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What do you think of my build? =)

D

Destraega

Junior Member
Hey all, hows it going Destraega here aaaannnd I am putting together a 2800 dollar computer! Was hoping for some advice, tips, tweaks and or outright slaps in the face. Basically trying to get as much information as possible this isn't the first forum I have been to =P

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Destraega/saved/2YdxFT Here is the build, have at it!

Edit: Read the PC Builders thread

1. Gaming PC
2. 2800 Bucks
3.US
4.Nope
5.I have only really used Nvidia so I dig em =)
6.Nope
7.I do plan on overclocking my processor but not the cards as they come over clocked.
8.1440P When the new RoG Monitor comes oouuuut
9.Extremely soon lol.
10.Windows 8.1 prolly
 
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Two words: needlessly expensive.

CPU: Since you've only sited gaming an i7 series CPU is overkill. Those extra logical cores are for the most part going to sit unused. Would recommend going with an i5 4670K instead.

CPU cooling: Unless you're doing extreme overclocking watercooling really isn't necessary. And frankly most folks that are into extreme overclocking go with custom water loops as opposed to the AIO units like the Corsair that you have. I would recommend going with a reliable air cooler such as the Hyper 212 EVO or another air cooler of choice.

Motherboard: It's not a bad board but really it's more overkill. If you really want it fine but I would recommend going with something along the lines of an AsRock Pro4, Gigabyte Z87X series or Asus Z87A type motherboard and work with one of those.

RAM: Decent amount of RAM but you'll never see the difference outside of a few benchmarks of DDR3-2133 vs DDR3-1600 RAM. Would recommend the same amount from a DDR3-1600 kit instead.

SSD: Fine (have one myself and quite happy with it)

HDD: Fine

GPU: If you prefer nVidia that's fine, nothing wrong with getting a GTX 780 Ti. However getting a pair of them for single monitor gaming at 1400p is overkill. If you were going for multiple high resolution screens then I wouldn't have a comment, as is you'd be served just fine by a single 780 Ti. Frankly SLi & CrossFire introduce their fair share of issues into gaming. So often folks have to wait for profiles to see the benefit of either tech and not all games are well optimized for it. So I'd recommend going with a single 780 Ti instead.

Case: Not bad, purely a matter of personal preference. I prefer the Fractal Define R4 in that price range but the NZXT Phantom isn't bad either.

PSU: Overkill. Even if you went with a pair of 780 Tis your total draw from your components at load is going to sit around 850 (edit: was originally 750 watts, remembered power draw for a 780 Ti incorrectly) watts. Like most other folks I recommend allowing for some overhead so I could understand an 950 watt PSU in that scenario. As is though the only time I would recommend a 1300 watt PSU would be if you were going with four 780 Ti video cards. I'd recommend going with a NEX 750 with the recommended changes if you want to stick with eVGA or a decent SeaSonic or Corsair PSU in the same wattage.

DVD-ROM: Dime a dozen so it's fine.

OS: Should be fine, not sure if you really need Pro for a gamer but if you need some of the additional features that's fine.
 
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Definitely a fast rig, but overkill for a 1440p setup imho. Newer tech will be out in 6-8 months, which'll basically halve the value of your PC overnight.

Your build is $1400 in GPUs alone.
 
Excessively expensive; should cost less than $800. Some suggestions to lower price:
I generally dislike samsung 840 evo (but a lot of folks like them). If the ssd is your boot disk I would reduce it to 128 GB and go with crucial or sandisk of equivalent speed.
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There are many Z87 motherboards of equal quality for under $150. I would go with an I5 and drop the cooler and thermal compound - just run it at stock speed with stock cooler.
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You don't need a 1000Watt PSU; there are many decent seasonic options in the 600-700 range. I personally don't like your case but cases are a personal matter. I tend towards Lian PC-9F (which has been superceeded by PC-10NB). Btw one thing you ahve to check on your chosen case is make sure there is room for the graphics card. I know for my case which has a drive bay behind the pcie slots - i have to pick 'short' cards - the PC-10NB can support 11.5 inch long cards.
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Dual GTX 780 is insane; single 780 is insane @ $700. As a comparison i use a ati 7950 (which cost $200) to drive a 27 inch monitor. Mind you some folks would suggest that I need something slightly faster but @ $500 difference I wouldn't go with that 780. Heck you could go with
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-918-_-Product
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For $480
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That alone will save you $1000.
 
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nsafreak said:
Two words: needlessly expensive.

CPU: Since you've only sited gaming an i7 series CPU is overkill. Those extra logical cores are for the most part going to sit unused. Would recommend going with an i5 4670K instead.

