Hi all, I would like to pick your brains and ask for your opinions when it comes to building a platform (MB, CPU,RAM) for testing / messing around with older gen GPU's. Essentially to give a bit of a back story, I recently built a Core 2 Quad extreme setup with this very view, but ultimately found it lacking for my specific requirements. Essentially despite convincing myself that I only wanted to test older GPU's (Pre Kepler era), I ended up spending most of my time trying to get my damn Titan to play ball with it. Why you ask? Well, why not... Anyhoo this leads me on to my current build conundrum. Basically I want a platform that can be used for testing older cards (potentially in more than 2 way multi GPU scenarios) whilst also being gutsy enough for more modern applications (think GTX 690 SLI vs 1080Ti in Destiny 2 just for the laugh factor..). I think I have narrowed down my choice to something along the lines of Intel's HEDT X79 or X99 platform or AMD's latest and greatest Ryzen platform. Both platforms have positives and negatives and both offer 6+ cores along with comparable CPU performance across a broad spectrum of games. Assuming the price and board layout works (PCI-e specifically) I would also consider something from Intels pre Skylake range (although once price is factored in Ryzen often ends up looking more attractive). I have a budget of around £300 which needs to include the CPU, Motherboard and RAM. At the moment my head is saying go with the 2600/X370/8GB RAM bundle that Overclockers are doing for £329. It will offer up the CPU performance I want along with enough PCI-e for all but the most extreme of setups (for some reason GTX 480 in Tri SLI is something I really want to experience / test). However, my heart is saying get the HEDT based system specifically to allow the option of the extreme / stupid setups (plus do all the sensible / boring stuff just as well). There is also the pull to try something new (I never owned anything from the HEDT range since my original X58 / 920 build). So opening the floor to you guys, what do you think? With £300 what would you buy to fulfil the requirements I have? Also as a note, I have a X2 4400+ based system with meets my needs to older XP era stuff.
Those requirements are way too high for £300. That OCUK bundle will absolutely not net you what the CPU is capable of. You need fast and tight RAM to make Ryzen shine. It’s a must.
Edit following coffee: Just to confirm that bundle was just an example of what I could get brand new for around the same money as a x99 based platform (mb from eBay, cpu from CeX and ram from either eBay or gumtree). If I was to go Ryzen I would probably look at a used cpu, new mb and faster RAM. Ultimately apart from messing about with my 1080ti the system will be used for older cards which predate x99 being the top dog.
Found my solution: Decently priced bundle found locally: Gigabyte Aorus Gaming K7 MB Ryzen 7 1800X 16GB (2x8) Corsair Vengeance RGB 3000Mhz memory Got a lot of different tests and reviews planned now I am very interested specifically to test Ryzen memory scaling on both the 1800X and the 2700X along with a complete comparison of a 1080Ti @ 1440p 120/144hz using a 8700k vs 1800x vs 2700x (stock and OC). This is all on top of messing about and testing a plethora of older GPU's and stupid stuff (the aforementioned GTX690 in SLI). Now I just have to put together my test bench in uber ghetto fashion as I haven't decided what bench / case to get yet:
