Spartan 363

Hey everyone, new to the forums but I'm an old school PC gamer and builder.  Long story short, the previous build was nearing 6 years old for everything minus the GTX 980 Ti SLI I bought in summer of 2015 decided it was time to ride into the sunset.  The motherboard began having issues and it just died after a few days of odd symptoms.  So, after exploring my options, I was NOT going to pay $200+ for a six year old motherboard (Z97 based) and went with my latest build.  Before anyone wonders why I went with a previous gen build, the new parts I bought were on sale recently at my local Micro Center.  After choosing my new parts to buy, it was time to part ways with my Devil's Canyon build and I reused some of the parts from that six year old rig to use them in my Budget Beast.  Some will question why I still use SLI, it's because the vast majority of the games I play support SLI and it was much cheaper to buy both of the current cards I have now when they cost less than half of what a new RTX 2080 Ti sell for (when it's being phased out now).  I did thought about going with a current gen system, but they were sold out, so I settled with the previous gen that's still very formidable these days. 
 
 
Here were the specs to that Devil's Canyon build:
 
i7 4790K w/ Hyper 212 EVO with push/pull setup
2x GTX 970 G1 SLI later upgraded to GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI
ASUS Z97-A
16GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 CL9 (was 8GB at first but upgraded to 16GB in summer of 2015) w/cooling fans
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1
Cougar Evolution case w/ 3x Cooler Master 120mm fans
Intel 530 Series 480GB SATA SSD w/ Windows 7 Ultimate x64 later upgraded to Windows 10 Pro x64 during free upgrade period
Sandisk Ultra II 240GB for storage (didn't need but was a Christmas gift in Holiday 2015)
2x Toshiba HK3R2 960GB SATA Enterprise SSD for games and storage (bought at a local liquidation sale and bought both for $400 in Spring of 2015)
 
 
Here is an early pic from late 2014 when it had the GTX 970 G1 SLI and don't have any updated pics with the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI.  The PC did run warm with the very cramped 980 Ti SLI but never went over 80 degrees during heavy gaming, it lasted 5 years of strong gaming.
 
 

 
 
 
 
With the motherboard of that build gone bad, it was time to perform another worthwhile mega upgrade since my Devil's Canyon PC lasted me nearly 6 years of hard gaming and I wasn't going to pay $200 plus for a 6 year old motherboard.  With what I said earlier why I went with a previous gen build, it was on sale, that's all, lol.  So here are the specs to my current Budget Beast and then I'll break down why I named it the Budget Beast.  Even though it's built and I'm gaming on it right now, there are a few upgrades such as new much quieter fans for my EVGA CLC 360 are in the works.  As the photos show, it's not the prettiest rig out there and there is a reason for that.  I game from the comfort of my couch and I actually turned off all of that rainbow stuff.  The EVGA CLC 360 fit up front and I mounted all three EVGA fans up front and then two of the Cooler Master fans inside for a push pull effect.  I prefer my rig nice and dark while gaming on my 55 inch Samsung Q60R Series QLED TV.  It's why aesthetics isn't very important because I was on a budget and wanted the best bang for my buck build that has upgrade potential for the next 5 years and it's tucked to the side of my TV stand. 
 
 
i9 9900K w/ EVGA CLC 360 (stock fans are a bit noisy when they spin up but I game with headset, no issue there)
2x GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme in SLI later upgraded (a week later, lol) to GTX 1080 Ti Strix in SLI w/ HP HB SLI Bridge
ASUS Maximus Hero XI CoD Black Ops 4 Edition
32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 CL14
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1 (reused it since it has a 10 year warranty through EVGA and still going strong)
Cooler Master NR600 case
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M2 SSD w/ Windows 10 Pro x64
Intel 530 Series 480GB SATA SSD (reused it and now serves as extra storage)
2x Toshiba HK3R2 960GB SATA Enterprise SSD for games and storage
ASUS PCE-AC88 Wifi (much better reception and download speeds over old Wireless N wifi)
3x 120mm fans (from previous build and used in the Budget Beast) and then 6x more fans from CLC 360, case, so the PC has 3x EVGA 120mm intake fans for CLC 360 out front, then two 120mm Cooler Master fans for pull duty inside the case, then one 120mm fan for rear of PC and finally two 120mm fans for exhaust duty at the top of the case.
 
