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Building a new monster, high end build for 4k/oculus gaming

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Peeved Kitten

Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Location
San Luis Obispo, CA
My current system has performed flawlessly for several years, but it's beginning to get long in the tooth. Oculus is coming very soon and My budget is shaping up nicely at around $4500 for the system and an additional $1500 for the setup (monitors and peripherals). The budget can be increased if needed, but I feel like $6k is a respectable amount. I'm not planning to rebuild my current rig, I'd rather leave it running or sell it whole so this will require a full component list and build. I'm planning to make my purchases in November (Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals hopefully) to get more bang for my buck. At this point I'm planning to switch camps completely from AMD to Nvidia/Intel, I love my AMD stuff but their drivers make me a sad :cry: panda.

As this is overclockers I would be foolish not to mention I intend to put everything under water and doing a mid-range OC. My aim is solid, fairly future proof build that I can get another 5-6 years out of.

I have some questions that I'm hoping to get some opinions on.

Titan X 2 way SLI
Go big or go home, right? My current plan is to do a pair of Titan X cards which will eat up almost half my budget. My reasoning behind this is that if I spend the big money up front it should last me for awhile. My 6970 has served me well in the 1080p range, but I know 4k gaming and the rift are going to demand more. The Titan Z is underclocked and seems underwhelming in comparison, if anyone has a different opinion on this please feel free to comment. I'm not set on these GPU's but my initial research points to these being the big dogs of this generation.

Skylake Vs. Haswell
The new skylake processors are out, oh happy day. Unfortunately they are quad core processors, do you think that's deal breaker? I'm guessing eventually there will be a hex core skylake processor and maybe even an octa-core, but they're not out yet. I'm not a CPU freak, I don't have to have the fastest or baddest out there. I just don't want to bottle-neck $2k worth of GPU's with a slow processor. Would I be satisfied with a Skylake 6700K and DDR4 or should I look at the Haswell 5930K/5960X and stick with DDR3? Future proofing is very important to me with this build.

Side note: I read on some review for the new skylake chips that there was an issue restricting PCIE to 8x with dual video cards. It wasn't made clear if this was a limitation of the MOBO or the Z170 chipset. Does anyone have any input on this?

Memory:
Fast with Low Cas, right? If it's DDR4 does that change anything really? Any recommendations on this would be welcome but I typically buy the fastest Corsair or G.skill RAM I can afford and call it a day.

HDD's:
Solid state startup drive between 500GB and 1 TB with some kind of RAID in the 2TB range for file storage. I don't have any experience using solid state, I just know they've significantly improved since they first came out. I've heard good things about the Samsung 850 EVO. Opinions on this are appreciated, links to information so I can do some more research are even better.

Power supply:
I'm thinking a Seasonic Modular PS around 1000-1200 watts. This will need to run both video cards, the CPU, fans, pumps and 4-5 HDD's. Seasonic was well reviewed and trusted the last time I built, is that still the case?

Case:
My current case is a HAF 932 with the entire bottom between the PSU and HDD cage dremeled out. It's sitting on a custom rolling cart with a Magicool 1080p 3x3 radiator built in. I want a full size case and am not shy about cutting and fabricating to make it fit my needs. Go wild with this one, I like cool cases but it's function over form.

Peripherals:
I need to look at a desk/chair as well as a monitor(s). I don't have a ton of space so I think a single high quality 4k monitor would be best. I don't think I'll be very happy with anything under 28". I tend to be out of the loop on this part of things and have been playing on a 32" 1080p TV for the past couple years.

Let me know what you guys think! I am a little out of the loop on components. I have been extremely happy with my current monster for several years and haven't kept up to much with components since my stuff has satisfied me. OCF did very well for me on my last build, I have high hopes for this one!:thup:
 
I've got a few suggestions, and a little insight. First, the 980ti is almost as powerful as the TX at a little more than half the cost, and if your SLIing anyway, it makes more sense.

The X99 platform is also DDR4, so either way, you'll be using that. But for the budget, I'd go with X99.

My case recommendation would depend on what you personally like. I like the Corsair 900D myself.
 
Id go

2 Fury X for Occulous and VR... they seem to have the inside track there. Otherwise, grab 980Ti's as there is almost literally no point to the TitanX

For a PSU, I would look at the EVGA Supernova G2 or P2 1000W. It is the same Tier 1A quality as Seasonic, but cheaper.

Fro DDR4 ram, just snag some DDR4 3000 CL14/15 and call it a day. No reason for more.
 
I've got a few suggestions, and a little insight. First, the 980ti is almost as powerful as the TX at a little more than half the cost, and if your SLIing anyway, it makes more sense.

