New High End Gaming Tower, Need Suggestions

[BeeBoop]

1) Use of computer

Mainly any triple A game titles like the Batman Series or Boarderlands. Currently playing League of Legends and ArcheAge MMO.


2) Parts needed and price range.

All new parts, around $1500 budget.


4) Old Setup

My parts are coming from a Dell XPS 730x. It has an I7 socket 1366 in it, a GTX 680, and 6gb of ram. The mobo only supports up to 8gb of ram which is the reason why I feel that I need to upgrade. I want 16gb of ram. ArcheAge is using up 97% ram and crashing so I believe this is my real reason for upgrading, unless someone here can talk me out of it.


5). Below is what I put together. Please let me know if I am missing anything or if anything is incompatible. Thanks!

GIGABYTE GV-N980D5-4GD-B GeForce GTX 980 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0

SeaSonic S12G S12G-650 650W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
(Ordering two of these for 16gb of ram)

ASUS Z97M-PLUS LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX

Intel Core i7-4790S Haswell Quad-Core 3.2GHz LGA 1150 65W

Antec P280 Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit, System Builder OEM

ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD

WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s,


Total $1488.51


Edit:
Just some grammar mistakes.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I've had the Antec P280 for a couple of years now and it's worked great with my i5-2500 and GTX-680. It's roomy, easy to work with and quiet.

. The mobo only supports up to 8gb of ram which is the reason why I feel that I need to upgrade. I want 16gb of ram. ArcheAge is using up 97% ram and crashing so I believe this is my real reason for upgrading, unless someone here can talk me out of it.

I'd do a bit more research first to make sure this isn't just game bugs.

Windows will grab huge chunks of memory for things like disk caching, but then will give them back if a game really needs the RAM. So I'm not sure the 97% means anything.

I've yet to feel the need for more than 8 GB RAM for my gaming PC, or play a game where I think the i5-2500 is holding me back.

Read this before deciding you need a faster CPU:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2389580

 

[BeeBoop]

Thanks Dave for your suggestion. I'm going to go ahead and just get new everything because I just want to treat myself. Will probably give away the 4 year old XPS to a family member.

 

[Cerb]

My parts are coming from a Dell XPS 730x. It has an I7 socket 1366 in it, a GTX 680, and 6gb of ram. The mobo only supports up to 8gb of ram which is the reason why I feel that I need to upgrade. I want 16gb of ram. ArcheAge is using up 97% ram and crashing so I believe this is my real reason for upgrading, unless someone here can talk me out of it.

That sounds like a bug, probably a memory leak, and a Google search for, "archeage memory leak," gets many hits for it using up all the RAM (though some are just for the installer or patcher). If you want to upgrade, available parts now are not bad at all, but I would caution against expecting that to fix itself.

For $1500...
1. Get a 4/4.4GHz i7, not that S thing.
2. Get an SSD. Newegg has a $99 MX100 256GB, right now...
3. Get 2x8GB for 16GB, not 4x4GB. It will do no good, may need to run at 2T and/or higher timings, and will take up all the slots.

 

[BeeBoop]

Just did a quick google search. Looks like the only difference between the S and the K is that the K can be overclocked. I'm not looking to do any of that and keep my PC quiet as possible so I'll stick with the S. thanks for the tips though. I will switch out the ram.

.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Getting 4x4GB DIMMs is not preferable to 2x8GB DIMMs. (Greater likelihood of performance and stability problems.)

It should be pretty close to the same price - I'd get the higher density RAM if I were you.

 

[BeeBoop]

Getting 4x4GB DIMMs is not preferable to 2x8GB DIMMs. (Greater likelihood of performance and stability problems.)

It should be pretty close to the same price - I'd get the higher density RAM if I were you.

Thanks. Just ordered the 2x8gb ram, same brand.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Just want to echo the poster that said to get 4790k. MMOs need all the cpu grunt you can get. For an expensive (relatively) build like yours, get the fastest cpu you can, especially for MMOs. 4790K at stock has a base of 4.0, single thread turbo to 4.4 and 4.2 on all cores. If you want a quiet system, I would consider not even overclocking, but perhaps get a better cooler than the stock one for quieter operation.

