Return Of The Gork

So I have been busy gorking up with some new toys.

The latest bunch of gork toys and some pics that I have boughtin the last month. Although the TV was bought earlier.

So a few years ago when fans started to get LED's on them I distinctly remember posting how it looked tacky and spoils a pc look. I stand by that comment 100%. It time we took back the classy and understated look of PC builds...





I only got the RGB ram this morning.

Also I present to you good sirs graphical goodiness x2.



Here the other one waiting to be installed.



No sli setup would be complete without my third ultrawide monitor.

Asus 100hz Gsync 34 ultrawide.



Also a Ps4 pro for HDR goodiness.

And of course a Samsung S8 plus.

Funnily enough I have yet to connect the PC to the LG Oled yet. But it has nothing been short of amazing for the ps4 pro. I am sure there is otther stuff I got but I can't remember.

Remember kiddies Gork4life

Looks awesome Redders. Are they 3 slot Zotac cards?
Ive been looking at that Trident Z ram myself for a possible new build in the Summer, along with the NZXT X42 cooler for an i7 7700K

HI Bully.

THey are classified as 2.5 slot but in reality they take 3 slots. Which is fine if you are doing a single card not so great if you are doing SLI. I originally pre ordered 2x Evga 1080 ti ft3 cards but the more I read about it the less I was convinced about it cooling performance as that is a dual slot card which means less cooling ability then the typical 2.5 slot cooler card. Also last summer I had good experience with the Zotac 1080 amp extreme.

So what are the pros and cons. Well first off it's heavy and very large so you need to make sure your case can accomodate it. Also compared to reference cards which are limited to 250w tdp this card will hit about @320-330w so not a problem single card but sli and with an overclocked chip like mine (5930k) expect to see it draw @900w+. I totally forgot about this and my psu is only a 860w... luckiliy I have a spare corsair ax 860 so I used that to drive the second card by bridging the 24 pin connector.

Also it has one feature I hate about the Zotac extreme cards. Because the fan doesn't spin under idle every now and again it will spool itself up and then quickly shut it self off. I was hoping zotac would give the option to turn this feature off completely as I rather have higher idle temps and silence when non gaming than anything else.

But I do believe other cards have this feature as well.

There is also another factor and that is cost. It is one of the most expensive ti's out there only the evga ft3 and the hybrid cooling ones are more expensive before you get to the watercooled cards.

And the pros. If you can get past all those cons then out of the box the amp extreme is the fastest card bar none. The card in the pc pictures does 2025mhz on the core without any adjustment to power, fan, temp settings. The memory is clocked at something like 5600mhz. (11200mhz effectively) but the other night I was testing it and I stuck +500mhz on the memory for lulz and it didn't crash. I didn't push it any higher so it ended up like 6100mhz (12200mhz) effective.

As for the temps because under idle the fan doesn't spin at all as I type this it idling at 43c how ever under load it usually runs between 60-65c this is a single card obviously in sli it runs hotter than this. As for the noise well idle it means no spinning fan=no noise and under load considering this runs faster than most other ti's without having to muck about with any settings it's acceptable you can hear it but by no means is it as loud as previous graphics cards the came before it.

All ti's clock the same more or less the same it just a question of cooler, temps noise and warranty with cost.

As for your proposed setup.

Right now a 7700k especially the 5ghz ones are the fastest for a pure gaming setup. There are a few things to take into consideration though. It a silicone lottery but companies like overclockers do a pre binned one but they charge an arm and a leg for it. THere is a guy on ebay who does the same service as overclockers does but considerably cheaper. This does mean the chip has to be delidded and a better thermal paste applied which both parties do. Reason for this is because most of the 5ghz 7700k's will need at least 1.3v-1.4v to hit 5ghz and with the stock thermal paste inside the chip being so poor thermally it would run extremely hot. I would not consider the x42 up to the job IMO. Sure it looks nice but a decent air cooler or maybe if you want the whole bling bling look than certainly an x52 or x62 and thank you for reminding me I got one of x62 as well to stick back in

