960W - 4 player LAN Machines - 20A Breakers - 120FPS

[reubenahmed]

Hi,

 

I plan to build a 4 player PC LAN setup in my basement (for gaming).

 

I wired up a wall in my basement to a single 20A breaker (2400W). I read generally we want to use only 80% of the wattage (1920W).

• That leaves 480W per machine (and monitor).
  • Edit, we found we actually wired two 20A breakers here, 2PCs to each breaker, so we're actually at 960W/PC. This removes any wattage restriction really I think.
• I want to get 120FPS gaming out of each machine.
  • I realize I'll probably have to play older games to hit 120FPS because of the power requirement. 
• I suppose I could try and run 2 of the machines off another 20A breaker (I think I have another unused one), which would allow me to up the wattage per machine.

What monitors, graphics cards, and PSUs would you use in this situation? I'm thinking it'd have to be 1080p (would prefer 1440p), but I think Alienware has 25" 1080p at 240hz.

Thanks!

 

(Top row is for PCs and bottom is for monitor):

[wojtepanik]

1080fps240 is overkill, I would go for 144hz 1440p or 144hz1080p, you need the best possible powersupplies to get the efficiency to not overload the breaker, If I were you I would add 1 more breaker, as sometimes you want to heat some water for coffee, put microwave, maybe portable heater, If you would run 230V your psu's would run more efficiently and you woud have more headroom on each breaker.

[wojtepanik]

in EU we have 230v and standard breaker is 16A, so >3000w on each one, so you can rewire 1 loop to 230v

[wojtepanik]

 

[Eastman51]

I would definitely get Platinum or Titanium rated PSUs, that way you can get the most out of the power you have available.

480W isn't going to get you much, as far as gaming performance goes. And 120fps will be hard to hit with such a low powered machine, 1080p 60 is likely a better mark to aim for.

 

I would go with Ryzen APUs to save money, and they're not that bad either. You could wait for gen3 APUs to come out, which should be much improved. Otherwise, I'd go for a Ryzen 3 and 1050 Ti. 8GB of RAM is probably enough. Go with SSDs and complete air cooling to lower system power draw. 

1080p 60Hz monitors would also have lower power draw, but I would run another breaker just to be safe. It also gives you more headroom for higher-end PCs

[reubenahmed]

Good comment. Now I forget if the power romex cables we ran were 240V rated (isn't it something like 12-2 vs 12-3?). I'll have to talk to the electrician. Are most PC power supplies supporting a 230V option?

I'd like 144hz 1440p (I'm using a 120hz 1440p right now as my main gaming PC), but I didn't think I had the wattage up until now.

[ch3w2oy]

46 minutes ago, reubenahmed said:

Good comment. Now I forget if the power romex cables we ran were 240V rated (isn't it something like 12-2 vs 12-3?). I'll have to talk to the electrician. Are most PC power supplies supporting a 230V option?

I'd like 144hz 1440p (I'm using a 120hz 1440p right now as my main gaming PC), but I didn't think I had the wattage up until now.

12/3 would be better because then all you have to do is add another breaker without running another line. I doubt that's the case, though. It's more than likely a 12/2 wire. 

 

Not sure what the guy is talking about above about not getting great performance at 480w, lol. 

 

What games do you plan to run? I would get at least gold rated PSUs, the better they are, the more efficient they will run (titanium>platinum>gold).

 

What's your budget, what are you looking to spend on each machine? Does that include price for monitor? Do you have an idea what monitors you want? I assume you will be using controllers and not mouse and keyboard, right? 

 

It's hard to help without a budget, and I don't think you're going through all this trouble for cheap setups? 

 

This should be great for 1080p

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock - X470 Master SLI/AC ATX AM4 Motherboard	$109.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Team - T-Force Vulcan 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$69.99 @ Newegg Business
Storage	Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$67.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	XFX - Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card	$189.89 @ OutletPC
Case	Cooler Master - MasterBox Lite 5 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	$64.99 @ B&H
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$59.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$867.63
	Mail-in rebates	-$105.00
	Total	$762.63
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-14 06:21 EST-0500

 

 

This would be better for 1440p

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock - X470 Master SLI/AC ATX AM4 Motherboard	$109.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$119.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$67.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Windforce OC Video Card	$299.99 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master - MasterBox Lite 5 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	$64.99 @ B&H
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$59.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$987.73
	Mail-in rebates	-$65.00
	Total	$922.73
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-14 06:23 EST-0500

 

[Manderis]

I figure budget is not that much of a problem?

And 480 Watt should be plenty for your needs. Some people don't get power draw and psu choosing right. 

 

Just highes specs for gaming possible atm:

A 9900k has a tdp of 95 watt, 

A high oc 2080 ti draws 250 watt. So with the over all system you might be around ~380 Watt without overclocking. If you pump up your cpu you get higher but I just use balls to the wall hardware as an example. A 1440p 144 hz (Asus ROG Swift PG278QR) draws 90 watts not oc to 160 hz. 

So we have 470 watts under synthetic load because with regular usage you are probably not able to get it maxed. Maybe with rendering but gaming? I don't think so. 

