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Hello tech report form thanks for the add and I'm looking forward to talking to you all.

I have always loved to game on PC's more than any other console but unfortunately, I have never been able to afford a decent PC to be able to play what I please, until recently. I have finally got enough money to go out and buy a PC but a friend of mine has built his own PC and guarantees me that it's better than any PC on the market (when he built it) and the fact you can always upgrade. Now, he said he will help me build the PC but it would be better to do my own research and find the best parts because it's been a few years and there are newer/better components now. I have been looking online for parts http://www.used.forsale/graphics-card-n ... eforce-310 but all the numbers and technical wording means nothing to me haha. So for all the gamers on this forum what should I get to create the ultimate gaming PC? I'm going to need everything from the best mouse, keyboard, PC screen to the best graphics card, RAM etc

I don't really have a budget being I want the PC to last a long time. I would like to be able to play any game possible and I'm a Technical analyst for Cryptocurrency so I will need to have many charting programs open simultaneously.

Sorry, I know I'm asking for a lot.
Thank You

Google "Techreport system guide". It's an article TR puts out every few months pointing out the best hardware. I think May 2017 was the latest edition.

Welcome to the Tech Report!

TR's System Guide is an excellent place to start looking at components.

The top-performing CPU for most games is currently the $323 four-core Intel Core i7-7700K. You can get quite satisfactory gaming performance from a six-core AMD Ryzen 5 1600X for $100 less. There are much more expensive processors available to build a High-End DeskTop or Workstation, but spending an extra $1000 or more for many more processing cores and a matching motherboard doesn't improve performance in the large percentage of current games that have relatively few program threads.

Building a gaming PC today, I would pair a Core i7-7700K with a motherboard like the $160 Gigabyte GA-Z270MX-Gaming 5 or the $145 Asus Prime Z270M-Plus. If I were building a new PC a couple of months from now, I would likely choose a six-core Intel Core i7-8700K CPU and a motherboard with the Z370 chipset, but those products are not yet available.

The $230 six-core AMD Ryzen R5 1600X offers one and half times as many cores as the Intel Core i7-7700K for less than two thirds as much money when paired with a motherboard like the $92 -10MIR Gigabyte GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 or the just-released Asus TUF B350M-Plus Gaming. The $450 eight-core AMD Ryzen R7 1800X offers twice as many cores as the quad-core Intel Core i7 at the same cost for CPU+motherboard. A small percentage of currently-available games really take advantage of the additional processor cores.


Unfortunately, the current speculative Etherium bubble has caused a world-wide shortage of GPUs for gaming, especially the mid-range AMD Radeon RX580 8GB gaming graphics cards. Miners trying to cash in on the craze before it crashes have bought up so many gaming graphics cards that prices have more than doubled in the past four months. If you have plenty of funds available for your gaming PC and you intend to play games at 3840x2160 or 3440x1440 resolution, then the top gaming graphics card is a $750 GeForce GTX1080Ti paired with a $1200 Asus ROG Swift PG348Q or $1300 Acer Predator XB321HK monitor with G-Sync. At 2560x1440 resolution, I recently purchased a $407 Radeon RX Vega 56 paired with a $650 Samsung C32HG70 monitor with FreeSync2. The recently-released Radeon RX Vega 56 and 64 are in high demand and have been marked up significantly by the retailers who have stock available. If you intend to play games at lower resolutions, you don't need to spend so much on a graphics card. A $270 GeForce GTX1060 6GB is sufficient for gaming at 1920x1080.

Note that any new graphics card is likely to become obsolete in three years, while improvements in the other components in a gaming PC have been so slow in recent years that a six-year old PC with a new graphics card is still okay for most gaming.


Once you've selected CPU+Motherboard and a GPU, you'll need some other pieces to have a complete system.
2x 8 GiB of top-rated PC4-25600 memory that works well with Ryzen will set you back $188. I'd probably go for 2x 16 GiB for $260, but that's more than you need for most games.
$220 will buy you a good half-terabyte PCIe NVMe SSD.

Can you provide a rough budget? Most of the time there's always a budget. Even if someone says they are carte-blanche, they may have a hard time swallowing a $5,000+ price tag.

For example, a nice monitor alone could cost you $1,000. The monitor (resolution/frequency) typically drives the majority of other component selections. Crypto analysis doesn't require much/any PC horsepower, but driving a 4k monitor in current/future AAA games will drive price up quickly.

Thanks for the replies guys and the well-written list above I am starting to take notes and research the parts now. My budget realistically is $3500 I can go more if it makes a big difference but I thought this would be more than enough.

Remember-PSU IS MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ANY BUILD..................

My recommendations-
Seasonic's new focus gold range.
EVGA's supernova G2 or G3 range............

