Need Help On An Unexpected Build Of A New Gaming Rig

I built my computer two years ago, it has a i7 6700k, a 980ti, 16GB of RAM and two SSDs, a 256 GB 840 Evo as the boot drive and a 1TB 840 Evo for storage (I have a NAS for bulk storage) and am driving a 24" 1080p monitor. My son has a i5 3750k with a GTX 670 and 8GB of RAM and SSDs for storage.

My son has been playing a lot of Rainbow 6 siege lately and was commenting that his framerate leaves much to be desired, so he's played it a few times on mine and had said my rig was perfect for how he plays, so my wife turned to me and said "Why don't you build yourself a new computer, and then Jeffrey can have your current computer? Do you think one $5,000 would cover the cost for it? You should probably get one of those real wide monitors you've been looking at for the new computer as well."

Listen, I love my wife, but sometimes i really LOVE my wife!

So this is sort of an unexpected build, I had been planning on buying a 1080ti to upgrade my system and putting my 980ti into my son's, and with everything going with my back right now I've fallen far behind on my component knowledge so I thought I would turn to you, the HardOCP community to get input on suggestions for a new gaming system for myself (of course below are my answers to the standard questions.

Thank You for your help, it's truly appreciated.



1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

This will be a my daily driver which is mainly used for watching YouTube, browsing the web and gaming, lots of gaming (I'm basically home bound at the moment recovering for two back surgeries) although I am interested in messing around with and learning video editing, but even then it will just be a "learn it to know it" situation and not something I will be doing often at all.

Also I plan on doing this build strictly with SSDs, I did that on my current rig and can't go back to a spinning platter, hell I wish I could upgrade my NAS with SSDs, but until I can get some high quality 4TB SSDs without breaking the bank that will have to wait.

I do like running BOINC when I'm not using my computer, but again, that's a bonus of whatever power the system has.


2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

Around $5,000 although unless there is a good performance based reason I would probably prefer to keep it under $4,000.

I like nice aesthetics but performance is real goal, if it looks great that's a bonus.


3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.


USA


4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

Everything except mouse and keyboard, this includes a monitor, which I have not decided on yet, other then to know that I want an ultrawide, most likely 3440 x 1440

I am leaning toward using a 1TB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 drive as the boot drive.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

No


6) Will you be overclocking?

Yes


7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

I am currently looking at 3440 x 1440 21:9 ultrawise monitors, but I haven't decided on a specific model yet.


8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

On the outside just after the first of the year, I thought I with the holidays coming up, and my being behind on my component research that I would take some time to get up to date on all the components before finalizing, while at the same time taking advantage of the sales that will be starting in a month's time, with the idea being, once I get most of the parts I need I will break down, order the rest and build it at that time, so it could happen as early as right after Cyber Monday, or as late as the first week or so of the new year.


9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

I don't think I need anything beyond the standards, I mean I need a good number of USB ports, at least one M.2 (as I'm leaning toward using a Samsung 960 Pro 1TB as the boot drive) and a good supply of SATA 6Gb/s ports as I am doing a full SSD build (I have a NAS in the house for bulk data storage.


10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

No

So most people are going to give you a typical 8700K build which is the smart way to go, if you can get your hands on one. Prolly wait a week or two and stock should be decent.
But just in case you want something a little crazy. This thing will look spectacular.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/N7sKzM

Monitor is a tough one. Supposed to be some really nice monitors coming in the next 2-3 months like the X35.
https://www.techpowerup.com/236624/...ine-with-orion-9000-pc-x35-hdr-gaming-monitor

There is the 34UC89G-B which is about perfect except for the 2560x1080 but you get 144hz. Personally I never loved my X34. I much prefer 4K myself.
You could go Vega 64 also as there are some nice Freesync monitors out there also that are little cheaper.

Awesome, thank you very much, my last AMD rig was an Athlon64 3400+ 100 years ago or so, and when it comes to Intel/AMD or nVidia/AMD I have no brand loyalty and in fact prefer when they leapfrog each other in performance, so as to push each other to produce more advanced platforms (although I've own a few ATI videocards I was never a huge fan of their drivers, which used to suck.) Maybe it's time for a new AMD rig, especially as with my budget I could go top end, as your build suggests. I'll have to do some reading on how it does with gaming.

Although I don't have any brand loyalty between CPUs and GPUs, I am a huge fan on Asus mobos and videocards, although not to the extent that I wont buy stuff from other manufacturers, it's just that even without giving them preferential treatment their motherboards and videocards have ended up in most of my recent builds, including my and my son's current builds.

