~£1500 Gaming Machine - advice appreciated

[Moulders]

I'm looking to put together a £1500 gaming machine that will hopefully last me a few years, so far I've put this together what do you think?

Case - Corsa​ir 600T Whit​e Grap​hite Seri​es Mid Towe​r Case

Graphics Card - Asus GTX9​80 4GB (I've had good experiences with asus before)

Ram - Corsa​ir Veng​eance LPX Red 16GB DDR4 2666 MHz 15-1​7-17-​35

Motherboard - X99-S Asus S201​1, DDR4​, ATX Moth​erboa​rd deluxe didnt seem worth the upgrade

CPU - Intel 5820​K Hasw​ell-E Core i7 CPU

SSD - Samsung 256GB 840 Pro

CPU Cooler - Corsair H100

PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 600W

I already have the PSU/SSD so no need to replace those really

[mynameissi]

You don't need 16gb of ram for gaming, but if you can afford it I don't see why not.
Your psu is kinda sub par

[MrJim]

I'm looking to put together a £1500 gaming machine that will hopefully last me a few years, so far I've put this together what do you think?

Case - Corsa​ir 600T Whit​e Grap​hite Seri​es Mid Towe​r Case

Graphics Card - Asus GTX9​80 4GB (I've had good experiences with asus before)

Ram - Corsa​ir Veng​eance LPX Red 16GB DDR4 2666 MHz 15-1​7-17-​35

Motherboard - X99-S Asus S201​1, DDR4​, ATX Moth​erboa​rd deluxe didnt seem worth the upgrade

CPU - Intel 5820​K Hasw​ell-E Core i7 CPU

SSD - Samsung 256GB 840 Pro

CPU Cooler - Corsair H100

PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 600W

I already have the PSU/SSD so no need to replace those really

I personally wouldn't go with a Haswell-E processor, it's overkill for gaming. I'd go for a 4690K or possibly a 4790K, together with a Z97 motherboard. I'd also save a bit of cash by going for a 256Gb MX100 SSD now, with a view to upgrading to an M.2 PCIe SSD a little further down the road. As Mynameissi said, 16Gb of RAM isn't really necessary for gaming either, and the Corsair builder series of PSUs have a bit of a mediocre reputation. My preference is for Seasonic or Seasonic OEM PSUs, but there are lots of decent choices at between 500-600W.

Edit!
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D'oh! Just noticed that you already have the SSD & PSU...oh well!

[deFiniLoGy]

I doubt you would need X99 platform and 2666MHz for gaming either...

Go for Z97 and i7, a Seasonic PSU of 80+ Platinum rating and you can save yourself a lot more cash for monitors... second GPU etc.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I can see an overclocked Core i7 5820K probably lasting a decent amount of time,but personally I think we will see scaling jumping from 1 to 4 threads,more to 4 to 8 threads in the next few years,meaning that a Core i7 4790K would probably be fine for a while IMHO.

I think the main problem is not the cost of the Core i7 5820K which is not too bad(relatively speaking),but more the extremely high cost of the socket 2011 DDR4 motherboards and DDR4 itself.

Its literally £200 extra at least there.

Add that to the cost of the GTX980 and you can have SLI GTX970 cards.

Edit!!

But OFC what games do you intend to play and at what resolution??

[mikeo01]

As others have said, honestly, unless you have other work loads to deal with (outside gaming) opting for a X99 platform is simply a waste of money.

You want to be looking at strong performing CPUs (such as highest end I5s) rather than "more cores". Games are starting to use more threads, but Intels current lineup is already strong enough to to deal with the CPU side of things in gaming.

Same for the RAM, it isn't going to make much difference compared to 1600Mhz DDR3. Once the data is in RAM the size of the data being passed back and forth isn't going to benefit that much from higher frequencies. And some games may not even like the CAS latency of them. Spend £50+ on 8GB DDR3 rather than £200+ one 16GB DDR4. As stated, unless you are seriously going to use it you are throwing away cash.