As for the Gskill ram rgb it pricey for a bunch of flashing lights. As memory prices recently went up and is only going to increase buy a set before they become even more pricier and as to what speed you get. Funnily enough this is the first time I can remember in at least 10 years+ where memory affects how much framerates you get. DO not confuse how much framerates you get with the maximum overclock. While maximum overclock will affect framerates the difference here is that getting the fastest possible memory will affect your framerates in this particular sceanrio but not affect how high or how low you get with your overclocked cpu if you intend to overclock. Which you should if you are getting a 7700k if you are not going to overclock then you might as well get a 7600k.

Because of the better memory controller of the 7700k buying the fastest ram will affect your framerates directly. But be warned to get the gskill rgb super fast ram is very very expensive. On an x99 setup such as mine whether you get 2400, 3000, 3200 makes no difference in framerates.

But on a 7700k setup it does. IF I were to build a 7700k setup for purely the fastest gaming experience I would look at least 3600mhz+

Not since the days of Corsair XMS 2 memory or even better the Mushkin redline memory has memory affect framerates.

I hope that answers your questions.

Cheers Redders
Ok so i am ordering the following
Msi z270 Gaming M7
Intel 7700K
16Gb Trident Z Ram 3600hz
Msi GTX 1070 Gaming x 8gb
And either the nzxt x42 (i know Redders) i`m not overclocking straight away and my old case won`t take a double rad (Antec P182) or the Corsair H80i v2

And in 6 months time a new case and an nzxt x 52/62
So input on a new case to replace my Antec would be good. I love the case but internally it`s a bit behind the times. I`ve had to buy a 120mm to 140mm bracket for larger fans as all are 120mm.

James>Afraid not, I didn't buy the hype train then and I still don't, As a gamer I need core speed rather than cores which is why I will be investing in skylake x. I have my eye on the 10/20 or 12/24 cpu. I have set aside 3k for the cpu, motherboard and case to house it. All the rest I have.

When Ryzen was first released it seemed so good and it is to a point. It is offering price per performance to a point and it still can't beat a 7700k OC in a majority of gaming tests and that was important for me. Not to mention the memory controller on the Ryzens are weak and they don't overclock that much.

If I was on a tight budget then it would appeal. But there is nothing Ryzen offers me that I need. I don;t like intel pricing but if it can give me muti cores with higher clock speed the extra even if it does cost an arm and a leg.

Bully>WHoever said you had to mount it inside the case I have my ek predator on top of my case outside as I didn;t want to remove the back fan to accomodate it I built a one off PC for thrash. I used a phanteks Pro M tempered galss case which was very reasonably priced and had quite a few features for the money.

And if you plan to overclock and change your case at a later dat I woulkd advide against eitehr the nzxt or corsair. Just buy a decent air cooler which are significantly cheaper and at a later date get the cooler you desire.

One thing I should mention about either the nzxt or corsair coolers. they will use their own proprietary software. I cannot stand the corsair software. And the Nzxt is hit and miss.

Also with the gskill ram rgb there is currently a beta software but I couldn;t get it to work so there is no actual way to set lighting effects or static colour. Just something to bear in mid for the time being.

Which reminds me I need a new case for for a skylake x build...

Thanks mate, well it's all here except for the ram. I didn't go with the rgb stuff , and I went with the Corsair heat sink.

I have that too! Will post the pic soon.

Cable management is a little `so so`.
May get some black & red braided extensions at some point, no point with no window in the case just yet.
Redders, where can i get a cpu power 2 cable? I`ve had a look but i`m not 100% sure what i`m looking for It`s an extra 4 pin plug at the top of the mobo.

Okay maybe it just me but have you got your fans facing the wrong way....

So your front fan is blowing air out and so is the top one which means no cool air is coming into the case unless your corsair fan is....

