PC MASTER RACE! I need your wisdom. If you're a programmer type, please help me.

I normally used to do that, but I'm placing it inside this desk that I bought at an estate sale. It's a hardwood (Oak) stained desk that I think was made back in the early 90s. It's beautiful and has a cabinet/closed door shelf for just the PC. The left side of the desk are three drawers where I am storing the flight stick, XBOX controller, Razer gaming pad, etc.

Ventilation issues! It's not going to suck that much air in with the cabinet door closed. 

Yes, thank you. The consensus is definitely i7 and 1080ti which I'm pricing at about $1200 with taxes. If the monitor is 30" is 4K really important? 

Another update! Thank you. No, I hate the sound from RealTek onboard devices. It's so weak and I don't know if it's Windows 10, but I'm done with that. SoundBlaster seems like the go-to-choice. Also, I don't really expect to overclock the system, but the shop will do that if I request it. They will add cooling software because that's part of their services. It's been done on the last three these guys\gals put it together. This rig has four fans. One in the front, two on the side of the case, one in the rear and of course the CPU and GPU have their own. I just pulled the system forward and it's pretty cool, but the bottom fan is warm. I'm going to cut a hole in the desk on the inner side where that fan in particular is facing.

Thank you.

I couldn't do it for $3500.  Especially if you expect to keep it for at least 3 years. 

If trying to keep expenditures to a minimum over time I would invest a top-notch case, power supply, and external pump/radiator solution, external NAS/storage solution.  These are components that you can reuse down the road in your next system. 

CPU, local storage, motherboard, memory.  These things could be made to last 3-4 years.  You are less likely to reuse these components.  You still want to choose components from manufacturers that have good reputations. 

GPU.  Don't know about everyone else but I find that I have to upgrade my GPU about every 18-24 months.  At the moment the 1080ti seems to be the most economical/long-lived solution.  I don't think a 1080 would suffice and I wouldn't spend the money on a Titan Xp. 

MSI is a good brand. Steady, few problems. I've used AMD and Nvidia together with no problems. Just please for the love of little fairies, stay away from ATI. SO much suckage. I also agree with the poster that said buy a decent system now, and it should be good for 3 years, upgrade the video card then, and it'll be good for another 3 years.

I actually did that with my current machine, and it still is running MEA at ultra, with multiple additional programs running, without a hiccup (other than the freaking known issues).


(And sorry to keep harping on this...most of the programmers I know don't even own their own computer, and couldn't tell a CPU from a heatsink lol )

All multi platform games are gonna be bounded by console hardware and almost all PC exclusives are gonna target as many computers as possible so going all out seems like a waste unless you are aiming for 4K or Super duper Ultra settings 1080p for the next 3 years.

I ran Inquisition and Mirror's Edge catalyst with a legacy ATI card on high settings 1080p (had to bypass Origin's hardware check manually) combined with an old intel CPU. had them for 4 years. after that got a RX 480. when Andromeda came out on default settings i got high 60 fps 1080p (didn't test higher settings) with the same CPU. which of course gonna keep using it till it is f***ed which can happen any moment now (*knocking on wood ) since i am fine with 1080p for now i usually go for cost efficient choices and only go out on things like Power supplies, saving the rest of my money for buying other stuff like possibly a console or whatever.

That's my goal. I want 60 fps on a 30" widescreen 1920x1080 and every preset set to Ultra. Thank you!

It's still an i7! Thank you. And hell yeah, it's cheaper. THANK YOU!

Sounds good. We only get two years warranty around here. An i5-7500 should be able to Ultra a lot of things in the coming years, plus it's about 4 grand cheaper around these parts, which might make around 200 dead presidents in the US.

As I said, though, if you demand MOAR POWAR or video processing/something else that might require extensive processing power, the i7 may be what you're after.

Personally, maybe I shouldn't say much. Can't say I haven't been eyeing the i7-7700, but the i5 probably wins the bang for buck ratio with me.


Good point. If you don't clean it, it'll be dusty, performance will drop, and overheating may arise within six to twelve months. They better have the option to bring the PC to them for routine maintenance every now and then. And even then, few things beat getting elbow-deep in a case. Trust me, that's how deep I went last time.

(Haha, that's what she said.)


I'm not talking used i5s, can't really be talking about prices in the US, but that was an example of how processors may live way past their prime. Can my Sandy Bridge compete with a Kabylake? No. But it gets the job done every day and twice on Sunday.

It will also never be a gaming machine without a real GPU (maybe 980s would be a fine budget variant for the 1080, last time I was properly acquainted with GPUs was when I was buying my 770, and you can probably tell that wasn't yesterday) but if you put in a good processor (and for a new PC, I don't think I'd recommend anything below the ix-7x000 stuff, for longevity) you can have a great base, and the only thing you'll do to it for the few coming years is switch the GPU. My i5 has seen at least three GPUs throughout it's service. And two mobo's.

NICE! Yes, I have Roadrunner. I guess i don't need a PS4 with PS Now. Yes!

Nvm, I just read this

"Intel's previous generation i7-4790K and i5-4690K are nearly as fast as Skylake in gaming performance, but they're also the same price as the i5-7600K and i7-7700K. If you have one of these, great, but we wouldn't recommend buying a new LGA1150 part at this time (unless you already have an LGA1150 motherboard and DDR3 memory, or the price is exceptionally attractive)."