Best <$2000 Gaming PC to last five or more years?

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Xorak

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Jun 7, 2013
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I'm getting ready to recommend builds (and build them too) for my girlfriend and another friend. When I built my 4690K system it was a no-brainer. X99 was too expensive and the 4790K showed no benefit in benchmarks. Now it's not so simple because current games are showing that they can address more than 4 threads.

I'm pretty well set with choosing all the supporting parts and a graphics card, but I'm not sure what platform to go with. Both parties will want to go for at least a five year upgrade cycle, or however long they get away with. A Skylake i7 will have the best out of box performance right now, but any new system will have all the power it needs for at least a few years. What do you guys think will be the best in the long run? I expect to push any system I build to it's highest comfortable long term overclock.

Also, if I end up going 5820k, what cooler should I use? I have a Noctua U-12S on my 4690K which does great at 4.5ghz. I'm sure it'll be fine for any quad core, but not sure about the 6. I understand the U-14S blocks the first PCI-E slot on X-99 and I'm not sure I want to go with AIO water coolers because they tend to be expensive and loud. Also leery of the monster twin radiator air coolers...

So far my builds range from around $13xx to $16xx depending on the platform choice. It's not too big a deal either way in the scheme of the whole build, but I want the best bang for the buck over the long run. Thanks guys!

PS, other parts are probably going to be a Corsair 330R case, Sapphire R9 390, Seasonic 750w PSU, Samsung 850 Pro 256gb boot drive, 850 EVO 500gb game drive, 16gb of RAM and I still need to choose a wi-fi solution if either of them need one, which they may not.
 
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I feel your pain brother. I just build a 5820 rig and am near complete on my second. I already purchased a 6600 but when you hear about some newer AAA titles nearly taxing it out.... Notice how the Banana Republic Generals around here phrase things "Most games will not need more than...." What if the games you want to play are not "Most games"? Well, then you hear terms like "Still playable".

It seems clear to me if you are satisfied playing most games at still playable performance by all means get an i5. If you want to be able to play ALL games at the best possible performance an i7 should be where you look.

Even though I can get Microcenter CPU pricing an x99 board is still going to cost substantially more than a Z170 port for port, while the 5820 is $30 or so less than a 6700. The 6700 vs 5820 debate is enough to make your head explode.

It sure would be nice to have 2of the same platform for troubleshooting purposes, but right this minute (and this changes frequently) I am leaning towards the 6700 for my 2nd build to hedge my bets. Better to be wrong once than twice! I still have at least a couple of weeks to change my mind before the return windows start to close.

Here are my two builds if you are interested. Been sourcing over the past couple of months and finally wrapped it up this weekend but is always subject to change if a great deal comes along. Some of the fans on the 2nd build might get returned, they were just a good deal. I have newegg Premeir.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (Purchased For $300.00)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i GTX 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (Purchased For $119.00)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH X99 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (Purchased For $303.00)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (Purchased For $114.00)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra II 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $140.00)
Storage: Toshiba 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $84.00)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 390X 8GB SOC Video Card (Purchased For $349.00)
Case: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO ATX Desktop Case (Purchased For $85.00)
Power Supply: SeaSonic Platinum 860W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $139.00)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $15.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 OEM (64-bit) (Purchased For $51.00)
Monitor: BenQ XL2420Z 144Hz 24.0" Monitor (Purchased For $288.00)
Keyboard: AZIO L70 Wired Gaming Keyboard (Purchased For $24.00)
Mouse: SteelSeries Rival Wired Optical Mouse (Purchased For $20.00)
Other: Extra fans TBD ($40.00)
Other: Mouse pad (Purchased For $9.00)
Total: $2080.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-29 21:12 EST-0500

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $229.00)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (Purchased For $90.00)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (Purchased For $170.00)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (Purchased For $99.00)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $135.00)
Storage: Western Digital RE4 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $35.00)
Storage: Western Digital RE4 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $35.00)
Storage: Toshiba 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $84.00)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 4GB Video Card (Purchased For $395.00)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $90.00)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $39.99)
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $30.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 OEM (64-bit) (Purchased For $60.00)
Case Fan: Fractal Design FD-FAN-SSR2-140 66.0 CFM 140mm Fan (Purchased For $8.37)
Case Fan: Fractal Design FD-FAN-SSR2-140 66.0 CFM 140mm Fan (Purchased For $8.37)
Case Fan: Fractal Design FD-FAN-SSR2-140 66.0 CFM 140mm Fan (Purchased For $8.37)
Case Fan: Fractal Design FD-FAN-SSR2-140 66.0 CFM 140mm Fan (Purchased For $8.37)
Monitor: BenQ XL2411Z 144Hz 24.0" Monitor (Purchased For $175.00)
Keyboard: Func KB-460 Wired Gaming Keyboard (Purchased For $70.00)
Mouse: Logitech G502 Wired Optical Mouse (Purchased For $4.00)
Headphones: Razer KRAKEN 7.1 CHROMA 7.1 Channel Headset (Purchased For $34.00)
Other: Logitech C920 USB 2.0 certified (USB 3.0 ready) HD Pro Webcam (Purchased For $40.00)
Total: $1848.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-29 21:13 EST-0500

 
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Well, you described my dilemma correctly. I think it makes sense to go with an i7 either way, since support for more than 4 threads seems to have arrived. So it's the 6700K vs 5820K and yes, it makes my head want to explode. I won't go with a $300 motherboard. I'd go for something like an AsRock Extreme 4 for either platform, which will be around $130-170 respectively. The memory will be 16gb DDR4 either way, so the two i7's are basically the same price. I know Skylake has higher per core performance, but not enough to beat 6 cores if they actually get utilized.