CPU cooling: Unless you're doing extreme overclocking watercooling really isn't necessary. And frankly most folks that are into extreme overclocking go with custom water loops as opposed to the AIO units like the Corsair that you have. I would recommend going with a reliable air cooler such as the Hyper 212 EVO or another air cooler of choice.

Motherboard: It's not a bad board but really it's more overkill. If you really want it fine but I would recommend going with something along the lines of an AsRock Pro4, Gigabyte Z87X series or Asus Z87A type motherboard and work with one of those.

RAM: Decent amount of RAM but you'll never see the difference outside of a few benchmarks of DDR3-2133 vs DDR3-1600 RAM. Would recommend the same amount from a DDR3-1600 kit instead.

SSD: Fine (have one myself and quite happy with it)

HDD: Fine

GPU: If you prefer nVidia that's fine, nothing wrong with getting a GTX 780 Ti. However getting a pair of them for single monitor gaming at 1400p is overkill. If you were going for multiple high resolution screens then I wouldn't have a comment, as is you'd be served just fine by a single 780 Ti. Frankly SLi & CrossFire introduce their fair share of issues into gaming. So often folks have to wait for profiles to see the benefit of either tech and not all games are well optimized for it. So I'd recommend going with a single 780 Ti instead.

Case: Not bad, purely a matter of personal preference. I prefer the Fractal Define R4 in that price range but the NZXT Phantom isn't bad either.

PSU: Overkill. Even if you went with a pair of 780 Tis your total draw from your components at load is going to sit around 850 (edit: was originally 750 watts, remembered power draw for a 780 Ti incorrectly) watts. Like most other folks I recommend allowing for some overhead so I could understand an 950 watt PSU in that scenario. As is though the only time I would recommend a 1300 watt PSU would be if you were going with four 780 Ti video cards. I'd recommend going with a NEX 750 with the recommended changes if you want to stick with eVGA or a decent SeaSonic or Corsair PSU in the same wattage.

DVD-ROM: Dime a dozen so it's fine.

OS: Should be fine, not sure if you really need Pro for a gamer but if you need some of the additional features that's fine.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: Great post. I think the OP's original build is an example of somebody starting with a budget and trying to fill it no matter what's actually needed for the task at hand.

It's totally fine if you don't spend your whole budget, save the rest for future parts. As Ken g6 says, "the only only way to future proof is to save money to spend on future components".
 
nsafreak said:
Two words: needlessly expensive.

CPU: Since you've only sited gaming an i7 series CPU is overkill. Those extra logical cores are for the most part going to sit unused. Would recommend going with an i5 4670K instead.

CPU cooling: Unless you're doing extreme overclocking watercooling really isn't necessary. And frankly most folks that are into extreme overclocking go with custom water loops as opposed to the AIO units like the Corsair that you have. I would recommend going with a reliable air cooler such as the Hyper 212 EVO or another air cooler of choice.

Motherboard: It's not a bad board but really it's more overkill. If you really want it fine but I would recommend going with something along the lines of an AsRock Pro4, Gigabyte Z87X series or Asus Z87A type motherboard and work with one of those.

RAM: Decent amount of RAM but you'll never see the difference outside of a few benchmarks of DDR3-2133 vs DDR3-1600 RAM. Would recommend the same amount from a DDR3-1600 kit instead.

SSD: Fine (have one myself and quite happy with it)

HDD: Fine

GPU: If you prefer nVidia that's fine, nothing wrong with getting a GTX 780 Ti. However getting a pair of them for single monitor gaming at 1400p is overkill. If you were going for multiple high resolution screens then I wouldn't have a comment, as is you'd be served just fine by a single 780 Ti. Frankly SLi & CrossFire introduce their fair share of issues into gaming. So often folks have to wait for profiles to see the benefit of either tech and not all games are well optimized for it. So I'd recommend going with a single 780 Ti instead.

Case: Not bad, purely a matter of personal preference. I prefer the Fractal Define R4 in that price range but the NZXT Phantom isn't bad either.

PSU: Overkill. Even if you went with a pair of 780 Tis your total draw from your components at load is going to sit around 850 (edit: was originally 750 watts, remembered power draw for a 780 Ti incorrectly) watts. Like most other folks I recommend allowing for some overhead so I could understand an 950 watt PSU in that scenario. As is though the only time I would recommend a 1300 watt PSU would be if you were going with four 780 Ti video cards. I'd recommend going with a NEX 750 with the recommended changes if you want to stick with eVGA or a decent SeaSonic or Corsair PSU in the same wattage.

DVD-ROM: Dime a dozen so it's fine.

