Help me build my PC 2017 Catch All

*Legion* wrote:

All to say, I doubt there's really any 1080s I would worry about *not* buying, except ones with a "blower" style cooler (those single-fan enclosure types).

Thanks for the input. The first cards that came up near $500 on Newegg were blower-style cards, and there were some bad reviews about noise and heat. That's what got me looking deeper and sparked the question here.

Yeah blowers are hot and loud. They have their place (cases with limited airflow, for example), but generally you want an open air cooler like that ASUS has.

Thin_J wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Vega stuff

Well then.

To leave the videocard market yet more stagnant, Nvidia announces Volta GPU's will not release this year.

Sigh. The wait continues.

JeffreyLSmith wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

All to say, I doubt there's really any 1080s I would worry about *not* buying, except ones with a "blower" style cooler (those single-fan enclosure types).

Thanks for the input. The first cards that came up near $500 on Newegg were blower-style cards, and there were some bad reviews about noise and heat. That's what got me looking deeper and sparked the question here.

I have the 1080ti equivalent of the ASUS card you linked. Stays cool and very quiet. It has a feature that only turns on the fans if it's getting over a certain threshold. Keeps it silent when you're just doing everyday browsing tasks. Would recommend.

I just installed my first aio cooler for my cpu. I didn't plug in the CPU fan correctly but it posted and now my mishmash of a pc is almost complete. (Nzxt kraken x62).

I have a blower-style 970 and it's rarely obtrusive... once in awhile, but it's not terribly annoying even when it spins up. (I just run stock clocks, though, I don't normally OC video cards.)

The 1080 and Ti models have a substantially higher TDP, so you'd probably want an internal-exhaust cooler for one of those, particularly if you plan to drive high res or VR goggles. Note also that you need good case airflow when you do this, because you're adding 250 watts of heat into a small enclosure. That needs to be exhausted again. It'll be much quieter to do it with a big 120mm fan or two, but they definitely need to be there.

So since buying my GTX 1080, I've given two 1440p 144hz G-Sync a monitors a try. Found one I like, and the other one is headed back as a return.

First, the loser: Dell's S2716DGR. All in all, not a bad monitor, I can see why it was well reviewed. Color is good for a TN panel (after calibration), motion blur was good, backlight bleed was pretty much nonexistent, bezel was very thin, design looked nice and not GAMERRR... buuuut, it had two stark issues. The first was color banding, which actually is fairly low on my dealbreaker list. But the second was pixel inversion. As in, during motion, I could see a subtle but persistent "grid" pattern, particularly on large surfaces of relative uniform color. I noticed it in R6: Siege a little, but in PUBG a lot.

And now the winner: Viewsonic's XG2703-GS. It's an AHVA panel, which is "IPS-like" (basically, made by AU Optronics and not LG), and despite the name, has no relation to VA panel technology. Color is better than the TN (again after calibration), motion is good (one of the things I was worried about with a non-TN panel), "overclocks" to 165hz, and no maddening pixel inversion. The flaw with this display is some "IPS glow", not as bad as I've seen some other get though. So much easier to live with than the pixel inversion, because I just flat don't see it at all during gameplay, at least so far (maybe if I play a really dark game, I might spot it).

Both of these panels handled motion a LOT better than my 1080p 144hz FreeSync monitor, which I need to go sell.

I grabbed 2x of those Dells. My computer is hopefully going to be up and running on Saturday but I'm curious if I'll notice what you are seeing or if it will even bother me. Right now my GTX is hooked up to an old (over 5 years?) Dell 1280p monitor so I'm thinking anything will be an improvement for me.

IMAGE(http://imageshack.com/a/img922/7551/9afAIs.jpg)

ThreadRipper is alive! I had a weird issue with the system after I initially built it. It would not post (gave me a B2 VGA error) with the 10G Ethernet PCIe card in any 3.0 slot. I had to remove the card to get it to post. We'll see what Asus Support says on the issue.

Still getting everything situated in terms of games and software. First thing I had to do was get my Plex Server back up on it.

This last build I did one of my primary goals was to get my gaming machine separate from my Plex server. My wife and I are both much happier now that we don't have to fight for computer time (I taught her how to work with Plex years ago and she took over and has far surpassed my knowledge of that app now). She does commandeer my gaming machine to run MCEBuddy while I'm at work to remove commercials from stuff our HDHomerun records, though.

