Building a Gaming PC

[TyGuy]

@gourimoko gears of war 4 has the best benchmark tool I have ever used. It gives you a detailed report on how your CPU and GPU hold up during the test and shows all the settings in the left with a graph charting the benchmark.

I did the lazy man by taking pics with my phone of my monitor. I wasn't sure if there was a screenshot built in button and it appears that nvidia shadowplay isn't working with direct x 12 titles.

At 1080 p ultra my card isn't even close to being utilized. The game has s built in resolution scale so I bumped it up to 1440 p for the down sample and you can see my card gets much better use.

It's the first game I've ever seen that has dynamic downsampling that consoles use. You set how much you want it to downsample. In my case I do 33 % since that's the percentage in upscaling. Then you set a framerate cap. I did 90 fps. So, whenever the game drops below 90 fps it drops back down to 1080 p, but goes up if I'm above 90; pretty fucking amazing if you ask me.

 

[gourimoko]

@gourimoko gears of war 4 had the best benchmark tool I have ever used. It gives you a detailed report on how your CPU and CPU hold up during the test and shows all the settings in the left with a graph charting the benchmark.

I did the lazy man by taking pics with my phone of my monitor. I wasn't sure if there was a screenshot built in button and it appears that nvidia shadowplay isn't working with direct x 12 titles.

At 1080 p ultra my card isn't even close to being utilized. The game has s built in resolution scale so I bumped it up to 1440 p for the down sample and you can see my card gets much better use.

It's the first game I've ever seen that has dynamic downsampling that consoles use. You set how much you want it to downsample. In my case I do 33 % since that's the percentage in upscaling. Then you set a framerate cap. I did 90 fps. So, whenever the game drops below 90 fps it drops back down to 1080 p, but goes up if I'm above 90; pretty fucking amazing if you ask me.

Installing this shit tonight...!!

 

[TyGuy]

Installing this shit tonight...!!

I'm seeing 0 reason to upgrade my CPU. Proper dx 12 and vulkan releases are doing wonders for my processor.

 

[Coyote850]

Going to be doing a rebuild of my system. Right now I have a Phenom 2 Black edition quad core, 3.8 gig processor, 16 gig ram. Runs good, but is getting dated as it was built to run Battlefield 3. My new system will include:

MSI Gaming Z170A GAMING M5 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz
LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000)

CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CW-9060007-WW) High Performance Water / Liquid CPU Cooler. 120mm

Also have a new SSD on the way. I will have 2 SSD's.

I will be re-using my EVGA- GTX970 vid card and my 1000 watt BFG power supply.

Once rebuilt this system should fucking scream and run any game that comes out for the next 5 years. Only other upgrade I look to do will be a new Video card in a year or so.

Total cost of rebuild is $800 give or take a few bucks.

 

[gourimoko]

Going to be doing a rebuild of my system. Right now I have a Phenom 2 Black edition quad core, 3.8 gig processor, 16 gig ram. Runs good, but is getting dated as it was built to run Battlefield 3. My new system will include:

MSI Gaming Z170A GAMING M5 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz
LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000)

CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CW-9060007-WW) High Performance Water / Liquid CPU Cooler. 120mm

Also have a new SSD on the way. I will have 2 SSD's.

I will be re-using my EVGA- GTX970 vid card and my 1000 watt BFG power supply.

Once rebuilt this system should fucking scream and run any game that comes out for the next 5 years. Only other upgrade I look to do will be a new Video card in a year or so.

Total cost of rebuild is $800 give or take a few bucks.

Looks good, but I would make some adjustments..

1) Go with the H110i over the H60. The H110i isn't great though; so keep that in mind.. There are better alternatives.

2) This is literally the WORST time to buy an SSD.. The Samsung 960 PRO is coming out within the next 2 weeks and is basically twice as fast as whatever you ordered today. The 960 PRO is actually bottlenecked on the M.2 PCIe x4 port (that's 3.5GBytes/sec).

I'm returning my 950 PRO on Saturday just because I know the 960 is coming out soon.

But yea, you can't go wrong with your CPU, it's phenomenal.

Other than that; just as an aside, you might want to consider getting some G.Skill DDR-3200 CAS 14 RAM if the price isn't much different. It's the best RAM in the world for Z170/X99 IMHO.

 

[Coyote850]

I got my ssd for a really good price, and what you mentioned is probably why. The ram and CPU cooler were recommend by one of my gaming buddies that's an IT tech. I do like Gskill ram though,that's the brand in my rig right now. I'm also gonna upgrade to Windows 10 ,from 7. Appreciate the feedback Guri.

 

[Coyote850]

New rig is up and running. Gonna take some getting used to Windows 10. So far so good.