 
I play on a 55 inch Samsung Q60R Series QLED TV with a pair of Sennheiser GSP 600 headset.  The TV supports native 120hz at both 1080p and 1440p, then 4K 60hz with HDR, Freesync (Too bad all current Nvidia cards don't support Freesync through HDMI), and sub 9 ms input lag.  So for games that I want looking pretty run at 4K 60hz and for shooters like Destiny 2, I play them at 1440p 120hz.  I also don't care about fancy KB/M because I game with an XBOX One Elite controller.  Long story short, I had a bad car accident way back in 2003 and my right wrist which is my mouse hand is not normal.  It hurts my wrist to play over one hour with the KB/M, so I've been a couch gamer with various XBOX controllers for over a decade now.  I use Pinnacle Game Profiler for the older games that don't have native controller support.  I have used the same Cooler Master Devastator II KB/M for as long as that previous PC build and they are working fine from a tray I have beside my recliner whenever I browse the web.  
 
 
The Budget Beast 0.9 w/ GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI.   I decided to upgrade them because 80 degrees is too warm these days and I was running out of VRAM with 6GB the cards had.  Many games played at 4K 45+ FPS at ultra settings, it wasn't bad overall but the lack of VRAM made me realize how dated the GTX 980 Ti are now.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Then by sheer luck, I stumbled into a local sale of two ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti for cheap, I jumped on it and now my Budget Beast runs better and much cooler despite the SLI setup.  Here is the Budget Beast 1.0 in it's ok looking glory! 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
I took this screenshot to show the temperatures as I was playing Destiny 2 with all settings cranked to max at 1440p 120hz.  The PC runs much cooler with the GTX 1080 Ti SLI setup, that makes me very happy.  During one hour of heavy gaming in Destiny 2, the highest temperature I saw for the hottest GPU was 65 degrees for the top card and 60 degrees for the bottom card.  The CPU never went above 40 degrees which is awesome and I get plenty of performance over my older i7 4790K just running the factory clocks.  The RAM has the XMP profile enabled to run at DDR4 3200 CL14, my games are snappy, no complaints there.  The GTX 1080 Ti's do run their factory overclock settings through the ASUS GPU Tweak tool.  Sure, I can overclock like crazy, I won't for now because the performance is good so far and it runs pretty cool while gaming for a few hours even so far.  I run my desktop at 1440p because 120hz makes it more comfortable to see the mouse pointer move around the screen.  The TV doesn't have an issue from switching to 4K 60hz and back to 1440p 120hz. 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Seeing such high FPS at 1440p with a few dips to 110 here and there makes me one happy gamer gaming from the comfort of my couch.  I turned off all the rainbow light shows because I want my mancave to be dark during gaming.  Sure, there are 240hz panel gaming monitors and more, but there isn't yet an affordable 55 inch 4k 120hz+ TV yet for us couch gamers, so 1440p 120hz is great for now  
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Sorry I didn't post each step of the build, I was just in a hurry to get to gaming while making sure everything works good.  So far, so good now for why I call this build the Budget Beast.  After deciding if I wanted another Z97 motherboard or not, I made the list of things to buy because they were all on sale at my local Micro Center last week and such.  I bought the following:
 
i9 9900K and ASUS Maximus Hero XI BLOPS4 bundle - $749.98 at Micro Center
EVGA CLC 360 - $140.25 at Newegg
32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 CL14 - $197.99 at Newegg
Cooler Master NR600 - $69.99 at Micro Center
1TB Samsung 970 EVO M2 SSD - $179.99 at Micro Center
Cooler Master MasterGel Maker thermal paste for EVGA CLC 360 and CPU - Free from a friend of mine that had extra from a build he just did last month
2x ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti - $500 for both cards from a local sale
ASUS PCE-AC88 Wifi card - Free because it was a birthday gift this past May
HP High Bandwidth SLI Bridge - Free from friend who didn't need it after upgrading to RTX 2080 SLI from GTX 1070 SLI
 
Grand Total for the new parts:  $1418.49 (Including VA State taxes and free shipping for Newegg parts), with the cost of both the GTX 1080 Ti's included - $1918.49
 
 
Now now, nearly two grand is not budget friendly, so what I did to name my new rig the Budget Beast, I sold many parts of my Devil's Canyon build to fund it.  These are the things I sold for to help lessen the cost of the Budget Beast:
 
i7 4790k w/ Hyper 212 Evo push pull setup, broken motherboard, 16GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 CL9 (four sticks plus RAM cooler), 240GB Sandisk Ultra II SATA SSD and the Cougar Evolution tower - $400 to a local Ebay flipper who says the i7 4790k still sells for several hundred because of Win 7 support that many users overseas still use and the RAM is still very good for its age. 
2x Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI - $450 to a local guy a day before purchasing my 1080 Ti SLI
 
Grand total of sale from old parts:  $850
 
 
 