Same for PSU, it is low end and to be honest you could spend your a higher end PSU that'll actually last than go kaput in few years time.

GPU wise, yes it is nice but I'd rather just opt for a GTX 780 Ti and be done with it. Yeah may be nice to have the latest and greatest, with lower power consumption, but its just throwing away cash. Especially considering that Nvidia are dropping their current GTX 7xxx lineup to make way for them.

You could probably save few hundred just switching the CPU and GPU a bit.

[Moulders]

Thanks for all the advice, It turns out I actually have a Corsair HT750 the Builder PSU was for another machine.

I will need to look in to it some more as it seems no one is recommending an X99 board+ newer generation CPU because of the Memory pricing.

As I wont actually be buying this for another 2-3 months I will probably have to keep an eye on the prices.

[dfour]

I will need to look in to it some more as it seems no one is recommending an X99 board+ newer generation CPU because of the Memory pricing.

As I wont actually be buying this for another 2-3 months I will probably have to keep an eye on the prices.

IMHO its not to much about the total cost (which is eyewatering ) its about the performance in games with the X99 and ddr4. If you look at the hexus test of the 5960X, 6 core 12 thread monster its medeocre in games at 1080p and even at 4K gaming its still not worth the outlay over a core i5 or i7 on a z97 board as a gaming rig.

[mikeo01]

Software doesn't scale with cores as well.

Hell I would even look at a good old I7-3770K and overclock the heck out of it 4 good solid cores (i5/i7) and you are away for gaming. As dfour said even at 4K, then you can up an overclock and yipee.

btw the 5960X is an 8 core / 16 thread

[pledgerwood]

Yeah that looks like it is going to be good. Have you checked that you have a large enough PSU? You can use a PSU calculator to check.

[Joske]

Sorry to HiJack this thread but what does a good gaming rig consist of. There has been plenty of talk about games not utilising certain CPU or RAM etc. Is there a website that shows the point where hardware starts to have very little impact on the game.

I am hoping to build a rig that will play GTA V on PC at maxed settings at 1080p or better. The rig I was going to build was similar to Moulders however if I am going to be throwing my money away then what is the ultimate hardware for today's gaming?

[kalniel]

Sorry to HiJack this thread but what does a good gaming rig consist of. There has been plenty of talk about games not utilising certain CPU or RAM etc. Is there a website that shows the point where hardware starts to have very little impact on the game.

Check out game benchmarks. If unrestricted (most games) then better hardware will give better frame rates, so long as you aren't bottlenecking that better hardware with some slower hardware. Most games are GPU limited, so put the money into the best GPU you can afford. CPUs will eventually limit the gain from that, so check out benchmarks to find out where.

[shaithis]

I will need to look in to it some more as it seems no one is recommending an X99 board+ newer generation CPU because of the Memory pricing.

As I wont actually be buying this for another 2-3 months I will probably have to keep an eye on the prices.

It's more because it will be wasted. A non-overclocked i5 is plenty enough for todays games, unless you turn off all the nice graphics options and run CPU-limited just to try and get 200fps+

And that's today. DX12 will be here soon and the CPU requirements of DX12 titles should be lessened......meaning the 6 or 8 core i7 will be wasted even more.


Prices of DDR4 won't be budging much this side of Christmas if all the previous memory switch-overs are anything to go by.....and my inkling is that the transition will be slower this time due to Intels approach of small upgrades making people stick with what they have instead of being wooed by a new platform.

[Joske]

Check out game benchmarks. If unrestricted (most games) then better hardware will give better frame rates, so long as you aren't bottlenecking that better hardware with some slower hardware. Most games are GPU limited, so put the money into the best GPU you can afford. CPUs will eventually limit the gain from that, so check out benchmarks to find out where.

Which websites are best for checking Game Benchmarks? A lot of sites I have been on have test GPU's against three game titles at different resolutions, different AA settings etc.