Planning a new system

^ This, but I have questions. Since many of you have optmised gaming and racing systems, I ask you.

I am not yet decided between an i5 7600K 4x3.8 GHz without HT, and an i7 7700 (maybe K or not) with HT. This hyperthreading thing - is it really that important at all in games and sims? Which ones do use 4 cores - not to mention 8 cores? Is there a benefit, a real to-be-seen-in-fps difference between both CPUs that I should take consider? I do no video editing or other professional CPU-heavy tasks.

And would it affect a possible testing result in VR later on? The GFX card obviously plays a role there. But how serious is the effect of the CPU on VR ?

Then, the motherboard, this gives me a headache. So many of them, and so many different combinations of connectors: USB 2.0, A-3.0, C-3.0, 3.1. And always the queston whether the problems in downward compatability of USB that there have been - I know by experience - years ago, really have been solved. Until today you can hear the advise: if it does not work on a 3.0 USB plug, try 2.0. And usually that helps. I need easy accessibly 2.0 ports, and 3.0 for VR and external mass storage. But who needs C-3.1 ? I understand that I want a board based on Z270 chipset, and that Asus is said to be a good brand for mainboards. Would the Asus Z270K be enough for me and gaming? Or do I need something like ASUS ROG Strix Z270F Gaming ? Do these boards influence the working speed of the CPU, the system? Also, what do they mean by internal and external USB connectors?

Next, power. From what I read it seems that with socket 1151 CPUs and GTX 1060 or 1080 boards, you already would be on the safe side with a 500W power unit. I like to have reserves, however, I tend to go for the 650W Corsair RMx. Good choice? Or overkill?

I currently, since some days, play around with this configurator of a German shop.

https://www.mifcom.de/laden/24ycybl6

The list can be scrolled down to get to the other entries.

CPU and mainboard may change, so will maybe the cooler, RAM, and the GFX card I will buy separately, their 1080 cards are 120-180 Euros overpriced compared to Amazon, and changing a GFX card is not difficult. The three drives are becasue I will once again set up a dual boot system, it has proven its value for me especially in the past days when my Linux notebook had broken down. I aim for a not noiseless, but silent system, without visual gimmicks like LED lights, I want reliability and technical endurance/lifespan, plus performance reserves, sufficient to one day get me a pleasant run when testing VR. I am willing to pay real money, but I do not want to waste it headlessly for things that make no real differece for me, are of no real use to me.

Any advise, warning, idea is welcomed. Thanks for any help or suggestion.

P.S. I tend to pass on watercooling, I read too often it is not much cooler, but costs so much more and needs maintenance.

 

Also, does anyone know exactly how big the difference in heat developement is between the CPUs I mentioned above? I read the i7-7700is problematic with its creating of heat. Potential troubles there?

I also found repeated reports on issues with the above mentioned ASUS ROG board and Logitech keyboards, that during booting the keyboard cannot enter the BIOS after hitting the key, the board does not recognise the keyboard at this early state of booting up. People needed to find an old keyboard with PS/2 connector and plug it in, just to enter the BIOS, or UEFI in this case. Later, after booting up, the Logitech keyboards get recognised of course.

 

Finally, more questions on VR. I read comparisons on the Hive, and the Oculus. Usually they say the image quality is slightly better in Oculus, the controllers are much better, but the Hive is easier to set up and less vulnerable to getting messed up by latest Windows updates ruining options, drivers, USB plug controls etc. Also, there are quite some reports on erratic account registering procedures (why do you even need that - I hate it when producers come up with such nonsense that only is meant to bind people ton their brand).

Whats your verdict here? Is the above true? Which one is the set you prefer, and why?

P.S. I just read on German Amazon that the other company behind Occulus is Facebook, and that you can register an Oculus account only via Facebook. Is that true...? If true, this would be an immediate knockout criterion. How is all this with the Hive?

 

I can reassure you that you don't (or didn't when I registered) need a facebook account to register an oculus account.

I just upgraded my DK2 to CV1 as the current offer is just too good to pass up. CV1 + Touch Controllers £400. The touch controllers are fantastic and the whole CV1 package is better than the DK2.

