Octopus Overlords

I'm planning a new rig from Falcon Northwest and as usual, I have no idea what would be a good selection of components that would future proof me the next, say, five years. I want to be able to play games like Cyberpunk 2077 and MS Flight Simulator 2020 with bleeding edge performance. Right now in the planning I'm looking at the following as a good trade-off between cost and performance, avoiding the really costly jumps to the very top end components. Ordering from Falcon NW does limit one to certain components, but since I'm clueless on what the kids are using now, I'll wait for some knowledgeable inputs. This might be my last full bore gaming computer, so I'm going to splurge a bit.

Power Supply EVGA® SuperNOVA G3 1000 Watt
Motherboard Asus® ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming
Processor Intel® Core™ i9-10900K 10-Core - 3.7GHz to 5.3GHz
Processor Cooler Asetek® Liquid Cooling 680LS 280MM
Memory G.Skill TridentZ RGB 64GB (4x16GB) - 3200MHz
Video Card NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2060 SUPER™ - 8GB
Operating System Drive Western Digital® Blue™ SN550 1TB - M.2 SSD - PCI Express
Data Drive - M.2 SOCKET Western Digital® Blue™ SN550 1TB - M.2 SSD - PCI Express
64-Bit Operating System Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Tom's Hardware

GPU hierarchy
CPU hierarchy

If I was spending that much Id get 3600 memory and a much better video card. 2070 Super minimum. Id probably just wait on the 3000 series because they are supposed to be much better than the 2000 series even and cost about the same.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 12:42 am Tom's Hardware

GPU hierarchy
CPU hierarchy

Yeah, those are good links. I guess that's what I'm trying to find out is what folks think are overkill versus a good future CPU, RAM, storage size and GPU. The Intel® Core™ i9-10900K 10-Core CPU is top of Tom's list, so that's probably a good choice and surprisingly affordable. 64 GB of RAM ought to cover the most extreme cases I can think of, like flight sims. 1 TB of storage on the operating disk ought to be enough as well. Or should I go with a 2 TD primary drive and chuck the data storage drive?

So that leaves the GPU and that's where it gets confusing. For decent game playing for the next half-dozen years, do I really need something like an Nvidia Titan RTX with 24GB? Or an RTX 2080 Ti rather than a regular RTX 2080 Super? I'm just wondering what those really top edge cards get you.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:07 am If I was spending that much Id get 3600 memory and a much better video card. 2070 Super minimum. Id probably just wait on the 3000 series because they are supposed to be much better than the 2000 series even and cost about the same.

Yeah, after looking at the Tom's list I'm thinking that the upgrade to a 2080 Super will give a lot more performance for not that much more money.

When are the 3000 series supposed to be coming out?

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:57 pm I'm planning a new rig from Falcon Northwest and as usual, I have no idea what would be a good selection of components that would future proof me the next, say, five years. I want to be able to play games like Cyberpunk 2077 and MS Flight Simulator 2020 with bleeding edge performance.

Funny, I've been thinking of buying from the same people, for the same two games. A few months ago I put together a machine that ran about $3600 or so, then life got busy so I didn't follow up on it. I don't tend to buy bleeding edge, but slightly behind that.

Today I just installed MSFS on my current PC, which is a Falcon-NW Talon that I bought back in January 2014. FS "runs" at medium settings, but not great.

I probably follow "what the kids are using" even less than you; in general, whenever I decide I need to upgrade I start to ask around. I've also found the sales/tech folks at Falcon to be really good and happy to help me when I gave them a general idea of what I wanted to play and my budget.

Over the years I've bought three machines from Falcon-NW IIRC (a Mach V and two Talons), as well as a Talon for my wife.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:17 am1 TB of storage on the operating disk ought to be enough as well. Or should I go with a 2 TD primary drive and chuck the data storage drive?

I just bought a 2 TB data drive with the intention of moving it to my new PC whenever I get one. After talking with some friends at work who keep up with this kind of thing, I bought an M.2 SDD along with a PCIe-M.2 adapter so that I can use it with my current board (Asus Z87 Deluxe). My current PC has only a single 240 GB SATA SSD, so I figured a newer PC with a 2 TB data drive and a 500 GB OS drive would do nicely.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:20 amYeah, after looking at the Tom's list I'm thinking that the upgrade to a 2080 Super will give a lot more performance for not that much more money.

Yeah, it looks like it's only $109 to move from their standard 2070 Super to the 2080 Super.

Funny, I've had two Falcon NW rigs and I got my last one in 2014 also . I still have my 2003 Falcon Mach V case, I use it as a side table.

I thought some more about it last night and I really only use my data drive mainly as a backup for my operating disk, so going with only one 2 TB drive would make more sense. Even now I backup to removal external drives, so it wouldn't be a big change for me.

