Big Question - After 40 years do I abandon tricked out rigs for GeForce Now et al

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JSM88

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 22, 2003
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Ok - back at [H] for the first time in years. 40 year gamer, rig builder, taken the last couple of years off due to job, new kid, etc and I'm looking to dive back in. I'm an original funder of Star Citizen, so I'm going to need horsepower, I'm old, so looking at gaming on the bigscreens at 4k.

What do I know? Of all the tech, video cards have, if anything, gotten more expensive, and apparently almost impossible to purchase at any price. My need for processing power in anything but games has disappeared (working with video, design, virtually anything else that isn't protein modeling can be done on a slim laptop these days.) So, despite the pleasure I get from building and tuning a rig, don't these subscription services make more sense than building a new machine every two years? I know that SC isn't on them yet. I know they're not at 4k yet, but I expect all that to change soon. What am I missing about this new world? And why didn't you people keep the flame lit while I was gone....
 
PC hardware isn't what it use to be. When you went from a P2-P3 there was a difference. Today it is minor speed increases and that is it. Most overclocking is a button in the UEFI and it finds what the CPU will do. Sure you can make minor adjustments but he major ones are done. SSD's have turned old ass PC's into speed demons, no reason to update. I am using a 6 year old 2600s CPU with 16gigs of ram and a SSD and it does everything I want and more. I click on something and it is done, how much faster can you get? Unless you're going 4k a midrange card will do play everything just fine.
 
JSM88 said:
Ok - back at [H] for the first time in years. 40 year gamer, rig builder, taken the last couple of years off due to job, new kid, etc and I'm looking to dive back in. I'm an original funder of Star Citizen, so I'm going to need horsepower, I'm old, so looking at gaming on the bigscreens at 4k.

What do I know? Of all the tech, video cards have, if anything, gotten more expensive, and apparently almost impossible to purchase at any price. My need for processing power in anything but games has disappeared (working with video, design, virtually anything else that isn't protein modeling can be done on a slim laptop these days.) So, despite the pleasure I get from building and tuning a rig, don't these subscription services make more sense than building a new machine every two years? I know that SC isn't on them yet. I know they're not at 4k yet, but I expect all that to change soon. What am I missing about this new world? And why didn't you people keep the flame lit while I was gone....
Click to expand...
You don't need to build a new machine every two years, you could probably get by with every four to five years if you aren't interested in 4K gaming. Star Citizen is broken and runs terribly for everyone, at the current rate that game won't actually be released until 2022.
 
I think it would be helpful if you specify what your current rig is. You may not need to upgrade at all
 
Build a rig, have some fun. You may find some uses for it, like a plex server and some modern gaming like xcom2. You never know. The incremental stuff in the above posts are more for people who rebuild every two years. I am currently wanting to build a new rig myself, but due to video card shortage/prices and CPU back doors, I am going to wait a little longer and hope things settle back down in a month or two. I built the rig in my sig several years ago, right after the i7 2600k came out, so it is like 6 years or more in age easily and still plays most modern games at 1080. I am also getting old, so when I do pop for the rebuild, I will also be going 4k on larger displays. I just enjoy having a PC....
 
Spaceninja said:
PC hardware isn't what it use to be. When you went from a P2-P3 there was a difference. Today it is minor speed increases and that is it. Most overclocking is a button in the UEFI and it finds what the CPU will do. Sure you can make minor adjustments but he major ones are done. SSD's have turned old ass PC's into speed demons, no reason to update. I am using a 6 year old 2600s CPU with 16gigs of ram and a SSD and it does everything I want and more. I click on something and it is done, how much faster can you get? Unless you're going 4k a midrange card will do play everything just fine.
Click to expand...

What are you doing on [H] if you think overclocking is just a button in the UEFI?

UEFI overclocking is just a lookup table. It overvolts and underclocks the chip compared to what it can actually run stably 24/7.
 
I want to build a new machine, but I don't really have a reason to. I don't really play games much anymore, I have been doing more typing and CAD work than anything else. Word and Excel don't exactly tax a CPU. Most of my CAD work is 2D with some basic 3D so it isn't like I am working my old GTX 750 ti.
 
