Help - Ray tracing build. Budget=$1k

[orlando690]

I would like to build or buy the best Ray tracing capable pc I can. My preference would be to have a rtx or amd equivalent. (i have not actually read about Ray tracing all I know is there are dedicated cards and those that have been given an update for it).

 

My plan is to game on it and also to work on a game idea I have using UE4. 

 

My budget is $1,000.00 including taxes. 

 

Criteria:

1.Don't include keyboard/mouse, disc reader, Arctic silver 7 or OS. 

2.PSU under $60 because I have an 850w bronze on a pc without a gpu and i5-3570k. 

3. No case - making 1 from wood. 

4.I like overclockable cpus but not necesarry. 

5.Msi is my preferred brand but not necessary. 

6.Prefer SSD (even a cheap brand I bought with 250gigs is much better than hdds and costed around same or cheaper than hdd). Unless I can afford an M.2, guessing much better performance. An ssd and hdd combo is cool if the money won't decrease the gpu or cpu I can buy instead. 

 

Thank you so much for your help. I will actually work on this myself, just hoping someone with more knowledge or that has already seen or made one of these beasts can help me. 

 

Edit: pcpartpicker.com does not include taxes. Just FYI. No worries though easy to calculate. 

[Jurrunio]

25 minutes ago, orlando690 said:

i have not actually read about Ray tracing 

Then read it, and accept that realtime RT is not yet mature to be something to aim for at lower budgets.

[Herman Mcpootis]

which country? which exact PSU do you have?

[GoldenLag]

Raytracing isnt worth it yet. Give it 5 years or so and i think we will have a good experience implemented in a game.

 

I would also suggest waiting like 15 days for Zen 2 to drop (happening at Computex afaik)

[orlando690]

15 minutes ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

which country? which exact PSU do you have?

USA California. Thermaltake 850W bronze that's all I know. 

[Herman Mcpootis]

Just now, orlando690 said:

Thermaltake 850W bronze that's all I know. 

check which model you have first because thermaltake has both good and bad units.

[orlando690]

14 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

Raytracing isnt worth it yet. Give it 5 years or so and i think we will have a good experience implemented in a game.

 

I would also suggest waiting like 15 days for Zen 2 to drop (happening at Computex afaik)

I will start buying parts in about 2 weeks actually so that's nice. 

So if it's not worth it yet, whats the best pc you recommend then? Go ahead and link to any recommendations. 

[orlando690]

5 minutes ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

check which model you have first because thermaltake has both good and bad units.

Smart M 850W Bronze

SP-850MPCBxx

 

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.89 @ OutletPC) wait for zen 2 if possible.
Motherboard: MSI - B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($93.80 @ Amazon) 
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: HP - EX900 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($63.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($57.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB XC GAMING Video Card  ($469.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($53.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $959.53
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-18 03:49 EDT-0400

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, orlando690 said:

Smart M 850W Bronze

SP-850MPCBxx

 

@LienusLateTips

[GoldenLag]

10 minutes ago, orlando690 said:

So if it's not worth it yet, whats the best pc you recommend then? Go ahead and link to any recommendations. 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.89 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: MSI - B450M BAZOOKA V2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($84.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: HP - EX920 512 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($67.99 @ Newegg Business) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($57.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX VEGA 64 8 GB NITRO+ Video Card  ($399.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($73.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $904.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-18 04:00 EDT-0400

 

Best i can recommend ar the given pricepoint. Save the 100$ and put it towards something nice. The Vega 64 is such a steal with the best variant of it (nitro+) being the cheapest.

[orlando690]

5 minutes ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.89 @ OutletPC) wait for zen 2 if possible.
Motherboard: MSI - B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($93.80 @ Amazon) 
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: HP - EX900 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($63.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($57.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB XC GAMING Video Card  ($469.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($53.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $959.53
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-18 03:49 EDT-0400

Thank you for the pc part picker link and recommendation.

I love that you recommended ryzen I've wanted it since it's first announcement. Now I get to have the new version. 

It looks like I won't even need to get my 850wat. 

My 850w is 80+ forgot about that. 