OS: Should be fine, not sure if you really need Pro for a gamer but if you need some of the additional features that's fine.
Click to expand...

I completely disagree. Times are changing, and he has the budget for an i7. Buying an i5 at this point is short-sighted and completely ignoring the reason 4 cores has been enough for so long.
 
Techhog said:
I completely disagree. Times are changing, and he has the budget for an i7. Buying an i5 at this point is short-sighted and completely ignoring the reason 4 cores has been enough for so long.
Click to expand...

Show me multiple games that actually show a noticeable performance increase of 4 cores vs 8 cores and then I'll agree with you. However building for the future is never a good idea when it comes to building any type of PC. By the time that there are actually a decent amount of games that use more than 4 cores there will be more powerful processors out there with more than 4 physical cores available at a better price. As it stands right now there are perhaps 2, maybe 3, games where you might see a slight performance difference between an i5 and an i7 which is not enough to justify spending the extra cash for an i7. If the op was doing something other than gaming that would use the additional logical cores an of an i7 like heavy video editing or something along those lines then it would make sense. As it stands he has not stated any use case where he would notice a difference between an i5 and an i7.
 
nsafreak said:
Show me multiple games that actually show a noticeable performance increase of 4 cores vs 8 cores and then I'll agree with you. However building for the future is never a good idea when it comes to building any type of PC. By the time that there are actually a decent amount of games that use more than 4 cores there will be more powerful processors out there with more than 4 physical cores available at a better price. As it stands right now there are perhaps 2, maybe 3, games where you might see a slight performance difference between an i5 and an i7 which is not enough to justify spending the extra cash for an i7. If the op was doing something other than gaming that would use the additional logical cores an of an i7 like heavy video editing or something along those lines then it would make sense. As it stands he has not stated any use case where he would notice a difference between an i5 and an i7.
Click to expand...

It's already starting. The only reason it didn't happen sooner was last-gen consoles. Now, there are new consoles with 8 cores, and games recommending an i7 are starting to pop up. Unless you plan to upgrade your PC every 1-2 years, it makes no sense to assume that 4 threads will last the life of your machine. If you can't see the obvious trend, you're lying to yourself. By the end of next year, AAA games will recommend 8 threads almost universally, so if you have the budget for an i7 and you want keep your CPU for more than 2 years, get an i7. I'm suffering from buyers remorse myself honestly. (Granted, I stream, so I probably needed those extra threads either way.) He has a $2800 budget anyway. A little insurance isn't going to hurt.
 
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There are plenty of games that recommend more than they actually use, Watchdogs would be one of the examples. And frankly I find it to be bordering false advertising for them to recommend an i7 for that particular game as they do not even specify which generation i7 they are recommending. Turns out a current gen Haswell i5 handles Watchdogs just fine. You also have to keep in mind that console games that use 8 cores are not in the same ballpark as PC games. A Jaguar core from either a PS4 or XBox One is nowhere near as powerful as a Haswell core much less the way AMD "cores" are structured vs Intel cores. I still do not see the point in getting an i7 at this point in time for gaming, and to be honest a lot of gamers do upgrade about every 2 years. It's not necessarily the CPU that they upgrade, generally it's the GPU, but it's definitely not outside the norm.
 
nsafreak said:
Show me multiple games that actually show a noticeable performance increase of 4 cores vs 8 cores and then I'll agree with you. However building for the future is never a good idea when it comes to building any type of PC. By the time that there are actually a decent amount of games that use more than 4 cores there will be more powerful processors out there with more than 4 physical cores available at a better price. As it stands right now there are perhaps 2, maybe 3, games where you might see a slight performance difference between an i5 and an i7 which is not enough to justify spending the extra cash for an i7. If the op was doing something other than gaming that would use the additional logical cores an of an i7 like heavy video editing or something along those lines then it would make sense. As it stands he has not stated any use case where he would notice a difference between an i5 and an i7.
Click to expand...

There is a 2-3 fps increase in most games, but IMHO it is not worth the $100 price premium.
 
My problem is that you guys don't like to scale budgets past a certain point. Basically, you all feel that a gaming machine should cost less than $1000 no matter what. We should be try to provide the best bang for the buck, not just try to get the cost down as low as possible unless that OP wants that. If he's willing to spend $2800, suggesting a $2000 build isn't going to kill him.
 
Techhog said:
My problem is that you guys don't like to scale budgets past a certain point. Basically, you all feel that a gaming machine should cost less than $1000 no matter what. We should be try to provide the best bang for the buck, not just try to get the cost down as low as possible unless that OP wants that. If he's willing to spend $2800, suggesting a $2000 build isn't going to kill him.
Click to expand...

