Can someone check if this is a good gaming PC? (and I have a few questions as well).

[Louisdicrous]

Thanks for the help. I think I'm going to keep everything the same as the build at the start, just with these changes (as you have advised)

CPU: I9-9900K
GPU: RTX 2070 (as I'm soon changing monitors)
Memory (RAM): 2 x 16GB Corsair Vengeance (3200MHZ)
Power SUpply: Corsair 650W TXm series

Sound good? And one lst thing - i shouldn't use Optane memory right? And what drive should I install the OS on?

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

Thanks for the help. I think I'm going to keep everything the same as the build at the start, just with these changes (as you have advised)

CPU: I9-9900K
GPU: RTX 2070 (as I'm soon changing monitors)
Memory (RAM): 2 x 16GB Corsair Vengeance (3200MHZ)
Power SUpply: Corsair 650W TXm series

Sound good? And one lst thing - i shouldn't use Optane memory right?

I'd highly recommend 2 x 8Gb RAM, there's absolutely no benefit to the extra 16Gb, just will never be used for gaming.

Optane is designed for systems that only have HDD's as the operational drives, to speed up boot times and program loading. There's no benefit to having it on the storage drive.

 

[Louisdicrous]

My apologies, typo, I did mean 2 x 8GB my bad.

 

[Louisdicrous]

Okay, so this is the final quote I'm looking at for my PC.

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500M GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Eight Core Processor i9-9900K (3.6GHz) 16MB Cache
Get Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs, WIFI - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
Get Battlefield V with select NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2500MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Memory Card Reader
USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
2x 50cm RGB LED Strip
Extra Case Fans
1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

With this build, I will supposedly get Black Ops 4 and Battlefield 5 for free with the processor and graphics card

 

[Louisdicrous]

Any help or advice is brilliant.

 

[karjud]

With the free games you use the word 'supposedly' correctly, I was supposed to get Assassin's Creed Odyssey with my 1TB 970 EVO but never did and when I contacted PCS they said they had ran out of keys for this promotion and quoted a paragraph from their T&C's to protect themselves from trading standards so don't feel sure you will actually get them. This is my only issue with PCS as the rig I bought is an excellent build, I have similar specs to your planned build except I have an I7 9700 with a 2080 ti and performs brilliantly on my ASUS PG279 monitor that has an overclock on the monitor in the options menu to push it to 165Hz at 1440p

 

[Rakk]

With the free games you use the word 'supposedly' correctly, I was supposed to get Assassin's Creed Odyssey with my 1TB 970 EVO but never did and when I contacted PCS they said they had ran out of keys for this promotion and quoted a paragraph from their T&C's to protect themselves from trading standards so don't feel sure you will actually get them.

Well as with many offers like this for all sorts of products it is in essence only 'whilst stocks last' and it's NVidia and Intel (or other manufacturer) that provide the codes not PCS, so once PCS run out of their supply from whichever manufacturer it was from they can't really do much (I suspect demanding more from said manufacturers would get them nowhere). I know I've received a free game from an offer like that on one of the PC's I got from PCS - wasn't one I enjoyed mind but that certainly wasn't PCS's fault

 

[Louisdicrous]

Thanks for the help, I'm excited about this build now!

 

[Oussebon]

This build is utterly terrible and a senseless use of cash. You're cheating yourself out of performance.

there is no real con to having a overpowered GPU except the price.

The con is you're missing out on performance - and this is why. Unless you have unlimited money, overspending on the GPU now will mean it will be longer before you can buy an upgrade / when you buy an upgrade you will have less money for it. Therefore 1) you are spending hundreds of £ for performance you won't use now. 2) by the time you need such extra performance as it does offer, new graphics cards will be out, offering even more performance for the same price, and - most importantly - new hardware features. e.g. better async compute performance, better 'RTX' performance, or new features we don't even know of yet.

Overspending on the GPU is therefore really not smart, and cheats you out of money and performance.

Similarly, new GPUs are expected out in the next few weeks, and these could have an impact on pricing, potentially altering what £XX buys you in terms of performance.

If you are going to go for a 1440p 144hz monitor ~(£450+) in the next few weeks however, then you could look at buying an RTX 2080 (aka GTX 1080 ti with bonus RTX features)

32gb RAM has 0 benefit for gaming. 16gb RAM is more than futureproof. You are wasting money for the sake of what, being able to say you own 32gb RAM?

The Optane module is really a waste of an M.2 slot when you could be keeping it for a proper SSD.

1) Will I need an M.2 SSD drive? My understanding is that they are only for smaller builds.

Incorrect. While you're right that one of the attractions of M.2 versus 2.5" drives is that it's smaller, the main attraction in £2000 desktop PCs is that they allow for PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs like the Samsung 970 Evo or WD Black that are ~6x as fast as a regular SSD like the 860 Evo. When people say "you should get an M.2 SSD, they're faster", that's what they're referring to, though of course there are M.2 SSDs that are the same speed as Sata drives as well.

(I'm hoping this is a full tower)

Define full tower. Almost no PCs towers in this sort of budget range are actually 'full tower'. Most PC cases people think of as 'full tower' are actually 'mid tower' with the distinction, if there really even is any, being irrelevant.

3) Is liquid cooling worth it?

With an i9, which is a small nuclear reactor and not really any better for gaming than an i7 9700k, I wouldn't buy one without the highest end liquid cooling available.

