The Byte - High End Gaming
The Byte - High End Gaming
You want more power? Ok, duly noted. You're here because you want one of two things. Either a step up to the world of high refresh rate 1440p gaming, or even the entry level of 4k capable GPUs. In addition, high refresh 1080p gaming at very high-quality settings is also a possibility here, with many modern titles also featuring resolution scaling to increase pixel count if you have leftover GPU horsepower.
In terms of money spent, it really does depend on where you are from. With this build, I am aiming for an Intel Core i5 8600k, or AMD Ryzen 2700X CPU, and the GPU of choice is the Nvidia GTX 1080. I would imagine that some of you likely did a small double take at my mention of the 2700X, and perhaps more expected the 2600X, or even the same 2600. Well, you certainly could, and it would be a good way to drop the price of the PC. However, this build does have the budget overhead for the 2700X, as it can often be found for really not much more (30-40 USD or so) than the 8600k. That is, it is safe to say, excellent value. Paired with an X470 motherboard, AM4 Pinnacle Ridge is an excellent CPU platform to use, as is the Z370 chipset alongside an overclocked i5 8600k.
In terms of overall spend, here, we are finally breaking that $1000 USD barrier with relative ease. However, contrary to what you might imagine, we are not utterly blasting through it without any regard. No, that accolade goes to our 'End All' build. Without wasting anymore time, then, shall we move on? However, just to make you all aware... the GPU segment of this guide will contain a bit of a surprise.
CPU: Intel Core i5 8600k, or AMD Ryzen R7 2700X
First up, Team Blue. The Core i5 8600k is an unlocked Intel processor, meaning - when paired with a Z370 motherboard - the chip can be overclocked. Overclocking is an excellent way to increase the performance of your system, provided you take some basic safety steps and don't do anything overtly stupid. The 8600k can be overclocked up to and north of 5GHz on all 6 cores, and provides blistering performance for the purposes of high refresh rate gaming, even at 1080p when paired with all but the most powerful of 2018's GPUs. When coupled with a quality 1080p or 1440p high refresh rate panel, it's a truly excellent gaming experience.
The 2700X is, altogether, a very different CPU. Now, let me be very clear, here. It can game, and it can game exceptionally well. Single core performance does fall behind that of the 8600k, so max frame rates will be lower, as likely will averages. However, Ryzen provides very consistent frame times, so unless you are absolutely dead set on the highest FPS possible (and likely want to sit there with the in game FPS counter enabled), seriously consider the 2700X. When left to its own devices on a quality X470 mainboard and decent cooling, it is capable of very intelligently overclocking itself using AMD's SenseMI CPU technology, as well. Naturally, manual per core overclocking can be done, but many reviewers (us included) have found that intelligently tuning RAM and leaving the 2700X to its own devices is nearly or just as effective!
Ultimately, your choice of CPU will come down to what you want out of the system. You can read our review of the 8600k here, and the 2700X is here. The 8600k could be fairly considered a true gamers CPU. Very strong when it comes to pure potential in modern titles, but certainly way behind the 2700X when it comes to productivity, sheer core/thread count, and the ability to heavily multi-task. In 2018, the latter is becoming exceptionally important, as is the core/thread usage of current and future titles.
For those readers where the 2700X is, perhaps, just a little out of the price range, please do not feel like you are missing anything by going for the R5 2600X CPU. Or, even, the regular 'non-x' 2600. Both CPUs are entirely capable of powering the GPU to be used in this PC.
I have deliberately left the 8700k out of this list. Whilst you couldn't certainly fit it into this PC without much issue, it's an extra 100-120 USD over the 8600k, and our level of GPU here still means we'll be strictly GPU bound in almost all scenarios. The 8600k does, thankfully, feature those two extra cores to help games that might be a little heavier on the CPU than others, and they certainly exist.