Carlbear95 wrote:

I grabbed 2x of those Dells. My computer is hopefully going to be up and running on Saturday but I'm curious if I'll notice what you are seeing or if it will even bother me.

Some people say they don't see it, and some more say it doesn't bother them. Computer monitors are all a case of choose-your-preferred-defect because none of the display technologies are perfect.

Using the Dell, I completely understand why a lot of people like it. And ironically enough, after I decided to replace it and was waiting for the replacement to arrive, it didn't bother me nearly as much. I'm still glad I made the switch myself, but the ViewSonic and other IPS/AHVA panels are more expensive and might not be worth it to a lot of buyers.

That looks like a big case Guru! Do you actually have anything in all of those drive bays?

My trusty Wolfdale E8400 build will hit its 10th year anniversary in April, so I think it's about time to put it out to pasture. I don't have a budget for my new build, but I don't want to overspend either. I just want a decent gaming PC that will last for a good 6-7+ years. I don't care about VR and 60fps/1080p is more than good enough for me. I've put together a build that I think fits my needs pretty well, but I'd appreciate some critiques.

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/QVWTyf

By "last a good 6-7+ years", does that mean the whole system with the same GPU, or a system that you will do GPU upgrades on later?

A CPU will hold up a lot better after 6 years than a GPU will. (Looking at 2011 hardware releases: a Sandy Bridge CPU is still pretty decent, a GTX 560 is a doorstop.)

If you don't plan on changing the GPU over that time, then I would go higher than a 1060. If you're going to swap in a new GPU once or twice over that time span, then the 1060 is fine.

*Legion* wrote:

If you don't plan on changing the GPU over that time, then I would go higher than a 1060. If you're going to swap in a new GPU once or twice over that time span, then the 1060 is fine.

I agree here. I spent $600 to get a 780ti, and after 4 years it's just starting to show its age. I could probably go another 2 without too much trouble.

*Legion* wrote:

A CPU will hold up a lot better after 6 years than a GPU will. (Looking at 2011 hardware releases: a Sandy Bridge CPU is still pretty decent, a GTX 560 is a doorstop.)

If you don't plan on changing the GPU over that time, then I would go higher than a 1060. If you're going to swap in a new GPU once or twice over that time span, then the 1060 is fine.

All truth.

*Legion* wrote:

By "last a good 6-7+ years", does that mean the whole system with the same GPU, or a system that you will do GPU upgrades on later?

Hey, I kept my GeForce 8800 GT for 8 years before replacing it (and even then only because it died), so I do expect the GTX 1060 to last me 6-7 years. I don't expect to run games on high for that entire time, but that's why games come with "low" graphic settings. But if I'm wrong I'm totally willing to upgrade the card with something better a few years down the line.

I mean, you *can* do it that way, but an alternative to consider is turning that $1400-ish CAD build into a $1700-ish CAD build with a 1080 and having a lot more gaming-power-per-dollar to show for it.

Sure, you can Very Low settings the hell out of everything and stretch an old GPU as far as possible, but the point is that the whole rest of your rig will be capable of more. Like a sports car with worn and deflated tires on it.

Future upgrade works too, but either way, consider the possibility that your system may be unnecessarily hamstrung by trying to stretch too little GPU power for too long.

*Legion* wrote:

I mean, you *can* do it that way, but an alternative to consider is turning that $1400-ish CAD build into a $1700-ish CAD build with a 1080 and having a lot more gaming-power-per-dollar to show for it.

A GTX 1080 seems like overkill for someone who only wants 1080p and 60fps. Why did you skip over recommending the 1070?

LeapingGnome wrote:

That looks like a big case Guru! Do you actually have anything in all of those drive bays?

It's the Phantexs Enthoo Elite and it's obscene. I didn't realize when I bought it you can actually mount two separate PC's in there. One has to be an mini ITX but it has dual everything else.

There are actually 4 drives in there. Two SSD's and two Magnetic.

Djinn wrote:

A GTX 1080 seems like overkill for someone who only wants 1080p and 60fps. Why did you skip over recommending the 1070?

For the same reason Delbin's 780ti is holding up. To have a GPU that can still do 1080p60 on new games 5 years from now.

Also, 1070 prices are inflated from mining to the point that they almost cost what a 1080 does.

