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Build Advice and Critique

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November 9, 2013 11:26:01 PM

This is my build plan: (revised)
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($265.00 @ PLE Computers)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($88.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($189.00 @ Scorptec)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($215.22 @ Mwave Australia)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($109.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($92.00 @ PLE Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 4GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($479.00 @ CPL Online)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 4GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($479.00 @ CPL Online)
Case: NZXT Phantom 820 (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($259.00 @ CPL Online)
Power Supply: Antec 850W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($289.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Total: $2464.22
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-10 20:56 EST+1100)

OR

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($265.00 @ PLE Computers)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($88.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($189.00 @ Scorptec)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($215.22 @ Mwave Australia)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($109.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($92.00 @ PLE Computers)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Video Card ($829.00 @ CPL Online)
Case: NZXT Phantom 820 (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($259.00 @ CPL Online)
Power Supply: Antec 850W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($289.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Total: $2335.22
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-10 20:59 EST+1100)
that's pretty much my budget purpose is amazing gaming :D  edit: got 16gb memory so I can do a little dabbling in photoshop and video editing
did have dual 770's but hey its 'the best gpu on the planet'

More about : build advice critique

November 9, 2013 11:53:07 PM

That 780...damn. Haha. Anyway,good build. One thing though,8gbs of ram is enough for "amazing gaming"
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November 9, 2013 11:56:35 PM

YOU CAN AFFORD AN 800$ GPU BUT WONT GET THE i7, or even a XEON? lol wut
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November 10, 2013 12:10:07 AM

Are you really getting the 780 ti for $830 or is that just the default price that pcpartpicker gave you? The reason I'm asking is because it's $730 on newegg.
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November 10, 2013 12:18:33 AM

Well there really is no need for an i7, until you hit 3 or more GPU's. So i5 is a good choice.
Couple of things i would do with that.
- Get a bigger SSD if you can afford it, the 250 gig version is even faster and lets you have more of your stuff on there.
- Possibly get 1866 Mhz memory or even 2133Mhz, the Ripjaws X 2x8GB 2133Mhz Cas9 is only 199 vs 189 for the listed memory.
- With the cooler memory clearance might be an issue though, but usually the coolers only block the first memory slot and the 2nd is still usable even with tall heatsinks and the gskill x has pretty high ones
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November 10, 2013 12:31:32 AM

BasedCereal said:
Are you really getting the 780 ti for $830 or is that just the default price that pcpartpicker gave you? The reason I'm asking is because it's $730 on newegg.


I live in Australia, pretty annoying
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November 10, 2013 12:33:16 AM

rvilkman said:
Well there really is no need for an i7, until you hit 3 or more GPU's. So i5 is a good choice.
Couple of things i would do with that.
- Get a bigger SSD if you can afford it, the 250 gig version is even faster and lets you have more of your stuff on there.
- Possibly get 1866 Mhz memory or even 2133Mhz, the Ripjaws X 2x8GB 2133Mhz Cas9 is only 199 vs 189 for the listed memory.
- With the cooler memory clearance might be an issue though, but usually the coolers only block the first memory slot and the 2nd is still usable even with tall heatsinks and the gskill x has pretty high ones


nice advice, ill put the RAM on, should I switch to a phanteks or a closed loop water cooling system perhaps?
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November 10, 2013 12:36:04 AM

Beezy said:
YOU CAN AFFORD AN 800$ GPU BUT WONT GET THE i7, or even a XEON? lol wut


Xeon's cannot be overclocked and are built to run servers not gaming rigs, also the consumer grade ones are not worth getting anyway. I don't need an i7 for gaming with only 1 gpu or even for 2, before you comment please think about what you say an confirm you have any idea what you are talking about
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November 10, 2013 12:40:29 AM

Couple of quick comments:

1: Do you intend to overclock? If this is for gaming alone, then the intelligent answer is: No im leaving it at bone stock clocks/voltages/buss speeds. If this is the case, take it back to a i54670 drop the K, and scratch the aftermarket cooler. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, in the gaming world that I've encountered, can choke down my 4670. Nothing. You don't need it. If your answer was yes, then the following advice will also fall on deaf ears.

