Does this look like a good 1440p Gaming Rig?

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Eleazar98

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I'm building my first gaming PC, and I think I've done at least a fairly good job of picking parts, though I'm not experienced with this and I'd like someone more experienced to look it over and give any opinions/advice on anything I could change. I will note that I want this thing to be overkill for a good long while, and I will be overclocking, though not heavily.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.95 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.75 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond 4g Thermal Paste ($9.75 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($208.09 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($122.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.98 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($97.98 @ Directron)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($339.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($339.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($88.98 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Purple 66.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Purple 66.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Purple 66.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Purple 66.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Purple 66.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Purple 66.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Headphones: Sennheiser HD700 Headphones ($598.53 @ Amazon)
Other: Audioquest Dragonfly DAC ($148.75)
Total: $2664.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-20 20:22 EST-0500
 
Solution
HumdrumPenguin
Since you're spending a lot, I'd get a 4790k instead. Others may disagree with me, but oh well, I do see some improvements on gaming, and I've had both 4670 and 4790k. For memory, look for ripjaws with CL 9 if you wanna get 1866mhz. That mobo is good for overclocking, so get a watercooler instead. For fans, use SP120 or SP140 if there's any obstruction to the air (i.e. the intakes on the front normally have to push air against the grid where you put your HDs, so static pressure fans are better in these cases. AF120/140 are better when there's no obstruction). Finally, that dac WON'T be nearly enough to push the HD700 to its limits. Btw, I would suggest you to hear these cans before buying them. Opinions are very mixed in the internet. I...
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HumdrumPenguin

HumdrumPenguin

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Since you're spending a lot, I'd get a 4790k instead. Others may disagree with me, but oh well, I do see some improvements on gaming, and I've had both 4670 and 4790k. For memory, look for ripjaws with CL 9 if you wanna get 1866mhz. That mobo is good for overclocking, so get a watercooler instead. For fans, use SP120 or SP140 if there's any obstruction to the air (i.e. the intakes on the front normally have to push air against the grid where you put your HDs, so static pressure fans are better in these cases. AF120/140 are better when there's no obstruction). Finally, that dac WON'T be nearly enough to push the HD700 to its limits. Btw, I would suggest you to hear these cans before buying them. Opinions are very mixed in the internet. I have them and I really love it, I actually prefer these over the HD800, but after sometime they can be a bit fatiguing depending on what sort of music you're listening to. There are 2 peaks in frequency on the treble. I use it with a Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card. Don't get anything worse than that. I couldn't hear any difference when I paired to a 900 bucks tube amp, but that was in a store with some music on the background. So it's either this very specific card (or the second model) or a decent external amp. Have you seen Corsair Obsidian 750d windowed case? It's very beautiful. I own the little brother 350d. Might be something you'd like to check, for the sake of appearances, if you have a similar taste to mine.
 
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AznGOD

AznGOD

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There is no reason for you to get the asus maximus hero if you are getting a Cooler master 212. Only thing you would need that expensive motherboard is for overclocking, and your cooling is not sufficient.
I would recommend you to get a different case(nzxt phantom, fractal design, haf 922)
Might as well get a 4790k with the money saved from the motherboard.

I dont think you need that many fans, even if you do have that many fans, cheaper ones will cut it.
 
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Justin Millard

Justin Millard

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The RAM seemed good to me at that price. CAS 10 1866MHZ RAM is good. It will be able to change profile to CAS 9 1600MHZ RAM or overclock anyway.

The point I was going to make earlier is a single GTX 980 will do the job at 1440p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khpskBt7OIs
Ignore the Metro benchmark there. That game was unoptimized at the time and has improved a lot.

SLI does not work for every game, so sometimes you will have the second card sitting there not doing anything, instead of giving you the 50-75% frame rate boost you expect. Whereas at least you know the single GTX 980 will not have compatibility issues and you can add a second GTX 980 if you want to get a 4K resolution later.

You can only have two graphics cards max in SLI with that CPU so its something worth thinking about.
 
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HumdrumPenguin

HumdrumPenguin

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On games that do not support SLI, he won't have any problems at all running it at max settings with only one 970. I really can't see a point on spending so much more on the 980. I'd stick to 2x 970. Remember that these cards will be compatible with DX12 in the future (might not be fully compatible, but whatever), and then they will have a boost on performance due to the lower lvl api thingie and whatnot.

 
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Justin Millard

Justin Millard

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The GTX 970 and 980 are DX 12 compatible so no issues there.

I think my main point is the single GTX 980 is cheaper than running two GTX 970 graphics cards.

But its good having these differences of opinion. I am as anti-SLI/crossfire as you will get on these forums haha.
 
