Custom-built PC advice needed!

[skysurfer 76]

Definitely 2080 Ti

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 hour ago, vortex681 said:

I agree. Also the price premium between Gold and Platinum certified PSUs is just not worth it for the tiny improvement in efficiency you get (1 or 2% on average).

Yer but for £20 more than an RX 750, it's no big deal. They did a deal on it.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Nyxx

[dominikv95 0]

Hi everyone! I don't mind how my thread got sort of stolen, but just wanted to post an update on my situation! 😄 Firstly, all of you on here have had a massive impact on all the changes etc. that I implemented into my final PC, so thank you for that. Second of all, I have spent many hours reading other forums, watching YouTube videos, asking questions, learning about different chips, voltages and all these other things that are normally totally gibberish to me (not to say I understand them now, but I know what is good and what is bad for the PC 😄 ) Here is what, I am 99% sure, is my final order for my custom-built PC:

Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™ i9-9900K Eight Core (3.60GHz @ up to 4.9GHz) - overclock is a must, I decided! All done in-house by them, so safe, no warranty voids etc.

Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Master: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs WIFI - RGB Ready - recommended on here and has Wi-Fi built-in
 

Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB) - I decided against 32GB as it's useless; 3200MHz is the highest MHz they use, due to stability issues, they told me
 

Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready! - recommended on here and many other P3Dv4 places. The best of the best, let's face it!

 

1^st Storage Drive
1TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW) - decided against 2TB, as I can always add another one at a later date, and I don't think I'll need it

 

1^st M.2 SSD Drive
250GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 2300MB/W) - decided against 500GB, as it's just for Windows, and maybe a few apps like VATSpy, vRoute etc.
 

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET - decided against 650W, as it might not be enough
 

Processor Cooling
Corsair H115i PRO Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans - the best cooling they do. I was advised larger fans on this forum (this one comes with 280mm), but further ventilation is added
 

Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND - it's either this one or the standard one and this one is only £9 ($11), so no-brainer really

 

Case
PCS SR-819 RGB FULL TOWER CASE - case comes with 4 large RGB fans at the front (and also one at the back possibly, but not sure)
 

Extra Case Fans
2x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof) - 2 more fans to aid the cooling even more
 

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD) - good enough for me, I probably will not even use 5.1 speakers anyway
 

USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS - more than enough for what I need
 

Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001] - no choice here really, but just to show that it is included in the price 😄 

Surge Protection
6 Socket 2m Surge Protector - a useful thing to have in case of power surges and at only £9 ($11) it's a good price and I would need to buy a regular 6-way extension anyway
 

Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) - at £69 ($84) the extended warranty is worth it. Open-case warranty, so I can add RAM and SSDs myself!
 

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days - I'm so used to Amazon Prime and having things the next day, that this actually annoys me! haha 😄 They do stress-testing for 48 hours, so realistically it's going to take around 10 - 14 days before it arrives at my house, I've been told.
 

Price: £2,752.00 including VAT and Delivery - ok, this annoys me more than the wait time - the cost 😄 ($3340). My budget was £2500, with an absolute limit of £3000, so I got it in the middle! Nevertheless, it's a lot of money, so it better works perfectly in the P3Dv4!!! 😉

 

I am looking to place the order within the next few days or so.

 

Any final comments, opinions, thoughts or advice?

 

Thank you to all who participated in this thread!

 

Dominik

Edited August 1, 2019 by dominikv95

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Good choices overall, you'll be happy.  You may want to pursue an aftermarket cooling option, but not much else to criticize at this point.  Enjoy!

[Nyxx 6,993]

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, dominikv95 said:

Hi everyone! I don't mind how my thread got sort of stolen, but just wanted to post an update on my situation! 😄 Firstly, all of you on here have had a massive impact on all the changes etc. that I implemented into my final PC, so thank you for that. Second of all, I have spent many hours reading other forums, watching YouTube videos, asking questions, learning about different chips, voltages and all these other things that are normally totally gibberish to me (not to say I understand them now, but I know what is good and what is bad for the PC 😄 ) Here is what, I am 99% sure, is my final order for my custom-built PC:

Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™ i9-9900K Eight Core (3.60GHz @ up to 4.9GHz) - overclock is a must, I decided! All done in-house by them, so safe, no warranty voids etc.

Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB) - I decided against 32GB as it's useless; 3200MHz is the highest MHz they use, due to stability issues, they told me
 

Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready! - recommended on here and many other P3Dv4 places. The best of the best, let's face it!

 

Dominik

As a PC it looks great Dominik.

The question are, P3D does not need HT and turning it off on a 9900k is not a good option, FSL even recommends you turn OFF HT because there testing shows it runs better. Currently, I use an AM in P3D to make it only run on the main cores. If your targeting P3D only then you could run a higher overclock and run cooler with a 9700k. P3D likes nothing better than the fastest clock speed CPU.Your call.

RTX 2080Ti the best but only if your running 4K.(needed if your running 4k)

16GB is the benchmark you need to run P3D and if your thinking P3D only then your good with just 16GB. I asked in the DCS forums about do I need 32GB when only running 1080x1920 res many showed screenshots showing even at my res GB usage up to 24-28GB. Also what about MSFS 2020? If like me you want some future-proofing I would think of 32GB. Your call.

Whatever you go for, you will enjoy and hopefully last you a good amount of years. Happy for you Dominik.

Just food for thought since I'm in the same situation as you and looking to order next month.

[kevinfirth 1,393]

I would recommend 32Gb Ram, and try to make it cas 14, fast memory makes a significant difference.  O/c the cache as well as the CPU, Rob A found that had a performance impact for him in one of his posts.

[Nyxx 6,993]

2 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

I would recommend 32Gb Ram, and try to make it cas 14, fast memory makes a significant difference.  O/c the cache as well as the CPU, Rob A found that had a performance impact for him in one of his posts.

Yes, I agree after all my research.

Am going for G.Skill Trident Z 32GB 3200MHz  CAS 14

[TechguyMaxC 516]

3 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

I would recommend 32Gb Ram, and try to make it cas 14, fast memory makes a significant difference.  O/c the cache as well as the CPU, Rob A found that had a performance impact for him in one of his posts.

 

1 hour ago, Nyxx said:

Yes, I agree after all my research.

Am going for G.Skill Trident Z 32GB 3200MHz  CAS 14

Can either of you point to a documented case of > 16GB RAM being used by the sim + add-ons?

[kevinfirth 1,393]

4 minutes ago, TechguyMaxC said:

 

Can either of you point to a documented case of > 16GB RAM being used by the sim + add-ons?

Yes I've seen upwards of 20Gb used by os + sim + add ons with complex aircraft and orbx scenery.  I've also read that Rob A has experienced 16Gb+ Usage, so as a future proof measure I think 32Gb is a good choice as memory use is not going to go down! 

[TechguyMaxC 516]

7 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

Yes I've seen upwards of 20Gb used by os + sim + add ons with complex aircraft and orbx scenery.  I've also read that Rob A has experienced 16Gb+ Usage, so as a future proof measure I think 32Gb is a good choice as memory use is not going to go down! 

Do you have a screenshot of task manager that shows the activity you speak of?

[Nyxx 6,993]

Window task manager is a really bad way to look at RAM usage.

When I asked the question in DCS forums if 32Gb was needed...... Have a look at the screenshots posted. 25GB-28GB...Also note I think that's the same monitoring software Rob users, not windows task manager.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=246442

I also said 16GB in P3D at the moment is fine but looking forward imo, that's not so. When my FSL started to have huge FPS problems it was because I was running 8GB of RAM, Also upgrading RAM two years down the line is a pain as the makers have a new product so you end up buying new 16 GB in my case, not just 8GB. Forward-thinking....

LM "recommend" 16GB of DDR4" and a 1080Ti, well we are moving on from there "recommend" what will P3D v5 need it sure is not going to be less or likely be the same, MSFS could need 64Gb ! who knows.

