Planning my first build

[napper_tapper]

Hi guys I have always wanted a good gaming PC but never been in the position where I could afford one, but now I have saved £2,700.00 and I will have the last £1,000 I require from my Christmas bonus in my December salary. It has taken me two years to accumulate this and I am counting down the days until 01st January 2019 where I am going to be making my purchases. 

 

I wanted an Intel build, but the additional costs for a top Intel processor and corresponding motherboard is way beyond the top AMD has to offer. My build budget is £3,700.00 GBP (UK Pounds Sterling) and when I was determining the specifications they were mostly based around:

 

1. RTX 2080 Ti is a must-have,

2. Unified RGB as much as possible,

3. Watercooling is a must-have.

 

I'm not going to lie, these are must-haves because I simply want my PC to look really good since it's costing a fortune anyway.

 

So here is the hardware I have decided on:

 

Case = Gigabyte AORUS AC300W (Rev. 2.0),

CPU = AMD Ryzen 7 2700X,

Motherboard = Gigabyte AORUS X470 Gaming 7 wifi,

RAM = Gigabyte AORUS RGB DDR4 3400 (4 x 8GB modules)

GPU = Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Windforce OC 11GB GDDR6,

SSD = Samsung 970 EVO M.2 (2280) PCIe 3.0 (x4) NVMe SSD (1TB Capacity),

PSU = Corsair RM850x.

 

I used the configurator on EKWB website and came out with the following cooling option:

 

Motherboard & CPU Cooling = EK-FB GA X470 Gaming 7 RGB Monoblock,

GPU Cooling = EK-Vector RTX 2080 Ti RGB Nickel and Plexi,

Pump/ Res Combo = EK-XRES 140 Revo D4 RGB PWM,

Radiators = 1 x EK-Coolstream SE120, 1 x EK-Coolstream SE240 and 1 x EK-Coolstream SE360,

Fans = 6 x Corsair LL Series LL120 RGB 9 Blade PWM with 2 x Lighting Node PRO,

Fittings = 20 x EK-HDC 12mm G1/4 - Black,

Tubing = EK-HD 10/12mm (Acrylic).

 

I was going to make a drain port using the EK-AF Ball Value and an EK-AF X-Splitter (4 way with one port blocked off) but what do I do for a dedicated filling port?

 

Is there anything I am missing here? Does anyone have the same case as I plan on: so can you tell me if there is enough space on the single fan on the rear of the case to get in a little 120mm rad and fan? 

 

Any and all tips and advice is greatly appreciated, this is going to be my first ever build!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brooksie359]

Have you decided on a monitor you are going to pair the system with?

[napper_tapper]

2 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Have you decided on a monitor you are going to pair the system with?

I know I am probably going to be flamed for this but I was going to use my existing TV, which is a LG 65" 4K OLED HDR television. 

[Brooksie359]

I used a 20 inch crap tv when I built my first build so no judgment here. I would recommend getting a nice monitor eventually. The suggesting about using a tv is input lag and if you are playing mostly single player games it should be fine. If you plan on playing comeptive games then a high refresh rate monitor is a must. 

[brob]

Instead of Corsair RGB fans I'd suggest using RGB Fusion compatible models.

 

Ask about the custom cooling loop in https://linustechtips.com/main/forum/36-liquid-and-exotic-cooling/.

[napper_tapper]

Just now, Brooksie359 said:

I used a 20 inch crap tv when I built my first build so no judgment here. I would recommend getting a nice monitor eventually. The suggesting about using a tv is input lag and if you are playing mostly single player games it should be fine. If you plan on playing comeptive games then a high refresh rate monitor is a must. 

 

Thanks, I will save up for a good monitor to go with it further down the line, the games I play will just be new AAA titles and maybe some older nostalgic games like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Birth of the Federation.

 

Will this build be able to play AAA titles at their highest settings or is the CPU going to be a bottleneck? 

[napper_tapper]

3 minutes ago, brob said:

RGB Fusion compatible models.

