Gaming Rig Decisions. Help Required

[Spyder BPPC]

Hey everyone,
I'm thinking of buying a new desktop from Cyberpower, but I have a bunch of questions that I want to get cleared up first. (I have tried to do as much research as possible before coming here, but could definitely use some help)

As of right now, I'm thinking of going with a customization of the Black Pearl.

The current specs are:

CASE: Azza Genesis 9000 Full Tower Gaming Case w/ 2 x 230mm fans, 4x Easy Swap HDD, Dual Power Supply Support, & front USB 3.0 Port

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3820 Quad-Core 3.60 GHz 10MB Intel Smart Cache LGA2011 (All Venom OC Certified)

COOLANT: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA) (Single Standard 120MM Fan)

HDD: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (128GB Sandisk Sata III Boot Drive + 2TB Single Drive Only)

MEMORY: 16GB (4GBx4) DDR3/1600MHz Quad Channel Memory (G.SKILL Ripjaws X [+12])

MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) ASUS P9X79 LE Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ UEFI Bios, Remote GO!, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 3 Gen3 PCIe X16, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI (All Venom OC Certified)

POWERSUPPLY: 850 Watts - Thermaltake Smart Series SP-850M 80 Plus Bronze Modular Power Supply [+59]

VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card [+186] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

WNC: 802.11b/g/n 300Mbps PCI Wireless Adapter Network Card [+26]

COST: ~$1500 Prebuilt


I have several questions ranging from important to not so important:

1) What do you think of the current setup? Is it worth the price if I am not building it myself?

2) I can only seem to find mixed reviews on whether to go with 2 lower end GPUs in SLI or one higher end video card. I will be playing on one monitor, a wide range of games such as BF3, Farcry3, Watchdogs, Bioshock, Arma3, Crysis3, etc.
Would it be better to go with the video card i have selected (GeForce GTX 670 2GB) or better to have 2 GTX 660/650s 2GB running together?

Also, the card I currently have has these options:
EVGA Superclocked
EVGA FTW Edition
Are either of them worth it for about an extra 50 bucks?

3) I have the option of getting everything factory overclocked from the start for a little bit of extra cost. I'm not decided on overclocking as of yet since there are so many mixed opinions. I can either get "Pro OC (Performance Overclock 10% or more)" or "Extreme OC (Extreme Overclock 20% or more)" or nothing. Would you recommend I get either of these with what I have?

4) This ties into my overclocking question. What power supply would I need if I do overclock? if I don't? I figure 850W is enough for anything but what do you guys think?
Out of these 4:
800 Watts - Standard Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready
800 Watts - Standard 80 Plus Certified Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready
850 Watts - Standard Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready
850 Watts - Thermaltake Smart Series SP-850M 80 Plus Bronze Modular Power Supply

Is the 80 Plus worth it? which would be the best option?


5) For RAM, which option would be best?
Corsair or Major Brand
G.SKILL Ripjaws X (All Venom OC Levels Certified)
Patriot Viper 3 Intel Extreme Masters Edition (All Venom OC Levels Certified)
Kingston HyperX (All Venom OC Levels Certified)

I have currently selected the Ripjaws.

6)Last question: is it worth getting an additional 60GB SSD for $80? In your experience does it really speed up anything you store on the SSD vs the HDD?


Thanks for all your help guys. I really appreciate it. I'm just really trying to understand what I am doing before I make any random decisions!

 

[mfenn]

You're paying way too much for that PC because you're using the LGA 2011 platform. Everything is more expensive for LGA 2011, but you don't really get any gaming benefits. Swap that over to an LGA 1155 build with an i5 3570K and whatever inexpensive Z77 board CyberPower offers.

With SLI/Crossfire 1+1 does not equal 2. Not only in raw performance scaling, but in terms of amount of VRAM and frustration with drivers. You always go up to the best or second best single GPU. Only go SLI/Crossfire with two of the best or second best cards if performance isn't where it needs to be with a single card. At 1080p, you don't need anything more than a 7950 3GB or GTX 670 2GB. Do not pay extra for factory overclocked versions.

I would not pay CyberPower to overclock a machine. If you know how to overclock, then you're just paying them to do something that you could do yourself for free. If you don't know how to overclock, you're putting yourself into the bad situation of having a machine that you don't understand how its set up.

800W is insane overkill for a single GTX 670. You need 550W at most.

Get the cheapest RAM they offer, they will warranty it anyway.

Pretty much all your interactions with the machine are faster when you have an SSD. It's one of those situations where you get used to the speed and recoil in horror when you have to touch an HDD-only machine. That being said, I won't only go for 128GB or more capacity because 60GB is too small to comfortably work in.

