[New Build] < $1700 Gaming Build (Ultra Fallout 4 Settings; 1440p)

You built an overclocking setup and are not going to overclock. There is room for improvement... The setup below is for a single GPU with no overclocking on the CPU. Thoughts?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($339.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($62.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card ($599.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($84.98 @ Mac Mall)
Monitor: Acer K272HULbmiidp 60Hz 27.0" Monitor ($329.99 @ Micro Center)
Total: $1662.90

Your current list shows 1900 USD. Here´s one at 1700 USD with the monitor included.
It will perform just as well, maybe better. I´d settle with 8 GB ram.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($172.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($79.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($198.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card ($599.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus PB278Q 60Hz 27.0" Monitor ($399.99 @ Adorama)
Total: $1700.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 11:25 EST-0500

You could probably find a good monitor and save 80-150 USD more.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($242.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC12DX_BK 68.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI H97 GAMING 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($108.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($77.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($116.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card ($656.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro M ATX Mid Tower Case ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX TS 650W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus PB258Q 60Hz 25.0" Monitor ($318.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $1702.40
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 11:38 EST-0500

Very well done, ... some ideas to consider before pulling the trigger

1. The MoBo is fine, though you may want to look at some of the Z97 performance leaders here:

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

The ranking 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.

MoBo % of Leader

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.

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

2. Consensus fav CPU

3. I'd get a cooler .... overclocking these days is "piece of pie, easy as cake" (movie reference, kudos to whomever can name movie). I would guess that at some point ion the Ocs life, you will want to give it a try. But this can come later.

4. I'd avoid the tall toothy heat sinks whose only cooling function is to 'look cool", stick w/ normal height RAm as if you get a cooler at some point, the tall heat sinks won't be in the way.

5. Avoid the 4GB WD Drives, they have a very high failure rate. If there's one thing ya chnage, this should be it.

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

5 worst drives from reliability stanbpoint

- 4,76% WD Black WD4001FAEX
- 4,24% WD Black WD3001FAEX
- 3,83% WD SE WD3000F9YZ
- 2,56% HGST Travelstar 7K1000
- 2,39% Toshiba DT01ACA300

Click to expand...

With no SSD in the build, I'd want an SSHD .... as you can see from the THG link, it's 70% faster than the WD Black in Gaming .... 9.76 vs 5.8 MB/s

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st2000dx001

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5748/seagate-desktop-2tb-sshd-st2000dx001-review/index9.html

With the increasing market penetration of the SSD, a lot of users have now had the chance to upgrade their PCs. Now we all know while SSDs offer massive benefits in terms of performance, they have always lacked in one area - capacity.

A situation like this left most power users using an SSD for their operating system, while still running a secondary mechanical drive for storage and games. A typical setup such as this would allow the OS to load very quickly, while leaving you stunned at how long it took to load a game. With the introduction of the Desktop SSHD, Seagate has again switched up the game, offering a substantial performance boost to those of you in this situation.

Now, if you are one that chooses to use a single drive for your operating system, and have held onto your standard desktop HDD for the benefit of capacity, the Desktop SSHD is calling your name. The 8GB of NAND cache in conjunction with Seagate's application optimized algorithms should offer a tremendous performance boost, and again the more you use, it the faster the drive will get, as it learns how you use your system.

In every case seen here today, the Seagate Desktop SSHD excels, whether it be a synthetic point and click benchmark like HD Tune or ATTO, or even application traces via PCMark 8, the drive just performs.

Click to expand...

6. I'd spend a bit more on a better case.... roomier with more cooling. Moving to the 2nd best performing MoBo from above list, you'd save $18

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z97gaming5

And even getting two 2 GB SSHDs, leaves you with $38 extra... for a total of $56 extra .... added to your $80 case, that gets you a "spending limit of $136 if we don't break the budget (keep in mind that budget includes two SSD / HDs ... you'd have $60 more if ya just get one.... $196

The Enthhoo Luxe is an incredible bargain @ $149 in white ... ($139 in black). Built in LED and Fan control systems
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/phanteks-case-phes614lwt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQOPK-OgvnM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdWXLAmmSjc

Luxe review - scores of 100 / 99 / 100/ 98 / 100
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6574/phanteks-enthoo-luxe-full-tower-chassis-review/index8.html

Fractal R4 - scores of 98 / 99 / 97 / 98 / 98
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4844/fractal_design_define_r4_black_pearl_mid_tower_chassis_review/index9.html

7. The AX760 isn't a bad PSU, not as good as it's predecessor the HX and not as good as the AXi series... it is over sized for a single 980 Ti and too small for two.

You could move to the EVGA G2 850 for $117 if you are not overclocking anything. But the XFX pro for $122 would let you add a 2nd card sometime in the future thereby extending system life 18-24 months. That's $23 extra.

So with just the one SSHD, upgraded MoBo, and SLI capable PSU, you'd have $23 to spare

In case you are wondering why I didn't recommend a Z170 build, it's because we always wait for the early steppings to flush out of the channel. Early MoBos will usually have some issues (I.e. external drives not coming outta sleep state) and as with CPUs, later steppings will have some performance tweaks that will not be fixed by later BIOSs tho newer BIOSs will make things easier in many respects also.

The Black Friday rush will, I think flush most of these out of the channel, and we may start using / recmmending them in our builds shortly thereafter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepping_level
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/29

We oft recommend Xeons, great performers for the money, and H series MoBos in budget builds but not with 980 Tis

@ aDevilishTurtle
Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz will perform fine for modern games. You may gain a few fps if you get a better chip or go for k-series CPU and overclock it. But my feeling is that you´re not comfortable with overclocking. If you choose to overclock, you need a k-series chip and a CPU cooler. Mind the extra space needed for cooler and the extra watts needed for the PSU.

@ JackNaylorPE
Op mentions he has an SSD already.

About the AX760.
I have one at home and I was going to buy the AXi version at first. It´s an incredible power supply, but i ran into some reports of the digital controlled version suffering from errors. Both of them have excellent ripple suppression and supertight voltage regulation. That paired with a plus platinum certification .. it doesn´t get much better.
It´s certainly not oversized for a GTX 980 TI. Optimally you want your PSU to be running at 50% load, not at 80-100% load all the time. It shortens the PSU lifetime. Even more so, it will be a load PSU running the fan at all times, producing more heat and the whole point of silent hybrid PSU goes moot when the hybrid mode never get used.

I agree it would be too small for a SLI setup considering peak draw times though.

"piece of pie, easy as cake"

2010, The Russian speaking to John Lithgow's character?

Unfortunately that SSD with OS on it does squat for the Games on the 70% slower 4 TB hard drive.

The system will boot fast but there's no impact on gaming performance. With the SSD, unless you are the type of gamer (or data file user in a working environment), the gaming / document files you are going to load are on the slowwww HD. An SSHD analyzes usage and puts your most frequently used gaming files on the SSD portion of the drive. So if you are playing Far Cry 3, all those FC3 frequently used files / maps are on the SSD ... then when you move say to FC4, the algorithm recognizes the change in usage, wipes the FC3 files off the SSD and moves them to the mechnaical portion of the drive .... and placing the FC4 files on the SSD portion.

I have two 256 GB SSDs and two 2 TB SSDs:

1. SSD No. 1 - OS and Programs
2. SSD No. 2 - Select games (ones with really large maps (i.e. Wicther 3)
3. SSHD No. 1 - All data
4. SSGD No. 2 - All other games

The boost in game performance is highly noticeable between SSHD and HD
The boost in game performance however is not discernable between SSHD andSSD

About the AX760.
I have one at home and I was going to buy the AXi version at first. It´s an incredible power supply, but i ran into some reports of the digital controlled version suffering from errors. Both of them have excellent ripple suppression and supertight voltage regulation. That paired with a plus platinum certification .. it doesn´t get much better.
It´s certainly not oversized for a GTX 980 TI. Optimally you want your PSU to be running at 50% load, not at 80-100% load all the time. It shortens the PSU lifetime. Even more so, it will be a load PSU running the fan at all times, producing more heat and the whole point of silent hybrid PSU goes moot when the hybrid mode never get used. I agree it would be too small for a SLI setup considering peak draw times though

Click to expand...

Again, it's not a bad PSU, it's specs are very good but not as good as its less expensive predecessor, the HX series in this size range had better voltage stability and lower ripple.

Actually PSU's are most efficient at 50% load and the general recommendation is that the maximum theoretical peak load w/ all things at 100% be no more than 75% of your PSU rating. The reason you don't use 50% because far more often than not, everything is not at peak load. Yes, you don't want to be at 80-100% all the time but you also don't want to be at 10-20 % most the time. So unless you are running Furmark 24/7 sizing at 50% is not the ideal solution.

Based upon your sizing requirement, for my SLI build with two water pumps, I need a 1600 watt PSU for my 794 peak load. At this moment it is drawing just 104 watts from the wall while I type. That is 6% of load at which point efficiency is terrible. It will sit like this ... picking up a bit when I load AutoCAD but until my workday ends at about 7 or 8 pm I guess today, that will be my usage. Again, the recommended PSU for my load would be a 1050 which is 75.6% of peak load. The reality however, is that your system never sees peak loads outside of stress testing.

It must also be noted that while the peak instantaneous power may be used by those seeking to get those last 6 MHz of OC on their cards, your are perfectly fine using the TDP of the card as a needs estimator. Yes, those no reference cards may get instantaneous peaks of +45 watts in gaming or even +100 on a stress test but that is what capacitors are for. THG did an article on this within the last year or so which went into detail on the subject ... with my lunch break almost shot, i don't have time to find it

According to nVidia, the guys who make the card, they're fine with 600 watts

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980-ti/specifications

980 Ti Thermal and Power Specs:
92 C = Maximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
250 W = Graphics Card Power (W)
600 W = Minimum System Power Requirement (W)
6-pin + 8-pinSupplementary Power Connectors


According to Guru3D, with a massively overclocked 5960x 230 watt CPU in the mix, they're fine with 600 watts

.http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_980_ti_review,8.html

Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 250 Watts

Here is Guru3D's power supply recommendation:

GeForce GTX 980 Ti - On your average system the card requires you to have a 600 Watts power supply unit.
GeForce GTX 980 Ti SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have a 900 Watts power supply unit as minimum.

