New Machine

[Narcisus]

I'm now seriously considering ( again ) a new machine. My last build was in 2009 !! and is still pretty strong at 1080 but i'm looking to up the ante a little in the resolution stakes...

Current machine water cooled 2500k which has run flawlessly at 4.5Ghz since day one. Originally purchased a GTX 570 but moved to a 970 when the prices came down a little.

I've literally just started researching so am about 9 years behind the curve !!

New machine is going to ( probably ) be Micro ATX based because i've moved to a very small room which is just a little larger than my current Cosmos S case !

So first spec iteration is looking like :

Micro ATC Case - Undecided but preferably with a few drive bays - Possible with Micro ATX ?
Mainboard - Undecided pref with decent wifi
PSU - On of the Corsair Gold units ?
CPU - 9700K ( ? )
Cooler - One of the Corsair Hydro's ?
GPU - RTX 2080
Memory - 32gb ( Make undecided ) Extra mem handy for vid editing
Main OS Drive - 500gb - 1Tb Solid State ( Model undecided )
4 K Screen - Undecided preferably 28-32"
Optical drive Blu-Ray - Desirable
Soundcard - Use one of the cards in current machine
Other Storage - Use drives from current machine

Budget around 2k.

Are there any other technologies just round the corner worth waiting for ? I'm talking in next 6 months or so.

[Jinx]

The Ryzen 3000 chips are about to be released (July 7th) and Intel have indicated they will be dropping prices. Also AMD will be releasing their new mid-range cards and nVidia are releasing the "super" versions of their RTX series. I would wait for the 7th at least as the savings, even if you don't change a thing with your build, should be worth it. Oh and there is an amazon prime day on the 15th July.

[Narcisus]

Jinx said:

The Ryzen 3000 chips are about to be released (July 7th) and Intel have indicated they will be dropping prices. Also AMD will be releasing their new mid-range cards and nVidia are releasing the "super" versions of their RTX series. I would wait for the 7th at least as the savings even if you don't change a thing with your build should be worth it.

Great info cheers. I'll have a look at the AMD stuff this evening. Will they have hardware for raytracing or is that just Nvidia at the mo.

[Jinx]

Narcisus said:

Great info cheers. I'll have a look at the AMD stuff this evening. Will they have hardware for raytracing or is that just Nvidia at the mo.

Hardware raytracing is nVidia only at the moment and probably best left off on anything less than a 2070. AMD have indicated ray tracing plans (and the new consoles due next year have said they support raytracing - both Sony and Microsoft will be using AMD) but nothing has been seen yet.

[phil4]

Looking at bits and prices, you can just about get that in at 2K if you don't go bonkers on any bit.

My tip however would be first to spec it as balanced as you can. There's no point having a fast CPU, lots of memory, but a cheap budget SSD for example. Or a great rig with poor cooling.

For example you can pickup an intel 760p QLC 1Tb SSD for £97, which really helps your 2K price point, but is about half the read speed of another intel 760p TLC 3D that costs £182.

If you're not careful it'd be the same as putting ditchfinder £25 remoulds on your new 911.

[sjg]

If you want small almost all the current mini ITX motherboards take 32GB RAM.

Storage you can go M.2 SSD on the motherboard so no need for drive bays even.

[Narcisus]

phil4 said:

Looking at bits and prices, you can just about get that in at 2K if you don't go bonkers on any bit.

My tip however would be first to spec it as balanced as you can. There's no point having a fast CPU, lots of memory, but a cheap budget SSD for example. Or a great rig with poor cooling.

For example you can pickup an intel 760p QLC 1Tb SSD for £97, which really helps your 2K price point, but is about half the read speed of another intel 760p TLC 3D that costs £182.

If you're not careful it'd be the same as putting ditchfinder £25 remoulds on your new 911.

Cheers. 2K ballpark would stretch to 2.5.

[Narcisus]

sjg said:

If you want small almost all the current mini ITX motherboards take 32GB RAM.

Storage you can go M.2 SSD on the motherboard so no need for drive bays even.

Trouble is I want my cake and eat it.... I cant afford a decent external storage solution at the same time so would be re using some drives from current machine.

It's not a pure gaming rig and would be used for other 'stuff'. Currently have about 40Tb of storage with around 5Tb of important data backed up across multiple drives 'The Cloud' and one large drive which I keep offsite in the gararge.

[FourWheelDrift]

You can get sub £2000 with a i9 9900k have a look here (and I didn't go cheapest on everything either) - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/ZmnWNQ


Edited to add - Just noticed you need a micro-ATX case. You can edit the above for micro-ATX here £1906 - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/VWVs9J

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Tuesday 25th June 17:55

[Narcisus]

FourWheelDrift said:

You can get sub £2000 with a i9 9900k have a look here (and I didn't go cheapest on everything either) - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/ZmnWNQ


Edited to add - Just noticed you need a micro-ATX case. You can edit the above for micro-ATX here £1906 - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/VWVs9J

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Tuesday 25th June 17:55

Nice one cheers. My Mrs is going to love you lot !