2: RAM. again, if this is gaming we're talking, you can't use all 16 gigs, its just not possible. Running every game that will run, which is over 80, and all the programs I can find on my HDDs, and my ram usage sits at 90%. Everything is laggy as hell, granted, but thats my CPU choking down, and with good reason. As I posted in another, similar thread, the biggest trap for a new guy is hte frequencies. People wax on about high frequencies when their CAS latency is just too high, like 12. For gaming, I suggest 8 gigs of Gskill ram. Be it 1333 mhz or 2866, thats your perrogitive. What you want to be looking at first and foremost is CAS latency, and CAS9 is a good one to shoot for. Its not woefully expensive and is very quick. 1600 mhz is fine, I doubt you would see much, if any performance increase by punching it out to 2400 for example. High load, high IOPS scenarios like gaming and server hosting is where CAS latency and frequency have to be much higher on your list than capacity. On WIN 7 I'd be happy going wiht a tripple channel, CAS9 2133mhz set of RAM. Thats a very quick setup and will wipe the floor with your current 16 gig setup thanks to the higher frequency. I'm rambling now, but its an area that so many people get swindled in. Bottom line: Don't go over 8 gigs (or under with windows 8), get CAS9 and 1600 upwards FOR GAMING.

The 780: I know it feels great to be able to say you have the fastest GPU on the planet (and it is by a mile), but will you really spend an extra $300 just for bragging rights? Really? Let me put it to you this way: My EVGA GTX 770 SC edition with the twin fan cooler, is currently running in a PCI-E 2.0 lane, because my mobo failed and had to be sent away. I also had to roll back my CPU. This brings my rig to: Core i5 760 bone stock, Gskill 8 gig dual channel DDR3 1600 CAS9, GTX770 in PCI-E 2.0 and you know what? BF4 absolutely maxed out @ 1920x1080, never gets below 40 FPS. So if you still think you need a 780, you should think about throwing some of your obviously limitless funds my way once in a while.

Be wary of hte NZXT phantoms, I've had 4 fail on me. Well on customers who brought back their computers asking me WTF their hardware had just overheated 3 times in a row. The answer? All four fan controllers had shorted, meaning meltdown. Had to do absolute battle with NZXT to have the money for alll the destroyed hardware refunded on all four occasions, vowed never to sell one again. If I wasn't in australia where consumer law is heavily enforced, I doubt I would have gotten any of it back.

other than that, good job. Mind what I've said and have fun! Keep all receipts, take pictures of all the build process, post and back them up for awesomeness and insurance purposes respectively. Good luck.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I strongly recommend a Kingston for hte SSD. Very quick, not too expensive and nice and solid. I've used 8 in various builds and received nothing but praise. I have 5 internal HDDs and only use my C drive for some programs, windows and save games so I went with a 60 with is enough for me. I would suggest a 120/60 SSD for your windows drive and getting a 3 tb barraccuda or other brand equivilent (seagate would be my most intense suggestion) for all your games, C Drive backups etc. That way you don't loose everything when you reformat.

Also my apologies for the RAM comment about only for gaming, I didn't read your post properly and missed the "dabbling in video editing and photoshop" part, my bad. But what I suggested will still be ample for that aswell, just thought I'd throw that out there.
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November 10, 2013 12:47:12 AM

Beezy said:
YOU CAN AFFORD AN 800$ GPU BUT WONT GET THE i7, or even a XEON? lol wut


Son, you clearly haven't got the foggiest what you're talking about. Don't give advice when you don't understand it yourself. Xeons excel at one thing: Intense, server based processing. This means that its "streamlined" for speed and raw efficiency in getting the smaller amount of code downstream much much quicker so that there isn't a bottle neck. Whereas your Core i series and pentiums, are designed to get a much bigger amount of code processed at a slower rate, but thats an acceptable trade off because there isn't such a high amount of build up. Atleast thats the dumbed down version which you clearly need.