Thanks, I will do some googling but if you know any off the top of your head I would appreciate the pointers.

[brob]

2 minutes ago, rmurph17 said:

Thanks, I will do some googling but if you know any off the top of your head I would appreciate the pointers.

https://www.gigabyte.com/mb/rgb/ready

[Derrk]

sounds like a really fun build. I'd suggest grabbing some of ekwb's PE radiators over SE if you can fit them

[Brooksie359]

3 minutes ago, rmurph17 said:

 

Thanks, I will save up for a good monitor to go with it further down the line, the games I play will just be new AAA titles and maybe some older nostalgic games like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Birth of the Federation.

 

Will this build be able to play AAA titles at their highest settings or is the CPU going to be a bottleneck? 

At 4k the cpu doesn't have to be all the great because you are going to be gpu bottlenecked anyways. I have the 2700x and a 2080ti and they work quite well with each other but at 4k my cpu doesn't really break a sweat besides in assassins creed odyssey but that make my entire system sweat. The cpu starts to matter more once you start hitting 100+ fps. 

[dizmo]

I see what you're trying to do by going all Gigabyte, but honestly I'd try and get a better case.

Do you have a reason for needing 32GB of RAM?

[napper_tapper]

1 hour ago, Derrk said:

sounds like a really fun build. I'd suggest grabbing some of ekwb's PE radiators over SE if you can fit them

 

Forgive my ignorance but what kind of temp difference would there be? 

 

I dont think the AC300W is a particularly spacious case unfortunately 

[napper_tapper]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

I see what you're trying to do by going all Gigabyte, but honestly I'd try and get a better case.

Do you have a reason for needing 32GB of RAM?

Just so all the slots are filled with actual RAM and not the two dummy modules.

 

I wanted that case because of the AORUS branding as everything else is AORUS

[brob]

You might take a look at some of the Phanteks cases that are RGB Fusion compatible. See the Gigabyte link I posted previously.

[Derrk]

6 hours ago, rmurph17 said:

 

Forgive my ignorance but what kind of temp difference would there be? 

 

I dont think the AC300W is a particularly spacious case unfortunately 

SE is ~28mm thick

PE is ~38mm thick

 

I'm not sure how to calculate the kind of temperature difference you would see, but increased surface area will provide more heat dissipation. 

In a tight case, it might be tougher to fit the thick rads. In most cases SE is good for top-mounted radiator. I'm guessing the 120mm radiator will go by the rear exhaust? If so, that might be a very tight fit, and you'd have to use the SE if you can get it to fit at all.

 

You can probably fit a PE radiator in the front, maybe even an XE, which is 60mm

[napper_tapper]

5 hours ago, brob said:

You might take a look at some of the Phanteks cases that are RGB Fusion compatible. See the Gigabyte link I posted previously.

 

Thanks for posting the link, since it’s 01:00am I’m going to check it out properly when I wake up. Really appreciate that you went to the effort of finding that for me!

[napper_tapper]

5 hours ago, Derrk said:

SE is ~28mm thick

PE is ~38mm thick

 

I'm not sure how to calculate the kind of temperature difference you would see, but increased surface area will provide more heat dissipation. 

In a tight case, it might be tougher to fit the thick rads. In most cases SE is good for top-mounted reservoir. I'm guessing the 120mm radiator will go by the rear exhaust? If so, that might be a very tight fit, and you'd have to use the SE if you can get it to fit at all.

 

You can probably fit a PE radiator in the front, maybe even an XE, which is 60mm

Thanks, I never thought about mix-n-matching radiators, makes sense though to get more surface area in where it’s possible.

 

Would you recommend double fans? By that I mean non-RGB fans on the outside face of the radiators (because they can’t be seen from outside the case) with RGB fans on the radiators on the inside? Or is just inside RGB fans enough for air flow? 