GlacierNine said:
What are you doing on [H] if you think overclocking is just a button in the UEFI?

UEFI overclocking is just a lookup table. It overvolts and underclocks the chip compared to what it can actually run stably 24/7.
Click to expand...
lol it was an oversimplification. It isn't quite like the days of moving jumpers around to set the stock speed of your CPU let alone overclock it.
 
I still enjoy building a new system, though admittedly I haven’t done so in about 6 years just because I haven’t needed to. Normally I may have upgraded by now anyway simply because I would “want” to but GPU and DDR4 pricing isn’t making me WANT to upgrade and I certainly don’t NEED to upgrade yet.

That said I have done incremental upgrades over the years to my current platform which started out with 8GB of RAM and a single GTX 680. Upgraded to GTX 680 SLI, the. A 980Ti and now a 1080Ti. So where along the line I also maxed out the memory to 32GB. Recently I upgraded the case because my old one didn’t have front USB 3.0 ports. CPU, board and PSU are still what I originally started with and will probably hang on to for another year or two.
 
Remember...make sure to press the "turbo" button. ;)

Lots of good advice up there ^^^.

GPU/RAM prices are a bit high right now. Ryzen has done some pretty good things to the CPU market, whereas the Spectre/Meltdown exploit has made Intel look less shiny. (Gross simplification, there, but enough to get you started looking.)
 
I'll keep it simple... kinda FOR GAMING
CPU Intel Coffee Lake: right up your ally old man. i7 8700k or 8600k. AMD has some great offerings, finally but, better to wait for Zen 2 and see if they work out the bugs of ZEN. x299 platform is great but overkill for gaming and budget.
Memory: 3200mhz 16GB (2x8gb) is the sweet spot (bang for the buck) 32GB if you feel spunky and want to use some of your memory for other purposes (RAM Disk) (4x8gb matched pair) my pick G.Skill Trident Z made for z370 platform
OS Drive: Go state of the art here Get a M.2 nvme drive 512GB sweet spot will hold your OS and 5 to 6 game comfortably. We are talking speed 3500 reads and 2100 writes my pick Samsung 960 pro nvme M.2 512GB
Backup and Data drive: 2TB hard disk sweet spot move all your User Profile with documents and data files to this drive to preserve space for games. My Pick WD Black hard to beat for reliability and performance
Motherboard: Asus still rules the roost but MSI IMHO is my best bang for the buck proposition and my go to. No need to hit their top tier boards unless you feel like splurging. My picks Asus & MSI
GPU: MY pick GTX 1080Ti Dig deep cause miners have turned the GPU market upside down stock is low everywhere and prices are above retail as a result that said get the best single GPU you can afford avoid CF & SLI not only is it being phase out but it never really did work as it was intended meaning most games are not optimized for either. Your best bet might be to buy used in the Trading Post here from a motivated compassionate seller. Sad but most sellers are capitalizing on the market conditions. Who can blame them really even last gen GTX 980 Ti's are sky high in price.
PSU: for a single GPU all you need is 650w but I typically get a 750 or 850 for new builds call it overhead or future proofing I think it's money well spent get a gold or platinum certified fpr best results. My Pick 10 year warranty is hard to beat from a reputable source known for great customer service
OS Windows 10 Pro x64 oem $129 when on sale must have when DX12 goes mainstream (future proof) check the trading post too some great deals have been had there but I'm not vouching for them.
Hand me down factor: 5 years from now your kid would love to have this and it will still rock.
BTW if you BF4 or BF1 I want you tags :D
 
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geforce 1080ti / titan Xp. intel 8700k /w z370 MB. 16gb 2666mhz 14 cl or faster ram, to 3000/3200 cl 15.. evga g2 psu. rest is kinda preferences. that is what i would do building today, motherboard doesnt really add any performance and good to get a bad board lol? but would probs end up with gigabyte, asus or msi board. but i wouldnt use too much on it. prety much what the guy above said :p for screen i dont know, i use a faster 1440p monitor acer predator ips, works great. for ssd u wont really need more then a "normal" one as game files dont even use the bandwith to provide faster load time anyway, samsung 850 still good. and no need to pay premium for g.skill i think, while ppl like that.
 
