Looking for Suggestions

flymi · December 25, 2017

Hi all,

Going to be looking at doing a new full build in the next couple of months, as mine is getting on for nearly 5 years old now and is struggling a bit! I've put together what would be my ideal build would be, but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of possible swaps that could be made that could save some money or improve it? I can afford the current build, but saving money is always good!.

This is what im looking at:

CPU: i7 8700k

Cooler: NZXT Kraken x62 Liquid

Mobo: Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7

Memory: G Skill 16GB RGB 3200

Storage: Samsung 960 Evo M.2 250gb (OS and main games)

Samsung 850 Evo 1TB SSD (Other games)

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200 (Files and programs)

GPU: MSI Gefore GTX 1080ti

Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red

PSU: Corsair RMx 750W 80+ Gold Fully Modular

Any suggestions? Like would an i5 8600k work with that powerful a gpu? Any cheaper motherboards (that arnt a horrible white color :), would using 3000 speed memory make much of a difference? etc.)

Thanks for any help.

PrashMotion · December 25, 2017

4 minutes ago, flymi said:

Hi all,

Going to be looking at doing a new full build in the next couple of months, as mine is getting on for nearly 5 years old now and is struggling a bit! I've put together what would be my ideal build would be, but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of possible swaps that could be made that could save some money or improve it? I can afford the current build, but saving money is always good!.

This is what im looking at:

CPU: i7 8700k

Cooler: NZXT Kraken x62 Liquid

Mobo: Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7

Memory: G Skill 16GB RGB 3200

Storage: Samsung 960 Evo M.2 250gb (OS and main games)

Samsung 850 Evo 1TB SSD (Other games)

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200 (Files and programs)

GPU: MSI Gefore GTX 1080ti

Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red

PSU: Corsair RMx 750W 80+ Gold Fully Modular

Any suggestions? Like would an i5 8600k work with that powerful a gpu? Any cheaper motherboards (that arnt a horrible white color :), would using 3000 speed memory make much of a difference? etc.)

Thanks for any help.

That looks good to me, but I think a Ryzen based PC would get a bit more value to similarly prices coffelake systems. The 8600k would work no problem though

flymi · December 25, 2017

Hey, thanks for the reply. I did consider Ryzen but been hearing bad things about how it performs in games. Would be willing to go for the i5 tbh though if it would perform well enough, dont do any editing or streaming so I only really put the i7 in to make sure it could keep up with the 1080ti.

PerfectPlasma · December 25, 2017

17 minutes ago, flymi said:

I did consider Ryzen but been hearing bad things about how it performs in games.

Zen does perform bad, just worse. Zen is more rounded for general use and Coffee Lake is pretty much "max FPS"

PerfectPlasma · December 25, 2017

33 minutes ago, flymi said:

would using 3000 speed memory make much of a difference?

Definitely not in gaming...

Ordinarily_Greater · December 25, 2017

20 minutes ago, flymi said:

Hey, thanks for the reply. I did consider Ryzen but been hearing bad things about how it performs in games. Would be willing to go for the i5 tbh though if it would perform well enough, dont do any editing or streaming so I only really put the i7 in to make sure it could keep up with the 1080ti.

yeah the r7 1800x barely stands behind the i5-8400 at gaming not in productivity tho, so yeah rather get the i5-8th gen for gaming

flymi · December 25, 2017

Guess i could use the 8600k then, saves me just over £100. What about motherboard, is there any decent ones I can use for this build that can run the 4 fans the case has and cope with the hardware? The rest im quite happy with and wouldn't want to swap out too much.

seon123 · December 25, 2017

Swap the silly AiO for a good air cooler. Something like a Cryorig H5 would save ~$100, and should be fine. The NH-D15 is also a better option, which would also save some money. A cheaper AiO, like the H110i is also an option.

You could definitely get a cheaper motherboard. The Extreme4 is a fairly good motherboard, and should cost ~$50 less.

Non RGB RAM. There should be a Ripjaws V Samsung B-die Kit for $205. Or cheaper 3000MHz kits.

