Monster System Upgrade

[Thavion Hawk]

I often like it when a person comes into my store and asks us to Build or Upgrade a Computer for them meant for gaming. It often leads to building nice if not OP systems. On the rarest of ocations we get customers that wnat to push it to the limit and this is "Fingers Crossed" one of those ocasions. Let me explain.

 

A customer with a Balls To the Walls Origin PC from 2012 packing a OC'ed i7-2700k, 16GB of RAM, SLI'ed GTX590's all feed by a 1500W PSU packed into a Corsair 800D Case just came in and asked for a quote to Upgrade his system. Now I could beet that system with my own i7-6700, 16GB of RAM and a single GTX970, so he's really looking forwards to upgrading. Now taking into account the price tag of his current system back in 2012 one could assume rightfully that this guy is going for PC Gaming Uber-race not simply PCMR and is willing to spend the money to get there. His stated budget for this upgrade is $6,500!!!

 

Here's what his money's getting him if he goes for the quote we gave him. Note that he's keeping his Case, PSU and Storage.

CPU: i9-7900x (Yes the i7-7700k and 8700k are cheaper and better for gaming, but he wants it)

Mobo: ASUS Prime X299-A (He's not OC'ing this thing too hard and doesn't need the Deluxe or ROG treatment)

RAM: 4x8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400

GPUs: SLI'ed Nvidia GTX Titan Xp (The Big Titan Xp not the lesser one and not the Starwars limited models)

CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i

SSD: 1TB Samsung 850 Pro (He didn't want NVME for some reason but loves the idea of the 10 year warranty)

 

So yeah I'm going to be doing this upgrade if he goes for it. He said Origin quoted him over $8,000 to do this same basic upgrade, but no doubt a higher spec board and stock tuned OC on the CPU.

Well all, what do you think? I'm not including Cost's of the parts or Labor in what I'm posting here, just ruff price points for his budget and what Origin quoted him. I'll update this thread if he goes for it or not. If he does then I'll be posting pictures on my Instagram and linking them here.

[Streetguru]

7 minutes ago, Thavion Hawk said:

 

Why not a threadripper 16 core at the same price?

1080tis are going to be better overall I'd say because they come with better cooling or come water cooled.

You should 100% replace the old PSU though

[Bruno_A]

That's a big ass budget, but well, if he can, why not?

[Thavion Hawk]

The Intel chips will be better for game's either way and he wants Intel either way. As for the GTX1080ti vs Titan Xp, he likes that extra Gig of VRAM and the Name is cool, that's about it. He's not actually a PCMR Techie or he'd just build this thing himself.

[Streetguru]

4 minutes ago, Thavion Hawk said:

The Intel chips will be better for game's either way and he wants Intel either way. As for the GTX1080ti vs Titan Xp, he likes that extra Gig of VRAM and the Name is cool, that's about it. He's not actually a PCMR Techie or he'd just build this thing himself.

Will they be better in the end though? Because are you overclocking them much past 4ghz? If not they'll likely end up about even, and if he's gaming at 1440p or 4k the gap will be less.

Basically just say you want 10 cores or 16 cores at the same price? The TR chip will also potentially run cooler/quieter because it doesn't need to be delidded, and it'll just looks cooler since it's fuckhuge chip.

Is he really going to care about the VRAM more than having a quieter system without blower coolers?
 

Just going to throw that out there, you should have the chip delidded if you go X299 in any event, Silicon Lottery does it
 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2CbnYr
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2CbnYr/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 1950X 3.4GHz 16-Core Processor  ($879.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Enermax - LiqTech TR4 360 102.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB SC2 HYBRID GAMING Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($799.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB SC2 HYBRID GAMING Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($799.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Thermaltake - Core X9 ATX Desktop Case  ($147.19 @ Amazon)
Total: $4074.08
 

[seon123]

Which PSU does he have? The AX1500i?

Imo, you should be putting all of that in a custom loop. EK makes a monoblock for the motherboard, and there are blocks for the GPU. At that high a price, he might as well, for the better temps, aesthetics and overclocking room. Not to mention the X299 VRM thing.

I feel like you're cheaping out on the RAM. At least get a Samsung B-die kit. It can improve performance by a few percent.

