Rough plan for new high FPS build

[kotolus]

Hi, I'm planning on building a new PC soon and wanted to ask you guys about your opinion on buying CPUs and GPUs right now. So far I barely decided for any specific parts, but I'll just write down all the relevant characteristics. English is not my first language, sorry.

 

1. Budget & Location

About ~1100€ now (roughly the same as US$ excluding taxes I think). Possibly upgrading for additional 500€ (in addition to reselling proceeds of CPU/GPU) when Ryzen Zen-2 or RTX 30XX are released.

2. Aim

Mainly High FPS Gaming (according to a lot of YouTube CPU comparisons, the CPU performance becomes more important the higher the FPS is and the lower the graphics settings are).

I also don't want to turn off all the background applications for gaming like Discord. Possibly want to stream.

3. Monitors

1 monitor at 1080@240, possibly 1 additional one at 1080@60.

4. Peripherals

No. 

5. Why are you upgrading?

I get too little FPS in most games (~<100) right now, I want to upgrade to 240Hz. Cost for the monitor is not included.

 

Build I have in mind:

• PSU: 650W, high efficiency
• RAM: 16 GB @ ~3200 Hz
• MB: something suitable for upgrading, overclocking and including the best sound/network optimizations for gaming (not sure if this actually helps, but MB manufactures advertise it and it sounds good to have). So the MB doesn't have to be the cheapest thing.
• GPU: used 1080ti (possibly buying a new one when next gens are released)
• CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 (possibly upgrading when next gens are released)
• Hard drive: Keeping my SSD, getting a 2 TB HDD in addition.

 

The questions regarding CPU and GPU:

I want to buy/build a PC now because right now I have time for gaming. However, this doesn't seem to be a good time since the RTX cards seem to have pretty a pretty bad price-performance ratio and the Ryzen Zen-2 will be released in about 3 months and are expected to be a pretty big improvement. What do you think about buying this setup and possibly upgrading CPU/GPU later?

The CPU

Spoiler

 

is especially hard to decide on. Right now, for high FPS gaming, I'd likely go for the 9600K or 8600K since (at least with OC) it sometimes has up to 40% more FPS than the Ryzen 2600 in high FPS comparisons. However, due to the socket I'd then kind of be stuck with Intel without being able to check out Ryzen Zen-2 or profiting from a possible price drop when they are released. This is especially annoying since the 9600K come at about 250€ while the Ryzen is just 150€. In addition to that, most comparisons I could find for high FPS gaming (not many since most comparisons just look at highest settings, < 100 FPS) were barely accounting for overclocking differences between Ryzen and Intel. It seems like Intel can be overclocked far more, but that definitively would require me to get a better cooler and the price gap might be even bigger to achieve the results I saw. So since the current Ryzen socket will be used for the next 2 gens according to AMD I assume it's much more cost-efficient to go for the Ryzen (possibly with a cooler as well). The best options right now seem to be:

• 8600K/9600K with a better cooler for about 300€ (250 + 50): Almost getting max performance in terms of FPS right now, might be bad for upgrading (or for other applications like streaming) compared to Ryzen
• Ryzen 2600 stock for about 150€: Simple, cheap, not as much FPS right now though
• Ryzen 2600 OC for about 200€ with a good cooler that I'll be able to keep when I upgrade: This seems to be the best option to me right now since I assume (based on limited data) the FPS numbers barely change with additional clock speeds over 4GHz, which I hope to achieve this way. It won't be exactly as good as the i9600K with overclocking (I think you can achieve 5GHz), but has better upgradability and is better for multi core stuff.

I limited the comparison to these two CPUs right now as they seem to have the best price-performance ratio and upgrades (within Intel OR AMD CPUs) don't seem to make a big difference while the price rises quite a lot. Very curious what other people think though. 

 

 

The GPU

Spoiler

seems like a no-brainer for my requirements (if I really want to build right now, excluding the possibility to wait for the newer models). I want a really good GPU. The 2080 RTX Ti is very expensive and has a horrible price-performance ratio compared to other 'high end' cards. The 2080 has almost the same performance as the 1080 TI (if you don't care about RTX) and they are just about 400-500€ used. I'm looking to buy this one used as it's one of the parts I might upgrade anyways and, like I said, right now the price-performance ratio is bad.

