Gaming Build - Capable of 1440p 144hz Ultra Settings

Robertr

Looking at coming back to PC Gaming after a long time away. No problem managing the build but want to avoid weeks of research to get up to speed on the current state of play with parts.

Basically I am looking for a rig that can handle games at 1440p in 'Ultra' settings with at least 100 fps, a nice bit of RGB is a plus.

Budget is around 2k without any peripherals. Probably go for water cooling on the CPU also.

Probably do for a Thermaltake view 71 tempered glass for the chassis.

Not interested in productivity performance, pure gaming. Thanks.

BloodBath

Do you need a monitor included in that budget?

awec

You are probably looking at a 1080 at least if you want 100+fps on ultra settings at 1440.

BloodBath

You mean a 2070. The 1080 is redundant.

TerrorFirmer

Realistically you want an i5-9600K + RTX2080 as a starting point at least. You could maybe squeeze a 1440P 144Hz monitor in that budget, but not G-Sync (Don't personally think it's a huge deal).

If you don't need a monitor, you could consider beefing up the CPU to an i7, as it does make a difference when aiming to hit as far north of 100fps as possible.

Broadly speaking I'd say an i5-9600K, RTX2080, 16GB DDR4 3000mhz and a 500GB SSD with a 650W 80+ Gold PSU should be the core aim......rest depends on whether or not you need the monitor in that budget.

Robertr

BloodBath wrote: »

Do you need a monitor included in that budget?

Nope, will get that separately

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (£383.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake - Water 3.0 Riing RGB 240 40.6 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£116.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock - Z370 Extreme4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£142.49 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot - Viper RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (£199.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£68.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB XC GAMING Video Card (£550.79 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Thermaltake - View 71 TG RGB ATX Full Tower Case (£179.99 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£80.01 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1722.14
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-12 18:35 GMT+0000

Problem is really that case IMHO; it's over €200 but a Silverstone RL06 would offer better thermals for less than half the price and let you afford a GTX 1080 Ti (which trounces the RTX 2070 in every benchmark).

*edit* Or as TerrorFirmer says, consider an i5-9600K but it could get screwy if you end up streaming/in games which benefit from more threads (e.g. Battlefield).

Robertr

Here is where I am at the moment:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-6700K 4 GHz Quad-Core Processor (£299.99 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£59.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX H270F GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£113.58 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£139.87 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£76.27 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£77.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card (£785.98 @ Laptops Direct)
Case: Thermaltake - View 71 TG Snow ATX Full Tower Case (£184.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£124.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1863.56
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-12 18:40 GMT+0000

K.O.Kiki

i7-6700K: 3yo CPU that's 3 generations behind. Do not buy.
H270 motherboard: does not allow overclocking
SSD: You don't need bleeding-edge for gaming. Buy by size tbh

Robertr

Thanks for feedback... here is current

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (£383.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£59.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£148.31 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£139.87 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£76.27 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£77.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card (£785.98 @ Laptops Direct)
Case: Thermaltake - View 71 TG Snow ATX Full Tower Case (£184.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£124.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1982.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-12 19:19 GMT+0000

BloodBath

Throwing an alternative build in there.

For 1440p gaming there is virtually no difference between the 9900k/8700k and the 2700x. Especially when you aren't going for the highest end card. AM4 just works out cheaper, has a better upgrade path and will scale better with the extra cores in the future.

Stuck a much nicer cooler in there as well. It goes really nice with those glass windowed cases and it cools better to boot.


I really think HDD's are going to become obsolete for gaming very soon. Don't waste your time and money buying 3TB HDD's. I stuck 2TB of SSD storage in instead. Now you don't have to listen to and wait for HDD seeking.

This build is still overkill though. You could probably cut down to a 6 core Ryzen and a 2070 and still get around 100fps+ in most games on max settings with an overclock and cut about €500 off the cost in the process.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor (£287.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.17 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£129.98 @ Box Limited)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard (£115.00 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£121.19 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA - ULTIMATE SU650 960 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£116.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: ADATA - ULTIMATE SU650 960 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£116.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB DUKE Video Card (£729.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Thermaltake - View 71 TG ATX Full Tower Case (£155.76 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£85.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1859.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-12 20:19 GMT+0000

awec

+1 on not bothering with an HDD. If all you do is game you have no need for it. Unless you like having lots of games installed at the same time you could get away with a 500gb SSD if you'd rather spend the money elsewhere.

It would be a shame to spend so much on the PC and then have to cheap out on the monitor.