Imo, higher end 1080 Ti cards, watercooled are preferred to Titans. They have higher end VRM designs, allowing for more power. It's not like there will be a program that uses more than 11 GB but less than 12 GB VRAM. 

[Thavion Hawk]

A: The person wants Intel and even when told that he could get better performance for less in games with a lesser core count CPU he still wants the bigger core count. I've tried to offer him other options, but it's his money and I want to build it one way or the other.

2: I don't know the brand for sure but it's for sure not the AX1500i given that that model isn't 5+ years old. That said he may end up having the PSU replaced as well just do to its age. If that is the case we have a 1KW EVGA G2 in stock that will do the job.

C: I'd love to do custom water cooling but the store I work for doesn't touch water cooling normally and apart from custom ordered AIO Coolers like the one for this build we normally recommend Air Coolers as they don't kill your system when they fail, you just need to clean them and replace the fan(s).

D: There is no way we're De-Lidding a CPU even if Intel shit the bead again with cheap TIM under their IHS. We have to warranty our work.

5: I know 1GB of GDDR5X more and a few more CU's is not a logical reason to spend $1,200+ on a Titan when a 1080Ti is $800, but if their good enough for Terry Crews then their good enough for him, and he's paying for them either way.

 

To be honest If I had the money to do the build for myself I'd build something like this.

CPU: i7-8700k

Mobo: ASUS Prime Z370

RAM: 2x16GB DDR4-3000

GPU: GTX1080ti

Cooling: EK CPU and GPU Water Block tied into a 360mm(Passive No Fans top of case)+280mm(Push/Pull) Loop

PSU: Something 850W or better

Keep my Corsair 450D(I've routed the aformentioned cooling configuration already, just never did it because my GTX970 and non K i7-6700 don't need beast cooling)

Keep my Samsung 950Pro and 840 EVO SSD's

A new 1440 Ultra Wide G-Sync display (Why not 4k? FPS is why)

The rest of the money would go to a Gaming Laptop and peripherals.

 

[Phentos]

Am I the only one who's bothered by the cheap Crucial RAM in such a beast of a build? I'd have a kit of Corsair Vengeance or G.SKILL TridentZ RAM, both at 3000Mhz+ at least.

[Thavion Hawk]

The reason we're going with Crucial RAM is that the store is a Crucial Partner. We get a discount on Crucial Memory and SSD's. We can always order in other brands but Crucial's been extremely reliable for us. I've personally been using exclusively Crucial in my computers for years because one day way back in 2006 the store's Crucial Rep came by and asked the Sales Manager(Conviviality enough my Dad) if he needed anything. Obviously my dad said he could use some RAM for his computer not expecting to get anything. A week later the guy came back and handed him a Duel Channel Kit of 2x512MB DDR PC3200 Balistix Sticks. Given that his computer at the time with its dated Socket 762 Athlon64 couldn't run them they landed in my Socket 939 system paired with my ballin' Opteron 185 Duel Core Server chip. It's nice getting Hand-Me-Downs sometimes.

 

Correction it was 512MB Sticks not 1GB Sticks. This was 2006 after all.

[Phentos]

25 minutes ago, Thavion Hawk said:

The reason we're going with Crucial RAM is that the store is a Crucial Partner. We get a discount on Crucial Memory and SSD's. We can always order in other brands but Crucial's been extremely reliable for us. I've personally been using exclusively Crucial in my computers for years because one day way back in 2006 the store's Crucial Rep came by and asked the Sales Manager(Conviviality enough my Dad) if he needed anything. Obviously my dad said he could use some RAM for his computer not expecting to get anything. A week later the guy came back and handed him a Duel Channel Kit of 2x512MB DDR PC3200 Balistix Sticks. Given that his computer at the time with its dated Socket 762 Athlon64 couldn't run them they landed in my Socket 939 system paired with my ballin' Opteron 185 Duel Core Server chip. It's nice getting Hand-Me-Downs sometimes.

 

Correction it was 512MB Sticks not 1GB Sticks. This was 2006 after all.

Fair enough. It was just something that jumped out at me as being an unorthodox choice in such a build.