Overkill gaming PC - need CPU advice (8k budget)

[6inline]

Hey everybody,

 

my name is Chris and I'm planning on a new gaming PC with maximum performance for basically everything I throw at it (PCPartPicker list below). I haven't build a PC in about 4-5 years, so I'm a little rusty. My budget is about 5000€ (EU) but if you think I could substiantially improve my build I'd be willing to pay a little extra.

I will be playing AAA titles (Far Cry 5, CoD:BO4, Shadow of the Tom Raider, Anthem, Division 2, Destiny 2) and some less demanding games like CS:GO. I will also be streaming and doing some video editing and rendering. At the moment I have an Alienware AW3418DW monitor ready to go (may upgrade to Asus PG35QV is this thing is ever released) and I'm going to pick up a 4K monitor for this build too. I'm also very interested in VR.

 

Obvious CPU choice seems to be the 9900K for a gaming build like this. However, I want to go NVLink with 2x 2080 Ti. Yes, I have seen then benchmarks and I am aware that not all games scale with SLI and it's not a 100% increase in performance - it's still worth the money for me.

This is where things get a little complicated and I need your help: as you can see below I want to install a 970 Pro m.2 SSD on top of the 2 GPUs . I have 16 lanes directly from the CPU, right? There should be enough lanes for the m.2 ssd from the chipset - is there a performance difference between the cpu and chipset lanes when using an m.2 ssd? I am asking because I was also thinking about upgrading to a x299 chipset and a 9980XE CPU because of the PCIe lane limitation of the GPus. If I understand correctly there should only be a 1-2% difference in performance when running the GPUs on 8x/8x compared to 16x/16x, is that right?

 

Would the upgrade to a 9980XE CPU be worth it or would I sacrifice more performance by ditching the 9900K than I can gain by 16x/16x SLI and potential SSD performance?

 

PCPartPicker: 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$528.90 @ OutletPC
CPU Cooler	Asus - ROG RYUJIN 360 121.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$279.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Asus - ROG MAXIMUS XI EXTREME EATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$599.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Corsair - Dominator Platinum 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-4000 Memory
Storage	Samsung - 970 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$377.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	Asus - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB ROG Strix Gaming OC Video Card (2-Way SLI)
Video Card	Asus - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB ROG Strix Gaming OC Video Card (2-Way SLI)
Power Supply	Corsair - AX1500i 1500 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$499.90 @ OutletPC
Operating System	Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit	$124.79 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$2421.56
	Mail-in rebates	-$10.00
	Total	$2411.56
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-21 07:55 EST-0500

 

[LukeSavenije]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$528.90 @ OutletPC
CPU Cooler	be quiet! - Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler	$82.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard	Gigabyte - Z390 AORUS MASTER ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$239.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$259.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$129.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$147.00 @ Amazon
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB XC ULTRA GAMING Video Card (2-Way SLI)	$1329.99 @ B&H
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB XC ULTRA GAMING Video Card (2-Way SLI)	$1329.99 @ B&H
Power Supply	Corsair - Professional 1200 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$169.97 @ Newegg
Operating System	Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit	$124.79 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$4393.59
	Mail-in rebates	-$50.00
	Total	$4343.59
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-21 08:06 EST-0500

imo this build would make way more sense. I can explain if you want me to, but you might want to know about the power delivery of asus z390 boards.

[6inline]

7 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

imo this build would make way more sense. I can explain if you want me to, but you might want to know about the power delivery of asus z390 boards.

Thanks for taking the time and coming up with an entire build suggestion. I would sure love to know about the changes you made especially the mainboard. I was thinking about going Corsair Vengeance or G.Skill Trident Z RGB for the looks anyways.

 

Any input about my other questions regarding m.2, pcie-lanes and z390 vs x299?

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, 6inline said:

Thanks for taking the time and come up with an entire build suggestion. I would sure love to know about the changes you made especially the mainboard. I was thinking about going Corsair Vengeance or G.Skill Trident Z RGB for the looks anyways.