The poster that you referenced, did a lot of great work, and everyone on the forums appreciates his efforts, but his results will not necessarily apply to all situations.

 

[inachu]

My choices would be similar to yours except I would have 3 SSD drives.

1 drive for the OS
2nd for swap file
3rd drive for ram disk

 

[Cerb]

My choices would be similar to yours except I would have 3 SSD drives.

1 drive for the OS

Fine.

2nd for swap file

Pointless. Use the OS drive. Applications need so little IOPS that there is plenty for swap. If you don't have enough RAM, no SATA SSD is going to be fast enough anyway.

3rd drive for ram disk

Imaginary. A RAM disk goes in RAM.

 

[Cerb]

Just did a quick google search. Looks like the only difference between the S and the K is that the K can be overclocked. I'm not looking to do any of that and keep my PC quiet as possible so I'll stick with the S. thanks for the tips though. I will switch out the ram.

Try a slower Google search .

Model: base/Turbo
i7-4790T: 2.7/3.9GHz
i7-4790S: 3.2/4.0GHz
i7-4790: 3.6/4GHz
i7-4790K: 4.0/4.4GHz

The S and T models are TDP-limited, and serve no purpose in a performance desktop. The Ks usually are just OCable, and the i5s have sometimes had more cache. This one's different.

 

[BeeBoop]

I don't know what TDP-limited means. I did see that the S uses 18 less watts than the K. That usually means less heat and noise. I don't believe the stock difference between the two are night and day in any game I've ever heard of. Usually games are more GPU dependent. I'm not going to overclock anything, ever. Thanks for your help though.

 

[Cerb]

I don't know what TDP-limited means. I did see that the S uses 18 less watts than the K. That usually means less heat and noise. I don't believe the stock difference between the two are night and day in any game I've ever heard of. Usually games are more GPU dependent. I'm not going to overclock anything, ever. Thanks for your help though.

Thermal Design Power.

If you want slower, just get a Xeon E3 or Core i5. Don't pay i7 prices for lower performance.

 

[BeeBoop]

Is the performance lower than the i5?


Edit:
It's not just about speed. Less power matters to me because it creates less noise and heat. The I5k uses as much wattage as the I7K. That's a good 18 to 23 less wattage.


BTW
I appreciate your help though.
.

 

[Cerb]

Is the performance lower than the i5?

Unless whatever you run scales out to more threads very well, yes.

i5-4670(K): 4C4T, 3.5/3.9, for $225
i7-4790S: 4C8T, 3.2/3.9, for $295
i7-4790: 4C8T, 3.6/4.0, for $300
i7-4790K: 4C8T, 4.0/4.4, for $340
E3-1231V3: 4C8T3.4/3.8, for $250 (also, no IGP in this one)

The plain and S i7s just don't have anything going for them, if you are going to put them in a regular PC.

All the CPUs will only use as much power as is needed. The S and T models are limited in maximum, and nothing else. Under low loads, they will use just as much power as the regular models. Under heavy loads, they will not go as fast.

 

[BeeBoop]

Interesting. Headed to the gym right now but i haven't made my decision yet.

 

[Cerb]

It's not just about speed. Less power matters to me because it creates less noise and heat.

You could also save those Watts by getting a reference spec GTX 970, GTX 770, GTX 760, HD 280X, etc..

The I5k uses as much wattage as the I7K. That's a good 18 to 23 less wattage.

HT uses minimal added power. It justs costs $50-100 to get it enabled, at the same or better speeds, because Intel can get away with charging that.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It's not just about speed. Less power matters to me because it creates less noise and heat. The I5k uses as much wattage as the I7K. That's a good 18 to 23 less wattage.
.

This is and isn't true.

Intel CPUs are "smart" - when they're idle, they only use a couple watts, and it doesn't really matter which CPU you get.

