- 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
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!
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!
