PC Building Questions

[BarbaricGoose]

Hey. So this topic seems a little light relative to the rather heavy hitting subjects being discussed i this forum, buuuuuuut.... I do need advice.

So, I've been basically jury rigging my 5+-year-old machine for a good while now, but it's getting to the point that I just need to replace the whole thing. Not ALL of it is 5 years old; the GPU is a GTX 670, and I recently had to replace the RAM and power supply. The RAM is 2 x 8gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3 sticks, and the PSU is the Corsair RM 750.

Someone recommended this site to me awhile back -- http://www.logicalincrements.com/#!/ -- and that's more or less what I've been using to gauge about how much I'll have to spend. I have my eye somewhere between the $1100 and $1600 machines, but the problem is the aforementioned RAM and PSU I have. I would like to use these for my new computer.

The $1600 machine uses a motherboard that requires DDR4 RAM (or so it appears), and an 850w PSU. The 980 TI looks really good to me, though.

So, my questions:

Is the 980 TI actually worth it? I'm looking for a fairly future-proof machine. Although I've always wondered is whether it's better to buy one really expensive card every 3 years or so, or say, one cheaper card each year? The GTX 670 served me well up until a few months ago, but it's been showing its age for awhile. I'm currently playing Fallout 4 on medium-highish and averaging 55-60 FPS, but the loading times are stupid.

Can you suggest a build that would allow me to use my 750w PSU, RAM AND the TI? Unless everyone agrees that's a shitty idea. I'm very open to not having to spend that money. My budget is around $1500.

Finally, I've been thinking I might get a 2560x1440 monitor to go along with the new machine. I'm guessing that would require a TI or equivalent to get a steady 60 FPS in most games, no? I'm not anal about running games at absolute max settings if lowering them is the difference between getting 60 FPS or not; I usually turn off DoF and lower shadows anyway, but I like the actual textures to be of good quality. I guess I'm just floating the idea. Bad idea? Good idea? Suggestions?

Anyway, any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[SnowyGamester]

A 750w PSU is more than enough for a single GPU setup and you don't need to use the exact specs listed on the website. Logical Increments is nothing but a guide for the inexperienced user to get good value and compatible builds at various price points and doesn't take into account reusing parts so you don't have to follow it to the letter. The difference between DDR3 and DDR4 performance [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utWnjA4NzSA] is still negligible at this point so going for a more expensive build that can't reuse your existing RAM isn't necessarily the best choice. Really you probably only need to replace your motherboard, CPU and GPU though what you go with is up to you.

The 1150 socket motherboards still have a more powerful processor available than the newer 1151 socket (4790K vs 6700K) so that's the best choice unless you want to go with the more enthusiast level 2011-3 socket boards though they are more expensive, all require DDR4 and the extra cores don't usually offer much (if any) game performance advantages. I don't really follow what AMD is doing so if you're considering that I don't have any insight there.

As far as GPUs it's really about how much you want to spend. The more you pay, the better performance you're going to get and the longer it'll be before you start noticing it struggling. The 980 Ti is the most powerful card on the market and should be able to play pretty much anything on Ultra in FHD with a solid frame rate though there are always games that will run like ass on anything (I barely get 60FPS on Ark: SE on low/1080P with two 970s) and stuff like TressFX and high sampling antialiasing can still kill performance. Going QHD will push it a little harder but only the most intensive games might prompt you to turn a few things off to stay at 60FPS.

 

[Albino Boo]

My gut instinct would be to go for 4790k, a socket 1150 ddr3 motherboard, the gtx 980 ti and reuse the rest of your bits. I'm not convinced of the value for money of the 6700K and DDR4 Ram. The increase in cost is not justified by the increase in performance unless you are doing something like 3D rendering. If you push out to 4k monitor the 6700K would become a real option but at 2560x1440 the 4790k is more than enough.

 

[Barbas]

Hmmm...I think that unless you're doing many intensive things at once, or a good deal of graphical and 3D design, you won't need an i7 processor or DDR4 RAM - it's shelling out more buck for relatively insignificant bang. Odd that a motherboard requires DDR4 RAM (I've never heard of this before), rather than simply being compatible with it. Also, the K in a processor means that it can be overclocked.

On a hardware manufacturer's site, you'll likely find the most detailed information on what processor socket type a motherboard has, the included slots, etc. Judging by what other forum threads have been saying, I think Fallout 4's problems with loading times (and the drain that god rays and shadow distance cause) are a problem on the devs' end rather than your PC's end. Some aspects of some games will run inexplicably worse than they should, which can muck with data. Other graphical settings (such as TressFX and some PhysX effects or tessellation) have a reputation for being a big drain in almost any game that includes them.

The site you linked is good, but use that base as a rough guideline, check out the motherboard specs on the manufacturer's site (for the slots, etc.) and start tweaking it from there until you get what you definitely want. I hope this garbled mess of information is helpful in some way.