 

[extreme oc'er]

I agree completely with mfenn, i just went through the same dilemma, and i went with the core i5 3570k, gigabyte z77-u3dh (lga 1156), 2x4gb corsair vengance 1600, 600 watt corsair cx600 PSU, Gigabyte geforce gtx 670x1, Corsair H100 closed water loop cooler, 120gb OCZ vertex 3 SSD, 1tb Western Digtital Black HDD, and cooler master elite case, bought all from amazon for just under $1000, took about 20 minutes to buil and the benchmarks are amazing, i get 7.8 across the board on the Windows Experience Rating which dosnt mean much to me but more novice users tend to like these ratings. And i know a few people that bought the cyberpower ultimate gaming pcs and they ere a joke. But if at all possible i would stick to the core i5 2500k especially if you are going to overclock because the new ivy bridge intel models get way too hot, hence the liquid cooling. The new Ivy bridge have great graphics but if you are going to use an expansion slot GPU anyway then it doesn't matter. I play all of the games you mentioned above on this setup and have not seen a hick-up yet.

 

[extreme oc'er]

That cracks me up that they will factory overclock it, when all they are going to do is use one of the ASUS presets in the bios, that is hilarious, if you do buy this definitely do not have them do that for you, just read the manual for the motherboard you can use one of four overclock profiles from asus, 5,10,15, or 20 percent overclocked. It is simply done by changing one value in the bios. So basically if you can hit f2 or delete before windows boots you can handle that with that particular board. Heck if nothing else post to this board and we will walk you through it.

As far as the PSU, MFENN is right about not needing the 800 watts, I had my i5 3570k running stable @ 4.8GHz for an hour running prime95 stress test with no problems, except that it just gets too hot, at 4.8 it was hitting 98 degrees C which is below the tjmax but i don't think it is practical to overclock your processor past the point where it is running 80+ degrees C, if you do that everyday you will be replacing the chip in short order, seeing as how overclocking voids Intel's warranty. i keep it everyday at 4.4GHz and it runs 29 C @ Idle and 72 @Load, If you are going to overclock DEFINITELY go with the 2500k or the 2600k if you want the i7, because most people even with closed loop water coolers(CorSair H100,H80) routinely get greater than or equal to 5GHz stable out of these chips and run them everyday between 4.5 and 4.8 GHz, and if you are worried about any of our mentioned suggested processors not supporting hyper-threading, don't sweat it because games do not utilize HTing anyways. I have actually seen a lot of reviews where regular quad cores perform better on gaming applications.

 

[moonbogg]

A coworker of mine bought a 2600k rig from there and he bought a 4.2ghz OC. They ran the voltage up to like 1.36 and didn't use offset mode. It just sits there 24/7 at that voltage and frequency. Incredibly lazy and careless OC. Hes probably lucky all he does is chat online with it.

 

[Spyder BPPC]

Thanks a ton guys. Seems like I have to seriously reconsider most of this.
I have a fair bit of work ahead of me. The main thing I was worried about is building it myself as I'm (clearly) not too "in-the-loop" with any of this stuff.

It does seem like there is tons of information out there though, so assuming its not actually all that tricky to put together once I get all the components ordered I might just try to do it myself.

I don't think I'll overclock anything (from CP or even myself) since I'm not too sure about how it all works. Would it normally make a large difference whether or not I overclock an i5 3570k if I do end up going with that? I have heard some people say that they notice huge differences in their games after overclocking.

 

[moonbogg]

With a single video card you will see a little benefit but nothing earth shattering from overclocking.

 

[riversend]

OP, what is the resolution on your monitor? I assume 1080p. If your primary use is gaming, and you want to get best bang for buck, take a peak at mfenn's guide stickied at the top of the Gen Hardware forum.

 

[Zap]

Thanks a ton guys. Seems like I have to seriously reconsider most of this.
I have a fair bit of work ahead of me. The main thing I was worried about is building it myself as I'm (clearly) not too "in-the-loop" with any of this stuff.

You don't necessarily have to build it yourself. Consider these options.
1) Buying like you originally stated, but with us helping your component choices from what they offer.
2) Finding a place that will build it for you. I've seen places advertise that they will build you a computer for the cost of parts, plus a labor fee. This way you get EXACTLY what you want.
3) Finding a local mom&pop computer shop that can assemble a system for you for a reasonable fee if you bring them all the parts (hit/miss in quality though).
4) Finding some enthusiast on the forums who lives near you, and can assemble the computer for you (you buy parts and bring to them) for a small fee. I've seen some offer their services in exchange for lunch + snacks/beverages. Some also charge. I've personally seen as high as $200, but those are quite professional and will do proper overclocks with stability testing, awesome wiring jobs, etc.