$8500 Build - Months in the Making

[Awakening]

13 minutes ago, rm -rf said:

Why are you willing to spend that much money?

Why not put it towards a deposit for a home?

 

 

 

 

 

I'm okay with where I live. I'd rather put it towards something I spend most of my time with. If worse comes to worse, the PC or its parts individually can still be sold for quite a lot of money regardless of the loss of resell.

16 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

I spend most of my time in my chair and it doesn't cost $1,000. IMO go to a office supply store or IKEA and try out the chairs before buying. What you see on picture and a expensive price tag, does not mean it's actually good. I can lower the cost of the build by getting a 6800K and ditching that G-Sync monitor by getting a standard 1440P or 4K. But since you want 40 PCIe lanes, there's not much choice with CPUs. Broadwell-E supports up to 128GB of ram while Haswell-E tops out at 64GB, except Xeon where they can support way more.

SSD in RAID 0 is stupid, just use a single SSD and the speed of that should be sufficient enough for your needs. The high numbers just looks pretty in benchmarks.

Your build has ram at dual channel while X99 runs on quad. Get the Deluxe II because you need TB3 which comes in a PCIe card.

 

 

 

 

 

I've done extensive research and swapped between a few chairs. I landed on the Aeron for a reason, regardless of price. Any chair is comfortable for the first thirty minutes. What I can't test by going to IKEA or whatever is the long sitting sessions that can last upwards of four hours until I stand up. I've only got reviews to depend on for that information. I could go on-and-on-and on as to why I picked that chair. Watch a review video if you want to know some of the reasons.

 

G-Sync monitor is basically required with 1080 SLI. Screen tearing? No thank you.

 

Not going with a Xeon motherboard because they generally lack in features consumer boards have. I also don't need 32GB of RAM and the black and white TridentZ modules don't come in 4GB. If I ever need 32 GB, quad-channel is a nice feature to have. But I don't need it. Like I said, I'm choosing the platform for more PCIe lanes and Thunderbolt 3 support.

 

As for RAID 0, I'm going to be transferring pretty large files fairly often. I will actually see the performance gains. I agree that RAID 0 has so many negatives over a single 950 Pro, but the huge amount of extra storage negates most of the negatives, at least for me. I've got a decent plan to deal with the problems of RAID 0. I'll even have a Windows GO flash drive to boot into when one of the drives fail to figure out which one it is.

 

But sure, I agree that most of this build is a bit overkill. I'm okay with that.

[NumLock21]

12 minutes ago, Steven9595 said:

Herman Miller chairs are actually REALLY nice. Having worked for a furniture installation company, Herman Miller is a VERY reputable commercial furniture company with extremely high quality products. Having sat in a few of their desk chairs myself, while they're expensive, are definitely worth the cost in the long run.

Hmm... then The Aresline Xten by Pininfarina, coming in at 1.5 million must put all of Herman Miller's chairs to shame...

3 minutes ago, Awakening said:

 

I've done extensive research and swapped between a few chairs. I landed on the Aeron for a reason, regardless of price. Any chair is comfortable for the first thirty minutes. What I can't test by going to IKEA or whatever is the long sitting sessions that can last upwards of four hours until I stand up. I've only got reviews to depend on for that information. I could go on-and-on-and on as to why I picked that chair. Watch a review video if you want to know some of the reasons.

 

G-Sync monitor is basically required with 1080 SLI. Screen tearing? No thank you.

 

Not going with a Xeon motherboard because motherboards generally lack in features consumer boards have. I also don't need 32GB of RAM and the black and white TridentZ modules don't come in 4GB. If I ever need 32 GB, quad-channel is a nice feature to have. But I don't need it. Like I said, I'm choosing that board for the Thunderbolt 3 support.

 

As for RAID 0, I'm going to be transferring pretty large files fairly often. I will actually see the performance gains. I agree that RAID 0 has so many negatives over a single 950 Pro, but the huge amount of extra storage negates most of the negatives, at least for me. I've got a decent plan to deal with the problems of RAID 0. I'll even have a Windows GO flash drive to boot into when one of the drives fail to figure out which one it is.

 

But sure, I agree that most of this build is a bit overkill. I'm okay with that.

Well then if you like that chair and it's good, then it's your choice.