If you are looking at 1440P/1600P/4K as your target resolution, I would forget about wasting the extra money on an 8600/8700K when at those resolutions a $189 Ryzen 1600@ 3.8-4Ghz will net you 95% of the performance in most games for much less money. I would use the money you save to invest in a larger speedy M2 NVME SSD, and go up a tier in GPU performance.

The 8 series are nice CPUs, but with Meltdown being an issue (we still have no idea how much performance is going to suffer once Intel finally gets a stable patch out) but they aren't needed for a great gaming experience @ high resolutions. I was going to buy an 8600K setup myself, but instead went with a 1600, and used the money I saved to buy a better MB and a new NVME ssd.
 
Gaming on 4k does not take a high end CPU. I would also second a ryzen 1600 or even an 1700. Check out the bundle prices at microcenter. You can get a pretty good deal on a ryzen 1700 and motherboard for well under $300. Ram prices are pretty high right now and I'm still finding 8 gigs to be plenty on all games I play at 1440p. I'm not sure about 4k but maybe buy 8 gigs now and then upgrade later once prices come down. Then you have your GPU. Right now I can't say anything affordable in the midrange is going to give you a smooth experience maxed out. You're going to have to turn down settings, if you're fine with that snatch up a GTX1070 when the mining thing crashes. Or order from Nvidia. Otherwise this year Nvidia's Volta cards should be out and more capable of 4k.
As for the hdd, I would go solid state. Basically get the cheapest one you can with the right amount of space. I find that for gaming the NVME m.2 ssd's are over rated. You can get some Crucial mx300, or mx500 with lots of storage and are fast enough for today's needs. Games don't usually see a huge benefit from faster ssd's, nor does loading windows.
 
Also if you're streaming to a 4k tv from something like nvidia shield tv, you can always run it at 2560x1440p. This gives an excellent picture as well but runs much smoother. You're tv will upscale it to 4k and to tell you the truth, sitting 10 feet away you can't tell the difference.
 
JSM88 said:
Ok - back at [H] for the first time in years. 40 year gamer, rig builder, taken the last couple of years off due to job, new kid, etc and I'm looking to dive back in. I'm an original funder of Star Citizen, so I'm going to need horsepower, I'm old, so looking at gaming on the bigscreens at 4k.

What do I know? Of all the tech, video cards have, if anything, gotten more expensive, and apparently almost impossible to purchase at any price. My need for processing power in anything but games has disappeared (working with video, design, virtually anything else that isn't protein modeling can be done on a slim laptop these days.) So, despite the pleasure I get from building and tuning a rig, don't these subscription services make more sense than building a new machine every two years? I know that SC isn't on them yet. I know they're not at 4k yet, but I expect all that to change soon. What am I missing about this new world? And why didn't you people keep the flame lit while I was gone....
Click to expand...
If you have excellent internet, that might be an option. If your internet is anything but exceptional (both bandwidth and latency wise), forget it.
 
47yo here, been doing it since '94-'95. Have the same base system I built 6 years ago. Original was a ZX68 w/ i5-2500K, GTX 560Ti, 120GB SSD, 4x2GB DDR3. I added bigger SSDs, another 4x2GB RAM, and new GPUs over the years. I bought a used "replacement motherboard" and a i7-2600K last year, just to have a back up essentially, and the PSU had to be replaced, got some newer 2x8GB DDR3. Used the i5-2500K and old RAM, some older SSDs to make a back up rig.

I installed new RAM and the i7 in the old mobo, and ran it all last year. I started looking to upgrade the GPU again, from a GTX760, and was dismayed to say the least with the current market.