 

[Cassity14]

New rig is up and running. Gonna take some getting used to Windows 10. So far so good.

sounds like a really nice setup. That's along the lines of what I'm hoping to do sometime this spring/summer.

 

[Coyote850]

sounds like a really nice setup. That's along the lines of what I'm hoping to do sometime this spring/summer.

Gotta say I'm pretty happy with it. My old rig ran good, but you could tell it was stressed. I play Rainbow 6:Siege. After a couple minor in game tweaks I am getting a consistent 100-130 FPS. No stutter or frame drops. And it runs insanely quiet. Never did water cooled before, have to say, I like it.

 

[RuanuLaw]

I was wondering about HDMI transmitters.

I plan on building a Gaming/VR Pc in the next year and I plan on placing it in my soon to be office in the basement. But I was hoping it could transmit some games on my 4K telly which is in my living room.

So I was wondering if there is a way for the PC to transmit the video signal in great quality without any damaging latency.

(Also, I was hoping to utilize a Xbox 1 controller as well. Would there be any way to transmit this signal as well without any delay?)

 

[gourimoko]

I was wondering about HDMI transmitters.

I plan on building a Gaming/VR Pc in the next year and I plan on placing it in my soon to be office in the basement. But I was hoping it could transmit some games on my 4K telly which is in my living room.

So I was wondering if there is a way for the PC to transmit the video signal in great quality without any damaging latency.

(Also, I was hoping to utilize a Xbox 1 controller as well. Would there be any way to transmit this signal as well without any delay?)

Steam Link supports 1080p/60fps at the most. There are 4k HDMI transceivers but, they have varying qualities.

You could very likely get something working at 4k but it'd almost certainly be at 30p. If you were slick, you could get 4k/60i which would look better to the eye (smoother) but image quality would be worse.

Latency is really dependent upon the device you're using. It's not the signal transmission time that is at issue (it's moving at the speed of light), but the time to encode/compress/decompress/deencode. Normally HDMI transmissions are uncompressed over the wire, and they're being compressed and decompressed by a CPU on either end of the transmission... So, given every solution will be different computing wise, then that means latency will be different -- this also depends on the signal strength (which defines the bandwidth available for wireless transmission).

You could jury-rig your own solution with an Intel NUC and a dual-band wireless AC adapter.. that'd work, and likely work well.. But.. you'd still likely have noticeable lag.

All of this said, unless you're going to roll your own solution, you're much better off just running a cable.

p.s.
I used to have my home office in my basement, and my huge plasma in the living room above it. I tried this years ago... I ended up getting a 40ft cable from Monoprice on the cheap and it was a much better solution.

To use Xbox controllers, mice, etc, you can do USB over WiFi or USB over CAT5/6 for essentially zero lag.

Another solution is to use DP-over-USB-C; which is essentially what Apple users have been doing for awhile now with Thunderbolt. But, this would greatly depend upon the distance of the cable as USB-C is very limited with respect to range; meaning, you'll likely need a repeater every 2-3 meters. I know for a fact that USB 2.0 dies at less than 4 meters as we had extensions running from an Xbox through a floor and around into another room.

I'd go with two pairs of a HDMI over CAT5/6 extender and a USB over CAT5/6 extender. Run two flat CAT5/6 cables to wherever you need them to go which will be VERY cheap, especially since you can make the cables yourself.

If the TV supports 4k/60hz over DP or HDMI 2.0 then I'd swap out the HDMI extender for a DP-over-Ethernet extender.

 

[RuanuLaw]

Steam Link supports 1080p/60fps at the most. There are 4k HDMI transceivers but, they have varying qualities.

You could very likely get something working at 4k but it'd almost certainly be at 30p. If you were slick, you could get 4k/60i which would look better to the eye (smoother) but image quality would be worse.

Latency is really dependent upon the device you're using. It's not the signal transmission time that is at issue (it's moving at the speed of light), but the time to encode/compress/decompress/deencode. Normally HDMI transmissions are uncompressed over the wire, and they're being compressed and decompressed by a CPU on either end of the transmission... So, given every solution will be different computing wise, then that means latency will be different -- this also depends on the signal strength (which defines the bandwidth available for wireless transmission).

You could jury-rig your own solution with an Intel NUC and a dual-band wireless AC adapter.. that'd work, and likely work well.. But.. you'd still likely have noticeable lag.

All of this said, unless you're going to roll your own solution, you're much better off just running a cable.

p.s.
I used to have my home office in my basement, and my huge plasma in the living room above it. I tried this years ago... I ended up getting a 40ft cable from Monoprice on the cheap and it was a much better solution.

To use Xbox controllers, mice, etc, you can do USB over WiFi or USB over CAT5/6 for essentially zero lag.

