Airmantharp wrote:We need to see an updated estimate from the OP before exceeding any 'baselines'.
Good grief! Why are you intent on making this a boring build?
Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer
Airmantharp wrote:We need to see an updated estimate from the OP before exceeding any 'baselines'.
End User wrote:Airmantharp wrote:We need to see an updated estimate from the OP before exceeding any 'baselines'.
Good grief! Why are you intent on making this a boring build?
End User wrote:I highly recommend that Vonhitz go with a 1TB SSD. There are two 1TB SSD options (that I know of) on the market today - Samsung EVO 1TB and the Crucial M500 960GB. I bought the M500 960GB for my gaming rig and I absolutely love it. Everything else is stored on my Synology DS1512+.
The other option is to buy a motherboard that supports SSD caching. Pair up a fast SSD with a big HDD and your most used apps/files will be read from the SSD.
JohnC wrote:End User wrote:I highly recommend that Vonhitz go with a 1TB SSD. There are two 1TB SSD options (that I know of) on the market today - Samsung EVO 1TB and the Crucial M500 960GB. I bought the M500 960GB for my gaming rig and I absolutely love it. Everything else is stored on my Synology DS1512+.
The other option is to buy a motherboard that supports SSD caching. Pair up a fast SSD with a big HDD and your most used apps/files will be read from the SSD.
I actually agree. I have a small Crucial M4 512GB SSD right now (purchased it when it was just released for $736.00) and I am constantly "bumping" into free space limitation, even with large files being stored in external RAID1 HDD storage and I am also thinking of getting new Crucial 960GB drive. If money are not such a big deal - no reason to limit yourself with small SSDs and play swapping games with your large HDDs every week
omphaloskepsis wrote:Just a couple of comments on the build:
Unless you specifically want a TUF motherboard, you might consider an ASUS ROG or Gene (since price isn't a concern). The Gryphon looks like a great board, but the other boards are more gaming oriented. Also, I'd personally prefer a full-size board when putting it into a normal sized case. There are often minor hassles even with full-size boards (unless my fingers are just bigger than average).
Also, for a sound card I wouldn't consider anything other than an ASUS Xonar (an Essence STX for headphones, or one of the others for speakers). There were a deluge of great reviews a few years back, and I've used them in my last 2 builds. I wouldn't even consider a creative card now.
Airmantharp wrote:How many games do you play at once?
Airmantharp wrote:Well, the Titan actually is reasonable for what you're getting, but not if you're only going to use it for gaming.
JohnC wrote:Airmantharp wrote:How many games do you play at once?
At once? One, just like most of other people But my game library is very big, including various MMORPG games which can get quite big, especially in Beta form. And my "choice" of currently "fun" game may vary greatly from day to day - for example I might have a great time today with a few guildmates/in-game friends in WoW, log off, then do not even try logging back in for a next few weeks/months and instead play something else. Something that is pretty big and will require some time to download and re-install (especially MMORPG games or RPG games with various custom mods), which to me can get somewhat annoying even with 50MB/s download speed on my FiOS connection. So I'd rather keep all of my games installed and always ready to play if the space allows it.
omphaloskepsis wrote:Just a couple of comments on the build:
Also, for a sound card I wouldn't consider anything other than an ASUS Xonar (an Essence STX for headphones, or one of the others for speakers). There were a deluge of great reviews a few years back, and I've used them in my last 2 builds. I wouldn't even consider a creative card now.
confusedpenguin wrote:omphaloskepsis wrote:Just a couple of comments on the build:
Also, for a sound card I wouldn't consider anything other than an ASUS Xonar (an Essence STX for headphones, or one of the others for speakers). There were a deluge of great reviews a few years back, and I've used them in my last 2 builds. I wouldn't even consider a creative card now.
I will second that. I have an ASUS Xonar Essence ST. It has a headphone amp, but it excels in sound quality even if you don't use headphones. The DAC used, SNR, and many specs are amazing, but you'll just have to listen to one to believe it. I got mine a few years ago for $300, and well worth the money. As far as driver issues go, I haven't had any problem with drivers. I used to be a creative fanboy, and creative does have some good options, but unless your using the now-defunct EAX in your games, the Xonar Essence is a good option, way better than creative in my opinion. If you want get rediculous to go all-out though, go professional-grade and look at what RME has to offer.
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php
Airmantharp wrote:confusedpenguin wrote:omphaloskepsis wrote:Just a couple of comments on the build:
Also, for a sound card I wouldn't consider anything other than an ASUS Xonar (an Essence STX for headphones, or one of the others for speakers). There were a deluge of great reviews a few years back, and I've used them in my last 2 builds. I wouldn't even consider a creative card now.