CPU Cooler: BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4, or Corsair H115i Pro
We feel the need to provide two options, here. Some people just don't take to the idea of having liquid being pumped around their $1500 USD computer, and that is an approach I entirely sympathize with. Therefore, the first cooler on our list is BeQuiet's relatively recent Dark Rock Pro 4, a 140/135mm twin tower air cooler that, absolutely, does not mess around. It is bulky, heavy, incredibly large, and provides over 250W of TDP (i.e. cooling potential). It will not work for everyone, and you need to make sure that whatever case you choose can actually fit the behemoth you've decided to buy. That said, in terms of air cooling, it really does not get any better than this. An alternative is Noctua's NH-D15, which follows the same twin tower 140mm approach. Whilst slightly better for cooling and comparable for noise, the DRP4's far more natural colour scheme will likely appeal to many more people. If you do, however, want to the get the D15, please do so. It's a fantastic bit of kit. Our review of the DRP4 can be found, if you are interested, here.
On the AIO front, we felt like there was only one choice. Corsair's new line of 'HXXXi Pro' coolers are updated from their previous iterations in several key ways. Our review of it can be found here. The cooler had absolutely no trouble on our test system, happily claiming a place in the top 1/3 of the overclocked charts when paired with a 4790k at 1.3v VCore. This is impressive, as 1.3v is on the absolute upper limit of what Devil's Canyon CPUs could take, so this is providing a worst case scenario in terms of power draw. This cooler will be an excellent companion with the 2700X, 2600X, and 8600k. In the former's case, it will allow for maxmium XFR and PBO potenial (Extended Frequency Range & Precision Boost Overdrive). For the 8600k, it should (with a decent chip) allow for an achievable 5GHz overclock without much trouble.
Motherboard: Aorus Z370 Gaming 5 (Intel), Asus X470 Prime (AMD)
Given that we have a little more budget to play with, adding a nicer motherboard is certainly on the cards. That said, budget here is not so outlandish that we can just pick whatever board we feel like. Some common sense is still, sadly, needed. As we will be pairing overclocking capable or higher tier CPUs with this build, a motherboard with at least a semi-solid VRM design is important for temperatures, overclocking stability, and longevity. With that, we elected to go for Aorus' Z370 Gaming 5. An exellent article (linked here) on overclock.net does a great job at listing the various Z370 series motherboards on offer, and how suited they are to overclocking. The model above is, thankfully, listed as being in the middle of the top mid-range. It is, therefore, appropriate for all CPU's up to the i7 8700k with mainstream high end cooling options. Add to that excellent aesthetics, connectivity, and a dropped price point compared to the entirely overkill Gaming 7, and you have an excellent choice for your build.
What about AMD? Well, given that the B450 chipset supports overclocking, I know many people who would advocate pairing even the 2700X with a higher end 450 chipset board, and calling it a day. I would, for the most part, agree. However, two things stop me. First of all, if you have the budget, and you are not sacrificing on the CPU/GPU for a nicer mainboard, then why not spend $50 USD more? Secondly, the 2700X (and, with that, the 2600X) support both Precision Boost Overdrive and XFR2 on X470 chipset motherboards. Whilst there is no need to go overboard (...get it?), some money extra on your PC's electrical skeleton is never a bad idea. With that, we elected to go with Asus' excellent X470 Prime. It hits roughly the same price point as the above Aorus Gaming 5, and offers much the same levels of build quality, VRM design, and connectivity. Asus boards are regularly seen in the top tier of the overclocking sphere, but the Prime is nicely position in the 'mid-tier' of X470 series mainboards.
RAM: 16GB DDR4, 3200MHz or greater.
Finally, we can safely up the total system memory to 16GB. Some games are, now, straight up recommending 16GB, with 8GB being the minimum required. We all knew this day was coming, and it's finally here. If you can, therefore, afford 16GB of fast memory, then buy it. 32GB, luckily, is still a way off being close to the 'recommended' amount in a high end gaming system, but I suspect I might be eating those words sooner than expected. As for what to get, the price point at this level opens up enough to allow you to, quite simply, choose. I would argue a decent 16GB 3200+ kit from any of the big vendors is going to see you do well, here, but I will also offer some caveats. The first is simple. Can't afford that fancy RGB kit? A shame, but does it matter? No.