If you are going to overclock your GPU or processor, then we do recommend you purchase something with some more stamina.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately that SSD with OS on it does squat for the Games on the 70% slower 4 TB hard drive.

The system will boot fast but there's no impact on gaming performance. With the SSD, unless you are the type of gamer (or data file user in a working environment), the gaming / document files you are going to load are on the slowwww HD. An SSHD analyzes usage and puts your most frequently used gaming files on the SSD portion of the drive. So if you are playing Far Cry 3, all those FC3 frequently used files / maps are on the SSD ... then when you move say to FC4, the algorithm recognizes the change in usage, wipes the FC3 files off the SSD and moves them to the mechnaical portion of the drive .... and placing the FC4 files on the SSD portion.

I have two 256 GB SSDs and two 2 TB SSDs:

1. SSD No. 1 - OS and Programs
2. SSD No. 2 - Select games (ones with really large maps (i.e. Wicther 3)
3. SSHD No. 1 - All data
4. SSGD No. 2 - All other games

The boost in game performance is highly noticeable between SSHD and HD
The boost in game performance however is not discernable between SSHD andSSD

About the AX760.
I have one at home and I was going to buy the AXi version at first. It´s an incredible power supply, but i ran into some reports of the digital controlled version suffering from errors. Both of them have excellent ripple suppression and supertight voltage regulation. That paired with a plus platinum certification .. it doesn´t get much better.
It´s certainly not oversized for a GTX 980 TI. Optimally you want your PSU to be running at 50% load, not at 80-100% load all the time. It shortens the PSU lifetime. Even more so, it will be a load PSU running the fan at all times, producing more heat and the whole point of silent hybrid PSU goes moot when the hybrid mode never get used. I agree it would be too small for a SLI setup considering peak draw times though

Click to expand...

Again, it's not a bad PSU, it's specs are very good but not as good as its less expensive predecessor, the HX series in this size range had better voltage stability and lower ripple.

Actually PSU's are most efficient at 50% load and the general recommendation is that the maximum theoretical peak load w/ all things at 100% be no more than 75% of your PSU rating. The reason you don't use 50% because far more often than not, everything is not at peak load. Yes, you don't want to be at 80-100% all the time but you also don't want to be at 10-20 % most the time. So unless you are running Furmark 24/7 sizing at 50% is not the ideal solution.

Based upon your sizing requirement, for my SLI build with two water pumps, I need a 1600 watt PSU for my 794 peak load. At this moment it is drawing just 104 watts from the wall while I type. That is 6% of load at which point efficiency is terrible. It will sit like this ... picking up a bit when I load AutoCAD but until my workday ends at about 7 or 8 pm I guess today, that will be my usage. Again, the recommended PSU for my load would be a 1050 which is 75.6% of peak load. The reality however, is that your system never sees peak loads outside of stress testing.

It must also be noted that while the peak instantaneous power may be used by those seeking to get those last 6 MHz of OC on their cards, your are perfectly fine using the TDP of the card as a needs estimator. Yes, those no reference cards may get instantaneous peaks of +45 watts in gaming or even +100 on a stress test but that is what capacitors are for. THG did an article on this within the last year or so which went into detail on the subject ... with my lunch break almost shot, i don't have time to find it

According to nVidia, the guys who make the card, they're fine with 600 watts

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980-ti/specifications

980 Ti Thermal and Power Specs:
92 C = Maximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
250 W = Graphics Card Power (W)
600 W = Minimum System Power Requirement (W)
6-pin + 8-pinSupplementary Power Connectors


According to Guru3D, with a massively overclocked 5960x 230 watt CPU in the mix, they're fine with 600 watts

.http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/nvidia_geforce_gtx_980_ti_review,8.html

Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 250 Watts

Here is Guru3D's power supply recommendation:

GeForce GTX 980 Ti - On your average system the card requires you to have a 600 Watts power supply unit.
GeForce GTX 980 Ti SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have a 900 Watts power supply unit as minimum.

If you are going to overclock your GPU or processor, then we do recommend you purchase something with some more stamina.

Click to expand...

As the OP stated he is not overclocking .... no need to add for "stamina" but if he chose to, OC'ing the card would add just 20% (power slider limit on Ti) or 50 watts. And let's remember that their recommendation is based upn a 230 watt heavily OC'd 5960x, not a heavily OC's 130 watt 4690k or even a 88 watt no OC'd 4690k w/ stock cooler.