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

[young_bairn]

RobDickinson said:

You really need a 1080 or better for 4k PC gaming.

Most 27"s are 1440p which a 1070 will do ok

Anything 1080 or lower a 1060 will be fine.

Hi Rob, I am confused which is easily done. Are you talking graphics cards there? The card I want in my eventual PC build will be 11GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GDDR5X. I believe this is good for 4k gaming. Just wary of the frame rate limitations on current 27" 4k monitors as max seems to be 60Hz.

Still working on the full spec as I think I am going overboard on what I intend on using the machine for but my theory is it will have a bit of future proofing and will play most things at high settings.

Intel Core i7-7700K Quad-Core 4.2GHz Kabylake [8 Threads, 8MB Cache, up to 4.5GHz]
Corsair H100i V2 240mm All in One High Performance Liquid Cooler
ASUS Prime Z270-P Intel Kabylake ATX (Black/White, Dual M.2 slots, CrossfireX)
32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666MHz (2x16GB)
11GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GDDR5X
Superfast M.2 Solid State Drives:500GB Samsung 960 Evo V-Nand PCI-e m.2 Drive
1TB Seagate BarraCuda Drive SATA 6.0Gb/s, 7200RPM, 64MB Cache
650W Corsair RMx Series Fully Modular Silent PSU

Edited by young_bairn on Friday 4th August 01:18

[RobDickinson]

young_bairn said:

Hi Rob, I am confused which is easily done. Are you talking graphics cards there? The card I want in my eventual PC build will be 11GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GDDR5X. I believe this is good for 4k gaming. Just wary of the frame rate limitations on current 27" 4k monitors as max seems to be 60Hz.

Yep nvidia graphics cards.

1080ti is above 1080 spec so will be fine for 4k gaming.

IMO I think 4k is too many pixels for a 27" screen, 1440p is enough.

[young_bairn]

RobDickinson said:

Yep nvidia graphics cards.

1080ti is above 1080 spec so will be fine for 4k gaming.

IMO I think 4k is too many pixels for a 27" screen, 1440p is enough.

Thanks, yes that's what I have been reading due to the DPI

[Jinx]

I have a 32 (well 31.5 inch) 2560x1440 16:9 monitor. For 4K I'd probably be looking at 21:9 ultra wide and bigger - something like this

[Guvernator]

I don't think we are quite there for 4K gaming. Firstly I don't think there are any 4k monitors which have decent response and refresh rate i.e. below 20ms and above 60hz and secondly, even if there were, even the mighty 1080ti isn't really enough to do 4k Ultra at 60fps+, you'd need to go SLI and then you are looking at £1k for the GPU's alone.

The sweet spot at the moment is 1440p and then next gen Volta will probably make 3k viable but I think we are still 2 gens away from viable mainstream 4k.

[young_bairn]

Thanks for the reply's. Think I will skip the 4K monitor for now. Lack of HDR on monitors has also put me off so I will stick with my standard PS4 until the technology is more readily available.

So anybody recommend a good gaming monitor for Ps4 and Gaming PC

[young_bairn]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks mate, those monitors are a bit more expensive than I was planning. It's a small spare room so I think 32" will be too big. 27" is what I was going to go with.

Budget for full build is 2.5-3k including all peripherals. I was going to get a PC builder to knock it together but after watching you tube videos it looks pretty straight forward to put a PC together so the last build I played with on overclockers was around £2300

Corsair Graphite 780T Full Tower Case - White (CC-9011059-WW)

£194.99*


Corsair Gaming K70 LUX RGB Mechanical Keyboard, Backlit RGB LED, Cherry MX RGB Red (CH-9101010-UK )

£159.95*


Zowie FK1 High Performance Gaming Mouse

£56.99*


Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080Ti Gaming OC 11264MB GDDR5X PCI-Express Graphics Card

£698.99*


Asus ROG Strix X370-F AMD X370 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard

£193.99*


Seasonic Prime Platinum 750W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply

£179.99*


WD Black 1TB 7200rpm SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD (WD1003FZEX)

