New PC - Phantom Pain / Black Desert Online / VR

[Deleted]

Edit: Just want to say thanks to everyone who has helped, very much appreciated.

Hi

So I've been thinking about buying a real PC for a while now, stuck on a laptop at the moment which has been great for mobility but is somewhat lacklustre in terms of performance. Want to spend about £2'000.

A friend of mind has a decent rig, though I believe it cost him about £3'000, he uses 2 980's in SLI and it's great (when it works). Though I won't bother with SLI due to all the issues he has to deal with, doesn't work with VR either (yet). I'm not interested in 4k as I don't think the technology is there yet to meet the consistent 60fps target.

So I'll be sticking to 1080p (which let's be honest is still decent) for a few more years. Now the titles I'm most interested in are MGS: The Phantom Pain (being able to run that on ultra 60fps is a goal) Black Desert Online (looks very demanding) and I'd like to get a VR headset at some point down the line as well.

I've never built a computer, nor would I be comfortable in doing so and would rather buy one with a decent warranty. I don't know how you guys here rate Chillblast as a company, but from what I've seen, they seem to do a great job.

Here is the machine I was looking at:

Edit: Can't post a link yet but it's on the chillblast website, Fusion Wolf PC or /Chillblast-Fusion-Wolf.html

As far as addons go, I was looking at adding/removing these features from the build:

• Removing the 256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive (-£129) (I'll be honest, no idea what it's for but it's incompatible with Win7)
• Adding a 120GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive (+£69) (is this necessary?)

So I end up with

- Intel Core i7 4790K Haswell Refresh Processor 4.0 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.4GHz)
- Corsair Hydro H80i GT High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
- Asus Z97I PLUS - Haswell CPU only
- 16GB Corsair/Crucial/Samsung PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 Memory (2 x 8GB sticks)
- Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Graphics Card
- 120GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive
- Seagate 2000GB SSHD Hybrid Drive
- Corsair CX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified PSU
- Onboard High Definition Audio
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

The 980ti looks really impressive, it's so close to the Titan X in performance but obviously a lot cheaper.


Total Price ex.VAT: £1439.99
Total Price inc.VAT: £1727.99

Is there anything you think is worth downgrading or upgrading? I don't really understand all the SSHD components and whether they are necessary or not. I'd like to also record/livestream with friends if that will change anything.

I'm not wanting to spend a fortune, I'd rather spend about this much now and upgrade in a few years down the line when 4k has become a more realistic (in terms of performance & price) scenario.

Thanks for looking, appreciate the help.

[Lathais]

I wouldn't get the H80i. Either go for a real Water Cooler or stick to air. Seriously, a Noctua NH-D15 cools better and is quieter then the H80i and costs roughly the same.

I'd stay away from the CX line of PSUs from Corsair. They are CWT OEM and while they are not horrible, there are better choices. Seasonic are the best and XFX uses solely Seasonic OEM. EVGA's Superflower line is also Seasonic and have been a good value lately. You don't really need 750W for that system either, so may be able to save a little dropping to a 550W Gold.

On the SSD/SSHD/HDD, an SSD is faster for loading times. That's about the extent of what it does. Most people go for an SSD that will hold their OS and a few favorite games then an HDD for Storage. To save money, some people opt for a Hybrid, that way they don't need a separate SSD. You took an SSD and a hybrid. Kinda weird choice. I would go for a 250/256 SSD(Crucial or Samsung) and a 1 or 2 TB Western Digital HDD.

[Remilia]

Black desert isn't as demanding as it looks actually. Did play a bit of it on the Japanese server and it runs pretty well.

CX750 in particular is a special kind of bad even in the CX line. Like Lathais said better to pick a different OEM or at least if you're sticking with Corsair a better line in their line up.

Hybrid drives require time for the drive to 'learn'. I'm not exactly sure how well it works for recording and live stream doesn't matter. It's probably better to just stick with a normal HDD imo.

