Too excessive?

[Dimmy]

Hi all,

Seeing as how my old gaming laptop is struggling now after 6 years and I have nothing else to spend money on since lockdown, I thought I'd treat myself to a proper gaming PC.

My aim is to spend a fair bit now to get a PC that will last for ages and still be able to play the latest games. However, I'm not really all that clued up on what I should be building. I've posted what seems to be close to a top end spec below, but was hoping for some advice on which bits of this are excessive and I can cut down on, or if I've missed anything. Thanks!


Case
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 750D FULL TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Ten-Core Processor i9-10900K (3.7GHz) 20MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS XII HERO Wi-Fi (LGA1200, USB 3.2, CrossFireX/SLI) - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
500GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120 2.5" SSD, (up to 560MB/sR | 540MB/sW)
2nd Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120 2.5" SSD, (up to 560MB/sR | 540MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
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 H115i PRO Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
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/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Google Chrome™
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 12 to 14 working days
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Price: £3,171.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z490-pc/bt2DVQPW3d/

 

[DanIsBuyingAPC]

There are far more knowledgeable people than myself on this forum, such as spyder, so ignore what follows if they say something different! I don't think that PC would actually work very well and would tend to be very slow/unstable compared to even a mid-range PC.

You have an i9 paired with a motherboard that will allow it to draw up to 330W (and according to most reviews it does so), a graphics card that draws 270W at full pelt and only a 650W PSU. That needs to be a minimum of 850W or the machine will be unstable and if it does start up the lack of power will cause the CPU to reduce its clock speed. It's the equivalent of driving a car with an empty petrol tank and half an engine.

You only need 64GB of memory if you intend to do things such as run virtual machines, database work, high definition image editing for hours, etc. that can use all of that RAM, so go for 32GB unless there's a good reason, the motherboard only has 2 RAM channels iirc so I don't think that there's a speed bonus to be had from using 4 DIMMs either.

Your storage drives make little sense, to me, you have two SSDs, may as well just have one and get an M2.

And.... the CPU, the 10900K only makes sense if you intend to be gaming at the highest resolutions, or you like to play games that have a high-demand single core loop such as Stellaris, Civ, etc. Otherwise I'd go for the AMD 3950, for games like COD which aren't CPU limited it does almost as well in most benchmarks for far less money. There are tons of benchmarks on passmark, reviews, etc. which you can look up.

If you want a processor that's going to have a long happy life you may wish to rethink the 10900K. It's a chip that overclocks itself to 5Ghz, shows no fear with regard to throttling its speed when it hits high temperatures and draws 330W of power. Historically this combination of features does not end well. Don't get me wrong, I've bought a 10900K myself and I'm guessing the CPU will die in 2 years, just bear in mind that it may live fast and die young.

 

[Grumpywurzel]

Ok, whats the max budget? What are you using the system for Gaming/Number crunching? Have you bought a monitor or do you need one of those too? You've said it's a gaming pc, so what resolution are you aiming for? 1080p, 1440p or 4K? You've specced the 2080 Ti so i would assume you want top end (dependent on your monitor)

Until then, the Mods cant make an informed choice for you, but for a start your RAM is mega overkill, you wont need more than 16GB for any AAA titles (except maybe FS2020, but thats an oddity). You would be better off with a M2 drive of at least 500GB but 1TB is better Samsung or Firecuda and then maybe a large mechanical drive as a back-up.

No need for Bullguard, it's bloatware and Windows Defender is miles better and it's free.

 

[ubuysa]

Post this information please and I'm sure one of the experts will be able to spec you up a top-end gaming system and possibly cheaper too

Sorry, I thought you'd said one of the expats....

Two drives makes a lot of sense from a performance point of view and I'd strongly recommend that over a single drive. However, the system drive (the 500GB one I'm assuming?) wants to be the absolute fastest drive you can afford - even if the budget then means the second drive has to be an HDD.

I'm no expert on hardware though, but I suspect those that are will suggest an AMD build instead. For casual (ie. non-competitive) gaming AMD are streets ahead of Intel, not just on performance but on security too.

 

[Dimmy]

This is exactly the kind of expert (or expat) help I need, thanks everyone!

