Build Advice

[Bonsante89]

     Hello I have seen a few of your videos and would like to say great job from info sharing to the editing and production quality of your content. You seem as though you enjoy teaching. I naturally have a slue of build advice questions and anyone who can get through and throw some knowledge in my direction would be much appreciated.

   

    With all the hype about the newest resolutions I would ideally love to have a rig I can mod all my games and play at top settings in 8k but realistically that is far too expensive at this point for me. I have seen rigs range from 800 to 8000 but I am completely ignorant when it comes to rig building and only know what I want out of one.  I want great frames at 1080p with games like skyrim and fallout 4 on max settings with lots of mods.

 

   I am somewhat of a writer and have thought of starting a channel or just expanding my skills and getting into making mods myself as a hobby and just learning about programming and animating in general so I would also need the capability of running those programs as well as screen recording. I am hoping that I can get one that is upgrade able so I can keep up without having to buy a completely new rig. Thanks in advance

[ImBleu]

Hi there @Bonsante89 and welcome to LTT's Forums

 

Firstly, I'd recommend you follow your future threads (Top Right of your post) so you can get notifications when people reply to them.

 

Secondly, If you're wishing to build a new computer or just learn about whats currently available, you'd best start off with a budget or goal in mind and then post either here or in "Build Planning" to get the recommendations you probably seek

[DDo5_5w3g_m45tr]

Hi there,

I recently built my own rig. In your first post, you state that you want great frames at 1080p for games like fallout 4 and skyrim at max settings, that you may want to start a channel, get into animating and expanding your skills. A fairly low-end machine could do this accept for the part about great frames in fallout 4 and skyrim. with your goals of this rig being starting a channel, expanding your skills and great frames in games like fallout 4 and skyrim, you may need something a little bit more beefyer. My rig sports an i7 5820k, 32 gigs of ram and a single Nvidia GeForce gtx 980. (The i7 processor and ram being a little over kill) as I do own fallout 4 I can tell you that it looks amazing and is "butter smooth" at max settings. Even at 1440p! As of now, the high end PC platform is x99 (witch my rig is based on) the more "mainstream" platform being z170, but you could go a generation back and use z97. The benifets of x99 are: more processing cores (more simultaneous tasks happening at once), higher ram capacities, more pci-e lanes and slots (more expansion cards), more sata conections (more hard drives) and improved I/o. The benefits of z170 are: lower costs on components to save money, lower power draw (draws less power from the wall), newer micro-processor architecture, much small manufacturing node (14nm), more flexibility with cpu choice and dx12 support. The benefits of z97 are: even cheaper to buy and run. As for upgradabilty, x99 and z170 are the current gen platforms witch means they should have new components released for these platforms. If you choose x99 it would be best to wait a few months as Nvidia is releasing a series of new graphics cards code named "pascal". Intel is also releasing 3 or possibly 4 new cpu's for x99 code named " broad well E" these cpu's will have more cores than the currently available has well E cpu's. As for new stuff with z170, well the only new components will be the new pascal cards. Now the big question: what platform do you choose? I recommend x99 for some reasons: the extra cores per cpu package, more options for expandability and in case you want to do some video editing and stuff. For gaming you should only need 4 cores though, the broadwell E chips will have 8 except for the super high end one witch will have 10. My cpu has 6, even this is more than enough. And for this reason, I also recommend z170 for these reasons: as just mentioned, x99 has unsesasay amounts of cores over z170, a typically higher cost for an x99 system over z170 and because z170 is newer. But it is your decision. I just have one question; how do you want to spend? I will post again replying to your response...

I do hope this helped, if you have questions feel free to ask anyone on the LTT forum

If you need further help there are great videos on some of the stuff I talked about up there on youtube

Thanks 4 reading all of that.. Phew!!

DDo5 5w3g m45tr

[Briareos7]

what is your budget?

