Gaming PCs Thread...time for a sticky / running thread?

[Guvernator]

Mattygooner said:

I haver the Sli 980s for 4k, but everything I read just says don't bother, and I agree.

now stuck between the very same Asus ROG PG279Q and going widescreen for a lower refresh Predator X34 34" 3440x1440 IPS. Both cost a bloody fortune but I think would definitely put the cherry on the cake, I am leaning towards the Asus set for cost saving and higher refresh.

Did yours come with a displayport cable included?

Yes it did come with all the cables including the displayport one. Do note though though that as with most IPS panels, you get a slight light-bleed around the edges on the PG279Q but I only notice it when I first switch it on during the all black post screen, once in Windows or playing games it's not visible. Some people were blaming low quality panels but this in fact a consequence of IPS technology. I do think the X34 looks very cool though but it is expensive and the refresh rates aren't as good.

[Guvernator]

mikef said:

What's proper 4K? I'm replaying BF3 at 4K on high with a single GTX970, with a consistent 50+ FPS

When I take a screenshot with screenshot.render it actually takes an HD screenshot at 200FPS, so can't post the on-screen FPS (and I don't want to install FRAPS before anyone suggests that)

BF3 is 4 years old so I suspect you'd get away with it, not sure if you'd be able to do the same on newer games though but I have no personal experience. Just going on what I've read in various well thought of online review sites which all suggest you need minimum Slid' 970's for 4k ultra gaming for newish games and 980's for some of the really intensive stuff.

[130R]

[mikef]

I can't help thinking that all this SLI 980Ti stuff is like looking at supercars in magazines

A different question might be what settings work for a mainstream gaming GPU - for instance frame rates on High vs Ultra

[Zod]

The widescreen 34" is the way ahead. The expanded field of view feels more natural in games.

[Guvernator]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yep not the grand definition by any means, merely my own interpretation but I consider a GPU setup to be good if it can handle ultra settings at 60fps on the latest titles.

Currently a single 980 Ti card will do this at 1440p and possibly at 3k but can't do 4k, Sli'd 970's can just about manage this at 4k and 980's and 980ti's definitely can. I think when we get a single £300ish card that can run 4k on ultra at 60fps+ is when we can truly say 4k gaming is mainstream which will probably happen when they release pascal.

[Mattygooner]

Well I can run Pcars on ultra with 40 cars on track and weather and day/night cycle accelerated, it is motoriously hungry as a game as there are a lot of physics elements going on as well. Will try other hungry games like DCS and Arma3 but I don't expect any issues.

But, it would look so much better on a nice new monitor but am still torn.

[mikef]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I used to run two 580s in SLI, replaced by one 970. To be honest, I don't miss it; once I'm in the game, I cease to notice the extra detail that comes with Ultra (that probably applies to 4K gaming as well - if the game is very demanding, I just run it in 1920)

[FUBAR]

Too late now! Merry Christmas to myself

Chillblast Fusion Krypton - Skylake Gaming PC
Zalman M1 Mini ITX Tower - Black
Intel Core i5 6600K Skylake Processor 3.50 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.4GHz)
Chillblast Centurion Direct Contact CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
Additional and Quiet Fans Upgrade Pack
Asus Z170I PRO GAMING Mini-ITX Motherboard - Skylake CPU only
16GB Corsair/Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Memory (2 x 8GB sticks) - Skylake CPU only
Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Graphics Card
256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
Seagate 2000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps
Thermaltake E-Sports Commander Gaming Keyboard & Mouse
24x SATA DVD+/-RW Drive
Corsair CX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified PSU
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Windows Optimisation Service
Standard Chillblast Cable Management
5 Year Warranty with 2 Years Collect and Return (UK only)

[Guvernator]

Yep pretty similar spec to mine except for the ITX case and the Ti. Wish I'd gone for a smaller case too now as the one I have is frikkin huge but then my CPU cooler wouldn't have fit.

Anyway it should be great, nice work.

[Squirrelofwoe]

FUBAR said:

Too late now! Merry Christmas to myself

Chillblast Fusion Krypton - Skylake Gaming PC
Zalman M1 Mini ITX Tower - Black
Intel Core i5 6600K Skylake Processor 3.50 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.4GHz)
Chillblast Centurion Direct Contact CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
Additional and Quiet Fans Upgrade Pack
Asus Z170I PRO GAMING Mini-ITX Motherboard - Skylake CPU only
16GB Corsair/Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Memory (2 x 8GB sticks) - Skylake CPU only
Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Graphics Card
256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
Seagate 2000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps
Thermaltake E-Sports Commander Gaming Keyboard & Mouse
24x SATA DVD+/-RW Drive
Corsair CX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified PSU
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Windows Optimisation Service
Standard Chillblast Cable Management
5 Year Warranty with 2 Years Collect and Return (UK only)

So is this going to make you any better at BF4 Foobes?

[FUBAR]

It cant make me any worse!