In terms of answers to your questions:
- Max budget ideally is around £3000 -although I'm happy to pay more for a pc that will last longer.
- I don't have a monitor yet; I was planning on getting a 4K one, but was going to decide after working out what PC I can/do get.
- The aim is to use it for gaming (not number crunching); mostly 4X (eg Civ 6) and RTS (eg Total War) games, but occasionally others like FPS.
- It will also be used to general life stuff, like spreadsheets, presentation building, word documents, internet surfing, skype/zoom, etc; but not to any high-powered or professional extent.
- I don't have any particular reason for intel over AMD other than familiarity, I guess.

Can I ask for my own knowledge: How is an M2 drive better than an SSD? Whats the difference, and why?

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Grumpywurzel]

M2's are the newer generation of SSD's, usually 10 times quicker than a SATA SSD

 

[DanIsBuyingAPC]

Can I ask for my own knowledge: How is an M2 drive better than an SSD? Whats the difference, and why?

M2 is more like SSD V2, it's a big improvement.

The aim is to use it for gaming (not number crunching); mostly 4X (eg Civ 6) and RTS (eg Total War) games, but occasionally others like FPS.

Those are all games with a very intensive single-core thread (bar the FPS) and tend to be CPU limited, this is one of the few cases where the 10900K makes some sense (well, to me at least - it's the reason I've bought one). There's a big trade-off with multitasking so if you use any program that needs more than 4 cores the 3950 is extremely tempting. The rest of your needs shouldn't task any modern processor

 

[ubuysa]

Can I ask for my own knowledge: How is an M2 drive better than an SSD? Whats the difference, and why?

M.2 SSD drives use the the higher bandwidth PCIe interface. SATA SSDs of course use the much lower bandwidth SATA interface.

In terms of protocols, M.2 drives can use the ACHI protocols (also used on SATA drives) or the NVMe protocols which are faster and more efficient.

The very fastest M.2 drives use NVMe whilst the slower M.2 drives use ACHI. SATA SSDs can only use ACHI.

Hope that helps?

 

[Dimmy]

Ah, great. Thanks for the teaching; that does help.

So what I'm getting from this is:
- Actually the Intel i9 probably is a sensible decision, rather than AMD.
- It's better to focus on the best M2 I can afford and bulk out the rest (maybe for the general life office files) with an old fashioned hard drive for costs
- 64GB RAM is excessive and I should cut down to 32 or 16?

Is it worth cutting down on the graphics card then? Or would that impact the 4X and RTS games much?

 

[Dimmy]

Is this a more sensible spec then, for running 4X and RTS games, and 4k graphics? Thanks again everyone!


Case
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 750D FULL TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Ten-Core Processor i9-10900K (3.7GHz) 20MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS XII HERO Wi-Fi (LGA1200, USB 3.2, CrossFireX/SLI) - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 SUPER - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
500GB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H115i PRO Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
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/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
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 12 to 14 working days
Price £2,688.00 inc VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z490-pc/AzvnTuC3Mw/

• https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/why-buy/#iso

 

[SpyderTracks]

- Actually the Intel i9 probably is a sensible decision, rather than AMD.

I think for the CPU bound games you mainly play, the i9 does make sense.

- It's better to focus on the best M2 I can afford and bulk out the rest (maybe for the general life office files) with an old fashioned hard drive for costs

Yes, on the Intel platform, the Samsung M2 is the one to go for.

- 64GB RAM is excessive and I should cut down to 32 or 16?

I would say start with 16Gb, I can't see any particular uses where more than that is going to be beneficial.

Is it worth cutting down on the graphics card then? Or would that impact the 4X and RTS games much?

If you wanna play at 4k, then you'll need the 2080ti. I would recommend doing it right though and investing in a 4k 144Hz monitor which leaves room to grow into with future GPU upgrades, otherwise the screen will be a bottleneck almost instantly if you choose a standard 60Hz monitor. There are some lower end 4k 144Hz screens around for around £600

 

[Dimmy]

I think for the CPU bound games you mainly play, the i9 does make sense.

Yes, on the Intel platform, the Samsung M2 is the one to go for.


I would say start with 16Gb, I can't see any particular uses where more than that is going to be beneficial.


If you wanna play at 4k, then you'll need the 2080ti. I would recommend doing it right though and investing in a 4k 144Hz monitor which leaves room to grow into with future GPU upgrades, otherwise the screen will be a bottleneck almost instantly if you choose a standard 60Hz monitor. There are some lower end 4k 144Hz screens around for around £600

OK, perfect, thanks for the advice!