Tweak my $1200 CPU-focused casual gaming rig

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
N

Neodied

Reputable
Mar 10, 2014
1
0
4,510
Greetings all, I'll be building my first DIY PC in the next couple weeks and thought I'd run my first-draft build past you all for feedback and to ask a couple questions. It's basically the recent Q4 2013 $1600 Enthusiast PC with a downgrade in the GPU department, since I don't see myself needing that much horsepower right now.

Budget: $1200
Usage: multi-boxing WoW, D3, streaming video, infrequent FPS (ME3, CoD)

Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K - $240

Motherboard: Asus Z87-PLUS, LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express - $163

Heat Sink: Enermax ETS-T40-TB Air Cooler - $35

Video Card: Nvidia GTX 760 - $250

Memory: 8 GB Patriot Viper 3 (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 - $95

Graphics: GeForce GTX 760 (not sure which variant) - $260

System Drive: Samsung 840 Pro MZ-7PD128PW 2.5" 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s (SSD) - $150

Storage Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2 TB, 7200 RPM, 64 MB Cache, SATA 6Gb/s - $100

Optical: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD Burner - $18

Case: NZXT Gamma Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $35

Fans: Apevia 140 mm, Rosewill 120 mm ($7 each) - $14

Power Supply: Corsair TX750 V2 750 W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Bronze PSU - $90

Total Cost: $1200
My questions are:

-- Is a single GTX 760 suitable for FPS games on medium settings and WoW/D3 on high settings? (my resolution is 1920x1200)

-- If I end up later wanting a second monitor and video card to go with it, is a second GTX 760 a reasonable option to SLI?

-- Since there are many varieties of the GTX 760, how do I know which one to pick? 2GB vs 4 GB? Are core clock speeds worth spending more on?

Thanks for reading my post! :)

 
Solution
T
I currently run a 3570k with a GTX670. I'm using a 1920x1200 main screen and 1600x1200 secondary. I pretty much just crank most games settings that I play and then if I notice performance issues scale down things like shadows or the AA settings and it seems to fix most things. Wow should be a breeze for pretty much any machine these days.

Unless you are sure you are going SLI you won't need anywhere near a 750 watt supply. I'm currently using an 80Plus gold power supply and my machine peaks at pulling about 300 watts from the wall, at 92% efficient that means it is actually being supplied somewhere near 275 watts to the machine. At lower resolutions like 1920x1200 you probably won't notice much difference between 2 and 4GB cards as...
Sort by date Sort by votes
B

bob hays

Honorable
Nov 21, 2012
1,357
0
11,960
1. yes the 760 is fine
2. yes you can sli 760 for better performance
3. not really since you can overclock it anyways, but some of them have better coolers to overclock more and stay more silent. So it really depends on the price difference, and the 2 models you are comparing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
T

Traciatim

Distinguished
Nov 11, 2006
2,057
0
20,460
I currently run a 3570k with a GTX670. I'm using a 1920x1200 main screen and 1600x1200 secondary. I pretty much just crank most games settings that I play and then if I notice performance issues scale down things like shadows or the AA settings and it seems to fix most things. Wow should be a breeze for pretty much any machine these days.

Unless you are sure you are going SLI you won't need anywhere near a 750 watt supply. I'm currently using an 80Plus gold power supply and my machine peaks at pulling about 300 watts from the wall, at 92% efficient that means it is actually being supplied somewhere near 275 watts to the machine. At lower resolutions like 1920x1200 you probably won't notice much difference between 2 and 4GB cards as much, but speeds generally scale pretty well with memory and GPU clock, so if it's clocked about 10% faster then you will probably see that as about 8-10% faster in games. It will probably be more than 10% more expensive though in most cases, so worth is something you probably need to decide for yourself. So unless you are going to be playing games with huge extra texture packs and you know you need more than 2GB of RAM I would spend extra cash on a faster video card than more memory in the same card. The 760 is perfectly reasonable to SLI with, but I'm not sure you really need it unless you are really serious about high resolution gaming or you really like anti-aliasing to be all the way to the max.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,295
4,145
174,240
A GTX760 would be reasonable.

Here is my canned rant on planning for dual cards:
-----------------------------Start of rant----------------------------------------------------
Dual graphics cards vs. a good single card.

a) How good do you really need to be?
A single GTX650/ti or 7770 can give you good performance at 1920 x 1200 in most games.

A single GTX660 or 7850 will give you excellent performance at 1920 x 1200 in most games.
Even 2560 x 1600 will be good with lowered detail.
A single gtx690,7990, GTX780ti or R9-290X is about as good as it gets for a single card.

Only if you are looking at triple monitor gaming, or a 4k monitor, might sli/cf will be needed.
Even that is now changing with triple monitor support on top end cards and stronger single card solutions.

b) The costs for a single card are lower.
You require a less expensive motherboard; no need for sli/cf or multiple pci-e slots.
Even a ITX motherboard will do.

Your psu costs are less.
A GTX660 needs a 430w psu, even a GTX780 only needs a 575w psu.
When you add another card to the mix, plan on adding 200w to your psu requirements.

Even the most power hungry GTX690 only needs 620w, or a 7990 needs 700w.

Case cooling becomes more of an issue with dual cards.
That means a more expensive case with more and stronger fans.
You will also look at more noise.

c) Dual gpu's do not always render their half of the display in sync, causing microstuttering. It is an annoying effect.
The benefit of higher benchmark fps can be offset, particularly with lower tier cards.
Read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

d) dual gpu support is dependent on the driver. Not all games can benefit from dual cards.

e) dual cards up front reduces your option to get another card for an upgrade. Not that I suggest you plan for that.
It will often be the case that replacing your current card with a newer gen card will offer a better upgrade path.
The high end Maxwell and amd 8000 or 9000 series are due the end of the year or next year.
-------------------------------End of rant-----------------------------------------------------------

On the vram issue, I think 4gb is oversole.
Read this:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom