Time for a new gaming monitor – 4K? G-Sync? Halp!

The Game Room
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Hyperthreading: From what I’ve heard, it’s useless for gaming and may slow things down a bit.

If you don’t plan on overclocking your CPU, be mindful that the i5-4690K carries a price premium for being unlocked. If you plan not to overclock, you may wish to go with a processor that doesn’t have the K suffix.

There are utilities which make OCing easy. I was hesitant too then found it easy, especially since it didn’t even require me to go into the BIOS.

In any case, as long as you have 4 cores above 3GHz, I don’t see how you would be get bottlenecked by your CPU with your tentative display/GPU when it comes to gaming unless you’re playing a game that is extraordinarily reliant on the CPU.
If you go with AMD, you may wish to look into which manufacturers have the best coolers because high-end AMD GPUs run hot and their performance might be limited by heat.

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Just in case anyone’s still interested, I thought I’d share my current build-in-progress. I’ve been doing a lot of research, and I believe I’ve settled on which components I am going to use (specific brands and models still need to be researched).

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-XXXX Memory
Storage: 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card
Monitor: Acer Predator X34 100Hz 34.0" Monitor

Total cost is going to push well past $3K, once I’ve added cooling system, case, power supply, keyboard and mouse.

The system is basically built around the getting the most out of the monitor I’ve chosen (read: fixated upon). It’s not a wise choice, I realize, but I think the ultra-wide will be just yummy for games.

Deciding on the 980 Ti was easy after looking at benchmarks and videos showing comparisons with other cards. I may get a second one sometime down the line, if warranted.

You’ll notice I’ve also decided to go with being overclock capable. I won’t dive into it right away, but I’ve become convinced that it would be fun, relatively easy, and worthwhile to at least try some gentle boosting of my components.

Choosing the CPU turned out to be very difficult. There’s a ton of information out there, a lot of it pretty questionable. Long story short, I wrote out a tournament bracket for all of the viable CPU choices and eliminated them one by one until I settled on three i7’s: the 4790, the 5820, and the 6700. The i5 4690 hung in there until the last round, but it got taken out due to the fact that these three i7’s performed at least as well, and the price difference was not a particularly important factor for me.

I ultimately settled on the 6700, even though all three seemed to perform equally under most gaming situations (but some folks claim the 6700 pulls ahead in some cases). I decided on the Skylake because the 4790 is the last of its line, and the 1151/Z170 is more mainstream than the 2011/X99. The cost is a bit tough to swallow, but I’m guessing I’ll be able to keep the motherboard, if not the CPU, for several years at least.

Needless to say, despite the time I’ve spent researching this, if a veteran builder knows some compelling reason that I’ve missed to choose one of the others, I would happily change my mind.

Feel free to let me know what you think!

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How much storage capacity do you need? You may find yourself better off going for a 500 GB or 1 TB SSD and ditching the HDD entirely.

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Storage speed is not really on my radar at this point, although I might shift perspective after I experience an SSD bootup. The price jump for 1 TB SSD is enough that I think I’ll stick with the current plan. It was worth a thought, though, and I’ll keep it in mind for something I can upgrade easily in the future when I get the hankering to tinker.

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If you’re CPU-bottlenecked, the i7 seems to give more stable results than the i5. However, you can be pretty sure that you’ll very seldom be CPU-bottlenecked.

Some gaming CPU benchmarks: results start at 6:30: Whats The Best Processor for Gaming? Intel i7 6700k vs Intel i7 5820k vs Intel i5 6600k - YouTube results start at 6:10: Best CPU For Gaming - 6700K, 4790K or 5930K? - YouTube whole thing Intel Skylake Core i7 6700K vs i5 6600K Stock/Overclock Gaming Benchmarks - YouTube

If it were my money I’d get the more mature, cheaper 22nm CPU and upgrade in 5 years once 14/10nm is mature. Currently available early DDR4 doesn’t make much difference compared to mature DDR3 and the same holds for 14nm vs 22nm CPUs.

Your CPU choice is understandable if you’ve got the cash but keep in mind that for a given budget, less on the CPU allows more on the GPU where it really pays off.

Do keep in mind that without the Free/Gsync monitor/GPU combo, you’ll want to keep your framerate at 60+ which might mean turning some settings down until you have 2 980Tis or get a future generation GPU.
Here’s a comparison of 980Tis:

You’ll note that the Zotac Extreme, Strix OC and MSI Sea Hawk are usually at the top. The comparison doesn’t include the recent water cooled Gigabyte though.

For Nvidia GPUs, factory overclocks matter a lot because you’re limited in how much you can increase the voltage*. If you see that, say, the Zotac Extreme 980 Ti has a boost clock of 1355MHz, that means its boost clock is at least 1355MHz; It’s the lower bound of that bin**. If the MSI Sea Hawk 980Ti says the boost clock is 1291MHz, that means the boost clock of that bin is at least 1291MHz.

Since you can’t just overvolt a slower Nvidia GPUs more, starting your overclock & overvolt from a higher minimum assured clock means your final overclock is likely to be higher. In your position, I’d be most tempted by this ZOTAC GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP!, ZT-90503-10P - Newegg.ca for maximum performance or this GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 980Ti 6GB XTREME GAMING WATERFORCE, GV-N98TXTREME W-6GD - Newegg.ca for high performance and lower noise.

Don’t neglect overclocking the memory: memory bandwidth is a bottleneck in GPU processing. I don’t know how hot the memory and power regulator get. You might wish to research memory and VRM/MOSFET*** overheating on the 980 Ti. If it’s a problem, some GPU models offer cooling of those subcomponents, notably the higher-end EVGA models and the MSI Sea Hawk.

  • unless you want to mess with the BIOS which you likely don’t.

** My Zotac 970 model has a boost clock rated at 1304MHz but my particular card will go to 1392MHz on its own without overclock.

** In this context, I think “VRM” and “MOSFET” refer to the same thing.