Gaming pc upgrade, advice wanted ($1000 ish)

[fael097]

hey, I'm upgrading my gaming pc, and needed some help. here's my current config:

 

mobo: asus p6t (x58)

cpu: intel i7 930 (lga 1366)

vga: zotac geforce gtx 660

psu: corsair tx 750

hdd: 1tb wd green caviar (x2 units)

ram: 18gb ddr3 1600mhz (3x4gb + 3x2gb)

cpu cooling: hyper 212 plus with 2 fans

case: nzxt s340 with 2 120mm intake fans and 1 rear 120mm exhaust fan. (and 1 top 140mm exhaust fan wich I had to disconnect until i figure out since it was causing negative pressure)

 

the nzxt case is part of the upgrade, first thing I bought, since I wanted minimalistic design, and a small tower with no need for front optical dirve or hdd bays.

 

currently I'm thinking of getting this:

 

ssd: kingston 240gb (a must, I use ssd at work, and I'm not sure how I survive without one at home)

cpu: intel xeon x5670 (wanted to upgrade my cpu but there was no need for a new and expensive unit just for gaming. not to mention I'd need to spend extra bucks in a new motherboard and ram)

vga: geforce gtx 980 ti (not sure what brand, but probably a reference model for water cooling)

expansion: pcie usb 3.0 or 3.1 card to connect my case's front usb, pcie sata III card to get maximum speed from ssd, and a usb - sata cable, if I ever want to connect my old bdrw drive or another drive for some reason;

-water cooling: swiftech h240 x2 (not sure if lga 1366 compatible) and alphacool gpu block + not sure wich fittings and tubing.

 

all that would be around $1000ish (not counting the expansio cards wich I'm buying anyway)

 

what do you think? any suggestions?

[toiletshower]

24 minutes ago, fael097 said:

hey, I'm upgrading my gaming pc, and needed some help. here's my current config:

 

mobo: asus p6t (x58)

cpu: intel i7 930 (lga 1366)

vga: zotac geforce gtx 660

psu: corsair tx 750

hdd: 1tb wd green caviar (x2 units)

ram: 18gb ddr3 1600mhz (3x4gb + 3x2gb)

cpu cooling: hyper 212 plus with 2 fans

case: nzxt s340 with 2 120mm intake fans and 1 rear 120mm exhaust fan. (and 1 top 140mm exhaust fan wich I had to disconnect until i figure out since it was causing negative pressure)

 

the nzxt case is part of the upgrade, first thing I bought, since I wanted minimalistic design, and a small tower with no need for front optical dirve or hdd bays.

 

currently I'm thinking of getting this:

 

ssd: kingston 240gb (a must, I use ssd at work, and I'm not sure how I survive without one at home)

cpu: intel xeon x5670 (wanted to upgrade my cpu but there was no need for a new and expensive unit just for gaming. not to mention I'd need to spend extra bucks in a new motherboard and ram)

vga: geforce gtx 980 ti (not sure what brand, but probably a reference model for water cooling)

expansion: pcie usb 3.0 or 3.1 card to connect my case's front usb, pcie sata III card to get maximum speed from ssd, and a usb - sata cable, if I ever want to connect my old bdrw drive or another drive for some reason;

-water cooling: swiftech h240 x2 (not sure if lga 1366 compatible) and alphacool gpu block + not sure wich fittings and tubing.

 

all that would be around $1000ish (not counting the expansio cards wich I'm buying anyway)

 

what do you think? any suggestions?

Hey man nice build, I thought you might need a cpu and mobo upgrade , because your socket is becoming outdated. I tried to find a reference card for that water cooling, but I threw in a hybrid. I don't know if you would like that or if you want to use a custom loop. https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Heuron/saved/#view=JD6CmG

[fael097]

it's indeed a bit outdated, I considered that, and I wanted to replace it, but it's not bottlenecking my gaming right now. getting the i5, I'd spend 295 bucks on cpu, mobo and ram, when I can get a xeon x5670 for 95 bucks, save the $200 for water cooling and overclocking, and get a cpu performance with the xeon significantly better than the i5. 

 

I also considered that hybrid graphics card, but I'm paying extra for a radiator that I won't keep when I replace it.

 

I think my biggest doubt is regarding the water cooling. I was ready to settle for a swiftech h240 x2 and an alphacool gpu block, but first, I can't find information regarding the cpu block being compatible with lga 1366, then I don't know if the h240 itself is enough to cool a gpu waterblock properly, and then, I'll have to replace the waterblock if I ever replace my graphics card, so it's the same as buying the hybrid gpu.

 

I read a lot about how better than aio clcs the swiftech is, and that's why I decided to go for it before, but honestly, after that decision it went downhill. can't find a retailer, it's out of stock on almost every website but performancepcs.com, I can't find the information I need, it's frustrating. 

