Advice on a new gaming desktop

[Sylence]

Hi,

I was hoping for some advice on a new gaming desktop PC.

Last year I posted on the forum and got some very helpful advice, and since then decided to wait for Kaby Lake, and then Ryzen to look at the bench marks. My budget has changed considerably since then and I've now decided to go with the below based on the previous advice that I've received on the forum as well as comments made on other PC's.

I'll be using this to play mainly RTS and RPG's such as Civilisation 6 and Shadow Tactics, as well as the odd FPS (Nothing competitive, mostly older games such as Left for Dead 2). The below has come out to £1800 and I've got a maximum budget of £2000, although as per usual the less the better! I've gone with the 1080GTX card over waiting for the 1080ti as I believe that the 1080 is already overkill for what I'll be using it for, however the drop in price justifies me purchasing it, plus it's nice to have the additional power if I decide to use it towards VR At the moment I have a 1080p monitor, however I'll be looking to purchase a 1440p one shortly.

Is there anything that I should consider changing or upgrading within my budget?

I have a couple of questions though

1. Regarding the M.2 drives, I've gone for the PM series rather than the SM as it was the slightly cheaper option. As their both considerably faster than any other option available, is there a noticeable difference between the two?

2. My intention to dual run two screens, a 1080p and a 1440p one, the higher resolution will be for gaming and the other for movies and streaming anime on. Will I have difficulties running two screens with different resolutions in terms of scaling? Or would I be better off with two of the same .. Ideally I'd like the higher resolution for gaming, but concerned about what the lower resolution anime etc would look like a 1440p screen.

3. In regards to monitors at 1440p I've been looking at Acer G277HU and ASUS MX27AQ would either of these suffice, or does anyone else have another recommendation?

Really appreciate any feedback.

Thank you.

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE R5 BLACK QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-7700k Quad Core (4.20GHz @ up to 4.8GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270E GAMING: LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GB, Wi-Fi - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB Kit)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Hard Disk
2TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,800.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-overclocked/RhpDqPGz75/

 

[Oussebon]

mory (RAM)
16GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB Kit)

For £2 more I'd probably just get the 3200MHz stuff.

1. Regarding the M.2 drives, I've gone for the PM series rather than the SM as it was the slightly cheaper option. As their both considerably faster than any other option available, is there a noticeable difference between the two?

At the 256gb capacity level, there is only a £13 difference. This being the case I would get the SM961 over the PM961, as it can apparently be a fair bit faster in some measurements: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/samsung-960-evo-pm961,review-33657-2.html

ASUS MX27AQ

This seems to be about £450. If considering that, you could look at a 1440p 144hz gsync monitor. Or given the GTX 1080's (or potentially 1080 ti depending how pricing compares) performance at 4k, you could get a 4k monitor. I gather Civ 6 looks quite good on 4k and the 1080 should be able to handle it easily, not to mention if it's mostly dabbling in games that are a couple of years old already.



Running monitors with different resolutions should be fine.

 

[Sylence]

Thank you for the quick response Oussebon.

Would the relating advice to purchasing a 4k monitor still stand if I was to look at playing games along the lines of Fallout 4 and the Witcher 3 on this machine? (Currently I play those on a console but potentially would like to move these across at a later point). The benchmarks I've looked at seem to show approximately a 40% - 50% drop in FPS. http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-review,19.html

Or would 4k be something I should look at the 1080ti at cost depending?

 

[Scott]

If considering 4k with any view to playing recent games the Ti is the best option IMO. Everything else looks spot on.

 

[Oussebon]

The 1080 ti would be ideal for 4k I would say. Especially if you use mods, ENBs/reshades for your FO4 when you start doing that on PC. I can't recommend texture, ENB, and reshade mods strongly enough for FO4.

 

[Sylence]

Thank you both, I'll wait until the weekend to see if they have the ti in stock, 4K gaming wasn't really in my mind however if the monitors are competitively priced against the 1440p ones it seems like it's worth considering.

 

[Sylence]

Sorry another question about monitors, I've been doing a bit of reading since posting this and have been looking a lot at the TN vs IPS argument.

On one hand I'm seeing people saying that unless I want to play a lot of FPS games to avoid TN panels as colours look washed out etc, on the other hand I'm seeing a lot of people complain about back light bleeding and IPS glow on most of the IPS monitors I've looked at e.g. ASUS PB278QR.

I'm more concerned about games and films etc looking aesthetically pleasing than anything else.

Could someone please either shed a bit of light on this, or recommend a couple of monitors to look at within the £250-£400 price range, ideally I'd be looking at 27" screens.

Many thanks,

 

[Scott]

Most pro gamers would select the TN monitors to get as much of an edge as they can with the high refresh/fast response. My personal choice is always IPS as they are visually stunning. That's not to say TN monitors can't look good, they can and do, but you usually need to pay a premium to have it all (around £800 the last time I looked).

High quality IPS screens shouldn't suffer from any notable backlight bleed.... although I know some have and "V2" monitors have been released with minimal acknowledgement from the suppliers over the years. To that end I would always do my homework and look for a well established monitor in the community.

It's completely up to you though to be honest, you're doing the right thing.... soak up as many reviews etc as you can and go with what you feel will suit you best. I wouldn't waste too much time between the TN/IPS thing though, just decide which you want to go for then once you have spend the time finding the right version of that variant

 

[Oussebon]

~£600+ Is what I'd expect for a 1440p 144hz IPS gsync monitor. e.g. AOC 27" AGON AG271QG (165hz)
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc...tors/monitors/aoc-agon-ag271qg-1326871/review
PC Monitors Review: http://tinyurl.com/hg9g8xl

For a 4k IPS monitor without gsync maybe £400+. For something with gsync, anywhere above that, probably roaming into quite expensive territory.

The cheapest 1440p TN high refresh gsync rate monitor I know of is about £450
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/dell-s2417dg-24-inch-165hz-g-sync-gaming-monitor,review-33702.html
And is also 24".

Just as it's true that good modern TN panels will produce decent colours and nice images, it's also true that modern IPS panels are actually fine for fast-paced games and shooters unless you really need that extra competitive edge in CS:GO or whatever. I use a budget IPS panel from 2012 for my FO4 and get no ghosting - and when my character gets killed it's an L2P issue, not a response time one. Same story in the limited PvP shooter action I've done online too. There's a bit of edge bleed but I don't notice it unless I look at an all-black screen and stare at the corners.

Thus if you can stretch the budget for the monitor and you like your RPGs like Fallout and Witcher (get Skyrim if you haven't already btw, it's amazing) an IPS monitor wouldn't be a bad choice.

Just make sure that whatever expensive monitor you get, you get it from somewhere with a decent returns policy such that if you do get a unit with really bad bleed or glow (or a dead pixel) you can return it.

 

[Sylence]

Thank you both very helpful insight into the monitor situation which I'll bare in mind, I'll have to look at my monitor budget.

One more quick question sorry.

In my house at the moment my PC will be sitting reasonably far away from my router, and that my previous PC had struggled with connectivity at times. With this in mind should I add a wireless card in? Would that help with connectivity over distance or should I be looking at range extenders?

Many thanks,

 

[Scott]

Your motherboard selection has Wireless on board

 

[Oussebon]

I think the question is whether that's will be sufficient.

I should think it will be. Try it, and if it's not adequate try range extenders or powerline adapters / homeplugs

 

[Sylence]

Thank you for all the help it's really appreciated. I added the 1080ti onto the order once I saw I could amend it last night, despite what I said I couldn't help myself

I'll be sure to put a review up once it's received