Been out of the game for a few years and need advice on a new computer build ground up

[Hood]

Hi all need advice on the bests parts to buy for a top gaming machine but within a $3000 to $3500 Pc build

i would like to use the PC for everyday use and gaming.

If you build now, in a couple months your "top gaming system" will be yesterday's news, with 2-year-old parts. Much better to wait for the soldered 8 core Intel i9-9900K and the NVIDIA GTX 1180 later this year, especially since you have a new gaming laptop to play with while waiting. No AMD parts should have come into this discussion, except possibly as a cautionary tale on what to avoid in a "top gaming system" with a $3500 budget. Multiple monitors and video cards are mostly a thing of the past. One decent 4k 34" monitor is ideal, and can be driven by one card (with good specs, once the 1180 is released). Waiting will also give you time to familiarize yourself with the state of PC gaming in 2018, and clear your head of old-school parameters that are no longer relevant (everything has changed a lot). But don't take anyone's word for it, use your time to do the research necessary for making an intelligent decision. Beware of fake news, fake reviews, false advertising, and fake forum posts - all have become rampant in the last few years - meaning it's much harder now to come to the right conclusions about hardware. You have your work cut out for you, and having a high budget only makes it harder, if you want to avoid wasting money.

 

[Frick]

But don't take anyone's word for it, use your time to do the research necessary for making an intelligent decision. Beware of fake news, fake reviews, false advertising, and fake forum posts - all have become rampant in the last few years - meaning it's much harder now to come to the right conclusions about hardware. You have your work cut out for you, and having a high budget only makes it harder, if you want to avoid wasting money.

I agree, but you make it sound difficult, which it totally is not. Honestly I don't get the controversies popping up about ... everything really. You basically just have to look at charts on reputable sites to know what to get, almost no reading required, at least not when you don't have to compromise. Buy what makes the highest numbers.

Storage don't matter much, unless he plans on shoveling large amounts of data back and forth on a regular basis. PSU don't matter as long as he gets something with a 10 year warranty and a quality fan and enough wattage to drive whatever he wants to drive. RAM ain't hard. Motherboards is a bit more involved, but in the end they all have the important stuff and you can almost base your purchase on their looks. Ditto with RAM. VRMs and the cooling of them will come into play if he plans on some serious overclocking, but that is essentially the only thing he needs to worry about. Cases can be worth thinking about if you plan on adding more storage later (as many cases only can hold two 3.5" drives), but he already has a case.

Monitors now, there is where there's fun to be had these days.

AMD entered the discussion because for some - probably sane - reason the OP gamed on a Bulldozer server chip; it threw people off i think.

 

[Hood]

I agree, but you make it sound difficult, which it totally is not. Honestly I don't get the controversies popping up about ... everything really. You basically just have to look at charts on reputable sites to know what to get, almost no reading required, at least not when you don't have to compromise. Buy what makes the highest numbers.

Storage don't matter much, unless he plans on shoveling large amounts of data back and forth on a regular basis. PSU don't matter as long as he gets something with a 10 year warranty and a quality fan and enough wattage to drive whatever he wants to drive. RAM ain't hard. Motherboards is a bit more involved, but in the end they all have the important stuff and you can almost base your purchase on their looks. Ditto with RAM. VRMs and the cooling of them will come into play if he plans on some serious overclocking, but that is essentially the only thing he needs to worry about. Cases can be worth thinking about if you plan on adding more storage later (as many cases only can hold two 3.5" drives), but he already has a case.

Monitors now, there is where there's fun to be had these days.

AMD entered the discussion because for some - probably sane - reason the OP gamed on a Bulldozer server chip; it threw people off i think.

I was thinking, not that it's difficult, but that so much conflicting info is being bandied about that it's hard to know what to believe, unless you've been following hardware trends in the last few years. It can be confusing, and going by his title, the OP really needs the advice, because he's "been out of the game a few years". It's his decision, and to make an informed decision, there's a lot vetting of info involved, determining what's real and relevant from the much larger pile of fake "conclusions" espoused by shills, fanboys, admen, and trolls. Most of us do this without having to give it much thought, if we're not purveyors of that larger pile.
We know that Ryzen is better than anything AMD has come out with in a decade, We can all figure out all by ourselves, that a lot of cores can do more work than fewer cores. We've all been told endlessly how the next iteration of Ryzen, or maybe the one after that, would be where they finally surpass Intel (and some talk about that one like it's a fact, as if they are a fortune teller). Also the longevity of present motherboard sockets is speculative, not fact. We hear all these things every day, but even so they couldn't leave it alone in this thread.
One thing clear to me is that this kind of post should only be answered by those who really want to help the OP, and not by anyone up on a soapbox, hawking their agenda. I mean, give it a break sometimes, it's inappropriate in a thread like this.
TLDR - Top gaming system + $3000 budget = Intel system, don't confuse OP with wrong info or irrelevant idle speculation.