The second point is more concerned with AMD builds, and does not affect Intel anywhere near as much. As we all know, Ryzen's performance in applications/games is heavily affected by the speed of the Infinity Fabric interconnect between the core complexes. This is directly tied to RAM speed, hence getting a fast kit of memory with the higher core count Ryzen CPUs is vital to solid performance. With that, therefore, comes a third bit of advice. It's a well known fact that despite it being many months since Summit Ridge's initial launch, RAM kits using Samsung 'B-Die' DRAM chips are still easier to get running at default XMP profiles than cheaper kits using Hynix or lower grade memory chips. So, if there is ever a justification for paying a little more for fast DDR4 that utilises B-Die chips, this would be it. Do not, however, think that default XMP and fast memory speeds on Ryzen are onlyachievable by B-Die kits. They're not, by any means. It's just easier, and cheaper kits may need some manual tweaking to timings/voltages.
Storage (1): AData XPG SX8200, 480GB M.2 NVMe
Still two storage mediums here, but shall we up the ante a bit? The NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) interface is, quite simply, bloody fast. Speeds in excess of 1 GB/s in real world random read/write tests were utterly unheard of not even that long ago, but now even mid range mainboards on non-enthusiast class chipsets can support these little pocket rockets now. Hilbert reviews many an SSD at Guru3D, and the above unit left us (well, him) very impressed. Naturally, when put under heavy and consistent strain, it will overheat, hence the important for adequate case airflow (or even, as mentioned, an M.2 heatsink). However, the unit managed to top the magical 3 GB/s number in sequential read tests, and more usually hovered around 1-2 GB/s in more real world testing. That, to be blunt, is simply excellent for what AData wants. For example, I found the 240GB version available in the UK for... £68.99. Forget a high end build, that is mid range territory for high end performance.
Naturally, there are alternatives on offer, and I only a specific recommendation when I feel like a product offers fairly spectacular price/performance. It might not be available in your country, hence you'll need an alternative. M.2 drives using the NVMe interface are fairly commonplace now, and such products are distributed by pretty much every major vendor out there. Samsung (probably most famously), Crucial, Western Digital, Corsair, Intel (their new 600p being perhaps the most 'entry level' NVMe drive on the market today), and so on. All make excellent products, and are worth considering in your build.
Storage (2): 7,200rpm 2TB (or more) HDD, or additional SSD.
My first recommendation, even for a PC in the 1500 USD range, is to still opt for a secondary mechanical hard drive. They are not fast, but are reliable and still offer vastly superior 'dollars per GB' of storage when compared even to regular SATA based 2.5'' SSDs. That said, given that the price of SSDs has been dropping fairly consistently for the last few months... a second SSD as 'bulk' storage may well start to make sense. Don't believe me? Well, I went on PCPartPicker, and filtered by SSD/1TB/SATA. The cheapest drive on offer (which is by no means a bad SSD, at all) is AData's 1TB Ultimate SU800. The price is a fairly unbelievable $148.99. Switch to German distribution, and that rises to around 168 EUR. 1TB is a lot of storage, and imagine having your favourite AAA open world titles installed on it. Fast loading, fast asset streaming, fast restarting, etc. I think I've made my point, but just know that a second SSD as 'bulk' storage in 2018 isn't out of the realms of possibility. In fact, it's entirely feasible.
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080, AMD RX Vega 64... or Nvidia GTX 1080Ti.
The fun bit, but also still no mention of Nvidia's new RTX GPUs. This is deliberate. Firstly, even the RTX 2080 is upwards of $750. This is, realistically, 1/2 of the entire PC's budget spent on the GPU. We also cannot get away from the fact that the RTX 2080 offers fairly atrocious price vs. performance, and that is largely due to the continued relevance and existence of the 'former' king, the GTX 1080Ti. I will explain more about this later.
