PC Rig - Let's Share Specs & Peripherals For Community Reference

General Discussion
1

Hello Everyone, I was inspired by a reply to Egg by Osho about keeping hardware related threads for future reference (if one actually use the “search” function).

i realised that there had been some threads asking for PC hardware advice such as:
1.General advice for building a PC
2.What GPU should i buy
3.What monitor should i get
4.Which PC peripheral is good

and i will add in a 5th question which is often unasked, what settings should i use to achieve a high number of Frame per Seconds (fps).

I think that all these answers can be easily answered if one sees the PC hardware, specs and settings which most of the community is using.

Also, if someone has a question about a particular brand of gaming peripheral, say, Roccat and sees in this thread that some is using a Roccat mouse or a Corsair keyboard that they intend to buy, they can ask the owner who posted a direct question and others can chip in.

This is the case for the users at a hardware forum which i have been a member of since 2006 when i built my first PC. So i hope that by creating this thread and constantly have people contribute and it would be useful as a point of reference for the community.

My set up and specs:
(I have embedded hyperlinks to the parts if additional reference is necessary)
Operating System: Window 10 Home 64-bit
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77-LGA1155 G1.Sniper3
CPU: Intel i7-3770k @ 4GHz
RAM: 16GB (4x4gb) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600MHz @ CL 9
GPU: Leadtek GTX 1080 Hurricane
PSU: Seasonic 860w Modular Power Supply Unit (platinum rated)
HDD (OS + Final Fantasy XIV only): Crucial M4 128GB SSD
HDD (games inc. OW) : Western Digital Black 7200rpm-32MB cache 1TB (WD1001FALS-00E8B0)
Monitor 1: Dell U2715H (i was using this to play OW until 2018.09.16)
Monitor 2: Acer Predator X34P (just received and set up on 2018.09.16)
Sound Card: Auzentech X-Fi Prelude
Speakers: Razer Nommo 2.0 (non-Chroma)
Headset: Razer Thresher
Input Devices (Keyboard): SteelSeries 6Gv2 (Black switches) + Razer Orbweaver (Orange switches)
Input Devices (Mouse): Razer Deathadder Chroma (not elite version) + Razer Basilisk (just trying for fun) + Razer Naga (2014)

Dell U2715H FPS is constant at 60fps (i doubt anyone is interested in the settings)

Acer Predator X34P
FPS Avg: ~120-122
FPS Max recorded: 131
FPS Min. recorded: 97
Settings:
Reso: 3440 x 1440 (120)
Field of View: 103
Aspect Ratio: 21:9
VSYNC: OFF
Triple Buffering: ON
Reduce Buffering: OFF
Display Performance Stats: ON (for GPU monitoring, FPS & Latency)
Display System Clock: ON
Limit FPS: Display-Based
Graphics Quality: High
Advanced Graphics Options:
Render Scale: 100%
Texture Quality: HIGH
Texture Filtering Quality: EPIC-16x
Local Fog Detail: LOW
Dynamic Reflections: LOW
Shadow Detail: OFF
Model Detail: ULTRA
Effects Detail: High
Lighting Quality: High
Antialias Quality: Ultra - SMAA High
Refraction Quality: Medium
Screenshot Quality: 9x Resolution
Local Reflections: ON
Ambient Occlusion: ON

I am still trying to tweak the settings to achieve a constant 120fps and more with no drops below 120 at 100% Render Scale.
However, if i dial down the Render Scale to 75%, 120fps is constant with Ultra settings i.e. everything maxed out.

To be frank, i had only just bought the GTX 1080 yesterday, 2018.09.18 and prior to that, i was using a Gigabyte GTX 970 and i was able to achieve an average of ~115-122 fps on the Acer X34P at Render Scale 75% and on Medium to High settings.

I hope that this post had been useful and community Overwatchers, please do feel free to share, comment and assist everyone.

Always have fun and remember, it is only a Loss if you had not Gained knowledge for the next Win. =D

Edit: Adding a link to headsets recommendation thread for the future reference of the community

5 Likes
2

tks for sharing. ima just started playing OW and this is quite helpful!

1 Like
3

I don’t really think you need to go into such detail when helping people out with their PC purchases, as long as you can help people prioritize correctly.

You don’t really the newest or best CPU. Most games are single-core so the single-core clockspeed is more important than the number of cores etc. So, check the clock frequency as well as the boost frequency. I game on a 5 year old CPU and it works absolutely fine.