Also, this is the difference between a 9700k and a 9900k. At 1080p with a GTX 1080 ti (i.e. a better GPU than yours, which highlights CPU performance more than you PC will):

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7_9700K/13.html

I'm gonna be playing a lot of Call of Duty and Fortnite, how many frames do you think that PC will reach with 19-9900K and RTX 2070?

Note that your graphics card will be able to generate a lot more than 60 frames per second. But if you see you're running Fortnite at 100fps or whatever, remember that your 60hz monitor cannot display more than 60 of those frames.

Also, do you need the wifi on the Z390-E? If not, get the AORUS Pro gaming. It's cheaper and the VRMs seem to be a bit better. Which matters, especially for an i9.


Note that i9 9900k+ 32gb RAM + Z370-E + RTX 2070 is actually more expensive than i7 9700k, 16gb RAM + AORUS Pro + RTX 2080. And the i9 spec will give significantly worse performance in gaming.

Just so you know

 

[Louisdicrous]

This build is utterly terrible and a senseless use of cash. You're cheating yourself out of performance.

The con is you're missing out on performance - and this is why. Unless you have unlimited money, overspending on the GPU now will mean it will be longer before you can buy an upgrade / when you buy an upgrade you will have less money for it. Therefore 1) you are spending hundreds of £ for performance you won't use now. 2) by the time you need such extra performance as it does offer, new graphics cards will be out, offering even more performance for the same price, and - most importantly - new hardware features. e.g. better async compute performance, better 'RTX' performance, or new features we don't even know of yet.

Overspending on the GPU is therefore really not smart, and cheats you out of money and performance.

Similarly, new GPUs are expected out in the next few weeks, and these could have an impact on pricing, potentially altering what £XX buys you in terms of performance.

If you are going to go for a 1440p 144hz monitor ~(£450+) in the next few weeks however, then you could look at buying an RTX 2080 (aka GTX 1080 ti with bonus RTX features)

32gb RAM has 0 benefit for gaming. 16gb RAM is more than futureproof. You are wasting money for the sake of what, being able to say you own 32gb RAM?

The Optane module is really a waste of an M.2 slot when you could be keeping it for a proper SSD.

Incorrect. While you're right that one of the attractions of M.2 versus 2.5" drives is that it's smaller, the main attraction in £2000 desktop PCs is that they allow for PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs like the Samsung 970 Evo or WD Black that are ~6x as fast as a regular SSD like the 860 Evo. When people say "you should get an M.2 SSD, they're faster", that's what they're referring to, though of course there are M.2 SSDs that are the same speed as Sata drives as well.

Define full tower. Almost no PCs towers in this sort of budget range are actually 'full tower'. Most PC cases people think of as 'full tower' are actually 'mid tower' with the distinction, if there really even is any, being irrelevant.

With an i9, which is a small nuclear reactor and not really any better for gaming than an i7 9700k, I wouldn't buy one without the highest end liquid cooling available.

Also, this is the difference between a 9700k and a 9900k. At 1080p with a GTX 1080 ti (i.e. a better GPU than yours, which highlights CPU performance more than you PC will):
View attachment 12506
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7_9700K/13.html


Note that your graphics card will be able to generate a lot more than 60 frames per second. But if you see you're running Fortnite at 100fps or whatever, remember that your 60hz monitor cannot display more than 60 of those frames.

Also, do you need the wifi on the Z390-E? If not, get the AORUS Pro gaming. It's cheaper and the VRMs seem to be a bit better. Which matters, especially for an i9.


Note that i9 9900k+ 32gb RAM + Z370-E + RTX 2070 is actually more expensive than i7 9700k, 16gb RAM + AORUS Pro + RTX 2080. And the i9 spec will give significantly worse performance in gaming.

Just so you know

Okay, so I've changed my processor to the i7-9700K (even though people who have the i9-9900K have told me it's fantastic). I have also changed my motherboard to the AORUS PRO and I now have kept the 2070 graphics card as I have heard it is fantastic, and very, very worth its price. Are you sure this is better? I have been saving up for this computer for an awful long time, I want it to be able to kill any game or task it throws at it, and I just thought the higher cache on the i9 would make a significant difference.

-PLEASE NOTE: I am also looking to do video editing and rendering on this computer, if that makes any difference.

 

[Oussebon]

I expect if you asked people with a GTX 2080 ti or a Titan if it was fantastic, they'd tell you the same. I can tell you my 3770k is fantastic

Depending on what you're doing with rendering or video editing there may be some or little difference between a 9700k and a 9900k. You may get more benefit from the RTX 2080.

 

[Louisdicrous]

Okay, so I'm gonna stick with the i9-9900K, just because reviews say it's better for video editing and just being a better CPU overall, and the GTX 2070 as I feel it it will do more than enough for me, especially as I am upgrading monitors soon. I'll keep the 16GB of RAM as you advised, is there anything else you'd advise? Is there any motherboard that works best with these components?

 

[Oussebon]

See earlier advice for answer

 

[Louisdicrous]

FINAL QUOTE:


Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500M GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Eight Core Processor i9-9900K (3.6GHz) 16MB Cache
Get Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs, WIFI - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
Get Battlefield V with select NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2500MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Memory Card Reader
USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
2x 50cm RGB LED Strip
Extra Case Fans
1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11 Gigabyte GC-WB1733D-I AC 1734Mbps + BT5 PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Any last statements or improvements please?