New System Feedback - Tweaks and Improvements?

[Atticka]

Hello,

Just finishing a new build and looking for some feedback on where to improve and some potential tweaks anyone might recommend for my specific setup.

I'll try and be as thorough as possible....

System
Corsair C70 Case
Corsair 1200W PSU
Corsair H100 heatsink
Asus Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard
Intel i7-2700K 3.5GHZ
16GB Corsair PC-1333 (4x4GB)
EVGA Nvidia GTX 670 Graphics
Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD
LG Blueray RW Optical
Razer Black Widow keyboard
Razer Copperhead Mouse
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1
HP LP2465 Monitor
Roasted and salted Spanish peanuts and Jamaican patties (hot) for snacks

Primary system use is gaming (currently playing Diablo3 and Guildwars2) and photoshop. I will eventually go SLI with the GTX 670 when I can justify the needed boost in performance.

The Asus OC tuner managed to clock the CPU to 4429GHZ

Passmark PerfTest 7.0 gave the system a rating of 3929 and 3DMark11 (basic) provided the following results
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4181705

With a 3DMark score of P8453.

No tweaks on the system have been made aside from the Asus OC Tuner settings and a verification that the SSD has been properly setup by Windows.

Any thoughts on where to go from here?

 

[DSF]

I would do the overclocking manually, not through a utility.

I'm not really sure what advice you're looking for since the parts are already bought and assembled.

What are you trying to improve? I can tell you some things I'd have done differently, but with all the parts already purchased and opened there's really not much to be done in terms of improvements.

 

[Blain]

I'm all about reserve capacity when it comes to power supplies, but why such a high wattage unit?

 

[Atticka]

By all mean, let me know what you would do differently!

I had a decent discount with Corsair and could justify the extra cost, also plans to go SLI and/or a classic mechanical drive RAID in the future for bulk storage. I know I have enough power to run anything...

Ideally I'd like to squeeze as much as possible out of this system.

 

[DSF]

Well even for SLI, overclocking and multiple hard drives your power supply is almost twice as large as it needs to be.

I would have gone with a smaller power supply and a less expensive motherboard. I would have bought 2x8GB sticks of RAM instead of 4x4 to leave room for future expansion and to put less stress on the memory controller.

For a 24" screen I wouldn't bother with SLI as an upgrade option. By the time 1 GTX670 is inadequate for your screen, adding a second isn't likely to help as much as you think. SLI does not double your graphics processing power. You're generally better off just buying a newer graphics card.

I wouldn't have bothered with the H100 for that matter either. Cheap watercooling isn't really any more effective than very good air cooling, although it costs about twice as much.

You could get a computer with equal performance for around $400 less than what you spent.

All of that said, the system you have is very nice and I have no doubt you'll be very happy with it. I still wonder exactly what you're looking for in terms of performance tweaks. What kind of things do you have in mind?

 

[krnmastersgt]

I think $400 is a low estimate, the motherboard and PSU alone are probably almost that much more than they needed to be. EVGA used to be a great name to go by but lately I've been favoring the other companies' offerings as EVGA only does reference design coolers and those aren't as good as they could be.

For a D3 and GW2 machine that is horrendously overpowered to be honest, a single 670 could run GW2 at 2560x1440 without much issue, and D3 is even less demanding.

I agree with DSF on the SLI and CPU coolers, you'll be better off just buying a newer card later on down the line than SLIing once the 670 becomes choked up, now if you're talking about a few months from now still being able to run everything maxed out then SLI might be the way to go if you feel you MUST have maxed settings.

Also not sure why no one else mentioned it but you have an i7 3770K which is unnecessary for a gaming build to be honest. Some select few titles are able to use more than 4 threads, BF 3 being the only real one that comes to mind, but the vast majority of titles will not use more than 4 and in fact most will only be able to use 2 at most. For instance both GW2 and D3 only utilize 2 threads, so having a dual core or a quad core with HT (which you have) won't really make a difference unless you're running a very large amount of programs simultaneously, and whichever has higher clock speeds overall will just give you the best performance.

 

[Atticka]

Apologies, I have a i7-2700K.

The plan isn't to stick with just D3 and GW2 on a single monitor. Eventually I'd like to setup a three monitor rig and have a system that can handle games for the next few years.

Point taken, I've got some overkill going on... what can I say, boys and their toys right

 

[mfenn]

Eyefinity ain't what it's cracked up to be. Nobody that I know who set one up still uses it.

In the same vein, building a monster PC is about the worst way to plan for longevity. We need to get Ken g6 in this thread, but paraphrasing, "the only way to future-proof is to save money to spend on future products". You'd have been a lot better off saving the $500+ and putting it in the bank. Then you can grab the latest and greatest in two years time, which will assuredly blow away a GTX 670 (or two).