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[RamaTheVoice]

RAM I'm not sure of; 16GB or 32GB? Any particular brand better than the other?

I'm also not sure if my current CPU cooler would work and if my PSU is enough for a potential 1080...?

32Gb is overkill unless you're using it for something specific that requires a lot of RAM (plus if the need arises in the future you can always get a second set of sticks, they'll likely be cheaper down the road). CPU cooler should be alright for a mild OC, but it's now beaten in terms of noise and cooling performance by some air coolers. PSU is fine.

 

[Dave_6]

32Gb is overkill unless you're using it for something specific that requires a lot of RAM (plus if the need arises in the future you can always get a second set of sticks, they'll likely be cheaper down the road). CPU cooler should be alright for a mild OC, but it's now beaten in terms of noise and cooling performance by some air coolers. PSU is fine.

Thanks, 16GB it will be then. So my H60 should work well enough? Not too sure an H100i would fit up top in the R4 case with that mobo. Guess I could fit it in the front, maybe?

 

[Magnus]

You should get some feedback on the quality (or lack thereof), but most will remind you how much cheaper it is to do it yourself or that you'll get much better performance for the same money building yourself.

I built my first PC a few months ago thanks to this thread. I'm sure you could do the same.

Yes it is! (But we can also put together a custom rig for cheaper usually).

You have to be careful with lower tier custom PCs because a lot of components are integrated i.e. motherboard and PSU, so upgrading (adding a faster GPU) becomes more of a hassle than building your own.

I have a bit of time on my hands this month - I'll consider it for sure.

How much do you think I should be expecting to spend (custom or off-the-shelf)to get a rig qualified to run WoW Legion and Overwatch on High-Ultra?

 

[RamaTheVoice]

Thanks, 16GB it will be then. So my H60 should work well enough? Not too sure an H100i would fit up top in the R4 case with that mobo. Guess I could fit it in the front, maybe?

Yeah, you could, but if the R4's anything like the R5 you should have enough space up top. You'll have to add dust filters though.

But if you wanna save some cash the H60 should do OK for the time being.

 

[Klotera]

Finally decided to do a new build for the first time in a long time. I had bought a clearance Dell a few years back with an i7 4770k purely for the purpose of movie encoding. Eventually ended up replacing the power supply, hdd with an ssd, and putting a Gtx 970 in there. Now it's a mess of cables and I have few options for added cooling.

So, I'm going with new
Case: Fractal Design Define R5
Motherboard: Asus Z170—A
CPU: i7-6700K
Cooling: Corsair H100i
RAM: Not sure brand yet, but 16GB

To start, I will reclaim these from my current PC to save some money.
Power Supply: Corsair RM650
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB
HDD: WD Red 2TB (which was itself reclaimed when I upgraded my NAS storage)
Video Card: Evga GTX 970 FTW

I'll upgrade to a 1070 when demand and prices settle down (or when I get an itch to just do it... Most likely the latter).

Think I should be in good shape with this build and saving a few bucks by re-using.

 

[xCaptainCanadax]

Well decided to order the AOC monitor so it Ill report back how I find it. If anyone has any recommended calibration settings for it please PM me. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Strafebogey]

Test-benching two Titan X Pascals.

Once the rig goes under water, that HB SLI Bridge wont fit, because of its odd shape. Will have to use EVGA's bridge instead.

 

[etrain911]

So I'm finally due to upgrade my GTX 770 4GB. Should I wait for the 490 or 490X to be announced? Will they be announced? Otherwise, I'm going to go with a GTX 1070 8 GB.

 

[Dave_6]

Yeah, you could, but if the R4's anything like the R5 you should have enough space up top. You'll have to add dust filters though.

But if you wanna save some cash the H60 should do OK for the time being.

Okay I may just stick with the H60 then. I've thought about changing cases later on so if I do I could change coolers then.