The X99 platform is also DDR4, so either way, you'll be using that. But for the budget, I'd go with X99.

My case recommendation would depend on what you personally like. I like the Corsair 900D myself.

So you'd suggest going Haswell with the X99 chipset and pouring more into the processor while reducing costs on the video cards. Which CPU would you recommend if I go Haswell?

I'll check out the Corsair case for sure, I remember liking one of theirs a lot when I built Darkside, but I can't remember why I didn't go with it.

Id go

2 Fury X for Occulous and VR... they seem to have the inside track there. Otherwise, grab 980Ti's as there is almost literally no point to the TitanX

For a PSU, I would look at the EVGA Supernova G2 or P2 1000W. It is the same Tier 1A quality as Seasonic, but cheaper.

Fro DDR4 ram, just snag some DDR4 3000 CL14/15 and call it a day. No reason for more.

I've noticed that AMD seems to be the lead on Oculus, but I have serious concerns about their drivers. Not to mention my goal for this build is future proofing as much as possible. I'm not concerned about 4gb of VRAM per card being any kind of bottleneck right now or even in the next year or so. However I am concerned that in 3-5 years that might be the case. I don't really do upgrades to my system after 2-3 years, I tend to buy the top end stuff every 5-6 years and run it until it can no longer keep up. The 980 Ti's also seem to have better performance in SLI, than crossfired Fury X's along with more VRAM. The Fury may make up for it in optimization, however knowing AMD's history with drivers I'd say that's a stretch.

Thank you for the tip on the PSU's and ram I'll look into those now.

Thanks for the input guys, I really do appreciate it!
 
So you'd suggest going Haswell with the X99 chipset and pouring more into the processor while reducing costs on the video cards. Which CPU would you recommend if I go Haswell?

I'll check out the Corsair case for sure, I remember liking one of theirs a lot when I built Darkside, but I can't remember why I didn't go with it.



I've noticed that AMD seems to be the lead on Oculus, but I have serious concerns about their drivers. Not to mention my goal for this build is future proofing as much as possible. I'm not concerned about 4gb of VRAM per card being any kind of bottleneck right now or even in the next year or so. However I am concerned that in 3-5 years that might be the case. I don't really do upgrades to my system after 2-3 years, I tend to buy the top end stuff every 5-6 years and run it until it can no longer keep up. The 980 Ti's also seem to have better performance in SLI, than crossfired Fury X's along with more VRAM. The Fury may make up for it in optimization, however knowing AMD's history with drivers I'd say that's a stretch.

Thank you for the tip on the PSU's and ram I'll look into those now.

Thanks for the input guys, I really do appreciate it!

I'd recommend any of the CPUs with 40 lanes, the 6 core would do you fine probably. You could absolutely swing the 8 with that budget if you wanted though. I would price out a build for you, but I'm mobile and my phone kinda sucks, so I'll do that when I get home later if you want.
 
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PQstGX

this is pretty much going ham. Best of the best, PCI SSD, 2 980ti's, the big boy intel chip, the best aio water cooler, 3tb toshiba drive for mass storage, an awesome gaming 4k monitor... Minus peripherals, its pretty close to 4000$. A lot of money, but not much reason to extend to the 6000$ mark.
 
Yep, 6k is a crap-ton of money for a computer. I payed half that for my rig, and it performs great at 4k, but won't last as long as that one will
 
I'd recommend any of the CPUs with 40 lanes, the 6 core would do you fine probably. You could absolutely swing the 8 with that budget if you wanted though. I would price out a build for you, but I'm mobile and my phone kinda sucks, so I'll do that when I get home later if you want.

I'd love to see your build if you want to do it. It's by no means necessary, but I know I enjoy building out imaginary pc's as well as pc's for friends.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PQstGX

this is pretty much going ham. Best of the best, PCI SSD, 2 980ti's, the big boy intel chip, the best aio water cooler, 3tb toshiba drive for mass storage, an awesome gaming 4k monitor... Minus peripherals, its pretty close to 4000$. A lot of money, but not much reason to extend to the 6000$ mark.

Thank you very much for the build! I was looking at the Samsung EVO SSD since I have heard good things about it and it's 1TB for $400. What are the advantages of a PCI SSD over a SATA SSD, more speed? I mostly deal with $500 office computers and don't get to experiment much unless it's for a side job or my own equipment. I really like that mobo, I wish the specs were more clear on others about which lanes were shared but that looks good and may be what I end up with. As far as water cooling goes, I really love the EK blocks and will probably go that route.

Yep, 6k is a crap-ton of money for a computer. I payed half that for my rig, and it performs great at 4k, but won't last as long as that one will

I can't tell you how many thousands of hours I have spent in front of my PC over the last 5 years. As other hobbies have come and gone I've never stopped gaming, it's a lifelong passion. When you build once every 5-6 years I find that it's worth it to pony up and spoil yourself a little.