The grand total after buying and selling:  $1068.49 including taxes and such
 
Now you see why I called this build the Budget Beast?  It's because it's quite the beast for costing me less than $1100 since the older parts I reused don't count towards the total of this build since they were paid for six years ago now.  I did take a risk with the used GTX 1080 Ti, they were used for mining but after stress testing them, both cards work great and both are still under factory warranty from ASUS until Oct of 2021.  The guy I bought the cards from gave me the original receipts just in case I need to file an RMA between now and Oct of 2021.  Both cards were purchased on the same day too and now that I've been gaming on the Budget Beast for a week now, I'm one happy gamer.  I do plan to upgrade to 64GB of RAM if I ever need to and will also upgrade the GTX 1080 Ti SLI sometime in 2022 in time for Elder Scrolls VI into either RTX 3080 Ti or the generation after that in SLI.  Then I hope after the next GPU and RAM  upgrade, this Budget Beast will last me until 2025.  I may even get a new full size tower to help the cards run cooler and to make space for the future SLI setup I have and maybe care about aesthetics then too, lol.
 

Hey everyone, new to the forums but I'm an old school PC gamer and builder.  Long story short, the previous build was nearing 6 years old for everything minus the GTX 980 Ti SLI I bought in summer of 2015 decided it was time to ride into the sunset.  The motherboard began having issues and it just died after a few days of odd symptoms.  So, after exploring my options, I was NOT going to pay $200+ for a six year old motherboard (Z97 based) and went with my latest build.  Before anyone wonders why I went with a previous gen build, the new parts I bought were on sale recently at my local Micro Center.  After choosing my new parts to buy, it was time to part ways with my Devil's Canyon build and I reused some of the parts from that six year old rig to use them in my Budget Beast.  Some will question why I still use SLI, it's because the vast majority of the games I play support SLI and it was much cheaper to buy both of the current cards I have now when they cost less than half of what a new RTX 2080 Ti sell for (when it's being phased out now).  I did thought about going with a current gen system, but they were sold out, so I settled with the previous gen that's still very formidable these days. 
 
 
Here were the specs to that Devil's Canyon build:
 
i7 4790K w/ Hyper 212 EVO with push/pull setup
2x GTX 970 G1 SLI later upgraded to GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI
ASUS Z97-A
16GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 CL9 (was 8GB at first but upgraded to 16GB in summer of 2015) w/cooling fans
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1
Cougar Evolution case w/ 3x Cooler Master 120mm fans
Intel 530 Series 480GB SATA SSD w/ Windows 7 Ultimate x64 later upgraded to Windows 10 Pro x64 during free upgrade period
Sandisk Ultra II 240GB for storage (didn't need but was a Christmas gift in Holiday 2015)
2x Toshiba HK3R2 960GB SATA Enterprise SSD for games and storage (bought at a local liquidation sale and bought both for $400 in Spring of 2015)
 
 
Here is an early pic from late 2014 when it had the GTX 970 G1 SLI and don't have any updated pics with the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI.  The PC did run warm with the very cramped 980 Ti SLI but never went over 80 degrees during heavy gaming, it lasted 5 years of strong gaming.
 
 

 
 
 
 
With the motherboard of that build gone bad, it was time to perform another worthwhile mega upgrade since my Devil's Canyon PC lasted me nearly 6 years of hard gaming and I wasn't going to pay $200 plus for a 6 year old motherboard.  With what I said earlier why I went with a previous gen build, it was on sale, that's all, lol.  So here are the specs to my current Budget Beast and then I'll break down why I named it the Budget Beast.  Even though it's built and I'm gaming on it right now, there are a few upgrades such as new much quieter fans for my EVGA CLC 360 are in the works.  As the photos show, it's not the prettiest rig out there and there is a reason for that.  I game from the comfort of my couch and I actually turned off all of that rainbow stuff.  The EVGA CLC 360 fit up front and I mounted all three EVGA fans up front and then two of the Cooler Master fans inside for a push pull effect.  I prefer my rig nice and dark while gaming on my 55 inch Samsung Q60R Series QLED TV.  It's why aesthetics isn't very important because I was on a budget and wanted the best bang for my buck build that has upgrade potential for the next 5 years and it's tucked to the side of my TV stand. 
 
 
i9 9900K w/ EVGA CLC 360 (stock fans are a bit noisy when they spin up but I game with headset, no issue there)
2x GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme in SLI later upgraded (a week later, lol) to GTX 1080 Ti Strix in SLI w/ HP HB SLI Bridge
ASUS Maximus Hero XI CoD Black Ops 4 Edition
32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 CL14
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1 (reused it since it has a 10 year warranty through EVGA and still going strong)
Cooler Master NR600 case
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M2 SSD w/ Windows 10 Pro x64
Intel 530 Series 480GB SATA SSD (reused it and now serves as extra storage)
2x Toshiba HK3R2 960GB SATA Enterprise SSD for games and storage
ASUS PCE-AC88 Wifi (much better reception and download speeds over old Wireless N wifi)
3x 120mm fans (from previous build and used in the Budget Beast) and then 6x more fans from CLC 360, case, so the PC has 3x EVGA 120mm intake fans for CLC 360 out front, then two 120mm Cooler Master fans for pull duty inside the case, then one 120mm fan for rear of PC and finally two 120mm fans for exhaust duty at the top of the case.
 