 

So I think I'm going back to my first option, wich was to buy a corsair h110i gt for the cpu and a h75 + a hg10 mount for the gpu. I know it's gonna be louder, and the performance won't be as good, and I've read it all about how bad those clcs are, and the mixed metals, and bla bla bla, but honestly it's cheaper, no hassle all in one units, I can find it anywhere, and I'll just have to replace the mounting brackets when I replace my graphics card. looks like the best deal for me right now

[Streetguru]

9 hours ago, fael097 said:

 

What country, what's your display set up? if you only have a single 1080p display a 980ti is going to be a complete waste to get before upgrading your display

 

18gbs of RAM is strange to see

 

My suggestion anyways, includes a 4K IPS free-sync display, clearly most games won't run at 1080p, but you'll have the display forever basically

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HXsFFT
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HXsFFT/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($196.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2HP Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($65.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 380X 4GB DD XXX OC Video Card  ($215.49 @ Newegg)
Monitor: LG 27MC67-B 60Hz 27.0" Monitor  ($449.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $958.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-23 13:37 EDT-0400

[fael097]

I'm from Brazil. bear in mind that english is not my main language, so I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but the opposite, I highly appreciate your feedback, it's just the only way I know how to express myself in english, but sometimes people can misinterpret what I write.

 

My display is a 42" 1080p TV mounted to my bedroom wall. a 27 inch monitor at 4k would represent no benefit for me. even if it was a 4k 42" tv, it would highly decrease fps without improving image quality. Even having 4 times the pixel count of 1080p, I'm already not able to see the actual pixels from my bed's distance. And regarding your suggestion specifically, it's 27" so it's obviously not applicable to my situation. and since I don't game on a desk, only from bed using a gamepad, the only display upgrade I could consider would be a 50" or bigger 4k TV, and that still costs a shit ton of money, so right now I'm not upgrading my display, I'm actually still very satisfied with it.

 

that said, how come a 980ti is going to be a complete waste with my TV? you mean It can run every game that's out or that will be released this year at maximum settings (including 8x msaa) at steady 60fps, as long as it's at 1080p? if not, then it's not a waste, and even though it could run that, the better the graphics card, the longer it takes for it to become a bottleneck, and that's how long it takes for me to upgrade a pc part, until it dies off, or until it becomes a bottleneck, wichever comes first. so what I mean is that yes, a 980 ti would present a huge improvement from a 380x even if on a 1080p screen, and with it's better performance and 6gb it would take significantly longer for it to become a bottleneck in the long run. 980ti scored 11.636 vs 380 x's 5.921 points on videocard benchmark.

 

my pc has 18gb of ram because I bought 3x 2gb when I build it, and then I bought 3x 4gb when I upgraded. 1366 is a triple channel architecture, and p6t has 6 dimm slots. of course that gigabyte has a lga 1511 socket, wich is upgradable to a cpu way much better than mine, but even though my mobo is already 6 years old, it's still arguably more future proof than a mobo with only 2 dimms slots and 1 pcie x16. (not that I plan on doing SLI, but still). my p6t also can have the inputs to connect a 7.1 surround setup, wich even though I only used once, is still a bonus. I'm not considering that the gigabyte has sata III and usb 3.1 ports because I included those as expansion cards on my upgrade.

 

I know my i7 930 is a bit outdated, but actually at first I didn't plan on upgrading it, it's still not a bottleneck for gaming, and I'm only considering the xeon because it's a 12 thread really cheap processor that fits into my motherboard's socket and can be overclocked. and also because I work with 3d rendering software. and even though I don't work at home (I have 2 slave 4790Ks at work for rendering), I still prefer having multiple cores just in case. puting it in numbers, the xeon would be a $95 upgrade, and even adding the expansion cards, wich wouldn't be needed if I upgraded my motherboard, that upgrade would still cost me only $130, compared to the $300 ish of the parts you picked, if you round up to include the shipping. your setup would also cost me 10gb of ram, that even though it's 2400mhz compared to my 1600mhz, it's still 10gb less, (notice that the i5 6500 will only benefit from ddr4 up to 2133mhz, but I put that between brackets because the xeon x5670 only benefits from ddr3 up to 1333mhz anyways, while I have 1600mhz dimms). All that aside, the i5 6500 scored 7,043 on cpu benchmark, while the much older xeon x5670 scored 8,130, the difference being that the i5 has 4 threads, while the xeon has 12, and number of cores usually beats single core speed on most tasks, specially nowdays that every piece of software can benefit from distributing load between multiple cores/threads. number of cores is dramatically better than single core performance in rendering.

 

your setup also didn't include any water cooling wich would be the best improvement for me second to the graphics card, since it would enable me to do much higher overclocks, and juice that extra performance that I seek. water cooling is also my biggest doubt on what parts I should buy.

 

so, summing up, your suggestion versus my current build along with my upgrade selection so far:

-screen: 15 less inches, I'd say 20 less fps for an unoticeable 4 times increase in pixel count 

-cpu: 8 less threads and 9% less overall performance for the hability to use ddr4

-ram: 10gb less ram just for a marginal clock speed increase;

-mobo: 2 less pcie x16 slots and 4 less dimm slots, for a 1151 socket and ddr4

-vga: 2gb less vram and 51% less overall performance for no benefits except the price

-no water cooling

-arbitrarily 50% to 90% less overclocking performance

 

I confess I didn't know where I was going to get when I started replying this, but now it looks like a paid downgrade. it has no benefits at all!