Black Friday build/ 8700k back in stock GAMING RIG

[draffeurd]

Hey, I've been looking at Gaming builds for a while now and I feel like now is the time for me to order my own gaming beast, with the black friday sale going on at Newegg's and the i7-8700k back in stock at Newegg as well. The core of this build would be an i7-8700k CPU and a GeForce GTX 1080 GPU (Probably the Duke model from MSi since it's the cheapest and it looks rad). I plan on buying a second GTX 1080 in a couple of years when my GPU won't be enough anymore. I've also found some nice deals on RGB RAM sticks and Cases on Newegg's black friday sale so I thought I could make my rig RGB themed, only if the extra cost is not too much.

Following the RGB theme, I ended up with the following Parts list:

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/bPqc2R

Note: With all the black friday rebates, and buying only from Newegg, the cart adds up to 2330 CAD before tax.

Out of curiosity, I tried a second build without the RGB theme, replacing RGB components by components on sale for Black Friday. Here's the result:

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/sNhWxY

Note: Black friday sales include Rosewill PSU at 79.99, Fractal Design Case at 54.99 and G Skill RAM at 199.99. Total cost: 2100 CAD before tax

There also seems to be a big promotion on Gigabyte Aorus Mobo's which is why I chose this one instead of Asus's ROG Strix, which would've been my first choice otherwise,

I'd like to have your opinions on both of these builds, should I change anything in one of them? Should I go for the ROG Strix Motherboard anyways? Do anything in these builds look odd to you? Any other thoughts would help too.

Thank you

 

[gussrtk]

There are some improvementgs to be made here, but you;re on the right track!

first build:

CPU cooler could be cheaper, But still not a bad choice and or if you want to put money into having that cooler
Motherboard ... I would not go with Gigabyte for this chipset, from recent reviews and tests AsRock and Asus are the better choices
Storage: a 250GB SSD will not offer you much at all, especially for a gaming rig. You can pick up even an M2 drive for under 200$ CAN (*extra research on this option is required). your 1TB mechanical drive storage is very .... low.. you could pay another 15$ or so and get 2TB
GPU: this is a pretty good option, it's the same price as 1070ti, yet, a little faster, factory OC well rounded budget GPU of a 1080 (but not cheap budget)
The rest looks fair





2nd build

CPU cooler: I would not select an h60.. rather I woudl take a D15 Noctua
Motherboard: I explained above
Ram: I explained above



Now, you specify gaming rig... Then I would suggest you get an i5-8600k, it's still very good, and you'll save some money to buy anything else you want for this PC. GamingWise, 8700k is not THAT far off from an 8600k, but if we get into rendering and editing builds, that's wehre the 8700k would shine.

 

[draffeurd]

Thanks for the reply you mentionned something about reading above for a comment on RAM choice.. i looked and didnt find that comment 😛

For the motherboard, the asus rog strix z370-h is in the same price range. Do you think it would be a better option? And do you have an idea why the z370-h is cheaper than other Rog Strix motherboards??

I thought the SSD was used to intall windows only. What more would a bigger ssd add to my pc's performance?

Also i might stick with the 8700k as i feel like it would make the rig much more future-proof (i'm planning to play some VR). Wouldn't it?

 

[draffeurd]

I also looked for another HDD and couldn't find a 2 tb drive for 15 more dollars. Do you have some specific model in mind? This WD hdd seems very popular and well rated. Could it be a good option to buy a second identical drive later when my 1st one is full?

 

[draffeurd]

BUMP 😀

 

[gussrtk]

Thanks for the reply you mentionned something about reading above for a comment on RAM choice.. i looked and didnt find that comment 😛

For the motherboard, the asus rog strix z370-h is in the same price range. Do you think it would be a better option? And do you have an idea why the z370-h is cheaper than other Rog Strix motherboards??

I thought the SSD was used to intall windows only. What more would a bigger ssd add to my pc's performance?

Also i might stick with the 8700k as i feel like it would make the rig much more future-proof (i'm planning to play some VR). Wouldn't it?

sorry i've been away for a few


so i'll try answer this in order:

Ram: (yeah.. i guess i forgot to answer this), Choice in your first build is very nice, flashy and fancy. That being said, if you need to save some money, you could choose some of the lower "flash" ram, 3000-3200mhz ram is right around where most people like their system to have for several reasons, if you can afford it, then no prob, go at it. Cheaper rams will perform good in gaming stil though.

Asus z370H Would be more of a mid-range board, I'm not sure which ones you are comparing them to though... But one thing for sure... the Z370 boards are really rocking with AsRock, plenty of happy people with those board builds. I myself LOVE asus for their quality and great features (everything you would expect from paying what you pay to a company as established as them), but still, this time around I think I would go for an AsRock board instead if it were me.

SSD: Yeah.... "back in the day" lol... okay not that long ago... but when SSD drives were super expensive, people would use them to install windows and their main game or what not, but that's because it's all that they could afford (120GB). While today's 7200RPM mechanical hard drives offer some pretty impressive performance... they will not be able to keep up with an SSD drive. You can aim for a 500GB range SSD hard drive to keep your Windows, and many gamea. Why? When you play games... it's not only your CPU/GPU/amount of ram that plays part, it's also how fast you can feed data from game files to your CPU/GPU to process. There are some games that are very Hard Drive Heavy, and SSD drives cut loading times by incredible numbers in those particular games. All other games you will still definitely notice a difference.

Choice of CPU: well, of course i7-8700k is a great chip, yes it would help with future proofing. Overall performance capabilities would be increased. But we are also talking about an i5-6core chip and an i7-6core chip + 6 Hyperthread. Looking at games, as they are today or tomorrow... we are not really going past that 6core mark. That's why the 8600k is such a popular chip. But yes... the 8700k does have a slight edge on it in gaming, but most would argue that it's really not great enough for the price hike on the build. But that's an individual's choice, mainly based on when they will plan to upgrade again, also it cuts out that 2nd expense of when people buy i5-k version and upgrade to i7-k version in a few years. It's a choice of budget balance. I personally bought my CPU (i5), because that's all that's required for gaming really, i7 was just not that worth it... but I can tell you that I wish I would have bought the i7 from the start... and no I don't have a desire to spend on an i7 of my generation (3rd) - feels like im throwing away money.

HDD STORAGE: WD hard drives are very good quality. I would say, stay away from Seagate.... i've have a few of them.. and EVERY SINGLE ONE had gone defective..... I have a hard time believing that ... but it happened.

hope I answered all of your questions there