 
I play on a 55 inch Samsung Q60R Series QLED TV with a pair of Sennheiser GSP 600 headset.  The TV supports native 120hz at both 1080p and 1440p, then 4K 60hz with HDR, Freesync (Too bad all current Nvidia cards don't support Freesync through HDMI), and sub 9 ms input lag.  So for games that I want looking pretty run at 4K 60hz and for shooters like Destiny 2, I play them at 1440p 120hz.  I also don't care about fancy KB/M because I game with an XBOX One Elite controller.  Long story short, I had a bad car accident way back in 2003 and my right wrist which is my mouse hand is not normal.  It hurts my wrist to play over one hour with the KB/M, so I've been a couch gamer with various XBOX controllers for over a decade now.  I use Pinnacle Game Profiler for the older games that don't have native controller support.  I have used the same Cooler Master Devastator II KB/M for as long as that previous PC build and they are working fine from a tray I have beside my recliner whenever I browse the web.  
 
 
The Budget Beast 0.9 w/ GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI.   I decided to upgrade them because 80 degrees is too warm these days and I was running out of VRAM with 6GB the cards had.  Many games played at 4K 45+ FPS at ultra settings, it wasn't bad overall but the lack of VRAM made me realize how dated the GTX 980 Ti are now.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Then by sheer luck, I stumbled into a local sale of two ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti for cheap, I jumped on it and now my Budget Beast runs better and much cooler despite the SLI setup.  Here is the Budget Beast 1.0 in it's ok looking glory! 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
I took this screenshot to show the temperatures as I was playing Destiny 2 with all settings cranked to max at 1440p 120hz.  The PC runs much cooler with the GTX 1080 Ti SLI setup, that makes me very happy.  During one hour of heavy gaming in Destiny 2, the highest temperature I saw for the hottest GPU was 65 degrees for the top card and 60 degrees for the bottom card.  The CPU never went above 40 degrees which is awesome and I get plenty of performance over my older i7 4790K just running the factory clocks.  The RAM has the XMP profile enabled to run at DDR4 3200 CL14, my games are snappy, no complaints there.  The GTX 1080 Ti's do run their factory overclock settings through the ASUS GPU Tweak tool.  Sure, I can overclock like crazy, I won't for now because the performance is good so far and it runs pretty cool while gaming for a few hours even so far.  I run my desktop at 1440p because 120hz makes it more comfortable to see the mouse pointer move around the screen.  The TV doesn't have an issue from switching to 4K 60hz and back to 1440p 120hz. 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Seeing such high FPS at 1440p with a few dips to 110 here and there makes me one happy gamer gaming from the comfort of my couch.  I turned off all the rainbow light shows because I want my mancave to be dark during gaming.  Sure, there are 240hz panel gaming monitors and more, but there isn't yet an affordable 55 inch 4k 120hz+ TV yet for us couch gamers, so 1440p 120hz is great for now  
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Sorry I didn't post each step of the build, I was just in a hurry to get to gaming while making sure everything works good.  So far, so good now for why I call this build the Budget Beast.  After deciding if I wanted another Z97 motherboard or not, I made the list of things to buy because they were all on sale at my local Micro Center last week and such.  I bought the following:
 
i9 9900K and ASUS Maximus Hero XI BLOPS4 bundle - $749.98 at Micro Center
EVGA CLC 360 - $140.25 at Newegg
32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 CL14 - $197.99 at Newegg
Cooler Master NR600 - $69.99 at Micro Center
1TB Samsung 970 EVO M2 SSD - $179.99 at Micro Center
Cooler Master MasterGel Maker thermal paste for EVGA CLC 360 and CPU - Free from a friend of mine that had extra from a build he just did last month
2x ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti - $500 for both cards from a local sale
ASUS PCE-AC88 Wifi card - Free because it was a birthday gift this past May
HP High Bandwidth SLI Bridge - Free from friend who didn't need it after upgrading to RTX 2080 SLI from GTX 1070 SLI
 
Grand Total for the new parts:  $1418.49 (Including VA State taxes and free shipping for Newegg parts), with the cost of both the GTX 1080 Ti's included - $1918.49
 
