PC Hardware and building thread

[DELTAprime]

All looks good as far as your selection of new parts, looks like 7700k is the way to go for you. Just remember it is a very hot CPU so don't get freaked out about it. It seems like every day on the dedicated PC building forums there is a post every single day with someone worrying that their new 7700k is too hot.

You hopefully won't need the Arctic Silver as there is pre applied thermal compound on the Corsair AIO, but it's good to have a tube of thermal compound anyway because if you don't get the placement right the first time or need to reseat the CPU or something you need to remove the pre applied thermal compound and replace it.

[DELTAprime]

As bad as video card prices are at the moment they are probably going to get worse in a couple of months unless the mining market crashes.

GDDR prices have risen 31% this month at every GDDR manufacture which makes me think Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and the other company I can't think of are conspiring. This might increase video game console prices also as the PS4, PS4 Pro and Xbox One X all use GDDR5.

Good thing I got all my consoles, but it's going to be rough when I buy Nvidia's next xx80 video card next year.

[prjkt]

Moving house has drained my pc funds for now, so that's on hold.
I do however have a much bigger TV, steamlink, Ethernet over power and three wireless access points in the house (thick brick walls destroy any chance of transmission)

[prjkt]

Well I've started the process. Scored a good deal on an Intel 512Gb 600p SSD, and just ordered a Fractal Design Meshify C case along with a Corsair 650W PSU.

I've decided to pass on a second SSD for games for now, save for a 1-2 TB one down the track (that Crucial MX300 2tb looks nice and affordable) and just use one of my 1Tb HDDs for games storage. Any brand new must play asap games I can install on the SSD and then move the files over later (Steam's good for this, as are some of the other launcher platforms.)

Still haven't 100% decided which way to go, but I'm edging towards a Ryzen 1700/X370 combo, as I've decided to keep my old Mac Pro and roll it back to a fresh OS X 10.6.8 install, so I've got no compatibility issues with any of my music software, powercore card, audio interface(s) etc, and have it as a dedicated music box, and a backup system if the new comp goes down.
Won't even need a KVM switch as the monitor has multiple inputs, and my Apple keyboard is on an extension cable, all I have to do is just unplug it from one extension, and plug it into the next (I already have a spare.) Will probably plug the mouse into the keyboard and cable tie part of the cable to the keyboard so it's less messy on the desk.

[DELTAprime]

Intel appear to be out of touch with reality again. The specs and price per 1000 units of the Coffee Lake desktop parts have been released and the 8700k will be a $55 USD increase over the 7700k for people buying in lots of 1000 CPUs and you know that will get passed onto consumers.

Leaked benchmarks show it is the best gaming CPU ever, but I really don't think an extra 2 frames per second in Rise of the Tomb Raider to an extra 20 fps in Witcher 3 is worth $55 especially when those games are already well over 120 fps.

[prjkt]

"How much more can we milk from the public?"

"Ryzen who?"

I'm sure they'll be great processors, but value for money seems to be lacking...

[prjkt]

aaaaand it's built:





final parts listing

I'll probably end up getting a DAC/Headphone amp, as one day using the built in ports has me hating the crackle, but that'll be down the line (My old audio interface doesn't officially support Win10 and gave me issues on the old install, so that's staying plugged into the Mac)

[DELTAprime]

Nice build, looks great and I'm sure it performs great also.

I'm actually thinking of selling my 7700k and motherboard when the Ryzen 2x00 CPUs come out next year. The 7700k is a thermal disaster.

[prjkt]

CPU's sitting nice and stable at 3.8ghz 1.35V 28-29�C Idle, 55�C Load
Can't get the ram up to rated spec (3200mhz) without BSODs, POST failing and general f*ckups, so I guess I'll deal with 2933MHZ for now, and play with the timings a little.

User Benchmark results - pretty happy there, I knew my one-up-from-last-gen-entry-level GPU wouldn't be up there, but it handles 2560x1080 just fine, and everything else looks sweet. Might try playing with OC'ing it a little...

I spent quite a while getting all the cables routed nicely - that FPanel USB cable would NOT plug in while the MB was installed... had to lift the board up and out a little to get the room to work with it, same for the rest of the FPanel connections running under the lower side of the board - had I pulled the whole thing out entirely and taped some cables down it might have been a little neater, but it works for me, and is tough to see behind the tinted glass. The back end is a little messier, but closed up, so I'll deal for now, though if I get any 2.5" SSDs I might order some short SATA cables for the HDD tray, the ones in the MB box are about 2.5x the required length. (on a side note, A LOT neater than my old Athlon XP build from back in '04 https://i.imgur.com/XykSA8k.jpg)

[DELTAprime]

So I'm primarily looking at upgrading from my 7700k to something better for streaming. I'm torn between the much cheaper and cooler running AMD parts or the better performing and much worse performance per dollar 8700k (which is sold out everywhere because it was a rushed launch by Intel). Neither of them are bad choices since Intel have got their thermals under much better control this time around, but the price gouging on the Intel side by retailers is ridiculous.