BloodBath

Most new games are 50Gb+ before you even start patching. It doesn't take long to fill a 500gb SSD these days.

I think you could do the entire build including g-sync monitor for around 2k by going with a 2600 and 2070 instead.

L

Hrrm. If you're going Ryzen anyway, StoreMi works quite well as accelerated storage.

You could get a 3tb western digital red and a decent quality 256gb ssd for around the price of one of those 960gb ssds (£90 for the red, £35 for a Kingston ssd at the moment). It's worked quite well for me to supplement my other ssds.

Dcully

OP i recently got scan to build me a PC for 1440P 144z Ultra and couldnt be happier.
Lads on here aswell as guys from scan recommended go with intel for higher frames specifically i5 8600K or i7 8700K, i went with the 8600K which scan overclocked to 4.8ghz and a 1080TI, i actually dropped the overclock to 4.5ghz and i never drop below 100fps usually 140+ in BattlefieldV running ultra settings.
AC Odyssey which is probably the hardest game to run right now never drops below 70fps usually sits at 100+ @ ultra settings.

Im no expert but the intel route might be a wise choice for raw gaming frames, i think intel are still more expensive though.

Also worth noting i noticed with scan if i was to buy the components to build myself it was working out more expensive then when i configured a build with them, this is possible because they have a large inventory of stock set aside for builds.

Back when the mining craze was going on systems built by scan,dyno,ocuk etc were able to keep GPU prices close to MSRP for this reason.

JayzTwoCents had a video up about this a few months back.

My build came to £1690.36 Inc VAT ,probably wont leave enough for a monitor with your budget but maybe spend another €150 overall?

Robertr

Planning to stick with Intel on this build. My budget does not include a monitor so will spend another 500 on that. Don’t mind spending extra where it makes sense. Just don’t want to get out of hand either.

Robertr

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (£257.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.17 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£129.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£151.61 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£139.87 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£59.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£140.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card (£785.98 @ Laptops Direct)
Case: Thermaltake - View 71 TG Snow ATX Full Tower Case (£184.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£85.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: Asus - ROG SWIFT PG278QR 27.0" 2560x1440 165 Hz Monitor (£519.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2455.14
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-13 15:59 GMT+0000

BloodBath

There is very little difference. Granted some older titles like Starcraft 2 and cs-go see some big difference but overall there's only around 1% difference at 1440p when both are overclocked.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1655-core-i7-8700k-vs-ryzen-7-2700x/

I still wouldn't bother with a HDD even if boosting it with an SSD. You have the budget to bypass using HDD's completely.

I would use more than a 550w psu as well. It will be fine but just not very efficient. You want your psu to be able to handle your pc's load at around 50-70% capacity. Your build is rated for 360w before you even overclock anything. I would say around 450w after overclocking. That's too close. Get a 650w.

K.O.Kiki

Also (and this is a bit mean to other manufacturers) but you should probably buy an EVGA-branded GPU, especially since RTX is a first-gen product.

Their customer service is simply better than any of the others'.

BloodBath

You're pushing 3 grand now. I did knock together 1 more that keeps it all under 2k euro and is still a great 1440p system. Obviously not as good as your current build but is €850 cheaper. If you have the monies go with your current build, if you want to save a few beans this is worth considering.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£183.17 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£57.98 @ Box Limited)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard (£115.00 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£121.19 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA - ULTIMATE SU650 960 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£116.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£479.48 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Thermaltake - View 32 RGB TG ATX Mid Tower Case (£119.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£80.01 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Acer - Predator XB271HUA 27.0" 2560x1440 165 Hz Monitor (£449.99 @ Box Limited)
Total: £1723.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-13 18:18 GMT+0000

awec

I have the IPS version of the monitor that BloodBath has listed in his latest build and I cannot recommend it enough.

I imagine the TN panel is good as well, and it's significantly cheaper (the IPS one is like 700 euro).

Robertr

Thanks for all the replies. Yeah, almost hitting the 3k mark. :eek:

So am about the hit the button on this build......

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (£257.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.17 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£129.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£151.61 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£139.87 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£59.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£140.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB XC GAMING Video Card (£769.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Thermaltake - View 71 TG Snow ATX Full Tower Case (£184.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£124.99 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Asus - ROG SWIFT PG278QR 27.0" 2560x1440 165 Hz Monitor (£519.00 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Corsair - STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard (£99.98 @ Amazon UK)
Mouse: Corsair - Sabre RGB Wired Optical Mouse (£48.82 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2626.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-13 18:45 GMT+0000


Only thing I'm not 100% on is the case. Is it worth the price?

