Upgrade suggestions wanted

[Kalm_Traveler]

Hey guys just looking for some suggestions on potential upgrades to my system. I need to spend $3k in the next 90 days to get a credit card bonus and ran out of 'need to buy' stuff so I figured why not beef up the desktop a bit.

 

Current setup is:

 

Asus  PG348Q (34" ultrawide 3440 x 1440 at 100Hz

desktop:
Asus x99 Sabertooth motherboard
i7 6900k CPU

64gb (8 x 8gb) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 at 2666mhz
evga GTX 1080 FTW x2 2-way SLI
Samsung 950 Pro NVMe 512gb boot/programs drive
Corsair HX1000i power supply

360mm Thermaltake AIO with Noctua industrial fans
Coolermaster HAF X case

I have been intending to OC this but haven't gotten around to it yet and had the following ideas as far as parts, but am certainly open to other suggestions with the aforementioned amount in mind:

swap out the 2666mHz RAm for some faster 3200 (or faster?) 
upgrade to a pair of GTX 1080 Ti's, either the SC2 or FTW 3 as I like EVGA's offerings
upgrade to 960 Pro 1TB since 512gb is a bit small given todays games
Check for a 144Hz ultrawide, possibly with a better panel?

I would like to actually overclock this build at some point, so with the 6900k having a reputation as a heat monster I was debating possibly delidding it and using some liquid metal compound there as well but need to do some further research on whether or not it will help enough to justify the trouble.

Any thoughts aside from building another rig? I just don't want multiple desktops because I don't have anywhere to put a 2nd machine right now so a 7700k-based 2nd machine is not really on the table.

[Zando_]

Get a 1080 Ti (or two!), faster RAM, a high refresh rate 4K monitor, and that should be your budget gone. Or just buy all this: 

Spoiler

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JrC7bj
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JrC7bj/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($199.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AX370-Gaming K7 ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($207.39 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3600 Memory  ($189.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Corsair - Force MP500 240GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($137.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($48.44 @ OutletPC) 
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Keyboard: Corsair - STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($134.99 @ Amazon) 
Mouse: Corsair - M65 PRO RGB FPS Wired Optical Mouse  ($39.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1058.77
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-03 14:48 EDT-0400

 

Add in a 1080 Ti and 4K screen, and send it to me. 

[Wolf10K]

custom water loop??

with a monitor 2-4k ultra wide high refress rate and 1 1080ti 
should get you to about 3000$ atleast my plan kicks 1k for just the water cooling loop and 2k for my parts upgrade

 

[Zando_]

Just now, Wolf10K said:

custom water loop??
 

Should've thought of that. Any nice PC deserves a custom loop, and if you've got money to spend, it's defo a great option. 

[Wolf10K]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ZKJDvV

add custom sleaved cables to that ^

and this is current 
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/xXLoneWolfXx10K/saved/4MpXsY

[Wolf10K]

yea first time custom loop for me and im still planning it out not gunna see anything til spring though maybe the case fans and PSU and sleaves before christmas but fittings get expensive fast if you dont want to bend the pipe like i dont want to 

[Kalm_Traveler]

haha the custom water loop might be the winner.

Those builds are nice but I don't need an additional PC, or have any room for one 

[DocSwag]

Custom loop maybe? The only real upgrade I can think of you doing is 1080 ti sli... and maybe a bigger ssd. NVMe isn't worth it though, it won't improve boot times or app launch times so just get a 2tb 850 evo or something 

 

 

Also, no need to delid. The 6900k has a soldered ihs so it's the best possible already not to mention that delidding would mean breaking the CPU unless you used something to melt the solder.

[Kalm_Traveler]

1 hour ago, DocSwag said:

Custom loop maybe? The only real upgrade I can think of you doing is 1080 ti sli... and maybe a bigger ssd. NVMe isn't worth it though, it won't improve boot times or app launch times so just get a 2tb 850 evo or something 

 

 

Also, no need to delid. The 6900k has a soldered ihs so it's the best possible already not to mention that delidding would mean breaking the CPU unless you used something to melt the solder.

thanks Doc - I'm not on a strict budget per se, just that I need to spend 3k to get that credit card bonus, so I figured there might be some PC upgrades that would help me hit it. I like the 950 Pro that is in there currently but it's a bit small, and I've got a 1tb 960 Pro in my Razer Blade and would like to eliminate the slower SSD (and non-UEFI Windows install) as potential reasons why my desktop takes 30 seconds to boot up compared to the Blade's ~ 5 seconds.

I think you can delid the soldered CPUs from some 6950x YouTube videos I've seen but first thought is how could anything be better than direct solder? So maybe I'll just scratch that idea. The only reason it came up was that I have heard these 6900k's are super hot when overclocked at all. Whatever BIOS settings I have right now it seems to run itself to 4gHz automatically, and I have not noticed any high temps but haven't looked too closely since I never sat down to do a proper OC yet.

[DocSwag]

4 minutes ago, Kalm_Traveler1 said:

thanks Doc - I'm not on a strict budget per se, just that I need to spend 3k to get that credit card bonus, so I figured there might be some PC upgrades that would help me hit it. I like the 950 Pro that is in there currently but it's a bit small, and I've got a 1tb 960 Pro in my Razer Blade and would like to eliminate the slower SSD (and non-UEFI Windows install) as potential reasons why my desktop takes 30 seconds to boot up compared to the Blade's ~ 5 seconds.

I think you can delid the soldered CPUs from some 6950x YouTube videos I've seen but first thought is how could anything be better than direct solder? So maybe I'll just scratch that idea. The only reason it came up was that I have heard these 6900k's are super hot when overclocked at all. Whatever BIOS settings I have right now it seems to run itself to 4gHz automatically, and I have not noticed any high temps but haven't looked too closely since I never sat down to do a proper OC yet.

I guess since you're basically trying to throw money at the wall to get that bonus why not . Boot times might have to do with stuff in startup, so you might want to check what you have there.

 

There isn't really much better than direct solder so there isn't much better you can do.  

[Kalm_Traveler]

Yeah basically need to spend it in this case, and I literally can't think of anything else around the house that I want/need to buy so the default go-to I arrived at was PC upgrading.

Very true. Thank you again for your input - I'll get some parts ordered up and post up the results!