[Deleted]

Interesting replies, thank you very much, very informative.

I can understand the appeal of faster boot times but if I'm honest, I switch the computer on and go make a cup of tea or something, I don't sit around waiting for it. It does seem to help a lot with programs as well though. It's annoying because the website I'm looking at makes you choose a hard drive, either a 2TB hybrid drive or a 4TB HDD which costs 30 pounds more. Then with the option of adding an SSD, but you still have to choose a primary hard drive. I may look at building elsewhere... know any good sites?

Also Is the Samsung 850 PRO much better than the EVO variant? There's about a £60 difference in price. Not sure if it's worth it. Also I already have a 2TB external hard drive which contains my games, should I just get an SSD then transfer on/off when I need?

Thanks again, very helpful guys!

[Remilia]

What site are you looking at?

Yes the Pro is technically better than the EVO, but you're looking at small %s. I'd rather take a Crucial MX/BX or Samsung EVO than the pro versions.
Pro is what it says, meant for professional use. Talking about a lot of continuous read/write into the SSD.

Either way though, adding your own HDD isn't hard.

[mrgreenthump]

"Pro" stuff usually only comes into play if the components are in constant use over long time period. Running an operating system is no where near that kind of stress on an SSD.

[Denpepe]

This is the site he's looking at http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Fusion-Wolf.html

I would not recommend this pc or site, some dodgy choices in there like the aio cooler and PSU and no alternatives to choose from.

I would recommend a 250 GB SSD (120 GB is not a lot after installing windows and 1-2 games these days) in a build with your budget, the quality of life it brings is more then worth the cost, you will never want to go back to a regular mechanical HDD after beeing used to an SSD.

Just me beeing curious but does it have to be a mini itx pc ? not that I know any good alternate sites in the UK, building it yourself will save you some money, maybe your friend can help you build it? Or maybe a local shop can do it for a fee?

[Deleted]

OK so I've spent the past few hours coming up with a new system, which is a hell of a lot cheaper. In regards to the Pro vs Evo I went with the Pro as it's only a £30 difference. I'll be using an external hard drive to push games on to my SSD. And no it doesn't have to be denpepe, I've changed some stuff around now.

So, taking on board everyone's input (thanks a lot by the way, saved me hundreds!)

This is the new spec:

• Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
• Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
• Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
• Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card
• SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
• Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer
• Asus Xonar DG 24-bit 96 KHz Sound Card
• TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter

Total: £1272.81

I still need to choose a case and I'm not sure which to go for. Ideally I want one that gives the best airflow, I value performance over looks so no flashy LED's or side windows necessary. Any advice again would be great.

In fact this build has saved so much money I could SLI the 980 TI's lol. Thanks again guys.

Edit: Oh another thing worth mentioning, is the i7 worth it? I could save another sum of money by going with the i5. I do do a lot of graphics work if it matters.

[mrgreenthump]

I still need to choose a case and I'm not sure which to go for. Ideally I want one that gives the best airflow, I value performance over looks so no flashy LED's or side windows necessary. Any advice again would be great.

My personal favorite is Fractal Design Define R5 and better yet.. it is designed to be silent and are cheap for that category. You might need to buy additional fan or 2 though if airflow is your main concern. As it comes with only 1 in the front and 1 in the back.

Edit: Oh another thing worth mentioning, is the i7 worth it? I could save another sum of money by going with the i5. I do do a lot of graphics work if it matters.

For gaming, rarely is. It will really come to play when programs can use multicores, and as DX11 can't do it effectively there really ain't any difference between i5 and i7 for games. It might help you a bit with the graphical work though, but it also depends highly on what kind of work you do and if the programs benefit from hyperthreading or not. One thing to note though is Skylake(new intel CPU) is launching tomorrow, and it will probably turn around the which is the best performance cpu talk.