Graphicscards are important and is pretty much the only part I actually switch out from time to time to stay up to date with current game titles. If you are running a multi-monitor setup you probably want to get a card with some memory too, or if you like to have high resolution textures (highest graphical details) when you game.

Memory: 16 Gb or more
HD: SSD or M2 disk
Cooling: if you go for fans, then go big diameter and a big heatsink for the CPU. Noctua is usually a good bet, but other brands work fine too
Power supply: Don’t skimp on quality. Don’t get a powersupply that is too weak either.

Everything else is kind of up to flavor and feel I guess.

1 Like
4

Thanks for contributing, Qwazi.

Me going into details is just who and what i am and this is a hold over from my days contributing to a local hardware clinic whereby we are as specific as possible when it comes to technical stuff.

In the past few months, i have actually passed the above mentioned rig to my daughter now and have built a new rig with a Z390 motherboard + i7-8700K @ 4.5ghz, RTX 2080.

2 Likes
5

I run everything @ low except Hero Models and AA I think, capped my FPS at 150.

i7 8700K stock clock
16GB 3000MHZ
Asus Rog Strix GTX 1080Ti
Samsung Evo 850 SSD

2 Likes
6

Thanks for contributing, Deatheye.
Yes, this post is exactly what i was hoping to achieve with the thread.

Based on your CPU and GPU, i think that you may be able to run things just a tad higher? The GTX 1080 Ti is definitely no slouch. What monitor resolution are you running?

2 Likes
7

I keep the effects low to have a better sight on enemies and what’s actually happening on the battlefield :slight_smile:

1080p and 144Hz, Asus something.

2 Likes
8

Well, my quick stats are:

Intel Core i7 4770K
16 Gb DDR3 RAM
Samsung EVO 850 1 Tb SSD
Other HDs: WD Red: 8 Tb, WD Red+: 6 Tb, WD Green 3 Tb
MSI Twin Frozr GTX 1070 Gaming

I guess I will upgrade CPU when the motherboard it’s on no longer supports the new graphicscard I want to put in it. The current one already does not support enough PCI lanes for the GTX 1070 I think, but it’s not capped by much so I let it slide.

2 Likes
9

Also, on the topic of mechanical HDs. I run my computer 24/7 as I don’t really believe in turning computers off (they only break after having been turned off for some reason :slight_smile: ). I’ve gone through a few HDs over the past 20 years and I’ve tried different brands. My experiences are as follows:

Samsung drives: When they go they just stop working… They last for a long time, but give little to no warning before they break.

Seagate: Ughn, horrible drives when they are getting worn out. Towards the end they lock up and you kind of have to wait for them to timeout. You kind of have hope of getting data off them because from time to time you can see the content, but it’ll take forever to copy any substantial info from them. I think if you had a controller that just ignored errors and stepped over them it’d work but you’d lose some data.

I used to have IBM Deskstar disks too once upon a time, and the two I had just stopped working one day.

My Western Digital disks, of which I have had several, works for a great long time. I’ve enjoyed the green series (which is now the blue series) a lot because the don’t spin when they are not in use so they don’t wear out as quickly. When they are about to stop working though the get slower and slower, so there is plenty of warning before they break. I’ve never had a western digital disk completely break on me to the point where I could not get the data off of it first, but I’ve had Samsung, Seagate, and IBM disks completely stop working…

so, for all my mechanical disks I use Western Digital disks now. I use the red series (NAS disks), though gold or black would work too, since my computer runs 24/7.

2 Likes
10

Thanks for the reply, Deatheye!

This is interesting, keep all details low so that high detail models will stand out…
Because for sure, if you are gaming at 1080p, the GTX 1080 Ti can definitely give you at least 150 fps because i used to run, on my old rig, 1440p + GTX 1080.

This really is something new, definitely noteworthy especially given your SR.
This old man learnt something new today! =)

2 Likes
11

Thanks for the reply, Qwazi.

I love the rig summary and especially your very detailed take on the various HDDs. I have the same experience with Seagate HDDs and until now, my longest lasting HDD is a WD Black.

That said, i have gone the NVMe route for my new rig. Working at the moment, when i have the time, maybe i will update the current rig’s specs as well as in game video settings and fps. It would be the first time logging into OW and testing the new rig for me (have not played in over 2 months… =(

If you are concerned about bottlenecking, you can check this out.

Unless you intend to go SLi, the PCI lanes should be enough. Unless you are talking about the bandwidth, even then, not much bottlenecking there as well, as you mentioned.

2 Likes