 

If if I run two fans option (for example a 360 radiator would have 6 x 120mm fans mounted on it, would I get acoustic resonance or any audible issues? Basically the acoustic in air equivalent to cavitation I guess 

[Derrk]

1 minute ago, rmurph17 said:

Thanks, I never thought about mix-n-matching radiators, makes sense though to get more surface area in where it’s possible.

 

Would you recommend double fans? By that I mean non-RGB fans on the outside face of the radiators (because they can’t be seen from outside the case) with RGB fans on the radiators on the inside? Or is just inside RGB fans enough for air flow? 

 

If if I run two fans option (for example a 360 radiator would have 6 x 120mm fans mounted on it, would I get acoustic resonance or any audible issues? Basically the acoustic in air equivalent to cavitation I guess 

Push/pull is a good idea if you can fit it. Again, it may be hard to fit push/pull in the top or rear exhaust, but can most likely fit in the front. It won't cause any audio issues, in fact you'll be able to lower your fan speeds so they'll be quieter, and still achieve the same or better performance of fast, loud fans.

 

In my loop, i have a 360mm SE on the top with only 3x120mm fans pushing air through (because clearance is an issue on top). I have a 360mm PE in the front with 5x120mm fans in a bit of a push/pull setup. I would've added a 6th fan for complete push/pull, but my power supply shroud is in the way at the bottom. I would've also gone with an XE in the front if the shroud was smaller. Here's a pic in case it wasn't clear what i mean 

[brob]

@Derrk, what case? Can the psu shroud be removed?

[Derrk]

Just now, brob said:

@Derrk, what case? Can the psu shroud be removed?

its one of those jonsbo cases, the meanit 5pm. Got it at a great price on newegg. I liked it because it already had a fan controller & good watercooling support. I could remove it, but it would take some effort. The shroud also has a base to mount my reservoir, and the drive cage is right under that (on the back). I already have really good temps with this setup, so it doesn't bother me that i only have 2 fans pulling on the front rad. 

[napper_tapper]

9 hours ago, Derrk said:

its one of those jonsbo cases, the meanit 5pm. Got it at a great price on newegg. I liked it because it already had a fan controller & good watercooling support. I could remove it, but it would take some effort. The shroud also has a base to mount my reservoir, and the drive cage is right under that (on the back). I already have really good temps with this setup, so it doesn't bother me that i only have 2 fans pulling on the front rad. 

 

Yeah I can see what you mean now, that's pretty smart though thanks for showing me it. 

[napper_tapper]

OK guys, having some amazing input in here so far, so thank you all for helping me out in my first post and first build, I am fucking stoked waiting for January to build this thing. 

 

In terms of power, will it actually be a good build? 

 

Right now the only gaming I do is during my lunch break I use my work PC to play World of Warships and the specification is:

 

CPU = Intel Core i5-6400,

GPU = Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 6GB,

RAM = Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 2400MHz (2 x 8GB modules),

MB = Asus H110M-R. 

 

Taking that as a baseline, how much more % performance increase is my personal rig going to be? (likely - I know it's pretty much impossible to calculate something like this)

[brob]

2700X cores have about 20% better performance than i5-6400 cores. Overall the 2700X is two and half times more powerful than the i5-6400

 

The RTX 2080 Ti gpu has just under twice the performance of the GTX 1060 6GB.

 

[napper_tapper]

Just letting you guys know I took the plunge and bought all the components except the water cooling loop using a huge deposit and paying the remainder on credit over 12 months.

 

The vendor didn’t have the water cooling components so I will wait till I get my Christmas bonus and buy the loop then.

 

[napper_tapper]

On 10/26/2018 at 3:42 PM, brob said:

2700X cores have about 20% better performance than i5-6400 cores. Overall the 2700X is two and half times more powerful than the i5-6400

 

The RTX 2080 Ti gpu has just under twice the performance of the GTX 1060 6GB.

 

Wow that kinda sucks that the £1,200 card I just bought isn’t even 100% better than the £260 card I currently play on.