But I found a CL seller with a stock EVGA 970SC for $175, snatched it up and put some better cooling on it, put the newer mobo (same basic model) in a new Define R6, left the i5 2500K in it, slapped a Corsair H110i in there, swapped over the drives, and reactivated Win 7. Super cool and quiet at 4.0ghz on 1.23v again. May swap in the i7-2600K at some point, but not really an issue for me.

I have no reason to shell out for new platform, even though I can afford it, the games I play are maxed out right now. I would love to build another rig, with all the great I/O upgrades, but I would only see the improvement in benchmarks, I don't bench anything anymore except to verify upgrades are working.

I will probably get a GTX1060 when they get back into the normal $250 range, maybe $275 for a 6GB, but I have no intention of any other upgardes.
 
owcraftsman said:
I'll keep it simple... kinda FOR GAMING
CPU Intel Coffee Lake: right up your ally old man. i7 8700k or 8600k. AMD has some great offerings, finally but, better to wait for Zen 2 and see if they work out the bugs of ZEN. x299 platform is great but overkill for gaming and budget.
Memory: 3200mhz 16GB (2x8gb) is the sweet spot (bang for the buck) 32GB if you feel spunky and want to use some of your memory for other purposes (RAM Disk) (4x8gb matched pair) my pick G.Skill Trident Z made for z370 platform
OS Drive: Go state of the art here Get a M.2 nvme drive 512GB sweet spot will hold your OS and 5 to 6 game comfortably. We are talking speed 3500 reads and 2100 writes my pick Samsung 960 pro nvme M.2 512GB
Backup and Data drive: 2TB hard disk sweet spot move all your User Profile with documents and data files to this drive to preserve space for games. My Pick WD Black hard to beat for reliability and performance
Motherboard: Asus still rules the roost but MSI IMHO is my best bang for the buck proposition and my go to. No need to hit their top tier boards unless you feel like splurging. My picks Asus & MSI
GPU: MY pick GTX 1080Ti Dig deep cause miners have turned the GPU market upside down stock is low everywhere and prices are above retail as a result that said get the best single GPU you can afford avoid CF & SLI not only is it being phase out but it never really did work as it was intended meaning most games are not optimized for either. Your best bet might be to buy used in the Trading Post here from a motivated compassionate seller. Sad but most sellers are capitalizing on the market conditions. Who can blame them really even last gen GTX 980 Ti's are sky high in price.
PSU: for a single GPU all you need is 650w but I typically get a 750 or 850 for new builds call it overhead or future proofing I think it's money well spent get a gold or platinum certified fpr best results. My Pick 10 year warranty is hard to beat from a reputable source known for great customer service
OS Windows 10 Pro x64 oem $129 when on sale must have when DX12 goes mainstream (future proof) check the trading post too some great deals have been had there but I'm not vouching for them.
Hand me down factor: 5 years from now your kid would love to have this and it will still rock.
BTW if you BF4 or BF1 I want you tags :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for this breakdown. I'm in the same boat as the OP and haven't built a rig in 4 years. I don't really have the need, but I have the time and desire . The GPU market has caught me totally off guard.
 
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If buying pc gear was a crime, I would be in for life. I still upgrade every year, but I still have systems running from way back. My absolute favorite is a i7 920 on a P6Tdeluxe. That system is going on I think 10+years and still runs better than some of the rigs I run into.
 
I'm an upgrade whore and I've been running X99 and a 5960X since they launched. I've had all the modern stuff on the bench and even played games on it. You can't really tell the difference. In fact, I can probably slap my 1080Ti's in my old Core i7 3930K rig at 4.4GHz and they'll probably run just as good as this machine does in games. For someone who loves to upgrade, the market has been depressing lately. Video cards, are the only thing worth changing out anymore.
 
Dan_D said:
I'm an upgrade whore and I've been running X99 and a 5960X since they launched. I've had all the modern stuff on the bench and even played games on it. You can't really tell the difference. In fact, I can probably slap my 1080Ti's in my old Core i7 3930K rig at 4.4GHz and they'll probably run just as good as this machine does in games. For someone who loves to upgrade, the market has been depressing lately. Video cards, are the only thing worth changing out anymore.
Click to expand...