 

[Domcorleone]

I'm looking to upgrade my mobo and CPU. Currently I have an i5 Sandy Bridge and was thinking about bumping up to an i7-6800K and getting an itx 2011 mobo. If I mainly use my PC for gaming, Plex streaming and some game streaming is that overkill or is it perfect for what I need it for?

 

[ncslamm]

I have a pair of Sony MDR-7506 and they are the best I have ever owned. EXCELLENT audio, very comfortable headphones.

Visit Headphone GAF: http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1029724

Do you want open or closed back headphones? I prefer open backed, for the great soundstage they offer, but if you don't want to bother people you may want closed backed phones.

I use the Audio Technica AD900 when gaming. Really comfy for long periods of time and an excellent soundstage. A bit lighter on the bass, but I prefer that.

Thanks I'll look at those plus the headphone thread. I really like the way my current headphones sound so after looking at that thread I think I'll consider for the Sennheiser 598 Pros. I'm going to wait until I sell my old monitor and video card first.

 

[vector824]

I have a bit of time on my hands this month - I'll consider it for sure.

How much do you think I should be expecting to spend (custom or off-the-shelf)to get a rig qualified to run WoW Legion and Overwatch on High-Ultra?

$800-$1000 from scratch; having a case, hardrive and good PSU can save you some money.

Here is a build that would last you a long time, definitely running most AAA titles on high-ultra @1080p for less than $1k: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/KN2kXH

Another with a faster, overclockable CPU for just over $1k: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Hjbp2R

 

[ColdDeckEd]

I'm looking to upgrade my mobo and CPU. Currently I have an i5 Sandy Bridge and was thinking about bumping up to an i7-6800K and getting an itx 2011 mobo. If I mainly use my PC for gaming, Plex streaming and some game streaming is that overkill or is it perfect for what I need it for?

Is there a reason you need the x99 platform? If money is no object its cool, but a 6700k and z170 I think would be more cost effective for you unless you really need more than 8 threads which it doesn't look like you do. Skylake is ridiculously fast I think you'll regret passing on it. My brothers 6600k at 4.3 ghz crushes my 2600k at 4.7 in all benchmarks.

 

[vector824]

I'm looking to upgrade my mobo and CPU. Currently I have an i5 Sandy Bridge and was thinking about bumping up to an i7-6800K and getting an itx 2011 mobo. If I mainly use my PC for gaming, Plex streaming and some game streaming is that overkill or is it perfect for what I need it for?

Is there a reason you need the x99 platform? If money is no object its cool, but a 6700k and z170 I think would be more cost effective for you unless you really need more than 8 threads which it doesn't look like you do. Skylake is ridiculously fast I think you'll regret passing on it. My brothers 6600k at 4.3 ghz crushes my 2600k at 4.7 in all benchmarks.

I agree, I have a 6600k as well and it renders 1080 video very quickly. Going for the 6700K would be more than enough CPU for you.

 

[The Dear Leader]

Got a quick RAM question for you folks, I've got 4 4GB RAM sticks and my motherboard only supports dual channel not quad channel (not that I really understand the difference lol), will that cause any problems in terms of game/everyday performance?

 

[Vuze]

Test-benching two Titan X Pascals.

Once the rig goes under water, that HB SLI Bridge wont fit, because of its odd shape. Will have to use EVGA's bridge instead.

Truly irresponsible amounts of power
I'd love to see some 4K/5K benchmarks with these babies

 

[ColdDeckEd]

Got a quick RAM question for you folks, I've got 4 4GB RAM sticks and my motherboard only supports dual channel not quad channel (not that I really understand the difference lol), will that cause any problems in terms of game/everyday performance?

No you are good, though it might limit your overclocking potential if that matters any to you. But for game/everyday performance dual channel is perfectly fine.

Just be sure to install the ram 1 space apart from each other not next to each other or on opposite ends.

 

[The Dear Leader]

No you are good, though it might limit your overclocking potential if that matters any to you. But for game/everyday performance dual channel is perfectly fine.