Edited August 2, 2019 by Nyxx

[Paul Golding 92]

As PC Specialist are supplying it overclocked already, I'd probably save a £100 on the motherboard (if you've no intention of overclocking yourself, what's wrong with say the Asus Prime Z390-P that their default selection uses?) and spend that saved £100 on increasing the memory to 32GB.  As said above, you're only ever going to need more in the future.

The only other thing I might do is drop the 2080ti for say a 2070 super.  In my head, that saves me £500 to spend on whatever gpu will really be needed for MFS in a year or 2, but will work fine (I hope) at my resolution on a single screen of 2560x1440. 

These changes (but with a 500gb Samsung 970 M.2 as I can't see a 250 option), come out at £2,200 i.e. £500 saved toward the new GPU when needed.

Yet I'm still sitting on the fence😂

[TechguyMaxC 516]

1 minute ago, Paul Golding said:

As PC Specialist are supplying it overclocked already, I'd probably save a £100 on the motherboard (if you've no intention of overclocking yourself, what's wrong with say the Asus Prime Z390-P that their default selection uses?) and spend that saved £100 on increasing the memory to 32GB.  As said above, you're only ever going to need more in the future.

The only other thing I might do is drop the 2080ti for say a 2070 super.  In my head, that saves me £500 to spend on whatever gpu will really be needed for MFS in a year or 2, but will work fine (I hope) at my resolution on a single screen of 2560x1440. 

These changes (but with a 500gb Samsung 970 M.2 as I can't see a 250 option), come out at £2,200 i.e. £500 saved toward the new GPU when needed.

Yet I'm still sitting on the fence😂

The reason for the more expensive motherboard (and let's be honest, it's nothing compared to some of the component costs in this build, nor does it compare cost-wise to some high-end boards from the likes of Asus) is that the Aorus Z390 series has one of the best VRMs of all Z390 boards on the market AND it has proper cooling for the VRM.  This matters if you care about getting the most performance from an overclocked system.  Other motherboards will at the very least run hotter, and at worst actually cause your system to drop CPU clock speeds under load because the VRM can't handle the power draw.  Changing out the motherboard for a cheaper one is something I would only do if on a tight budget, and if there's no desire to overclock.  

Whether or not you save money by skipping the 2080 Ti is your call.  PC gaming/simming is an expensive hobby and I decided long ago to just bite the bullet and get the best parts for my sim PCs.  Buy nice or buy twice.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

19 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Window task manager is a really bad way to look at RAM usage.

When I asked the question in DCS forums if 32Gb was needed...... Have a look at the screenshots posted. 25GB-28GB...Also note I think that's the same monitoring software Rob users, not windows task manager.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=246442

I also said 16GB in P3D at the moment is fine but looking forward imo, that's not so. When my FSL started to have huge FPS problems it was because I was running 8GB of RAM, Also upgrading RAM two years down the line is a pain as the makers have a new product so you end up buying new 16 GB in my case, not just 8GB. Forward-thinking....

Task manager is a bad way to look at RAM usage?  Why do you say that?  It provides an accurate measure of RAM utilization across all running processes in real-time.  What are the technical deficiencies of task manager's resource utilization reporting, as you see them?

 

As for DCS - you're comparing apples and oranges there.

 

As for your problems with 8GB RAM, that was 8GB RAM.  No one is recommending Dominik (or anyone else) use only 8GB RAM.  16GB is the sweet spot.  I don't see your argument here.  It seems to me that you're conflating a problem you once encountered with a demonstrably inadequate quantity of RAM with what is pretty much universally accepted as the correct amount of RAM for enthusiast P3D simmers that make use of numerous complex add-ons simultaneously.  

[Nyxx 6,993]

Going back to pentum 333 I've always when for the best GFX but Nvidia charging £1100-£1900 for a RTX 2080Ti is........Also, watch any youtube compare and unless you on 4k your throwing money away that could be put aside for a new card in 2-3 years time to refresh your PC.