Anyway, first up, the 1080. For a while, this was the king of Pascal, and for good reason. Able to handle 1440p high-refresh gaming, or even some lighter 4k titles (perhaps with good dynamic resolution scaling), the 1080 is still an excellent graphics card. Add to that it's truly impressive power efficiency, self overclocking, and sheer ease of further manual overclocking, and the 1080 is a very wise choice for those still wanting to game on the high end. It is especially relevant given the continual price drops Pascal GPUs have seen over the last few months. In the United States (though this may, and likely will, soon change with the implementation of the US/China tariffs), a 1080 from Gigabyte can be found for as little as $440, and it's not even a blower style card. Pair the 1080 with a nice G-Sync 1440p monitor, or even a high refresh 1080p G-Sync panel, and you have a very nice PC.
So, what about Vega 64? I think it is safe to say that the arrival of 14nm Vega in 2017 was a bit of a letdown. It can, now, often match or even slightly outperform the GTX 1080, depending on title and driver. However, two things stop it being more popular. The first is that pricing of it is often a little bit over an equivalent 1080. The second is Vega's inefficiency, with it pulling significantly more power at stock than a 1080. Vega GPUs require a fair bit of end user tweaking in order to get them running at their best, a process that requires both heavily undervolting the GPU core and HBM2 memory, as well as increasing GPU power target to compensate for the voltage drop. Once done, Vega runs much better, but it does take work. However, a major positive in Vega's favour is the earlier argument of GSync vs. FreeSync. FreeSync monitors are cheaper, more readily available, and (when well implemented) is near indistinguishable from GSync. If you want to go for an AMD Vega GPU, just bear the above in mind.
Now... I spoke about the 1080Ti, didn't I? There is a good reason for this. Analysis of said GPU has shown that it often matches or can occasionally beat the more expensive (but newer) RTX 2080. So why am I mentioning it? Well, the same exercise on PCPartPicker reveals that the cheapest 1080Ti is about 690 USD (I will get to other nations in a moment). The cheapest and non-blower style 2080 is around 100 USD more expensive. Other nations, sadly, might be stuck with the regular 1080 or Vega 64, as aside from the occasional deal, prices for the 1080Ti are more regularly in the mid 700 range.
However (and you knew this was coming)... Currently, there are no RTX games out. Shadow of the Tomb Raider has said it will be coming in a future update, and many strongly suspect the initial October release date of Battlefield V was pushed back because of this very reason (i.e. issues implementing ray tracing). We also have no real idea how strongly RTX implementation will affect in game performance, but seeing as demos showcasing SotTR ray tracing seemed to be running at around 1080p 30-40 FPS on a 2080Ti, I think 'a lot' is a safe statement to make. Why, therefore, would you not go with the 1080Ti, still? This is a position echoed by many throughout the gaming industry, but you must ask yourself if RTX means so much to you that you are willing to spend another 100-150 USD (at the minimum) on the promise of future tech that, by all accounts, has a major impact on performance. You can find reviews that Guru3D has done of various GPUs here, if you want to get more into the nitty-gritty of what makes a particular model more worth it over another. To those wondering if an 8600k or 2700X will be ok with a 1080Ti... of course they will. Overclock the former, and properly cool both, and they will take on a 1080Ti without problems.
PSU: Rinse and repeat, again.
I feel like I'm continually playing the same tune. The PSUs listed in 'The Nibble' will do a fine job, here, of powering even an overclocked version of this build. However, system power consumption will likely top around 450W, especially if you can find the 1080Ti for a decent price. So, I'll split my recommendations, here.
If you are opting for a GTX 1080 based PC, I would go for the aforementioned units in the previous build. If, however, you are opting for the RX Vega 64 or 1080Ti, I would opt for 750W versions of them. This will account for the extra 80-120W that these GPUs will require from the system.
Conclusion
That's it. We have reached the end of the 'realistic' segment of this guide. Next up, we will look at our 'End All' build. Absolutely zero compromises, no expenses spared. Remember, this is gaming themed guide, so parts chosen in all areas will reflect that.