With regard to the PC, I'd be looking at the AMD offerings. Intel have been taking the Michael for 10 years now as AMD have been well behind. The new Ryzen CPUs are set to shake things up and offer much better value for money.

 

do you need it urgent, cause the new I7 8th gens are around the corner... not sure but i thought the pricerange is gonna be the same

http://wccftech.com/intel-core-i7-8700k-and-i5-8400k-sisoft-sandra-benchmarks/ these are benchmarks against a i7 7700K

 

Not really an answer but two good sources to answer questions.
www.userbenchmark.com for direct comparison of components.

https://pcpartpicker.com for building systems and checking compatibility

 

Do you want to buy bleeding edge tech though? I'd rather buy into an established board and CPU line with a few bios revisions.

I want something fast, but then I also want it to work with minimal aggro. Maybe I'm just over cautious...

 

I might be wrong as my system is set up for 3D and video production so I'm no gaming rig expert, but different CPUs have differing numbers of PCI-E lanes.

That can limit how many GPUs you can run and how fast (x8 or x16 etc).

If you plan to use more than 1 GPU in an SLI have a look at how many PCI-E lanes you'll need.

I've got an i7-6850K OC'd to 4ghz, with a big air cooler on it.

That gives me 40 PCI-E lanes (IIRC), it's got enough multi-core capability for my video and 3D apps (though I use GPU renderers now not CPU) and the clock speed is high enough for single core stuff like Photoshop or games.

With that processor, 32gb of RAM, and two 1080ti's in an SLI I can easily run AC in 4K at 60fps with all settings maxxed out.

If I run only one GPU it runs fine but during replays I get some dropped frames at times.

Never looked at AMD or ATI gpus. Hardly anyone seems to use them for professional video work so I never bothered looking.

 

To answer one specific question about multi threading. Multi threading is very useful in AC if you like to run multiple cars particularly in single player. Each AI cars uses an individual loop to calculate the physics for that car each video cycle. This is handled by "threads" so an i7 processor has a distinct advantage over an i5 processor when running AC. In addition other games are increasingly using multi threading to have better performance and this is being aided by the AMD approach which is stressing multi threading technology and Intel is responding. I would highly advise going with a multi threading cpu at this point in time.

 

Hm, I never used AMD, and have the habit to stay with what gave me good past xperience, and that is intel and nVidia. But waiting for the new CPUs sounds like a reasonable idea, as long as the hardware hold together. I have no urgent wish to replace it, but maybe the end of its longevity leaves me no choice.

Thank you.

I used to buy past equipment always one or two generations behind, its more economic, no doubt. But then i had no demand for very high reserves, which I may have now, due to VR, if I ever want to give it a try.
The second part of your argument speaks for not going with the upcoming new CPUs (which will need proven mainboards as well...), but to stay with Kaby Lake, or even Sky Lake.

I do not plan for more than one GFX board. I also do not plan for 4K currently. I cannot see a single pixel on my TV or mpnitor right now, so what use does it make for me to have even finer, more pixels? None, I assume.

After all, with my current rig (signature) I am quite happy with the way AC is running. I am more concerned to have more reserves in order to be able to go back to ArmA 3, as an example, the future ground terrain engine for Steel Beasts Pro, and VR.

So i7, not i5, you say. Noted, thanks.

 

K-versins of inteol processors are overclockable, however, that is not so imortant for me, since I am not into OC stuff, never did, probnay never wll do. But the 7700 and 7700K come with different tacts. Is the higher value for the K processor already result of "overclocking", or is it - well, whatever?

The case I eye so far, is a silent case, with dust filter, and two fans (one in, one out). How's temperature an issue with the CPUs I mentioned? Is i5 signifcantly cooler, i7 "critical"? Many complaints I read about the i7 7700 becoming very hot.

 

I assume your going to build a conventional large tower system?

If that's the case then get a large air cooler. I have a Noctua DH15 on my i7 6700, I'm not an overclocker but I hate noisy systems so wanted something with big slow quiet fans. It never gets above 50°C even under heavy load for hours. The thing is whisper quiet... I can press my head against the side of the case and barely hear it

My case is a Fractal Define S, seemed a good buy also. Good dust protection, space for lots of big quiet fans. Heavy though.

 

I've got a Fractal Define case and a Noctua cooler!

High five! (Saddest high five ever).

Re Arma 3. My machine even with two 1080ti's can't run it maxxed out at 4k.

Pretty close, but not quite.

 

In regard to motherboards. If you go with an i7 7700, then it is an 1151 cpu socket and a Z170 chip set. I run a i7 6700K on a Asus Z170-AR. It has 3.1USB support. 2 X PCI Express X 16. It's proven technology and pretty cheap at this point. It also has an M.2 socket.

I recently upgraded my mobo with a Samsung SSD 960 Pro operating out of the on board M.2 socket. I highly recommend that on a new system you use an SSD in the M.2 socket for your operating system and any games you want to have quick loading on. It is incredibly fast in comparison to standard hard drives and much faster than sata SSD. It costs a little more than a sata SSD but is worth the extra money in my estimation. This technology brings almost ram speeds to storage technology. Who needs to waste their time waiting for a computer to load.

 

The new AMD cpu's are well ahead. Digital Foundry & AdoredTV have some pieces on this I can show.

The new Coffee-Lake Intel CPU's are worth waiting for if you really don't like AMD.

But basically, for half the price you are getting the long-term compute of a current I7, if you go with AMD. You may not see all of that straight away, but you will in time.

Games from around 2015 started to benefit from greater than 4 cores, with Witcher 3 or Tomb Raider getting a boost out of hyper-threading.

Since both AMD and Intel are going to be selling 6 core products at the mainstream, games released in 2018 and onwards will benefit more and more from high-core counts. AMD is working hard to normalise 6 core, 12 thread CPU's, and I suppose in five years this will be a reasonably standard amount for a AAA game. As such, I think buying a 4 core 8 thread is a really bad move at this point.

The next generation of consoles may well get 6 core 12 thread AMD's, and this would further normalise that approach.

*of course all of this only matters if your graphics card is able to render enough frames to push your CPU to its limit*

- Digital Foundry 1600X review. *note most ryzen reviews were done a week after release, showing low gaming performance. This is a few months after and shows Ryzen well ahead.


- AdoredTv. For a deeper dive on the new AMD CPU approach.

 

Sata SSDs are almost as fast as M2 SSDs. M2 over SATA give you maybe 3 sec shorter boot and (depending on the game ) about 1-2 sec shorter loading screen. The difference between M2 and SATA SSDs is waaaaaaayyy smaller than between HDDs ans SSDs

 

All input noted, thank you all.

One question on the Z170 chipset, isnt Kaby Lake better off with Z270 since the bIOS must not be upgraded manually? One can read that over all places: Z170 needs flashing the BIOS as first measurement. The Z270 is a Z170, with that BIOS upgrade done already, or not? If not, what is the advanatge of the Z170 over the Z270?

I currently feel like trying to hold out with my rig until the new CPUs arrive. I am in no hurry, and had considered hardware upgrades repeatedly in the past two years, and then blew it off. This time however is different, since the rig sends signals that the hardware is approaching the limit of its lifespan. Lets see how much more time it gives me. Its seven years old.

On AMD, maybe I am too much into a habit, but in the past AMD for years and years lagged behind Intel, and the sims I played in the past 10 or 15 years usually benefitted from intel compatability, may even have had hickups with AMD. I will do some research and reading on this Ryzen thing.

My taste for games is much more limited these days than 10, 15, 20 years ago. 99 of 100 new releases do not call me up anymore. Its some special niche things I want to optimise things for. P3D or FSX, SBP, AC, ArmA3, and especially leaving the option open to go VR, I am still not yet decided on that. Problem is that in any city I was in in the past 8 months (due to having severla business dates), there was no demonstration platform set up in stores. The shops and electronics chains treat VR as if it does not exist, at least over here. And researching the data collection of Oculus a bit more showed that while it may not need Facebook for logging in, it seems to be a data kraken like facebook accounts, too, collecting too much private stuff (adresses of contcts and friends, surfing habits, sites you visit...) that have nothign to do with the Oculus itself. Lets face it: Facebook is the big evil mama lurking in the shadow behind Oculus, and they have not bought this for no reason. The business of Facebook is neither social media communcation, nor VR, but profiling and data collection, everything else is just bait. And that will never change. I wonder if the Hive is doing stuff like that, too?

