[SOLVED] Advice on new gaming build

[nbacoventry]

Hi there,

In a couple of weeks I am looking to build a new gaming PC. In the past on my previous PCs I have only upgraded the RAM so building from scratch will be a first for me. I'm from the UK, noticed a lot of $ signs on the forum so would appreciate prices in £. The PC that I would like to build will be primarily used for gaming, don't really see myself becoming interested in content creation, streaming or video editing. I already have a monitor that I used on my last PC (not sure if its 1080p, definitely wasn't 1444p anyway). Which by the way, I'm not going to be reusing any parts from. The last week I've have been looking into CPUs and graphics card and have sort of an idea what I possibly want but would like advice on pretty much everything.

I am very interested in flight simming, so could you keep that in mind. I will want to be able run P3d nicely using orbx scenary and add-ons such as that FSLabs Airbus. Also DCS is another flight sim I like to play.

On budget, at the moment, I don't really want to have to go over £1500 but am not sure how feasible this is. Pretty much a complete beginner when it comes to selecting parts.

CPU: i7 9700k - Want an Intel CPU. Having a look around online, I'm guessing this would a decent CPU option to go for. I have looked at the i7 8600k and the i9 9900k. The latter i think is a bit too expensive at the moment. The i7 9700k seems to be in the middle of the two? I probably won't be looking to overclock as soon as the PC has been built but sometime in the future.

Video Card: Nvidia RTX 2070 - I've mainly looked at the 2060, 2070, 2080 cards. Again i'm thinking what looks like the middle of the 3. Not sure if the price jump between 2070 and 2080 is worth it. Also when I looked at 2070 on overclockers.co.uk they had the same cards but with different brand names at different prices. What are the differences? Isn't the all the same 2070 card?

Cooling: Came across Noctua ND-15, would this be a good choice? All I know is I don't want liquid cooling.

Thermal Paste: Need advice on.

Motherboard: Not sure what i need to be looking for when choosing a motherboard.

RAM: Need advice on this.

Storage: Is it better to have 2 SSD drives with one drive having the operating system installed and games installed on the other. Since I'm a flight simmer maybe its best to have 3 SSDs with my flight sims being on their own dedicated SSD. Need advice too on what makes a good SSD, don't know if there are different speeds I should look for.

Disk Drive: Will need one so i can install some of my older games that are on disk. Thought I'd add this if it affects the PSU this PC will require.

Wireless adapter card: I use Wifi, will need one unless the motherboard has one in built (don't know if this is common).

Operating System: Windows 10 Home edition - Had a quick look at the differences between home and pro editions, didn't seem relevant to gaming to me. Let me know if i should reconsider.

Sound Card: Need advice on this.

Tower Case: Something with really good airflow, not bothered too much about the fancy lighting ones you can get but a nice added bonus if the airflow is good.

Power Supply: Need advice on this.

Guess that is everything, let me know if I've missed anything. I know there is a lot of questions here and advice needed. Replies will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[AngelTech]

CPU: i7 9700k - Want an Intel CPU. Having a look around online, I'm guessing this would a decent CPU option to go for. I have looked at the i7 8600k and the i9 9900k. The latter i think is a bit too expensive at the moment. The i7 9700k seems to be in the middle of the two? I probably won't be looking to overclock as soon as the PC has been built but sometime in the future.

Video Card: Nvidia RTX 2070 - I've mainly looked at the 2060, 2070, 2080 cards. Again i'm thinking what looks like the middle of the 3. Not sure if the price jump between 2070 and 2080 is worth it. Also when I looked at 2070 on overclockers.co.uk they had the same cards but with different brand names at different prices. What are the differences? Isn't the all the same 2070 card?

Cooling: Came across Noctua ND-15, would this be a good choice? All I know is I don't want liquid cooling.

Thermal Paste: Need advice on.

Motherboard: Not sure what i need to be looking for when choosing a motherboard.

RAM: Need advice on this.

