PC Tech Finally building a new PC. Help needed!

[Anzo]

Hey dudes! At long last, I'm setting out to build my own PC. I got wife approval today so I'm beginning this thing in earnest. I've looked at logicalincrements.com and am aiming for anything around the "Outstanding" tier.

 

Background: I've been using Macs mostly since 2005. I keep up with PC components and stuff just enough to have surface level knowledge. Right now my iMac is bootcamped with Win10 and is on par with a mid-high end 2015 laptop. I just can't justify the "Apple tax" anymore and want better performance for games at a much better price. I HAVE NEVER BUILT MY OWN PC BEFORE FROM SCRATCH. I have replaced GPU's, HDD's etc but that was back when HL2 was the new hotness. 

 

Budget: <$2000 including monitors

 

Performance goals are: >60FPS at 1440p for 3-4 years (or more). I'm not streaming or podcasting. Very light video and photo editing. VR probably at some point but not right now. 

 

I already own the following:

Corsair k70

Logitech G502

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD (currently in an external case but I plan to install it internally)

 

Here is a list of what I have in carts right now:

Power Supply 

HDD (Seagate 2TB)

CPU Cooler

Core-i7 8700k

Nvidia 2070

MB (Gigabyte Z390)

RAM(16GB)

Case

 

I'm not married to any of these components. I'm just more familiar with Intel stuff. If somebody wants to make a strong case for AMD stuff then I'm open to that.

 

Needs:

I need help with choosing a G-sync, low latency monitor. I've used 27" monitors for years, like the size and will probably continue with that. 1440p resolution unless there is a 4K monitor at a screaming deal. Just one monitor for now...unless I can get two smaller ones for a good price. (2x 24" for example). I'm actually open to input.

 

PS- If anybody has some old parts that they are looking to offload that will still meet the above performance goals, I'd be more than happy to buy them/take them off your hands. 

 

[Anzo]

Thoughts on this monitor? On sale right now and fits my criteria.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Gaming-S2716DGR-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B0149QBOF0/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=dell+27"+gsync&amp;qid=1548027824&amp;sr=8-2

[SimpleG]

Everything looks good, Id skip a Gsync and get a cheaper Free sync now that Nvidia  supports it.

[AlwaysDyingX]

Build looks nice! I don't know anything about monitors so I can't respond to that question 

[Keyser_Soze]

I'd say the monitor is good because it's on sale and about as cheap or cheaper than a freesync.

 

Personally when I got my monitor it was a gsync cheaper than a freesync I was looking at.

[Keyser_Soze]

Also you could probably save some money if you got with a mid tower. What you have doesn't look like it warrants such a huge case.

[Emblazon]

I have an ASUS X99-Deluxe laying around, brand new/refurbished in packaging. I haven't been able to sell it for any respectable amount, and I'd much rather Anzo have it than some Facebook Marketplace/Craigslist under-bidding shlub. 

 

Would it be advantageous for him to use this board and switch CPUs? It would allow the money that was for the MB to go somewhere else. 

 

Thoughts?

 

@Nokt

[Anzo]

20 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Also you could probably save some money if you got with a mid tower. What you have doesn't look like it warrants such a huge case.

Thanks, I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Paging @cusideabelincoln

[Paperclyp]

I built one about three years ago and people on here were extremely helpful. It’s still running great.

[Nokt]

2 hours ago, Anzo said:

Thanks, I was thinking the same thing.

 

I have a carbide 500R you could have. Nothing wrong with it, I just switched to a Meshify C with a couple noctua fans to have a smaller footprint (both are still mid towers). 

 

Also the monitor you linked is a TN panel. Not sure if that bothers you or not. IPS has the best colors, but has IPS glow. VA has the best contrast, but are usually used in curved screens. All have pros and cons. Also it’s been on sale for sub $400, but unsure if it’ll fall that low anytime soon.

 

Lastly you could save some money on the mobo if you wanted. This MSI is around $35 cheaper, not a huge savings but it all just depends on what you’re looking for. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075GN9YC4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_S9trCbRFEGWVM

 

EDIT: Also the PSU you have listed the G2 is $20 bucks cheaper and I’m not entirely sure what the difference is.

[Anzo]

How do we all feel about these changes? 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VkxWTB

 

Former D1Pers DexxFM and Sanborn are talking up Ryzen to keep costs lower. I'm liking what I'm reading.

 

[Keyser_Soze]

I just got the same processor and would recommend!