Regular boards can run Xeons too, but you're not going to save anywhere since there is no 6800K equivalent for a Xeon. Thunder Bolt 3 from that Deluxe Ii is just the bundled card. It plugs to a dedicated TB header on the Asus boards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813995053&cm_re=Asus_thunderbolt_3-_-13-995-053-_-Product

 

[Awakening]

3 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Thunder Bolt 3 from that Deluxe Ii is just the bundled card. It plugs to a dedicated TB header on the Asus boards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813995053&cm_re=Asus_thunderbolt_3-_-13-995-053-_-Product

 

 

Yes, but it's expensive. You don't really save anything by plugging that into an Asus motherboard with similar features.

[NumLock21]

Just now, Awakening said:

Yes, but it's expensive. You don't really save anything by plugging that into an Asus motherboard with similar features.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Asus X99-A II ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($225.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Other: Asus TB3 ($69.99)
Total: $295.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-20 00:10 EDT-0400

[brob]

2 hours ago, Awakening said:

PCPartPicker part list / CPU:

Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  ($573.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

...

Memory: G.Skill Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($109.99 @ Newegg) 

...

Storage: PNY CS1311 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: PNY CS1311 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: PNY CS1311 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: PNY CS1311 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: PNY CS1311 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.99 @ B&H) 

 

Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.99 @ Newegg) 

...

Your feedback is important as this is a ginormous purchase.

 

I was quite surprised to see a Haswell-E build at the price point. Did you give any thought to Broadwell-E? If your purchase window is far enough out, you might even consider waiting for Skylake-X due the second quarter of 2017.

 

X99 offers quad-channel memory operation and the chosen motherboard has 8 memory slots. An optimal memory kit would have 4 modules, e.g. 4x8GB. This still allows for a significant memory upgrade while improving system performance.

 

I do think the storage solution needs to be rethought.

 

PNY ssd are not known for their performance. Besides, while ssd raid 0 arrays are faster in serial i/o they are not always faster than a single larger ssd in 4k random i/o. In addition, a single large drive offers much better wear leveling.

 

Not sure why there is a single WD Red hdd. Usually one sees multiples for use in a RAID array. Did you also look at the 7200 rpm HGST Deskstar NAS drives? (HGST is a WD brand.)

[Awakening]

24 minutes ago, brob said:

 

I was quite surprised to see a Haswell-E build at the price point. Did you give any thought to Broadwell-E? If your purchase window is far enough out, you might even consider waiting for Skylake-X due the second quarter of 2017.

 

X99 offers quad-channel memory operation and the chosen motherboard has 8 memory slots. An optimal memory kit would have 4 modules, e.g. 4x8GB. This still allows for a significant memory upgrade while improving system performance.

 

I do think the storage solution needs to be rethought.

 

PNY ssd are not known for their performance. Besides, while ssd raid 0 arrays are faster in serial i/o they are not always faster than a single larger ssd in 4k random i/o. In addition, a single large drive offers much better wear leveling.

 

Not sure why there is a single WD Red hdd. Usually one sees multiples for use in a RAID array. Did you also look at the 7200 rpm HGST Deskstar NAS drives? (HGST is a WD brand.)

 

4

Oh. I haven't actually seen the Skylake and Kabylake-X processors yet. I'm glad I have now though because it would have been disappointing to see a new socket having gone with Skylake and no upgrade path from there. If these new processors can deliver better single-core performance than Skylake I'd absolutely go with them and it's likely I'll be able saved up by then as well. I'll probably wait for that or at least wait for more details/benchmarks.

 

Yes, but my build is largely based on aesthetics. If I wanted to stick with the TridentZ module, I'd have to downgrade to one with worse timings and at a probably slower speed while also having to paint the heatsink. I could get away with a plain black heatsink on a cheaper set, but I'd rather not. 1x8 GB will be more compatible with future chipsets as well although I'm sure DDR5 will be the standard for chipsets here soon enough anyways.

 

I'm glad you agree. You're the first person. How do you figure with the wear though? When you write a file that would have normally written its full size to a single drive, RAID 0 splits that file size throughout its drives. That should mean that a five-way RAID 0 config survives five times more writes than they're rated for individually considering they're all the same model.

 

No. I haven't looked at those, but I've been looking around. I picked the red drive because it will be always on and NAS drives are good for that. I just need something that's reliable, fast without a price premium, and that's okay with being on 24/7. Good reviews are also nice.