 
Now now, nearly two grand is not budget friendly, so what I did to name my new rig the Budget Beast, I sold many parts of my Devil's Canyon build to fund it.  These are the things I sold for to help lessen the cost of the Budget Beast:
 
i7 4790k w/ Hyper 212 Evo push pull setup, broken motherboard, 16GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 CL9 (four sticks plus RAM cooler), 240GB Sandisk Ultra II SATA SSD and the Cougar Evolution tower - $400 to a local Ebay flipper who says the i7 4790k still sells for several hundred because of Win 7 support that many users overseas still use and the RAM is still very good for its age. 
2x Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI - $450 to a local guy a day before purchasing my 1080 Ti SLI
 
Grand total of sale from old parts:  $850
 
 
 
The grand total after buying and selling:  $1068.49 including taxes and such
 
Now you see why I called this build the Budget Beast?  It's because it's quite the beast for costing me less than $1100 since the older parts I reused don't count towards the total of this build since they were paid for six years ago now.  I did take a risk with the used GTX 1080 Ti, they were used for mining but after stress testing them, both cards work great and both are still under factory warranty from ASUS until Oct of 2021.  The guy I bought the cards from gave me the original receipts just in case I need to file an RMA between now and Oct of 2021.  Both cards were purchased on the same day too and now that I've been gaming on the Budget Beast for a week now, I'm one happy gamer.  I do plan to upgrade to 64GB of RAM if I ever need to and will also upgrade the GTX 1080 Ti SLI sometime in 2022 in time for Elder Scrolls VI into either RTX 3080 Ti or the generation after that in SLI.  Then I hope after the next GPU and RAM  upgrade, this Budget Beast will last me until 2025.  I may even get a new full size tower to help the cards run cooler and to make space for the future SLI setup I have and maybe care about aesthetics then too, lol.
 

Oh thank god I thought this was a question topic with a massive wall of text and didnt notice it was in build logs.

Hey everyone, new to the forums but I'm an old school PC gamer and builder.  Long story short, the previous build was nearing 6 years old for everything minus the GTX 980 Ti SLI I bought in summer of 2015 decided it was time to ride into the sunset.  The motherboard began having issues and it just died after a few days of odd symptoms.  So, after exploring my options, I was NOT going to pay $200+ for a six year old motherboard (Z97 based) and went with my latest build.  Before anyone wonders why I went with a previous gen build, the new parts I bought were on sale recently at my local Micro Center.  After choosing my new parts to buy, it was time to part ways with my Devil's Canyon build and I reused some of the parts from that six year old rig to use them in my Budget Beast.  Some will question why I still use SLI, it's because the vast majority of the games I play support SLI and it was much cheaper to buy both of the current cards I have now when they cost less than half of what a new RTX 2080 Ti sell for (when it's being phased out now).  I did thought about going with a current gen system, but they were sold out, so I settled with the previous gen that's still very formidable these days. 
 
 
Here were the specs to that Devil's Canyon build:
 
i7 4790K w/ Hyper 212 EVO with push/pull setup
2x GTX 970 G1 SLI later upgraded to GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI
ASUS Z97-A
16GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 CL9 (was 8GB at first but upgraded to 16GB in summer of 2015) w/cooling fans
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1
Cougar Evolution case w/ 3x Cooler Master 120mm fans
Intel 530 Series 480GB SATA SSD w/ Windows 7 Ultimate x64 later upgraded to Windows 10 Pro x64 during free upgrade period
Sandisk Ultra II 240GB for storage (didn't need but was a Christmas gift in Holiday 2015)
2x Toshiba HK3R2 960GB SATA Enterprise SSD for games and storage (bought at a local liquidation sale and bought both for $400 in Spring of 2015)
 
 
Here is an early pic from late 2014 when it had the GTX 970 G1 SLI and don't have any updated pics with the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI.  The PC did run warm with the very cramped 980 Ti SLI but never went over 80 degrees during heavy gaming, it lasted 5 years of strong gaming.
 
 

 
 
 
 
With the motherboard of that build gone bad, it was time to perform another worthwhile mega upgrade since my Devil's Canyon PC lasted me nearly 6 years of hard gaming and I wasn't going to pay $200 plus for a 6 year old motherboard.  With what I said earlier why I went with a previous gen build, it was on sale, that's all, lol.  So here are the specs to my current Budget Beast and then I'll break down why I named it the Budget Beast.  Even though it's built and I'm gaming on it right now, there are a few upgrades such as new much quieter fans for my EVGA CLC 360 are in the works.  As the photos show, it's not the prettiest rig out there and there is a reason for that.  I game from the comfort of my couch and I actually turned off all of that rainbow stuff.  The EVGA CLC 360 fit up front and I mounted all three EVGA fans up front and then two of the Cooler Master fans inside for a push pull effect.  I prefer my rig nice and dark while gaming on my 55 inch Samsung Q60R Series QLED TV.  It's why aesthetics isn't very important because I was on a budget and wanted the best bang for my buck build that has upgrade potential for the next 5 years and it's tucked to the side of my TV stand. 
 
