new computer

[guardiandashi]

so I decided it was time to upgrade my system this year.

I am upgrading from a:
evga x58 3 way SLI motherboard
an intel i7 960 cpu socket 1366
RAM 3x 2gb ddr3 modules plus 3x 4gb ddr3
1tb 7200 rpm SATA

new components:
ASUS TUF Z370-PLUS gaming motherboard
an Intel i7 8700 cpu socket LGA 1151
RAM 2x Patriot 16gb DDR4 2133mhz modules
Corsair H105 liquid cooling kit (for the cpu)
and a new Thermaltake Versa C22 Snow edition case.
1TB SSD I picked up a few months ago

reused components:
DVD burner drive
1TB 7200 rpm hard drive
4TB 7200 rpm hard drive
NVidia 970 GTX video card
Thermaltake 750 watt power supply

my thought is that I should notice a rather significant performance improvement, and of course future proof myself for a while.

I realize I am not taking full advantage of a few features of the system, such as I don't currently have any m.2 drives (the new mainboard supports 2)

so thoughts?

[Geont]

I would probably go for RAM with higher frequency than 2133MHz as this will slightly improve performance.

[guardiandashi]

I did think about that, but frys had a sale on the ram I couldn't pass up, it was $279 for the 32gb of ram which was 90 off the regular price.

[Nightlord01]

I would probably go for RAM with higher frequency than 2133MHz as this will slightly improve performance.

The performance increase would be so small you'd need a system clock readout to test it.

Just out of curiosity Dashi, what do you use the PC for? If it's gaming, your single largest bottleneck for playing modern games is that 970 GTX. Replace that and it's a good start.

Are you planning on overclocking? If not, don't get a Z series board, waste of extra cash, go a K series. Also, forget the i7, most games still only use the single thread, two at the most, so an i7's potential is wasted.

[Matti]

I would probably go for RAM with higher frequency than 2133MHz as this will slightly improve performance.

What Nightlord01 said + better graphic adapter is much better investment for the money. As for the various SSDs, in most cases it is much the same as with the RAM. I have read from computer magazine an extensive test of the various SSDs and the time it takes between fastest and slowest SSDs to load up Windows is only 3 seconds. So: cheap RAM & SSD and direct the saved money for graphic adapter.

You're lucky to get Core i7-8700. I wanted to have that by the Christmas, but all of those have pretty much been sold out in Finland. So i7-7700 it is to go with GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Computer store is gathering the parts and they have promised the machine & peripherals to be ready in couple of weeks. Total sum (including assembly, 144 Hz monitor, 3 controllers, speakers, headset, and HTC Vive) so far is 4566,10 €. At first they offered me m.2 SSD for 499 €, but after flipping through my computer mags, I e-mailed them to get SATA version instead and I saved 150 € with that.

[edit]
I included list of the parts on PDF-file. 90 € is assembly fee and list is missing Kingston HyperX Cloud II headset which cost 99,90 €. Also they may shave off some of the price. I hope.

[guardiandashi]

I realize that on the new system that the EVGA 970gtx FTW edition will be a "bottleneck" but its being reused from the old computer, as its only ~1.5 years old.  and I just don't have the extra 300-500 us to replace the video card at this time. the reality is I will likely be replacing the video card in another year or 2 when its 3-4 years old and pretty obsolete.

this computer is my main home pc for gaming and such, so that's what I am replacing.

on another note I didn't take a close enough look at the thermaltake Versa C22 case, and had to order a different one. because the versa has no provisions for optical drives and that's not ok for me.

what I am getting instead is Thermaltake Commander Snow Edition USB 3.0 VN40006W2N PC Computer Case

[Nightlord01]

I realize that on the new system that the EVGA 970gtx FTW edition will be a "bottleneck" but its being reused from the old computer, as its only ~1.5 years old.  and I just don't have the extra 300-500 us to replace the video card at this time. the reality is I will likely be replacing the video card in another year or 2 when its 3-4 years old and pretty obsolete.

this computer is my main home pc for gaming and such, so that's what I am replacing.

on another note I didn't take a close enough look at the thermaltake Versa C22 case, and had to order a different one. because the versa has no provisions for optical drives and that's not ok for me.

what I am getting instead is Thermaltake Commander Snow Edition USB 3.0 VN40006W2N PC Computer Case

If you are planning on making a gaming rig then i7 is really only about epeen, the i5 will run most games just as well, if not better in some cases. The advent of SSDs has made oodles of RAM pure unnecessary luxury for gaming, realistically speaking your usage isn't likely to exceed 8GB, even with a heap of multitasking going on. The 970 will run games adequately, upgrading that will get you more FPS, maybe allow you to have some higher settings on particle effects, but if it's working it's probably just as well to keep it, 1080s will be a lot cheaper before long.

Better doesn't necessarily translate into better for you, certainly not if you are on anything of a budget! My recommendation remains to reduce all the big numbers that will get you performance you won't use and can't capitalize on, and save for a better GPU as this is where the majority of the grunt work in a gaming PC happens. PC gaming is shifting slowly back to CPU dependent, but there's a long way to go before the largest upgrade you can give your aging PC isn't a current generation flagship GPU.

[mechnut450]

nice build man I still using my amd fx 8230 cpu but I  have everything on water cooled ( including my vid card now ). I only have a 380X card but I seen the price for them climbed since I bought it. and i seen reports of the X version is faster that a stock 580 in some builds. But hey I lucky ifi  can get on MWo 1once a month theses days  plus I like over clocking to 4.2 ghz and only have temps in the low 80s F.

[Matti]

So i7-7700 it is to go with GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Computer store is gathering the parts and they have promised the machine & peripherals to be ready in couple of weeks. Total sum (including assembly, 144 Hz monitor, 3 controllers, speakers, headset, and HTC Vive) so far is 4566,10 €.

Got it today. Tomorrow I will unpack the boxes, plug on all the stuff, and turn on the power.