I'd be interested in hearing what you didn't like about your X34, I mean it's easy to find tons of 21:9 love out there, and even reviews that list some pros/cons of switching, but I haven't really seen anyone who said they had a 21:9 and didn't like it, lots of hate on it's "short" height from people who have never had one, but I haven't seen anything from anyone who has had one. As for 4K, I'm not against it, but I thought systems were not really ready to rock 4k on everything yet, and as such the 1440p was sort of the sweet spot with a higher resolution but still one that allowed high frame rates on current titles?

As for FreeSync, as I said above I am not opposed to ATI, well AMD now, GPUs, but I thought FreeSync range of operation was more limited then Gsync, or was that just the first few monitors (I remember it only working between something like 80-120 fps, and while that helped, it was outside the lower framerates that needed it the most, but again maybe that was just the original monitors, I don't know since my back surgeries I've been in somewhat of a haze and haven't kept up on my reading on these things.

And one last question, if you would be so kind, how do you like your 960 pro SSD? Am I correct to plan on using it as the boot drive, or should I get something different for the boot drive and use the 960 Pro for games? I mean at 1TB the boot drive will have more than a few games on it as well (is there a point on SSD where filling them slow them down, on platter drivers it used to be said that anything over 60% of capacity slowed the drive down more and more, is this the case with SSDs?)

I'm looking forward to seeing how these next series of 34/25 inch monitors stack up, but from what I've seen so far they are looking absolutely amazing.

All told I just want an amazing gaming experience with any current, or near future title (I realize nothing promises any sort of longevity when it comes to computers, the next "Crysis" could come out next week and melt all current CPU/GPU combos.)

There are plenty of Asus X399 boards, Prime, Strix, Zenith Extreme, etc. The Gigabyte is just a bling'd out board. You can only OC a TR so much on any of the boards so its not as big a deal which you get.

As for the X34, I've seen quite a few others here who ditched theirs also. I went from a Samsung curved 4K 55" to the X34 and had it for about 20 months. I use my monitor for everything, pc, consoles, cable, movies, etc. I always felt like I was missing the top half of my screen. So I may have just been to pre-disposed to big screen 4K. I got it mostly because the 100Hz was supposed to hep with eyestrain and be a noticeable improvement. I could not tell any gaming improvement with Gsync or 100Hz over 60Hz. I mostly play slower paced games though. RPG's, MMO's, 4X, Strat, etc but still do my share of fps stuff and don't really notice any ghosting or screen tearing myself. I generally run pretty high end hardware anyway so I'm not having the FPS issues lower end hardware would have which is where Adaptive Sync really shines. The game support wasn't that great for 21:9 also especially older games. I could always find a way but it would sometimes take some tinkering but I run into the same thing with 4K also. As for fps, your capped at 60Hz anyway on 4K TV's and a single 1080 Ti handles it fine. Now a real 144Hz Gsync IPS gaming monitor would be a real noticeable difference in fps games I am sure your just stuck at lower res currently to get this.

As for Gsync vs FreeSync. Should watch this video from our great and powerful overlord:


The 960 is the BEST boot drive I've ever had. Been SSD since the first 40GB Intel and Kingston drives ever came out and probably used 8 or more different ones over the years. Easy choice. You don't get a much of a loading performance improvement installing most games on a SSD over a fast 7200. I still have over 250GB of my usable 465GB left. It will slowly go down over the next couple of years but by then it will be time to upgrade. Generally you don't want to fill up an SSD, its not as big a deal as it used to be. I would say keep 10% free.

Okay, small glitch, my wife is pushing me to start a YouTube channel, not for money but as a hobby (I've been all but home bound for the last two years due to a couple back surgeries and she knows I love computers, gaming and a few YouTube channels) so when if comes to the differences between the the standard and the X99 platform, such as the i9 7900x, I've seen gone gaming benchmarks that should it to be slightly behind the i7 7700k and i7 8700k, but would it really be noticable? Additionally, how, much better would the X99 be in video editing? I mean is it just a little snappier, or is it a HUGE, life changing speed difference?

For the Skylake-X platform like 7900x you use the X299 chipsets. So your looking at about $1200-1300 minimum for both for 10C\20T. Where as 8700K\Z370 6C\12T looking at $500 or more. There is value for money, but there is also you get what you paid for. For this kind of work >Cores the better. Which often puts R7 ahead of i7 and TR ahead of i9. Some if you want to go intel, some comparison numbers for you.

You should get the beefiest gaming rig you can afford and when it's not doing gaming duties it could be helping the [H]orde team on BOINC. We need help in WCG right now to claim our #1 spot back that we lost last month.

https://join.worldcommunitygrid.org?recruiterId=993628&teamId=BP5XNJBR9N1

That link will take you to the registration page, automatically place you on our team and tell you what software you need to download.

Therefore, my vote goes towards a 1080Ti paired with something from the x299 lineup. Should handle your widescreen 1440P display perfectly.