LDG-Gaming

Hey guys.

You may (or may not) have noticed my absence ingame for quite a while now, it was caused by no less than a sudden death of my 10 years old PC. Turns out all RAM banks across all channels kicked the bucket, in other words the mainboard is now a useless hunk of silicone. I have been using my shitty netbook that is prone to bluescreen under load since then, I am sick of it.

Now it is time to send that old relic to heaven to make room for a shiny, new PC.

I aim for a system that can run newer games on higher settings and handle multiple programs with ease. I intend to use the system for longer than just two measly months, I'm talking about a minimum of five years. Here's my current list of parts that I intend to buy. I'm going to call the new one "Voyager". It'll be my first system that I assemble all by myself.

------------------Voyager Parts List------------------

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-6700 (~330€)
It's the non-K variant with 65 watts TDP. I don't want to overclock at all, it's not worth the extra heat in my opinion. This one seems perfect for my needs. It has reasonable clocking speed, lower power consumption than its K-variant and possesses Hyperthreading, which is useful when running multiple programs.

CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Universal (~80€)
Cryorig is a young company that threw some cool CPU coolers on the market with promising results. I'd like to give them a try. R1 is a double tower cooler with two fans. A special feature is its design, which doesn't obstruct the RAM in any way, so you can use your RAMs even with abnormally long heatsinks. Neat!

Mainboard: ASRock H170M PRO4S (~94€)
Almost seems made for the non-K variants of i5/i7 CPUs. H170 doesn't feature any overclocking support unlike its bigger and more expensive brother, the Z170 chipset. So this one is good to go. It's a µATX board by the way.

RAM: Kingston HyperX DIMM 16GB DDR4-2133 Kit (~99€)
These are mandatory, as the mainboard only supports the new DDR4 sticks with 2133 MHz and nothing else. I'm slapping on 16 GB, I've had enough with unresponsive programs.

HDD: Western Digital WD10EZEX 1 TB (~49€)
I won't use a Solid-Shit-Drive. In my opinion, the technology is still not there yet. HDD is the way to go for now and a much cheaper alternative.

GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G (~560€)
For a 980, it looks like a masterpiece of engineering compared to those monstrous cards that look like fucking battleships.

PSU: Thermaltake Hamburg 530W (~50€)
It's the cheapest PSU I could find for the system and delivers more than enough power for the system.

Case: Aerocool DS Cube (~70€)
After weeks of comparing hardware, including cases, this one stands out at most. It is incredibly roomy for a small case, allowing up to 190 cm(!) of CPU cooler height.

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit) (~85€)
Not fond of Windows 8, m8.

------------------cut here 8<------------------

I recently started my first job and my next wage arrives in November, where I will definitely buy the parts. If you want, you can suggest some alternate PC parts to further optimize the build, but keep in mind that the build costs amount to around 1500€ and I can't go past that budget. Or you can use this as a guide for your own next PC. It will be still a huge, HUGE jump forward to the next level for me.

Until then, I (still) won't be able to play with you guys. But don't worry Azarael and Eif, I will get a fucking proper headset and join TS as soon as I will be able to. See you later.

Mecha wrote: OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit) (~85€)
Not fond of Windows 8, m8.

Very nice indeed, Mecha. Self-build is definitely next level (!)

Should last 5-10 years easily. Although HDD failure rates are high these days (SSD competition pressure?).
If I had to get a HDD, I'd probably get Hitachi (HGST) - see https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-dri ... ember-2014.

For me, a basic Intel SSD on SATA is fine, but there's also the latest PCIe, NVMe and M.2 flavours to consider if you have different requirements.

I'd say try consider go with a 2011-3 socket setup.(or wait for LGA 2017 whenever it comes out) Its not the newest setup but you can later on upgrade the CPU for a faster or better Xeon (if supported) version for cheap.

Hitachi is first on reliability, next comes WD (Get a WD black for performance)
Rest seems ok but NEVER EVER cheap-out on the power supply!!

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id- ... -list.html

NO SSD???

Also will you only use it for games only or also for video editing or other power demanding activities?

Skaldy wrote:Very nice indeed, Mecha. Self-build is definitely next level (!)

Should last 5-10 years easily. Although HDD failure rates are high these days (SSD competition pressure?).
If I had to get a HDD, I'd probably get Hitachi (HGST) - see https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-dri ... ember-2014.

For me, a basic Intel SSD on SATA is fine, but there's also the latest PCIe, NVMe and M.2 flavours to consider if you have different requirements.

I wonder why Seagate's failure rate is so high there. I actually have two HDDs from Seagate, one 20 GB from the early 2000s and a model from 2005 with 250 GB, both still work fine after 10+ years of continouus use.

