Spent about 7 months working with the Rwandans and about 2 weeks in Kigali. Great people and beautiful country.

Need some more demanding games for your benchmarks. Like Ghost Recon Wildlands, Assassin's Creed Origins & Odyssey, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, ArmA 3, etc.

Thanks, using it for gaming @4K on a Samsung tv mostly while I'm away from home for a few months.

I'd like to see a filter for quad/dual channel RAM kits. PITA right now.

6 that I use regularly.

Thanks!

Agreed on the 1060 3GB; I've had both; and the 1060 3GB is a very capable card with few games that will breach 3GB (and that just requires going down a setting on the preset usually). For 99.99% of games absolutely G2G with 3GB @1080p.

1060 3GB is fine for 1080p gaming; and much more sensible for a modest build.

All the Brave New World BS MS tries to push; trying to make decisions for the user; invasive telemetry which is not simply disabled in options, MS app spam that requires extra steps to nuke (first thing I did was kill cortana with fire). At this point W10 is more like apple than anything.

I read on another thread where pcpartpicker staff replied they were looking to add it. That was over 8 months ago.

Um. No. Not ever. Time not spent troubleshooting meaningless "idiotic stuff" factor of windows will ROI its cost vs linux in about 2 days

Very nice

i5?

Lol

I still have my X58 i7 960 (o/c to 4.1Ghz) running strong 8 years later. Have it paired with an XFX RX 470 4GB at the moment. X58 platform is still a great setup overall.

I did upgrade to a Kraken X61 a while back; it the 4770K still runs much hotter @4.3 Ghz than my i7 960 @4.1Ghz on an H55 AIO. Pretty pathetic.

Nice looking build. But yeah, definitely need a better GPU if you want to max out games. If you're @1080p a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 480 will do great on high/ultra settings; 1440p I'd say minimum GTX 1070/80. @4K; better be buying two top end cards; i.e. 2xGTX 1080s or 2xGTX 1080Tis, because no single card is going to carry you there on the highest settings and in the most demanding games.

But if you can wait until Vega drops, might have a some better deals and/or a better card to buy.

The higher the resolution the smaller the fps difference, right now I'm a bit disappointed in the 4k performance of the 1080Ti (~15 FPS average than a ref 1080). If it was a clean 30 FPS that would be one thing, but an o/c 1080 will be able to close that gap by about 5-8 FPS I'd say for 4k. Right now my 980Tis in two way SLI often stack right up on reference 1080 SLI (The Division, 4.3 FPS difference @4K and Shadow of Mordor 1 FPS differerence @5K. So really above 1440p the 1080s are clearly not worth it to me, especially as I game @7680x1440p where the difference will be even smaller, barring VRAM breaching. Similarly the 1080Ti SLI would only offer, in my estimate, 8-12 FPS over my 980Tis in the majority of demanding games at that resolution. In all likelihood you can bring your 1080 to near reference 1080Ti performance if you have a decent overclocker. Better to think in terms of FPS rather than percentages, it will make the assessment more tangible and clearly show if the difference is worth it. If 30% is only 8 FPS, for example, that doesn't sound as good as 30% by itself; more of a marketing ploy really.

Nah, not on ultra settings, like I said. I've got quite a slew of systems i3/5/7 with anything from a GTX 1060 3GB to 980Ti SLI going through the benchmarks. GTA V requires quite a few settings turned down to hit 60FPS. With just Normal Shadows/Reflection MSAA 2x, shadows softest, Advanced Graphics off, and everything else maxed (i.e. MSAA 8x, ultra/very high on everything depending on what is the highest setting), no card will break 60FPS until my laptop GTX 1070, and then only by a few FPS. My 4.2Ghz 3930K/STRIX 1060 6GB clocked in at 49 FPS, my 6600K@stock/STRIX 390X were at 47FPS, the i3 6100@3.7Ghz with a GTX 1060 3GB hits 46 FPS, a solid 12 FPS ahead of this RX 470. A dual core HT pentium @4.0 ghz isn't going to magically bring performance to 60FPS. The only thing that does is....ding ding, compromising on settings; what I would consider to be more medium settings for GTA 5 in particular; drop down to MSAA 2x. Same story for the rest of the games, 300 Mhz is laughable in terms of any magical performance increase. And if we're talking about COMPLETELY (to include frame scaling) maxed out GTA V; well then pretty much no single card out now that will pull that off @1080p/60FPS. Even my 5930K@4.5Ghz and STRIX 980Ti SLI @1480Mhz/1880Mhz boost/memory can barely crack 60 FPS @1080p at those settings.

how was the build quality on that DIY case? I'd looked at it before but wasn't sure.