[Digby]

Guvernator said:

mikef said:

What's proper 4K? I'm replaying BF3 at 4K on high with a single GTX970, with a consistent 50+ FPS

When I take a screenshot with screenshot.render it actually takes an HD screenshot at 200FPS, so can't post the on-screen FPS (and I don't want to install FRAPS before anyone suggests that)

BF3 is 4 years old so I suspect you'd get away with it, not sure if you'd be able to do the same on newer games though but I have no personal experience. Just going on what I've read in various well thought of online review sites which all suggest you need minimum Slid' 970's for 4k ultra gaming for newish games and 980's for some of the really intensive stuff.

A lot depends on the game and tweaks / updates, too. I managed to run GTA in 4k with only a few options turned down and Project Cars / Rally / Alien Isolation, but sometimes you stick on something far less demanding and it runs like a dog in 4k but silky smooth in 2k. Maybe it depends how they use the GPU ram? *shrugs* Another example of a game-killing option would be super-sampling. In 'Ryse' I could play all on max at 4K, but max super-sampling on my x2 970's turned it in to a 10 fps chug-fest.

I don't bother with any FSAA at 4k so that helps a great deal. I think you can get away with it at 2k, too. I use a 28" 60hz 4K monitor but also have the PC hooked up to a 4:4:4 60hz 4K 50" TV and it still looks great and dumps on the consoles even with no FSAA at those resolutions.

No doubt I will upgrade to the new cards next year as I couldn't justify the 'not so huge' jump in performance for approx a grand this time round.

[AntiLagGC8]

FUBAR said:

Too late now! Merry Christmas to myself

Chillblast Fusion Krypton - Skylake Gaming PC
Zalman M1 Mini ITX Tower - Black
Intel Core i5 6600K Skylake Processor 3.50 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.4GHz)
Chillblast Centurion Direct Contact CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
Additional and Quiet Fans Upgrade Pack
Asus Z170I PRO GAMING Mini-ITX Motherboard - Skylake CPU only
16GB Corsair/Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Memory (2 x 8GB sticks) - Skylake CPU only
Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Graphics Card
256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
Seagate 2000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps
Thermaltake E-Sports Commander Gaming Keyboard & Mouse
24x SATA DVD+/-RW Drive
Corsair CX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified PSU
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Windows Optimisation Service
Standard Chillblast Cable Management
5 Year Warranty with 2 Years Collect and Return (UK only)

Great spec!

I've got a test machine running two of the Samsung PCIe drives and the performance is ridiculous for anything disk intensive!

[Guvernator]

AntiLagGC8 said:

Great spec!

I've got a test machine running two of the Samsung PCIe drives and the performance is ridiculous for anything disk intensive!

I have to agree, I've only got the one and I was a bit dubious pre-purchase as the cost per gb analysis is even worse than normal SSD which is already very bad but now I have it, it's a revelation. Windows, games all load in mere seconds in most cases less than 5. It's so refreshing, I wish I had one years ago, could probably get back hours of my life waiting for things to load\install.

[FUBAR]

Considering my current pc takes about 5 minutes from switching on to being able to use it normally, the anticipation is massive!

[Squirrelofwoe]

FUBAR said:

Considering my current pc takes about 5 minutes from switching on to being able to use it normally, the anticipation is massive!

My gaming machine (4Ghz 8-core FX8350) has a 250gb Samsung Evo SSD with Windows 8 on it and the time from pressing the power button to being able to do stuff is normally around 10 seconds

That's the kind of stuff dreams were made of a few years ago!

Just a shame about my current prehistoric internet connection that realistically prevents me from being able to game online at the mo- hence no recent BF4 for me

[Mattygooner]

Jesus, even my old one fired up in under a minute, get in MSconfig and do a clear out, amazing how many useless programs were slowing down the boot times. That set up looks great, just in time for the inevitable steam sale..... Need to finalise the install of my Scandisk.

It is Dday for the monitor, I have given a 2:00pm deadline to sort it out and make a decision, the ROG is still leading the way and Scan have it a little less than OC. I can't help but feel that curved is the way forward, but as with 4k, it is a little early for it to be the only way to go. I am still very interested in the headsets which would negate the added immersion of the undoubtedly fantastic curved screens.

Power lines are great for slow wireless connections, my computer is a good distance from the router and, using the power lines, get a good 77mb connection which is very steady.

Edited by Mattygooner on Friday 18th December 11:38

[Guvernator]

FUBAR said:

Considering my current pc takes about 5 minutes from switching on to being able to use it normally, the anticipation is massive!

Yep my previous experience of laptops was this, a minute for Windows to boot but even after that, it's still basically unusable for several minutes as it does "stuff" in the background.

The new build with the M2 SSD is in another world. I don't have a Windows login screen as I'm the only one who uses the PC and my data is secured in other ways so I go from the post screen to Windows opening and actually being usable in less than 10 seconds then a quick double click and the game is loaded in another 5. I can literally be playing a game in less than 30 seconds from pressing the power on button.

[FUBAR]

Doesn't help sitting watching my son fire up his ipad and wife her Chromebook and just get to work (I know, different things)

I have an older SSD on my home PC so I know how quick it can be. But work PC (and the odd daytime game :cough is going to be mega.