Your Preferred Build?

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Kevin123

Honorable
Jul 13, 2013
7
0
10,510
Hi, I have 2 builds available for the exact same price. I was hoping you guys would be able to tell me which of the two you would choose, and if you have the time, why you choose it?

They both have the following in common:

Overclocked Intel i7 4770K
Corshair H100i CPU cooler
16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
120GB SSD Drive
2TB SATA-III 7200rpm Hard Drive

The differences are below:

Option 1:
NZXT Phantom 820 Full Tower
Maximum amount of case cooling fans with anti-vibration fan mounts
Asus Z87-Sabertooth Motherboard
Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 4GB Graphics Card
750W Power Supply
Vigor iSURF II Hard Disk Drive Cooler

Option 2:
Corsair Obsidian 900D Full Tower
Standard amount of case cooling fans, no mounts
Asus Maximus VI Hero Motherboard
Overclocked Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB Graphics Card
650W Power Supply

Any help on what to choose would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Kevin
 
Solution
geofelt
If forced to pick, I would pick option 2 based on the much stronger GTX780.

But... I would not really do either with your budget.
Assuming this is for gaming:

1. A 4670K will perform just as well, use the $100 difference elsewhere.
2. The GTX780 is as good as it gets, Get one with the reference titan blower cooler . It exhausts heat from your case more effectively.
3. Any Z87 motherboard will be fine. There is little value in the higher priced enthusiast motherbords.
4. In a decent case, I would use air cooling. Noctua NH-d14 or phanteks. Liquid coolers are more expensive, noisier, and can be disastrous if they leak. They do not cool any better than air.
5. 120gb for a ssd is minimum. With 240gb, you will only need a hard...
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,346
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If forced to pick, I would pick option 2 based on the much stronger GTX780.

But... I would not really do either with your budget.
Assuming this is for gaming:

1. A 4670K will perform just as well, use the $100 difference elsewhere.
2. The GTX780 is as good as it gets, Get one with the reference titan blower cooler . It exhausts heat from your case more effectively.
3. Any Z87 motherboard will be fine. There is little value in the higher priced enthusiast motherbords.
4. In a decent case, I would use air cooling. Noctua NH-d14 or phanteks. Liquid coolers are more expensive, noisier, and can be disastrous if they leak. They do not cool any better than air.
5. 120gb for a ssd is minimum. With 240gb, you will only need a hard drive for backups and video storage.
6. Your pick on cases, that is a personal thing. Both cases will work just as well as a good $50 case, so pick the one that visually appeals to you. If a case has two 120mm intake fans or better, it will have adequate cooling. I actually prefer smaller cases. Silverstone TJ-08E for example.
7. 650w is fine for a psu. But, buy only a Quality unit. Seasonic is one of the best.
 
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Solution
K

Kevin123

Honorable
Jul 13, 2013
7
0
10,510


Thanks for this, I never considered the 4670K, and I will look into air cooling the cpu. I'm planning on adding a second GPU in a couple of years and probably putting a custom water cooling system in, which is why I'm going for larger cases (I don't have the money for that now unfortunately).

Also my power supply on either build would be the Corsair enthusiast series, do you consider them of a good enough quality?
 
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,346
4,169
174,240
In a couple of years, your GTX780 will be superseded by cheaper and stronger single cards. At that time, you will not find it reasonable to buy another one for sli. In the mean time, you will have paid more up front for a stronger psu and a sli capable motherboard. I suggest you just buy what you need today, or within 6 months. Later on, sell what you don't need in favor of the next best thing.
Only if you are contemplating triple monitor gaming, or a 4k monitor would I plan on dual cards.

What is the purpose of liquid cooling? It is to be able to overclock a bit higher to get better performance. It comes with more expense, maintenance, reliability and other issues. My take is to use those funds to buy faster parts in the first place.
In the case of the 4670K, you will get high heat once your overclock needs voltage past 1.3 or so.
Added cooling may allow a slightly higher oc, but is it really worth it? The 4670K is a great cpu at stock even and can run any game well. A conservative oc in the 4.0 range will do the job. Actually, there is huge variability in the oc capabilities of individual chips, and that matters much more than the cooling you give it.
As to power supply quality, Seasonic is a safe bet. But there are other good ones out there. Here is one list of psu 's sorted by quality tiers:
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx
 
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K

Kevin123

Honorable
Jul 13, 2013
7
0
10,510


As far as I'm aware the z87 chipset is going to be defunct in a couple years anyway so my thoughts were to double up on GPU's (seeing as they should be a lot cheaper by then) and add custom water cooling. I've never put in a custom water cooling system before so I thought this would give me a good project without the worry of destroying a brand new system. And yes the h100i is so I can overclock to about 4.4Ghz, from what I've read the Haswell series should be able to OC at 4.6Ghz without too much trouble. I probably don't need it, and possibly never will, but what the hell I'm curious!

My main worry at the minute is if I go with the second option I quite simply don't have the extra money needed to max out the case fans and I'm not sure the stock x3 intake and x1 exhaust on the 900D are sufficient for an overclocked system.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,346
4,169
174,240
Yes, the Z87 motherboards will eventually give way to cpu chips soldered to the motherboard. So all bets are off there.
Such a change may well keep the home build community using Z87 for longer than normal.
Z87 will still be good for the broadwell 14nm follow on to haswell.

Do not count on a GTX780 or any other current graphics card coming down in price at the retail level.
On the used market, they will go down to match the price performance level of the new cards. Sellers know that they can command retail prices for obsolete cards because you will need a match to your old card to enable sli/cf, and you have nowhere else to go.
Just check the retail prices records of top cards after they have been superceeded. They do not go down by much, if at all.
How high you can oc a haswell is determined by your luck of the bin much more than the cooling you can give it. Tales of 4.6-5.0 are for golden chips. Ordinary chips are lower, and you have some chance of a "dog" chip that will not do even 4.0. For guidance, asus found that 70% of 4770K chips can not even reach 4.6, with liquid cooling. Overclocking, at least to high levels should be considered as a hobby. And, for that, I am all in favor of trying liquid cooling. But for production, high overclocks are not necessary. For that find something stable, perhaps around 4.0 and be happy.
 
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