[FourWheelDrift]

Bit more time and more reading on what you want (missed Wifi Mobo) So something like this 9900k system, inc 4k 28" monitor for £1992 - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Fr2hy

Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor
Deepcool - Castle 240 RGB 69.34 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Asus - TUF Z390M-PRO GAMING (WI-FI) Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Crucial - MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Gigabyte - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB GAMING OC Video Card
Fractal Design - Focus G Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case
Corsair - RMx 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
AOC - U2879VF 28.0" 3840x2160 60 Hz Monitor

All known names, nothing dodgy. Everything except the optional blu ray drive. Only reason the cooler is RGB is because it was the only decent twin fan to keep you under budget

Also not sure if you really need you old sound card, on board sound has been fantastic for years now.

[Narcisus]

FourWheelDrift said:

Bit more time and more reading on what you want (missed Wifi Mobo) So something like this 9900k system, inc 4k 28" monitor for £1992 - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Fr2hy

Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor
Deepcool - Castle 240 RGB 69.34 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Asus - TUF Z390M-PRO GAMING (WI-FI) Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Crucial - MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Gigabyte - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB GAMING OC Video Card
Fractal Design - Focus G Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case
Corsair - RMx 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
AOC - U2879VF 28.0" 3840x2160 60 Hz Monitor

All known names, nothing dodgy. Everything except the optional blu ray drive. Only reason the cooler is RGB is because it was the only decent twin fan to keep you under budget

Also not sure if you really need you old sound card, on board sound has been fantastic for years now.

Thanks FWD much appreciated. It’s a Soundblaster AE-5 need it for the optical out to my Kefs. I’ll use this for a base let you know how I go on. No rush so plenty of time for fine tuning.

[Narcisus]

OK I've been doing some research and some fine tuning weighing up performance v value. Also decided that 4k probably isnt worth it for me at the mo... So I'm well within budget at the moment. Now i'll have a look to see where I can improve specific components. FWD ! Funny how I didnt look at your list while researching and how similar they are lol !!

So far this is basic rig :

Case

Fractal Define R6 Black - W 233 H 465 D 543 - £126 Balck

CPU

i7-9700K - £383

Cooler

Corsair H115i Pro - £110

Mainboard

Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI LGA 1151 DDR4 ATX - £155

Memory

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz - £70

OS Drive

Samsung - 970 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive - £13

Video

Gigabyte - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB WINDFORCE Video Card - £473

PSU

Corsair RM850x - £110

[Narcisus]

Jinx said:

The Ryzen 3000 chips are about to be released (July 7th) and Intel have indicated they will be dropping prices. Also AMD will be releasing their new mid-range cards and nVidia are releasing the "super" versions of their RTX series. I would wait for the 7th at least as the savings, even if you don't change a thing with your build, should be worth it. Oh and there is an amazon prime day on the 15th July.

Cheers Jinx. The RTX refresh looks interesting but the new AMD Processors look like they maybe worth serious consideration ! I've not had an AMD processor since Athlon XP !

Edited by Narcisus on Friday 28th June 13:17

Edited by Narcisus on Saturday 29th June 07:40

[king arthur]

phil4 said:

Looking at bits and prices, you can just about get that in at 2K if you don't go bonkers on any bit.

My tip however would be first to spec it as balanced as you can. There's no point having a fast CPU, lots of memory, but a cheap budget SSD for example. Or a great rig with poor cooling.

For example you can pickup an intel 760p QLC 1Tb SSD for £97, which really helps your 2K price point, but is about half the read speed of another intel 760p TLC 3D that costs £182.

If you're not careful it'd be the same as putting ditchfinder £25 remoulds on your new 911.

I'm not sure I agree. At a given budget the read and write speed of the SSD would be among the last things I'd be concerned with. Save the money on getting the absolute fastest SSD and spend on higher clock speed RAM instead. As long as it's an NVMe drive I don't think you'll easily notice the difference between 1500MB/s reads and 3000MB/s.

[Narcisus]

Ok Machine ordered later today and for once I'm not building it myself !!! Have to admit that makes me a little nervous !

Anyway here is my final spec :

Case - be quiet! SILENT BASE 801 Orange solid side panel

MB - ASUS TUF X570-PLUS GAMING

CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, Zen 2, 12-core with SMT, 3.8GHz, 4.6GHz Turbo

Cooler - Corsair Hydro H115i PRO RGB - 280mm Liquid Cooler

Memory - 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair DDR4 Dominator Platinum RGB - 3600MHz

GPU - EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB XC ULTRA GAMING Turing Graphics Card

PSU - Silent Corsair RM850x, Modular, Silent, 80PLUS Gold - Dual GPU

SSD PCIe ( M.2 ) - 500GB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS, 3500MB/s Read. 3200MB/s Write, 480K IOPS

Hard Drives - x 3 - 6TB Seagate ST6000DM003 BarraCuda, 5400rpm, 256MB Cache