TR Forums

Hello TR Forums, here's what I'm looking at.

I'm largely a software guy, I'm studying game development and programming.  I like to build a pretty nice system every 5+ years when my current one isn't cutting it and then not have to worry about hardware again for a while.  The TR system guides are always my starting point and I've found them very helpful.  The system I have now I bought in 2008 and it runs most of the games I play just fine.  Unfortunately, it's choking on development in the UE4 engine.  So, it's time for new box.  

-Complete new system from the ground up.
-Trying to keep things around $2k, not over $2.2k.
-Need something strong enough to handle next gen games, game development on the UE4 engine, VR is a nice to have.  I've worked on a Vive project and it was a ton of fun.
-Don't mind buying a cheaper part and then upgrading in a year or two if that's the smartest buy but I don't want to be replacing a motherboard or doing a complete system overhaul.
-I tend to multitask a lot.
-Not thrilled with liquid cooling.
-Probably won't be doing much overclocking.
-I need a SSD but have plenty of external storage so it just needs to hold the OS and games.
-Probably looking to purchase in the next week or so.

I think a good starting point would be to start with one of the October sample builds either:
-The Grand Experiment, drop the second HD and think about improving something if there's something to improve or 
-The High-End Build, drop both HD's and see if there are other things I can shave things down to get closer to $2.2k.

Any advice would be appreciated.  I also need a new monitor.  It would be the primary and my old one would become a secondary.  Price of the monitor is not tied in with the computer.  Would like to keep that around or under $600

An i7-6700(K) (see if you want not buying an additional cooler + lower TDP vs being able to overclock + higher base and turbo) system would be more than good enough. I don't think the HEDT platforms are worth it for most people (I think Unreal Engine 4 development might not benefit much on HEDT vs normal i7?), and you probably want your development machine to be as close as systems most people would have, too.

A GTX 1080 (non-reference cooler/Founders' Edition) works too, and you probably only need one of them.

Then use the rest of the budget wisely. 16 GB minimum, might prefer 32 GB, make sure you use either 2 or 4 sticks of equal capacity (dual-channel), and if the premium isn't too strong, go for high-speed DDR4, though I believe as long as you don't use the bare minimum 2133 CL15 sticks you'll be fine. I think a good cut-off is when the premium isn't beyond about 33%.

Motherboard-wise, good H170 or Z170 board is great. Check for features and ports, and matching aesthetic if you're into that part. Some of the cheaper Z170 boards bafflingly have not enough full-size USB ports and it's probably just me but I don't like hubs - I prefer the board to just come with enough of them in the first place. Same for high-speed memory - sometimes, the motherboard's own power traces don't quite keep very high-speed DDR4 RAM stable (usually starts to rear up once you go beyond 3000) Remember that you can't overclock CPU or memory on a H170.

You might want a case that's easy to work in and roomy; make sure that you do your case research and see if it comes with enough fans in the right positions (remember you can rearrange them as you see fit) for sufficient case airflow. Make sure that no matter what your case is exhausting enough heated air - for most case there should be at least "1.5" exhaust fans (so probably 2 exhausts; the "0.5" is for when it's a radiator exhaust, which doesn't matter in this case)

At this point of time, with giant game sizes, and you working on games yourself, you probably should have 480 GB SSD as minimum size for SSD. Since you won't be getting a separate HDD perhaps you could try your luck at a 960 GB/1TB drive. Make sure you have more than enough space for everything you can do as otherwise you'll be relying on *slow* externals a lot.

The Grand Experiment's suggested PSU would end up being overkill for the end result if you never go SLI by the way But still it's a good starting point. Ignore the HEDT sample build.

Can't really give monitor suggestions though. I might go see if I can make a sample build list over at PCPartPicker (I won't be picking any favourite outlets).

