Finished planning. Need a bit more help/suggestions. HELP!

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Iqwan

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Jan 25, 2015
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I've been planning for a while now and I have yet to build my first pc...soon enough I will be able to play my fully stacked list of games I have in Steam. I've been back and forth with many builds and still haven't settled for one build plan. Finally! This build is just what I wanted. Clean, high-end build. I still have a few questions though:

- My location is Australia, Sydney. My budget is 2000 AUD.

- This build is only aimed at playing graphic heavy games like the Farcry series or Assassins creed at 1080p etc. and basic web browsing, document typing and all the good stuff.

- I'm still unsure whether or not (and it's driving me crazy!!!) I should use an r9 290 or 290x or GTX 970 and which brand is best that would follow the colour scheme (Black and white btw). I know that now alot of the newer games are starting to be more demanding, I'm not sure whether or not which GPU is the better one in the long run.

- I'm only going to be gaming on a 1080p monitor though I may upgrade it a 1440p monitor (lowest price being $500 AUD) in the future when I have the money for it. I'm aware of the 3.5 conundrum about Nvidia but the specs I have now on my laptop barely plays LoL on 30 fps, so any of these would be a big jump for me in terms of overall performance.

- I'm only a teenager and obviously living with my parents, would the r9 290/290x really jack up the electricity bills? I'm not the type of person who games 8-hours a day but I tend to leave on the computer for a while without noticing. I'm really nervous about angering my parents about increasing the bill.

I will have lot of questions before I build this, I'm open to all criticism so please feel free to ask me any questions. Thanks :D

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($325.00 @ CPL Online)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC12DX_BK 68.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($25.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($189.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Memory: Kingston Fury White Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($99.00 @ CPL Online)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($149.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($103.00 @ IJK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 290 4GB Black Edition Double Dissipation Video Card ($429.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($129.00 @ Scorptec)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($145.00 @ CPL Online)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/RSBS DVD/CD Writer ($21.90 @ Mwave Australia)
Case Accessory: NZXT Hue LED Controller ($42.00 @ CPL Online)
Keyboard: Ducky Ducky DK9008 Shine 3 White LED Backlit (Blue Cherry MX) Wired Standard Keyboard ($129.00 @ CPL Online)
Other: CableMod E-Series G2 & P2 Cable Kit White ($109.00)
Total: $1894.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-01 13:03 EST+1100
 
Solution
JackNaylorPE
-The Krait is a poor performer.... suggest the MSI Gaming 5. i love the color scheme of the Krait but I can't get past the performance.

11104520883l.jpg


-I think the 290 is prolly ya best bet pricewise down under tho 100 watts more .... the 970 last i checked had some silly prices.....looking just now, the MSI is $519, $90 more.... but your PSU will handle SLI so another 970 in future still works. You'd need a 900 watter for the 290s. The 970 is about 15% faster at stock.... about 20% faster when both are overclocked.

The 3.5 Gb RAM thing is 'much ado about nothing:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-geforce-gtx-970-vram-stress-test.html

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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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-The Krait is a poor performer.... suggest the MSI Gaming 5. i love the color scheme of the Krait but I can't get past the performance.

11104520883l.jpg


-I think the 290 is prolly ya best bet pricewise down under tho 100 watts more .... the 970 last i checked had some silly prices.....looking just now, the MSI is $519, $90 more.... but your PSU will handle SLI so another 970 in future still works. You'd need a 900 watter for the 290s. The 970 is about 15% faster at stock.... about 20% faster when both are overclocked.

The 3.5 Gb RAM thing is 'much ado about nothing:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-geforce-gtx-970-vram-stress-test.html

What's electric cost down there ?

At $0.15 per kw-hr x say 30 hours a week x 52.13 weeks per year x 3 years x (100 watts /85% eff) / 1000 watts per kw is about $83 more in electric for the 290 .. so in that sense it's a wash....the extra you'd pay would be eaten by electricty over the life of the card. So to enjoy that 20% faster speed, in thqt sense it would only be costing ya $6 :)


-$129 for the Phanteks case + the NZXT Hue for $42 = $171

The Enthoo Luxe has it all built in for $199 ... I know it's $30 more but you get ....

a) a cleaner design
b) a $21 fan so net extra cost is just $9
c) Aluminum / steel as compared to plastic / steel
d) additional SSD bracket
e) Built in 10 color RGB LED system and control
f) You can add interior LED strip that functions with all the cases existing ON / OFF / 10 color control buttons

To my eyes, well worth the extra $30, you get it back in spades.

Here's a "progress pic" of a MSI 970 SLI build w/ Phanteks PH-TC14-PE in Enthoo Luxe

LL
 
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nipplethewhale

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Nov 21, 2014
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unless you are planning to overclock, which i don't think you are (because no water cooling) (you could OC with that fan but it is not preferred) u don't need such an expensive mobo. you can save 80 and buy a normal one. but if u still want the krait, newegg sells it for 121$. save 70$. sry my asian side is begging me to say that. you can also tone down your ram to get maybe the corsair vengeance for 119$ 16gb. the electricity bill shouldn't have a massive spike and plus, your psu is gold rated. very power efficient. plus u dont need a full tower case bc ur mobo is not extended atx.
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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He's in Australia.... MoBo and GFX card prices especially are extremely high... the Krait is $111 budget MoBo here in US ... that's $189 down under... a $326 GTX 970 here is $519 down under

Also ATX and E-ATX make no difference to case height .... they are both 12" higher. ATX is 9.6" wide, whereas EATX is 12"....but the MoBo is ATX.

Id also note that every CLC water cooler made today gets beat by an equivalently priced air cooler. While I am not a fan of the model in the build, the Phanteks PH-TC14PE beats most CLC water coolers, it does beat every CLC water cooler in its price range and just about every CLC at its noise level.
 
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Iqwan

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Thanks for the awesome reply. I guess this motherboard isn't as good as it looks. I'm going to take your advice and swap the NZXT Hue + Enthoo Pro to the Luxe. Also the PH-TC14-PE is pretty big and would most likey block the nice colour of the different coloured board. I'll most likely settle for an Asus z97-A or the MSI Gaming 5. Thanks alot for the info :D
 
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Iqwan

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The crappy part is I can't seem to find a PH-TC14PE in the Black and White version here in Aus. Only the Full White one. Unless I buy internationally...

 
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