PC 1080 ti maybe

My two cents - A GTX 1070 is an excellent value. In terms of "actual" performance to money, it is the most reasonable investment (assuming you have the money). However, having good clean power to run it is important. For some systems with standard power supplies, it is too much. If that were my only weak point, that is what I would invest in. The leap from the 1070 up to the 1080 for such a minimal frame rate increase just isn't there. Of course, anyone can recommend purchasing the Titan or 1080TI is an easy one. The best...is a duh. However, it seems silly to spend three times as much for such a minimal power increase. For a $50 difference for five times the power, the leap from the 1060 to the 1070 is a no brainer in my opinion.

Do you need a 1070 to play 7 days to die? No. However, all the newest games I see on the near horizon are going to need that type of power (or better) to play with all the eye candy that is being crammed in this upcoming generation of games (Think Anthem, etc).

Having a balance of decent processor, RAM, video card, and SSD drive will give you a solid system. I love Samsung EVO series for a great bang for the buck SSD drive. 16GB of RAM is reasonable for pretty much any game out there. Most games don't utilize multi-core processors so focusing on a higher speed dual core vs. a lower speed multi-core processor would be a strategy I recommend.

 
Geez, for $2000, you can build a whole new system for that. But what would be the point? Your system is already pretty awesome. Buy your dad a GTX 1060 6GB version and keep your GTX 1070 SC, and buy yourself another 16GB of ram for future proofing and you're all set. No sense in wasting the hardware you already have.

Wait, what? I thought all motherboards came with onboard sound (which is basically just as good as anything not onboard which is why no one buys them anymore).

GTX 1080 ti might consume slightly more power, but I imagine that if you already run a GTX 1070 SC in there, then odds are, your power supply should be able to handle it. As for cooling, I imagine you already have a fancy case with proper ventilation and an aftermarket CPU cooler? I doubt cooling is a concern.

EDIT: As a suspected, you already have 7.1 surround sound capability on your motherboard. What more would you need?
I'm with Fox! A few SSD's and a bunch of RAM can do both of you good!

OS - SSD

"Data"/"Swapfile" SSD

Game SSD

Max out RAM on both!

On a personal level - I love SoundBlaster sound cards. The software it comes with gives you the ability to "Record what you hear" lol Don't use it much but when needed it goes a long way! OH! Maybe a couple of Large HD's for 'backup' for both systems would be sweet. That'll probably run under 1K.

 
As someone that just went from an AMD 6-core FX processor with 8GB of DDR3 RAM to a AMD Ryzen 6-core with 16GB of DD4 RAM, WITHOUT upgrading my video card (Radeon R9 280X) I can tell you, the graphics card is not the most important part in the information supply chain concerning GPU performance.

My CPU and RAM were WAY slower than my GPU's potential. That created a severe bottleneck in sending texture data to my GPU RAM.

Before upgrade

30 - 45 FPS Half size textures, no bells and whistled (anti aliasing, SSAO, God Rays, Reflections of any kind) at 1080P

After upgrade

40-60 FPS EVERYTHING maxed out. ALL Settings turned on/up to max at 1080P

Consider your CPU and RAM type, before upgrading your GPU.

 
Also, keep it as short as you can. You will lose quality over distance. If you only need 3 feet to get the reach for comfort, get a 3-ft cord.
If that was the case, then regular speakers with 50 foot long cables would have so much static issues... 2 of my security cameras have 200 foot cables for video and audio and the image and sound is just as clear as the other cameras (though, they're not like studio quality mics, so I can't say for sure if they're effected by cable length or not). Signal degradation starts becoming a problem after 250 feet with network cables, so even if sound cables are half that... the odds of a headset cable extension becoming an issue no matter the length... I just don't think it's possible to notice the difference in sound.

When it comes to analog cables, you're going to get "some" subtle static when nothing is playing and the volume is high whether you have a long extension or not. Having a decent quality connection does help a tiny bit for static prevention too (just don't waste money buying those ridiculously expensive cables thinking it'll make any sort of difference). But, if you don't want any static at all, then SPDIF (optical) is the only option available to take, though I doubt they make headsets for that.

 
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I've had a 1080ti in my newegg basket for about a week now (along with another mb/cpu/ram combo) but I already have a 980ti and nothing, not even vr games, is slow...

...window shopping is fun.

 
Ok sorry It took me so long but...
I'm considering going back to school but I'd like to toy around with an engine first. From what i gather it's free to download unity, cryengine, or unreal? Or am i being nieve in thinking thats the only tool i need to start toying.
I can't speak for cryengine but Unity and Unreal are free to download. As with all things, there are differences. General opinion is that Unity is better for mobile development whereas Unreal is aimed more towards more elaborate development so the graphics are better.

Both have their pluses and minuses and I'm sure many discussions can be found with a quick Unreal vs. Unity search.

What you get with Unity for free is rather lacking and you need to pay out for more modules. That said, the community is very large and help is quickly and easily at hand.

Unreal doesn't have much in the way of documentation (though it's getting better) but Epic games don't earn any money until you do (5% after you've earned $3000 in any quarter) so the engine designers themselves want to see you succeed because they don't until you do.

 
Also don't forget as 7dtd is alpha its horribly unoptimized, greaphically the game is about as good as a ps2 game. The reason you need a decent gpu is just because its unoptimized, it'll get done probally during the beta phase.

As for the 1080 TI, if you can afford it, I say get it, because it'll save you having to upgrade later. I'd have a 1080/1080ti in my rig right now if I had the money to get one that high, but 1070 as the best I could do, and its more than enough for anything today.

 
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