 
i9 9900K w/ EVGA CLC 360 (stock fans are a bit noisy when they spin up but I game with headset, no issue there)
2x GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme in SLI later upgraded (a week later, lol) to GTX 1080 Ti Strix in SLI w/ HP HB SLI Bridge
ASUS Maximus Hero XI CoD Black Ops 4 Edition
32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 CL14
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1 (reused it since it has a 10 year warranty through EVGA and still going strong)
Cooler Master NR600 case
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M2 SSD w/ Windows 10 Pro x64
Intel 530 Series 480GB SATA SSD (reused it and now serves as extra storage)
2x Toshiba HK3R2 960GB SATA Enterprise SSD for games and storage
ASUS PCE-AC88 Wifi (much better reception and download speeds over old Wireless N wifi)
3x 120mm fans (from previous build and used in the Budget Beast) and then 6x more fans from CLC 360, case, so the PC has 3x EVGA 120mm intake fans for CLC 360 out front, then two 120mm Cooler Master fans for pull duty inside the case, then one 120mm fan for rear of PC and finally two 120mm fans for exhaust duty at the top of the case.
 
 
I play on a 55 inch Samsung Q60R Series QLED TV with a pair of Sennheiser GSP 600 headset.  The TV supports native 120hz at both 1080p and 1440p, then 4K 60hz with HDR, Freesync (Too bad all current Nvidia cards don't support Freesync through HDMI), and sub 9 ms input lag.  So for games that I want looking pretty run at 4K 60hz and for shooters like Destiny 2, I play them at 1440p 120hz.  I also don't care about fancy KB/M because I game with an XBOX One Elite controller.  Long story short, I had a bad car accident way back in 2003 and my right wrist which is my mouse hand is not normal.  It hurts my wrist to play over one hour with the KB/M, so I've been a couch gamer with various XBOX controllers for over a decade now.  I use Pinnacle Game Profiler for the older games that don't have native controller support.  I have used the same Cooler Master Devastator II KB/M for as long as that previous PC build and they are working fine from a tray I have beside my recliner whenever I browse the web.  
 
 
The Budget Beast 0.9 w/ GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI.   I decided to upgrade them because 80 degrees is too warm these days and I was running out of VRAM with 6GB the cards had.  Many games played at 4K 45+ FPS at ultra settings, it wasn't bad overall but the lack of VRAM made me realize how dated the GTX 980 Ti are now.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Then by sheer luck, I stumbled into a local sale of two ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti for cheap, I jumped on it and now my Budget Beast runs better and much cooler despite the SLI setup.  Here is the Budget Beast 1.0 in it's ok looking glory! 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
I took this screenshot to show the temperatures as I was playing Destiny 2 with all settings cranked to max at 1440p 120hz.  The PC runs much cooler with the GTX 1080 Ti SLI setup, that makes me very happy.  During one hour of heavy gaming in Destiny 2, the highest temperature I saw for the hottest GPU was 65 degrees for the top card and 60 degrees for the bottom card.  The CPU never went above 40 degrees which is awesome and I get plenty of performance over my older i7 4790K just running the factory clocks.  The RAM has the XMP profile enabled to run at DDR4 3200 CL14, my games are snappy, no complaints there.  The GTX 1080 Ti's do run their factory overclock settings through the ASUS GPU Tweak tool.  Sure, I can overclock like crazy, I won't for now because the performance is good so far and it runs pretty cool while gaming for a few hours even so far.  I run my desktop at 1440p because 120hz makes it more comfortable to see the mouse pointer move around the screen.  The TV doesn't have an issue from switching to 4K 60hz and back to 1440p 120hz. 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Seeing such high FPS at 1440p with a few dips to 110 here and there makes me one happy gamer gaming from the comfort of my couch.  I turned off all the rainbow light shows because I want my mancave to be dark during gaming.  Sure, there are 240hz panel gaming monitors and more, but there isn't yet an affordable 55 inch 4k 120hz+ TV yet for us couch gamers, so 1440p 120hz is great for now  
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Sorry I didn't post each step of the build, I was just in a hurry to get to gaming while making sure everything works good.  So far, so good now for why I call this build the Budget Beast.  After deciding if I wanted another Z97 motherboard or not, I made the list of things to buy because they were all on sale at my local Micro Center last week and such.  I bought the following:
 
i9 9900K and ASUS Maximus Hero XI BLOPS4 bundle - $749.98 at Micro Center
EVGA CLC 360 - $140.25 at Newegg
32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 CL14 - $197.99 at Newegg
Cooler Master NR600 - $69.99 at Micro Center
1TB Samsung 970 EVO M2 SSD - $179.99 at Micro Center
Cooler Master MasterGel Maker thermal paste for EVGA CLC 360 and CPU - Free from a friend of mine that had extra from a build he just did last month
2x ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti - $500 for both cards from a local sale
ASUS PCE-AC88 Wifi card - Free because it was a birthday gift this past May
HP High Bandwidth SLI Bridge - Free from friend who didn't need it after upgrading to RTX 2080 SLI from GTX 1070 SLI
 