EDIT: Maybe I should just plan to use the older Noctua D-14? Should have plenty of cooling for an overclocked 5820K and not block the top slot. The X99 boards should be able to handle the weight better than a Z170... Thoughts?
 
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There's two schools of thought on this - right now availability of Sky Lake i7s are sketchy at best and that's due to the ridiculously high demand of these CPUs. With that said, a lot of people who have your budget range are recommending the X99 platform, even though it isn't really suitable for gaming, because of the lack of availability, and also because of the performance ratio. Since the release of Haswell, the latest batch of CPUs only offers a +-10% improvement margin over the next generation. Haswell-E only offers a 10% increase in performance over Haswell, and Sky Lake offers about a 15% increase in performance. While that isn't much when you think about it a 10% increase is a 10% increase.

Now the other school of thought regarding your decision between X99 and Z170 is that X99 offers support for multiple graphics cards as well as M2 drives going beyond the standard 2-way SLI/Crossfire configurations that most high-end gaming rigs use. If that's what you are aiming for - if you plan on expanding your monitor configuration beyond a standard display to two, three or more - or you plan on experiencing Oculus Rift, that's your platform.

So if you're going with X99 here's a system that I would recommend:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($364.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG R1 Ultimate 76.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 OC Formula EATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($264.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($197.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.75 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card ($644.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($97.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($116.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($16.88 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1944.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-30 15:58 EST-0500

One thing I will say though is that you do not need to spend a lot of money on case fans or mouse pads or any of that stuff. Only the core components - CPU, cooling, motherboard, storage, GPU, case and power supply.
 
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X99 has a future. Broadwell-E has been leaked and, with a BIOS update, are supposed to run in LGA 2011-3 sockets, so if you want a 10 core processor, this platform will run it.

You can't do what you want, in a sense. What top of the line system from Jan 2011 would you want to be using today? Your GPU would probably be a GTX580 or a 6970. How does that work for you today? It will play Witcher 3 at 1080p, but 2K, or three-monitor, no way.

The five year future would seem to be 2K or 4k, but even a SLI 980ti rig is less than ideal for 4K ultra, and 144Hz??? If 1080p 60Hz Ultra is your standard, we can do that today and a GTX980ti, which is overkill today, will still be good in 5 years.

Overall, I agree with g-unit1111. That platform will age less quickly and I like his system. Room for a second GTX980ti if you need it, should be very relevant in 2021.
 
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Yeah I agree with this and the thing I would say too is that things have changed a lot since 2011 when I first joined the forums. But the thing is while Oculus and some of the ridiculous high end open world games that are out there now have changed the CPU landscape - CPUs that have been on store shelves since 2011 are still relevant. The i7-3770K and i7-2700K are still in very wide usage. And I'm sure that even though retailers are having a hard time keeping the 6700K in stock, that will be relevant 5 - 6 years down the line. And people who have those CPUs aren't going to give them up that easily. It will be at least 5 or six years before those CPUs are considered minimum requirements. There's no doubt that Oculus is going to change things as far as CPU requirements go, but I'm guessing that it won't be much if you look at history and moving forward.
 
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a couple hundred bucks more and then rigs are done for at least through pascals life cycle.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($364.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H5 Universal 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($42.25 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($147.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($599.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($599.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($56.10 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($58.99 @ NCIX US)
Case Fan: NZXT FN-120RB 47.3 CFM 120mm Fan ($7.64 @ SuperBiiz)
Case Fan: NZXT FN-120RB 47.3 CFM 120mm Fan ($7.64 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $2195.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-30 17:39 EST-0500
 
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Yes and I wish there were, but there isn't and that doesn't matter if you're buying dual 980TIs or Titan X's. No system will have that long of a lifespan.
 
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Thanks for all the input guys. I'm not worried about a 5 year GPU solution though. I know that can be upgraded easily. I just want to pick one high end platform or the other; Which ever one will be 'good enough' the longest.

On the cooler front, I found out that the Noctua D-15S (which comes with only one fan) is actually staggered on its base, so it won't block the first slot. Would probably just go with that for the 5820K, if we go that rout. Looking at benchmarks though, my simple little U-12S would probably be just fine for an overclocked 5820K under any gaming conditions. I'd like it to be 100% stable in any stress test as well, but realistically, these systems won't be subjected to those conditions.

On the other hand, if we all keep procrastinating, Broadwell-E could be a winner...
 
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Like I said before - if you want to add more than two way SLI / Crossfire then go with X99. If not then go with Z170, that is about as easy of a decision as it gets.
 
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