I will second that. I have an ASUS Xonar Essence ST. It has a headphone amp, but it excels in sound quality even if you don't use headphones. The DAC used, SNR, and many specs are amazing, but you'll just have to listen to one to believe it. I got mine a few years ago for $300, and well worth the money. As far as driver issues go, I haven't had any problem with drivers. I used to be a creative fanboy, and creative does have some good options, but unless your using the now-defunct EAX in your games, the Xonar Essence is a good option, way better than creative in my opinion. If you want get rediculous to go all-out though, go professional-grade and look at what RME has to offer.
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php
Not going to dog on the high-end Xonar's audio quality- but for the price and the feature-set, you're better off with Creative. And yeah, Creative's drivers are leagues better; and yeah, you're going to need some nice cans and a trained, discerning ear to show a real difference between the two.
Otherwise, there are superior external options if you're bent on just 'spending money'. We can get to those, but first, we need to see how the OP feels about certain things- stuff like a schedule, particularly, along with a detailed 'baseline' build for realistic tweaking instead of this 'hey, if you want to spend money, get an overbuilt case! super-duper soundcard (to run a standard set of cans)! A massive SSD for 'stuff'! Five monitors! A crazy motherboard that has features and capabilities that couldn't possibly be put to use!'
Lets get the basic stuff figured out in the eyes of the OP before going off the deep end with specific components.
confusedpenguin wrote:Sure, if you have the Creative Crystalizer enabled, it is going to seem to sound better, or have some other Creative enhancement enabled. But for a flat frequency response, which is what nearly all audiophiles go for, Creative isn't a real player in the game. Creative has a reputation for bad drivers, and that still holds true today. More bass and more treble does not mean higher fidelity. I leave the EQ on my Xonar set flat. It sounds great without any options turned on. Software listening tests can show superior results, as creative often does, but a bad DAC doing an innacurate resproduction of the original file can still show superior results if the noise levels, roll-off, and other measurement are handled well. Xonar does very well in all aspect. It may not be the best sound card out there, but it is still much better than what creative has to offer. And as far as Creative's gaming enchancements go, the designers have a tendency to say, "MOAR REVERB!", and slap on a new version number.
Airmantharp wrote:has features and capabilities that couldn't possibly be put to use!
confusedpenguin wrote:Sure, if you have the Creative Crystalizer enabled, it is going to seem to sound better, or have some other Creative enhancement enabled. But for a flat frequency response, which is what nearly all audiophiles go for, Creative isn't a real player in the game. Creative has a reputation for bad drivers, and that still holds true today.
Vonhitz wrote:Unless you've grown five more ears on your head since 2011, they're still a gimmick. You have two ears. Stereo sound is what you hear. If you set your game to output for "stereo headphones" it will properly calculate all of the time delays (and probably the occlusion and muffling, as well) to provide the correct positional audio. At best, so-called "7.1 surround" headphones can be no better than stereo headphones. Typically, the so-called "surround headphones" will give you a very distorted set of delays that will not provide realistic spatial placement of the sources of the sound. Because the "7.1 surround" headsets have more complexity, they'll cost more and provide worse sound quality than a set of well-constructed stereo headphones will.A lot of what I've read on the "gimmick" of 7.1 headphones has been in forum posts dated 2010-11ish. Who knows, maybe they're just getting better.
Vonhitz wrote:Did you try out the Logitech G710+? That one, the CoolerMaster QuickFire Pro for $75 -15MIR that I linked for you on Saturday, the Rosewill RK-9000BR for $102, the Rosewill RK-9000BRI for $113, the Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate Silent Soft Tactile for $127 and the Gigabyte Aivia Osmium for $130 are all better than the Microsoft keyboard because they use Cherry MX brown mechanical key switches.I decided to go with the Microsoft SIDEWINDER X4 Keyboard (for now or until better is suggested).
JustAnEngineer wrote:Vonhitz wrote:Unless you've grown five more ears on your head since 2011, they're still a gimmick. You have two ears. Stereo sound is what you hear. If you set your game to output for "stereo headphones" it will properly calculate all of the time delays (and probably the occlusion and muffling, as well) to provide the correct sound stage. At best, so-called "7.1 surround" headphones can be no better than stereo headphones. Typically, the so-called "surround headphones" will give you a very distorted set of delays that will not provide realistic spatial placement of the sources of the sound. Because the "7.1 surround" headsets have more complexity, they'll cost more and provide worse sound quality than a set of well-constructed stereo headphones will.A lot of what I've read on the "gimmick" of 7.1 headphones has been in forum posts dated 2010-11ish. Who knows, maybe they're just getting better.
vargis14 wrote:If you are going to go for a single high end graphics card the 780 is the best bet, and if down the road you want to add another 780 for SLI then even better....for the ost part the 780s swap blows with the Titans in SLI winning way more then loosing.
