$4200 Gaming PC Build - Critique/Advise

Appletax

Appletax

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Location
Northern Michigan
Looking to replace my current build


CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K Overclocked (Aim is 5GHz), Delidded
  • Wish I had it in me to wait for a 6-core Coffee Lake or Cannon Lake >:p

CPU Delid Items

Graphics: EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3


Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IX Extreme
  • Comes with a monoblock that cools the CPU, VRMs, and M.2 SSD (no need for a separate water block for the CPU)

RAM: G.Skill TridentZ RGB 32GB DDR4-3200
  • Probably won't notice any speed difference if I chose a higher clocked version, correct?
  • Big fan of the RGBs to light up the case
  • Wanted 2x16GB but they're not available - figure 4 sticks would be better looking anyways

Storage
  • Samsung 960 Pro 512GB M.2 SSD (VROOM)
  • Samsung 850 Evo 1TB SSD
  • WD Black 5TB HDD

Case: Thermaltake Core P5
  • It only officially supports an ATX mobo max, but I have seen others who've fit an E-ATX board - it just covers half the cable management gromets
  • I love the idea of showing off all my components rather than having them inside a case and not nearly as visible
  • The SSD would be mounted on the front and the HDD on the back

Power Supply: SeaSonic 750W Titanium
  • Would be nice if the top were all black instead of having the silver piece

PSU Sleeved Cables
  • What do you recommend? Looking for high-quality, flexible cables. Probably black & red in color.

OS: Windows 10 Pro x64

Liquid Cooling
  • Pump/Res: EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM (Sleeved Cables)
  • Radiator: EK-CoolStream XE 480 (Quad)
  • GPU Waterblock: Guess I have to wait for one for the EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3 (can't use the EK-FC Titan X Pascal????)
    • Also need thermal pads?
  • Fans: Corsair ML120 Pro LED 120mm PWM x4
  • Tubing: EK-PETG
  • Fittings: Compression HDC x8
  • Coolant: EK-Ekoolant Evo Blood RED (Premix 1L)
  • CPU TIM: EK-TIM Indigo XS - Intel 115x
    • Not sure about this
  • EK-ATX Bridging Plug (24 pin)

I'll probably buy an excessive amount of tubing and fittings just in case and return whatever I don't use.

I don't know exactly which types of fittings I'll want to use.


I want it to look similar to this setup albeit with the GPU in the standard horizontal position.

6131fd7f2b73fb582f99bafdb966d87a.thumb.jpg.3177e0561c48d0c7dff7e3efc217fae4.jpg

Capture.PNG.b34b11640c7ad04ee4cfef39b03521e7.PNG
 
Please help me understand my own ignorance here. What is the point in overclocking a current gen cpu? Certainly, any game out right now, or in the next 3 years will run on full settings with your graphics card and cpu.
 
I will admit, I haven't overclocked in over a decade. So my ignorance is just that. It used to void any warranty on equipment. Is that still the case?
 
Barcelona said:
Sadly, the only weak point in the whole build!
Why not go for a Linux install (Debian Mate, Mint Mate?) and virtualise Win 10?
Going to be a "killer" system! Very nice!

BTW Your US$4200 is our AU$5212.67!!! Ouch! :D
Click to expand...

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I love Windows 10 :O It's my favorite OS ever. I also love Sierra on my MacBook Pro.
 
Speaking as someone probably a bit older and likely with a bit more life experience... I personally would NOT build that system.

In my opinion unless you are a world-champion gamer getting paid for competitive gaming, it is not worth it. You could put the money toward a car, putting tile or hardwood floors in the house, a new HVAC system, etc. That said, I am not attempting to be judgmental or condescending, we each have our own hobbies, and if you get enjoyment out of building it then by all means go for it!

When I was younger, I would spend money on tech stuff, but looking back it was ultimately a waste. Personally, now when it comes to computing, I budget myself to about $50/month for upgrades. Last year, all I bought was a mouse-pad, a couple of mice, and a headset /w microphone... about $200 and an iPAD digitizer $50 and $50 in games. The year before a power supply and a video card... and some SATA III cables... about $400. The year before that a Blue-Ray drive... about $80 and some toner $20, a modem for $80, and some logitech and dell speakers $80 and $40.

I do roll it all over and started this year with a $900 surplus. This year, I bought a laptop battery $100, a HOTAS $100, a UPS $200, and a Xerox Phaser 6500 $200... and about $30 in games via Steam.

