First Time System Builder for Gaming

I'd get 1600Mhz RAM and a 770 if anything. While a 780 is fantastic, it's hugely expensive.

The inflated price doesn't mean it will be the best either and in my view you'd benefit more from

saving money and having some to upgrade for later. Never take a Caviar Green either. Go for Blue

or Black. Black for the highest performance. You might not really need a blue ray drive either, but that's

up to you. The PSU is also more than enough. It could facilitate GTX 770 SLI. It's also worth considering

the color scheme you're about to go with, if you're interested in that. The case is white, perhaps with

a dab of black and the motherboard has bright red, while the GPU will have some green probably and

maybe silver. Adding lights will probably just make it worse. You could also consider some water-cooling

if you want to OC a little more. Or at least stand a better chance. You'd perhaps get to 4.5Ghz if you're

lucky.

you won´t benefit from faster ram in gaming system...
it´s waste of money you can use elsewhere...
caviar green is slow especially for operating system...
indeed even single gtx770 will be great for single full-hd monitor setup...
620w will be more than enough for single card configuration ,
however if you are considering sli and want to have this option open in the future
get 750w quality power supply like corsair HX for example...

higher speed ram is only beneficial to workstations and such. for gaming 8gb 1600mhz 9cl latency is perfect.

the days of micro-stutter (for nvidia) and bad driver support is gone (mostly). nowadays dual gpu setups provide excellent value, most notably a dual 760 setup will blow away a 780/690/titan single gpu setup for much less.


Caviar Green is slower (and being phased out), blue is mainstream, black is faster. Want a more responsive machine? Buy the faster drive

a used ps3 would be better and cheaper than a blu ray drive and the necessary software to play blu-ray movies.

yes it would be better to have a 750w psu if you are looking forward to sli 770s, if you want sli 780s get a 850w unit. if getting any single gpu system 650 watts is more than enough.

Yes 1600Mhz is a downgrade relative to your 1866. But considering a lot of

systems default to 1333 these days, it's an upgrade. Buy faster if you'd like.

It's not just something you'll necessarily notice the difference in.

As others have stated, SLI and CF require more thought. Some games for instance don't support

it yet and thus there's a certain driver dependency that might hinder you on the rare occasion.

But these days SLI and CF are quite alright. SLI is usually said to be the most stable; but AMD

have been making good advances with CF too. SLI/CF require more power, produce more heat

and also produce more noise. So these will have to be considered when designing your setup, in

terms of things like airflow. I'd say stay with 750W. If you live in an area with particularly high electricity

costs, you may also be interested in higher-than-bronze certifications; as these are more efficient

with the power supplied to them. As for Caviar Green, it's an HDD type from Western Digital that

claims to run quiet and be more eco-friendly. But the effects of all the supposed advantages of

green are null. Thus it would be disadvantageous to go with a Green one; but especially so in

such a performance-minded rig, seeing as Green isn't meant for performance in the same way

as the other Caviars. As for water-cooling, you don't have to be afraid. Check out the likes of

the Corsair H60 and H100i. They're closed-loop coolers. In others words you're not building

a custom water-cooling setup. No, that's both very costly, very time-consuming and yes, risky.

Water-cooling is perfect if you want the achieve silence, while also cooling the system CPU as

much as possible. However you're not OC'ing a lot, so it's a bit superfluous. Water-cooling is

also beneficial if you go with high-profile RAM, seeing as there won't be any clearance issues

between the RAM and the CPU cooler. Check out the Lightning 770 from MSI. One of the best.

If you go with G.Skill or Corsair RAM, you can't really go wrong in my view. Kingston is fine too.

I prefer G.Skill. Mind you, it's not always about the components, it's also about the company.

If your RAM is faulty, you'd want a company who's willing to refund or replace things for you,

for instance. One thing with your GPU setup is, what resolution do you intend to run at?

This is important. You're welcome by the way.

Yes SLI can be disabled in the relevant Nvidia control panel necessarily. Meaning you also have

to enable it once you start of course. You won't run into big issues on the majority of modern games

I'd say. Speaking of which, what games do you intend on playing? If you're into space-themed games,

I can highly recommend the upcoming Star Citizen game, as is seen in my signature.

4Ghz is "nothing" so I'm sure air-cooling would suffice. However that's not the only cooling. Your case,

cable-management level, PSU and fan setup all factor in to how efficiently your system stays cool.

Your GPUs will OC automagically too, because they've got GPU Boost 2.0 (or so) from Nvidia.

The deal is that the more cool you keep your GPUs, the more they'll try OC themselves, up to a point.

It's adjustable, don't worry. So if you set the thermal limit to 80C, they'd OC themselves until they reach

80C, before not going any further. This cooling business is also why I first recommend MSIs Lightning

edition, seeing as they have excellent cooling potential in the form of 2 fans on the GPU itself.

As I said, you don't strictly need a water-cooler setup. Your screen resolution is also one that's

well suited for gaming. With that resolution, you might even consider going for the cheaper

GTX 760, before later putting it in SLI if you wish. I don't know which games you intend on playing

though. Do you need any instructional videos on how to put the parts together?

Yes SLI can be quite a solid option.

I'd be interested in hearing your immediate thoughts on SC. There's going to be modding.

That, coupled with the superior graphics, will yield a good environment for RP play and I'm sure

someone could give the game a fantasy-overhaul too, on their own private server.

Also, you could use CPU-Z. This will also give you temperature readings, in addition to CPU-specific

information for when you OC. Speccy is also a useful tool for getting a quick overview of your hardware

and some of its specifics. Yes indeed, the GPU Boost is quite nice. With the GeForce experience, games

will also be fine-tuned graphics wise to suit your system. So remember to download the latest drivers

when you get your rig; no need to use any CDs which might come with it. I hope you've factored in

the cost of the OS, if you need one. Do you need any other peripherals? Such as monitors or mice.

Here's a video on CPU thermal paste (and no you won't need aftermarket thermal paste in this case):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_693595&feature=iv&src_vid=W4Js2A1qdB8&v=-hNgFNH7zhQ

I don't know what you helped out with though, so here's another video just in case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Js2A1qdB8

And you're welcome. I'm glad to help out.

A note on the GTX 770 vs 760. They both use the same GK_104 GPU actually. The GK_104 GPU is

widely used. I believe it's a record. Seven or so GPUs in Nvidias lineup have this same GPU. Thus

future-resistant... Well, possibly not that much in effect, should you go for a 770 instead of a 760.

You'll get a good GPU regardless. You may also find these pieces of news relevant or interesting:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/msi-gtx-760-hawk-geforce,news-45120.html

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/MSI-GTX-770-Gaming-4GB,news-44902.html

4GB VRAM (Video RAM) isn't really necessary unless you're either running resolutions higher

than 1080p or using lots of mods such as in Skyrim. It can be quite nice. While on this subject

it's also worth noting that if you're interested in SLI or CF, you'll have to acquire the same GPU

of course, yet also one which has the same amount of RAM. So if you get an expensive 4GB GPU,

you'll need another GPU of the same kind, with 4GB RAM. Those are the requirements for SLI.