You absolutely don't need an NVMe drive for gaming. It won't improve Windows boot times, nor game load times.

A cheaper HDD could save a few bucks.

Which MSI 1080 Ti? The Armor has an aweful cooler, and should be avoided for air cooling. The Gaming X, Trio and Lightning are good, not sure about the Duke. The best 1080 Ti for sur cooling is the Strix.

Cheaper case? The H700i is out, and has better airflow. There are also many newer cases than the H440, with more up to date features.

750W is way more than you need. The RM550x should be about equally quiet under full load. 550W is plenty. Alternatives are the G2/G3, Focus Plus Gold, Whisper M, and Cooler Master V.

For gaming, especially at >1080p, the 8600K is fine.

RAM speed past ~2800MHz shouldn't make too big a difference on Z370 (in most games).

PerfectPlasma · December 25, 2017

1 minute ago, flymi said:

What about motherboard, is there any decent ones I can use for this build that can run the 4 fans the case has and cope with the hardware?

You can get a PWM fan hub for probably less than $20

flymi · December 25, 2017

1 minute ago, seon123 said:

Swap the silly AiO for a good air cooler. Something like a Cryorig H5 would save ~$100, and should be fine. The NH-D15 is also a better option, which would also save some money. A cheaper AiO, like the H110i is also an option.

You could definitely get a cheaper motherboard. The Extreme4 is a fairly good motherboard, and should cost ~$50 less.

Non RGB RAM. There should be a Ripjaws V Samsung B-die Kit for $205. Or cheaper 3000MHz kits.

You absolutely don't need an NVMe drive for gaming. It won't improve Windows boot times, nor game load times.

A cheaper HDD could save a few bucks.

Which MSI 1080 Ti? The Armor has an aweful cooler, and should be avoided for air cooling. The Gaming X, Trio and Lightning are good, not sure about the Duke. The best 1080 Ti for sur cooling is the Strix.

Cheaper case? The H700i is out, and has better airflow. There are also many newer cases than the H440, with more up to date features.

750W is way more than you need. The RM550x should be about equally quiet under full load. 550W is plenty. Alternatives are the G2/G3, Focus Plus Gold, Whisper M, and Cooler Master V.

For gaming, especially at >1080p, the 8600K is fine.

RAM speed past ~2800MHz shouldn't make too big a difference on Z370 (in most games).

Thanks for the reply. Ill check out them coolers, especially the H110i, this one came recomended which is why it's in there.

Ill have a look at that motherboard. Thanks

Hard drive wise, would it be better just to stick another Evo 850 250gb in there then instead of 960?

GPU will be the MSI gaming x, which is also why I picked the case i did. To match.

I game currently at 1440p, will the 8600k still be good?

Ill have a look at the RAM, just like the idea of RGB lol!

7 minutes ago, PerfectPlasma said:

You can get a PWM fan hub for probably less than $20

Ah fair point, thanks. Ill take a look.

brob · December 25, 2017

The i5-8600K is a pretty solid cpu and with few exceptions has performance nearly identical to the i7-8700K in gaming.

If you want a little more compute power, an i7-8700 is a decent choice. Especially if you are not into overclocking. A cpu cooler like the cryorig H7 would do an excellent job cooling the cpu.

There are numerous less expensive Z370 motherboards. You might take a look at Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming.

Faster memory does make a difference in a number of titles. The difference between DDR4-3000 and DDR4-3200 is usually fairly small, in the 1-3 fps range.

I wouldn't bother with the small NVMe drive. Use the 1TB ssd as primary. If you can fit it into the budget, bump up to a 2TB ssd.

The psu is a bit on the over capacity side, but I wouldn't go any lower then 650W.

You might consider a different case.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6GHz 6-Core Processor (£243.79 @ Alza)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£41.81 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus - TUF Z370 Plus Gaming ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£134.93 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£185.49 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 1.1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£205.00 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.79 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB SC Black Edition Video Card (£710.42 @ Novatech)
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case (£79.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£85.02 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1724.23
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-12-25 17:12 GMT+0000