Future proof extreme gaming rig... looking for opinions and advice

[Outerarm]

It has been nearly 10 years since I bought my last gaming rig and a replacement is now long overdue. My philosophy with my last purchase was to stretch my budget as far as possible and buy something that would not need to be replaced or upgraded each year. This seems to have worked well with new memory, PSU and GFX card the only updates over the years, however I can no longer play the latest generation of titles at high settings and so it is time to buy again.

The primary purpose of the machine will be for gaming, predominately first person shooters. I will also be using the box for digital photo work with some 3D design and rendering tasks, with very occasional film editing and encoding.

Following the same principle that severed well with the last box I bought I’m looking at pushing my budget and aiming for a new rig that will deliver performance for many years to come. I accept that I’ll probably need to upgrade bits, such as add memory and a second gfx card at some point, but hopefully the rest of the rig will not require much change.

With the above in mind, the spec I’m tweaking at the moment is:

• Case: CORSAIR GRAPHITE SERIES™ 600T WHITE MID-TOWER CASE
• Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-3930K (3.2GHz) 12MB Cache
• Motherboard: ASUS® RAMPAGE IV EXTREME: INTEL X79, SOCKET 2011, R.O.G
• Memory (RAM): 16GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST QUAD-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
• Graphics Card: 4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 690 DUAL GPU - 3 x DVI-I, 1 x mDP
• 1st Hard Disk: 240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
• 2nd Hard Disk: 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
• Optical Drive: 12x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
• Power Supply: CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR
• Processor Cooling: Corsair H100 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
• Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D PCI-E Soundcard

Based on the premise that I am looking for a base rig that will last 6 to 8 years without major upgrades what are people’s thoughts on this spec? As the motherboard is SLI compliant and the PSU has enough grunt for a second 690, I can easily add an additional gfx card and upgrading the memory and hard drives should be simple if needed, however am I compromising anything that would limit future upgrades?

I’m also wondering if the choice of motherboard, CPU and 2400MHz memory is a good combination or if I’d be better off dialling back the memory speed and getting more RAM instead.

All opinions welcome -- I’d really like some feedback before committing to a new rig!

Cheers,
OA

 

[keynes]

Hi,
The motherboard seems a bit overkill unless you are an extreme overclocker, I'd consider getting a single GPU like the gtx 670 or gtx 680 and upgrade or add a 2nd gpu if needed in the future rather than SLI 2 x gtx 690.

 

[Toxophilix]

It's an interesting question as to whether it's a more cost-effective strategy to go for the occasional blow-out PC or more frequent and cheaper purchases.

I guess that the system you are describing must cost somewhere around £3000. Will it give better results than a £1500 PC now and another one in 3-4 years? Maybe.

I think it depends on whether the next few years are as relatively calm in terms of processor architecture advances as the last few. If we continue to see gradual progressive improvements then the mega-PC might last pretty well. There is a risk, though, that we are going to see something more revolutionary, at least if one takes Paul Otellini's "silicon in its last decade" comment seriously. But then that could just be hype.

 

[Outerarm]

Thanks for the feedback.

I've heard 'the end is nigh' argument around silicon for a while but I also suspect any major breakthrough will take a good few years to become productised and affordable.

The spec as-is comes in at around £2750 which is right at the top end of my budget as negotiated with SWMBO. I do have the challenge that almost no matter what I spend now I won't have any budget for a brand new rig for 6 to 8 years, hence pushing the spec as high as I can.

Cheers,
OA

 

[Outerarm]

Had a good think about this and chatted to some gaming friends and will likely be ordering the rig pretty much as-is, though changing the case to a HAF-X.

Looks like that is me living of Aldi beans for a year :stupid:

 

[Karnor00]

I guess that the system you are describing must cost somewhere around £3000. Will it give better results than a £1500 PC now and another one in 3-4 years? Maybe.

For a gaming machine that's pretty much never going to be the case. Right now a £1500 PC can get you a top of the range computer. Spending beyond that won't really improve performance in current games as they will already be at max anyway. The only reason you might want to consider top GPUs in SLI/Crossfire is if you are running multiple monitors.

 

[Toxophilix]

For a gaming machine that's pretty much never going to be the case. Right now a £1500 PC can get you a top of the range computer. Spending beyond that won't really improve performance in current games as they will already be at max anyway. The only reason you might want to consider top GPUs in SLI/Crossfire is if you are running multiple monitors.

Yes, that's what I was getting at.

I do think the extreme-overkill/long-use strategy is quite risky but I hope it works out well.

 

[Outerarm]

I do think the extreme-overkill/long-use strategy is quite risky but I hope it works out well.

I hope so too! It certainly did for the last purchase, but then technology change does seem to accelerate.

 

[Toxophilix]

I hope so too! It certainly did for the last purchase, but then technology change does seem to accelerate.

Perhaps the risk is not steady improvement but any kind of step-change. My end-of-silicon example was probably a bad one. Better might be a replacement for PCIe or SATA. I remember, back in the 90s, being unable to upgrade the CD-ROM drive on a relatively new PC because it didn't have EIDE.

But of course SWMBO MBO.


I can see that the SWMBO factor might trump all such niceties.

 

[Outerarm]

Perhaps the risk is not steady improvement but any kind of step-change. My end-of-silicon example was probably a bad one. Better might be a replacement for PCIe or SATA. I remember, back in the 90s, being unable to upgrade the CD-ROM drive on a relatively new PC because it didn't have EIDE.

Indeed. This kind of change is what signalled the end of my last PC -- due to the mobo the GFX upgrades ended at a Radeon X1950 Pro. It was a great card at the time but was as far as I could go in the box. Even though it is an old card, it has lasted well (and still gives great performance of L4D2) but the underlaying slot technology has moved on significantly.

But of course SWMBO MBO. I can see that the SWMBO factor might trump all such niceties.

Indeed it does, though I believe I have played this well over the past 2 years to be in this position! :shifty: The funds are now in my account... Will be placing the order before going to bed :gunsmilie:

Edit: ordered...