Budget Beast build

[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.

 

[emosun]

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

[Spartan 363]

10 minutes ago, emosun said:

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

I figured I give my story for why my current rig is called the Budget Beast.  For any questions, it would be much shorter and relevant data/screenshots and such inside spoiler tags. 

[dizmo]

That's my favorite way to build for sure. Except I take it a step further, reducing my costs to almost nothing.

Can't wait to build my next rig.