Storage confusion
- Thread starter OL1139
- Start date
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
I would like to know what type of storage is best to get. I have a budget of around £4,000 and i have been told that having a single SSD is a bad idea and that you should have a SSD along with a HD. Im confused as to what is the best storage to get for PC. Help pls
Totally depends on your usage. If you post your general usage, if gaming, what games, if media what packages etc, then we can advise further.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
What monitor are you pairing it with? What resolution and refresh rate?
Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
Storage speed makes pretty much no difference to gaming performance. It just makes them load faster.
For that kind of money I'd have suggested a 1TB 970 Evo M.2 SSD and an HDD to store additional games and files. Steam lets you swap games between drives at the click of a button so no point spending £800 on a ginormous SSD when you can just buy a very large SSD and very occasionally swap games between the SSD and HDD. This is probably what people who told you that having a single SSD was a bad idea will have meant, given what you say. If so, I'd agree with them.
What is the resolution and refresh rate of the monitor you will be gaming on? If you don't know, what's the exact model?
For that kind of money I'd have suggested a 1TB 970 Evo M.2 SSD and an HDD to store additional games and files. Steam lets you swap games between drives at the click of a button so no point spending £800 on a ginormous SSD when you can just buy a very large SSD and very occasionally swap games between the SSD and HDD. This is probably what people who told you that having a single SSD was a bad idea will have meant, given what you say. If so, I'd agree with them.
What is the resolution and refresh rate of the monitor you will be gaming on? If you don't know, what's the exact model?
Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
M.2 is a different connection to Sata (which is what most HDDs and SSDs use). It allows SSDs to be smaller, and also allows for some SSDs to have much faster speeds than older Sata SSDs.
I would strongly recommend getting neither of these. You should instead be looking for a 4k monitor with Gsync, which is Nvidia's technology to synchronise the monitor's refresh rate to the GPU's framerate output, giving you a much smoother gameplay experience than with usual monitors. i.e. if you've ever used a regular 60hz monitor and had your framerate drop below 60 and felt the game 'stutter', Gsync more or less gets rid of it.
I don't think PCS have any 4k gsync monitors, so you'd need to buy one elsewhere. But there's no point buying a 4k monitor for a £2000-£4000 gaming system if you still get stutter on the screen.
You don't need to spend £4000 to get a very, very powerful gaming system. e.g:
Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ AIR 540 GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™ i7-8086K Six Core (4.0GHz @ up to 5.0GHz)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
--Get The Crew 2 with select NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs!
2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
--Get The Crew 2 with select NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
5TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 128MB CACHE
1[SUP]st[/SUP] M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2500MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H115i PRO Cooler w/ PCS Liquid Series Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1
Price £3,204.00 including VAT and delivery
Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-overclocked/4BXW9ZG7a4/
Fastest gaming CPU ever made
16gb RAM is plenty (no advantage to 32gb for gaming)
GTX 1080 ti SLI
Lots of storage including one of the fastest consumer SSDs available.
Expensive motherboard with plenty of features.
High end case and cooling.
Plus a Gsync 4k monitor for ~£500-£700.
You could even drop one of the two GTX 1080 tis, and with a gsync monitor the experience would still be really good.
You should be aware before spending this much on a system that new graphics cards are rumoured to be about to launch.
That doesn't mean there's a problem with the GTX 1080 ti, but you shouldn't spend this kind of money without being aware of the rumours.
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Really appreciate that you have created me this guide, thank you very much. I just have a couple more questions if you're free to answer. Firstly, in this you have said this is the fastest gaming CPU ever made but forgive my lack of knowledge but i though I9 was better? I may be wrong but i though they were better CPU's. Also, could you inform be about overlocked CPU's as again i'm not to familiar with them and how they differentiate. Also does having 2 graphic cards make more sense with 2 monitors?
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Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
i9 isn't better for gaming:
The i9s on the X299 motherboards can be better for things like video editing, 3d rendering, etc. But games don't need anywhere near that many cores. What they do prefer is CPU frequency, and the desktop CPUs like the i7 8700k are faster.
The i7 8086k is a special edition of the 8700k that is a little bit faster still.
As for overclocked CPUs, for any fairly expensive gaming setup you would/should expect to overclock the CPU. Overclocking is making something (often a CPU) run faster than it does at its default settings. High end components like the motherboard, CPU cooler, case, power supply, and the CPU itself are designed pretty much on the understanding that they are going to be overclocked. PC Specialist sell pre-overclocked systems, such as the one I linked above, where they have done the overclocking for you and the overclock is covered by the warranty.
The point of 2 graphics cards is that for very high end setups you can have them both running the same game, which boosts performance. Running 2 GPUs like this is called SLI (or Crossfire for AMD's GPUs). Not all games benefit from SLI, but many do. A single GTX 1080 ti will struggle with some games at ultra settings for 4k resolution in a £4k gaming PC GTX 1080 ti SLI might be appropriate. e.g.
However, a single GTX 1080 ti is still fine for 4k, especially if paired with a gsync monitor.
The i9s on the X299 motherboards can be better for things like video editing, 3d rendering, etc. But games don't need anywhere near that many cores. What they do prefer is CPU frequency, and the desktop CPUs like the i7 8700k are faster.
The i7 8086k is a special edition of the 8700k that is a little bit faster still.
As for overclocked CPUs, for any fairly expensive gaming setup you would/should expect to overclock the CPU. Overclocking is making something (often a CPU) run faster than it does at its default settings. High end components like the motherboard, CPU cooler, case, power supply, and the CPU itself are designed pretty much on the understanding that they are going to be overclocked. PC Specialist sell pre-overclocked systems, such as the one I linked above, where they have done the overclocking for you and the overclock is covered by the warranty.
Not really. You won't be running 2 different games on 2 monitors. If your 2nd monitor just has a desktop, web pages, etc on it, the demands of running that for a GPU are pretty trivial.
The point of 2 graphics cards is that for very high end setups you can have them both running the same game, which boosts performance. Running 2 GPUs like this is called SLI (or Crossfire for AMD's GPUs). Not all games benefit from SLI, but many do. A single GTX 1080 ti will struggle with some games at ultra settings for 4k resolution in a £4k gaming PC GTX 1080 ti SLI might be appropriate. e.g.
However, a single GTX 1080 ti is still fine for 4k, especially if paired with a gsync monitor.
Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
You don't need to do a thing, PCS will have set it all up for you.
I'd recommend your main gaming monitor should be a 4k gsync monitor.
If you want a 2nd monitor, for instance you like having web pages or youtube videos running while you game, then get any cheap monitor you like. It's up to you whether you need a 2nd monitor, there's no advantage for pure gaming.
With the exception of a very small number of games that might have UI elements on the second monitor, you won't be running games across 2 monitors.