[Deleted]

First of all at this moment i would wait for the new SKylake cpu's, and Zmobo's, coming out in a few days. Secondly getting a gtx980ti for 1080p is big waste of money. Anything at gtx970's level and above is wasted money. Now if you want 1440p and alot extra performance to be able to say "future proof" i would get it. In no way for 1080p tho. Also cheap sounds cards are about the same as good onboard sound on decent mobo's, so no again spended money for nothing.

You 1st build seems about 400pounds more expensive which is too much, if its was say within 100 to have it ready delivered to you, i would say why not if you don't want todo it yourself. But 400...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£229.98 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (£49.42 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£100.00 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Kingston Savage 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£65.33 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£72.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.95 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (£559.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£55.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£64.99 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) (£67.95 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1305.44
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-04 13:47 BST+0100

(o/s doesn't matter atm, get cheapest win7/8.1 64bit since both will upgrade to win10).

To sum it up, i would say wait for skylake then gtx970 for 1080p or go to at least 1440p with gtx 980(ti).

[Deleted]

For gaming, rarely is. It will really come to play when programs can use multicores, and as DX11 can't do it effectively there really ain't any difference between i5 and i7 for games. It might help you a bit with the graphical work though, but it also depends highly on what kind of work you do and if the programs benefit from hyperthreading or not. One thing to note though is Skylake(new intel CPU) is launching tomorrow, and it will probably turn around the which is the best performance cpu talk.

I read the i7 is better for MMO's as they are more CPU intensive? But yeah, for the sake of future proofing it for when games start utilising multicores I think i'll just stick with the i7 then.

That case looks really nice, It's a toss-up between that and the Vengance C70 for more cooling power.

First of all at this moment i would wait for the new SKylake cpu's, and Zmobo's, coming out in a few days. Secondly getting a gtx980ti for 1080p is big waste of money. Anything at gtx970's level and above is wasted money. Now if you want 1440p and alot extra performance to be able to say "future proof" i would get it. In no way for 1080p tho. Also cheap sounds cards are about the same as good onboard sound on decent mobo's, so no again spended money for nothing.

You 1st build seems about 400pounds more expensive which is too much, if its was say within 100 to have it ready delivered to you, i would say why not if you don't want todo it yourself. But 400...

(o/s doesn't matter atm, get cheapest win7/8.1 64bit since both will upgrade to win10).

To sum it up, I would say wait for skylake then gtx970 for 1080p or go to at least 1440p with gtx 980(ti).

Yeah I think I'll wait to hear the verdict on Skylake, I don't know much about them. I know 980ti seems overkill, but I'd rather just play at 1080p on a decent 144hz monitor until the price of a decent 4k monitor comes down. Then maybe add a second 980ti to it as well to help with performance. (if it can't run at 60fps or over I don't want to know about it. Also I'll be getting a VR headset to run too, and the 980ti will really help)

So here is the final build of what I came up with. (got rid of the sound card thanks!)

CPU - Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (Overclocked to 4.5GHz)
CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (to help with the above overclock)
Motherboard- Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Might swap this out for something else)
Memory - Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Storage - Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card
Case - Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Case Fan - Noctua NF-F12 PWM 55.0 CFM 120mm Fan x 3
PSU - SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (will eventually have to swap this for a 850W when I get sli 980 TI's)
Wi-Fi - TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (need to check if this is actually needed)

This comes to a total of about £1,405.00


Will take a look at your above build and see what's worth swapping, thanks again for the help I'm very close to finishing it off now!

[mrgreenthump]

Yeah I think I'll wait to hear the verdict on Skylake, I don't know much about them. I know 980ti seems overkill, but I'd rather just play at 1080p on a decent 144hz monitor until the price of a decent 4k monitor comes down. Then maybe add a second 980ti to it as well to help with performance.

It very much seems like 21:9 aspect ratio will be the next step in gaming. Now sure 1440p 21:9 screens are rather expensive still, but it is far easier on the GPU than 4k.

- Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (Overclocked to 4.5GHz)
- Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (to help with the above overclock)
- Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Might swap this out for something else)
- Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
- Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card
- Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
-Noctua NF-F12 PWM 55.0 CFM 120mm Fan x 3
- SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (will eventually have to swap this for a 850W when I get sli 980 TI's)
- TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter

The PSU is definately not going to work if you are thinking for SLI setup I would even go with a 650W now with 980ti just to be sure as you are looking to overclock your CPU. And ye 850W should probably do it for SLI. Though if going with dual GPU setups, the Fury X does scale better than GTX 980ti. Just something to keep in mind. Though you might run out of radiator space in a small case with 2x Fury X+ AIO cpu cooler.

[Remilia]

C70 has a lot of radiator mounting space, as with most Corsair cases.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/vengean...military-green

[Lathais]

I read the i7 is better for MMO's as they are more CPU intensive? But yeah, for the sake of future proofing it for when games start utilising multicores I think i'll just stick with the i7 then.

The only difference between an i5 and an i7 is multi-threading and that the i7s come with a higher stock clock. Even if games start using more cores, they still don't really use multi-threading. Those that have attempted it in the past have done so poorly and people actually got higher FPS by disabling hyperthreading on their i7's rendering them an i5. As for the stock clocks being higher, doesn't really matter if you OC.

IMO, by the time games can start properly utilizing Hyperthreading, you'll likely need a new CPU anyway. If you do other things that actually utilize hyperthreading, then an i7 is worth it, For just gaming though, not really.

[Deleted]

C70 has a lot of radiator mounting space, as with most Corsair cases.

Yeah I was looking at getting this, seems neat and looks like it will meet my needs / have room for another video card in the future.

IMO, by the time games can start properly utilizing Hyperthreading, you'll likely need a new CPU anyway. If you do other things that actually utilize hyperthreading, then an i7 is worth it, For just gaming though, not really.

I understand, I use photoshop/illustrator on a daily basis would I see benefit in this area? Also I plan on streaming as well I think I read the i7 helps with that. At the end of the day it's not that much of a price difference and I've already saved a lot of money with the help of you guys so It's not too important. I'd rather have it now then have to get

- - - Updated - - -

Bah to be honest I'm now thinking of just getting an i5 lol.

[Remilia]

Depends on what you do in Photoshop. Photoshop can use the extra threads but it really depends on what you're doing. If you're doing batch filter processing and the time really makes a difference, go for it, otherwise meh.

[Lathais]

Yeah I was looking at getting this, seems neat and looks like it will meet my needs / have room for another video card in the future.



I understand, I use photoshop/illustrator on a daily basis would I see benefit in this area? Also I plan on streaming as well I think I read the i7 helps with that. At the end of the day it's not that much of a price difference and I've already saved a lot of money with the help of you guys so It's not too important. I'd rather have it now then have to get

- - - Updated - - -

Bah to be honest I'm now thinking of just getting an i5 lol.

Not sure on the photoshop/illustrator, but I can say for the streaming, if you use nVidia Shadowplay or OBS with the right options checked, the load is moved to the GPU. There are people that have great quality streams on i3's, so the i7 is not needed for that. I stream well with my i5.

[Deleted]

Thanks guys, it's settled then the i5 clocked up to 4.4 it is! If you're interested I can post progress shots of how it's turning out once I buy the parts!

[mrgreenthump]

Thanks guys, it's settled then the i5 clocked up to 4.4 it is! If you're interested I can post progress shots of how it's turning out once I buy the parts!

Well.. I'd still wait till tomorrow as Skylake launches.

[Deleted]

Well.. I'd still wait till tomorrow as Skylake launches.

Oh of course, there's me getting ahead of myself! I'm too excited

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As well as swtiching to the i5, I've decided to go with the Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler instead of the H100i.