Intel CPUs are quite capable of burning a LOT more power than their TDP - running full tilt, all the time, at their max Turbo (guaranteed safe overclock) speed, they'll exceed their TDP rating by a fair margin. (Overclocking is basically a matter of turning off that limiter and, sometimes, goosing a few hundred more MHz out of it, with or without a voltage adjustment). Even the non-K CPUs will self-overclock in short bursts to accommodate typical user workloads (which involve brief stints of activity in between a lot of sitting idle.)

The meat of the matter is in the middle. The TDP of an Intel CPU can be best thought of as a "target" power/heat number. The CPU will try to make sure it doesn't eat more power than that, and will throttle back if the heat sink / fan / cooling system can't keep up.

So S and T model CPUs will tend to be more aggressive about clocking back, because they have lower target heat/power numbers. S and T CPUs are usually just used in SFF or HTPC systems, where cooling is inadequate. You don't really save anything in terms of overall power use unless you're running at high CPU load all the time.

Faster unlocked CPUs will generally win the "race to idle." The CPU can do something so much faster that it can go back to an idle state sooner, lowering its total average power use. But it depends on your workload. Gaming is an oddball because it will generally stress a CPU at close to maximum load, for the duration of the game. The CPU can't "race to idle."

So for typical desktop use in a full-tower system, there's no benefit to an S or T CPU. But gaming is a slightly different story - you will save power. However, the bad news is that you will also have lower gaming performance.

You can get similar benefits to an S or T CPU by simply buying a -K model and underclocking/undervolting it. This gives you the added benefit of being able to return to stock speeds or even overclocking it when the mood strikes you.

 

[mfenn]

Thanks Dave! That is a generally good post with a only a few small details that are incorrect.

Intel CPUs are quite capable of burning a LOT more power than their TDP - running full tilt, all the time, at their max Turbo (guaranteed safe overclock) speed, they'll exceed their TDP rating by a fair margin.

Not true unless your motherboard has MCT turned on. It's true that the CPU can and will exceed its TDP threshold for short periods of time, but "short" means seconds, not minutes or hours. You can observe this for yourself by comparing the idle and load power consumption of an entire PC. The difference for the i7 4770K is 65W, which is right at the 69W CPU TDP of the i7 4770K (the GPU has a 15W TDP to get 84W total).

Faster unlocked CPUs will generally win the "race to idle." The CPU can do something so much faster that it can go back to an idle state sooner, lowering its total average power use. But it depends on your workload. Gaming is an oddball because it will generally stress a CPU at close to maximum load, for the duration of the game. The CPU can't "race to idle."

This is true, but in a limited case of circumstances. Those are: the game must be CPU limited and not have it's framerate capped by vSync. In other words, you have to be CPU-limited to 60 FPS or below. In those cases, yes the faster CPU will use more power while providing higher performance. In the other cases, the faster CPU will be able to race to idle during downtime while it's waiting for the GPU or waiting for the vSync timer to expire, thus saving power compared to a slower CPU that is working relatively harder.

 

[BeeBoop]

Okay, I'm doing it! About to order the I7K.

 

[BeeBoop]

Order done. Going to bed now. Thanks everyone.

 

[mfenn]

Let us know how the build goes!

 

[BeeBoop]

Is 39c normal temp for idle? I just turned it on to install windows and saw 35c in bios. Then I waited a few mins and it jumped to 39c. It's the intel stock heatsink. I think I might have installed it incorrectly.

I kinda jammed one pin down on the heatsink. If you look at the pic below, the top only has 2 pieces protruding to the other side. One of the white pieces kinda broke off when i smashed it in. If the temps are normal, i'm not going to reset this heatsink.

>

 

[Cerb]

I do believe you are now in the market for an aftermarket cooler!

Your temps are fine, but I wouldn't trust that mount long-term.

An Arctic Cooling Freezer I30 would be a nice stock cooler. While not the best for its price performance-wise, it's still pretty good, none too noisy, and easy to install.

 

[BeeBoop]

lol, if the temps don't radically change I'll just keep it like it is. I don't feel like going through all the trouble of putting on a new heatsink. I believe 40 - 45c are normal temps? Max is 65 for games?

Edit:
I got the I7 4790k and a 512gb SSD. Boot up seems really fast.


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