[Streetguru]

Hello I have seen a few of your videos and would like to say great job from info sharing to the editing and production quality of your content. You seem as though you enjoy teaching. I naturally

What budget, what country, do you need a display/keyboard/mouse, ect

[Bonsante89]

       I appreciate all of the quick feedback, I was hoping to spend no more then 2000$ U.S. come tax time in a few months. I'm just unsure if it will be enough. When I was experimenting with recording/editing, mod making or modding in general I was using a 2011 mac book pro with a 2.2GHz quad-core i7 and a 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6770M with windows boot camped. Now that could barely run games like skyrim on max at 1440x900 native resolution, let alone if I wanted to do some modding or record game play. From what I understand the processor was fine but my graphics card couldn't keep up. Not only with graphical enhancements but with running scripts. I'm sure boot camping was probably my first issue and being current games don't even list 1gb specs unless its for super low settings. I have read about and external video card setup through the thunderbolt port but haven't been able to find enough information on it to justify trying one out.

    

      Also I have never built a pc before and figured if I asked a shop for advice I'd most likely get a decent but bias answer. I am up for building my own if the savings in labor is a lot. I definitely want the ability to expand to save some money in the long run. As far as platform goes I am not all that knowledgeable on the subject although I am a bit more enlightened now. I believe that covers everything apologies in advance if I missed something.

   

     I have never had any schooling in computer science and am completely self taught so if it appears I am misinformed on one of these topics please let me know and thanks again.  I know I may get some crap for this but I m originally a console gamer and use a xbox emulator on a ps4 controller. So I would probably be fine with using my tv and a standard wireless keyboard an mouse.

[DDo5_5w3g_m45tr]

hello again!

so you were hoping to spend no more than $2000 USD. With this amount of money I would recommend z170. i have had a look at some parts and i think (for what you are planning to do with this build) will work great. with my pc i spent way too much on ram ($470 AUD) way to much on the motherboard ($700 AUD) and a bit to much on peripherals (derp). if you wouldn't mind me recommending some parts, here they are:

 

(just so you know, i don't know many US computer stores as i am in Australia)

 

CPU: Intel Core I7 6700k 4.0Ghz 4.2Ghz Turbo ($420 on Newegg)

RAM: 16GB G.Skill Rip jaws V Series 3200 DDR4 Black ($115 on Newegg)

Motherboard: ASUS Z170 Deluxe ATX MoBo ($279 on Newegg)

Power Supply: Corsair RM650 80+Gold PSU ($105 on Newegg)

GPU: EVGA GTX 980 FTW ($529 on Newegg)

Case: Cooler master Master Case Pro 5 ($137 on Newegg)

CPU Cooler: Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 ($90 on Newegg)

HDD: Western Digital Black 2TB 7200 RPM ($120 on Newegg)

SSD: (for OS) 250GB Samsung 850 EVO ($98 on Newegg) > (optional)

 

so, that's what i found all for $1,893... quite a lot. but still under $2000. i believe money could be saved on the GPU, maybe a 970 for ~$300-$350 (~$150-$200 saved) a smaller SSD (not much of a saving but money saved is a start) $20-$30) and possibly the mother board. as for keyboards and stuff, I'm not sure what would work for you as you are a writer. i would recommend a mechanical keyboard, preferably with cherry mx switches for a better experience. i recently went from a membrane gaming keyboard to a corsair k70 RGB with mx reds. i will be waiting for your reply towards my list of parts and stuff. 

 

i hoped this helped

DDo5_5w3g_m45tr

[brob]

@Bonsante89, please read http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/3061-build-plan-thread-recommendations-please-read-before-posting/. You can edit the OP and add the information.

 

I would suggest using paragraphs to break up blocks of text. Makes reading much easier.

[Bonsante89]

    Thanks a lot for the list I'll definitely be using these for when I'm ready to build.

[Streetguru]

I appreciate all of the quick feedback, I was hoping to spend no more then 2000$ U.S. come tax time in a few months. I'm just unsure if it will be enough. When I was experimenting with

Then this should be fine for up to 1440p gaming, still room left over for getting a decent 4k display for productivity and other stuff

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6bWNrH

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6bWNrH/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor  ($374.99 @ SuperBiiz)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Asus X99-A/USB 3.1 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($253.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($69.99 @ Adorama)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.98 @ OutletPC)

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 390 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card  ($304.99 @ Newegg)

Case: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO ATX Desktop Case  ($94.99 @ NCIX US)

Power Supply: Rosewill 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.89 @ OutletPC)

Total: $1268.81

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-06 22:53 EST-0500

[Bonsante89]

Thanks for this other part list, now I have two to pull from. How about a good 1080p gaming experience with a large amount of mods on it and possible gameplay/recording recording software running? Hopefully It has room for expansion for when 4k gaming is a bit more common.