Assistance Needed - 4K gaming

[jpehanley]

Hello,

I've seen similar posts recently providing advice but I wanted to go ahead and start my own post.

I am looking to build a 4K gaming machine and this is what I've currently got spec'd up:

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE MC500M GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™ i7-8700K Six Core (3.7GHz @ up to 4.8GHz)
FREE PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Battlefield 1 & More! w/ select Intel CPUs!
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 RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready! ()
1st Hard Disk
1TB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2500MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro 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
WIRELESS 802.11 AC1200 867Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
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)
Keyboard & Mouse
Razer® Black Widow Chroma X Gaming Keyboard
Mouse
Razer® Mamba Tournament Edition Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse
Gaming Mouse Pad
Cooler Master RGB Hard Gaming Mousepad
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 12 to 14 working days
Quantity
1

Price £3,162.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-overclocked/Zejy32YUBh/


Is it worth holding out for the new i7 8900k? Also is the case, and processor cooling sufficient enough?

Apart from gaming, I potentially might be spinning up some VMs on an hypervisor but do not want to go down the route of i9 CPUs since majority of them only require 4 cores & 8gb of RAM and I probably won't be gaming and having the VMs active at the same time.

A 4k G-sync monitor will come at a later date but any recommended monitor would be helpful in selecting the correct one

Thanks!

 

[Oussebon]

Is it worth holding out for the new i7 8900k? Also is the case, and processor cooling sufficient enough?

There are 2 new CPUs coming out in this end of the market. The i9 9700k will have 8 physical cores and no hyperthreading, and higher frequencies than the 8700k. It's expected to be about the same price and offer a modest amount more performance for gaming and also multithreaded. The i9 9900k will have 8 cores, 16 threads, and higher frequencies than the 8700k and will be more expensive.

Given that you're spending over £1000 on the GPU, and hundreds on SSD storage, I'd wait for the faster and more futureproof CPUs.

Also noting that you don't even have a 4k gsync monitor yet, it doesn't seem like there's any rush to buy a system.

2 monitors as options to start you off are:
28" Acer XB281HK
32" Acer XB321HK IPS 4K

 

[jpehanley]

Thanks! Think I'll wait until the new CPUs come out before making the purchase.

From your experience, do you recommend any changes or better components that function better together?

 

[Oussebon]

The new CPUs come with new mobos (though the current gen of mobos will also work) so worth checking out those options in case they add anything. But in general terms the above looks good.

The value of a 1TB 860 Evo SSD for data with most programs and favourite games on the 970 Evo is questionable versus just an HDD. What are you keeping on the 2 SSDs?

 

[jpehanley]

I don't have anything specific that requires the additional SSD although since I'm spending quite a large sum of money, I am just looking at making sure I get the best performance possible. If I am not going to see any performance improvements do you suggest I go use just an HDD? If so, which one would you recommend?

I am trying to build a PC which can be used for high-end gaming for the next several years without the need to upgrade any components.

I have a budget of around £3,550.00.

 

[Scott]

Money no object I would keep the SSD personally. I went down the low performance SSD route to save on money but I prefer the lack of moving parts and the, now well known, longevity of them. They are better drives all round IMO but they do come with a hefty price tag.

If nothing is compromised by choosing a high performance secondary drive then I would keep it in.

 

[ubuysa]

Money no object I would keep the SSD personally. I went down the low performance SSD route to save on money but I prefer the lack of moving parts and the, now well known, longevity of them. They are better drives all round IMO but they do come with a hefty price tag.

If nothing is compromised by choosing a high performance secondary drive then I would keep it in.

The unsung advantages of SSDs is that they're silent, for many that can be an important factor. Apart from the noise issue, having moving parts in an HDD is a bit of a red herring. The lifespan of SSDs and HDDs is (as you say) pretty much equal these days, so moving parts isn't really an issue.