 

 

[brob]

16 minutes ago, Awakening said:

...

I'm glad you agree. You're the first person. How do you figure with the wear though? When you write a file that would have normally written its full size to a single drive, RAID 0 splits that file size throughout its drives. That should mean that a five-way RAID 0 config survives five times more writes than they're rated for individually considering they're all the same model.

 

No. I haven't looked at those, but I've been looking around. I picked the red drive because it will be always on and NAS drives are good for that. I just need something that's reliable, fast without a price premium, and that's okay with being on 24/7. Good reviews are also nice.

 

 

 

The 4k performance being the same or slightly worse comes out of a study done by Toms Hardware, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-13.html. 

 

The wear leveling comes from an understanding of how ssd and RAID 0 are written. Essentially, fewer bytes are generally written per i/o when using a single, larger ssd. (Very simplified explanation: In RAID 0 blocks of data are written on alternate drives. SSD write pages that are some multiple of blocks. Each write of a block (BSz bytes) actually causes reading a page (PgSz bytes, some multiple of BSz), inserting the block in the page and writing the page to a new/erased part of the ssd. So writing 2 blocks to a 2 unit RAID 0 will write BSz bytes to each hdd drive, and PgSz bytes to each ssd, but only PgSz to non-RAID 0 ssd.)

 

G.Skill does make quad-channel black TridentZ kits, http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-3200c16q-32gtzkw. They may not show up on pcpartpicker.com but should be available from the bigger online merchants. Of course they will likely be more expensive, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820232317.

 

 

In checking out TridentZ compatibility, I noticed that the QVL for the memory modules you are contemplating only list some Asus Z170 motherboards, no X99. The quad channel kit I list above does list X99 motherboards, but indicate only with Broadwell-E cpu. This deserves further investigation before making a purchase decision.

[Awakening]

26 minutes ago, brob said:

 

The 4k performance being the same or slightly worse comes out of a study done by Toms Hardware, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-13.html. 

 

G.Skill does make quad-channel black TridentZ kits, http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-3200c16q-32gtzkw. They may not show up on pcpartpicker.com but should be available from the bigger online merchants. Of course they will likely be more expensive, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820232317.

 

In checking out TridentZ compatibility, I noticed that the QVL for the memory modules you are contemplating only list some Asus Z170 motherboards, no X99. The quad channel kit I list above does list X99 motherboards, but indicate only with Broadwell-E cpu. This deserves further investigation before making a purchase decision.

3

Looks like the 4K performance doesn't scale only in 4K Q1. All of the other 4k tests resulted in proper scaling. Then again, I have no idea what the Q1 stands for.

 

Also, like I said with the RAM, I have no need for 32 GB of it. I'm completely fine with dual-channel. Also, unless it's an unsupported speed and from everything I've read online, if the board supports DDR4 then any DDR4 module will be compatible with it. As for quad-channel RAM, that's completely dependent on the board and there's nothing on RAM modules that make them either dual or quad-channel.

[Daniel644]

I'm sorry, but 8 and half THOUSAND DOLLARS, Multiple SSD's A SERIOUSLY CRAZY STUPID level of overkill CPU and only 16 GB of RAM, Like seriously what the FUCK, you said this was an Overkill system, why so little RAM relative to everything else?

 

Side note, I literally bought BOTH of my cars and half my living room furniture for less then what you are planning to spend here #MindBLOWN

[Awakening]

36 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

I'm sorry, but 8 and half THOUSAND DOLLARS, Multiple SSD's A SERIOUSLY CRAZY STUPID level of overkill CPU and only 16 GB of RAM, Like seriously what the FUCK, you said this was an Overkill system, why so little RAM relative to everything else?

 

Side note, I literally bought BOTH of my cars and half my living room furniture for less then what you are planning to spend here #MindBLOWN

 

 

What would I need more than 16 GB of RAM for if I'm not doing any editing? Just because the slots are there doesn't mean I need to fill them.

[Daniel644]

1 minute ago, Awakening said:

What would I need more than 16 GB of RAM for if I'm not doing any editing? Just because the slots are there doesn't mean I need to fill them.

Well you also don't NEED the CPU you chose for gaming, but you picked it anyway, just saying whether I needed it or not if I was spending nearly 9 thousand dollars on a computer setup I wouldn't have any empty RAM slots, that is all.

