- May 4, 2014
- 14
- 0
- 4,510
Hello all,
After visiting this forum countless times from Google I figured that I may as well post here myself and receive answers directly.
I currently live in Thailand and am moving back to the UK in August. I shipped my current PC here when I moved here, but I have decided that I may as well take the good bits from this build back in my hand luggage and rebuild/upgrade everything there. The £150 shipping fee would be better used in a major rebuild that I've been planning on doing for a while!
The parts I'll be taking back with me are:
- MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING Motherboard
- Intel 4770k processor
- ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II 2GB
I plan to ditch the following:
- Cooler Master Elite 430 Black - I've been itching to upgrade from this for a while!
- PSU Corsair CX600 - although I find that this unit is good it is too bulky for transport. I'm also contemplating running two GPUs in SLI in new build so would probably need to upgrade this anyway.
- 8GB AMD Performance Edition 1600MHz Memory (AP38G1608U) - I could take the RAM back with me but I want to upgrade to 16GB with dual channel.
That leaves me with quite a lot of options for my rebuild! I've been looking around online for a couple of days and I am thinking of the following options, but would really appreciate opinions and other possible solutions.
1) GPU + PSU
I have been toying with the ideas of either selling my ASUS GTX 670 on eBay and getting myself a GTX 780, or buying another GTX 670 and running them in SLI. From my research so far it seems that the SLI option would provide more of an upgrade, and since the 800 series will be whole new architecture then it means that getting a GTX 780 would provide almost the same longevity that my SLI build would have. For this reason I am leaning heavily towards getting a 2nd GTX 670. Would I benefit from getting the exact same one that I currently have (ASUS), or would getting an EVGA or MSI one work just as well? My MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming motherboard states that it boosts MSI GPUs automatically, as they are calibrated to work better with one another. In that way should I try and get an MSI card as the 2nd card perhaps?
Am I right in thinking that for SLI I would need to get a 750w PSU? Maybe the Corsair CX750?
2) Case + Cooling
So far I'm torn between the Corsair 500r and NZXT Phantom 410. At first I thought I may benefit from a full tower but I think that these cases are probably fine anyway for my purposes. The Corsair 500r looks like it has better cooling, so perhaps this would be better for my SLI build?
For CPU cooling I am torn between a H100i or a Noctua DH-D14 (or possibly DH-D15). Am I right in thinking that the Noctua would be quieter but would make finding RAM a bit more difficult because of clearance?
3) RAM
I don't have much of a clue about RAM these days. Lower CL and higher MHz the better? I'm a bit worried about clearance if I end up getting the Noctua air cooler. Any advice for good RAM modules?
4) HDD
I would love an SSD but they are so pricey. I've currently got a rubbish 500GB 5200rpm HDD used for the OS (Windows 7) as well as for storage. This is always my lowest score on the Windows Performance Index so needs to be upgraded soon. Ideally I would love an SSD for a new OS (maybe new Windows 8.1) and then a bigger HDD for storage. However the SSD + Windows may have to wait a little longer, so I'm thinking just to get a better HDD and try to move everything over to that so that I can switch out the present drive for an SSD more easily at a future date.
I've heard that Western Digital Caviar Black drives are the way to go, is this true? What's different between Blue, Red, Green, or Black drives? I also read that Hitachi have the lowest fail rates for HDDs, so would it be worth getting one of those instead?
5) Monitor
I've been using TVs for my PC monitor for the last few years and I think I'm probably missing out massively on better refresh rates. I think I will take the plunge and get myself a proper monitor, any suggestions on good brands or models?
I'll also be using the monitor for my PS4 so I am a bit concerned about speakers for the whole setup (PC + PS4 into one monitor). My motherboard has specialised audio ports (gold plated etc) so the audio would be better coming out form my PC, but if I want to use the same speakers for both PC and PS4 without having to unplug and plug cables everytime, could I just plug my speakers into the monitor directly? Would that mean sacrificing audio quality? My speakers are proper studio monitors.
If I follow my personal preferences at the moment then I would have the following build:
- Corsair Carbide Series 500r Mid-Tower Case
- Corsair CX750 PSU
- MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING Motherboard
- Intel 4770k processor
- Noctua DH-D15 CPU cooler
- 2 X ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II 2GB in SLI mode
- 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200rpm
- 16GB DDR3 RAM ?????? (I don't know what to get if I have the Noctua cooler)
- Proper gaming monitor ?????? (I have no idea about monitors as yet, perhaps it would be good to go above 1080p though if that's possible?)
I think that covers most of my grand design. Sorry for the long post! It's obviously exciting for me to think about all of this, but of course it may be quite dull for everyone else!
