Looking for a new Rig

[maverick786us]

Its been long time I decided to but a new gaming rig. Here are the requirements

1) Primary purpose: Gaming, but I want to do some development too.
2) Where do I live: South Florida.
3) How much is my budget: upto 2500$
4) CPU: Latest or last generation Core i7 Quad Core, with enough room for Overclocking. Whats your view on this?
5) Storage: 512 GB SSD used for OS drive. However if i can get a 1TB SSD for good price, I will go for it
6) Display: If i can get a 27-32 inch 4K display for good price, I will go for it, otherwise a 27 inch 1440P will just work for me. But I don't want some cheap Chinese knock. I would prefer quality like Dell.
7) GPU: I wouldn't spend more than 700$ for a GPU. So not sure if 1080Ti is the right choice for me. What else can i think of?
8) Motherboard: Its been such a long time that i completely lost track, which latest chipset is in the market lol. I guess ASUS Pro or Deluxe with the latest or previous generation chipset, with good Overclocking capability that should have the option of inbuilt Wifi (preferable) more USB-C ports.
9) Case: Any case that can provides the quality and reliability of Corsair 750D will work.
10) PSU: Nothing better than a Corsair Modular PSUs.
11) Heat Sink: I think Corsair H80 should work fine.
12) RAM: DDR4 32 GB (16X2) from G-Skill or Corsair. Any better recommendation?

I want my rig to be future proof where if needed I can add another GPU for SLI or cross fire. I want to play games like Crysis 3 and GTA 5 smoothly at the resolution I have mentioned in the requirement.

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

CPU: Well, the i7-7700k is the fastest thing out there now, so not much to talk about there. You will need to get a heatsink as none is included. If you plan to overclock a large (>= 120 mm) tower or closed-loop cooler would be desirable.

Storage: NVMe/PCIe drives are still relatively expensive for little to no real-life advantage. I'd be looking at a larger (>=500 GB) SATA SSD.

Display: Very subjective here. With gaming being one of the system's main purposes look for a g-sync/freesync unit.

GPU: AFAIK the only way to get halfway-reasonable gaming performance at 4k from a single GPU is to get a 1080ti. For some games a Pascal Titan X may be needed. In other words, you're not going to get off cheap at 4k. For 1440p a 1080 should be more than fine. A compromise: pick up a 4k display but run games at a lower resolution (e.g., 1080p, which is exactly 1/4 a 4k display). That way you'll still have the advantages of 4k for other apps/development/etc. Also, it's always better to have a single larger/faster GPU as opposed to a SLI setup.

PSU: Some Corsair units are fine (depends on the OEM). I like Seasonic. EVGA also seems to be well-regarded currently. Gold-rated is probably the sweet spot for efficiency vs. price. Platinum/titanium are generally priced higher than they're worth. Depending on the GPU chosen, a 400-600W unit will be sufficient. Don't shy away from the semi-modular models, as the built-in cables are ones you can't do without anyways.

Mainboard: Kinda depends on what features you're looking for (w.g., wireless, Thunderbolt, etc.). I'm generally wary of any model that costs >$200, as often there's lots of fluff for little additional substance. No reason not to get the latest chipsets, any cost savings from a previous generation will be minimal.

RAM: 32 GB is overkill for a gaming box. Unless some other apps you're running can use than much RAM, scale down to 16 GB (8x2).

 

[maverick786us]

CPU: Well, the i7-7700k is the fastest thing out there now, so not much to talk about there. You will need to get a heatsink as none is included. If you plan to overclock a large (>= 120 mm) tower or closed-loop cooler would be desirable.

Storage: NVMe/PCIe drives are still relatively expensive for little to no real-life advantage. I'd be looking at a larger (>=500 GB) SATA SSD.

Display: Very subjective here. With gaming being one of the system's main purposes look for a g-sync/freesync unit.

GPU: AFAIK the only way to get halfway-reasonable gaming performance at 4k from a single GPU is to get a 1080ti. For some games a Pascal Titan X may be needed. In other words, you're not going to get off cheap at 4k. For 1440p a 1080 should be more than fine. A compromise: pick up a 4k display but run games at a lower resolution (e.g., 1080p, which is exactly 1/4 a 4k display). That way you'll still have the advantages of 4k for other apps/development/etc. Also, it's always better to have a single larger/faster GPU as opposed to a SLI setup.

PSU: Some Corsair units are fine (depends on the OEM). I like Seasonic. EVGA also seems to be well-regarded currently. Gold-rated is probably the sweet spot for efficiency vs. price. Platinum/titanium are generally priced higher than they're worth. Depending on the GPU chosen, a 400-600W unit will be sufficient. Don't shy away from the semi-modular models, as the built-in cables are ones you can't do without anyways.

