Help building my new gaming rig

[zeusapollon]

Hello everyone.

Planning on building my new gaming rig, upgrading from my old i7 920 @3.8mhz.

I was drawn between the older 3770k on sandy bridge, and the new 4770k on haswell, but figured the new 1150 socket would be preferable with it's 5-10% increase. Though I have heard that overclocking can be a bit harder at this model.

My budget is around £3000/$5000.
Brand preference is intel and nvidia.
I plan to overclock both cpu (@ around 4.5mhz), and the gpu (have to see how well it clocks).

I am split in my view of what kind of monitor I want. It would either be a 120hz 3D (as a bonus) 1080p for fluid gaming, or a 1440p IPS panel for better color and resolution. Any views?

Plan to build it now in the coming weeks.

Here's what I was thinking:

MSI Z87 MPOWER MAX mainboard
Intel® Core i7-4770K Processor
Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600MHz 16GB (2400 worth it if overclocking?)
2 X Samsung SSD 840 PROSeries 256GB in RAID 0
Seagate Barracuda® 1TB 64mb cache as storage
Corsair H100i Hydro Series CPU cooler
Cooler Master HAF X Big Tower
2 X EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Superclocked w/ ACX in SLI
Corsair AX 1200W PSU (HX 1050W enough?)
Asus 27" LED PB278Q 1440p or Asus 24" LED VG248QE 144hz 1080p

Would be very thankful for your views of alternatives/changes that can be made to better my experience.
As said earlier I plan to use it as a gaming rig mostly, and run 2 X GTX 780 in SLI for constant 120hz if I choose that monitor, or constantly 60fps if I choose the monitor with 1440p.
I plan to use the 2 SSD 256GB in RAID 0 as my system drive, and the 1TB 7200rpm as storage.

As for RAM, should I go with DDR3 1600mzh, 1866, 2400 etc...?
Is 1200W PSU needed (for staying at around 70-80% usage) or would HX1050W be enough?

Please come with your views and inputs, they are all welcome. 🙂

 

[mfenn]

What prices are you getting for the components? General thoughts:

- Mobo: Expensive just for the sake of being expensive. Something like the GA-Z87X-D3H gets you SLI support and good overclocking for much less.
- CPU: Good, but not really needed for gaming, the i5 4670K would do fine.
- RAM: Dominator is over-marketed, you are just paying some marketing guys salary. Some RAM without silly heatspreaders like this Crucial Ballistix will serve you just as well.
- SSD : A RAID0 of SSDs doesn't get you very much with typical desktop workloads. I'd just get a single drive.
- HDD : Good
- HSF: Very meh in terms of price/performance compared to a good air cooler like the Noctua U14S.
- Case: The HAF line had its day in the sun but has been eclipsed by newer designs. Check out the NZXT Phantom 810.
- GPU: Don't bother with overpriced factory OC'ed cards. Get the least expensive model with a good cooler.
- PSU: Way overkill. A quality 850W like the XFX XXX 850W is plenty.
- Monitor: With a budget like yours, I would go big or go home. That means the king of monitors, the Dell U3014.

 

[zeusapollon]

Thank you for taking your time, and giving som great inputs about my suggested system. I checked out all your possible changes, and you had some good points.

Mobo: Chose that mobo for easy overclocking, great audio integrated and supposedly very good wi-fi solutions from the motherboard. (Have to connect wireless from my rig). But the price difference is $160. So as you said, you probably pay much for just the name.

CPU: Most probably right, and will be taken into consideration. Price difference is arund $130.

RAM: Seems very true. Will go for a less expensive type of RAM. But I am still unsure if I should choose 2400mhz or 1600mhz, as I understand you have to choose between overclocking core cpu or mermory on haswell. Or at least one will give you less possibility of the other....?

SSD Need at least 500GB on my system disk, and figured as the price is the same for 1 X 512GB or 2 X 256GB, the latter will give me the opportunity to double both write and read speed, at the same capacity.

HSF: Checked several tests of different cooling solutions, and the Noctua U14S came out real good as an air cooler. But in the same test, the winner NXZT Kraken X6 came out 6c lower as an all in all water cooling kit. As I want to overclock my cpu as high as possible for everyday use, and the haswell runs HOT, 6 degrees c should count for something? Price difference is $80.

Case: You are right indeed! The HAF X looks kind of outdated compared to many of the NZXT models. You mentioned the Phantom 410 case (a midi tower). Thinking that may increase the heat in my build, and less room for radiator for cooling kits, 2 X SLI etc. But maybe that won't be a big issue?
Also looked at the NZXT Phantom 630, got great reviews aswell. Price difference of 410 compared to 630, $100.

GPU: You have a very good point, as you probably can get the same speed/overclock with a reference model. The problem as I see it, there still ain't a reference card with the same cooling solution (or even close) on some of the reference cards (or at least as I have found). Will definately come in the near future, but then I'll have to wait. Price difference pr card: $80.