 

Any input about my other questions regarding m.2, pcie-lanes and z390 vs x299?

well, I don't know about the maximus specifficly, but they made a horrible mistake on the crosshair on z390, the gigabyte boards on the other hand are great. the master has a 12 phase power design, I thought the maximus had 8, but I'm not sure, but even if it has 10 phase, it wouldn't be worth double the price. I chose the hx1200i because it was much cheaper and just 300 watts less, which is still really overkill, but I get it if you have that much to spend, I chose for the xc's because you can put it inside a custom loop without bricking the warrenty, and if we're not in the asus ecosystem, i thought the choise wouldn't be a problem. the strix is a great card tho. the dark rock pro 4 because asus aio's are overprices acetecs, and you can get as good for less. and the vengeance because you can actually get some fake sticks if you want to keep the slots filled for looks. 

 

16x and 8x doesn't matter by that much, you could get into the x series, but you need some serious cooling for it (for the 9900k too, but that aside) and a way more expensive mobo, Imo not worth it.

[6inline]

Thank you for the detailed answer. Im not all over RGB bling bling, but the clean asus only look was actually something that I was going for with the build. I will be looking into the mainboard problems for sure though - thanks for the heads-up. That's good to know about the vengeance fake sticks!

 

Not worth it as in: yes, the 79x0 will grant you better performance but you'll pay 1000+ € extra? When gaming on 1440p and above the cpu performance shouldn't matter as much as on 1080p, right? That's why I was thinking about 79x0 as I might be better off with full SLI potential for that resolution and above. However the 9900K seems to be way better for gaming and I'm not sure if a non-delidded 79x0 is able to compete. I don't want to spend that much more cash and end up with a less performant system in gaming.

[TH3R34P3R]

3 minutes ago, 6inline said:

I don't want to spend that much more cash and end up with a less performant system in gaming.

yeah avoid the X series. useless. piece of shit. go with the 9900k. it's very good. 

[6inline]

2 hours ago, TH3R34P3R said:

yeah avoid the X series. useless. piece of shit. go with the 9900k. it's very good. 

Really that bad for gaming? Huge drop in performance between 9900K and 79x0X both with 2x 2080Ti and 32 GB Ram?

[TH3R34P3R]

2 hours ago, 6inline said:

Really that bad for gaming? Huge drop in performance between 9900K and 79x0X both with 2x 2080Ti and 32 GB Ram?

if it's anything below 1440p? yeah it will be tbh. you want faster clock speeds. like a LOT faster if you can. and unless you wanna OC the X processor to get close to the 9900k, it's gonna be noticeable. 

[6inline]

Well I will be gaming on 3440 x 1440 minimum. Better performance with the 9900K than let's say 9980XE both in SLI? Looking at AAA-games, how much of a difference are we talking about? My monitor is 120Hz, but the upcoming ASUS ROG PG35QV for example (and other monitors with a similar panel) should be capable of much more. 8x/8x SLI with the 9900K is what is keeping me from just going with the 9900K. If there is a drastic loss of performance (FPS) with a 9980XE (16x/16x), then I'm going with the 9900K. If not and we are talking about 5-10 fps difference then I might upgrade to x299. I've found 1-2 other thread from people with a similar decision to make (that's where I get the 9980XE as a comparison from), but they never followed up with their decision or results. Answer vary from "9900K is the best. period and x299 is TERRIBLE for gaming" to "9900K will push 10-20% more frames at 1080p but 1440p and upwards there won't be a significant difference, at least nothing you'll notice unless side-by-side, if at all." At this point the 2-5% performance increase from 16x/16x might even come into play in favor for the 9980XE.
 

[6inline]

I just came across these benchmarks from tweaktown. The 9980XE seems to be on par with the 9900K or am I missing something here? System specs seem to be comparable.

 

9980XE: https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8801/intel-core-i9-9980xe-extreme-edition-review/index6.html

9900K: https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8768/intel-core-i9-9900k-9th-gen-coffee-lake-review/index6.html

[Egez85]

Hey, have you decided which CPU you want to go with? I am in the same situation and looking for advice!