 

If you get a good psu you have 9

~94% efficiency at 50% load (be quiet dark power pro 1000 w) and and 93% at 100% load. 

So your 470 Watt system can draw 500 watt from the wall (470W/0.94 = 500 W) 

(efficiency numbers for 230 V, 120 v is slightly lower but not much) 

 

So with four balls to the wall gaming rigs you gonna have a bad time if you want to draw more than 2000 W. 

[schwellmo92]

Build the rigs with 2600X processor and GTX 1080 and they'll only draw 250w each under gaming, 480w would be enough for 9900K and 2080 Ti.

[ch3w2oy]

And I wouldn't have ran four setups daisy chained together on the same 12/2 wire from the breaker panel. I would have ran two wires minimum from the breaker panel and split the load, even going to the same breaker. 

[ch3w2oy]

I would do something like this, myself. GTX 1080s are over priced and you can pull similar performance from a 1070 ti for less. I picked the asrock boards since they're on sale. You can add more storage if you want, I'm not sure if you planned to do something else. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock - X470 Master SLI/AC ATX AM4 Motherboard	$109.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$119.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$67.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	MSI - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8 GB Titanium Video Card	$449.99 @ Newegg Business
Case	Fractal Design - Meshify C Dark TG ATX Mid Tower Case	$98.45 @ Newegg Business
Power Supply	SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Platinum 650 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$89.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1191.29
	Mail-in rebates	-$55.00
	Total	$1136.29
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-14 06:49 EST-0500

 

[reubenahmed]

Thanks for the inputs! So I just verified (lol it's sad but I've been taking years to build out the basement, I only go down in there in the winter) - I was "half smart" and ran two 20A breakers to this location. So 20A per 2 machines.

 

This seemingly has allowed me to remove the wattage constraint (given we stay in a high quality 700-750W PSU).

 

I'm still getting an electrician over because I see I have two double pole unused breakers in the electrical panel that I "could" use to future proof this area of the basement, in case some day I get a crazy idea to do 4 on 4 LAN? Lol.

[reubenahmed]

25 minutes ago, ChewToy! said:

12/3 would be better because then all you have to do is add another breaker without running another line. I doubt that's the case, though. It's more than likely a 12/2 wire. 

 

Not sure what the guy is talking about above about not getting great performance at 480w, lol. 

 

What games do you plan to run? I would get at least gold rated PSUs, the better they are, the more efficient they will run (titanium>platinum>gold).

 

What's your budget, what are you looking to spend on each machine? Does that include price for monitor? Do you have an idea what monitors you want? I assume you will be using controllers and not mouse and keyboard, right? 

 

It's hard to help without a budget, and I don't think you're going through all this trouble for cheap setups? 

 

This would be better for 1440p

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$199.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock - X470 Master SLI/AC ATX AM4 Motherboard	$109.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$119.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$67.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Windforce OC Video Card	$299.99 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master - MasterBox Lite 5 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	$64.99 @ B&H
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$59.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$987.73
	Mail-in rebates	-$65.00
	Total	$922.73
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-14 06:23 EST-0500

 

Hi, thanks for the help so far! I suppose budget is $1000 per PC, or so, no monitor. I'll buy the monitors a month or so after, otherwise the initial budget looks too big for something that probably won't get used enough lol.

[ch3w2oy]

8 minutes ago, reubenahmed said:

Thanks for the inputs! So I just verified (lol it's sad but I've been taking years to build out the basement, I only go down in there in the winter) - I was "half smart" and ran two 20A breakers to this location. So 20A per 2 machines.

 

This seemingly has allowed me to remove the wattage constraint (given we stay in a high quality 700-750W PSU).

So you have nothing to worry about. Get a solid PSU and a decent graphics card and you should be set. I'm not sure if you could get away with 8gb if RAM for just gaming, if so that'll help reduce price. I prefer 16gb, but Im not just gaming. If you use the stock cooler on your CPU, make sure whichever case you choose, has decent airflow.

[wojtepanik]

Honestly, I don't know the wiring details, in eu it is hot neutral ground I quess. 

[Manderis]

If you want 1440p @144 you might need to consider more GPU horse power. A 1070 ti would be my minimum at that price point. But i understand those are hard to get these days. But around 350 $ they should fit the budget. Depending where you live used 1080 might even be an option for you.
Or (availability provided) GTX 2060/1160 or team Red a VEGA 56 (if you can get one). In my region it is easier to find a used vega 64 than a vega 56 for somehow the same price (~350 € in that case).

Mind you vega is a bit stronger on the power draw site (up to 300 W), so unless you can get a great deal team green is probably the better choice unless AMD is announcing something Radeon VII based in the 350 $ category anytime soon.

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rPL8q4
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rPL8q4/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($199.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock - B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($76.00 @ Newegg Business) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($67.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8 GB TURBO Video Card  ($359.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design - Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case  ($44.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.89 @ OutletPC) 
Total: $928.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-14 07:11 EST-0500

[reubenahmed]

You can see I am very slow in doing any kind of home improvement project, but got the drywall up today. 4 sheets fit perfectly, 16ft wide.