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November 10, 2013 12:58:32 AM

Closed loop cooler will take care of any clearance issues, but big air is big air, so it is still a good choice.

As for the memory comments above, 16GB or ram is actually very good for the endurance of SSD's. Stuff gets cached in memory by windows i guess so the SSD is not accessed as much i would imagine. Tom's did a test on it recently and it was actually a noticeable difference for endurance.

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November 10, 2013 1:02:27 AM

ill get some burn heal

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November 10, 2013 1:50:54 AM

lol quick comments is like the whole page :D  but very useful thanks allot, never heard about any NZXT problems before and I have had a few myself, come to adore them in fact, reason I wanted high end gpu performance is because I play high end games at high res on multiple monitors, although I don't play BF4, really don't like all those games like COD and BF. as for that ram it was hastily chosen without due consideration and I am working on finding some better stuff. Thanks alot for the advice...all 772 words of it ;) 
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November 10, 2013 1:52:15 AM

rvilkman said:
Closed loop cooler will take care of any clearance issues, but big air is big air, so it is still a good choice.

As for the memory comments above, 16GB or ram is actually very good for the endurance of SSD's. Stuff gets cached in memory by windows i guess so the SSD is not accessed as much i would imagine. Tom's did a test on it recently and it was actually a noticeable difference for endurance.



Depends on teh version of windows. Either way, I've got like a 1,000,000 hour warranty on my SSD so i'm pretty content. I was always taught the bootloader is always always always stored on the C drive. After POST, the C drive drops it into the RAM which feeds into the CPU to access the windows files at whatever/whatever and away you go. I'm happy to be corrected though, I'm not accusing you of anything just confused, it goes against what I was taught. Well what i've taught myself really.

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November 10, 2013 1:54:05 AM

Beezy said:
ill get some burn heal



While you're there, I strongly suggest you pickup some TR0LLS4V10R cream for that childish attitude of yours.

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November 10, 2013 1:55:12 AM

mcdonh said:
lol quick comments is like the whole page :D  but very useful thanks allot, never heard about any NZXT problems before and I have had a few myself, come to adore them in fact, reason I wanted high end gpu performance is because I play high end games at high res on multiple monitors, although I don't play BF4, really don't like all those games like COD and BF. as for that ram it was hastily chosen without due consideration and I am working on finding some better stuff. Thanks alot for the advice...all 772 words of it ;) 


haha yeah sorry I have a very fast typing speed. Initially it really was going to be quick, but I thought of more and more stuff to mention lol kinda got outta hand :p  And with the NZXT cases, that was the previous generation of the phantoms. ONE of them was mine the other three I mentioned was for customers. Its possible that my case was just pure bad luck and the three customers did something really stupid. But when I sent them to NZXT they didn't mention any damage, cut wires, anything like that and my inspections yielded the same. A month or so prior to the release of hte newer genreation they actually sent me a personal email apologising for being such pains in the arse about compensation for hte cooked hardware, and that it happened to several other customers aswell. Heres the kicker: they identified hte issue as... Wait for it... SEASONAL! Turns out the really cold weather in which all the problematic cases reported were produced, messed with the solderings on the transistors in the fan controllers. I replied saying I appreciated their acknowledgement of their mistake, but I had lost three customers and battled it out with them for months to get a fair go. Add to that the obviousness of the mistake and I just said I wasn't really interested in doing business with a company that greedy and poorly thought out. Haven't heard of any other issues with the cases I'd bought prior, nor from internet searches. I was seriously miffed at the time, but if they've made good on their promise to step up the consistency I might give them another try soon.

EDIT: Is there a way to multiquote that is staring me in the face? I felt bad cos I kinda broke rules by doing all that?
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