[bladimir2k]

3 hours ago, Anzo said:

Thoughts on this monitor? On sale right now and fits my criteria.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Gaming-S2716DGR-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B0149QBOF0/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=dell+27"+gsync&amp;qid=1548027824&amp;sr=8-2

I have the same monitor and I approve... like nokt mentions there are IPS Panels., VA Panels and TN Panels... for what you are going this monitor should be good.... For me it came down to price and value of the monitor. You might want to wait for some type of holiday, they tend to go on sale... i bought it a year + ago and got it for $399 around Christmas. I think I've seen it go as low as $350 maybe even $300 bucks. My personal opinion, frames over 4k for PC right now.

[Nokt]

2 hours ago, Emblazon said:

I have an ASUS X99-Deluxe laying around, brand new/refurbished in packaging. I haven't been able to sell it for any respectable amount, and I'd much rather Anzo have it than some Facebook Marketplace/Craigslist under-bidding shlub. 

 

Would it be advantageous for him to use this board and switch CPUs? It would allow the money that was for the MB to go somewhere else. 

 

Thoughts?

 

@Nokt

Wasn’t familiar with the socket, so I spent some time looking it up. I think he’s already bit the bullet though. 

[cusideabelincoln]

7 hours ago, Anzo said:

How do we all feel about these changes? 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VkxWTB

 

Former D1Pers DexxFM and Sanborn are talking up Ryzen to keep costs lower. I'm liking what I'm reading.

 

 

Ryzen is an excellent value and you basically get what you pay for, but but there are two negatives when compared to Intel processors.  First Intel is still king when it comes to pure gaming performance (although Intel will still cost you a bit more).  Ryzen's gaming performance is a few generations behind Intel right now.  Second, there is no overclocking headroom on the 2700x.  So don't plan to squeeze any extra performance out of by overclocking.  This is not a total negative in its own right, but if we're comparing to an Intel processors it is because Intel processors have more overclocking headroom.  But since this will be your first PC, it sounds like you probably won't be overclocking.  And my recommendation when buying the newest equipment is to not overclock anyway.  Overclocking just ruins the performance efficiency - meaning it requires a beefier power supply, needs a really good heatsink, and will put out more heat.  And the turbo boosts on the latest high end processors pretty much squeeze as much performance out of them at stock anyway.  Overclocking is a good option if you go with a slightly older processor, which doesn't have as advanced of a turbo clock feature.

 

Now to examine that list and offer my input:

 

You can easily cut costs with the power supply.  500W will still provide more than you need.  Overclocking is one of the reasons to get a bigger power supply to begin with, so like I said earlier if you go with a 2700x don't even bother with overclocking.  At best you'll get a very small and unnoticeable performance boost but up the power consumption by double.  Unnecesary IMO.  I'd still go ahead and recommend an 80 Plus Gold rated unit, and some kind of modularity.  If you wanted to spend more, opt for a 80 Plus Platinum or Titanium variant or 500W to 650W.  This one looks pretty good to me.

 

Why two SSDs?  I thought you were just going to bring your current Evo over. Do you plan to RAID them? My personal preference for a hard drive setup is as follows:  Put Windows on an SSD of 250GB or greater, speed is mildly important but especially random reads and writes. Grab a separate larger SSD for your game installations, speed doesn't particularly matter but size does. If you need more space for media files get an HDD. 

 

Nokt's offer for a case is excellent.  See what he wants for it.

 

Ryzen also does respond well to increased RAM speed, so a slight bump to 3200 MHz (or higher) isn't a bad idea.  Anything faster than 3400 MHz wouldn't be worth it.  Edit: I am mistaken, Newegg has 3600 MHz on sale for $120. Jump on this!

 

10 hours ago, Emblazon said:

I have an ASUS X99-Deluxe laying around, brand new/refurbished in packaging. I haven't been able to sell it for any respectable amount, and I'd much rather Anzo have it than some Facebook Marketplace/Craigslist under-bidding shlub. 

 

Would it be advantageous for him to use this board and switch CPUs? It would allow the money that was for the MB to go somewhere else. 

 

Thoughts?

 

@Nokt

 

The most reasonable CPU price I can find for an X99 is for the i7 6800k (6 cores/ 12 threads) at about $250 (note, he will have to be slightly patient and scour eBay, probably get in a bidding war). Gaming performance when compared to a Ryzen 2700x should be the same or better.  Video encoding performance would be slower.  Photo editing would probably be similar, depends on the app.  Overclocking is actually a pretty good option, giving the 6800k even better gaming performance, but still won't make up the video encoding performance.  So yeah, this is a pretty good deal as you would let him save roughly $150-200 when compared to a Ryzen 2700x build or similar new Intel build, and it will meet his requirements.  The one downside is future CPU upgrades would probably be cost ineffective (as an i7 6900k and 6950x are holding their value strong), whereas the next generation Ryzen 2 will work with a B450 motherboard.

 

[Anzo]

8 hours ago, cusideabelincoln said:

*Snip*

 

Thank you very much for this detailed write up!