Thanks!

Not what I consider ultra for more serious games, I don't consider things like Overwatch or Bioshock Infinite to be even a consideration when I'm building a pc, I look more towards games I play for the GPU, notice how it's not quite able to pull off 60FPS on ultra in The Division @1080p; just ran GTA V and TW: Warhammer and likewise not able to pull that 60FPS on what I would consider ultra (note, not maxed) settings.

lol, didn't even realize that; but last year I had to ship off 4 Seagate drives from several of my PCs to get replaced. At that point I had 2x1TB WD Velociraptors that have been ticking along in the same rig where 2 of those seagate drives died. I'm looking to get a 5 or 6TB WD 7200 RPM HDD later this year to replace my current 3TB Seagate 7200 RPM HDD; as you'll forgive my lack of faith.

lol, my bad I put the wrong part there; it's 2x8GB of RAM not 2x4.

I never bother with 8GB alone anymore, especially with multi-tasking things.

Thanks!

Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification.

Why are parts on amazon so often shown as not being on amazon? This seems fairly consistent as in the case for the Gigabyte GTX 1060 3GB for which amazon is not shown as having any, when in reality they do.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KQUDE2Y/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Same speed. But really even something like a 950 Pro is overrated speed wise, I've run RAMDISK on my X99 rig and the difference is practically unnoticeable if I wasn't timing it. http://s1068.photobucket.com/user/loki1944/media/RAMDISK%20Arma%203_zps1o1feeyk.png.html

putting the case on its side increased cpu temps way too much, the rubber feet don't give enough clearance. The GPU is cool enough, max temp it gets to is 80C, but mostly stays 46-77C depending on the game. Didn't want to put a non-blower in this case, as the case cooling itself is quite limited.

Well I really appreciate the "older" Alienwares, I've got an ALX 3930K wither a STRIX GTX 1060, gonna put a spare 390X STRIX in the older one. I've got a 2004 Alienware awaiting refurbishment also. I did use the i7 960 @4.1 Ghz with a GTX 780 in 2014, as far as gaming experience it was not perceptibly different than with that same 780 paired with my 4770K.

Just to update this, Far Cry 4 runs better than what I listed; I stupidly didn't run it in full screen. So more in the 60s-70s FPS at those settings.

It wasn't too bad in terms of fitting; not as bad as getting the H60 into my 380T case. The worst part of the H80i isn't so much the size, it's the way it's not all together (radiator with 1 fan, other fan has to be mounted on the radiator). Not a fan (no pun) of the H80i for that reason, it's quite a pain.

From what I'm seeing personally the future of VR is not promising. There is no killer game really. Most games are casual/mobilesque in quality. Even aside from price the fact that the offerings are majoritively shallow preclude massive success. Side effects are still a concern as well and perhaps intrinsically tied to the simplistic nature of most VR games. Of the 20 or so PC gamer friends I have; i.e. physically know, none are interested in what VR is offering. Of the 4 who have tried VR they came away unimpressed and in some cases nauseous or dizzy. I would not be surprised if VR ends up like 3D gaming; very niche and fading.

Wow, that sucks on the eyefinity. Q4 '14 to Q4 '15 I was pretty happy with my 290X and 390X CF, but by Q1 '16 CF support got really bad with Crimson drivers, might have higher average FPS than my 780Tis in some games, but the cacophony of flickering and stuttering is what made me decide to throw my 780Tis back into action. For 7680x1440p on my main rig I use 980Ti two way SLI; have to turn down quite a few settings on some games to hit 40-50FPS.