Just be sure to install the ram 1 space apart from each other not next to each other or on opposite ends.

I'll have 4 sticks and my motherboard has 4 slots, will that be okay?

 

[opticalmace]

I'll have 4 sticks and my motherboard has 4 slots, will that be okay?

yep.

 

[Karl2177]

Founders is stock nvidia cooling for a shit price, ignore them

Alright, is the cooling the only difference? I guess what I really need to ask is how can I tell a Founders edition apart from something else?

 

[ehead]

Oh man, I don't know if I'm doing it right. I tried overclocking my i5-6600k to 4.0Ghz and slighly changed the voltage (added 0.002, from 1.168 to 1.170). Anyway, I'm now running AIDA64 overnight to see if its all stable (according to linustechtips, Prime95 is not recommended as it may overwhelm the system).

 

[The Dear Leader]

yep.

Great! thanks.

 

[ColdDeckEd]

Oh man, I don't know if I'm doing it right. I tried overclocking my i5-6600k to 4.0Ghz and slighly changed the voltage (added 0.002, from 1.168 to 1.170). Anyway, I'm now running AIDA64 overnight to see if its all stable (according to linustechtips, Prime95 is not recommended as it may overwhelm the system).

You might not (probably won't) need to add any voltage to get it to run at 4. Aida64 is a good stress test program but after 30 days will run out, so that's why many people use prime95 (can't beat that price). I think the latest version of prime use avx which really push the chips to their thermal limit, but there are earlier versions that don't use avx and cause super high temps. Anyways you don't need to worry about it with a small overclock but once you get past 4.4 got to watch temps carefully.

 

[RamaTheVoice]

Alright, is the cooling the only difference? I guess what I really need to ask is how can I tell a Founders edition apart from something else?

The Founder's Edition cards have "Founder's Edition" written on the box, as well as in the product description online. They look like this:

AIB (Add-in Board) or "custom" cards from partner brands have different (usually better) cooling to maintain the highest clock speeds possible by preventing thermal throttling and are often overclocked, in addition to often having redesigned power delivery circuitry to get higher clock speeds from the same chip, so they'll be easier to overclock by the user as well.

For example, this is my card:

It's not the quickest custom board out there, but for $680 on newegg it's both cheaper than the FE GTX 1080 and has an advertised boost clock speed of 1797Mhz compared to the FE's 1733. In practice, my card spends most of its time at 1873Mhz because the better cooling means lower temperatures, and the card therefore doesn't need to downclock itself to stay within safe temps.

 

[Celcius]

Test-benching two Titan X Pascals.

Once the rig goes under water, that HB SLI Bridge wont fit, because of its odd shape. Will have to use EVGA's bridge instead.

Nice, can't wait to see numbers.

 

[Foxyone]

Is the 1060 a well-priced card for the performance? Got a 750 ti to keep me busy early last year until some Pascal cards came along. Would the 1060 be a very appreciable step up? I've just been wondering if the jump to 970-980 level performance would be "good enough".

I was eyeballing a $250 Zotac mini 1060 on Newegg.

 

[super-famicom]

Is the 1060 a well-priced card for the performance? Got a 750 ti to keep me busy early last year until some Pascal cards came along. Would the 1060 be a very appreciable step up? I've just been wondering if the jump to 970-980 level performance would be "good enough".

I was eyeballing a $250 Zotac mini 1060 on Newegg.

I have the EVGA 1060 SC, which is $249 after a $10 rebate. It's worth what i paid for, does 1080p/60fps on ultra/high on The Witcher 3 and Overwatch. Doesn't go past 60 Celsius in my 29 Celsius room. The Zotac will be pretty comparable though I'm not sure if it cools as well as the 1060 SC. EVGA does have a reputation for good customer service.

Keep in mind how long you will use it for and how soon you want to upgrade. If you want to upgrade later rather than sooner (maybe in 5 years instead of 2-3), you might want to look into saving a but more for a 1070 instead.