 

[lexluthermiester]

We've all been told endlessly how the next iteration of Ryzen, or maybe the one after that, would be where they finally surpass Intel (and some talk about that one like it's a fact, as if they are a fortune teller).

Incorrect. In many ways AMD surpassed Intel with Ryzen launch. Single core IPC is the only advantage Intel has right now and it is only an advantage with certain types of usage.

TLDR - Top gaming system + $3000 budget = Intel system, don't confuse OP with wrong info or irrelevant idle speculation.

That is a bit narrow focused. Needs some expansion;
Top system for well rounded computing + $3000 budget = Ryzen 2700x + Vega64
Top system for mainly gaming + $3000 budget = Ryzen or i7 + 1080ti
Top system exclusively for gaming + $3000 budget = i7 8086k + 1080ti

What someone does with their system and the priorities they place on certain tasks determine the best hardware to go for. There is no simple answer otherwise the question would have been unneeded.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Incorrect. In many ways AMD surpassed Intel with Ryzen launch. Single core IPC is the only advantage Intel has right now and it is only an advantage with certain types of usage.

That is a bit narrow focused. Needs some expansion;
Top system for well rounded computing + $3000 budget = Ryzen 2700x + Vega64
Top system for mainly gaming + $3000 budget = Ryzen or i7 + 1080ti
Top system exclusively for gaming + $3000 budget = i7 8086k + 1080ti

What someone does with their system and the priorities they place on certain tasks determine the best hardware to go for. There is no simple answer otherwise the question would have been unneeded.

Read the first sentence of the first post.

 

[John Naylor]

1. 32 cores are'nt doing anything for you. It's extremely rare that they use for. By setting affinity to game's exe file, i have yet to see notable improvement with more than 3.

2. Read TPU CPU / GPU reviews....the results are consistent in every price niche. AMD is competing well with Intl in several categories but gaming isn't one of them ,... certainly not in your price range. I mean Ryzen gets close but at your budget, why settle for 5th place behind even the 8400

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_RX_Vega_64/31.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_7_2700X/14.html
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_7_2700X/images/perfrel_2560_1440.png
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_7_2700X/images/assassins-creed-origins_1920_1080.png
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_RX_Vega_64/images/perfrel_2560_1440.png

3. It's hard to spend $3k w/ a 1440p system

4. Can not recommend a Freesync monitor with your budget. The best gaming experience today is on the 165 Hz IPS Monitors from Asus (PG279Q) and Acer (XB271HU). They are both G-Sync monitors. With your budget, the GFX card you use will be a 1080 Ti, tho franhkly, id wait for the 11xx series due out shortly. The reason i can not recommend Freesync is that wiyth your budget, at 1440p, your fps will be well over 60 fps 98% of the time. And when you can maintain > 70 fps, you will want to abandon sync of any kind and use ULMB... G0-Sync monitors have the ability to switch from g-Sync to ULMB which is beneficial when fps ? 70 fps ... Freesync has no such option.

5. No card made today can adequately maintain 60+ fps on multiple 1440p+ screens

6. It woiuld seem that due to a lack of competition w/ AMD from the 1060 on up, nVidia has intentionally nerfed SLI performance. Why ? Cause the only cards hurt by good SLI performance are the 1080 and 1080 Ti. SLI scaling at 1440p is a mere 34% witha 2nd card, at 3 it's often in single digits over 2. Also, 3 cards are not "officially supported" by nVidia

https://www.techpowerup.com/223288/...-way-sli-restricted-to-select-non-gaming-apps

At the launch of the GTX 1080, NVIDIA told the press that it will officially not support 3-way and 4-way SLI for GeForce "Pascal" GPUs, however, it will provide a recourse for enthusiasts, by setting up an "SLI enthusiast key" webpage, from which enthusiasts can obtain a software key that unlocks 3-way and 4-way SLI support using classic bridges. NVIDIA would have merely optimized its drivers up to 2-way SLI, and the odd lucky gamer would be able to take advantage of 3-4 GPUs if a game developer got generous. That's no more to be.

NVIDIA has reportedly removed the entire "software key" process of unlocking 3-way and 4-way SLI support. You should be able to enable SLI for 3-4 GPUs, but only a list of apps selected by NVIDIA will be able to take advantage of >2 GPUs from your setup, for now. These include popular 3D benchmarks such as Unigine Heaven, 3DMark FireStrike, and Catzilla. NVIDIA may expand this list with future driver updates. Older folks will remember the pre b3 stepping problems on P68 MoBos; more recently the pre C stepping on Asus Haswell Boards whereby external devices didn't wake from sleep. More info...

https://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/29
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?51276-Check-your-Motherboard-stepping-please-(USB-Bug)