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HumdrumPenguin

HumdrumPenguin

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I might agree with you in the future. I've never had a SLI set up. I used to live in Brazil and things there were too expensive. Now that I live in Canada, I can afford much better hardware. If I decide to get another gtx 970 in the future and I go into tons of problems, I might follow your way to see things regarding this subject :p
 
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Eleazar98

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Wow, you replied in 3 minutes! Thank you for all the great advice. I switched out the case with the 750D after watching linus's video on it because it really is beautiful and fits my taste better than the Enthoo Pro. Also switched out the processor as advised and got an H100i; corrected the RAM, got an EVGA SuperNOVA G2 PSU, switched the fans to work together better for the case and radiator, and last but certainly not least, I switched the Dragonfly with an Asus Xonar Essence STX. As for whether or not SLI is a good Idea for me, I am definitely a big gamer, but I game a lot with a small selection of games as opposed to a little on many games, and of the selection I play, I will spend 85% of my gaming playing Battlefield 4 or Hardline, which are compatible, so that isn't a problem for me. Yet again though, I am making all these decisions and changes to my build based off of limited experience, so here's the build again:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($319.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($85.98 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond 4g Thermal Paste ($9.75 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($204.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($155.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.98 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($97.98 @ Directron)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($339.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($339.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G2 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Sound Card: Asus Xonar Essence STX 24-bit 192 KHz Sound Card ($179.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Purple 66.4 CFM 140mm Fan ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair SP140 49.5 CFM 140mm Fan ($16.99 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair SP140 49.5 CFM 140mm Fan ($16.99 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair SP120 57.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($21.98 @ Newegg)
Case Fan: Corsair SP120 57.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($21.98 @ Newegg)
Headphones: Sennheiser HD700 Headphones ($598.23 @ Amazon)
Total: $2911.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-20 22:54 EST-0500

Everything look good?
 
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HumdrumPenguin

HumdrumPenguin

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Seems good to me. A 850w PSU would be enough, just so you know (if you find any platinum tier 1 850w PSU for similar price). Use 2x8gb ram instead of 4x4gb, it's better. Swiftech H220-X may be a better option for watercooler. Check out this thread please:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2482968/cpu-liquid-cooling-alternative.html

Any reason why to get a 970 from Asus, or it was just a random pick? I don't see any problems with it, just a question really.
 
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Havo_k

Havo_k

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I second his suggesstion for getting 2 x 8 GB ram rather than 4x4gb. The advantage is that you have empty slots for future upgrade and its easier to overclock 2 sticks than 4.

Asus has always produced quality cards so that's a good choice. MSI have the best benchmark scores for gtx 970 but you can't go wrong with ASUS either.
 
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Eleazar98

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I don't think I can beat $130 for the 1000w superNOVA. Does it really make much of a difference concerning ram whether or not it is 2x8 or 4x4? I don't ever plan to overclock the ram or get more than 16GB. As for water cooling, I think I'll stick with the H100i because my brother has one in his rig and I love it, and I don't think there could be a more compatible water cooler for Corsair SP120s. Any reason why I'm getting 2 970 strix from Asus? Well, for one, and most importantly, they look like they have the power to turn my pc into an intergalactic spaceship, and for two, they will run absolutely silent when I'm doing other things than gaming, like word processing, browsing, and streaming.
 
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HumdrumPenguin

HumdrumPenguin

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That's what I heard about MSI, that they were achieving the highest scores, though I've yet to see someone beating my evga 970 ftw on firestrike. I currently have a stable score of 11103 (can do many times and still get it rock steady), but I've managed 11174 once, so I dunno about the MSI numbers. I had an asus 770 DirectCU II before, and even though they had a backplate they used to run hotter than my current card. I know they use more power from the PSU, and that might be the issue when comparing both, but I just asked about the Asus card because mine is very silent and runs very cold (no more than 75C) on a high oc (on air). Nevertheless, his little monster is good to go, just gotta order now :bounce:
 
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HumdrumPenguin

HumdrumPenguin

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Got this answer from the user Tradesman1 in this forum, and it applies to you.

"On your mobo everything runs dual channel - 2 sticks or 4, 2 sticks is ever so slightly faster as all only uses the 2 lanes to the slots vs 4, 2 sticks is also less stress on the MC 9Memory controller and may well use slightly less voltage to the MC - 2x8GB is the preferable config"

So if possible, get 2x8gb. Then might as well go with Corsair H105. It has a thicker radiator and already comes with 2 sp120 high performance edition. Everything else is good to go, and I hope you enjoy the build.

 
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Havo_k

Havo_k

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There's been recent complains on EVGA versions of gtx 970 having coil whine problems. ASUS is a safe choice. I generally only buy ASUS or EVGA gpus.
 
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Eleazar98

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You are all so very, very awesome. Thank you so much for all the advice! I'm sure this will turn out a lot better than if I had gone ahead with the initial partlist.
 
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