What do you think of these components?
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K Skylake 4-core 4.0 GHz Processor  ($329 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler  ($28 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($133 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX (2x16GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($172 @ Amazon)
Storage: Intel 600p Series 512GB PCIe+NVMe M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($175 @ Newegg)
Storage: Toshiba P300 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($95 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC GAMING Video Card  ($390 @ Newegg)
Case: Silverstone TJ08B-E MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($100 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 660W 80+ Platinum Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($120 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer  ($50 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  ($91 @ B&H)
Monitor: AOC U2879VF 28.0" 3840x2160 TN 60Hz FreeSync Monitor  ($300 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Cooler Master CM Storm QuickFire TK Wired Keyboard  ($81 @ Amazon)
Mouse: Logitech G402 Wired Optical Mouse  ($39 @ Amazon)
Speakers: Cyber Acoustics CA-3602 30W 2.1ch Speakers  ($43 @ Amazon)
Total: $2125
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

If you need more than the i7-6700K's four cores with hyper-threading at 4.0 GHz for your development work, you would give up some gaming performance and spend $340 to $800 more to go with LGA2011-v3 rather than LGA1151.
$213 -30MIR Gigabyte GA-X99P-SLI LGA2011-v3 ATX motherboard
$590 Intel Core i7-6850K Broadwell-E 6-Core 3.6 GHz LGA 2011-v3 Processor
or $1050 Intel Core i7-6900K Broadwell-E 8-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 2011-v3 Processor
$80 Fractal Design Define R5 ATX case

Another bump for 6700K in a Z170 but don't overclock. Just buy the K for higher base speeds and all the features enabled. 
A CM Hyper TX3 will be perfect if you can still find one for $15 and it'll run quiet at stock speeds too.

Get 32GB of RAM if you are working in UE4 because you'll be running the engine alongside memory-hungry apps. 2400+MHz will probably be the sweet spot for a 32GB Kit and get yourself the 2x16GB kit rather than 4x8GB so that you can double it up in a few years time without hassle. It's easy to get fooled by clockspeed, but realistically, bad RAM is the stuff with high timings and high voltages. Get yourself some 1.2V CAS15 RAM and it'll be decent stuff. None of the "faster" RAM is really faster if it's running overvolted at CAS18 timings, DDR4 3000 CAS18 is about the same speed as DDR4 2400 CAS15.

GPU is going to be a temporary solution good for 2 years typically because of fast progress. GTX1080 is perfect for now but crazy expensive. If you have the budget, go for it, but remember that VR requirements for the Oculus have dropped to a 1060 thanks to ASW and the Vive was always happy with a 1060 in the first place. Get the 6GB version if you go for a 1060, obviously.

Platiunum or Titanium PSU; You want this to last five years then don't skimp on a $50 PSU.

If you live in the US be looking at Black Friday week sales.
If you live near a Microcenter, that's the best place to get your CPU and mobo.

Don't bother buying a K processor. Overclocking is the foe of stability; I have three i7-920's that only work below 2GHz that you can have as examples of what happens when you overclock for years at a time.

Other thoughts: You might want a smaller monitor that supports 120+ Hz. It's not a huge deal but if you goal is future-proofing to save money I'd look more toward a higher-refresh 24-26" monitor and then get another one later if you need more screen real estate (like SLI but for monitors).

The K is significantly faster even if you don't overclock. For an extra $30 you move from a 3.4GHz base clock to a 4.0GHz base clock.
http://ark.intel.com/compare/88196,88195
There are some minor differences, too.

Chrispy_ wrote:

The K is significantly faster even if you don't overclock. For an extra $30 you move from a 3.4GHz base clock to a 4.0GHz base clock.
http://ark.intel.com/compare/88196,88195
There are some minor differences, too.

I just checked the link - like I remembered, the difference is about 200MHz. If you're talking about base clocks, those don't matter unless your thermal solution is horrible.

Vhalidictes wrote:

I just checked the link - like I remembered, the difference is about 200MHz. If you're talking about base clocks, those don't matter unless your thermal solution is horrible.

Turbo frequency doesn't matter, if your workload will run on all available cores like compiling code will.

DrDominodog51 wrote:

Vhalidictes wrote:

I just checked the link - like I remembered, the difference is about 200MHz. If you're talking about base clocks, those don't matter unless your thermal solution is horrible.

Turbo frequency doesn't matter, if your workload will run on all available cores like compiling code will.