I did some research today at work and I think moving to the 980 TI SLI over the Titan X SLI is fine. I notice that some makes have factory built liquid cooling. They are just 120mm radiators similar to the small CPU coolers. Has anybody played with these and do they perform alright? I'm wondering if it's worth going through the trouble of setting up videocards with waterblocks and their own loop if I can buy a premade system that works well.
 
What are the advantages of a PCI SSD over a SATA SSD, more speed?
Well, its an M.2 drive that runs off of PCIe lanes (not PCI - they are different) in that build. The NVMe based M.2 drives, which are just now starting to hit store shelves, are a lot faster than a SATA based SSDs, correct. There are PCIe based SSD's that exist so I wanted to make that distinction just in case as it could bring confusion.

This is one of the better ones that are out by Samsung. It is is cheaper, faster, NVMe based, and has more storage than the Hyper X drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7426&cm_re=Samsung_m.2-_-20-147-426-_-Product

One other point though, do you plan on overclocking at all? If not, I would step 'down' to the 5930K on the X99 platform as its starting clockspeed is 500Mhz more 3.5GHz vs 3Ghz on the 5960x. In gaming (some games), you will want more clockspeed than cores (until DX12 comes out and saturates the market - but 6c/12t will be fine for your long term uses). If you do, then its the best build (Bob's) in the thread thus far... Im just worried about NVIDIA and VR and when they will catch up (latency issues last I recall). At this time, it really is an AMD thing for the best experience.
 
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Well, its an M.2 drive that runs off of PCIe lanes (not PCI - they are different) in that build. The NVMe based M.2 drives, which are just now starting to hit store shelves, are a lot faster than a SATA based SSDs, correct. There are PCIe based SSD's that exist so I wanted to make that distinction just in case as it could bring confusion.

This is one of the better ones that are out by Samsung. It is is cheaper, faster, NVMe based, and has more storage than the Hyper X drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7426&cm_re=Samsung_m.2-_-20-147-426-_-Product

One other point though, do you plan on overclocking at all? If not, I would step 'down' to the 5930K on the X99 platform as its starting clockspeed is 500Mhz more 3.5GHz vs 3Ghz on the 5960x. In gaming (some games), you will want more clockspeed than cores (until DX12 comes out and saturates the market - but 6c/12t will be fine for your long term uses). If you do, then its the best build (Bob's) in the thread thus far... Im just worried about NVIDIA and VR and when they will catch up (latency issues last I recall). At this time, it really is an AMD thing for the best experience.

Thank you for the info! I will do some more research on the SSD's, I'm not even sure exactly how that one physically connects!

I will definitely be overclocking, my 1090T has been running stable for 5+ years with a 1ghz overclock. That has definitely contributed to the longevity of my build.

I don't do anything that I think will really take advantage of 8 cores, so I'm not sure about moving from the 6 core to the 8. How do the two different chips handle overclocking? If the 8 core will regularly push to 4-4.5 ghz versus no overhead on the 6 core it would be worth it. Very few games really take advantage of multi core processors, although more are finally doing it. So I think clock speed is far more important, but I'm definitely open to suggestions on this one.

Looking at your usage, budget, and build frequency I would suggest the following:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BV3WhM

Note: the case comes in black, white, or silver.

Thank you for the build! I was eyeing those video cards. It's cheaper to do that than to buy full cover blocks and build a loop for the video cards.
 
Thank you for the info! I will do some more research on the SSD's, I'm not even sure exactly how that one physically connects!
Through the M.2 slot.

I will definitely be overclocking, my 1090T has been running stable for 5+ years with a 1ghz overclock. That has definitely contributed to the longevity of my build.

I don't do anything that I think will really take advantage of 8 cores, so I'm not sure about moving from the 6 core to the 8. How do the two different chips handle overclocking? If the 8 core will regularly push to 4-4.5 ghz versus no overhead on the 6 core it would be worth it. Very few games really take advantage of multi core processors, although more are finally doing it. So I think clock speed is far more important, but I'm definitely open to suggestions on this one.
Then you can take advantage of the 8 core... but that said, it surely did seem like overkill but you have plenty of budget so I understand the choice. Still, I would have likely went 5930K regardless as your usage model doesn't scream MOAR CORES :p. It would also save you $500.

The Octo will hit 4-4.5Ghz just as the 5930K would too.
 
Through the M.2 slot.

Then you can take advantage of the 8 core... but that said, it surely did seem like overkill but you have plenty of budget so I understand the choice. Still, I would have likely went 5930K regardless as your usage model doesn't scream MOAR CORES :p. It would also save you $500.

