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

[Zod]

After years of watercooling, I finally had a leak recently that took out my Rampage IV Extreme.

I was running an i7 3820k, 16GB of DDR3 and a 980 GTX on it. Fortunately, the GPU survived, but the processor and RAM won't work on newer motherboards, so I have moved on to a Rampage V Extreme with i7 5820k, 16 GB of DDR4 and my still good 980 GTX. My old boot drive, a RevoDrive 3 X2 appears to have been taken out by the leak as it is only showing half of its 240GB capacity and I cannot get it to work as a boot drive, so I now have a 512GB Samsung M2 NVMe drive. That drive is easily the biggest improvement.

Why am I watercooling? Because I've done it for years in the same case and removing it would be a pain, but mainly for the sake of it!

[Guvernator]

Wow that sucks, I considered watercooling for about 5 seconds and discounted it for exactly that reason. Somehow water and electrical components just don't sit comfortably for me.

Squirrel, I recently picked up the G-sync version of that Asus monitor and it is a thing of beauty. Would recommend it highly. The only issue you may have is the panels do suffer from a bit of glow around the edges of the screen but it's not enough to bother me tbh and I can't see it at all when I am gaming.

[Zod]

Guvernator said:

Wow that sucks, I considered watercooling for about 5 seconds and discounted it for exactly that reason. Somehow water and electrical components just don't sit comfortably for me.

Squirrel, I recently picked up the G-sync version of that Asus monitor and it is a thing of beauty. Would recommend it highly. The only issue you may have is the panels do suffer from a bit of glow around the edges of the screen but it's not enough to bother me tbh and I can't see it at all when I am gaming.

I've been doing it for years without incident. I just got complacent, left it unchecked for too long and a couple of bits of piping had hardened, leaving them ready to leak when knocked. I didn't notice and the PC just shut down while I was playing Skyrim, never to start again.

I haven't bothered with any G-sync or free-sync monitors. I have the Dell U3415W, which isn't the fastest screen, but is a wondrous thing on which to play games.

[Squirrelofwoe]

Guvernator said:

Squirrel, I recently picked up the G-sync version of that Asus monitor and it is a thing of beauty. Would recommend it highly.

I saw your picture in the other thread and did wonder if that's what you'd gone for, that's good to know thanks!

Guvernator said:

The only issue you may have is the panels do suffer from a bit of glow around the edges of the screen but it's not enough to bother me tbh and I can't see it at all when I am gaming.

Coming from an 8 year old Dell monitor that was never built as a gaming monitor in the first place, I am working on the basis that it should be such a quantum leap forwards that I'll barely even register anything like that.

Funnily enough my mate has a 27" Dell Ultrasharp IPS monitor and even that is like looking at the gaming world through brand new eyes I did consider one myself but it's only 60hz refresh rate and I want Freesync, hence going for the Asus.

[Squirrelofwoe]

Zod said:

've been doing it for years without incident. I just got complacent, left it unchecked for too long and a couple of bits of piping had hardened, leaving them ready to leak when knocked. I didn't notice and the PC just shut down while I was playing Skyrim, never to start again.

Ouch

I've always avoided water-cooling for the same reasons, I know it's a fantastic thing but I just don't think I'd be able to sleep at night.

[Zod]

Squirrelofwoe said:

Zod said:

've been doing it for years without incident. I just got complacent, left it unchecked for too long and a couple of bits of piping had hardened, leaving them ready to leak when knocked. I didn't notice and the PC just shut down while I was playing Skyrim, never to start again.

Ouch

I've always avoided water-cooling for the same reasons, I know it's a fantastic thing but I just don't think I'd be able to sleep at night.

It ran for three years almost 24/7. You are supposed to check and service. I got complacent.

[Guvernator]

My thoughts the Asus screen

It's 1440p which is the current sweet spot I think, an improvement on 1080p without going OTT Thought about a 4K monitor but on didn't see the point as it makes most stuff too small on a 27" screen and you'd need a twin 980ti setup to run games on it properly.
The high refresh rate is superb and make stuff look silky smooth.
The colours are great, really pop out.
G-sync=No tearing or weirdness with artefacts etc when in motion. Again makes things look silky smooth.

Cons
It's expensive! A lot of outlay for a monitor but I figure it will keep me going for at least a few years.
Glow around the edges. This can be down to IPS glow which is a just a drawback of that panel technology (they all do that sir) or it can be light bleed due to bad quality control. It's very little on mine so I think it's just the former which doesn't bother me but I have seen examples of the latter on the net which look horrible so it seems to be a bit of lottery. If you get one, make sure the place you get it from has a decent returns policy in case you end up with a "bad one".

[Guvernator]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

£750, was originally only supposed to spend £500 on it

[Zod]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

...so I now have a 512GB Samsung M2 NVMe drive. That drive is easily the biggest improvement.
!

Where did you buy that? Do they do a 1TB version?

Coolant's deionised anyway. That's probably why most components were fine. It doesn't take much to kill a motherboard though. When I took it apart, I found it had got into the power socket and the front panel connectors were shorted too, despite its being deionised. I suspect it doesn't stay that way if it's in the system for years!

512GB is the biggest Samsung for the moment. It's this one:




You can buy an intel PCIe 1.2TB drive, but it's £750.