Right now I have $450 remaining for my personal budget... and if I did not buy anything else I would have $900 to start next year.


That said, things on my list are a new iPad, a new LCD monitor, and a document scanner...also a different mouse pad. I am going to splurge a little this year but probably going to do only one or two of those this year. Then the next year I am going to drop some money on the remaining item AND probably swap all my mechanical hard drives out for a pair of RAIDED SSDs (mirrored) - at this point I will do a clean install of Windows as well because I am past due having not formatted since maybe 2009. At this point the current drives will be around 3 to 4 years old and were warranty replacements for 4 year old drives, which were imaged from the drives before those via ImageX.

The following year (2019), I will probably swap the motherboard, memory, and CPU. At some point, I might swap ALL the FANS to go even quieter - that is my goal. I have all Vantec Stealth fans I have been running since maybe 2004 or 2006 (even though some were purchased later).

Either way, each upgrade I do is strategic, purposeful, and budgeted. At this point for me computing is a tool. There is simply no fun in it; in fact, any maintenance task is a chore. I look at it like doing a work-order for myself. Heck, I am down by one (1) 120mm FAN now and have a free replacement that has been sitting on my desk for two weeks because I am too lazy to put it into my own chassis. I still have three (3) 120mm and one (1) 140 mm casefan as well as a fan in the PSU, over the CPU, and one on the Video card, so it is hardly a necessity.

I hope it makes sense. What was once my price and joy, a passion, etc. became a job a long time ago. Also real-life came and I ended up will crazy bills and also owning things vastly much nicer and more important to me than my computers. I get much more enjoyment out of my cars, my boat, and home-ownership. At this point, in the summer months I drop more cash on my lawn. The crazy irony is that I really have not fixed a PC at any job since late 2013 aside from my own work laptop (I replaced the motherboard and daughterboard for USB/Audio). There is just no joy or challenge in troubleshooting PCs, and I am really not learning anything new at this point either.

My advice is to make your passion in life your career, but don't be like me and let your career suck all the fun out of your passion. That's what I did and got burnt out years ago to where I only enjoyed helping other techs who had the spark I once did. Now, I found a new calling: computer networking. It is vastly much more complexity, I am still learning, and I get great joy out of using features that only data-center network engineers use. I do things like gateway virtualization with HSRP, work with switching fabrics, aggregated links, know the nuances of Spanning-Tree, etc. Just last week I had to figure out a way to allow for the secure transfer of data that has been classified as CJIS data (Criminal Justice Information Systems). To accomplish this, I took two (2) Cisco ASR 1000 type routers (Aggregation Services Routers)s on a privately routed MPLS WAN circuit and stood up a point-to-point GRE tunnel then encrypted it with an IPSec security association using AES-256bit-gcm encryption, SHA-512 hashing, and DiffieHelman Group24 elliptical curve cryptology key exchange. Once that Layer-3 secure tunnel was working, I configured a Cisco Pseudo-wire using L2TPv3 to Tunnel Layer-2 over the Layer-3 tunnel. From there, I stretched (trunked) 802.1q VLANs across. Then on the far side setup VMWare on a new SAN. I would then VMotion and SVMotion the VMware virtual machines across and they would logically be the same network though physically at a different location. Hence no downtime. From the new datacenter is a new MPLS WAN circuit, and I specifically advertised a smaller (more specific) route into the provider's routing tables by using BGP such that access to it from our other sites would come directly into the new datacenter instead of the old one and traveling the encrypted migration link.
 
NETWizz said:
Speaking as someone probably a bit older and likely with a bit more life experience... I personally would NOT build that system.

In my opinion unless you are a world-champion gamer getting paid for competitive gaming, it is not worth it. You could put the money toward a car, putting tile or hardwood floors in the house, a new HVAC system, etc. That said, I am not attempting to be judgmental or condescending, we each have our own hobbies, and if you get enjo
Click to expand...

I saw $4200, and besides the overclocking, I first thought only an idiot would spend that much on a pc. Then I realized, honestly, I would too if I had the extra money.

Then I realized, I do spend that much on my hobby. I pay $2,000 a year in barn fees for my horse. Maybe another $1,000 in good. With regular checkups, and meds, $750 on medical. If something happens, oh boy.