Another solution is to use DP-over-USB-C; which is essentially what Apple users have been doing for awhile now with Thunderbolt. But, this would greatly depend upon the distance of the cable as USB-C is very limited with respect to range; meaning, you'll likely need a repeater every 2-3 meters. I know for a fact that USB 2.0 dies at less than 4 meters as we had extensions running from an Xbox through a floor and around into another room.

I'd go with two pairs of a HDMI over CAT5/6 extender and a USB over CAT5/6 extender. Run two flat CAT5/6 cables to wherever you need them to go which will be VERY cheap, especially since you can make the cables yourself.

If the TV supports 4k/60hz over DP or HDMI 2.0 then I'd swap out the HDMI extender for a DP-over-Ethernet extender.

Thank you.

I've been thinking a lot about this, but I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that in my office I'll just place my laptop. And just build a PC and place it by the TV. That way the HDMI, Xbox Controller, and VR gear will be right by the PC, which will be right by the TV.

It will end up being a very expensive gaming machine I guess since I don't really need the PC for other functions because I do have a Laptop and a iPad.

Im thinking this will be the easiest solution. Because otherwise I will have to drill through my floor in order to fish out a HDMI cable, and I would still need to implement a solution for the xbox controller.

 

[gourimoko]

Thank you.

I've been thinking a lot about this, but I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that in my office I'll just place my laptop. And just build a PC and place it by the TV. That way the HDMI, Xbox Controller, and VR gear will be right by the PC, which will be right by the TV.

It will end up being a very expensive gaming machine I guess since I don't really need the PC for other functions because I do have a Laptop and a iPad.

Im thinking this will be the easiest solution. Because otherwise I will have to drill through my floor in order to fish out a HDMI cable, and I would still need to implement a solution for the xbox controller.

You could pay someone to run a dual CAT6 line alongside your electrical; won't cost that much..

I personally gave up on the whole idea of playing on my tv since buying my latest monitor.. It's just, way better than anything I could've gotten out of a TV.. Ultra-wide, 1440p, 100hz, and sRGB? Yea, I'm good with that..

 

[RuanuLaw]

You could pay someone to run a dual CAT6 line alongside your electrical; won't cost that much..

I personally gave up on the whole idea of playing on my tv since buying my latest monitor.. It's just, way better than anything I could've gotten out of a TV.. Ultra-wide, 1440p, 100hz, and sRGB? Yea, I'm good with that..

Wait, are u saying that that is better than a 4K 65" telly?

Cause I thought that 4K is better than 1440!?!?

 

[gourimoko]

Wait, are u saying that that is better than a 4K 65" telly?

Cause I thought that 4K is better than 1440!?!?

It is...

I have a 4K 65" TV myself, I love the damn thing.. but.. for gaming, my ASUS ROG SWIFT PG348Q literally SHITS on anything else I've seen.. The 100hz display makes gaming look like butter, and the GTX 1080 can drive most games at/near 100fps.

By comparison, using my PC on my TV looks great but.. I'd much rather get the ultra-wide aspect ratio and 100hz display.

Also, while 4k is much better than 1440p; you've gotta understand that I'm talking specifically about ULTRAWIDE 1440p..

By comparison:
720p = 0.92Mpx
1080p = 2.07Mpx
16:9 1440p = 3.69Mpx
UltraWide 1440p = 4.95Mpx
UHD (4k) = 8.29Mpx

Here's a visual aid:

Ultrawide 1440p is the same pixel height as Quad HD (QHD) but almost the same pixel width as Ultra HD (4k) .. there's a 400px gap rather than a 1,280px gap with QHD. Thus you get an elongated viewport, with a ~21:9 aspect ratio.

So while UltraWide 1440p is only 60% of the pixel resolution, the screen is pushing out 100 hertz / frames per second. So if you compare that to 4k over DP that's 66% more complete frames and that doesn't even get into the fact that most TVs don't actually refresh at their rated speed. And if you're doing 4k over HDMI and not using HDMI 2.0, that's 100hz/fps vs 30hz/fps so now you're at 3.3x more frames per second (max refresh).

So the point here is that there are tradeoffs.. Do you go for maximum pixel resolution (4k UHD), or do you go for maximum refresh rate (1080p/1440p @ 16:9 w/144hz+?)? Personally, I chose the happy medium between the two with the added bonus of being ultrawide 21:9.

I honestly would never go back to using another kind of monitor for home use. I'm far more productive with one wider monitor vs two discrete monitors, and gaming is a fucking joy on this thing..

Just my two cents.

p.s.
Keep in mind, everything I just said is only about COMPUTER USE; i.e., gaming and productivity (like writing code, working with excel docs, etc).

I would never want to watch a movie on this monitor rather than using my TV. Some people do, but, IMHO, TVs are far better suited for such a purpose.