£72.95*


Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2B30

£139.99*


Samsung 850 EVO Series mSATA 500GB SATA 6Gbps Solid State Drive (MZ-M5E500BW)

£179.99*


Corsair AM4 Brackets

£0.00*


Corsair Hydro Series H80i v2 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060024-WW)

£99.95*


AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1700X 3.80GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail

£329.99*


Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut High Performance Thermal Paste - 11.1g / 3 ml

£19.99*


OcUK Mega Mat XXL Elite Tactical Gaming Surface

£17.99*

[Chuck328]

young_bairn said:

Thanks mate, those monitors are a bit more expensive than I was planning. It's a small spare room so I think 32" will be too big. 27" is what I was going to go with.

Budget for full build is 2.5-3k including all peripherals. I was going to get a PC builder to knock it together but after watching you tube videos it looks pretty straight forward to put a PC together so the last build I played with on overclockers was around £2300

Corsair Graphite 780T Full Tower Case - White (CC-9011059-WW)

£194.99*


Corsair Gaming K70 LUX RGB Mechanical Keyboard, Backlit RGB LED, Cherry MX RGB Red (CH-9101010-UK )

£159.95*


Zowie FK1 High Performance Gaming Mouse

£56.99*


Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080Ti Gaming OC 11264MB GDDR5X PCI-Express Graphics Card

£698.99*


Asus ROG Strix X370-F AMD X370 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard

£193.99*


Seasonic Prime Platinum 750W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply

£179.99*


WD Black 1TB 7200rpm SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD (WD1003FZEX)

£72.95*


Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2B30

£139.99*


Samsung 850 EVO Series mSATA 500GB SATA 6Gbps Solid State Drive (MZ-M5E500BW)

£179.99*


Corsair AM4 Brackets

£0.00*


Corsair Hydro Series H80i v2 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060024-WW)

£99.95*


AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1700X 3.80GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail

£329.99*


Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut High Performance Thermal Paste - 11.1g / 3 ml

£19.99*


OcUK Mega Mat XXL Elite Tactical Gaming Surface

£17.99*

That's a very similar build to my pc which I use for VR gaming.

Recommend the Corsair H50 cooler, more than enough even if you intend to overclock (which you shouldn't need to do with that set up). Oh and bin the thermal paste as well. My H50 came with a pre applied compound on it.

All in all that is an awesome set up.

[young_bairn]

Thanks Chuck,

All bits now ordered here is a breakdown of the main parts. Also ordered gaming keyboard, mouse and a headset. Never built a PC before but outube makes it look easy enough. Will just take my time.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU:AMD - Ryzen 7 1700X 3.4GHz 8-Core Processor (£309.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler:CRYORIG - H5 Universal 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£44.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard:Asus - STRIX X370-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard (£180.17 @ BT Shop)
Memory:Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£134.40 @ Aria PC)
Storage:Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£134.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card:Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Gaming OC 11G Video Card (£676.96 @ Amazon UK)
Case:Corsair - 760T White V2 ATX Full Tower Case (£126.00 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply:Super Flower - Leadex Gold 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Monitor:Acer - Predator XB271HUA 27.0" 2560x1440 165Hz Monitor (£459.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2066.50
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-08 03:58 BST+0100

[Chuck328]

No probs.

PC building is far easier these days. Don't have to worry about jumpers, setting dip switches for correct cpu config. Ball ache!

Anyway, couple of lessons i learned via the hard way might help you.

Have you checked your ram compatibility? I ordered the same ram as you but at 3200. My board (Asus ROG Maximus Code) can handle that as can the cpu but it requires fecking about in the BIOS to work with my i7 7700. That intel chip only runs with 2400mhz RAM as standard. (Might be worth checking your chip if you haven't already done so?) I sent my ram back and ordered 2400Mhz which would run without any tweaking needed. The pc just wouldn't boot with the 3200.(Corsair vengeance 16gb ddr4)

Your pc cooler. My mate has the same H50 cooler as me. He advised me to make sure in the BIOS that the 'fan speed' is set to maximum. Basically, having a variable speed on the pump lowers the pumps life. The Corsair is best run at full speed on the pump. I'd check the pump you bought perhaps and see if there's anything like that on it.