Thanks for reading and I look forward to any comments or suggestions!
After visiting this forum countless times from Google I figured that I may as well post here myself and receive answers directly.
I currently live in Thailand and am moving back to the UK in August. I shipped my current PC here when I moved here, but I have decided that I may as well take the good bits from this build back in my hand luggage and rebuild/upgrade everything there. The £150 shipping fee would be better used in a major rebuild that I've been planning on doing for a while!
The parts I'll be taking back with me are:
- MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING Motherboard
- Intel 4770k processor
- ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II 2GB
I plan to ditch the following:
- Cooler Master Elite 430 Black - I've been itching to upgrade from this for a while!
- PSU Corsair CX600 - although I find that this unit is good it is too bulky for transport. I'm also contemplating running two GPUs in SLI in new build so would probably need to upgrade this anyway.
- 8GB AMD Performance Edition 1600MHz Memory (AP38G1608U) - I could take the RAM back with me but I want to upgrade to 16GB with dual channel.
That leaves me with quite a lot of options for my rebuild! I've been looking around online for a couple of days and I am thinking of the following options, but would really appreciate opinions and other possible solutions.
1) GPU + PSU
I have been toying with the ideas of either selling my ASUS GTX 670 on eBay and getting myself a GTX 780, or buying another GTX 670 and running them in SLI. From my research so far it seems that the SLI option would provide more of an upgrade, and since the 800 series will be whole new architecture then it means that getting a GTX 780 would provide almost the same longevity that my SLI build would have. For this reason I am leaning heavily towards getting a 2nd GTX 670. Would I benefit from getting the exact same one that I currently have (ASUS), or would getting an EVGA or MSI one work just as well? My MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming motherboard states that it boosts MSI GPUs automatically, as they are calibrated to work better with one another. In that way should I try and get an MSI card as the 2nd card perhaps?
Am I right in thinking that for SLI I would need to get a 750w PSU? Maybe the Corsair CX750?
2) Case + Cooling
So far I'm torn between the Corsair 500r and NZXT Phantom 410. At first I thought I may benefit from a full tower but I think that these cases are probably fine anyway for my purposes. The Corsair 500r looks like it has better cooling, so perhaps this would be better for my SLI build?
For CPU cooling I am torn between a H100i or a Noctua DH-D14 (or possibly DH-D15). Am I right in thinking that the Noctua would be quieter but would make finding RAM a bit more difficult because of clearance?
3) RAM
I don't have much of a clue about RAM these days. Lower CL and higher MHz the better? I'm a bit worried about clearance if I end up getting the Noctua air cooler. Any advice for good RAM modules?
4) HDD
I would love an SSD but they are so pricey. I've currently got a rubbish 500GB 5200rpm HDD used for the OS (Windows 7) as well as for storage. This is always my lowest score on the Windows Performance Index so needs to be upgraded soon. Ideally I would love an SSD for a new OS (maybe new Windows 8.1) and then a bigger HDD for storage. However the SSD + Windows may have to wait a little longer, so I'm thinking just to get a better HDD and try to move everything over to that so that I can switch out the present drive for an SSD more easily at a future date.
I've heard that Western Digital Caviar Black drives are the way to go, is this true? What's different between Blue, Red, Green, or Black drives? I also read that Hitachi have the lowest fail rates for HDDs, so would it be worth getting one of those instead?
5) Monitor
I've been using TVs for my PC monitor for the last few years and I think I'm probably missing out massively on better refresh rates. I think I will take the plunge and get myself a proper monitor, any suggestions on good brands or models?
I'll also be using the monitor for my PS4 so I am a bit concerned about speakers for the whole setup (PC + PS4 into one monitor). My motherboard has specialised audio ports (gold plated etc) so the audio would be better coming out form my PC, but if I want to use the same speakers for both PC and PS4 without having to unplug and plug cables everytime, could I just plug my speakers into the monitor directly? Would that mean sacrificing audio quality? My speakers are proper studio monitors.
If I follow my personal preferences at the moment then I would have the following build:
- Corsair Carbide Series 500r Mid-Tower Case
- Corsair CX750 PSU
- MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING Motherboard
- Intel 4770k processor
- Noctua DH-D15 CPU cooler
- 2 X ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II 2GB in SLI mode
- 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200rpm
- 16GB DDR3 RAM ?????? (I don't know what to get if I have the Noctua cooler)
- Proper gaming monitor ?????? (I have no idea about monitors as yet, perhaps it would be good to go above 1080p though if that's possible?)
I think that covers most of my grand design. Sorry for the long post! It's obviously exciting for me to think about all of this, but of course it may be quite dull for everyone else!
Thanks for reading and I look forward to any comments or suggestions!
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