Grand Total for the new parts:  $1418.49 (Including VA State taxes and free shipping for Newegg parts), with the cost of both the GTX 1080 Ti's included - $1918.49
 
 
Now now, nearly two grand is not budget friendly, so what I did to name my new rig the Budget Beast, I sold many parts of my Devil's Canyon build to fund it.  These are the things I sold for to help lessen the cost of the Budget Beast:
 
i7 4790k w/ Hyper 212 Evo push pull setup, broken motherboard, 16GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 CL9 (four sticks plus RAM cooler), 240GB Sandisk Ultra II SATA SSD and the Cougar Evolution tower - $400 to a local Ebay flipper who says the i7 4790k still sells for several hundred because of Win 7 support that many users overseas still use and the RAM is still very good for its age. 
2x Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI - $450 to a local guy a day before purchasing my 1080 Ti SLI
 
Grand total of sale from old parts:  $850
 
 
 
The grand total after buying and selling:  $1068.49 including taxes and such
 
Now you see why I called this build the Budget Beast?  It's because it's quite the beast for costing me less than $1100 since the older parts I reused don't count towards the total of this build since they were paid for six years ago now.  I did take a risk with the used GTX 1080 Ti, they were used for mining but after stress testing them, both cards work great and both are still under factory warranty from ASUS until Oct of 2021.  The guy I bought the cards from gave me the original receipts just in case I need to file an RMA between now and Oct of 2021.  Both cards were purchased on the same day too and now that I've been gaming on the Budget Beast for a week now, I'm one happy gamer.  I do plan to upgrade to 64GB of RAM if I ever need to and will also upgrade the GTX 1080 Ti SLI sometime in 2022 in time for Elder Scrolls VI into either RTX 3080 Ti or the generation after that in SLI.  Then I hope after the next GPU and RAM  upgrade, this Budget Beast will last me until 2025.  I may even get a new full size tower to help the cards run cooler and to make space for the future SLI setup I have and maybe care about aesthetics then too, lol.
 

Hey all, new to the forums but a bit old school in the world of PC gaming.  As my name implies, I'm a big fan of Halo since the Halo CE days on the OG XBOX back in 2001.
 
A bit of history about my past builds with some pictures even!
 
My first PC (no pictures sadly) was back in 2003 when I was given an older Dell desktop that had 512mb of RAM (a lot for 2003, lol), a 1ghz Pentium III CPU and a 40GB HDD.  Then for my first foray into the wonderful world of PC gaming, I worked at a car wash when I was a junior in high school and bought an Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti 4800 128mb.  I was a very happy gamer until my next PC that was truly my first built PC.
 
The first PC I built in late 2006 was also my most overkill and expensive PC I ever built, never again, lol.  I was also a terrible wiring management noob and soon learned the importance of proper wiring management when my PC became a space heater during the summer.  Sadly, these are the only pictures I still have of that yesteryear beast before I upgraded to a 30 inch Dell Ultrasharp 2560x1600 resolution that was glorious on Oblivion modded from that 21 inch Gateway 1650x1050 monitor.  My rig was air cooled because water cooling was in it's infancy and I was not ready when you didn't have complete kits like we have today and was truly custom built at the time.  This PC cost me over 6K at the time and it was ugly inside with the bad wiring management.  Sadly, I lost my HDD that had updated pics with vastly improved wiring management, Logitech G51 speakers, all green LED fans, more RAM and the Dell Ultrasharp display.  I also eventually upgraded to all green LED fans so it was an even look inside the tower but don't have pictures of it sadly.  I was broke but one very happy gamer for the next four years and learned not to charge your credit card to max, took me a year to pay it all off right before the Great Recession hit in late 2007.  Forgive my messy room, I was in college at the time and didn't really care to clean my room like many young college aged kids were back then lol.  I was only 20 years old when I built this beast that juggled college life, work (assistant manager at Safeway) and many many many hours of happy gaming and dating, lol.  I sold that yesteryear beast in mid 2010 because of the Great Recession and being tight on money, I sold it for $800 for everything.  I plan do to a retro build and try to rebuild that yesteryear beast soon for nostalgia. 
 
These were the specs of that yesteryear beast that could actually play Crysis decently at 1650x1050 at the time with mid-high settings and console-like fps, lol.
 