Good luck!

[young_bairn]

Chuck328 said:

No probs.

PC building is far easier these days. Don't have to worry about jumpers, setting dip switches for correct cpu config. Ball ache!

Anyway, couple of lessons i learned via the hard way might help you.

Have you checked your ram compatibility? I ordered the same ram as you but at 3200. My board (Asus ROG Maximus Code) can handle that as can the cpu but it requires fecking about in the BIOS to work with my i7 7700. That intel chip only runs with 2400mhz RAM as standard. (Might be worth checking your chip if you haven't already done so?) I sent my ram back and ordered 2400Mhz which would run without any tweaking needed. The pc just wouldn't boot with the 3200.(Corsair vengeance 16gb ddr4)

Your pc cooler. My mate has the same H50 cooler as me. He advised me to make sure in the BIOS that the 'fan speed' is set to maximum. Basically, having a variable speed on the pump lowers the pumps life. The Corsair is best run at full speed on the pump. I'd check the pump you bought perhaps and see if there's anything like that on it.

Good luck!

All noted cheers.

I had help on overclockers forum to pick my build so I am hoping all will go well. Ordered the vast majority of the components from there to.

[born2bslow]

If you have leftover budget get yourself an Oculus Rift, VR is fantastic for racing/space games and there are some cool little shooters like Robo Recall too...can't recommend it enough.

[young_bairn]

I think I have spent enough for now. Will look at VR in the new year as it is one of the reasons I went for the spec I did.

Got the PC up and running today and downloaded all the updated drivers.

Jumped into PUBG and as expected didn't last long. Going to take many hours to get up to speed gaming withe a keyboard and mouse.

[Guvernator]

Gaming on a keyboard and mouse can take a while to get used to. I used to play PC then switched to console for a few years then when I went back to PC's it still took me quite a while to adjust.

I'd perhaps suggest turning the sensitivity down a little on the mouse at least initially as you'll find the precise mouse movements make aiming difficult initially. Also it will take a while for your muscle memory to remember where all the keys on the keyboard are. Even today I still find myself having to glance down occasionally to press a key.

If you really struggle with it you could always go for something like a steam controller. It seems to be a halfway house between a controller and keyboard+mouse setup.

[kowalski655]

Since I can't seem to start a new thread from this mobile I will ask here. I need to add some storage to my PC, but might not be able to get an internal hard drive to fit....so will an external hard drive via USB 3.0 be fast enough to run modern games,or will I need to get a new case?

[Jinx]

kowalski655 said:

Since I can't seem to start a new thread from this mobile I will ask here. I need to add some storage to my PC, but might not be able to get an internal hard drive to fit....so will an external hard drive via USB 3.0 be fast enough to run modern games,or will I need to get a new case?

I run most of my games from an external 3.0 USB drive. Yes load times could be better (Battlefield 1 is sensitive to this - so keep your multiplayer games on an internal drive if possible (or use a solid state external just for these)) but for games that don't change maps as frequently an external drive is fine.

[kowalski655]

Thanks for that. Hopefully the drive will fit,even if I sacrifice the DVD drive for it(after all, what use is that nowadays) but at least I have the option.

[Zod]

Chuck328 said:

No probs.

PC building is far easier these days. Don't have to worry about jumpers, setting dip switches for correct cpu config. Ball ache!

It has to be nearly twenty years since you had to worry about that kind of thing. ATX, Pentium II, BX motherboards and Windows 98 did away with all of that.

[Zod]

kowalski655 said:

Since I can't seem to start a new thread from this mobile I will ask here. I need to add some storage to my PC, but might not be able to get an internal hard drive to fit....so will an external hard drive via USB 3.0 be fast enough to run modern games,or will I need to get a new case?

USB 3 will be fast enough if the rest of the PC is up to it.

[wst]

It may be more viable price-wise to look at just replacing the entire HDD/SSD with a larger one. Data capacity is stupidly inexpensive.

I've got to dig up the unused fan that was provided with my CPU cooler. My case's exhaust fan finally died a couple of days ago (bearing went). It did quite well, it was first powered up in December 2011!