 

Re:Ryzen - I don't plan on overclocking. The reason I am now going Ryzen over Intel is simply a cost cutting measure. In getting feedback from others and reading some stuff on my own, the price/performance ratio was acceptable to me, knowing I would lose out a bit on the gaming performance. 

 

2 SSD's - this was an error in my picker list and the duplicate has been removed. I do intend to add an additional 1 TB SSD at some point when I find one on sale. The old iMac is just going across the room and will still store all of our photos, videos and documents for the most part (for the time being).

 

PSU - I'll chalk this one up to inexperience. I figured I should just get the largest PSU possible to allow for future growth. This item has already shipped so I guess I'll just stick with it. Looks to be around a $20 difference between 750 and 550 so I'm okay with opting for the larger one. 

 

RAM - Thank you for this suggestion. I have ordered the 3600 Mhz

 

Nokt’s Case- this was a very generous offer, ultimately I went with a case of my own choosing out of impatience (I want to build it this week ASAP)

 

Emblazon’s mobo- again, a generous offer. As you mentioned however I would very likely have to upgrade both the mobo and CPU at some point if I went this route, resulting in more cost in the long run. Once again, I’m also impatient. 😝

 

[bladimir2k]

@Anzo don't forget to get everything RGB... light it up like a disco ball! ;-)

[cusideabelincoln]

@Anzo

 

Well you did good. If you went Intel you would have to spend more and you are already close to your budget. 

[stepee]

Yeah, looks great to me.

[Keyser_Soze]

8 hours ago, bladimir2k said:

@Anzo don't forget to get everything RGB... light it up like a disco ball! ;-)

 

He picked the wrong case if he wants that.

[Anzo]

28 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

He picked the wrong case if he wants that.

The case on the parts list was a placeholder. I got dis one!

[Nokt]

9 hours ago, Anzo said:

The case on the parts list was a placeholder. I got dis one!

If for whatever reason you don't like your case mine is still available. I might start a thread soon with all the leftover PC parts I have to see if anyone wants them haha.

[Keyser_Soze]

10 hours ago, Anzo said:

The case on the parts list was a placeholder. I got dis one!

 

OIC - Well yeah now you gotta add some purdy lights!

[Massdriver]

I may be late to this thread, but on the monitor, I recently saw an interesting freesync option that Tom's praised: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-s2719dgf-155hz-gaming-monitor,5881.html

Quote

 

Today, we’re checking out Dell’s S2719DGF. It’s a 27-inch TN panel with a 155Hz overclock, FreeSync and QHD resolution. It’s also one of the best-looking TN screens we’ve ever seen. In actual use, it can easily be mistaken for an IPS display, and that’s saying something.

 

 

This monitor appears to work with gsync: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YI0RQcymJSY0-LkbjSRGswWpJzVRuK_4zMvphRbh19k/htmlview?usp=sharing&amp;sle=true&amp;fbclid=IwAR1RB8stQlk1B-RE63GhGUTe57J0x-DUboTUtFWxbcoTzicFEerRG6n0GlA#

 

With freesync monitors now working with nvidia cards, there are a lot of monitors to choose from. 

 

@Anzo, I just noticed that you went AMD on the CPU side. You don't need a CPU cooler if you go with Ryzen. It comes with a decent one. Maybe I missed that discussion ITT.

[Anzo]

17 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

I may be late to this thread, but on the monitor, I recently saw an interesting freesync option that Tom's praised: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-s2719dgf-155hz-gaming-monitor,5881.html

 

This monitor appears to work with gsync: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YI0RQcymJSY0-LkbjSRGswWpJzVRuK_4zMvphRbh19k/htmlview?usp=sharing&amp;sle=true&amp;fbclid=IwAR1RB8stQlk1B-RE63GhGUTe57J0x-DUboTUtFWxbcoTzicFEerRG6n0GlA#

 

With freesync monitors now working with nvidia cards, there are a lot of monitors to choose from. 

 

@Anzo, I just noticed that you went AMD on the CPU side. You don't need a CPU cooler if you go with Ryzen. It comes with a decent one. Maybe I missed that discussion ITT.

I bought the G-Sync version of the same Dell monitor. I think they are identical in every other sense. 

 

Regarding the CPU cooler. I’m aware it comes with one but bought the liquid cooled one just in case. What I was told by friends is just that. The stock one is decent but could be better. So I just wanted to hedge that bet and have the better one in case I decided to use it. If not I’ll just return it. 

 

@Nokt thank you. I’ll let you know if the case doesn’t work out. 

[Anzo]

Hey everybody! The build went well I put it all together last week and it is running like a dream. RE2 looks so dang good! Thanks again for all the input. My cable management could be better I think. I’ll take some photos later and post them.