Ordering between Amazon & Aria. What are Aria like? Thanks.

BloodBath

The case is gigantic but it is very pretty. It's a very big full tower case. I personally don't like them. They are intended for big custom water cooling setups. You will have so much empty space in it with a regular build.

I did link the smaller version on my last build.

Robertr

this one is nice too...

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/hMhj4D/corsair-crystal-570x-rgb-white-atx-mid-tower-case-cc-9011110-ww

K.O.Kiki

Robertr wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. Yeah, almost hitting the 3k mark. :eek:

So am about the hit the button on this build......

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (£257.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.17 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£129.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£151.61 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£139.87 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£59.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£140.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB XC GAMING Video Card (£769.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Thermaltake - View 71 TG Snow ATX Full Tower Case (£184.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£124.99 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Asus - ROG SWIFT PG278QR 27.0" 2560x1440 165 Hz Monitor (£519.00 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Corsair - STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard (£99.98 @ Amazon UK)
Mouse: Corsair - Sabre RGB Wired Optical Mouse (£48.82 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2626.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-13 18:45 GMT+0000


Only thing I'm not 100% on is the case. Is it worth the price?

Ordering between Amazon & Aria. What are Aria like? Thanks.

Play it safe with motherboard chipset; go for Z390 (Z390 tier list here)

Not sure why you're bothering with a 970 Evo 250Gb - sure it's theoretically faster than a SATA SSD, but you won't notice the performance in Windows nor games.
Not sure why your PSU is showing as £125; I'd change that for a Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 650W @ £93. Same performance, same OEM, different price.
Mouse is relatively large (RJN review) FYI

TerrorFirmer

Yeah I was going to suggest you could easily drop a few euro off the PSU; also agree that I'm not sure what going on with the dual SSD's, will add zero to gaming so money to be saved there; worth pointing out you can get a new GTX1080Ti for £599 and it's almost on-par with the 2080 for a lot less if that's of interest; finally, does that Z370 support the 9-series out of the box or will it need a bios update?

Robertr

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Yeah I was going to suggest you could easily drop a few euro off the PSU; also agree that I'm not sure what going on with the dual SSD's, will add zero to gaming so money to be saved there; worth pointing out you can get a new GTX1080Ti for £599 and it's almost on-par with the 2080 for a lot less if that's of interest; finally, does that Z370 support the 9-series out of the box or will it need a bios update?

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Play it safe with motherboard chipset; go for Z390 (Z390 tier list here)

Not sure why you're bothering with a 970 Evo 250Gb - sure it's theoretically faster than a SATA SSD, but you won't notice the performance in Windows nor games.
Not sure why your PSU is showing as £125; I'd change that for a Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 650W @ £93. Same performance, same OEM, different price.
Mouse is relatively large (RJN review) FYI

The PSU just has the wrong price on PPP, its actually £88 on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N45K423/ref=crt_ewc_title_dp_5?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Will upgrade to a Z390 but probably stay with the Asus Prime as it works well with the white theme.

Was going for the M.2 just for boot times but hear what your saying, probably not worth it.

Robertr

OK, I need to stop now....

Here is the final build

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (£257.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H150i PRO 47.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£136.99 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: ASRock - Z390 Taichi ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£225.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£148.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£140.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB XC GAMING Video Card (£769.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Corsair - Crystal 570X RGB White ATX Mid Tower Case (£159.98 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx White 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£110.99 @ AWD-IT)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.25 CFM 120mm Fans (£69.98 @ Novatech)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.25 CFM 120mm Fans (£69.98 @ Novatech)
Monitor: Asus - ROG SWIFT PG278QR 27.0" 2560x1440 165 Hz Monitor (£519.00 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Corsair - STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard (£99.98 @ Amazon UK)
Mouse: Corsair - Sabre RGB Wired Optical Mouse (£48.82 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2757.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-13 20:50 GMT+0000

K.O.Kiki

I can see a theme in there alright

Looks compatible.
Just don't buy from eBuyer as I've heard you're likely to get stung by customs

TerrorFirmer

Yeah just buy from the same place - Amazon, OCUK, Scan, whatever.

Build looks good, but I'd say the mobo is overkill unless you've very specific need for it/features. I just ordered a 9600K myself and I got a Z390 Tomahawk for about £140.

Robertr

Order Placed!!!! :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Just went with Amazon for everything except Processor.

Should have everything before the end of November at the latest according to their website. Will get a few pictures up when built.

Thanks for all the help!