I was going to write this in its own thread but it seems more appropriate to put it here. I've upgraded and replaced most of the parts on this PC as necessary and have reached the limits on what I can get out of what is in effect an 8-year old PC. The only completely original parts remaining on the outside are the case, speakers, mouse and mousepad. The latter two of which are looking very well-worn.
Inside, the MOBO and CPU are same as when I fitted them- the RAM is a bit newer but still 6 years old, though it does have 24GB. And because it's DDR3 it can't be used in a DDR4 board it too will be replaced.
My research has narrowed my options to the Z370 Intel chipset with a Coffee-lake CPU, and choosing between Asus and Gigabyte boards. Interestingly, for the same chipset the top-end Gig (Aorus Gaming 7) costs the same as the bottom-of-top drawer Asus Maximus Code at £230 , while the very best Asus (Formula) goes for £380.
With the upcoming release of the Z390 chipset it would seem to be a bad idea to invest in any of the really expensive boards right now since their value is bound to plummet once the new chipset arrives.
I have managed to nail down my criteria for the boards so far by two criteria:
- Most basically, the form factor must be ATX since that's the industry standard and easiest to build around.
- The board must support Nvidia's SLI. I already have a beefy PSU that I got in anticipation of running multiple cards, and having done it once I'd like to have the option of going down that road again.
For Gigabyte that narrows my choices down to four from the Z370 chipset: There's the Gaming 7, Gaming 5 and Ultra Gaming 2.0 (AORUS), and lastly the XP SLI. The Gaming 5 and 7 are virtually identical save for the 7 has an ESS9018Q2C audio chip, and 1 x Rivet Networks Killer™ E2500 LAN chip, in addition to the conventional network port. There’s a £25 price difference between the two.
Far as I can tell, the Ultra 2.0 and the SLI are also very similar, being within £15 of one another. The only real difference I can see between the two Gigabyte groups is that the more expensive ones have two M.2 connectors instead of one.
For Asus it's more complex & expensive; their top ROG Maximus X line (for overclocking), in decreasing price order is the Formula, Code and then Hero. I can't see the case for buying any of these- if I'm going to shell out for even the cheapest of those for the same money I could have the top Gigabyte option.
Seeing as I don't plan on overclocking that hard, if I get any ASUS board it’s more likely going to come from their STRIX lineup, where my options are the E, F and H.
Far as I can tell, the E and F are virtually identical except that the £5 price difference nets the E wi-fi. And despite costing £30 less, the only downside the H has compared to the other two is that it has one fewer PCI-E x1 slot. As the position of the slot is such that it would be blocked-off anyway by the double-width Nvidia card this makes exactly zero difference. Same story with wi-fi- it’s something I neither need or want on a desktop PC.
So far then, it looks like the Asus STRIX-H is the winner, available from both outlets (Ebuyer and Overclockers) that I’m looking at for virtually the same price. But it doesn’t end there, because there’s a complication. Two words: Intel Optane.
See, Gigabyte offer their boards in two flavours (Asus does not)- with the 32GB preinstalled and without. Except this applies to only the G7 and Ultra 2.0, not the G5 or SLI. This poses several problems:
- Wbuyer offers both versions, Overclockers only offer without.
- Rhe versions including Optane cost about £35 more than without.
- Overclockers’ price for the 32GB module on its own is £90. From Ebuyer, it’s £55.
So if I want the best deal on the optane I have to go via Ebuyer, unless their prices rise while I’m doing my research.
I have three options:
Gaming 7 OP: £255 (£225 w/o)
Ultra Gaming 2.0 OP: £187 (£150 w/o)
Asus Strix 370H: £160, with separate OP £215.
CPU options are relatively straightforward, the 8700K comes in 2 flavours, both outlets have them for much the same price so no drama there.
After doing some more research I'm leaning towards the Asus ROG Strix Z370-H above the other two, with a 3.2 GHz 8700K Coffee Lake CPU (£50 less than the 3.7GHz one). Also, the price of the H is less than half that of the top-end X-Formula.
For RAM I'll be going with a Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 kit, speed will be between 3-3.2 GHz. I've read that beyond 2,600MHz you don't really notice any increase in performance- the kits I'm looking at are around the £200 price range, give or take.
Now I've worked out the basics I've stumbled across an unexpected problem- what cooler to use for the CPU. I won't be overclocking too hard but I feel a coffee-lake setup is worth more than the stock cooler. Turns out the price of the thing is only part of the problem, but the available space inside the existing case, an Antec Nine Hundred Two.
Using a ruler I measured the space between the board and the side panel and got a clearance of 17.5 cm. The side panel has a 12cm diameter intake fan which thanks to its mounting position partly hovers over where the CPU cooler would be, because the fan is 2.5cm thick that reduces the available space to 15 cm. So any cooler has to be 15cm or less, so any larger coolers would mean removing the case fan.
Even once I've decided what cooler to use there are two reasons why I'm not going ahead with this build yet:
First, the current setup seems to have stopped misbehaving with random freezes after startup, which was one of the motivating factors for this upgrade. If it starts playing up again though, I'll press on!
Second, although long-obsolete now the existing motherboard was the absolute top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art when I bought it and I'm not ready to part with it yet!
Link.