EDIT: To provide some defense to the pricing bit, here's what I see on the Canadastan NewEgg that's actually in stock at that price at the time I type this (PCPartPicker has a bunch of random one-off low prices of things that aren't actually purchasable):

GTX 1060 6GB: $364
GTX 1070: $599
GTX 1080: $659
GTX 1080ti: $930

If you're moving up from the 1060, I'd argue the 1080 is the best performance-per-dollar of those options. The 1080ti is faster obviously, but a healthy price jump up. The 1070 is just too far over its target price range.

Hello World.

New PC is up and running. I did play PUBG at ultra briefly just to make sure it works, but right now I'm just migrating stuff from the old PC. Also thanks Legion for posting those nvidia settings.

If anyone is interested, here is the final build.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/R84fbj

Wow. I'm amazed at how expensive GTX 1080s still are. I got mine about a year ago and the price still hasn't really dropped. It's kinda fun to realize my PC isn't remotely obsolete a year into the video card. Between that and my PS4 Pro, I don't think I'm gonna have to buy hardware for a very long time.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Wow. I'm amazed at how expensive GTX 1080s still are. I got mine about a year ago and the price still hasn't really dropped. It's kinda fun to realize my PC isn't remotely obsolete a year into the video card. Between that and my PS4 Pro, I don't think I'm gonna have to buy hardware for a very long time.

I'll see when they announced the next set.

Balthezor wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Wow. I'm amazed at how expensive GTX 1080s still are. I got mine about a year ago and the price still hasn't really dropped. It's kinda fun to realize my PC isn't remotely obsolete a year into the video card. Between that and my PS4 Pro, I don't think I'm gonna have to buy hardware for a very long time.

I'll see when they announced the next set. :P

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Wow. I'm amazed at how expensive GTX 1080s still are.

That $659 I posted above is Canadian bucks, because Djinn is in Canada.

I bought mine for $509 US a few weeks ago. Granted, that's still not a huge drop from launch prices, but not as bad as it looks in CAD.

*Legion* wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Wow. I'm amazed at how expensive GTX 1080s still are.

That $659 I posted above is Canadian bucks, because Djinn is in Canada.

I bought mine for $509 US a few weeks ago. Granted, that's still not a huge drop from launch prices, but not as bad as it looks in CAD.

Yeah, I initially didn't realize that but did actually figure that out before posting and just went with it. Like you say, not a huge drop. I'm super cool with PC hardware retaining value for awhile given how much money I've dumped into it over the years. It's probably the worst "investment" ever.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I'm super cool with PC hardware retaining value for awhile given how much money I've dumped into it over the years.

That $509 I spent is definitely on the very low end of what they go for too. More often they're around $550-560.

I imagine the distortion that cryptocurrency mining has inflicted on the GPU market has something to do with it too (midrange wiped out = more people stepping up to the higher tiers), and Vega being delayed forever, and then largely under-delivering, kept any downward pressure on 1080 prices from materializing.

But beyond all that, it's still a great card, and I doubt it drops much further until Volta.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Also thanks Legion for posting those nvidia settings.

No prob. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on those Dells.

*Legion* wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

Also thanks Legion for posting those nvidia settings.

No prob. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on those Dells.

I noticed the pixel inversion but only when staring at a black still image. During gameplay or any sort of moving picture it was fine or at least unnoticeable.

I did notice that the gamma on the monitors was way too high. Did some tweaking with brightness/contrast/color but colors still seemed faded. Tweaking the gamma in the nvidia control panel helped but not enough. I realized I hadn't installed the Dell monitor drivers... not sure if I really need to, but I did and ran the Windows 10 color calibration and that seemed to do the trick. I did lower gamma through that and it really seemed like night and day compared to the old color quality.

As far as PC is going, there seems to be some issue with going into sleep mode. First few times, no problem, PC would go to sleep without an issue after 30 minutes. Then I started to get an issue where the monitors would turn off but the PC would not go into sleep mode. The PC was clearly still powered, keyboard and mouse lights were lit chassis lights on and the HD light blinking, but the monitors were off and I couldn't wake them. Only way to get back into windows was a reset. I *think* its because I moved the location of my lock screen image and fiddled with some other seemingly innocuous settings. I reset to default and it seems to be working but I'll continue to investigate.

First thing to try with sleep issues is disable hybrid sleep because being crap seems to be its only implemented feature.