Same, although I would still buy the i5 now, and upgrade to Broadwell next year.
 
Techhog said:
My problem is that you guys don't like to scale budgets past a certain point. Basically, you all feel that a gaming machine should cost less than $1000 no matter what. We should be try to provide the best bang for the buck, not just try to get the cost down as low as possible unless that OP wants that. If he's willing to spend $2800, suggesting a $2000 build isn't going to kill him.
Click to expand...

I think lumping every poster on this board together is a bit inaccurate.

You mentioned bang for the buck in your post and I don't think you can make a compelling argument that the sweet spot for a whole build is anywhere other than $1000-1200 if you want to talk pure bang for the buck.

That's not to say that $1500 or $2000 wouldn't buy you a nicer computer, but at that point you start to hit diminishing returns on your money unless you're spending the surplus on peripherals that don't depreciate so quickly such as nice monitors or headsets. Some people want and can afford that, and that's fine. However, they're in the minority in my experience.
 
DSF said:
I think lumping every poster on this board together is a bit inaccurate.

You mentioned bang for the buck in your post and I don't think you can make a compelling argument that the sweet spot for a whole build is anywhere other than $1000-1200 if you want to talk pure bang for the buck.

That's not to say that $1500 or $2000 wouldn't buy you a nicer computer, but at that point you start to hit diminishing returns on your money unless you're spending the surplus on peripherals that don't depreciate so quickly such as nice monitors or headsets. Some people want and can afford that, and that's fine. However, they're in the minority in my experience.
Click to expand...

Bang for the buck and performance per dollar aren't necessarily the same thing.

Let's look at it this way. Has a single person asked the OP how often he upgrades? No. That being the case, it makes no sense to base choices off of what works now only, especially when anyone with eyes can see that we're trending toward needing more.
 
IMHO, I would worry more about performance over "bang for your buck."

For example, the GTX 770 has a better performance/$ than a 780. However, if you can afford the 780, buy that as you will get more fps with it.
 
Techhog said:
I completely disagree. Times are changing, and he has the budget for an i7. Buying an i5 at this point is short-sighted and completely ignoring the reason 4 cores has been enough for so long.
Click to expand...

The Socket 1150 i7's are quad cores. There is a theoretical limit to the amount of extra performance that HT can get you, and the practical limit is much lower. The sub 5% gains from an i7 won't take a game that's unplayable and suddenly make it playable. However, that extra $100 held back for future upgrades might.

The console comparison is completely specious. Both the PS4 and the XBONE use AMD Jaguar cores running at 1.6 GHz. That's the the equivalent of Kabini, AMD's Atom competitor. If you take a look at the Athlon 5150 benchmarks and double the 5150's score (let's pretend for a moment that performance scales perfectly with threads), it's still completely crushed by an i5. The comparison gets worse when you take into account that multithreaded code never scales perfectly. As a programmer, you'd always rather have fewer faster cores if the net theoretical peak was the same.

Techhog said:
Bang for the buck and performance per dollar aren't necessarily the same thing.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding me? "Bang for the buck" is literally a colloquial way of saying "performance per dollar".

bang -> performance
for the -> per
buck -> dollar
 
NewYorksFinest said:
IMHO, I would worry more about performance over "bang for your buck."

For example, the GTX 770 has a better performance/$ than a 780. However, if you can afford the 780, buy that as you will get more fps with it.
Click to expand...
We're not going to do anything but go in circles arguing semantics, but what you're saying isn't gospel. It's a legitimate build philosophy for people who have the money and crave the best, but it's not actually a superior way of building a computer.

If I can get upper-midrange performance for $275 (Think 8800GT in its day, GTX460 in its day, 7950 recently, etc.) I'll take that over the high end for $400 any day. Having a 7950, which is now a couple years old tech-wise, doesn't stop me from playing any current games. It doesn't mean that it's wrong to buy the high-end card, it's just not something I'll ever do.

Even if I were living in hypothetical-land where I don't have a family to support and could afford to build a computer any way I please I just don't find the extra $100-150 to be worth it graphically. Once I'm immersed in the game I don't notice the difference, and I'd rather have the money to buy a few more games or some booze or whatever.

I don't think there's anything wrong with presenting a high-end-ish build as an option to people who post on here looking for advice. However, I think it's unfair when people post such builds and then tell inexperienced builders/gamers that they must have these parts in order to get a satisfactory play experience. (I'm not saying anyone in this thread necessarily did that.)
 
eh,It was all good until "Windows 8.1"
mucho dollars spent on stuff that will be outdated within 2 months as well...
$2800..I would be going x79-ish
 
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