[Awakening]

22 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

Well you also don't NEED the CPU you chose for gaming, but you picked it anyway, just saying whether I needed it or not if I was spending nearly 9 thousand dollars on a computer setup I wouldn't have any empty RAM slots, that is all.

 

It's $100 just for the 2x8 GB modules I picked which is already pretty expensive for that amount of RAM. To fill the slots up, I'd need to multiply that by 4. So, spend $100 on already more than enough RAM or spend $300 more on extra RAM I don't need. Easy choice. I'm not purposefully spending a crap ton of money for nothing.

 

At least with more CPU power than I need my PC will see some benefit. Adding extra RAM is completely pointless because it'll never be utilized.

 

Anyways, from what I learned in a previous post, I'll probably just wait for KabyLake-X or maybe even Skylake-X to see what they offer because you're right--I don't need the processing power of the CPU I picked and it's actually counter-intuitive in most PC games, yielding worse FPS than the cheaper Skylake platform.

[brob]

11 hours ago, Awakening said:

Looks like the 4K performance doesn't scale only in 4K Q1. All of the other 4k tests resulted in proper scaling. Then again, I have no idea what the Q1 stands for.

 

Also, like I said with the RAM, I have no need for 32 GB of it. I'm completely fine with dual-channel. Also, unless it's an unsupported speed and from everything I've read online, if the board supports DDR4 then any DDR4 module will be compatible with it. As for quad-channel RAM, that's completely dependent on the board and there's nothing on RAM modules that make them either dual or quad-channel.

 

With respect to dual or quad channel operation. There can be minute electrical differences between memory modules containing exactly the same components on circuit boards of the same design. Occasionally these differences can prevent the modules from operating together in multi-channel. This is why memory manufacturers test and certify pairs, quads, and octets of modules for multi-channel operation.

 

Given continued improvements in manufacturing, the chance of same model sticks not working in multi-channel is very small. But it is not zero.

 

I tend to agree with you regarding the use of DDR4. But when a memory manufacturer makes specific mention of a cpu architecture where none is usually made, I would investigate further. Perhaps because I was around in the days when memory incompatibilities were a major issue. You know, back in the days that dinosaurs roamed the earth. 

 

BTW, if there is free memory the o/s and various drivers can and will make use of it to improve performance.

[Awakening]

2 hours ago, brob said:

BTW, if there is free memory the o/s and various drivers can and will make use of it to improve performance.

1

I don't see how when even if I had 32 GBs of RAM I'd still never utilize more than 16 GB. I could see quad-channel helping, but $100 more just for quad-channel? Meh.

[Daniel644]

12 hours ago, Awakening said:

It's $100 just for the 2x8 GB modules I picked which is already pretty expensive for that amount of RAM. To fill the slots up, I'd need to multiply that by 4. So, spend $100 on already more than enough RAM or spend $300 more on extra RAM I don't need. Easy choice. I'm not purposefully spending a crap ton of money for nothing.

 

At least with more CPU power than I need my PC will see some benefit. Adding extra RAM is completely pointless because it'll never be utilized.

 

Anyways, from what I learned in a previous post, I'll probably just wait for KabyLake-X or maybe even Skylake-X to see what they offer because you're right--I don't need the processing power of the CPU I picked and it's actually counter-intuitive in most PC games, yielding worse FPS than the cheaper Skylake platform.

You could always use the more RAM to do a RAM DIsk

 

[Awakening]

2 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

You could always use the more RAM to do a RAM DIsk

 

 

Again, price:performance is way out of wack. I don't need or want more than 16 GB of RAM.

[Vlku272]