Storage: Is it better to have 2 SSD drives with one drive having the operating system installed and games installed on the other. Since I'm a flight simmer maybe its best to have 3 SSDs with my flight sims being on their own dedicated SSD. Need advice too on what makes a good SSD, don't know if there are different speeds I should look for.

Disk Drive: Will need one so i can install some of my older games that are on disk. Thought I'd add this if it affects the PSU this PC will require.

Wireless adapter card: I use Wifi, will need one unless the motherboard has one in built (don't know if this is common).

Operating System: Windows 10 Home edition - Had a quick look at the differences between home and pro editions, didn't seem relevant to gaming to me. Let me know if i should reconsider.

Sound Card: Need advice on this.

Tower Case: Something with really good airflow, not bothered too much about the fancy lighting ones you can get but a nice added bonus if the airflow is good.

Power Supply: Need advice on this.

Guess that is everything, let me know if I've missed anything. I know there is a lot of questions here and advice needed. Replies will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

CPU: 9700K is good personally it isn't my taste due to the horrible pricing for Intel CPUs but I understand why people choose them.

Video Card: This is less personal and more about trying to help you save a few bucks unless you need what I consider premature ray tracing go for the RX 5700 XT it's just a few FPS behind the RTX 2070 SUPER for around £100 less the custom cards come out pretty soon so I'd personally wait unless you really want ray tracing.

Cooling: If you plan to overclock in the near future or in general yes Noctua will do you just fine.

Thermal Paste: Since you mentioned you plan to overclock later I'd get this

Motherboard: All that matters about a motherboard is that it has the features you need and a good VRM to find this info out check out reviews on motherboards that you may use in your system to decide the best fit for you.

RAM: Could just get classic Corsair Vengeance LPX 2 x 8 sticks RAM speed won't make too much of a difference as you will have an Intel CPU.

Storage: Just get a 2TB M.2 SSD Drive and a 2 TB HDD the Intel 660P is pretty good from what I hear any HDD should work.

Disk Drive: Just get an external optical drive.

Wireless adapter card: I'm getting this one.

Operating System: Operating system doesn't really make a difference so no need to get pro.

Sound Card: Default sound that comes with your mobo should be fine.

Tower Case: Phanteks ECLIPSE P350X has good airflow from what I hear.

Power Supply: I'd go with this PSU.

 

[nbacoventry]

Been looking around and asked another forum to see what advice i got there. So far I am thinking this for a system:

Tower Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Pro Z390
CPU: i7 9700K
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S- Note the S here!
Thermal Paste: Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Windforce OC 8G GDDR6
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home
RAM: Corsair 16GB DDR4 Vengeance LPX 3200MHz Memory Kit for Skylake

I'm still unsure on SSD and PSU however. What do you think?

Thanks.

 

[vMax]

Here is a Intel based system - 9700K matched to a Z390 Gigabyte Gaming X motherboard that has a great VRM setup and 16GB DDR4 3200 Ram tied together with the RTX 2070 Super. This will be a very, very good top end gaming focused build. You could go the cheaper route with AMD like the 3600 or 3700 and a B450 motherboard but for max FPS Intel is still in the lead and the 9700K is right up there and overclocks to 5GHz with comparative ease across all 8 cores. This will provide a great balanced build though if you are into professional video editing, encoding etc, then the Ryzen 3700X etc would be better...

The Seasonic Power supply is high quality and the Case in the Fractal Design Meshify is great for airflow and still cost effective.

As to thermal paste, good old Arctic MX-4 will do the job handily though you can always spend a bit more on
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut.

Edit - The Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro would be even better than the Gaming X...


PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/PNCjjy

CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£315.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£78.48 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 GAMING X ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£132.95 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£96.83 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN500 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£65.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£103.58 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card (£510.79 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case (£85.99 @ Box Limited)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£85.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1475.07
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-14 14:33 BST+0100

 

[nbacoventry]

How about this?

PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/BTB8Ft
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£346.69 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£71.19 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£194.45 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£84.09 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£100.80 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£113.77 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB GAMING OC Video Card (£509.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£87.94 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: EVGA 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£83.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1591.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-15 07:39 BST+0100

I used the outervision website to see what kind of PSU it recommended me, it came to a 650W PSU. When I looked at the recommended PSU for that RTX 2070 Super, it also said 650W. So this is the one I am thinking of getting: https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-Modular-Power-Supply-210-GQ-0750-V3/dp/B017RO39TK

The 750W PSU is only £5 more than the 650W, I might as well go with the 750W then?

Lastly PCPartPicker gives me a compatibility note saying: The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with a SATA 6.0 Gb/s port. When the M.2 slot is populated, one SATA 6.0 Gb/s port is disabled. I don't understand what that means, googled it I believe I should be fine. Since my motherboard I've chosen has 6 SATA ports I believe.

Thanks again.

 

[Vic 40]

With a cooler like that comes a tube of paste so not necessary to buy another one.

Lastly PCPartPicker gives me a compatibility note saying: The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with a SATA 6.0 Gb/s port. When the M.2 slot is populated, one SATA 6.0 Gb/s port is disabled. I don't understand what that means, googled it I believe I should be fine. Since my motherboard I've chosen has 6 SATA ports I believe.

Yes you will be fine.

 

[nbacoventry]

With a cooler like that comes a tube of paste so not necessary to buy another one.


Yes you will be fine.

@Vic 40 If I wanted to change my mind and get the NH-D15 instead of the NH-D15S, I should be fine with installing you reckon? I believe my RAM should be low enough however I read while googling that the NH-D15 can block off the 1st PCI x16 slot which i guess is where I would want my RTX 2070 Super to go?

 

[geofelt]

A good list of questions.
Here are my thoughts:

9700K is as good as it gets for gaming.
With a Z390 based motherboard and a good cooler, you can likely run at 5.0 on all cores.
The intel performance maximizer app will set that up.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-auto-overclock-performance-maximizer,6179.html
You need do nothing initially.

I suspect RTX2070 is about right.

Noctua NH-D15 is as good as it gets for air cooling and will be fine in a good case. NH-D15s might be a better option. It is similarly priced but has better compatibility with ram and fat graphics cards.

The noctua paste is included and is very good. Noctua has one of the best and simplest mounting sustems around.

On the motherboard, Any Z390 based unit will do the job.
Some very expensive units have options for LN2 cooling for overclockers; you do not need that.


Some will have included wifi, but a add in wifi card is cheap if you like a motherboard without wifi.
How many expansions slots will you need? Consider a smaller M-ATX size.

The ram will be dual channel. Buy a 2 x 8gb or 2 x 16gb ram kit.
Speed is not all that important. 3000 to 3600 speed is ok.
Normally 16gb is fine. But, if your sim app can use lots of ram, an extra 16gb is not that expensive.
No need for fancy heat spreaders which are largely useless. I am not a fan of RGB "bling" either.

On a high end build like this, use a single pcie m.2 ssd. Probably something like a 1tb Samsung 970 evo
It is much easier to manage a single space than many. There is no performance benefit from multiple drives.
I like Samsung evo for performance and reliability. The PRO versions have longer endurance, but with a 1tb drive that is no issue.
In a desktop environment, you are looking at the difference between 15 and 20 years.
Anything you install today will be long obsolete before you have run out of write capability.

For the home user, there is no real value in the PRO version of windows 10.
The big benefit to me is that the PRO version gives you more control when windows can do updates.
New versions can be deferred up to a year.
I like that option.

On a case, looks count.
A case will be with you for a long time.
My criteria for a good case:
a) It must hold my parts.
b) I like at least 2 120/140mm front intakes or a 200mm to supply sufficient cooling air.
c) The front intakes should have a washable filter. That will keep your parts clean.
d) With a good case, you do not need liquid cooling. 160mm height available lets you install a good air cooler.

Motherboards will have good HD7.1 sound no need for a discrete sound card.
If you are particularly picky, you can always add one later.

