Gaming build for $1500

Nothing terrible, no bad choices but some options to consider:

1. Case - Mostly a aesthetic choice and peeps will forgo a lot of thermal, cooling options, fan control, cable routing advantages if they just like the look of the thing. Personally, I much prefer the Enthoo Pro (or Luxe) over the Fractal, but features wise, the pro has many advantages in those areas.

2. MoBo - I wouldn't go there:

a) let's look at gaming performance:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z97_gaming_6_review/10

The ranking below is based on setting the board which recorded the highest combined fps in the gaming tests at 100% and ranking the others by fps as a % of the fastest one.... we have a 7th place finish for the $220 Hero, 6% behind the leaders

MSI Z97 Gaming 9 - 100.00%
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 - 99.86%
MSI Z97A Gaming 6 - 98.96%
Asus Z97 TUF Sabranco - 96.13%
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5 - 95.00%
Gigabyte Z97X SOC Force - 94.95%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero - 93.67%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Formula - 93.58%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Gene - 91.69%
Asus Z97-A - 89.57%
MSI Z97 Mpower MAX AC - 88.20%
MSI Z97S Krait SLI - 71.01%

Another ranking appears below .... based upon which boards might be best avoided. The % listed are the percent of board owners who posted highly negative (1 egg) user reviews. here we have an 8th place finish for the Hero with 1 in 5 being extremely dissatisfied with their purchase.

Asus Z97 TUF Sabranco - 3% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132414
MSI Z97 Mpower MAX AC - 4% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130765
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 - 10% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130770
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Gene - 11% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132136
MSI Z97A Gaming 6 - 12% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128709
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5 - 14% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128709
MSI Z97S Krait SLI 19% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130801
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero - 19% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132125
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Formula - 26% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132247
Asus Z97-A - 27% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132118
MSI Z97 Gaming 9 - 28% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130808
Gigabyte Z97X SOC Force - 29% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128704

The MSI Gaming 5 comes in $75 cheaper, is 6% faster, same feature set, equal or better components and half the number of unhappy owners. Gigabyte Gaming 5 is another good choice.


3. The EVGA SC 970 is as close as we are going to get to a "reference 970" since no actual "reference" cards were released. But it has he plan jane PCB with stock VRM and not very much in the way of improved componentry or any extra effort on memory and VRM cooling. Gigabyte and MSI have covered all of these bases. The Gigabyte and MSI consistently outperform the Asus and EVGA SC / SCC models and if you read the bottom third of pages 2 thru 4 here, you will understand the physical differences in the cards that make this happen.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/2

Which one is better ? The Giga wins more OC battles than it loses to MSI but the 23% 1 egg user ratings in newegg for the Giga give pause for concern. On Gigabyte MoBos, I have used the Gigabyte G1 970 .... on MSI MoBos I used the MSI Gaming 4G.

4. The RM 850 is not a very good PSu and way over priced for what you get (bad caps). With the Gigabyte Boards, I'd use an 850 watter., cause the Giga 970s can pull ridiculous amounts of power... for everybody else 750 is fine. The EVGA B2 750 is far better PSU than RM and right now you can get it for $45 over at NCIX with discounts and rebates. If looking to get max overclokcks, I'd consider an EVGA G2, Seasonix X or Snow Silent Series, Antec HCP

5. You **could** get away with a 4690k if this is a gaming rig and budget limited ... and put that $100 towards better GPU or SSD.

6. Your RAM has some pretty slow timings which accounts for the attractive price. I'd buy 2133 CAS 9 (4.22ns) which is cheaper and faster than 2400 CAS 11 (4.58ns) if price is important. If not the best set (Hynix modules) you can currently buy at 2400 (10-12-12-28 timings) is $115 ...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226569

For $5 more you can get the Tridents but slightly lower quality module and slightly slower timings
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231589

7. I'd steer away from the WD Black in thre 3 and 4 TB sizes as while the 2 TB ones do just fine (0.70% returns rate for WD Black WD2003FZEX) , the 3 and 4 TB have a high return rate. Here's the most returned HDs in active use for 6 to 12 months.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/927-6/disques-durs.html

3 TB :

- 4,24% WD Black WD3001FAEX
- 3,83% WD SE WD3000F9YZ
- 2,39% Toshiba DT01ACA300
- 1,89% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001
- 1,50% WD Red WD30EFRX
- 1,12% Seagate NAS ST3000VN000
- 1,08% WD Green WD30EZRX
- 0,57% Seagate Enterprise Value ST3000NC002
- 0,36% Seagate Surveillance ST3000VX000

4 TB :

- 4,76% WD Black WD4001FAEX
- 1,95% WD RE WD4000FYYZ
- 1,87% Seagate NAS ST4000VN000
- 1,67% WD Red WD40EFRX
- 1,58% Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000
- 1,28% WD Green WD40EZRX
- 0,63% HGST Deskstar 7K4000
- 0,00% Seagate Enterprise Capacity ST4000NM0033

Id therefore suggest a 2 TB WD Black (6.34 MB/s) or if you want a 50+% speed increase, grab a 2 TB SSHD (9.76 MB/sec).

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178380

8. I don't consider any CLC worthy of consideration.

a) There is no CLC that beats a comparably priced air cooler.
b) The CLCs that come closest are 12 times as loud.
c) CLCs have aluminum rads
d) CLCs use mixed metals which is a big water cooling no no due to galvanic corrosion.
e) CLCs have weak pumps (H100i is 0.11 gpm)

If you are willing to spend $100 for a H80i with just one 120 x 120 rad (2400 rpm fans) or $130 for an H100i for a 120 x 240 radiator 92700 rpm fans) , you ought to consider that the Noctua NH-D15 air cooler kicks both their tails and does it while being up to 12 times quieter.

http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/cooling/liquid/40870-swiftech-h220-x-open-loop-240mm-cpu-cooler-review?showall=&start=2



If ya want water, the Swiftech H220-X or H240-X, flat out embarasses every CLC on the market (not my words but the reviewers). With these units

a) Better thermally than previously referenced air coolers
b) At max rpm are only twice as loud as the NH-D15
c) Copper not aluminum rads
d) No mixed metals both block and rad are copper
e) Strong hi head pump (10 times the flow of H100i)
f) Loop can be expanded to cool GFX cards and add more radiators
g) Loop has reservoir built in and you can change coolant to refresh algaecides and corrosion inhibitors.

If ya gonna quote post, please edit down to relevant sections so peeps don't have to read or scroll thru twice.