AMD 990fx died moving to Intel need advice.

Sir Beepington · May 11, 2015

Hey all after a terrible loss and my 990fx system dying a death I have decided after many years of supporting AMD to finally move to Intel, however I would like some advice and help with my new build some of which has been bought already, future system specs below:

Case - Nzxt H440 (bought)
Mobo - Asus Z97 Sabertooth Mark S Sabranco (bought)
Cpu cooler - Corsair H100i GTX
GPU - KFA2 GTX 980 HOF Edition
PSU - SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 750W
Ram - 2x 8gb Avexir Sabranco 2400 (bought)
CPU - Intel i5-4690K 3.50GHz/Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz

Obviously there are other parts in play such as SSD's, HDD's and cables etc etc but I felt the make and model was irrelevant for this post, so here are my questions.

1: Ram, After having 4x 4gb sticks of tactical tracer 1866 ram in my 990fx system and having to downclock it to 1600 to be able to use it all without my system crashing is it worth sticking with the 2x 8gb sticks (yes it will be underclocked to 1866) or go all out and get 4x 8gb sticks for the max 32gb ram?

2: CPU, After many a late hour on forums and Youtube looking at posts, builds and comparison videos of various AMD vs Intel things my two deciding CPU's fell to the Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz or the i5-4690K 3.50GHz, now id prefer NOT to overclock so from a gamers perspective which would be the most viable CPU?

Last note, money is not really an issue in any of these matters so the £100 difference between CPU's is not a deciding factor as most of the build is being paid for by home insurance but only up to a certain amount, sorry not X99 builds lol. I am building this within my given budget but want the best possible performance without the need to overclock unless necessary.

My aims are currently GTA V and The Witcher 3 with a few more in the pipeline im looking at 60fps high to ultra settings.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and I look forward to reading your replys.

Thanks in advance,

Sir Beepington.

James Mason · May 11, 2015

You probably shouldn't have bought the motherboard and ram first, since you WILL have to overclock/underclock to get it to run right. This is because your Ram is rated for 1.6Vs and Intel CPUs don't really like Ram over 1.5Vs.
You won't need more than 8 GBs of ram for gaming, but 16 doesn't hurt.
You don't need 750Ws either, you can get by with a 550W as your system will only use around 370Ws, so that's still plenty of headroom.
You don't need an i7 for gaming.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£185.20 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£89.52 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK S ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Purchased For £0.00)
Memory: Avexir Core Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (Purchased For £0.00)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£79.89 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 4GB Twin Frozr Video Card (£449.98 @ Aria PC)
Case: NZXT H440 (White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For £0.00)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£68.99 @ Novatech)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£76.74 @ Aria PC)
Total: £992.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-11 23:47 BST+0100

I see you're going for an all white build but that Galax one is still crazy expensive compared to it's peers. Computers are really more about how they perform then how they look anyways.

Sir Beepington · May 11, 2015

Evening James, Thanks for your reply a lot of good points however the mobo and ram came as a bundle deal and cost less than if bought individually hence i didn't think there would be a compatibility issue with the ram being designed for that board which is an Intel board seems odd. The GPU is indeed for the all white build so isnt really an issues as far as price is concerned as the insurance that is paying for new build is paying out for dual gtx 970's which more than covers the cost of the Galax HOF 980 and finally the PSU I went for the 750 with the plan of adding another 980 in a couple of months or so.

James Mason · May 11, 2015

Sir Beepington :

Then besides the ram issue, which may just mean you only run it at 1866 cas 8/9 instead, your proposed build is fine. If you "have the money" for the i7, there aren't any downsides to it except it costing more for very little performance gain in gaming. And your original PSU was also tier 1 as well so there really isn't anything you need help with here.

And just a protip, if you're going to SLI, the Nvidia reference cooler is usually the better choice for heat management, because when the two cards are next to each other, all those fans don't really work that great.

Sir Beepington · May 11, 2015

Thanks James, Last point dont get me wrong if I can save £100 on the I5 vs I7 thing id be more than happy to do so as long as im not loosing out too much on performance.

James Mason · May 11, 2015

Sir Beepington :

2-3 FPS difference between an i5 and i7, and a select few games that could make use of the i7's hyperthreading.

If you want to encode/render/edit videos faster though the i7 will be a fairly noticeable improvement.

But maybe DirectX 12 will make better use of an i7's extra "cores" when it comes out, but we can't know till it does. (And only on DX12 games)

Sir Beepington · May 11, 2015

Thanks man you have a been a great help

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