 

[PirateNinja]

So I'm trying to decide between buying the gtx 1060 and the rx 480. I can get both of these for about the same price. I'm planning on playing Doom, Witcher 3 and possibly Deus Ex when it comes out. I'm leaning towards the rx 480 at the moment as I've heard it has better performance in DX 12 and Vulcan which could make it the better card in the long term. Given that, should I go with the 480?

 

[wowzors]

Jumped in on a Zotac GTX 1080 AMP Extreme today. Saw it go in stock on new egg and devided to pounce, hopefully this lasts me in 1440p for a little bit, 970 was showing its faults unfortunately.

 

[super-famicom]

So I'm trying to decide between buying the gtx 1060 and the rx 480. I can get both of these for about the same price. I'm planning on playing Doom, Witcher 3 and possibly Deus Ex when it comes out. I'm leaning towards the rx 480 at the moment as I've heard it has better performance in DX 12 and Vulcan which could make it the better card in the long term. Given that, should I go with the 480?

Long term, the 480 seems like the way to go. I really wanted to get the Sapphire Nitro 480, but tired of waiting for it to be in stock anywhere and spring for the 1060 when I had the chance. I don't really regret it, but maybe when AMD'S Vega cards come out I'll consider a new card.

 

[TheVoidDragon]

So recently i got an SSD for the first time and alongside that i got a new HDD, and upgraded to Windows 10. Since then, several of the games i've tried have been running quite poorly - they stutter occasionally even though i have good FPS and an alright ping. I got my drivers updated and the games are on the HDD, i have no idea what's causing the problem. Anyone have any ideas?

The new HDD does seem to have less RPM than what i had before (The WD blue mentioned in the OP compared to a 2tb Seagate Barracuda before) but other than that i don't know what it could be.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

So recently i got an SSD for the first time and alongside that i got a new HDD, and upgraded to Windows 10. Since then, several of the games i've tried have been running quite poorly - they stutter occasionally even though i have good FPS and an alright ping. I got my drivers updated and the games are on the HDD, i have no idea what's causing the problem. Anyone have any ideas?

The new HDD does seem to have less RPM than what i had before (The WD blue mentioned in the OP compared to a 2tb Seagate Barracuda before) but other than that i don't know what it could be.

Unless you installed the games on the ssd, it is going to take longer to load the same data.

 

[Karl2177]

The Founder's Edition cards have "Founder's Edition" written on the box, as well as in the product description online. They look like this:



AIB (Add-in Board) or "custom" cards from partner brands have different (usually better) cooling to maintain the highest clock speeds possible by preventing thermal throttling and are often overclocked, in addition to often having redesigned power delivery circuitry to get higher clock speeds from the same chip, so they'll be easier to overclock by the user as well.

For example, this is my card:



It's not the quickest custom board out there, but for $680 on newegg it's both cheaper than the FE GTX 1080 and has an advertised boost clock speed of 1797Mhz compared to the FE's 1733. In practice, my card spends most of its time at 1873Mhz because the better cooling means lower temperatures, and the card therefore doesn't need to downclock itself to stay within safe temps.

Thanks for this. This will be the first time I'm upgrading near the start of a GPU cycle as well as the first time I'm going for top of the line products.

 

[Greatest Ever]

Yo GAF, I have my PC built and my Windows 10 bought and downloaded to my USB as an .iso. However my motherboard (MSI) isn't noticing the .iso. What should I do?

 

[Magnus]

$800-$1000 from scratch; having a case, hardrive and good PSU can save you some money.

Here is a build that would last you a long time, definitely running most AAA titles on high-ultra @1080p for less than $1k: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/KN2kXH

Another with a faster, overclockable CPU for just over $1k: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Hjbp2R

How much of a performance dip do you think I would see if I grabbed an off-the-shelf gaming PC from Best Buy for around the same price?