PSU: I agree. Would probably be quite overkill, but here in Norway I get the 1200W for the same price as the XFX 850W. So that taken into consideration, less usage of the PSU the better? Or at least 40-75%.

Monitor: Interesting input and I am sure the model you describe is a fantastic one indeed! But is the difference from a model like this, compared to for instance a Dell U2713HM, worth the price raise? And one other thing, thinking 30" would be a bit big as I would sit quite close to it. Even 27" is quite big I think. The price of the U3014 is a wopping $1500. But again, you mostly pay for what you get!

 

[cbk]

I think you should go for a Corsair Obsidian case, those things are huge, great for fitting all kinds of parts, you won't have any problem fitting the 780's there.

 

[Silenus]

You've gotten ome good advice so far. I'd say if you can get the Crosair suppies for good prices, then the Corsair HX850 should be a better fit for your system. 1200 really is way overkill.

 

[zeusapollon]

After reading several reviews and benchmarks about two GTX 780 overclocked in SLI, they can alone produce more than 700W. And they wrote that you should at least have a good 100W PSU for this system.
Have also read that a 1200W PSU at 75% usage, is more efficient, or at least less prone to damage than a 850W PSU at 95-100% load.
And at the end of the day, if the system produces 800W, that is what both the PSU's will produce, not their max W.

The Corsair Obsidian cases are great, I agree with you. But they are quite more expensive than the NZXT Phantom 630, and also run some degrees hotter than the latter. I like the looks of the NZXT 630, and thinking about going for the white version.

 

[mfenn]

RAM: Seems very true. Will go for a less expensive type of RAM. But I am still unsure if I should choose 2400mhz or 1600mhz, as I understand you have to choose between overclocking core cpu or mermory on haswell. Or at least one will give you less possibility of the other....?

Memory overclocking is on a different axis than core overclocking because the DRAM is clocked asynchronously.

SSD Need at least 500GB on my system disk, and figured as the price is the same for 1 X 512GB or 2 X 256GB, the latter will give me the opportunity to double both write and read speed, at the same capacity.

Unless you are doing something that you're not telling us, you cannot take advantage of double the read and write speed from RAID 0 SSDs. I'm not sure what you need 500GB of space on the system drive for, but you are leaving a lot of nice stuff on the table by increasing your storage cost.

HSF: Checked several tests of different cooling solutions, and the Noctua U14S came out real good as an air cooler. But in the same test, the winner NXZT Kraken X6 came out 6c lower as an all in all water cooling kit. As I want to overclock my cpu as high as possible for everyday use, and the haswell runs HOT, 6 degrees c should count for something? Price difference is $80.

The AIO water coolers do get good performance, but honestly kicking a few extra MHz out of you CPU doesn't matter nearly as much in gaming as just getting a better GPU.

Case: You are right indeed! The HAF X looks kind of outdated compared to many of the NZXT models. You mentioned the Phantom 410 case (a midi tower). Thinking that may increase the heat in my build, and less room for radiator for cooling kits, 2 X SLI etc. But maybe that won't be a big issue?
Also looked at the NZXT Phantom 630, got great reviews aswell. Price difference of 410 compared to 630, $100.

Size straight up doesn't matter when it comes to cooling. What matters is good airflow design. A big box is just that, a big empty box for air to get lost in.

GPU: You have a very good point, as you probably can get the same speed/overclock with a reference model. The problem as I see it, there still ain't a reference card with the same cooling solution (or even close) on some of the reference cards (or at least as I have found). Will definately come in the near future, but then I'll have to wait. Price difference pr card: $80.

I don't understand why you would want to get anything but the reference cooler on a GTX 780 unless you were going full water. It's the same cooler as the Titan and does a really nice job at cooling the card. I'd certainly trust Nvidia's fully custom, tuned design over whatever EVGA pull off the shelf and slapped on there.

PSU: I agree. Would probably be quite overkill, but here in Norway I get the 1200W for the same price as the XFX 850W. So that taken into consideration, less usage of the PSU the better? Or at least 40-75%.

Well, if you can get an AX1200 for the same price as an XFX XXX 850W, then yes the AX is a better deal relatively speaking. However, I expect that it is more likely the case that you are being ripped off on the XFX rather getting a good deal on the AX1200.

As for utilization, what you need to take into consideration is that you are very rarely (never, statistically speaking) going to run at max power. If you buy a 1200 PSU, you will usually be running at < 10% utilization, which is really horrible for efficiency.

Monitor: Interesting input and I am sure the model you describe is a fantastic one indeed! But is the difference from a model like this, compared to for instance a Dell U2713HM, worth the price raise? And one other thing, thinking 30" would be a bit big as I would sit quite close to it. Even 27" is quite big I think. The price of the U3014 is a whopping $1500. But again, you mostly pay for what you get!

The U3014 is one of the best monitors that you can buy right now. It will last you 5-7 years easily, far longer than the rest of this PC. I'd say buy it now while you have the money.

Also, please link to the actual site that you are getting pricing from. It is nearly impossible to come up with a price-optimized config if we are just left guessing at prices.