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Titan X(P) build for VR?

Post Date: 2016-09-19
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kwx View Drop Down
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Posts: 14 		  Quote kwx Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Titan X(P) build for VR?
    Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 5:33pm
Budget:
$4000 for PC only, preferably less (I already have peripherals including monitor etc, plus a couple of SATA HDDs for extra storage)

Expectations:

I'm looking into a new PC for VR gaming (HTC Vive) that's capable of aggressive supersampling since that significantly improves image quality. For background, the headset runs at 2160x1200@90Hz natively, but due to lens distortion the images get rendered at higher resolution, by default 1512x1680 per eye. Adding 1.5x supersampling ends up with 4536x2520, and at 2x it would be 6048x3360. It's important to maintain 90fps consistently since dropped frames are very obvious and unpleasant, so this can get a bit taxing on a GPU...

I'm currently thinking about a watercooled Titan X Pascal to get the best possible single-GPU performance. (SLI support for VR is near-nonexistent).

CPU should be less critical since AFAIK cranking up the resolution shouldn't have a significant effect on CPU load if keeping graphics detail settings the same.

Special needs:

- high and consistent single-GPU performance. The Titan X Pascal apparently benefits a lot from water cooling even without overclocking due to severe thermal throttling with the stock blower cooler. But damn it's expensive.

- reasonable noise levels (doesn't need to be super quiet, but don't want a jet engine that drowns out headphone audio)

- not too heavy (I sometimes move the system, and doing demos with a steel full-size tower case got annoying)

- moderate overclock (priority is keeping it stable, with voltages at a level where the power usage doesn't get unreasonable)

My questions are:

- does this build look reasonable? I'm a bit confused by Intel's current CPU landscape, is a 6700k still a recommended version? Single-core performance is more important than lots of cores.

- any recommendations for RAM and mainboards? Not sure how much benefit there is for overclocking memory. Low latency for handling peripherals would be a plus.

- is a 750W PSU sufficient? Ballpark I think it uses ~300W for an overclocked Titan X and up to ~150W max for an overclocked 6700k, the rest should be minor. I'm not planning on adding a second GPU.

- silly question since I'm new to liquid cooling. Is the colored cooling liquid reasonably easy to clean in case of mishaps? Wouldn't want a leak to permanently stain a carpet or car seat. I guess I could go with clear liquid, but that doesn't look as cool.

- is this totally overdoing things? I guess a GTX 1080 based build without the fancy water cooling would cost half as much. Hoping to get about an extra 30% GPU performance out of it, but it wouldn't be worth it for just +10%.

Comments welcomed!


Saved Ticket #: 1492314

Specifications:
Total Price with Instant Savings: $3,799.00

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Digital Storm Coridium
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0GHz (Codename Skylake) (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-E (Intel Z170 Chipset) (Up to 4x PCI-E Devices)
System Memory: 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series
Power Supply: 750W EVGA SuperNOVA
Expansion Bay: Option Not Available
Optical Drive: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 8x / CD-Writer 8x) (Internal)
Storage Set 1: 1x SSD (1TB Samsung 850 EVO)
Storage Set 2: - No Thanks
Storage Set 3: - No Thanks
RAID Config: - No Thanks
RAID Card: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Graphics Card(s): 1x GeForce GTX TITAN X 12GB (Pascal) (NVIDIA Founders Edition) (VR Ready)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
HPC Processor: - No Thanks
Extreme Cooling: H20: HydroLux LITE: Integrated Cooling System (1x Graphics Card + CPU)
HydroLux Tubing Style: Flexible Tubing (Requires HydroLux Liquid Cooling System)
HydroLux Fluid Color: Green Fluid (Requires HydroLux Liquid Cooling System)
Cable Management: Premium Cable Management (Strategically Routed & Organized for Airflow)
Chassis Fans: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Airflow Control: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock CPU - Up to 4.4GHz (Depends on Cooling and Motherboard)
Boost Graphics Card(s): Yes, Overclock the video card(s) as much as possible with complete stability
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows CD)
Virus Protection: FREE: McAfee AntiVirus Plus (1 Year Service Activation Card) (Not Pre-installed) ($35 Value)
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
Branded Gear: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty (3 Year Labor & 1 Year Part Replacement)


Edited by kwx - 19 Sep 2016 at 5:35pm
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Posts: 14 		  Quote kwx Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 5:44pm
Forgot to add, I was initially thinking about waiting to see if a 1080 Ti is going to show up in the near future, but my current PC (GTX 980 + Intel 4790k) just kicked the bucket. I don't want to spend months without a gaming machine, but would be willing to wait for a custom build since disassembling a $1200 GPU for watercooling is way outside my comfort zone. I'd be happy to leave that to people who know what they're doing and are willing to offer a warranty on the result :-)
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DST4ME View Drop Down
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 5:51pm
From what I understand as of right now a single 1080 can handle all but 2 games out there but I can understand that we are not sure what kind of future and requierments vr needs.

So if you want to go titan that is fine.

you got the right parts, I would go with 950 pro m.2 drive, corsair ram, I think you will find this case somewhat heavy don't ask me how many lbs I don't know.


Liquid leak can short many of your parts starting wtih the mobo, depending, the liquid is non conductive however as soon as its out or hits lite dust it becomes conductive. In short with a leak the least of your problems are your carpet. But for the carpet try some carpet cleaner with oxyclean inside and it should get rid of your spot.


Bit of info:

1. Do not install Mcafee , instead get a lighter better anti virus like ESET ( number 3 on the list ) Or any other good light Anti Virus will do.



2. The warranty here is 3 year labor and 1 year parts so if you want higher part warranty be sure to raise the warranty level to the desired level.



Edited by DST4ME - 19 Sep 2016 at 5:54pm

Nvidia Drivers----AMD Drivers
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 5:55pm
Originally posted by kwx

Forgot to add, I was initially thinking about waiting to see if a 1080 Ti is going to show up in the near future, but my current PC (GTX 980 + Intel 4790k) just kicked the bucket. I don't want to spend months without a gaming machine, but would be willing to wait for a custom build since disassembling a $1200 GPU for watercooling is way outside my comfort zone. I'd be happy to leave that to people who know what they're doing and are willing to offer a warranty on the result :-)


Are you saying your old gtx 980 is lced and you don't want to mess with it?

what is the problem with your old pc?

Nvidia Drivers----AMD Drivers
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Posts: 14 		  Quote kwx Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 6:07pm
dst4me, thanks for the feedback.

Yes, a single 1080 can run everything at standard settings, but SteamVR has a setting to crank up supersampling beyond what the application would normally do, and this makes things a lot sharper at the cost of a quadratic increase in GPU rendering cost. I'm not allowed to post links, see a search for "steamvr supersampling comparison images" if you want to see examples. I know a Titan isn't strictly necessary, but it's very tempting.

I was thinking about the 950 pro m.2 drive, but was assuming it's a lot more expensive. Turns out the 512G m.2 is about the same price as the 1T 850 pro. Since I have other drives for spare capacity, it's probably worth taking a smaller SSD for extra performance. Will switch to that and Corsair RAM.

Thanks for the McAfee warning, wasn't planning on actually activating that but didn't see an option to skip it in the configurator.

For the warranty, the default seems plenty good enough. I'm mainly wanting assurance that it'll work right when I get it, which wouldn't be the case if I were to assemble it myself. I've been building my own PCs long enough to know my limits.
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Posts: 14 		  Quote kwx Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 6:23pm
Originally posted by DST4ME

Originally posted by kwx

Forgot to add, I was initially thinking about waiting to see if a 1080 Ti is going to show up in the near future, but my current PC (GTX 980 + Intel 4790k) just kicked the bucket. I don't want to spend months without a gaming machine, but would be willing to wait for a custom build since disassembling a $1200 GPU for watercooling is way outside my comfort zone. I'd be happy to leave that to people who know what they're doing and are willing to offer a warranty on the result :-)


Are you saying your old gtx 980 is lced and you don't want to mess with it?

what is the problem with your old pc?


My old PC has been driving me crazy. Long rant ahead, feel free to skip it since it's a bit off-topic.

It was running great for almost two years in the current configuration, but recently started randomly crashing, including instantly hard-rebooting when I launch the Intel XTU benchmark at default clocks. Temperatures and voltages all looked normal according to various monitoring tools I've tried. Also, and not sure if it's related, I've been getting tons of dropped frames in VR even at lowest graphics settings, with both CPU and GPU showing only moderate utilization, just unexplained "late start" in the frame timing graphs.

I was suspecting the power supply and switched to an older power supply, that ended up in a hard-reboot loop which seemed to be related to connecting the SSD (Samsung 850 evo). I switched back to the original power supply, and now that also instantly crashes when I attach the SSD which it hadn't done previously. I was able to boot off a different drive and ran a memtest which worked ok. Haven't been able to get it booting normally since then, though I did see the SSD showing up again in the boot menu at some point.

I've tried isolating components, but the results have been frustratingly inconsistent. I even moved my GPU to an older PC which shared no components with my current one, since I did that the old PC is also spontaneously hard resetting itself. I tried replacing the BIOS backup battery in it with no effect, the one on my current PC still reads >3V.

At this point I'm suspecting that I may have a defective component (the GPU or hard drive?) which ends up damaging other components such as the mainboard when I move them, so I'm getting paranoid about replacing components piecemeal in an attempt to fix this.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 6:25pm
True with the warranty but keep in mind you are again getting a gpu with water block that you don't want to work with, so if after the first year something goes wrong you are on your own.

Just something to think about, if you are good with one year warranty then go for it.

thank you for the info on vr I will have to look it up.

Maybe you can request DS to not even bother with mcafee, they don't install it to begin with you would have to install it.

Nvidia Drivers----AMD Drivers
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Posts: 14 		  Quote kwx Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 6:36pm
Originally posted by DST4ME

True with the warranty but keep in mind you are again getting a gpu with water block that you don't want to work with, so if after the first year something goes wrong you are on your own.


I think I can deal with routine maintenance, but wouldn't want to do the initial install after seeing the cooler manual's reminders that "chip dies are prone to cracking". I already have enough trouble getting thermal paste applied evenly on a standard cooler.

Originally posted by DST4ME

thank you for the info on vr I will have to look it up.


You should, IMHO this is the most compelling current use case for powerful GPUs. Especially roomscale VR with the HTC Vive. Try to find a demo to check it out, for example a Microsoft store or local VR enthusiast meetup.

Bonus demo why VR is cool:


Edited by kwx - 19 Sep 2016 at 6:46pm
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Sep 2016 at 9:26pm
You tighten any wb on a cpu too tight and something will crack.

Thanks will do

Edited by DST4ME - 19 Sep 2016 at 10:56pm

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Posts: 14 		  Quote kwx Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 31 Oct 2016 at 11:26am
My shiny new system arrived, here's a quick review with initial impressions:

http://www.digitalstorm.com/forums/review-watercooled-titan-xp-6700k-tidf28997-pnf1/#310228

Short version: it rocks :-)

Edited by kwx - 31 Oct 2016 at 11:26am
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