I have two M.2 x4 slots on my mobo so I went with a 500gb M.2 for the OS and Office, then a 2TB M.2 for all of the game installations.

I also have a pair of 2TB platter drives. One for all of my media and one dedicated for storage and video editing.

I really, really, really need to update my graphics card though. I was in the process of building my rig when I lost my job back in June and I've been without a paycheck since then so I'm still running my old 980 ti which still runs pretty much everything but I would like to upgrade before Cyberpunk comes out.

If you can wait a few months, wait for the RTX 3000 series before getting new rig.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:20 am

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:07 am If I was spending that much Id get 3600 memory and a much better video card. 2070 Super minimum. Id probably just wait on the 3000 series because they are supposed to be much better than the 2000 series even and cost about the same.

Yeah, after looking at the Tom's list I'm thinking that the upgrade to a 2080 Super will give a lot more performance for not that much more money.

When are the 3000 series supposed to be coming out?

Probably as early as next month for the high end model with the 3060 a few month later.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:07 am If I was spending that much Id get 3600 memory and a much better video card. 2070 Super minimum. Id probably just wait on the 3000 series because they are supposed to be much better than the 2000 series even and cost about the same.

same. 32GB is more than enough. 2060 you'll hamstring yourself later. I have a 2070super and some cities in MS Flight Simulator, I notice framerate drops, but from what I hear that's normal even on a 2080ti.

Every other game I play runs smooth as butter.

you follow up

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:57 pm a good trade-off between cost and performance

with

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:57 pm Processor Intel® Core™ i9-10900K 10-Core - 3.7GHz to 5.3GHz

that's no trade-off, that's overkill

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2020 4:22 pm you follow up

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:57 pm a good trade-off between cost and performance

with

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:57 pm Processor Intel® Core™ i9-10900K 10-Core - 3.7GHz to 5.3GHz

that's no trade-off, that's overkill

Actually Falcon NW gives a pretty good price on the i9-10900K. Normally I'd do a step or two down from the bleeding edge, top of the line component, but it was a reasonable increase in price versus performance and I figured it would make it that much future proof. When I got my current rig back in 2014 I opted for the best Intel CPU that Falcon offered and it is still doing great. If by the time I ordered the rig prices have changed I would reconsider of course.

I would step the video up to 2070... I've had a 2070 for over a year and it's worked perfectly so far. I hope you have your monitor setup already? 2070 is perfect for dual or triple monitors.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:35 pm I would step the video up to 2070... I've had a 2070 for over a year and it's worked perfectly so far. I hope you have your monitor setup already? 2070 is perfect for dual or triple monitors.

My desk space is a bit limited so I was going to stick with a single monitor but ramp up to a larger size and higher FPS, like 144. When I game I really try to turn off all other distractions so I don't need to keep open something like a mail app.

Yup, from what folks are saying here I'm either going to step up to a 2080 or wait till the 3000 series version of it drops... I'm assuming it's going to be a 3080?

Depend on what you need, maybe RTX 3060 is going to be faster and more future proof than RTX 2070 Super. RTX 3070 is probably better than RTX 2070 Super.

If you decide to get RTX 2000 series, it'll probably be cheaper for the lower end model after Nvidia release RTX 3000 series.

You are overspending on the CPU for sure. You should spend more on the VC - although the resolution of your display for the life of the PC should dictate the VC budget.

I am still rocking 1080p for gaming so my old Geforce 970 is still good as is my 5+ year old gaming rig.

JCC wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:47 pm You are overspending on the CPU for sure.

Hmm, maybe I'll take another look at that too. Any suggestions on a good Intel CPU that will still be adequate six years from now? I've had good luck with Intel and prefer to stick with it.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:24 pm Hmm, maybe I'll take another look at that too. Any suggestions on a good Intel CPU that will still be adequate six years from now? I've had good luck with Intel and prefer to stick with it.

The current #1 recommendation for CPU for gaming by Tom's Hardware is the i5 10600K. It costs a little over half the retail price of the i5 10900K (it can be found for less). You will also have to add a cooler, but that won't cost much. If I were building a PC today I would probably look for something even cheaper. You don't want to skimp on CPU but Video Card is the most important component to invest in for gaming. Of course the amount to spend in general should be influenced by the resolution of your display. For the forseeable future, I plan to game at 1080p so I have no plans to upgrade my video card any time soon. If my video card died tomorrow, I would stay in the mid-range or lower for a replacement - though I would likely be tempted to just build a new rig and retire the old one for video streaming only.

Good luck!

Oh, and if you are going to game at 1080p on this machine, leave your video card choice as is and just enjoy not overpaying for a CPU way more powerful than you need.