 

Also, any suggestions for the mainboard? What do you think about the setup as a whole? I was aiming for a pretty high end setup with a good price-performance ratio - do you think this is it?

 

 

 

 

 

[Jurrunio]

what games are we talking about? keep in mind that 240hz monitors are for esports games because they are easy to run enough, AAA games are out of question.

[kotolus]

@Jurrunio right now Apex and Fortnite, but I definitively want to keep this setup for some time so it's likely that I'll play other shooter games at 240 or maybe a few AAA games like the Witcher 3 or Star Citizen at 60 FPS with high 1080p settings, but that's secondary as I don't mind turning down the settings a bit.

 

There are loads of Fortnite comparisions on YouTube, but even those rarely focus on really high FPS and some are weirdly inconsistent with others (1660 Ti + R 2600 got much better results than 8600K + 1080 Ti in different videos from different people). But mostly it seems like Intel can get about 20% more FPS. Price range barely matters for that. But I don't think I even found one video that was focused on high FPS, compared Intel and AMD and overclocked both, which is the most relevant case for me. They usually leave the AMD at stock clock speed, which might be the main reason for this pretty big difference.

[Jurrunio]

31 minutes ago, kotolus said:

@Jurrunio right now Apex and Fortnite, but I definitively want to keep this setup for some time so it's likely that I'll play other shooter games at 240 or maybe a few AAA games like the Witcher 3 or Star Citizen at 60 FPS with high 1080p settings, but that's secondary as I don't mind turning down the settings a bit.

 

There are loads of Fortnite comparisions on YouTube, but even those rarely focus on really high FPS and some are weirdly inconsistent with others (1660 Ti + R 2600 got much better results than 8600K + 1080 Ti in different videos from different people). But mostly it seems like Intel can get about 20% more FPS. Price range barely matters for that. But I don't think I even found one video that was focused on high FPS, compared Intel and AMD and overclocked both, which is the most relevant case for me. They usually leave the AMD at stock clock speed, which might be the main reason for this pretty big difference.

I think you should wait. 240fps in esports games are basically Intel and Intel only at this point

 

Getting a 1080ti used for 2080 new isnt a bad idea though, especially since used deals come and go.

[kotolus]

Unfortunately seems like you're right... 

Seems like even the 8700K is a bottleneck for 1080ti/2080ti at Fortnite competitive settings

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, kotolus said:

Unfortunately seems like you're right... 

Seems like even the 8700K is a bottleneck for 1080ti/2080ti at Fortnite competitive settings

Why would you play at low settings though ? Makes no sense with a 1080 ti or 2080 ti. Crank the gpu settings up to ultra then the cpu bottleneck issue goes away.

[kotolus]

@lee32ukI said I wanted to play at 240Hz. Only low settings make sense. Not even streamers with low settings and a $20.000 pc can maintain 240Hz+ all game long.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, kotolus said:

@lee32ukI said I wanted to play at 240Hz. Only low settings make sense. Not even streamers with low settings and a $20.000 pc can maintain 240Hz+ all game long.

If a 2080 ti/8700K can't handle that framerate then it isn't the fault of the hardware. The game must be an unoptimised mess.

[kotolus]

@lee32uk it is an unoptimised mess AND it's the fault of the hardware, of course.

[Guest]

RTX 2080 ti with Epic settings shows a min of 174fps and a high of 291.74fps. I am sure with a bit of tweaking you could achieve your desired frame rate without having to play at low.

 

https://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/gigabyte_rtx_2070_gaming_oc_review,14.html

[Guest]

Just now, kotolus said:

@lee32uk it is an unoptimised mess AND it's the fault of the hardware, of course.

No if the game is unoptimised then it isn't the fault of the cpu/gpu. The game engine or something else is the issue.

[kotolus]

So you think upgrading to a better CPU in the setup shown in the video won't increase the FPS?

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, kotolus said:

So you think upgrading to a better CPU in the setup shown in the video won't increase the FPS?

The 9900K would be the only other option and that isn't going to be massively different. Maybe 10% or so. If the game is that unoptimised though then you might not get a constant 240fps anyway. Thing is are you going to notice a difference anyway between 170fps and 240fps ? 