TRB wrote:

Thanks for the replies guys and the well-written list above I am starting to take notes and research the parts now. My budget realistically is $3500 I can go more if it makes a big difference but I thought this would be more than enough.

i7-7700K and GTX1080Ti always coupe together for high-end gaming PC, you can check out here for the 4K 144Hz performance

Top-notch high-end gaming PC is estimated $1800. He's right, an outstanding monitor could cost you another $1000, or duo or triplet monitor that you wanted?

But still lol you can do better with $3500 like custom wiring and some luxury decoration.

The Corsair MX300 SSD may be priced attractively, but a PCIe NVMe SSD like the Samsung 960 Evo provides measurably quicker performance.
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/inter ... pgb&page=1


Just because you are able to spend more on a PC build does not mean that you should spend more. Sometimes the best place to put your PC upgrade money is in the bank rather than some decoration.

Fun! OK

Base build:
i7-7700K for $340
Cyrorig H7 CPU cooler for $35 (other options available of course)
MSI Mortar Z270M for $130 (could upgrade, but would need to discuss needs)
2x16GB DDR4-3000MHz for $270
Phanteks Enthoo Evolv mATX case for $120
EVGA 750G3 or Seasonic Focus+ Platinum 750W for $120, or EVGA 650G2 for $85 would work since you only technically need a 650W PSU to run even an i7 + Vega64 at stock clocks. Depends on potential of overclocking and GPU choice.
Samsung 960 EVO 1TB = $466 (not sure what your storage needs are, but I picked this based on overall budget)

Option 1 - Nvidia:
EVGA GTX1080 for $570
Asus ROG 34" Ultrawide GSync for $1300 (currently on sale for $1050)

Option 2 - AMD:
AMD RX Vega 64 for $690
Samsung C32GH70 32" FreeSync for $650 (has been as low as $560 on sale)

Misc:
Keyboard - $100 some variant of Cherry MX Brown switches I'd assume. I'll let others suggest here.
Mouse - Say $70, this is a highly personalized decision that you should make based on in-hand feel.
Headphones - HyperX Cloud Core for $65 after promo code.
Windows 10 license - Anywhere from $40 to $120

Total - Nvidia = $3685
Total - AMD = $3155 (this would be my choice)

I'd expect additional savings to be found simply by shopping around even for these exact same components. I'll leave that to the buyer though.

The Tech Report's System Guide has just been updated. There's a lot of great information in there. I recommend reading the entire article, even though I don't completely agree with the selection of the Core i7-7740X + X299 for the Sweet Spot gaming system versus the similar performance available from a less expensive Core i7-7700K + Z270 system.

TRB wrote:

I don't really have a budget being I want the PC to last a long time.

Hey, welcome to TR
Wanting the PC to last a long time is expensive and as JustAnEngineer has already said, the best place for spare budget is probably in a bank, gaining interest and being available for the future.

You could spend $3000 on a super-awesome gaming PC that would probably still be playing the latest games at decent detail levels in five years from now
You could spend $1500 on a half-decent gaming PC that would likely be indistinguishable from the expensive one for the first 3-4 years, and then buy another $1500 in 3-4 years time that would blow the original $3000 PC out of the water.

So yes, the more expensive PC will last longer, but it's not really cost effective. If you want to go down that route the system guide is a good start and DPete27's suggestion is something similar to what I would have said, if the budget was infinite and money was no object. The sweet spot right now is going to be something like this:

• A case that is the size and style you want, ideally with good fans included and removable/cleanable dust filters
• A 550-650W 80PLUS Gold-rated power supply or better. Efficiency (the 80PLUS standard) is more important than outright power in Wattage, 550W is going to have plenty of headroom still
• Either a Ryzen 5 1600, B350 board and 16GB of DDR4-2666, or wait about a month and buy an i5-8600K, Z370 board and 16GB of DDR4-3200.
• Both of those chips are overclockable so a decent, quiet air-cooler makes sense. The Cryorig H7 is a good, affordable cooler for the money and fits both Intel/AMD options.
• You're going to want either a $280 GTX 1060 6GB for use with a 1080p monitor, or a $540 GTX 1080 for 1440p or higher.
• M.2 NVMe SSDs are fast and expensive but the real-world difference to a gamer isn't really significant - a 500GB SATA SSD and a 4TB hard drive should cover you nicely and it's very easy to add more/faster storage at a later date.

If you aren't restricted by any budget concerns, a good 3440x1440 monitor and the more expensive GTX 1080 are sound investments, just because the cryptocurrency miners have pushed up the prices of the more mainstream cards and dulled their value for money. Ultrawide gaming with G-Sync or Freesync is glorious, so if you're going down that route pick your monitor first and then use the GTX 1080 for a G-Sync screen, or an RX Vega 56 for the Freesync screen.