Getting a more powerful CPU than what you need today is probably a good idea since it is easier to upgrade GPU than CPU. A few years later, if you want to upgrade CPU, you'll probably need to get a new motherboard and RAM for it. To upgrade GPU, you only need to replace the GPU card and maybe power supply.

Victoria Raverna wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:03 pm Getting a more powerful CPU than what you need today is probably a good idea since it is easier to upgrade GPU than CPU. A few years later, if you want to upgrade CPU, you'll probably need to get a new motherboard and RAM for it.

That's kind of the reason I was considering getting the best (at a reasonable price) CPU. But I'll check my prices again, and frankly everything is going to be up in the air if I'm going to wait for the RTX 3000 series anyway.

JCC wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:37 pm The current #1 recommendation for CPU for gaming by Tom's Hardware is the i5 10600K. It costs a little over half the retail price of the i5 10900K (it can be found for less). You will also have to add a cooler, but that won't cost much.

The Falcon NW Talons come with liquid cooling, an Asetek® Liquid Cooling 680LS 280MM unit. My old rig which I got in 2014 has a Asetek® 120MM Liquid Cooler 550LC unit.

Hey, since we're having fun building this magical rig , how about the operating drive? I think I've decided against having a separate data drive, I've never used my current one to that much advantage. So I'm looking at the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB M.2 SSD or the somewhat more expensive Seagate Firecuda 520 2TB M.2 SSD. Any thoughts? I don't save videos or home pictures or anything like that, it would be just for games storage.

I think it is still better to have 2 drives. Don't think it as a data drive. Think of it as a game drive. Put your Steam and other game folders in that drive.

So one smaller SSD for the boot drive and one bigger SSD for the game drive.

Victoria Raverna wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:59 pm I think it is still better to have 2 drives. Don't think it as a data drive. Think of it as a game drive. Put your Steam and other game folders in that drive.

So one smaller SSD for the boot drive and one bigger SSD for the game drive.

Thats what I do. I have a giant old mechanical to store stuff on like music and photos and old downloaded games.

Victoria Raverna wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:59 pm I think it is still better to have 2 drives. Don't think it as a data drive. Think of it as a game drive. Put your Steam and other game folders in that drive.

So one smaller SSD for the boot drive and one bigger SSD for the game drive.

The smallest drive they have is a 500GB, which I guess should be plenty for an OS plus utility programs, stuff like that. Then a 1TD game drive. Sounds useful?

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 11:10 pm

Victoria Raverna wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:59 pm I think it is still better to have 2 drives. Don't think it as a data drive. Think of it as a game drive. Put your Steam and other game folders in that drive.

So one smaller SSD for the boot drive and one bigger SSD for the game drive.

The smallest drive they have is a 500GB, which I guess should be plenty for an OS plus utility programs, stuff like that. Then a 1TD game drive. Sounds useful?

As long as you're okay with only download games that you're going to play then delete them when you are done with them and need the space for other game, 1 TB is plenty and you also can download some to the 500 GB if the 1 TB is full since OS will use less than 50% of the 500 GB drive. If you like to have all games that you think you're going to play in the future downloaded and installed, 1 TB is not enough. 2 TB is also not enough for that. I filled up my 4 TB HDD (optane accelerated) and thinking of getting a 10 TB drive so I don't have to delete games that I downloaded.

One big advantage of having two or more drives and having only OS on your boot drive is that you can easily reinstall the OS and not having to redownload all your games. If you set the Steam game folder to a folder with existing download of games, it can detect them and you don't need to redownload.

I agree on having an OS drive + other drive. I would be inclined to get at least 2 TB for a games drive. Over the life of the PC games will keep getting bigger and bigger.

I still say you shouldn't get your original CPU. The price is just too high and it's total overkill.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 3:55 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:35 pm I would step the video up to 2070... I've had a 2070 for over a year and it's worked perfectly so far. I hope you have your monitor setup already? 2070 is perfect for dual or triple monitors.

My desk space is a bit limited so I was going to stick with a single monitor but ramp up to a larger size and higher FPS, like 144. When I game I really try to turn off all other distractions so I don't need to keep open something like a mail app.

Yup, from what folks are saying here I'm either going to step up to a 2080 or wait till the 3000 series version of it drops... I'm assuming it's going to be a 3080?

Information and pricing is out today.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the RTX 3080 as Nvidia's "new flagship" GPU on Tuesday morning, confirming over a month of leaked rumors and card designs. This was met with a flurry of other hardware, app, and software partnership announcements, but arguably the biggest numbers out of today's event came in the form of performance and price.

Huang alleged that the RTX 3080 will "double" the performance of the $1,200+ RTX 2080 GPU while starting at $699, with hardware going on sale September 17. Next to that, Huang announced the RTX 3070, whose power will reportedly exceed the RTX 2080 Ti while starting at only $499.