Mainboard: Kinda depends on what features you're looking for (w.g., wireless, Thunderbolt, etc.). I'm generally wary of any model that costs >$200, as often there's lots of fluff for little additional substance. No reason not to get the latest chipsets, any cost savings from a previous generation will be minimal.

RAM: 32 GB is overkill for a gaming box. Unless some other apps you're running can use than much RAM, scale down to 16 GB (8x2).

Thank you BlueLine. Yes I will not go for stock heat sink. I will go for Corsair hydro series heat sink. So i was asking if H80 is good enough to serve that purpose or do I have to go for something expensive like H100?

About the Display part yes I am ready to compromise on the settings, maybe in 5-6 months i might but another GPU and SLI / X-Fire it.

Talking about 32GB RAM, yes I do feel that 16GB RAM should be enough. But besides gaming, I will do some development too where I will have VM for Windows Server and will install Visual Studio, SQL Server and maybe share point within that VM. I know 16GB RAM is enough. My MacBook Pro 15 has 16GB RAM. The only reason i raised the point of 32GM RAM was, because most of the Apple consumers started complaining that 16GB RAM isn't enough for there MacBooks (not the bad ass iMac that was recently introduced in WWDC, lol), So apple increased the RAM from 16-32 GB for their latest generation MacBooks. So I was bit skeptical if 16GB RAM will be enough for a high end Gaming Rig to solve my above purposes.

About the motherboard, I am not fanatic about inbuilt Wifi, its just that an inbuilt Wifi is always better and more reliable than having an external Wifi card. When it comes to motherboards with good overclocking feature, I am big fan of ASUS. MSI and Gigabyte motherboards are good to. All I was asking is if I should go for ASUS Pro or Deluxe with the latest chipset?

 

[AthlonXP]

When were you looking to build your rig? Right now we are going to see some new stuff come out the next 1-3 months. I figure that would also help in deciding. I was in a similar situation last month, ended going to an AMD Ryzen setup since I wanted a good mix of gaming performance and core count for some VM's I would build for studying for my Citrix Certs.

 

[maverick786us]

When were you looking to buiyould your rig? Right now we are going to see some new stuff come out the next 1-3 months. I figure that would also help in deciding. I was in a similar situation last month, ended going to an AMD Ryzen setup since I wanted a good mix of gaming performance and core count for some VM's I would build for studying for my Citrix Certs.

I will buy it by first week of July

 

[maverick786us]

CPU: Well, the i7-7700k is the fastest thing out there now, so not much to talk about there. You will need to get a heatsink as none is included. If you plan to overclock a large (>= 120 mm) tower or closed-loop cooler would be desirable.

Storage: NVMe/PCIe drives are still relatively expensive for little to no real-life advantage. I'd be looking at a larger (>=500 GB) SATA SSD.

Display: Very subjective here. With gaming being one of the system's main purposes look for a g-sync/freesync unit.

GPU: AFAIK the only way to get halfway-reasonable gaming performance at 4k from a single GPU is to get a 1080ti. For some games a Pascal Titan X may be needed. In other words, you're not going to get off cheap at 4k. For 1440p a 1080 should be more than fine. A compromise: pick up a 4k display but run games at a lower resolution (e.g., 1080p, which is exactly 1/4 a 4k display). That way you'll still have the advantages of 4k for other apps/development/etc. Also, it's always better to have a single larger/faster GPU as opposed to a SLI setup.

PSU: Some Corsair units are fine (depends on the OEM). I like Seasonic. EVGA also seems to be well-regarded currently. Gold-rated is probably the sweet spot for efficiency vs. price. Platinum/titanium are generally priced higher than they're worth. Depending on the GPU chosen, a 400-600W unit will be sufficient. Don't shy away from the semi-modular models, as the built-in cables are ones you can't do without anyways.

Mainboard: Kinda depends on what features you're looking for (w.g., wireless, Thunderbolt, etc.). I'm generally wary of any model that costs >$200, as often there's lots of fluff for little additional substance. No reason not to get the latest chipsets, any cost savings from a previous generation will be minimal.

RAM: 32 GB is overkill for a gaming box. Unless some other apps you're running can use than much RAM, scale down to 16 GB (8x2).

Talking about the motherboard I can slightly increase the budget. But the motherboard has to be primarily a good overclocking. Inbuilt Wifi, USB-C thunderbolt are just added features not a need