I'm getting a hold of one soon and I'll do my own measurements, but modern Intel CPUs don't sit at base clocks for extended periods of time under load regardless of how many cores are active. 

That said, you have a good point if that's going to be the dominant workload.

The TDP of the K is higher.

It has been the best part of a decade since temperatures alone controlled the turbo frequencies. These days (since Broadwell) the current Intel Turbo Boost relies on:

• Type of workload.
• Number of active cores
• Estimated current consumption
• Estimated power consumption
• Processor temperature

If you're feeling nerdy, this is a good read.

We have dozens of 6700 (non-K) processors here and they peak at 3.7GHz for burst workloads, (that's 300MHz slower than the K, not 200MHz) but because of their TDP constraint, you will find they don't even stay at 3.7GHz under sustained load despite running cool. You essentially have to disable power management if you want the vanilla 6700 to run at it's peak boost all the time, otherwise it's going to be smart about it's power consumption and prefer efficiency over raw performance like the K, but when you're loading up the CPU with compling jobs, it'll be running at a guaranteed 4GHz, not 3.4-3.7GHz. Granted, it's not a huge difference, but it's an 8-16% performance increase for a 1-2% cost increase when considering the cost of the entire build. Hell, looking at the CPU cost alone, it's an 8-16% performance increase for a 10% cost increase. That's still a no-brainer to me.

My suggestion is to get the K and a Z170 board, simply because there are more good Z-series boards and the price difference between the vanilla 6700 and the 6700K is miniscule in the overall picture of a build. It's not as if the 6700K uses more power at idle, it's still going to tick over at 800MHz just like the 6700.

If you want anecdotes, we have renderfarms made out of racks of i7s and one of them is 8-node rack of 6700K/64GB/Z170 that has been running without a single render error for nine straight months with all cores running V-Ray at 4GHz. They are pegged at 4C/8T/100% load for weeks at a time, spending as little as five minutes a day at idle due to the streaming nature of the distributed management interposer.

Want a future proof build? Get a solid CPU and replace the GPU as needed. Significantly better CPUs take a fairly long time to roll out these days, and they almost always come with new sockets--which means a new motherboard, and you might even get a boost to newer/faster RAM, too (we're seeing a lot of this as DDR4 replaces DDR3). GPUs, on the other hand, have been using the same PCIe connection forever, and they iterate faster than CPUs. Hard drives and/or SSDs are just as easy to add/replace.

IOW, I agree with getting a 6700K. It'd be a really good foundation, and the ability to overclock in the future might even squeeze some more usable life out of it.

Now if you're looking at game development, one thing you might want to focus on is the monitor. The AOC recommendation JAE made looks really good, but it looks like it's got a TN panel. An IPS panel would have better viewing angles and color reproduction, but it would also cost a fair bit more. Example, this ASUS model is similarly priced as JAE's AOC one, but it has much lower resolution.

Ultimately, I think this is a personal choice how "professional" you want to go with your monitor, but it is worth giving some thought.

660W is more than enough for two GPUs; I'm running a pair of 970's (and previously, a pair of 670's, and a pair of HD6950's before that) on a seven year old Seasonic 650W Gold. JAE's recommendation here is solid.

Also, on TN vs. IPS: a good TN is good. Yes, viewing angles aren't magnificent, but they don't need to be: you're sitting in front of the thing when you're using it. Get IPS if you actually need something that IPS delivers; and for gaming, TN is going to deliver better persistence performance over IPS every day of the week.

(I use an IPS G-Sync panel, but I also do photography; that's my compromise, and it comes with the price of worse persistence performance and a higher price)

Also, why the FreeSync monitor with Nvidia GPU recommendation?

Airmantharp wrote:

Why the FreeSync monitor with Nvidia GPU recommendation?

We have reached the point where FreeSync is actually free or insignificantly expensive.  A new gaming monitor with FreeSync costs $0 to $25 more than a similar monitor without FreeSync.  A similar monitor with NVidia's proprietary G-Sync costs $175 to $200 more than that.