Here's what I benchmarked Q4 '15 with my 980Ti SLI @7680x1440; settings are guru3d settings unless I specify AA; then it's max settings with the annotated AA setting:

http://s1068.photobucket.com/user/loki1944/media/7118693_orig_zpstidzsq4p.png.html

http://s1068.photobucket.com/user/loki1944/media/800725_orig_zpscf5igqcz.png.html

http://s1068.photobucket.com/user/loki1944/media/8535706_orig_zpsyphloxlo.png.html

As for the Crimson driver thing; here's what I found (can't remember the graphics settings for each game on this one):

http://s1068.photobucket.com/user/loki1944/media/16.3%20vs%2015.11%20beta%20p2_zpsnxdkbyrc.png.html?sort=3&o=25

http://s1068.photobucket.com/user/loki1944/media/16.3%20vs%2015.11%20beta%20p1_zpsuzwsshe6.png.html

I don't think there is really an accurate way to measure used VRAM other than massive stuttering. Programs like GPUz will show allocated VRAM, but that's not the same thing. And the "VRAM" shown in GTA V settings is wildly inaccurate; I run benchmarks that show over 9GB of VRAM to be used according to the in-game VRAM counter; however, with no stuttering or crashing I know that is completely wrong. If I was going over VRAM then it would stutter like crazy or freeze.

I know my 780Tis are hitting VRAM wall because my 390Xs are able to complete the benchmark, whereas the 780Tis is more of a still life. But yeah, turn off MSAA and frame scaling and you can get reasonable FPS. With my 980Tis I play the game @7680x1440p; so no MSAA, no reflection AA, and no frame scaling. Without frame scaling @2560x1440p, but every other setting maxed I get 59 FPS average.

@7680x1440p with MSAA off and Frame scaling off: 36FPS Average

@7680x1440p with MSAA, Reflection AA, and Frame Scaling off I get 55FPS average.

sub 50FPS might be playable to some, but to me for a game like GTA V, 50+ is what I would consider to be playable; below 50FPS it becomes noticeably more sluggish feeling.

Now if I'm playing Rome 2 or something then 30FPS is more acceptable to me due to the game style being slower paced.

Interesting to me is that the 1070 more or less equals a 980Ti, but when you start cranking resolution the 980Ti shows some serious grunt. Say like in The Division using Guru3d settings; I can get 46FPS average @7680x1440 while 1070 SLI is only averaging 54FPS @4K (almost 3 million pixels less).

Reminds me of when the GTX 980 came out; SLI to SLI my 780Tis at the time often beat them. Really the only major contributing advantage at the time that I can think of for the older cards is the bus width. My 980Tis run a 236Mhz slower core clock, 228Mhz slower Boost clock, and 512Mhz slower Memory clock; yet can still trade blows with SLI 1070s.

Granted, you can overclock the 1070s and wide the gap a bit and drivers will continue to improve them, but if it's like 780Ti vs 980 then that gap will only get finitely big overall. At this point I'm not even sure a 1080Ti SLI upgrade will be worth it; I'd be very surprised if they can maintain 60FPS @7680x1440p on maximum settings for the most demanding games.

LOL

Thanks man. You're right. I meant to buy one (M1A) last month, but eh didn't have as much spare cash as I'd hoped for. I've had four MATRIX cards total (2x290X and these two 780Tis) all great; one of the 290X's did die after about a year but Asus sent me a 390X STRIX DC3 as a replacement, so all good there. I see on your builds you have 290Xs in one and Fury Xs in the other; how is CF working for you lately? I've had a terrible time the last couple of months since using Crimson; particularly for games like The Division and GTA V. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I didn't have so many CF issues in 2015. Still love AMD cards, just a bit cautious right now with getting CF again.

On the 1080Tis I'm looking for some more oomph at 7680x1440p; the 980Tis are "ok" but struggle a bit on some games. From what I've seen 1080s aren't going to change that just looking at 1080Ti SLI 4K results, so those 1080Tis better be a significant performance increase for me to consider them.

Really nice build. If they had that case in "vivid green" I sooo would have gone for its smaller brother over the Bitfinex Prodigy for my wife's build.

This is really amazing. More a work of art at this point than just another build.

I know it's been 6 months; but a 3770K and CF 290Xs is still a heavy hitter (though maybe a bit less not due to the cards themselves but to slowish CF support in 2016 with Crimson*; in fact even my i7 960 (Bloomfield) @4.1Ghz hangs in there just fine as long as it's equipped with a decent GPU.