On the power supply, your RTX2070 can run on as little as a 500w psu.
Here is a chart
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm
I have no problem overprovisioning a PSU a bit. Say 20%.
It will allow for a stronger future graphics card upgrade.
It will run cooler, quieter, and more efficiently in the middle third of it's range.
A PSU will only use the wattage demanded of it, regardless of it's max capability.
650 or 750w would be good.
Of perhaps more importance is quality.
Buy a tier 1 or 2 unit from a list such as this:

PSU Tier List [OLD]

Credit to @Starelementpokeand @Energycore for helping out with this long-awaited refresh of the old PSU tier list by Aniallation (who previously went several months without logging in), leaving the old list in need of help. This is simply an update of the list that was flawed in creation by the P...

linustechtips.com

I like the Seasonic focus units.

You did not include thoughts on what you will do for a monitor or monitors.


Lastly, for a first time builder:
MY build process:

Before anything, while waiting for your parts to be delivered, download
and read, cover to cover your case and motherboard manual.
Buy a #2 magnetic tip philips screwdriver.
I find it handy to buy a power switch like this for testing.
https://www.ebay.com/p/4in1-PC-Powe...or-Computer/631889283?iid=142232821294&chn=ps

1. I assemble the critical parts outside of the case.
That lets me test them for functionality easily.
A wood table or cardboard is fine.
2. Plug in only the necessary parts at first. Ram, cpu, cooler, psu.
Do not force anything. Parts fit only one way.
Attach a monitor to the integrated motherboard adapter if you have one, otherwise to the graphics card.

1. If your motherboard does not have a PWR button, momentarily touch the two pwr front panel pins with a flat blade screwdriver.
2. Repeatedly hit F2 or DEL, and that should get you into the bios display.
3. Boot from a cd or usb stick with memtest86 on it. memtest will exercise your ram and cpu functionality.
4. Install windows.
5. Install the motherboard cd drivers. Particularly the lan drivers so you can access the internet.

Do not select the easy install option, or you will get a bunch of utilities and trialware that you don't want. Drivers only.

1. Connect to the internet and install an antivirus program. Microsoft security essentials is free, easy, and unobtrusive.
2. Install your graphics card and driver if you tested with integrated graphics.

You will need to remove the graphics card later to install your motherboard in the case.
As a tip when screwing the motherboard into the posts, give the screw a small counterclockwise turn until you feel a click.
That lets you know that the screw will engage properly.
Make a note of how the graphics card latches into the pcie slot.
The mechanism will be hidden under the card and may be difficult to work if you have not previously checked how.

1. Update windows to currency.
2. Only now do I take apart what I need to and install it in the case.
3. Now is the time to reinstall your graphics card.

 

[nbacoventry]

@geofelt Wow! Much appreciated for all that information. I'll be using the monitor I used from my previous PC, its quite old now, but will eventually get a new one down the line at some point.

 

[ShadeSlayer812]

This is less personal and more about trying to help you save a few bucks unless you need what I consider premature ray tracing go for the RX 5700 XT it's just a few FPS behind the RTX 2070 SUPER for around £100 less the custom cards come out pretty soon so I'd personally wait unless you really want ray tracing.

I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a ray tracing debate, but I would go for the NVIDIA cards because of ray tracing. It might not be main stream yet, but after seeing what games like Battlefield were able to do with ray tracing, it will only be a few years before every single new release is using it. Then again, the GPU is the most upgrade-able part of a PC, so if you want to wait and see, it won't be the end of the world, but you will lose money in the long run.

Just my two cents

 

[nbacoventry]

@ShadeSlayer812 Don't worry I'm certain to get an NVIDIA.

 

[mdd1963]

@Vic 40 If I wanted to change my mind and get the NH-D15 instead of the NH-D15S, I should be fine with installing you reckon? I believe my RAM should be low enough however I read while googling that the NH-D15 can block off the 1st PCI x16 slot which i guess is where I would want my RTX 2070 Super to go?

My NH-D15 was not even close to obstructing install of a GPU...even RAM wise, it's OK, unless you like those ones with an extra 1.5" inches of heatsink resembling a Transformer in the middle of transforming....

RAM prices have come down enough now that I'd honestly just get a 32 GB kit (2 x 16 GB sticks) and call it a day...