Building a High-End Gaming Computer, Need Advice

[Rwolflord]

Hi everyone,
Looking to build a high-end gaming PC. Hoping to get some advice/suggestions since I am still unsure about a few components.

Not sure about the CPU since Windows 10 will be using more cores, but games will not for a while. I was thinking of the bottom 2, but not sure if the end result justifies the price increase -

CPU: Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.5GHz ($719.99 @ Newegg)
or
CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.3GHz ($469.99 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: X99 MSI Godlike (When it's in stores) (Aprox. $720.00)
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2800 ($184.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB M.2-2280 ($169.99 @ Direct Canada)
Storage: SAMSUNG 850 EVO MZ-75E500B/AM 2.5" 500GB ($224.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: WD BLACK SERIES WD3003FZEX 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache ($197.99 @ Newegg)

GPU is another component I'm unsure of and would very much like your opinions. Again can the price increase be justified with these boards. I don't mind spending money if there is substantial gain.

GPU: MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G GeForce GTX 980 4GB ($669.99 @ Newegg)
or
GPU: MSI GTX 980TI GAMING 6G GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB ($889.99 @ Newegg)

Case: Phantom 820 (Already Owned)
PSU: Corsair Professional Gold 1200W 80+ Gold (Already Owned)
I know the PSU is overkill, but would like to SLI in future.

Also can someone recommend what would be best for cooling? I'm not big on water cooling, but I am up to whatever would work best in this build.

I would like to have a system that can handle 4k gaming, so if you can advise me on what would be best I would appreciate it.

Another question would be, and it's fairly important... Is it better to wait for the new Skylake Chipset or simply go for what is out now if I am building this strictly from a gaming perspective.

Alright that's about it I think... I want this to be a great build and therefore I look forward to reading what suggestions you may have for this build, either to add or change components.

Thank you in advance for your help

 

[PP Mguire]

I think Windows 10 will be my defacto suggestion when it's out and solid with proper driver support. Definitely something to think about because even though it'll be a few years before proper DX12 support is around you'll at least have the OS already.

The CPU, here's the deal. WIll you be streaming, rendering, video editing, and the like? If not, then save your money. To skip to your bottom question, Skylake is a marginal improvement on Haswell with a beefier iGP. Only big difference being DDR4 support, which faster DDR4 speeds do not help in consumer productivity or gaming at all. Only benchmark numbers. Another thing to mention is Skylake may or may not come out next month. I've heard all kinds of things from our Intel rep at work.

Now I'm about to throw a rock in the wheel for you. The BIGGEST advantage that X99 has is PCI-E lanes. Socket 1150 CPUs (like the 4790K, 4690K) have 16 lanes. That means 1 GPU and an M.2 SSD, or 2 GPUs and that's it. The 5820k has 28 lanes, and the 5930k/5960x have 40 lanes. 5820k could do 2 GPUs and an M.2 or with one GPU at 16x, or 2 M.2 and 2 GPUs, or 3 GPUs and an M.2. All dependent on the board on the setup, and the 5930k is basically the sky is the limit to an extent. So, X99 does have its advantages for sure. Skylake CPUs on socket 1151 will have 20 lanes which will grant 2 GPUs at 8x a piece and an M.2 SSD at 4x. Something to mention here, GPUs right now have no issues running at 8x PCI-E 3.0 mode.

The reason I mention this is because you have 2 M.2 SSDs in the list which if they were PCI-E would take 8 lanes themselves. The biggest thing here is, those are SATA SSDs so you will not get the performance benefit (nor will they take lanes). You're better off getting a PCI-E SSD like the Kingston Predator M.2 and a 1TB or 500GB EVO 850 in 2.5" form factor. To clarify since you might be confused, M.2 SSDs come in two flavors. PCI-E and SATA. A SATA M.2 SSD like the 850 EVO will still run through the SATA storage interface, take a SATA port out of the bios, and run at the capped SATA 3 speeds (about 520MB/s with a range of 70-100k IOPS). A PCI-E 4x SSD will run with read speeds around 1200MB/s and write speeds around 700MB/s depending on the SSD, with IOPS over 120k 4k Random. Don't concentrate too much on sequential read/write, but the IOPS are really where it's at.

Before I get into GPUs, I'll jab at the rest. Your PSU, perfectly fine. Overkill sure, but paid for and won't need to upgrade in probably a decade. Case, I wouldn't keep it due to preference, but paid for and will accommodate all the hardware easily. As for cooling, do yourself a solid and just get a Corsair H110i GT. You'll thank me later, no it won't leak, no you don't need to maintain it besides dusting. Motherboard, please oh please do not spend so much money on a ridiculous board. That board is not worth the price tag, and no board of features is worth over 300 IMO. Don't fall into MSI's marketing trap or Asus's OC bull****. Besides colors and certain PCI-E slot layout they all pretty much offer the same function and will all OC the same under consumer cooling.

Now that we have all that out of the way, it's time to go GPU. You want a system that will handle 4k gaming. A single card absolutely will not cut it. Period. If you don't have a 4k monitor now, then don't buy one until the next gen cards come out. I have two Titan X and can guarantee you this with personal testing that it's not worth it to hop onto the bandwagon quite yet. 4k will be amazing once we have proper GPU support for it. To answer your question on selection though, the 980ti is well worth the price tag over the 980. Very noticeable performance increase. Hope this helped.