 

[Bloodember]

Yo GAF, I have my PC built and my Windows 10 bought and downloaded to my USB as an .iso. However my motherboard (MSI) isn't noticing the .iso. What should I do?

You need to make the USB Bootable. Use the media creation tool from Microsoft to create your Windows 10 usb drive.

 

[Greatest Ever]

You need to make the USB Bootable. Use the media creation tool from Microsoft to create your Windows 10 usb drive.

Will this work for Windows 10 Education as well?

 

[Bloodember]

Will this work for Windows 10 Education as well?

No idea, you could just use an iso to usb program.

 

[Rizific]

have been reading that intel sockets 11xx share the same mounting holes, that true? i finally decided to upgrade my 2500k and have a 6600k coming in on saturday and would like to reuse my cooler.

 

[Hawk269]

I should be getting my Water Block for my new Titan X Pascal card next week. It has been a while since I needed to use Thermal Paste. What is the best thermal paste that I should get to give the best heat transfer?

Thanks!

 

[dreamer3kx]

Is 1920x1200 not recommended for gaming, I have a 1080 and a 1200 monitor and not sure which to go with.

 

[Arc07]

I should be getting my Water Block for my new Titan X Pascal card next week. It has been a while since I needed to use Thermal Paste. What is the best thermal paste that I should get to give the best heat transfer?

Thanks!

EKWB? Both of my blocks came with their own thermal paste.

 

[Hawk269]

EKWB? Both of my blocks came with their own thermal paste.

Yes, EK block. How is that thermal paste versus others?

 

[Arc07]

Yes, EK block. How is that thermal paste versus others?

EK-TIM is pretty good but thermal paste is one of those things where there's no definitive answer.

 

[Celcius]

How much of a performance dip do you think I would see if I grabbed an off-the-shelf gaming PC from Best Buy for around the same price?

Have I got the perfect video for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clrj_lSDvzQ

 

[vermadas]

So I've gone almost exclusively comfy couch for my PC gaming the last several years. The move was driven by a dislike of gaming with M+KB at a desk, and, as a software engineer, I didn't want to spend too much of my precious free time sitting at a desk like I do for so many hours already. I sit about seven feet away from my 42" Panasonic plasma, which has served me well for seven years or so. I was pretty set on upgrading it later this year, but the 2016 models are still not where I'd like them to be.

I had an idea today. What if I bought a decent monitor instead, and put off the TV upgrade for a few more years. I could mount on a stand of some sort in front of the couch. It would save me a ton of money, and I wouldn't have to worry about upgrading my TV stand for a larger TV. I have my own personal gaming space, so there's no wife-approval-factor involved. And the TV would still be there for the rare local multiplayer sessions and console gaming. The only issue I've thought of is that the monitor would block line of sight from my center and two front speakers, but I don't think it would block a significant enough amount of sound to matter that much...

I was looking at something like this for the mount:
https://amzn.com/B01CUT5ZZI

Has anyone here done something similar?

 

[Celcius]

Is 1920x1200 not recommended for gaming, I have a 1080 and a 1200 monitor and not sure which to go with.

1900x1200 is fine for gaming. If both your monitors are the same refresh rate, panel type, size, etc... and all other things being equal, there's no reason not to choose the higher resolution over 1080p.

 

[lostsupper]

EK-TIM is pretty good but thermal paste is one of those things where there's no definitive answer.

The opposite is true. There's a wealth of hard data on thermal pastes.

 

[shanafan]

Under Device Manager, my Corsair H100i v2 has the caution symbol next to it. I tried to find drivers for it, but to no avail. Does the cooler need a driver installed?

Edit: Nevermind, installed the Corsair Link program.

 

[The Dear Leader]

Got one more small RAM related question, my new RAM sticks will slightly touch my CPU coolers fan, as in the little metal fins at the top of the RAM not the actual stick itself will the touch the outer shroud of the fan not the blades, it's not enough to really have me worried but I was just wondering if perhaps vibration or something could cause a problem down the line? Any insight is appreciated.