[Squirrelofwoe]

Guvernator said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

£750, was originally only supposed to spend £500 on it

The freesync version is currently around £470, so a decent saving but does have the limitation of freesync only working between about 35hz & 90hz. Not an issue for me though as I am not going to be running AAA titles at 1440p above 90 fps!

[Guvernator]

Squirrelofwoe said:

The freesync version is currently around £470, so a decent saving but does have the limitation of freesync only working between about 35hz & 90hz. Not an issue for me though as I am not going to be running AAA titles at 1440p above 90 fps!

I would have gone for the cheaper previous gen G-sync version which was about the same price as the freesync version but the gen 1 g-sync monitors come with only 1 DV port which means I wouldn't been able to use it for anything else. That's the advantage of freesync as it's not a proprietary scaler so it can be built into a normal monitor with all the other types of input connections available.

The monitor I bought is the first gen 2 g-sync monitor to market which comes with an extra input port but I paid for the privilege, £250 for an extra HDMI port

[Squirrelofwoe]

Guvernator said:

I would have gone for the cheaper previous gen G-sync version which was about the same price as the freesync version but the gen 1 g-sync monitors come with only 1 DV port which means I wouldn't been able to use it for anything else. That's the advantage of freesync as it's not a proprietary scaler so it can be built into a normal monitor with all the other types of input connections available.

The monitor I bought is the first gen 2 g-sync monitor to market which comes with an extra input port but I paid for the privilege, £250 for an extra HDMI port

That sucks, I guess if you want it you pay for it though. My mate has a pair of 27" Samsung monitors alongside his 27" Dell Ultrasharp. They are massive heavy things that kick out more heat than a decent sized radiator- no IPS or anything, low refresh rates etc, they were one of the first gen 27" 1080p LCD monitors and they cost around £800 each new. The scary thing is they are not that old, and are worth buttons now. He'd bought one new himself and recently bought the second off of another mate for £50 after he'd had no luck trying to sell it for £75...

It's crazy how quickly the price comes down as tech moves on, it's the only thing I'm slightly apprehensive about with buying the Asus- I didn't really want to spend over £400 on a monitor only to find it available for half that in a year, but I guess that's the price you pay to have it now. My 24" Dell cost me nearly £300 an that is still going strong after 8 years so if I get even half that lifespan out of the Asus it won't seem quite so painful.

Or that's what I tell myself anyway!

[Guvernator]

There are lot more gen 2 g-sync monitors coming out in the next few weeks and months so I suspect prices will go down as competition heats up. If you're not desperate, it's probably better to wait. I needed a monitor now as I didn't have one so it was either buy a cheaper one now, use my projector which wouldn't be ideal or get the Asus.

[Art0ir]

I'm hoping to pick up a nice 1440p screen in the black Friday sales.

[wolves_wanderer]

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9259300

Post to add the Firestrike score. I went AMD for the graphics card as I use this machine for work and compute performance is still better with AMD. The machine runs in a silenced case and is pretty much inaudible even in a quiet room. Looking to go either 1440 or 4k next and still debating whether to crossfire the video card or wait for the next gen.

[Guvernator]

Both Nvidia and AMD are apparently releasing their next gen graphics cards within the next 6 months. If you believe the hype, Nvidia's Pascal and AMD's Arctic Islands next gen cards will be a significant leap over current GPU's so if you aren't desperate, it might be worth waiting.

I'd also like to add that doing console gaming almost exclusively for the past few years, I'd forgotten how quickly the PC market moves and have now got back into the habit of checking new developments on the PC scene. Whether this is a good thing or not is debatable at the moment as while my geeky side is rejoicing at all the new stuff coming out, my wallet it weeping!

[wolves_wanderer]

I'm in a similar situation. I hadn't built a PC for about 6 years until a few months ago. I have been doing work that needs a decent machine so built for that, then Elite Dangerous came out so I had to buy that, then saw how good GTA5 looked etc etc.

I will probably hang on for the next gen, even if I don't end up buying one it will make a 2nd card cheaper, although I've never had 2 GPUs and know that it can be a bit hit and miss.

[130R]

wolves_wanderer said:

I've never had 2 GPUs and know that it can be a bit hit and miss.

I have been running (Nvidia) SLI for years and really had no issues at all. I had 580 SLI and now 780 SLI and pretty much the only issue is very rarely when games don't support it, in which case it just runs off a single card. Requiring a beefier PSU and a bigger case with better cooling (which is noisier) are really the only negatives.

[Squirrelofwoe]

130R said:

wolves_wanderer said:

I've never had 2 GPUs and know that it can be a bit hit and miss.

I have been running (Nvidia) SLI for years and really had no issues at all. I had 580 SLI and now 780 SLI and pretty much the only issue is very rarely when games don't support it, in which case it just runs off a single card. Requiring a beefier PSU and a bigger case with better cooling (which is noisier) are really the only negatives.

Likewise I ran a pair of AMD 4870 cards in crossfire for a fair while, never had any issue with it as far as I can remember, just that some games supported it and others didn't. It was only when one packed up (they were both second hand anyway) that I upgraded to a beefier single card, and have stayed that way since. Mainly because I am tight and so the idea of upgrading just one card is preferable to upgrading two!

[wolves_wanderer]

Thanks chaps. PSU is fine (Corsair 1000W). I will probably have a look at the next gen unless there are any crazy Black Friday deals. The good point with Crossfire is that it will offer exactly 100% scaling for my compute tasks (which is the whole reason I built the machine in the first place).