[kotolus]

Yes but I can't change how optimised the game is. So as long as the hardware still makes a difference (e.g. between R5 2600, 8600k, 8700k and maybe even 9900k) it's worth consideration. So how well optimised the game is barely makes a difference for my decision process. Even if I want to play other games (in maybe 3 years, when this setup should still allow me to get high FPS) there's no guarantee those will be better optimised or just won't have higher requirements (for the CPU).

 

And I think there is a difference, mainly because almost every pro players says so and because I've seen the difference between 60Hz and 140Hz. And since I game a lot, putting some money into the PC isn't that big a of a deal. I just want to avoid 'wasting' it by not being able to play the games the way I want to just because I 'distributed' the money inefficiently among the parts or by saving 200 out of 1100+ bucks.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, kotolus said:

Yes but I can't change how optimised the game is. So as long as the hardware still makes a difference (e.g. between R5 2600, 8600k, 8700k and maybe even 9900k) it's worth consideration. So how well optimised the game is barely makes a difference for my decision process. Even if I want to play other games (in maybe 3 years, when this setup should still allow me to get high FPS) there's no guarantee those will be better optimised or just won't have higher requirements (for the CPU).

 

And I think there is a difference, mainly because almost every pro players says so and because I've seen the difference between 60Hz and 140Hz. And since I game a lot, putting some money into the PC isn't that big a of a deal. I just want to avoid 'wasting' it by not being able to play the games the way I want to just because I 'distributed' the money inefficiently among the parts or by saving 200 out of 1100+ bucks.

Well if you are buying before Ryzen 3xxx comes out then you want an Intel cpu for 1080p high refresh rate gaming. So in order from best to worst it would be the i9 9900K > i7 9700K/i7 8700K, i5 9600K.

 

You will notice a difference between 60Hz and 144Hz for sure but once you get above that it becomes harder to notice. The majority of gamers probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference once you get above 144Hz as that refresh rate is already very smooth. Maybe a pro gamer who plays esports 24/7 but the average gamer probably wouldn't.

 

So the best option would be a 9900K and RTX 2080 ti. As shown in that link you should be hitting 170fps minimum at epic settings. You can't get a better gaming cpu and the only other faster gpu would be a Titan RTX but that is an expensive option for not a whole lot of gain. 

[kotolus]

Alright, thanks. I think, given that I don't want to wait, and buying an AMD just for the socket and the possibility of profiting from an upgrade to Zen-2 seems like a gamble, I'd probably go for the 9600k right now and possibly upgrade when the next intel gen comes out. Those will use the same socket for at least one more generation as well afaik.

 

The price of those next gen intel CPUs would likely go down as well if Ryzen represents even better competition. So in the worst cast scenario I would've only lost a part of the reselling value of 9600k, right? If Ryzen Zen-2 won't be that good I won't have lost anything. If Ryzen is that good I'll upgrade to a (likely cheaper) i7.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, kotolus said:

Alright, thanks. I think, given that I don't want to wait, and buying an AMD just for the socket and the possibility of profiting from an upgrade to Zen-2 seems like a gamble, I'd probably go for the 9600k right now and possibly upgrade when the next intel gen comes out. Those will use the same socket for at least one more generation as well afaik.

 

The price of those next gen intel CPUs would likely go down as well if Ryzen represents even better competition. So in the worst cast scenario I would've only lost a part of the reselling value of 9600k, right? If Ryzen Zen-2 won't be that good I won't have lost anything. If Ryzen is that good I'll upgrade to a (likely cheaper) i7.

Intel don't usually support boards for more than two cpu's so hard to say what the future is like. I haven't really been keeping tabs on the upcoming cpu's from them. Think CannonLake is supposed to be next ? So whether it will be on Z390 is anyone's guess. If you go with the i5 9600K though you would still have an upgrade path to the 9900K anyway as long as you get a decent board like one of the Gigabyte Aorus Z390.

[kotolus]

Yeah, thanks. I thought I had read somewhere that Intel will keep that socket for the next gen, but apparently it's just a rumor. I think it's only comfirmed for the next server CPU generation or something like that.