Airmantharp wrote:Future games WILL take advantage of more than four cores- we see that already. How much?
DeadOfKnight wrote:Airmantharp wrote:Future games WILL take advantage of more than four cores- we see that already. How much?
Not much. All seriously demanding games are bottlenecked by the GPU, and that's going to become even more of an issue as 4k gains in popularity.
Airmantharp wrote:DeadOfKnight wrote:Airmantharp wrote:Future games WILL take advantage of more than four cores- we see that already. How much?
Not much. All seriously demanding games are bottlenecked by the GPU, and that's going to become even more of an issue as 4k gains in popularity.
Current games have largely not taken advantage of the CPU due to the extremely low baseline they have to hit to make stuff run on the current consoles- but these new consoles go from one or three half-assed CPU cores to eight real ones, meaning that games could easily make use of those extra cores in the very near future.
Will it be necessary? Nope. Will it make a difference? A significant one. An extra pair of cores means that the performance potential increases by 50%; these new games will have to be highly threaded in order to hit the detail levels expected of them, and that will bear out on PCs as well.
Again, if we're going to say 'I want to be able to play all the great games for the next two or three years' and 'the budget is ~$3500', what's another $100 for the motherboard and $200 for the CPU? It's certainly a better investment than dumping that cash into an SSD, or an exotic sound card, or a stupidly expensive case.
Airmantharp wrote:DOK:
The point is not that they'll be using 'mobile' cores, but that these new cores are full out-of-order, 64-bit cores, with a full set of ALU and FPU resources, and that there's eight of them. That means that the game engines will be able to, by default, take advantage of more than the four FPUs on a quad core Intel CPU, or quad-module/eight core AMD CPU. Further, even with my 2500k at 4.5GHz, I can see the benefit of more performance. You're not going to get much more clockspeed out of a 4770k, but with an Ivy-E six-core CPU, you would have more resources available to games that will definitely be able to use them. And remember, GPU speed determines your maximum framerate, but CPU speed determines your minimum framerate, and that's the part that defines the experience. It's not how smooth the game is when nothing's going on, it's how smooth the game is when the **** is falling on your head! What's another $300 of a $3500 build for 50% more CPU resources?
Vargis: I get you man- and I agree with you fully, for the games on the shelf today. I use 2GB cards at 2560x1600 without running into significant issues.
But that's not where I'm going with this- since Sony and Microsoft announced that their consoles coming out this fall will have 8GB of RAM, with over half of that available to games, I cannot in good conscience recommend video cards with less than 4GB of VRAM, and that's stretching it. If someone wants to be able to crank the details of future games, regardless of the resolution, I consider 6GB per GPU the bare minimum, and would prefer something in the range of 8GB to 12GB per GPU.
Sure, there's no real reason for such cards to exist today- but there's also no real reason for them not to, and I'm hoping that AMD and Nvidia see that and pay heed with the products they release this fall. They don't have any excuses; RAM is cheap. That's why these consoles have 8GB in the first place!
DeadOfKnight wrote:I think 3-4 Gigs should be sufficient even for the lifespan of these new consoles, but I agree the 1-2 Gb cards that still permeate the market need to go away. It's ridiculous that you can get an entry-level or mobile GPU with 3 gigs of VRAM and you're stuck with 1.5Gb on midrange desktop cards. However, I'm gonna stick to my guns here and say that just because the resources are available doesn't mean they will be utilized to their fullest. I realize that this has been true for consoles in the past, but we used to utilize PCs to their fullest in the past as well. How often do you think that happens today? It's not just consoles that have been holding us back. There are plenty of other applications that would benefit from multithreading that still have yet to take advantage of it. Just because we can have revolutionary A.I. in games with advanced CPU capabilities, doesn't mean we will anytime soon. That's like saying hardware-accelerated physics is going to take gaming to a whole new level.
DeadOfKnight wrote:But it has.Just because we can have revolutionary A.I. in games with advanced CPU capabilities, doesn't mean we will anytime soon. That's like saying hardware-accelerated physics is going to take gaming to a whole new level.
JustAnEngineer wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:End User wrote:Airmantharp wrote:We need to see an updated estimate from the OP before exceeding any 'baselines'.
Good grief! Why are you intent on making this a boring build?
What's exciting about paying for stupid fast storage for your photo album?!?
Airmantharp wrote:For storage, here's the thing- SSD prices will continue to plummet over time, and storage drives are stupid easy to upgrade.
Airmantharp wrote:I say 6 cores with HT, 16GB of RAM, and at least one high-end GPU with 8GB of VRAM or more, preferably two. That baseline is well within the stated budget and meets the listed requirements.