[orlando690]

7 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.89 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: MSI - B450M BAZOOKA V2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($84.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: HP - EX920 512 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($67.99 @ Newegg Business) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($57.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX VEGA 64 8 GB NITRO+ Video Card  ($399.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($73.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $904.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-18 04:00 EDT-0400

 

Best i can recommend ar the given pricepoint. Save the 100$ and put it towards something nice. The Vega 64 is such a steal with the best variant of it (nitro+) being the cheapest.

Thank you for the recommendation. Looking at the comparisons and they are very close. 

[orlando690]

8 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: MSI - B450M BAZOOKA V2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($84.99 @ Amazon) 
 

Would you happen to know of a comparable mobo that has a power button since I won't be using a case. 

[GoldenLag]

47 minutes ago, orlando690 said:

Would you happen to know of a comparable mobo that has a power button since I won't be using a case. 

just use a screwdriver or get one from ebay for nothing. 

[trevb0t]

Here's what an Intel build could look like. I did go a little over, but I don't feel like I made big cuts. It's a quality build that checks your boxes:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor	$259.89 @ OutletPC
CPU Cooler	ARCTIC - Freezer 34 eSports DUO CPU Cooler	$39.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte - Z390 UD ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$109.89 @ OutletPC
Memory	OLOy - 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$73.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial - BX500 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$29.95 @ Amazon
Video Card	MSI - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB DUKE OCV1 Video Card	$479.99 @ Newegg
Power Supply	Corsair - TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$53.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1067.68
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$1047.68
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-18 14:12 EDT-0400

• The 9600K will give better FPS in most gameplay than really even the 2700X on the AMD side. However, if you're a heavy content creator or plan CPU based streaming, there may be better options (like the 2700/X.) It is of course overclockable as requested.
• eSports Duo is plenty to keep the i5 cool on an OC, and the Z390 UD has plenty of VRM support, as well as support for RAM at these speeds.
• I threw a 240GB SSD in there for cost efficiency. Really either a 500GB or a 120GB and a 500GB 7200RPM HDD may be a better buy if you can save a little extra. BX500 is a solid SATA SSD.
• SOLID RTX 2070 for your request of Ray Tracing capability. This also provides the possibilty of Shadowplay streaming that is less CPU intensive. (And limited in quality.) Great cooler on this overclocked model at a competitive price. Note for your case you plan to build that this is a long 3 fan GPU. And hey! MSI!
• Solid PSU within requested budget.
• Mostly unintentionally a nice black and white build! (I picked the white RAM since it wasn't much difference in price. Same with the cooler.)

Overall, if gaming is your aim, and the idea that Shadowplay can provide the streaming you desire (if any), this budget will achieve higher frames than the Ryzen variants. It's certainly hard to argue the value of the Vega 56/64 right now which perform similarly to a 2060/2070 respectively. The cases where they surpass are few, and there are cases (I've noted especially in Ubisoft titles) where they do lose up to 15% to nVidia. So really the GPU choice becomes, "Do I want the best price to performance, or do I want to spend the extra dollars and grab all the features I came here looking for?" I think if it fits in the budget, it fits in the budget.

 

Really I won't advocate either way, just drop an alternative to what's already been suggested so you see that you have some options. Ray tracing only has a few use cases thus far in games, and it's been pretty limited. That said, the new Unreal Engine is building around it, and making it a lot more accessible to creators. So we will only see more of it, if for no other reason than that it's that easy to implement. Anthony did a neat video on it recently.

 

11 hours ago, orlando690 said:

Unless I can afford an M.2, guessing much better performance

Not necessarily. There's M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe, then there's of course the different kinds of SSD like NAND which apply as well.

Essentially if you're building for heavy content creation, you want M.2 NVMe. If you just want a quick boot time, you want a SATA SSD. That could be either 2.5" or M.2 since they are the same gear. M.2 is just the reader slot and form factor of the drive. 

NVMe is much faster than SATA for creating and transferring files, but offers zero benefit to gaming. If the files being created or moved aren't massive, then NVMe is an unnecessary purchase either way.

