...Well, OK, I'm not that bad. But I know when to ask for help from experts. My old PC, which has served me well for nearly 8 years (admittedly it's chugging rather badly nowadays) is on the way out - running MemTest86 reveals that someone has replaced my RAM with slices of Swiss cheese. It seems an appropriate time to get an upgrade.
I am a fairly hardcore gamer, who has just finished an undergraduate degree in games-related programming, and is currently doing a master's in AI. Oh, and I occasionally do 3D modelling in Blender. As such, I hit rather a lot of high-performance tick-boxes, and I recognise I'll probably want a fairly high budget. On the one hand, this will be a professional tool and it would be deeply short-sighted to underspec, but on the other I'm only working part-time and I don't have vast sums of disposable income to throw around.
Budget & Location: ~£2000, UK
Use Cases & Requirements:
Gaming. I tend towards lower-performance titles - thus my failing to upgrade in 8 years - but I'd still like to be able to play the occasional blockbuster at high-ish settings. I'd ideally like to be able to power a 4K monitor at 120fps, but I have no idea if that's plausible given the budget, and I strongly suspect that I'll have to settle for something less bleeding-edge. Ray-tracing would be a strong plus.
Games Development & Programming. This is largely a subset of the above, but I need a CPU with serious horsepower. Again, ray-tracing would be a strong plus, for professional reasons perhaps more than personal.
ANN Training. Training neural networks is likely to be a common use-case, serious GPU horsepower needed in that department. I have no idea what mix of teams red, green, and blue is optimal for this.
Modelling and Rendering: Secondary importance, but still a somewhat common use case.
32GB RAM, the good stuff: Someone's probably going to tell me, with perfectly good reasons, that I don't need this. But the established wisdom was that I only needed 8GB eight years ago, not 16GB, and I've long been thankful that I ignored that advice. I also wish I'd spent more on quality, given that it's been the first component to fail in my current build. I'm determined to be generous with my expenditure on RAM: speed, quantity, and quality.
Good 'n' Sturdy: I'm moving house several times a year atm, as part of the student lifestyle. I value sturdiness and portability much more than pretty tempered-glass side panels or marginally-worthwhile water-cooling. It doesn't need to be mini-ATX or anything, but I need to be able to lift it and pack it in the car without worrying about damage.
All drives in RAID1: I have no immediate need for additional HDDs, as my current WD Black 6TB is quite recent and can be moved across, but I would like an SSD boot drive. However, unless there's a strong reason not to, I'd like to upgrade to having RAID1 across all data on my machine, and advice on how best to accomplish this would be invaluable.
Screen: As mentioned previously, I'd like to upgrade my experience to a good resolution at 120fps, preferably with G-sync/free-sync. Good colour accuracy a strong bonus. A single, primary screen does need to be included in the budget, I already have a very modern IPS screen for use as secondary monitor.
Windows Operating System: I've done the Linux thing before, and didn't enjoy it.
No Other Peripherals: Aside from a single screen, matched to to the system's gaming performance, I'm good on peripherals.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
...Well, OK, I'm not that bad. But I know when to ask for help from experts. My old PC, which has served me well for nearly 8 years (admittedly it's chugging rather badly nowadays) is on the way out - running MemTest86 reveals that someone has replaced my RAM with slices of Swiss cheese. It seems an appropriate time to get an upgrade. I am a fairly hardcore gamer, who has just finished an undergraduate degree in games-related programming, and is currently doing a master's in AI. Oh, and I occasionally do 3D modelling in Blender. As such, I hit rather a lot of high-performance tick-boxes, and I recognise I'll probably want a fairly high budget. On the one hand, this will be a professional tool and it would be deeply short-sighted to underspec, but on the other I'm only working part-time and I don't have vast sums of disposable income to throw around. Budget & Location: ~£2000, UK Use Cases & Requirements: Gaming. I tend towards lower-performance titles - thus my failing to upgrade in 8 years - but I'd still like to be able to play the occasional blockbuster at high-ish settings. I'd ideally like to be able to power a 4K monitor at 120fps, but I have no idea if that's plausible given the budget, and I strongly suspect that I'll have to settle for something less bleeding-edge. Ray-tracing would be a strong plus. Games Development & Programming. This is largely a subset of the above, but I need a CPU with serious horsepower. Again, ray-tracing would be a strong plus, for professional reasons perhaps more than personal. ANN Training. Training neural networks is likely to be a common use-case, serious GPU horsepower needed in that department. I have no idea what mix of teams red, green, and blue is optimal for this. Modelling and Rendering: Secondary importance, but still a somewhat common use case. 32GB RAM, the good stuff: Someone's probably going to tell me, with perfectly good reasons, that I don't need this. But the established wisdom was that I only needed 8GB eight years ago, not 16GB, and I've long been thankful that I ignored that advice. I also wish I'd spent more on quality, given that it's been the first component to fail in my current build. I'm determined to be generous with my expenditure on RAM: speed, quantity, and quality. Good 'n' Sturdy: I'm moving house several times a year atm, as part of the student lifestyle. I value sturdiness and portability much more than pretty tempered-glass side panels or marginally-worthwhile water-cooling. It doesn't need to be mini-ATX or anything, but I need to be able to lift it and pack it in the car without worrying about damage. All drives in RAID1: I have no immediate need for additional HDDs, as my current WD Black 6TB is quite recent and can be moved across, but I would like an SSD boot drive. However, unless there's a strong reason not to, I'd like to upgrade to having RAID1 across all data on my machine, and advice on how best to accomplish this would be invaluable. Screen: As mentioned previously, I'd like to upgrade my experience to a good resolution at 120fps, preferably with G-sync/free-sync. Good colour accuracy a strong bonus. A single, primary screen does need to be included in the budget, I already have a very modern IPS screen for use as secondary monitor. Windows Operating System: I've done the Linux thing before, and didn't enjoy it. No Other Peripherals: Aside from a single screen, matched to to the system's gaming performance, I'm good on peripherals. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!