After these, the three-slot RTX 3090 was announced without any aspirations of value, with a September 24 launch starting at a whopping $1499. This was followed by a sizzle reel of fans playing recent RTX-enabled 3D games at 8K resolution and "60 frames per second."

RTX 3070 is probably going to be my next GPU. So far RTX 3000 series are too power hungry. RTX 3070 is the only one that has lower power requirement than RTX 2080 Ti.

OK, the new video cards are out and I've got the wife primed to not faint when I tell her how much my new rig is going to cost

I've gone with a bit lower spec processor (for JCC ) and added the new RTX 3080 10GB. I've been debating with myself over a second on-board drive, but honestly I've been living with a 512GB main drive and hardly use the data drive on my rig, using several external drives instead. However, since SSDs are getting cheap I might add a non-fancy one before I order.

I've also decided (drum roll, please!) to upgrade from my 2008 Gateway monitor to a 27" 2560x1440 Asus. And I've gone from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Home since I'm using Home right now and can't figure out why I would need Pro anyway

Revised specs:
Chassis: Talon 20th Anniversary Edition
Chassis Logo Insert: RGB Light
Side Panels: Tinted Glass Side Panels
Fan Pack: Noiseblocker eLoop® White - High Performance
Power Supply: EVGA® SuperNOVA G3 1000 Watt
Motherboard: Asus® ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming
Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-10850K 10-Core - 3.6GHz to 5.2GHz
Overclock: No Overclock
Processor Cooler: Asetek® Liquid Cooling 680LS 280MM
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ RGB 32GB (2x16GB) - 3200MHz
Video Card: EVGA® GeForce® RTX 3080 10GB
Sound Card On-Board
Networking On-Board
Operating System Drive: Samsung® 970 EVO Plus 1TB - M.2 SSD - PCI Express
64-Bit Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Warranty 3 Years Parts & Labor
Monitor: Asus® ProArt PA278QV 27" - 2560x1440 - 75Hz

that i9 CPU is still overkill...

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:15 pm that i9 CPU is still overkill...

Are you thinking that an i7-9700K would still be a good CPU in six years? That is sort of my criteria, that the rig still be viable in 2026. Honestly I'm not sure what an i9 does better than an i7 other than being faster.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:02 pm

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:15 pm that i9 CPU is still overkill...

Are you thinking that an i7-9700K would still be a good CPU in six years? That is sort of my criteria, that the rig still be viable in 2026. Honestly I'm not sure what an i9 does better than an i7 other than being faster.

absolutely. i was using a first gen i7 from 2009 to just earlier this year! so a little over a decade - never had a problem with it. putting that money towards the video card is a far better return.

But he is already getting a 10 gig RTX 3080. How would that get him better? Id think the 3090 would be overkill at those prices.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:39 pm But he is already getting a 10 gig RTX 3080. How would that get him better? Id think the 3090 would be overkill at those prices.

Yeah, I'm figuring that a 3080 ought to be sufficient. Also I'm reckoning that in 4-5 years if I'm really desperate I could upgrade the video card.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:07 pm

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:02 pm

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:15 pm that i9 CPU is still overkill...

Are you thinking that an i7-9700K would still be a good CPU in six years? That is sort of my criteria, that the rig still be viable in 2026. Honestly I'm not sure what an i9 does better than an i7 other than being faster.

absolutely. i was using a first gen i7 from 2009 to just earlier this year! so a little over a decade - never had a problem with it. putting that money towards the video card is a far better return.

Of course, the difference between the i7-9700K and the i9-10850K is only $34 .

Anyone think 32GB RAM is too little? I'm only going to be using the rig for gaming, no video editing or CAD work or anything exotic like that.

Work IT just advised me to upgrade my personal machine's OS by year end, which is going to come with a hardware upgrade.

I'm thinking 32 GB, but interested in Intel/Nvidia mid-range recommendations for gaming with a 1440 resolution. No VR or cutting edge gaming required. I'll want to run Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 more than the latest shooter.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 11:45 pm I'll want to run Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 more than the latest shooter.

Wouldn't Cyberpunk 2077 qualify somewhat as the latest shooter? Not being frivolous, I really thought of it as a shooter in some degree. Anyway, there seems to be some controversy regarding the specs you'll need to run it, see the article from Tom's Hardware Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements: Don't Trust Projekt Red

We're confident the official Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements are far lower than what you'll actually want for the proper experience.

I'll leave it up to someone else to address BG3 as I'm unfamiliar with it.

Well I've pushed the button and ordered my new rig, fourteen days for assembly and testing and then 3-5 days ground shipping. So it will mostly likely miss the release of Watch Dogs Legion but will be here for Valhalla and Cyberpunk.