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PC Build Help

M

MajorNate175

Junior Member
I am a new PC builder and would like to know if this is a good build for gaming. I am building it this summer and buying all my parts here in the US. My price range is around $2000. I just want a good PC that can run any game on max settings at 1080p and do some video recording and editing as well.

CPU Intel Core i7-4790K


FAN Thermalright HR-02 Macho


MOBO ASUS Z97 PRO LGA 1150


GPU EVGA GeForce GTX 980 (SLI x2)


RAM Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB


SSD Crucial MX100 512GB 2.5-inch SATA lll


HDD Western Digital Blue 1 TB


CASE [FONT=&quot]NZXT Technologies PHANTOM 530 Computer Cabinet[/FONT]


PSU Seasonic M12II-850


ODD Samsung 24x SATA



Thanks. 😀
 
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Welcome.

Please answer these questions first: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=80121

EDIT: Thanks. Can you clarify if you have plans to overclock or not?

For 1080p gaming, 980 SLI is absolutely ridiculous. 970 SLI is already over the top; a single 970 would be absolutely fine.

$2000 is just too much to spend on a 1080p rig, what you need is a <$1500 rig, then save the rest for future upgrades so that you don't end up with 4-5 year old hardware barely keeping up with the minimum settings in new games.

The rest of it looks good, but not knowing what you're paying for each part, I can't say if they're good choices value-wise.

CASE Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 Two-Piece Mod-Tower ( I want to put a mini ITX system in the smaller part in the future.)
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I think this is a bit silly. Just get a normal mid tower for the main PC and when you do decide to build a mini ITX system, build it in a separate mini-ITX case.
 
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It's fine for a gaming rig.

SSD is a bit small, depending on how many games you are planning on installing (assuming you plan to install them on the SSD and not the mechanical HD.)
 
I will probably do some overclocking. Is it better to install games to SSD not HDD? Also would having the 980 not allow me to go longer without upgrading than the 970? Would the 980 be mandatory for 4k gaming? Thanks for the help.
 
The smaller part on the case can be removed and used as a separate case if i choose to do so. It is a little silly, but i just think it looks cool on top of the larger part. LOL
 
MajorNate175 said:
I will probably do some overclocking.
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OK. 4790K at stock already goes 4.2GHz with turbo on 4 cores. A Hyper 212 EVO can perhaps do 4.4-4.5GHz at best, so not much of an improvement. I'd probably get at least a Thermalright HR-02 Macho.

MajorNate175 said:
Is it better to install games to SSD not HDD?
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Yes, it reduces loading times considerably, and in some few cases, has an effect on FPS.

MajorNate175 said:
Also would having the 980 not allow me to go longer without upgrading than the 970?
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Not really, GTX 970 is so close to GTX 980. Even if it was the case though, GTX 970 is so much cheaper that it would be a far better strategy to buy a GTX 970 and upgrade it a little sooner.

MajorNate175 said:
Would the 980 be mandatory for 4k gaming? Thanks for the help.
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A single GTX 980 isn't really enough for 4K gaming unless you're content with medium settings and sub par framerates.

I would not worry about 4K just yet. Wait for G-Sync/FreeSync to become more common and for such monitors at 4K resolution to become more affordable, and then see what's on the graphics card market and upgrade accordingly. There's not much of a benefit in buying graphics cards to future proof because graphics cards devalue so quickly. Just buy what works best for your current needs at a reasonable cost, and repeat when your needs change.
 
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lehtv said:
Not really, GTX 970 is so close to GTX 980. Even if it was the case though, GTX 970 is so much cheaper that it would be a far better strategy to buy a GTX 970 and upgrade it a little sooner.
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I really wouldn't get a 970. Their 4GB of RAM is crippled, so it's really 3.5GB of fast RAM, and 0.5 of really, really slow RAM.

To get that card to work properly with current games, requires a lot of driver massaging, and there's no guarantee of future games getting support. (For an example of why, consider how Kepler cards aren't getting current game optimizations in the NV drivers any more.)

If NV came out with a driver control panel option to hard-limit the 970 to be a 3.5GB card, then I might say get one, if you knew what you were in for, because at least with that hard limit on VRAM, you would know you were getting consistent speeds and frame-times, within the limit of the 3.5GB VRAM.

But without that, it's kind of like driving a car that likes to randomly switch from 4th gear into 1st when your driving. It doesn't make for a smooth experience.

Edit: So, in short, if you want NV, go 980 or bust, don't go 970, it's not a real, full-performance, 4GB card, and gives inconsistent performance. The 980 has no such limitation.
 
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I'm not really following the 970 RAM debacle but I thought the issue is there is only 3.5GB of usable memory (not faster or slower banks)?

In any case, 3.5GB is still plenty for 1080 gaming. The 980 presents sharply diminished rate of return vs the 970. If the 970 is an absolute no, the 290x is a very viable alternative.
 
For 1080p, GTX 970 has plenty of VRAM. It's a non issue at playable settings with just a single GPU.
 
You might want to reconsider that 840 EVO SSD considering the long-term read bug which has yet to be fixed by Samsung.
 
For 1080p gaming, go with 970. When you update to a higher resolution, upgrade your GPU setup at the same time.
 
VirtualLarry said:
I really wouldn't get a 970. Their 4GB of RAM is crippled, so it's really 3.5GB of fast RAM, and 0.5 of really, really slow RAM.
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Except that "really, really, slow RAM" is still faster than system RAM, which is where your data would be overflowing otherwise. So it's somewhere in between a 3.5 GB and 4 GB card in terms of effective VRAM.

VirtualLarry said:
To get that card to work properly with current games, requires a lot of driver massaging, and there's no guarantee of future games getting support. (For an example of why, consider how Kepler cards aren't getting current game optimizations in the NV drivers any more.)
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Do you have any evidence of this actually being a problem in current games at 1080p? I've not seen any real-world cases of this happening, and the benchmarks support that.
 
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mfenn said:
Except that "really, really, slow RAM" is still faster than system RAM, which is where your data would be overflowing otherwise. So it's somewhere in between a 3.5 GB and 4 GB card in terms of effective VRAM.



Do you have any evidence of this actually being a problem in current games at 1080p? I've not seen any real-world cases of this happening, and the benchmarks support that.
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This has pretty much been proven to be a non issue for performance. But I do stand by the people who say you shouldn't buy one on principal, you let them "fool" you once they will keep doing it (yes they have since admitted it publicly after being called out). Of course many of us cant be so picky on money matters, and many are blind on brand loyalty, so do as you will, it seems like a fine card if judged on performance alone.
 
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