys.

Side note: LQC stands for "Clear keys" and LXC for Brown keys apparently.

CSL mouse
I wanted to test it for the heck of it. Well the problem with mouse ergonomics, at least for me is I do not rest my hand on the mouse, my hand hovers above it and I control it / hold it with thumb and small finger, my the left finger is lightly toughing the LMB and the middle finger on the RMB. So shape of a mouse is mostly irrelevant to me. My MX 518 is OK in that respect, maybe not really great though.

I have not used the CSL yet, I had it in my hand, and it was unusual. I was actually resting my hand on is. So it could actually be more restful. But the strange thing is hitting the LMB, it tends to move the mouse ever so slightly to the left ("Impulserhaltung";)). I would imagine that really messes with aiming. I also noted that I normally type down onto the left mouse button, this lets me multi-click quickly. With the CSL I don't seem to be able to do that. I'll probably install the CSL on the new PC at the start, to see how that goes. If it really sucks I'll just use the Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury. Though I foresee that the mouse buttons have really bad ergonomics.

MX 518 and new mouse pad
I was up for some experimentation. About 18 years ago I bought a pretty avant-garde mouse pad made of frosted glass, from http://www.icemat.com, the company seems to exist still, the mouse pad not so much. Well, after pushing the MX 518's DPI from 800 to 1800 (max), and using that glass pad the mouse feels really precise and responsive. I love using it on the desktop... almost switching from playing a stuttery 60 FPS and to then get a clean 125 FPS. Seems my also 18-year-old Q3A Everglide really lost some of it's surface, and the optical mice seem to not like that. Funny that an optical mouse works on frosted glass. I am pretty sure about 18 years ago no one was using laser mice.

No real ETA on the PC yet though... I backupped and cleaned up my present PC in preparation to the new PC... but since it works so well, it would really be stupid to get a new one, especially since I don't presently even have the nerve to play the new games like Witcher III. "Luxusprobleme"

Be interesting to see if my hardware list will see some upgrades / changes in the next month or so.

Quake3World

AEon's new PC 2016 (Build images & Win10 Tips)

AEon's new PC 2016 (Build images & Win10 Tips)

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