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 cooled w/ Zalman CNPS9700 LED  (Couldn't find the Nvidia Edition though, I was sad)
EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard (I wanted the ASUS Striker Extreme that was sold out)
4GB (2GB at first) of Mushkin Redline XP2 DDR2 1000
2x XFX Geforce 8800 GTX in SLI (who remembers when XFX used to make Nvidia GPU's???)
Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion sound card
2x 150GB WD Raptor 10000 RPM HDD in Raid 0 w/Win XP Pro x64 then Vista Ultimate x64
2x 720 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM HDD for games and storage
Fan controller w/ multicard reader
Enermax Galaxy 1000W PSU
Cooler Master Stacker 830 Nvidia Edition
DVD burner and reader from old PC
Floppy drive, lol
Gateway 21 inch 1650x1050 monitor that could tilt later upgraded to a 30 inch Dell Ultrasharp 2650x1600 in mid 2007
Logitech Orbit MP
Logitech G5 mouse
Logitech G15 original blue keyboard
Don't remember brand 5.1 surround sound (Upgraded to Logitech G51 in 2007)
 
 
 
 
Then after I sold that yesteryear beast, I mostly stuck to console gaming because the Great Recession had a big impact on having a decent paying job at the time.  It wasn't until fall of 2014 where I built my next true gaming PC, it was a LOT more modest than the yesteryear beast.
 
i7 4790k w/ EVO 212 push pull setup
ASUS Z97-A
8GB (later 16GB) Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 w/ cooling fans
2x Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 in SLI (later upgraded to 2x Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme SLI in summer 2015)
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G
4x various SSD's from 240GB to 960GB all SATA w/Win 7 Ultimate x64 and then Win 10 Pro x64
Cougar Evolution tower
HyperX Cloud headset
Cooler Master Devastator II KB/M
XBOX One Elite controller
55 inch LG 4K 3D TV
 
 
 
I happily gamed on that PC for nearly 6 years until the motherboard went bad recently.  So I finally built my latest PC, sure it's last gen Intel stuff but they were on sale at my local Microcenter where I paid $430 for my i9 9900K for example, plus, the new gen stuff was sold out.  Again, it's a bit modest and mixed with new and old parts, I call this the Budget Beast because selling my old parts helped a lot in the cost with this mega upgrade that I hope would last me for at least another 5 years with just a GPU upgrade sometime in 2022. 
 
i9 9900K w/EVGA CLC 360
ASUS Maximus Hero XI CoD BLOPS 4 Edition
32GB G.Skill RipjawsV DDR4 3200 CL14
2x Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme in SLI (Going to upgrade to 2x ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti SLI for $700 both cards locally tonight when the seller gets off at 7PM EST)
ASUS PCE-AC88 Wifi adapter (crappy signal from router, much better now and works together with mobo wifi
Samsung 970 EVO M2 SSD w/Win 10 Pro x64
4x various SSD SATA from prior build
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G from prior build (has 10 year warranty and still going strong after nearly 6 years)
Cooler Master NR600 tower
Cooler Master Devastator II KB/M
XBOX One Elite controller
55 inch Samsung Q60 series QLED TV with both 1080/1440p 120hz native and 4K 60hz panel w/Freesync and sub 10 ms input lag (great for my gaming needs from my couch)
 
 
When I sold the old i7 4790k CPU, 212 EVO cooler, broken motherboard, RAM and tower to a local guy who flips on Ebay, I made $300, not bad considering the i7 4790k sells well because of Win 7 support that many people out there still use.  Then I sold both my 980 Ti's yesterday for $500 to a local guy and tonight I will be picking up my 1080 Ti SLI.  So for the total cost I paid for the new parts (CPU, mobo, RAM, CPU WC kit, Wifi adapter, tower, thermal paste and both GPUs (they are used though)) sits at about $1900.  Now subtract the $800 I made selling the old parts and both 980 Ti's, that's a grand total of about $1100 I paid this mega upgrade cycle.  Hence the name Budget Beast because an i9 9900K, 32GB of RM and two GTX 1080 Ti's in SLI is not by any means a slouch but cost a modest budget.  Don't mind the fans that are dusty, I cleaned them after attaching them to the EVGA cooler radiator for a pull pull setup and the temps stay below 45 degrees under heavy gaming, it's why the PC was off because I was finishing the build.  I tested both cards at the sellers house yesterday, he just needed to take them out and such, so I'm about to leave in a while to go pick them up. 
 
 
So here I am, I hope to impart my wisdom to my fellow gamers, though, I'm a bit behind the tech curve because of the large 5+ year upgrade cycles I go for now these days.
 
 
 

I have one but I'm located in the US though.  The only thing I don't have the is the plastic container that holds the CPU since I used it when I sold my old CPU.  The box even has both the manual and even the sticker for the i5 9600k.