James>More than likely the 7920x. I wouldn't mind going for thte top end butt I have seen something I want more than that and that is the Dell 4k Oled. As much as I love ultrawide and the gsync 100hz with IPS. Oled is far in clarity. Like yourself I have used IPS for many years and I do belive in my opinion it is now dead tech as they can't perfect in that time.

I rather spend more money investing Oled monitors than IPS. I have an 4k Oled TV and the clarity and the black levels are simply far beyond what any good ips monitor can achieve. Sure that comparing Apples to Oranges but the technology will apply to Oled monitors as well.

THe loss of Gsync and the 100hz rate is a downside but it never was a 'I can;t live without it' sceanario.

Front fan blowing in, top fan extracting & rad fan extracting. May change that, or add the 2nd fan as push/pull.

are you sure? its just fans normally flow air from the brand sticker side and over the "frame", so the frame of the fan should be visible on the front fan if it's performing as an intake.

Well I jumped on Ryzen as I always hated having to go Intel and Nvidia. I got a Ryzen 5 1600 with some 3200ram running at 2966 and went to a RX 580 8GB to go with my Freesync 144Hz monitor which was way less than the GSync version. I'm over the moon with performance on the CPU and almost all gamers will be happy, only the elite tier ones like you Redders really should go Intel, for me the performance for price gains just really aren't justifiable. I picked up a Z170 board to go with my celeron for a crypto mining rig and I wasn't very impressed tbh, same rrp price as my X370 and it's really lacking but I managed to get it for a third of its retail and I only need the PCI-e slots, but if I was putting a decent chip in it I'd be a little let down. The 580 has been decent, but I actually quite like the 480 I've got for my mining rigs.

I'll check the fans out over the weekend, I started questioning myself over which way around the are after I answered your reply about them.

Bully>You have them the wrong way round. You have the front fan exhausting and the top fan exhausting as well.

Sexy>I don't want people to get the wrong idea I actually love Ryzen for what it is. ANd I am totally with you on the price per performance. The only problem is with ANY price per performance item it only goes so far. Whether it hi fi, cars etc to a certain level it will beat and in many cases match the very best. It then gets to the point where it has to go against the very best and this where I find these price per performance falls short. And it the gap between this and the very so called best that I feel myself wanting.

James>Burn in shouldnt; be much of any issue with modern OLEDS. I have my taskbar on autohide so I never see it. Most Oleds these days have a certain feature to protect against permanent burn in. On my LG Oled tv it has pixel shift and also a feature when you turn it off it does some technical wizardry.

I have 3x34 inch ultrawides So going to one 30inch and 1 34 inch ultrawide will be fine for me. I don;t know if you have a console but have you ever seen a ps4pro or xbox one S running on a 4k oled hdr tv? When I first bought my TV which at that time cost about 2.8k I thought I made a serious mistake I could of gotten the Samsung ks9000 which was 1k cheaper and had better response times. The lack of 4k content let alone HDR content was sparce to say the least and I don;t consider youtube 4k content as serious consideration to show off what the TV can do due to the compression that Youtube has. I even thought about selling it as I just wasn't overtly impressed considering the cost factor.

Enter 1 Ps4 pro. It not so much the 4k resolution that impresses me even though as many will know it not true 4k. It the HDR which for me makes a big difference. Yes the Oled is nice with a very black levels and visual acuity but when the HDR kicks in that when I thought this was amazing. It kind of similar when people switch from a TN panel to an IPS screen. On certain games you can compare non HDR with HDR in some games it a subtle difference but on games like Horizon zero dawn which in my opinion is the best case so far for a HDR setup it totally different. the game plays the same, sounds the same but the HDR just takes it to a whole new level.

I think the best way I can describe it as it adds another level of immerison. HDR doesn't make a bad game better but it can add another level of enjoyment if it already a good game.

Everything just seem washed out and drab with out it. I will not be spending any more money on IPS. It Oled or nothing from now on regardless if it cost more than IPS. I think the problem with you and I is we have been using IPS for so long we got use to ips glow and backlight bleed as there was nothing better until now.