Planning a new system

Half tower is more than enough for that, even if you do SLI on Hybrid GFX (AIO). But who uses SLIs these days (maybe cryptominers), it never works properly, single more powerful GPU is always better.

 

Single gpu for the win! I have noticed that the MSI GX and Evga SC are regarded as being the quietest of the 1080 cards while the MSI and EVGA SC2 are the choice in 1080ti.

 

Toms hardware would disagree on the noise statement for the EVGA. Wwhile the card is not "noisy", it still is just 2 slots wide, comparing to 2.5 and 3 slot wide cards which have more passive cooling from that and thus their ventilators can run slower. Also, the cooler in this card has an undirected airstream, which also is a bit more noisy.

Its no noisy card, they say, but one would expect that there are - thicker - cards that are even more silent.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/evga-gtx-1080-ti-ftw3-gaming,5061.html

At the end they say that maximum decibels raised to 41-44. The Asus Strix 1080Ti OC as a counter- example I read has a maximum of 37 dB. German: https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/asus-gtx-1080-ti-strix-oc-test/2/

The founders edition (reference design by nVidia) had 45 dB (wile performing slightly worse).

 

I love my 1080ti msi i play in a non air con room which is roughly 33-37 deg & it tops out a 70 deg at 100% load. my previous EVGA 780ti ran at 80-85 deg.

 

I don't think there is anything that comes even remotely close to EVGA from reliability, design and support perspective.
MSI, after my chain of failures with their equipment, and super bad CS, it is the brand I wouldn't touch with ten foot pole.

@Coanda, comparing Pascal temperature with Kepler is not really helpful.
My EVGA 1080Ti runs at 55C during benchmarking under overclock. But it's Hybrid, not air cooled. Pascal in general is very sensitive to temperature (GPU Boost 3.0), I don't think anyone on air reaching 70C either or it just downclocks right away.
For the reference my Maxwell EVGA 980 Classified, was maxing out at 70-73C OCed, that's on air

 

@Andrew_WOT - very true & valid points. I know I was comparing apples with oranges. I was not trying to bag out EVGA, I was very happy with my last card. It died after 4 years however I can not say for sure if it was the GPU. Where I live we are prone to power surges & brownouts. My PSU sometimes reports low voltage on 3.3v rail. Since then I now run a voltage regulator. I am also happy with my current GPU. This is my first piece of MSI hardware so lets see if it holds up overtime or if I have issues like you. I did not oc this one though however it does ramp up well above the advertised clocks. I must have got a good one

 

Different CPUs tested for VR:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/oculus-rift-vr-cpu-performance,5215.html

 

Very informative, thanks. It seems in the VR department i7 7700K beats Ryzen quite clearly.

Due to their brief outlook at the forseeable future, I feel stronger than before to indeed change my buying policy of the past 25 years, and not go with an economically reasonable compromise of one-generation-behind hardware, but indeed to go with the more expensive latest stuff I can get, within the budget I am willing to invest. Its the first time I will build a more expensive system, and probably will be the last time. Therefore, it should have technical longevity (regarding wear and tear), and reserves (regarding performance). My current system lives since seven years. I want the new one to last as long - minimum.

 

Could be, but I was focussing on the technical aspects and noise. To build such a card so "thin", needed them to accept some compromise. It seems to work reasonably enough, according to the article, but at the cost of slightly more "noise", especially under load. There seem to be cards that stay cooler and more silent. If you have the space inside your case, and do not need that third PCI slot - well...

German Amazon gives this EVGA card very good reviews indeed (4.9 stars in 8 reviews).

Asus Strix ROG 1080TI OC gets 4.6 in 23 reviews.

The non-AC version of the above Asus gets 4.9 in 7, and 4.6 in 50 reviews.

Time and again people mention how silent the Asus is. Extremely silent. I think that is what buys me.

My two last GFX cards both have been by Gainward. Flawless, silent, excellent.

 

What is it with RAM bars? DDR4 at 3000, 2666, or even 2333? Does it make a noticable difference?

 

You guys should really wait for coffe lake. The cl i3 will probably be as strong as the current i5 but much cheaper. The new i5 and i7 will come as 6 core

 

No

 

frequency doenst doo that much difference ... differnece between 2133 and 3200 is not worth mentioning .. in most cases no differences .. I would go with what your wallet says when in comes to RAM freq

 

From what I have seen results are quite diverse (some benchmarks shows FPS improvement in one game and some doesn't show any difference in same game - a lot of depends on overall build and resolutions - CPU bottleneck).
Usually bigger difference is seen with Ryzen CPUs (most likely due to Infinity fabric tied to memory bus). Some games (Hitman, Rise of Tomb raider, Ashes of Singularity) can show up to 20% FPS improvment in CPU limited scenarios i.e. lower resolutions like 1080p.
https://www.techspot.com/article/1171-ddr4-4000-mhz-performance/page3.html
https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-7-agesa-1006-performance-update-review,8.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_Memory_Analysis/10.html

I would try go for 3200mhz with Intel and no doubt for Ryzen if you can get for relatively good price. Higher speeds seems to introduce exponential price increase.

 

Your cpu is going to run at it's JEDEC spec for ram whatever frequency that is, it takes turning on xmp profile in bios, if your mobo has it, to go higher and then the results aren't that much improved if improved at all. You can also encounter chip to chip and chip to board problems so the gains unless your overclocking and setting benchmarks aren't worth the trouble.

 

any experiences with In Win cases? 703, 707 ... never used those and they seems to be decent

 

It appears that the cause of my suspected Z270 mobo failure may have been due to a GPU failure (EVGA GTX 980Ti SC+) but, I'm still waiting on mobo test results to confirm.

In the meantime, I've managed to reduce i7-7700k CPU temps significantly with some BIOS tweaks and case fan optimization. Prior, I had been reaching CPU temps between 70-80c running AC with high graphics settings / 15 AI and now I can run 23AI with higher graphic settings and the CPU stays between 48-60c. I haven't tested VR performance yet but, AMS and rF2 are using half the resources so things are looking much better now. The 1080Ti SC2 temps run between 60-70c with AC but, there is room to improve the cooing a bit for the GPU by removing / rearranging add-in cards.

It seems that disabling Turbo Boost and limiting CPU voltage has had a big effect on CPU temps and spikes. There are still spikes during game loading but, the overall temps during game-play are much improved. I also manually set the DRAM latency manually and lowered the voltage for 2133hz from 3200 as the XMP use on MSi-boards is said to drive higher temps as well.

 

Sorry, I do not know what JEDEC is...?

 

Sounds as if all that tuning is a game in itself... Well, I make a mental note, in case I will face temp problems, once the big day has arrived. If they release the new CPU in early October, it may take the second half of October until first reviews of competent bloggers or hardware sites are out, and then again it takes time until mainboards are out and the CPU actually has been made available. So I do not expect anything on my table before Decembre.

The Oculus sale is over, btw. The set of headset and two controllers now costs 590 coins over here.

 

Thanks for all the input guys, and all the answers to my questions. I really appreciate it. Even though buying time has not yet come, none of the time you put into your replies is wasted to me, I read it all even if not answering every post individually, I consider it and weigh it against my pros and cons to your points, it helps me to plot my course. Thanks a lot.