I've said before that if you can afford an SSD for user data then all well and good, but if you're stretching your budget to buy an SSD for user data in the belief that it's going to improve performance to the same order of magnitude that an SSD improves Windows and programs performance then you're going to be disappointed. Most user data doesn't gain a noticeable performance improvement from being on an SSD (I can explain why if you want) and music and video files get no benefit from being on an SSD at all. Images (especially high-res images) are one of the few user data types that does benefit from being on an SSD (any large file that requires fast access benefits from being on an SSD).

A decent 7200rpm HDD will not compromise most user data performance by any really noticeable amount. Get an SSD for user data if you can comfortably afford it and you're not compromising anywhere else in the build to afford it, but if your budget is tight then an HDD for user data is almost as good a choice for most user data.

 

[Oussebon]

If the OP was looking for silent, they'd need a different spec tbh. HDD noise will be pretty low down the list of what makes noise there. Certainly under gaming load.

As above, if money's no obstacle, then no harm as such in having an SSD for user data if you really don't have anything else you'd want to spend the cash on instead.

If you are likely to accumulate a large range of games, however, an HDD (much more TB for the same or lower price) would be my suggestion. Maybe 5TB. (Which I say as someone who has a pretty much full 1TB SSD, 500gb SSD, almost all with games/modded game installs, and an 8TB HDD just for game installs that has 2TB free left on it) You can keep games you're not actively playing on the HDD and just swap them to the SSD with a few button clicks.

5TB+ HDDs are also pretty fast for copy speeds, often giving ~200MB/s for large files like movies or larger game data files.

If it's a "money's no obstacle" kind of scenario - or if you have a very large photo collection that you'd want to keep on an SSD as well as your OS, a load of games, etc - then I'd probably suggest a single 2TB 970 Evo rather than a 1TB 970 Evo and a 1TB 860 Evo. It's faster than the 860, saves the hassle of managing files or game installs between two drives, and is ~£100 more. So still within budget, assuming you don't need the monitor within the £3.5k budget.

If you do need the monitor within that 3.5k budget then trimming the 2nd SSD down to an HDD, and you could look at reigning in spending on the peripherals too.

 

[jpehanley]

Thanks for the responses guys very much appreciated. If the SSD for user data isn't going to provide any performance then I might aswell just simply install a 2 TB 970 as per the advice above.

As previously stated I have a budget of £3550 not including the monitor so if you recommend any "Better configurations" by all means feel free to provide any better configurations.

Guess I'll just wait on until the new CPUs and motherboards come out! Do we have a release date? 5th Oct?

 

[Oussebon]

If the SSD for user data isn't going to provide any performance then I might aswell just simply install a 2 TB 970 as per the advice above.

My point was that if you don't need the SSD for user data a 1TB SSD + a an HDD for mass storage of data and games you're not playing but don't want to have to download again is the way to go. Even if money is no problem, how likely are you to have 2TB's worth of games installed and you're playing at any given time?

 

[Scott]

My FSX install is 280GB+. I don't think I could manage without an SSD, the load times would be horrendous. Very specific requirement of course

I personally have a ridiculously fast M2 drive for my primary (500gb) with zero games and as little as I can have on it. I could happily live with 250gb, or even less, but I always plan for the future and don't want to worry about working on things on my desktop etc. My secondary drive is a fairly slow M2 drive (Slow for M2, not bad for SSD though) which knocks spots off of any mechanical drive. I have all of my games on it and the load times are very nice. They could be faster on an expensive M2 drive but I'm not made of money. I then have my third "storage" drive which is a mechanical drive. I store all my regular stuff on there as speed doesn't bother me at all.

Less moving parts for me is important as it's a laptop. I've lost many a drive to the click of death. Unsure if it's through child drops or whatnot, but it's happened. I've had SSD drives pretty much since they came out and I've not had one die on me yet (even when their longevity was flaky). I've had numerous mechanical drives in the freezer trying to recover data.