I've been nerding out learning networking lately for the same reason, depressing market and over inflated prices means I can't build an awesome rig like I used to, and I have no reason to with the mediocre upgrades that have been coming.

So looking into embedded type stuff to build a PFsense or FreeNAS box and scouring CL for cheap hard drives to put together a home file server have kept my hardware lusts satisfied
 
PersonalJ said:
You don't need to build a new machine every two years, you could probably get by with every four to five years if you aren't interested in 4K gaming. Star Citizen is broken and runs terribly for everyone, at the current rate that game won't actually be released until 2022.
Click to expand...

I will agree.. I have a 5820k clocked @ 4.4ghz with a water cooled 1080 @2100/5800 and the most I can get out of it right now is 40fps, with 23ms frame times.. Again if you watch your system setting while play this game, you will notice that it is currently only running at 40% GPU usage.. well that how much of my 1080 it is using.. CPU is at 50% on all cores.. running the game on a 1440p 34 widscreen just for informations sake..
 
As Someone who is still using an X58 chipet with a Xeon proc @ 4.6ghz. You only really need to upgrade the GPU. No need to really build a system anymore.

Now if you are running an old AMD Phenom system, or even any AMD system with a FX proc in it....Ok you will need to upgrade as those CPU's aren't able to keep up. Even an old i7-920 was faster then FX/Phenom series.

Like Dan_D said, you could even use an older 3930k system, and still be fine. Just need to upgrade the GPU.
 
Brackle said:
As Someone who is still using an X58 chipet with a Xeon proc @ 4.6ghz. You only really need to upgrade the GPU. No need to really build a system anymore.

Now if you are running an old AMD Phenom system, or even any AMD system with a FX proc in it....Ok you will need to upgrade as those CPU's aren't able to keep up. Even an old i7-920 was faster then FX/Phenom series.

Like Dan_D said, you could even use an older 3930k system, and still be fine. Just need to upgrade the GPU.
Click to expand...

I had a lot more fun overclocking my X5660 than I did my 7820X.

At 4K, you can pretty much run just about anything as the graphics card is going to limit you. 1080Ti (if you're buying now), or fight it out with the miners come April/May for new Nvidia.
 
I haven't read all the comments in this thread yet, but long story short I too had been away from HardOC for several years. Started lurking recently, and ended up finding a KILLER deal on my current setup thanks to Craigslist. But I had built my last setup 5 years ago and it was still able to somewhat run SC at maybe 20fps on High. You can definitely go 4-5 years on a build these days. The only issue you'll run into trying to upgrade is a video card because cryptocurrency has put them into such an extreme high demand now, so prices are way over MSRP, and probably will be for a while.

Anyway...

Old Build:
i5-2500
16GB DDR3
Asus Mobo (can't remember the specific one, I'm at work)
Hitatchi 1TB 7200RPM HDD (also have like 12TB of external storage)
eVGA 970 GTX

New Build:
i7-6700
16GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance (3000)
Z170A Krait Gaming 3x Mobo
500GB Sandisk SSD

Swapped over my old 970 GTX that's still kicking since 2013 and now runs SC much better, even though it's still not optimized so still not perfect. But I got all of my new build for a whopping $300, AND that included the NZXT H440 case as well. So you can definitely luck up on some deals too!
 
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Spaceninja said:
I want to build a new machine, but I don't really have a reason to. I don't really play games much anymore, I have been doing more typing and CAD work than anything else. Word and Excel don't exactly tax a CPU. Most of my CAD work is 2D with some basic 3D so it isn't like I am working my old GTX 750 ti.
Click to expand...

This sounds exactly like me - any PC that I build would be gaming just 5% of its uptime, and doing CAD work or browsing at 95% of its uptime. For this reason, it feels crazy to buy a GPU at all.

I probably should've just bought a Hades Canyon, or waited for a new Dell XPS release, instead of starting this SFF build, but I've spent the money on a Dan v2, so it's a bit too late now... :cry:
 
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