*Note, this is my PERSONAL experience with 390X CF in 2016 post Crimson

Awesome build. +1 for all the custom heraldry; +2 for picking the awesome side. That 600T looks totally armed to the teeth.

Yup, the SOCOM one is what I was looking at. I hope AMD does well with Zen, Intel has too much dominance at this point and needs the competition. There are some great things AMD does, especially GPU wise; it's just their follow through that disappoints me sometimes. My first "real" (i.e. not college bargain bin hand me down) gaming desktop was an AMD FX CPU back in the day. Played Rome I Total War like a champ. Thing won't show up on monitors anymore, but I've got a new old hard drive, copy of XP, A7N8X motherboard, and ATI 1GB AGP card; so hoping to rectify that.

P99 is awesome, I like it much, much better than the 92FS. I first got to shoot one in Iraq in 2006 and finally got my own about 6 years ago. Stripper clip is for a Mauser K98 (7.92x57). I have an AK47 (7.62x39) and an AR15 (5.56x45) as well, but lately computers have been eating my spare cash. My current conundrum is whether to get an M1A or two GTX 1080Tis for my main rig this fall.

I've got a 120GB version of that SSD in one of my rigs; still going strong almost 3 years later. Strangely I have a CXM750 still in action 2 years on, but had two bad HX850s in the same time-span.

Yes. Bad wires on the HAF-X. Had a more spectacular experience (the wire thing was slow smouldering) with a Corsair HX850 about 3 years ago; thing shot a plume of flame.

Thanks.

On the monitor it really only runs @59Hz; I accidentally hit the wrong one and I'm not smart enough to figure out how to change it without resubmitting the entire build. The 144Hz 1080p one is for my RVZ01B i7 6700+GTX 1070, the actual one for this build is the Asus PB278Q 27.0" 60Hz Monitor (always reports 59Hz though). Has awesome colors though imo compared to my Swifts.

I'm hoping to have a bunch of drives to stick in this build once my RMA on 7TB worth of Seagate drives goes through. Fairly certain it was the EVGA 1300W G2 PSU; I tried a fresh drive, boom dead; then changed out PSU to the EVGA 1000W G2 and tried another new drive; and G2G.

You're right on the CPU, but my wife would kill me if I messed up and had to buy another one. My 5930K @4.5Ghz with a Kraken X61 maxes around 80C after a bunch of stress testing across 6 cores; averages 67-72C during gaming, four cores getting that hot with the same cooling definitely could benefit from deliding as you say.

On the red snakes, I didn't have much time to wrap up this build and that side panel was really finicky so I took the easy way out. If that side panel had some screws on top that would be a different story I guess since I could just brute force it.

You must not be using frame scaling; that is literally impossible. 6800k+GTX 1070 is far less powerful than my 5930K+980Ti SLI. If you want to see what a hit GTA V is TRULY maxed out:

Resolution 1920x1080 FXAA: On MSAA: X8 Vsync: Off Population Density: slider all the way to the right Population Variety: slider all the way to the right Distance Scaling: slider all the way to the right Texture Quality: Very High Shader Quality: Very High Shadow Quality: Very High Reflection Quality: Ultra Reflection MSAA: X8 Water Quality: Very High Particles Quality: Very High Grass Quality: Ultra Soft Shadows: Softest Post FX: Ultra Motion Blur Strength: slider all the way to the right In-Game Depth of Field Effects: On Anisotropic Filtering: X16 Ambient Occlusion: High Tessellation: Very High Advanced Graphics: Long Shadows: On High Resolution Shadows: On High Detail Streaming While Flying: On Extended Distance Scaling: slider all the way to the right Extended Shadows Distance: slider all the way to the right Set frame scaling to 7/4 and run the benchmark. Then try running it at 5/2 .

A single GTX 1070 and any processor won't break 20FPS average with those settings.

If you're talking to me, a single 1070 is nowhere near enough to max demanding games @2160p, 60fps

GTX 1070 is a good card on par with a 980ti; still not enough to handle GTA V @max settings @ 1080p, but no single card can.