The Octo will hit 4-4.5Ghz just as the 5930K would too.

Haha, shows how out of touch I am with current SSD tech. I'm just happy we don't still use SCSI where I work... A quick google and a youtube video showed me what I needed to know for the M.2 slot. I guess I'll just see what I feel like when it comes time to pull the trigger on the processor. $500 will buy quite a few games, some very nice peripherals or maybe a nice dinner for the wife so she doesn't kill me when she see's the bill!

Both of the builds that have been linked here have recommended sealed loop pre-built coolers. Are those becoming pretty standard now versus building a custom system? More importantly is the performance good enough to see 4-4.5GHZ on a 6 or 8 core processor without risking serious thermal issues?
 
Just be careful... at one point in time some boards could not boot from a PCIe SSD (where you plug it into the PCIe slot). I believe that issue is gone on most boards. But M.2 is the 'new' thing so I would personally stick with that. Keeps the PCIe area clean(er), particularly if you are using multiple GPUs by using the M.2 slot.

4Ghz for sure... 4.5GHz, more than likely unless you got a serious dud for a chip. I would bet on it being fine for 4-4.5GHz on an INTEL hex/octo.
 
Just be careful... at one point in time some boards could not boot from a PCIe SSD (where you plug it into the PCIe slot). I believe that issue is gone on most boards. But M.2 is the 'new' thing so I would personally stick with that. Keeps the PCIe area clean(er), particularly if you are using multiple GPUs by using the M.2 slot.

4Ghz for sure... 4.5GHz, more than likely unless you got a serious dud for a chip. I would bet on it being fine for 4-4.5GHz on an INTEL hex/octo.

This is why I chose the Intel 750 in the build I linked, I know this motherboard/SSD combination works.
 
I'm still not a fan of them when we have M.2 (granted not many fast NVMe drives are out though)... but its more of a personal thing than anything (outside of the physical slot requirement when he is using 2 GPUs).
 
Thanks for all the info everyone!

This is what I've come up with after picking and choosing through everyone's suggested builds and recommendations. I'm not set on that monitor yet, this is just about the rig parts. I haven't sourced the parts individually yet, when I'm actually ready to buy I'll shop around for free shipping/no sales tax to try and stretch my money as far as possible.

I was curious if there was a good place to discuss desk or sim setups on here. I'm trying to decide between the classic computer desk and chair combo or do something a little more exotic...

gallery_r3v_simracing2.png

I'm trying to decide if I want to go with a single 4k monitor, an ultra wide format monitor or possibly a triple monitor setup. Once again, any recommendation are greatly appreciated. Right now I'm playing on 32" Samsung TV mounted over my bed from the ceiling. It's decently comfortable but it's hard to do any hardcore gaming and that's the entire purpose of this build. Once Occulus is released there's a very good chance I may pick up a Virtuix Omni.
 
Skip the Corsair cooler and the Cooler Master bulk fans, both are garbage.
The Swiftech unit is vastly better quality for the cooler, and check out Noctua for the fans.
 
Skip the Corsair cooler and the Cooler Master bulk fans, both are garbage.
The Swiftech unit is vastly better quality for the cooler, and check out Noctua for the fans.

Noted and done! I'll probably use noctua's on all the radiators for push/pull where applicable.

This is the build as it currently sits:
  • EVGA G2
  • Core i7-5960X
  • ASRock X99 Extreme6
  • SAMSUNG SM951 M.2
  • G.SKILL Ripjaws 4
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti HYBRID
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti HYBRID
  • Corsair Carbide Series Air 540
  • Swifttech H220-X
  • VolairSim cockpit
  • Logitech G910
  • Logitech G502 Proteus
  • Saitek Pro X-55

The total as it sits is $4,685. I know there are some minor things missing (Thermal compound, display port cables etc.) but the big thing right now is the display(s). I'm leaning towards a triple display setup since I'll have the full cockpit. I have about $1300 left in my original $6k budget. I would rather not burn every cent of that as anything left would be used to buy games that I can play on this glorious beast of a setup. As I said before though, I can spend more than $6k if it's justified. ATMInside recommended 3 Dell U2515H displays, which fit the budget nicely. My concern is the 8ms response time. I could just say #@$^ it and pick up 3 144hz 1ms response time ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q monitors. Unfortunately at around $630/ea they blow my budget way out of the water.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated, as always!

PS: looks like I sold my BMW today, should know for sure Tuesday when he's supposed to put $$$ in my hand. If all goes well, I'm not sure I can containt my excitement long enough to wait for black Friday/Cyber Monday...
 
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