So, can I piggy-bag on this thread and ask you guys to help me build a new pc? Seams wrong to start a new thread, but if that is indeed better, by all means!
I currently own a real oldy: Intel ® Core ™2 Duo CPU, [email protected] Ghz pc, that has seen better days: if I shut it down completely, it won’t even restart. Now that will probably be a battery-issue that can easily be solved, but as I am starting my own company early next year and I will, therefore, be able to deduct the cost of a new pc now, I figured perhaps now is the time to change it!
I want my new pc to be able to run all the current games and the (near-)future ones at the highest possible settings, so a high-end game pc is what I’m looking for, assuming I will automatically be able to do all the things required for my business (lots of writing, some map-making, photo-editing etc) on that pc as well. Lots of questions pop up then, which I have tried to answer by reading the above posts, but I find I get lost in all the options real quick… So:
should I get an I7 or an I9, and how many cores are actually usefull? At what point do the higher costs no longer yield any noticeable effect?
what kind of motherboard do I need? I honestly don’t have a clue what the difference is when looking at a list of them…
what’s the best high-end Graphics card that is still affordable?
I’m planning on having one SSD-drive and a larger (2TB) ‘normal’ drive. What’s the minimum SSD-size I require?
What type and amount of desktop memory are required/recommended these days?
How do I figure out the amount of power I need?
Is water cooling any good, or can I suffice with ordinary fans, based on the not too excessive use? I don’t much like the idea of having to apply that paste so I’m hoping fans will do…
should I get a professional edition of Windows, what with my own company and all? Or doesn’t that make any difference?
etc…
Any help would be much appreciated, as (obviously) I don’t really know what I’m talking about here…
To specify my last post somewhat, I am now thinking about the following setup:
Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming
Intel Core i9 9900K-3,6 Ghz
16 GB Corsair Vengeance (2133 Mhz)
500 GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus (M.2) ssd
1 Tb second hard drive
NVidia RTX 2060 6 GB
Cooler Master MasterAirr MA410P
Corsair LL120/LL140 Pro Case Fabs (RGB)
Is that a reasonable setup? Or should I consider changes to either improve performance or save money on things that add little to no value? Again, any advice would be most welcome!
If you want to save a little money you could back off on the cpu a little. The absolute top end tends to have diminishing returns. Your GPU is in more of a sweetspot.
Ok, that is good to know! I could go for an I7 9700K, 3,6 Ghz, or save even more with an I7 8700K -3,7 Ghz, but I don’t buy a new pc very often and I don’t want to regret this decision in a few years time when every game requires I9… Or is that never going to happen and will I7 remain viable aswell?
I think a little future proofing is ok in CPUs as they’re so hard to upgrade. I’d probably go for the 9700 myself. The Ryzens are also not bad options and as ever something better will be along soon…
If you end up with spare cash, the size of the SSD can be a worthwhile place to invest.
The main reason to get W10Pro is to run Hyper-V and Docker for Windows to run VMs or docker containers. Not sure if there are any other reasons.
Price of SSD is dropping, so get 500GB or more. Note that M.2 SSDs should be faster than SATA SSDs.
You still need to apply paste to after-market CPU fans. Of course, you can just use the fan that comes with the CPU, which is usually pre-mounted with paste already applied. I’ve heard that the stock fan is completely adequate now.
Affordable GPU…define affordable. Best value for money is currently GTX1660, but that doesn’t handle 4K without turning down details.
Affordable may have been the wrong word: I meant good value for money. It doesn’t have to be cheap, but it doesn’t have to be the brand new, top of the market card that was introduced ‘yesterday’ either. As long as it runs all current games at highest specs, it will also be good enough for the games that come out in the near future. So GTX1660 isn’t good enough, as it doesn’t handle 4K. But is the NVidia RTX 2060 6 GB I now picked indeed the best option, as Alistair said, or will a slight upgrade on that last me considerably longer? I guess what I’m asking is: do GPU’s still develope at crazy speeds or has it slowed down a bit?
Edit: to specify even further: should I go for an 8GB Card? the Nvidia GTX 1070 for example? Or RTX 2070?
Yeah, I’ll probably be fine with the normal W10, as I will never use stuff like that :-)
I will have this pc build for me, so I assume that will include the pasting… Does it need to be re-applied after some time?
hmm, that is good to know, had not thought of that. I may have to adjust my ultra settings-requirement a bit then. Which I can live with: compared to my current setup it will look awesome anyway!
When checking up on this, I read some stuff about my monitor having Vsync, and that I should therefore go with an AMD card. Which, looking at the prices, is a good thing, I guess. Any thoughts on the AMD Radeon RX 580 or the RX 590?
And my apologies for posting so much… Just so many things I don’t know enough about…
As far as I know, it isn’t. Can you explain (in simple words) why either would be better?
Edit, never mind, found it. Gsync is indeed better, but getting a similar monitor that supports it, is pricy…
Freesync adaptive v-sync (which is more widely adopted) is compatible with AMD cards, but (mostly) not Nvidia cards. Gsync (which has a large licensing fee and is therefore not widely adopted) is compatible with Nvidia cards. Gsync compatible monitors are almost always substantially pricier.
It recently got a little murkier in that Nvidia is starting to back off of their Gsync only position (because it had such poor adoption). Read this article for more info: Using FreeSync with Nvidia GPUs Examined | TechSpot
Thanks, scanned the article and I think I get it, sort of. It could mean my monitor would probably work properly with NVIDIA after all. Then again, it will most certainly work properly with an AMD. So that leaves the question: should I prefer either of the two?
Damn, this is complicated stuff… for an archaeologist :-)
Not having adaptive sync support isn’t the end of the world. Though the benefits are more noticeable as you take advantage of higher display refresh rates that will probably exceed your card’s frame rate. It looks like that monitor goes to 60HZ, so might be nice to have it. Screen-tearing can be pretty damn annoying.
Yes, the monitor you selected is Freesync compatible so will have full adaptive sync with an AMD card, but probably falls into the 4th tier of monitors for Nvidia, per the article I linked.
For 1440 gaming (QHD) on that monitor, rather than full 4K had you gone that route, I highly suspect most solid mid-range cards will get you very close, if not totally to, ultra settings.
ok, thanks for explaining! I think I will probably go for the Radeon RX 590, unless anyone wants to talk me out of it. As far as I can tell, Nvidia does preform better, but all benchmarks are based on shooters, and I don’t play those anyway. So based on what I want to do with it, a better match with my monitor and a better price, I think the 590 is my best bet.
But by all means, show me why I’m wrong. The comments are very helpfull and much appreciated!
I don’t know much about the AMD cards these days, but for ultrawide displays I’d probably go for a 2080. It’s a little pricey IMO but that’s a lot of pixels. I use a 1070 with mine and it’s fine for me, but you can see it chugging a little in things like Anthem firefights with special effects firing off everywhere :)