 

I sank quite some time into searching for info on the benefits of hyperthreading. The outcome is so far q

 

I sank quite some time into searching for info on the benefits of hyperthreading and number of physical cores. The outcome is so far quite sobering.

First, almost none of the games/sims I am interested in, seem to support HT, most do not even benefit from more than 1-2 cores. But lets keep HT and number of cores two separate things, two threads are still just one core, just meaning that if the one thread is waiting for something, then the processing core spends time on the other thread - that's all. its not that you magically double the number of cores.

AC seems to like multi-CPUs, obviously. But most what I googled said that people exprience a small loss of frames when not switching of HT. Several videos at youtube also illustrate that a quadcore with HT may show lets say 90 fps, whereas the same quadcore with HT off shows only 86 or 87 fps. Just an example.

If you search for it on the web, this is said by many people, very many people out there: games loose frames, in worse examples even start to show stutter, when HT is not switched off. It seems the administration of working tasks to several threads causes more additional work, than the processing of twice as many threads can compensate for or create benefits of.

Oculus is recommended by most, it seems to me, to have HT switched off. It likes severla coes, but HT seems to be something Oculus also does not benefit from.

Second, number of cores. There are more games optimised for multiple cores, than there are games optimised for HT. AC is one example, PC, which also supports HT, is another. But: so many titles out there of which I was surorised to learn they run on only one or two cores. DCS series. P3D. ArmA 3.

I really start to wonder whether a HT CPU is worth it. If single or dual cores are what sims and games still run on, then I might be better off with a CPU maximising the tact rate on the individual core, than to have more cores than four, and HT available. I also have heard of no game in the forseeable future that supports HT and is of interest to me, meets my taste.

I am currently swinging towards a fast-clocked i5, therefore. Fast individual cores. Of course, also cheaper. I now have an i5 2500K, until the recent technical hickups, this has been the best PC combo I ver have had so far, for seven years, and it still digests all stuff I throw at it. I want my next rig to last as long as well.

I also read that the i7 become so hot that people grill eggs and steaks on them. Considering that 1060+ GFX boards punctually also reach temperatures of 90° and even slightly more, I really wonder aboit how to do the cooling. I read that water coolers do not really trump over very good aircoolers and that a silenced system must not be noisy at all. However, then I saw pictures of thes enew coolers - holy cow, what monster boxess are that? Quite intimidating. I plan two ventilators in, one out, for the tower. I tend to go with the bequite! Silent Base 800, it looks very well made and is said to have formidable sound suppression. Of course the non-windowed version, for that extra isolation pad.

As long as my old rig holds together, I will wait for that new intel 8th generation CPU and see what there is to know about speed and temperatures. They say it is just a modernised Kaby Lake, if modenrised means that it does not become as hot, that already is a win. I am uncertain about the Ryzen CPUs, I wonder whether their HT really means anything to me, and they are clocked slower per CPU, or not!? The latest Ryzen 1800X costs over 100 bucks more than an i7 7700K, btw., so that will not be it anyway.

I have watched the videos, btw. Unfortunately they only show games that are of no interest to me. No sims: flight, racing, military. No strategy games. the fist video repeatedly shows that intel tends to be better than AMD when scenes are shown that favour individual processor performance. AMD wins where it is about stuff favouring HT and multiple cores. Not really a surprise, I think. How do these CPUs perofrm with titles, sims, that make use of just one or two cores? As I said above, most games today still are like this, even sims of whose complexity one would have assumed - at least I did - that they would already be optimised for multi cores.

 

You shouldn't have too much concerns about cooling. A modern aircooler for ~60€ is enough + silent for every i5/i7 CPU out there as long as you don't overclock over 4,5 GHz.
For gaming in general a i5 is sufficient even the older ones as the most games can't utilise more than 4 cores anyway. That is also the reason why i never suggest buying risen CPUs for gaming systems. Their strength lies in Multi Core applications.

In terms of CPU you can stay with the 2500K and maybe think about overclocking If you have a Z-board because it is kind of easy. You might need a new cooler though.
I also use an old i5 (3570k) because Intel stopped making big steps forward since the sandy bay (2xxx) generation. The biggest benefit of the newer CPUs is their lower TDP