In 2015, I spent almost $2,000 in 4 months showing my horse in various shows. Got in 5th at one place! My riding show clothes, let's not discuss those fees. And for the last 2 years, my daughter has been more interested in showing than in trail rides. So guess who is getting lessons, and then even more shows?

Our hobbies are worth whatever we put into them. I suspect if it's a hobby and not a job, we all enjoy our hobbies. Otherwise why would we do them? Life is too short to not enjoy our hobby. If someone wants to spend that much on a gaming pc, great! I do wish them well. I hope they really use it. Use it so much it wears out in 2 years, lol.
 
If you have annual income > $100,000,000, go for it because $4200 is effectively pocket change.

If the cost isn't pocket change, cut back to 1/3-1/2 that cost, then spend the same amount again in a year or two to get a faster PC then.

And seriously consider whether anything you're doing/playing is CPU bound and if so whether it's a question of speed or threads.
 
Rocco said:
I saw $4200, and besides the overclocking, I first thought only an idiot would spend that much on a pc. Then I realized, honestly, I would too if I had the extra money.

Then I realized, I do spend that much on my hobby. I pay $2,000 a year in barn fees for my horse. Maybe another $1,000 in good. With regular checkups, and meds, $750 on medical. If something happens, oh boy.

In 2015, I spent almost $2,000 in 4 months showing my horse in various shows. Got in 5th at one place! My riding show clothes, let's not discuss those fees. And for the last 2 years, my daughter has been more interested in showing than in trail rides. So guess who is getting lessons, and then even more shows?

Our hobbies are worth whatever we put into them. I suspect if it's a hobby and not a job, we all enjoy our hobbies. Otherwise why would we do them? Life is too short to not enjoy our hobby. If someone wants to spend that much on a gaming pc, great! I do wish them well. I hope they really use it. Use it so much it wears out in 2 years, lol.
Click to expand...
Sorry it's off topic...
My Daughter started riding when she was 5. Year one cost around $1000 including the horse!
By the time she stopped riding competitively in Dressage at age 19, the yearly bills were more like 20~25,000 per year for horses, trucks, vets, equipment, insurance, instructors, etc. etc. plus the "Private" school she attended was about $6000 per year for fees!
So all up in excess of $30K!
She is still actively involved in her local Pony Club as a fully qualified "Judge" for Gymkana's and Jamboree's. She still has some horses and still rides but has a busy family life now.
It was a great lifestyle and I would not have missed it for the world!
 
Its simply too much money. If you don't have a top of the line ultra wide monitor I would recommend you shave off some cost from the PC build and buy one of those instead =P

Edit: also I wish people wouldnt be so willing to spend so much on a motherboard it only supports that kind of ridiculous behavior from mb manufacturers
 
I was pretty sure I commented on this, unless it was another thread...


At any rate, it's the OP's money... it's already been decided this is what the OP wants to spend.
Appletax didn't come here looking for advice on if or not it was wise or necessary to spend this
much money on a computer.

It's a high end build, that the OP is OK with spending. He either already has the cash, or is going
to charge it to a credit card, or rob a bank, or whatever. Who cares. Just look at this as a high
end build and forget about if it's necessary. That decisions been made already.

@Appletax

I did see a 7700K on sale for $259 on ebay today. Pretty good price considering not long ago they
were nearly $359. Seems decent. Also, even given what I stated above.. I think the 1080TI is a bit
of overkill. If you don't game at 4K, I'd seriously consider downgrading to a vanilla 1080 or even a
1070 really. A 1070 handles 1080P pretty well and shouldn't have a problem for a few years to come.

The other thing that jumps out at me is the $600 motherboard. Is there a good reason for that board?
Seems like you could easily get a very high end board for half that amount. I'm just not very familiar.
Maybe it is just that special.


I think you could probably shave close to $1000 off the price, and still end up with %90-%95 the same
system.

However, if you want to build it just as it is, more power to you! It's your money, and if it's disposable then
by all means enjoy yourself! This is a system that should last you a very long time. A GPU refresh in 3-5
years and you'll probably see about 8 years or so out of this thing. When you divide out the cost over the
years you'll have it... well it's not that expensive at all.

I'm as frugal (to the point of being called down right cheap) as they come. But it's his money. So many
people that would look down on this and say it's such a waste are those who spend a hundred dollars
a month on cigarettes, or $50 bucks at the local pub each time they go out.... go out to eat a few times
per month. It's what he likes, good for him.
 
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