Why don't I want to buy a prebuilt gaming computer vs building?
 

I want to get back into sim racing now that I have a house and room to put up a nice 3 monitor sim.

The video card, hard drive, and power supply died in my original rig......the motherboard is approaching 8 years old, so instead of upgrading the old RAM and everything, I'd like to just go ahead and buy/build a brand new setup with quality parts that I will be able to upgrade as necessary over the next 5-7 years.

I know iRacing isn't particularly graphics intensive, but I'd also like to be able to run things like Assetto Corse and Project CARS 2 on 3 monitors at high settings............and possibly down the line one of the headsets like Occulus Rift. But I'm not ready to bank on one of the VR headsets just yet since I haven't used one.


Thoughts?

I chose to build my first PC because I wanted to learn how. Kinda like building my first Miata. I did it all myself, made mistakes and learned what not to do and even sometime what to do.

There are a lot of one or two year old PCs out there for a killer prices. My housemate just got into a med-high end PC for a few hundred bucks on Craigslist and it pretty much out-performs my 4 year old build which cost four times as much when I did it. However, my rig runs flawless today and housemate's graphics card already failed and Asus has had it for warranty repair for the last month and a half.

If you are into building one, of course the best bet is the upcoming holiday season and PCPartPicker for low prices.

One of the best upgrades I had to my sim racing setup was the move from a 60Hz monitor to a 144Hz FreeSync one, that makes a huge difference.
I would suggest to go with FreeSync / GSync monitors.

Other than that: what is your budget?
To get a general idea, you can always use Logical Increments

I built my last one, and upgraded it, unless I'm looking in the wrong places, I'm not seeing huge price differences between building and buying like there used to be.

Probably $2k for the computer itself.

I'll look into those monitors, I suspect buying 3 instead of 1 will preclude them. Thanks for the think I'll check it out.

One thing is for sure, if you intend on running Pcars 2 or a high-end sim on three monitors on at least 144 hz you will need all that $2000 budget.

I will need to revisit my PC needs soon as well. When Pcars 2 drops I'm going to log some hours for sure, and I'm only on my living room 60hz television. I need a proper gaming monitor setup.

2k? Wow.
You could build a serious machine with that kind of money.

http://www.pbh2.com/wordpress/wp-con...l-jump-suv.gif

Find a Gsync (nvidia) as it's widely available vs the FreeSync (ATi).

:burncash:

For what it's worth, price wise.. You could build a 'nice' Intel system for maximum frames per second in games. Keep it cool with a all in one water cooled system. 1080ti (Be all, end all) card to go as well. SSD (OS) + HDD (Other games, save files etc)

What he said. :party:

I like building my own PCs just for the fun. You're right, though, there doesn't seem to be huge cost savings anymore. If you do build one, use PCpartpicker.com. It's pretty much the most awesomest website ever.

That's the point. Build a hoss of a machine that will run all the bad boy games on 3 monitors for a few years to come and not have to worry about lesser parts being stressed to the max failing early.

I'd also like to make it as thermally efficient as possible and as quiet as possible.


3 monitors, a huge machine, wheels, pedals, etc..............tends to heat up a room quite a lot.

I'm mostly interested in your monitor of choice. If you're dead set on 3, i would assume 144hz @ 1080p. I don't think you need any of that freesync gsync garbage. My 144hz monitor is beautiful without it. It seems like only added cost.

Edit* my cousin runs a 4k monitor with a GTX1080 and it sometimes struggles. While the 3 monitor setup at 1080p is somewhere just less than 4k, you MAY be able to get away with a single 1080 or 1080ti if you can afford it.

Suggestions on monitors? I don't care about that. I guess I'd need to see a 144hz monitor, your eyes can't even really recognize a 60hz refresh rate.

I have.

You can get the 24" version with freesync for about the same cost i think.

The difference between 60hz and 144hz was pretty substantial. If you see it back to back you will notice. Also, you need to turn it on in the GPU settings.

Hmmm, I had 3 27" monitors last time, I really wanted to do 3 30" monitors this time.

For example, this is the video card and monitors I was using for iRacing and Assetto Corsa, @ 1080p 60hz, the video card wouldn't quite keep up with Assetto Corsa nearly maxed out.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814202080

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16824009588

Yeah, a gtx1080 is like double the power of that old card. Though, like i said the 1080 can find itself in some trouble in 4k. But with your budget, just buy two or get a 1080ti.
Getting into 30 and 32" monitors limits your options, especially at 1080p. You could always just get one ultrawide. I've sim raced on one of those before and it's pretty nice.

I think I'd prefer the simplicity of running just one 1080ti (suggestions on card brands on this one?). That should be MORE than enough to handle 1920x1080 x 3, which is plenty of resolution .\\.

I'll check over the weekend, I don't think my power supply is dead (I think I replaced it when I did the SSD).

Suggestions on motherboard and processor? There are so many options/brands.........and then different levels of the Intel, it's kind of mind boggling on what to go with.

What would your hypothetical build be?

I've used pretty much all the different brands of cards, i will say EVGA is my favorite, followed by PNY.
As far as boards, i've only ever used Asus, they have ALWAYS been good for me and i have never had a failure or any type of issue with them. Not to mention i like how well optioned their boards are, they seem to always have what you want even on lower end ones. Even when i was one of the first people with ryzen they came out with regular bios updates and had everything under control as much as they could. I will not be using another board in the future unless asus really pisses me off somehow.

I would highly suggest M.2 storage. Processor brand? Rumor has it the new coffee lake CPUs do not have soldered heat spreaders. This could be an issue if you're looking to watch your temperatures.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/pJ4qtJ

Right at 2k.

:party:


I just picked a middle of the road case, obviously subject to change.

For a 'games only' build, 7700K Intel cpu, z270 chipset motherboard (Asus more than likely). AIO liquid cooler for the cpu, fractal just released their celsius s36 product which would be plenty for a cpu overclocked system. I've been a fan of EVGA or MSI graphic cards, I'm sure ASUS would be just as good. 1080ti $$. m.2 ssd if you can afford it and a 4TB WD Black drive as a HDD. Ram, some Trident z or corsair dominator @ 16GB, 2x8GB. Case and Corsair PSU. Filters for filters to keep it dust free.


If I were building 'my' own system, I'd go for the threadripper. :likecat: