Some facts on the CPU: it is currently #67 on PassMark [17,329, single thread 2,909] cpubenchmark.net. It was launched 2018 October. It used 14mm architecture and does not have hyperthreading. Since the “i7-9700”, i.e. non-K, does not exist (and may never exist) this overclock-capable CPU was the choice, and it will never see overclocking. This also meant that the first time in 20+ years, a separate cooler was needed. Gone are the days of buying top-50 CPUs. The #2 i9-9940X comes in with a 28,121 score. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper and Xeon E5 make up the bulk of the CPUs higher on the list.
The video card was a Micro Center refurbished item, and kicked off this entire build. GPU prices and RAM prices have “kind of” recovered at this point – so the system finally got built, after a 10 month delay. The price was $380, plus a $50 2-year protection plan. Currently, new GTX 1080 Founders Edition sells for $620 from 3rd party (“Quick-Ship”), and a GTX 1080 MSI sells for $575 fulfilled by Amazon. Neither Amazon nor Newegg are directly selling 1080s now. The 1080s have been available for ~3 years, the RTX2070s for ~2 months. 1080s sell for $500, 2070s sell for $510, 2080s sell for $750. One benchmark shows the 2080 at #6, the 2070 at #8 , and the 1080 at #12. CUDA cores: 1080=2560, 2070=2304, 2080=2944.
The “old style” Windows Experience Index, with its maximum of 7.9, is not available in Windows 10. The “winstat” application reported a systemscore=9.2, memoryscore=9.3, cpuscore=9.3, videoencodescore=9.9, diskscore=9.2.
To honor the fastest/most expensive video card in the house, a new monitor was purchased. The Dell 1600×1200 Ultrasharp monitors needed a bit of an upgrade. The new Dell 27″ G-Sync cost a bit more money (it looks like about $100 more) because of the G-Sync. It has a 1ms response time, and 170 degree horizontal viewing, with a resolution of 2560×1440. The first purchase from Micro Center had to be returned after 18 days, because 25 thin horizontal white stripes appeared on the right-hand side, from the top to almost the bottom. The second purchase from Best Buy included a 4-year Geek Squad product replacement plan.
All product links are from the actual vendor.
| Item | Product | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7 9700K 3.6Ghz (4.9GHz Turbo) Socket 1151 95W Eight-Core Desktop Eight threads | $400 |
| Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Universal CPU Cooler | $33 |
| RAM | CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300) Memory Kit Model CMK32GX4M2A2666C16 | $240 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi LGA 1151 ATX Intel Motherboard | $160 |
| Power Supply | Corsair CX Series 650 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified Non-Modular Power Supply (CP-9020122-NA) CX650 | $60 |
| Video | NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce GTX 1080 Single-Fan 8GB GDDR5X PCIe Video Card Refurbished | $430 |
| Case | Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case (Black) CC-9011014-WW | $48 |
| M.2 Drive | Samsung 970 EVO 250GB – NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E250BW) | $78 |
| SS Drive | Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E1T0B/AM) | $128 |
| HD Drive | None | – |
| BD/DVD/CD | Samsung Optical Drive SH-224DB/BEBE | $21 |
| Keyboard | – | – |
| Mouse | – | – |
| OS | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit – OEM | $150 |
| Total | – | $1748 |
| Tax 7.529% | – | $131 |
| Monitor | Dell S2716DGR 27″ WQHD 2560×1440, 144Hz, 1ms response, HDMI and DP, G-Sync Gaming LED Monitor | $508 |
| Grand Total | – | $2387 |
Returned monitor:
Dell S2716DGR 27″ WQHD 144Hz HDMI DP G-Sync Gaming LED Monitor, $430+$33
tax newegg 7.526%
tax microcenter 7.529%
For additional game storage:
SS Drive, 2021 Sept, Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-77E1T0B/AM) $138