If you buy a monitor with FreeSync today and use it with an NVidia GPU, it doesn't hurt you.  If you eventually use that monitor with a GPU that supports VESA standard adaptive sync, it's a bonus.  I put the AOC U2879VF on the list because $300 for a 28" 4K TN monitor looked like a good deal.  Similarly, $390 for the QNIX UHD3216R or $340 for the Asus MG24UQ look like good deals for 4K IPS monitors regardless of your GPU selection.


The 660-watt power supply is enough to power two GPUs.  I selected the SeaSonic SS-660XP2 because it's the smallest of SeaSonic's Platinum series (also available in 760, 860, 1050 and 1200 watt versions).  These power supplies are well-built, fully modular, very efficient  and quiet.  Here is a review.  Dropping back to 80+Gold efficiency could save $50 if the budget is tight.


Intel does make a 1.0 TB version of their 600P PCIe+NVMe M.2-2280 SSD that you can buy for $350.  I selected this series of SSD because it uses a PCIe 3.0 x4 connection and low-overhead NVMe protocol to deliver good performance even though it doesn't feature the fastest flash on the planet.  PCIe+NVMe drives are still more expensive than SATA+AHCI drives, but the price difference has come down significantly since Intel entered this market.  The 1.1 TB version of Crucial's MX300 M.2-2280 SATA+AHCI SSD is $250, for comparison.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

We have reached the point where FreeSync is actually free or insignificantly expensive.  A new gaming monitor with FreeSync costs $0 to $25 more than a similar monitor without FreeSync.  A similar monitor with NVidia's proprietary G-Sync costs $175 to $200 more than that.

If you buy a monitor with FreeSync today and use it with an NVidia GPU, it doesn't hurt you.  If you eventually use that monitor with a GPU that supports VESA standard adaptive sync, it's a bonus.

Agreed, and I figured this was where you were going with that, but I didn't want to put words in your mouth. I'd make the same decision personally if I weren't (wasn't!) willing to pay for G-Sync.

reconsider liquid cooling , the close looped system they have now are really nice.

Probably either going to buy tonight or wait until Black Friday.  I generally consider Black Friday gimmicky and don't think the deals are worth bothering with.  On the other hand, that's because I'm not usually in the market for a new plasma tv or bedroom set.  In this case, I sort of am.  Is it going to be worth the wait and the hassle for PC parts?  I do not live in a state with a Microcenter.

tsoulier wrote:

reconsider liquid cooling , the close looped system they have now are really nice.

Biggest benefit of liquid cooling is avoiding interference between large heatsinks and tall RAM. Useful, but they generally don't offer huge gains in cooling nor noise.

ManWithBrisk wrote:

Probably either going to buy tonight or wait until Black Friday. I generally consider Black Friday gimmicky and don't think the deals are worth bothering with. On the other hand, that's because I'm not usually in the market for a new plasma tv or bedroom set. In this case, I sort of am. Is it going to be worth the wait and the hassle for PC parts? I do not live in a state with a Microcenter.

If you have some patience, yes, it is worth it. You might not build until December, but if you can snag some really good deals on components, you should be able to save some money. Be sure to keep an eye on TR's weekly deal recommendations. You'll definitely see a good SSD deal...

Oh, and isn't Cyber Monday still a thing? Those are the deals on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Cyber Monday is uninspiring for computer component sales.  For the past few years I sit down the morning of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to peruse computer component deals.  Black Friday sales are almost always better than Cyber Monday.  Newegg guarantees lowest sale pricing the whole week leading up to Black Friday, so you don't technically have to wait until Friday to purchase if your desired item is already on sale.  
Black Friday sales are good.  Some are better than you can get any other time of the year, but mostly its like other markets: sale prices may not be a whole lot better than the spotty "very good sale prices" throughout the rest of the year, but a larger number of items are at those sale prices during Black Friday.  And, like I said earlier, the AmEX/Visa promos are almost exclusive to the holiday season.  The AmEX promo is already going, the VISA promo hasn't kicked in yet.

I'd only buy things that are VERY good deals from now until Black Friday week.  The Seasonic G550 for $45 after MIR ending today is one of those exceptions.

I think the current focus is wrong.

It (IMO) should be focused on a good workstation build w/ Xeon and ECC memory.

http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?2246814

http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?2336226_g10e

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820242335

etc..