Nardaq_NL wrote:I'd say try consider go with a 2011-3 socket setup.(or wait for LGA 2017 whenever it comes out) Its not the newest setup but you can later on upgrade the CPU for a faster or better Xeon (if supported) version for cheap.

Hitachi is first on reliability, next comes WD (Get a WD black for performance)
Rest seems ok but NEVER EVER cheap-out on the power supply!!

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id- ... -list.html

I think I'd rather wait for the next socket. But the PSU advice is gold, I'll be going for a top-quality one. Highely appreciated!

bOnO wrote:NO SSD???

Also will you only use it for games only or also for video editing or other power demanding activities?

I am using it for a multitude of programs, including gaming. I occasionally work with pictures (drawings, edits) on Paint.NET, GIMP, Hexels etc. and recently considered video editing. So yeah, some resource-demanding programs will be used. But I don't need a (ridiculously) expensive workstation rig for that, the power of i7 6700 is totally sufficient for everything I intend to do.

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll be changing my PSU and HDD, it'll cost me slightly more but better safe than sorry on the long run.
XFX XTR Series 550W PSU (~97€)
HGST HUA722010CLA630 1 TB (~79€)

tfw mecha will get a better computer than you

Mecha wrote:CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-6700 (~330€)
It's the non-K variant with 65 watts TDP. I don't want to overclock at all, it's not worth the extra heat in my opinion. This one seems perfect for my needs. It has reasonable clocking speed, lower power consumption than its K-variant and possesses Hyperthreading, which is useful when running multiple programs.

CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Universal (~80€)
Cryorig is a young company that threw some cool CPU coolers on the market with promising results. I'd like to give them a try. R1 is a double tower cooler with two fans. A special feature is its design, which doesn't obstruct the RAM in any way, so you can use your RAMs even with abnormally long heatsinks. Neat!

Good choice. Nobody likes AMD these days, rite?

Mecha wrote:Mainboard: ASRock H170M PRO4S (~94€)
Almost seems made for the non-K variants of i5/i7 CPUs. H170 doesn't feature any overclocking support unlike its bigger and more expensive brother, the Z170 chipset. So this one is good to go. It's a µATX board by the way.

IMO µATX isn't a good choice for high-spec PC, the reason is that you'll need the extra space for is that say, GPU will take 2 slots, CPU cooler will need extra space around the board etc. and heat will be a problem as the components are compressed together - so I'd strongly recommend a different H170 board, which is a regular ATX.

Mecha wrote:RAM: Kingston HyperX DIMM 16GB DDR4-2133 Kit (~99€)
These are mandatory, as the mainboard only supports the new DDR4 sticks with 2133 MHz and nothing else. I'm slapping on 16 GB, I've had enough with unresponsive programs.

HDD: Western Digital WD10EZEX 1 TB (~49€)
I won't use a Solid-Shit-Drive. In my opinion, the technology is still not there yet. HDD is the way to go for now and a much cheaper alternative.

Well, SSD or other HDD is something you can always easily add later.

Mecha wrote:GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G (~560€)
For a 980, it looks like a masterpiece of engineering compared to those monstrous cards that look like fucking battleships.

If you are going to play on a higher resolution, than I'd spend those extra 100E for a GTX 980 Ti card for the extra memory.

Mecha wrote:PSU: Thermaltake Hamburg 530W (~50€)
It's the cheapest PSU I could find for the system and delivers more than enough power for the system.

Yeah I've noticed you found out that cheap PSU isn't a good way here.

Mecha wrote:Case: Aerocool DS Cube (~70€)
After weeks of comparing hardware, including cases, this one stands out at most. It is incredibly roomy for a small case, allowing up to 190 cm(!) of CPU cooler height.

Roomy case and microATX board?! Doesn't add up, right?

Mecha wrote:OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit) (~85€)
Not fond of Windows 8, m8.

Would buy a "Pro" edition.

Well, overall IMO the mainboard is a bad selection.

I went micro-ATX mboard+case previously and regretted it. I had heat issues and limited expansion options. Back to a massive case now - Cooler Master Silencio 550.

Mecha wrote:I wonder why Seagate's failure rate is so high there. I actually have two HDDs from Seagate, one 20 GB from the early 2000s and a model from 2005 with 250 GB, both still work fine after 10+ years of continouus use.

I know, it implies they've gone crap over the past few years only. They did buy out Maxtor in 2006 (known to be poor) and Samsung's HDD business in 2011.

You could always consider getting the smallest possible SSD for your main drive (120Gb is borderline for Windows+ProgramFiles folders) and then expand with massive slower secondary HDDs over time without having to reinstall everything - many people do that.

Get a SeaSonic PSU that is at least gold rated, the cheap stuff has noisy fans and dies quickly.