[orlando690]

7 hours ago, trevb0t said:

Here's what an Intel build could look like. I did go a little over, but I don't feel like I made big cuts. It's a quality build that checks your boxes:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor	$259.89 @ OutletPC
CPU Cooler	ARCTIC - Freezer 34 eSports DUO CPU Cooler	$39.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte - Z390 UD ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$109.89 @ OutletPC
Memory	OLOy - 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$73.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial - BX500 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$29.95 @ Amazon
Video Card	MSI - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB DUKE OCV1 Video Card	$479.99 @ Newegg
Power Supply	Corsair - TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$53.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1067.68
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$1047.68
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-18 14:12 EDT-0400

• The 9600K will give better FPS in most gameplay than really even the 2700X on the AMD side. However, if you're a heavy content creator or plan CPU based streaming, there may be better options (like the 2700/X.) It is of course overclockable as requested.
• eSports Duo is plenty to keep the i5 cool on an OC, and the Z390 UD has plenty of VRM support, as well as support for RAM at these speeds.
• I threw a 240GB SSD in there for cost efficiency. Really either a 500GB or a 120GB and a 500GB 7200RPM HDD may be a better buy if you can save a little extra. BX500 is a solid SATA SSD.
• SOLID RTX 2070 for your request of Ray Tracing capability. This also provides the possibilty of Shadowplay streaming that is less CPU intensive. (And limited in quality.) Great cooler on this overclocked model at a competitive price. Note for your case you plan to build that this is a long 3 fan GPU. And hey! MSI!
• Solid PSU within requested budget.
• Mostly unintentionally a nice black and white build! (I picked the white RAM since it wasn't much difference in price. Same with the cooler.)

Overall, if gaming is your aim, and the idea that Shadowplay can provide the streaming you desire (if any), this budget will achieve higher frames than the Ryzen variants. It's certainly hard to argue the value of the Vega 56/64 right now which perform similarly to a 2060/2070 respectively. The cases where they surpass are few, and there are cases (I've noted especially in Ubisoft titles) where they do lose up to 15% to nVidia. So really the GPU choice becomes, "Do I want the best price to performance, or do I want to spend the extra dollars and grab all the features I came here looking for?" I think if it fits in the budget, it fits in the budget.

 

Really I won't advocate either way, just drop an alternative to what's already been suggested so you see that you have some options. Ray tracing only has a few use cases thus far in games, and it's been pretty limited. That said, the new Unreal Engine is building around it, and making it a lot more accessible to creators. So we will only see more of it, if for no other reason than that it's that easy to implement. Anthony did a neat video on it recently.

 

Not necessarily. There's M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe, then there's of course the different kinds of SSD like NAND which apply as well.

Essentially if you're building for heavy content creation, you want M.2 NVMe. If you just want a quick boot time, you want a SATA SSD. That could be either 2.5" or M.2 since they are the same gear. M.2 is just the reader slot and form factor of the drive. 

NVMe is much faster than SATA for creating and transferring files, but offers zero benefit to gaming. If the files being created or moved aren't massive, then NVMe is an unnecessary purchase either way.

Thank you so much this was very helpful and informative. Although my preference is intel, I really want to wait and see how the zen2 cpus do. I think I might wait until the end of the month to see what kind of performance they provide, been wanting an amd build. 

 

From what I am seeing right now the 9600k seems like the better option, but what do you think about the new 3000 serious I see that at the same price point the r5 will have similar GHz and base/boost clocks. I know the real release info is yet to come. 

 

Thank you for the color scheme BTW I didn't think it was possible to get a decent color scheme at this price point when favoring power. 

[trevb0t]

48 minutes ago, orlando690 said:

Thank you so much this was very helpful and informative. Although my preference is intel, I really want to wait and see how the zen2 cpus do. I think I might wait until the end of the month to see what kind of performance they provide, been wanting an amd build. 

 

From what I am seeing right now the 9600k seems like the better option, but what do you think about the new 3000 serious I see that at the same price point the r5 will have similar GHz and base/boost clocks. I know the real release info is yet to come. 

I think if you can wait, it's a good idea to do so. Literally everything we've heard is hearsay, except that they will have more cores than 2nd gen. (Which still might be..)

 

Essentially the only way Zen 2 will actually beat Intel in gaming performance is if they can improve single core performance by at least 20ish percent. 

Since they showed it off previously by demonstrating cinebench scores, and not like Metro Exodus or something where it's already getting beat out, I'd speculate that the strength (like it is now) is in the multi core performance, though I would love to be proven wrong!

(The only other way is if all games move toward multi core draw rather than single. Most engines just aren't doing it currently.)