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

CPU: Intel Core i7-6950X 3.0GHz 10-Core Processor  ($1649.99 @ B&H) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($124.98 @ NCIX US) 
Motherboard: MSI X99A GAMING PRO CARBON ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($319.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 128GB (8 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($649.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($315.62 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 4TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($1439.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Seagate IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($448.99 @ B&H) 
Video Card: NVIDIA Titan X (Pascal) 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($1200.00) 
Video Card: NVIDIA Titan X (Pascal) 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($1200.00) 
Case: Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX Mid Tower Case  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($175.98 @ Newegg) 
Monitor: Acer Predator X34 34.0" 100Hz Monitor  ($1248.99 @ Best Buy) 
Keyboard: Corsair STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($142.99 @ Best Buy) 
Mouse: Corsair M65 PRO RGB FPS Wired Optical Mouse  ($56.99 @ B&H) 
Headphones: Corsair VOID 7.1 Channel  Headset  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Other: Cablemod: 24-pin ATX, 2x8-pin (x2) PCIe, 4x4-pin EPS | 8-pin Comb x10, 24-pin Comb x3 ($110.00)
Other: Lighting - Alkbo Wireless Remote for Monochrome LED Strip, Dimmer, Mode Changer, 12V DC 12A ($5.45)
Other: Lighting - LED Strip - 4000-4500K, CRI 90+, 16.4' (white) (Purchased For $9.00)
Other: DataComm 1-Gang Cable Pass-Through ($3.01)
Other: Silverstone Black Sleeved 3-Way PWM Fan Splitter (x2) ($4.99)
Other: DXRacer Chair ($500.00)
Total: $9846.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-21 08:08 EDT-0400

 

 

Meh this system is better. 

[Awakening]

45 minutes ago, Vlku272 said:

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

CPU: Intel Core i7-6950X 3.0GHz 10-Core Processor  ($1649.99 @ B&H) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($124.98 @ NCIX US) 
Motherboard: MSI X99A GAMING PRO CARBON ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($319.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 128GB (8 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($649.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($315.62 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 4TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($1439.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Seagate IronWolf 10TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($448.99 @ B&H) 
Video Card: NVIDIA Titan X (Pascal) 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($1200.00) 
Video Card: NVIDIA Titan X (Pascal) 12GB Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($1200.00) 
Case: Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX Mid Tower Case  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($175.98 @ Newegg) 
Monitor: Acer Predator X34 34.0" 100Hz Monitor  ($1248.99 @ Best Buy) 
Keyboard: Corsair STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($142.99 @ Best Buy) 
Mouse: Corsair M65 PRO RGB FPS Wired Optical Mouse  ($56.99 @ B&H) 
Headphones: Corsair VOID 7.1 Channel  Headset  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Other: Cablemod: 24-pin ATX, 2x8-pin (x2) PCIe, 4x4-pin EPS | 8-pin Comb x10, 24-pin Comb x3 ($110.00)
Other: Lighting - Alkbo Wireless Remote for Monochrome LED Strip, Dimmer, Mode Changer, 12V DC 12A ($5.45)
Other: Lighting - LED Strip - 4000-4500K, CRI 90+, 16.4' (white) (Purchased For $9.00)
Other: DataComm 1-Gang Cable Pass-Through ($3.01)
Other: Silverstone Black Sleeved 3-Way PWM Fan Splitter (x2) ($4.99)
Other: DXRacer Chair ($500.00)
Total: $9846.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-21 08:08 EDT-0400

 

 

Meh this system is better. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And also a waste for my needs and wallet. Two Titan XPs will probably push almost 200 FPS in 1440p ultra-wide and that monitor completely holds back their capabilities. I'd also never utilize more than 20% of that CPU or RAM.

 

Removing everything that you did, my build will end up at $5857.04, $3989.89 less than yours which is apparent by your crazy hardware choices. http://pcpartpicker.com/list/jgZBLD 

 

You're looking at this as a $9000 build instead of a $9000 setup. There's a huge difference and I'd end up spending around $13500 if I went with your build.

 

However, I agree that I need a new mouse. The G600 is great for productivity but doesn't really cut it for games.

[brob]

9 hours ago, Awakening said:

...

However, I agree that I need a new mouse. The G600 is great for productivity but doesn't really cut it for games.

Have two mice. One for gaming, one for other activities. If the later is wireless, it is easily kept out of the way.

[Awakening]

2 hours ago, brob said:

Have two mice. One for gaming, one for other activities. If the later is wireless, it is easily kept out of the way.

 

As long as Windows doesn't have a hissy fit I could always just keep them both in and on my desk next to each other. If there was a wireless G600 though I'd buy the crap out of it. I'd love a G900, but it's really expensive for what it is. Might try the G602.

[brob]

10 minutes ago, Awakening said:

As long as Windows doesn't have a hissy fit I could always just keep them both in and on my desk next to each other. If there was a wireless G600 though I'd buy the crap out of it. I'd love a G900, but it's really expensive for what it is. Might try the G602.

Windows has no problem concurrently supporting multiple mice and keyboards. Just keep in mind that all devices are live. Unless one disables them in device manager.