Final thoughts?! i7-3930k build on water

[tburk]

Alright, I'm stacking my money into a little pyramid now at the bottom of a burn barrel, almost ready to burn it all up..

Looking for some last minute advice from the pros, I will be leaving GPU and Watercooling out for now (I have my thoughts on that already but for arguments sake it will be GtX 680's in SLI with Danger Den blocks)

Approximate Purchase Date: 4/5/2012

Budget Range: $2000-2500 (loose)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming / Video Editing and Rendering work / Browsing

Parts Not Required: Mouse, Speakers

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg, Microcenter

Country: US

Parts Preferences: Intel Cpu / Nvidia Gpu (only real preference)

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Yes

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080, 1920x1200 (somewhat undecided on monitor would love input)

Additional Comments: Shouldnt have asked, I have plenty haha..

Alright, so I am pretty well set on most of my build and will note things I am undecided on, but if anything you see you think there is something better out there in the components price range, please please say something Im open to it all..


My thoughts as of 4/2 at 1AM..

Case: NZXT Switch 810 in White

CPU: Intel i7-3930k

MOBO: ASUS Sabertooth x79

PSU: Corsair Pro Series Gold AX850

GPU: 680's in SLI (not to be considered in budget)

Storage HDD: Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB 5900 RPM 6.0Gb/s

SSD: Samsung 830 Series 128GB Sata III
(now for this, really want input, I might bump up to a 240 and shrink the HDD)

RAM: Undecided again.. was thinking G.SKILL Sniper Series 16GB (4x4) 240-pin DDR3 1600 (love some insight here..)

Monitor: Need help, thinking 23-24" Full HD 1080P.. was suggested to look towards 120hz to get the most out of the GPU power (thoughts?)

So thats the basic rig idea, GPU's and CPU will be on water.

EDIT:
ALRIGHT HERE IS MY TWEAKED BUILD, DECIDED TO LEAVE THE ORIGINAL POST UP HERE SO OTHERS CAN SEE THE PROGRESSION

CASE: NZXT Switch 810 (white)

PSU: CORSAIR AX850

MOBO: ASUS Sabertooth x79

CPU: INTEL i7-3930k

RAM: G.SKILL Sniper Series 16Gb (4x4) 1600

SSD: MUSHKIN Cronos Deluxe 240Gb SIII 6Gb/s

HHD: WESTERN DIGITAL Black 1.5Tb 6Gb/s 7200rpm

GPU: (buying at a later date) GTX 680 (have had success with EVGA, will go that route most likely)

MONITOR: Setting rig up with a 20" LG I have, moving towards 23" Asus

Hopefully this helps someone else out who is in the market. Thanks Guys!

 

[hellfire24]

great choice man!my thoughts-
switch is a great cse.you have a killer setup.sabertooth x79 and 3930k make a great couple.ax850w is enough for 680 SLi.for hdd,i would say sammy f4 2tb is a better choice-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245&Tpk=f4%202tb
samsung 830 128gb ssd is a great drive.very reliable and fast.keep it.
for x79,this one is a great ram kit-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104169
kingston makes quality products.it's a 1.65V quad channel kit.perfect for 3930k.
human eye can't see anything above 60fps so i don't think you need 120mhz monitor(if it's a personal preference then get one otherwise no).asus monitors are great imo.here's a good one that fulfills your needs-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236153
received good customer ratings too.
make another thread in overclocking thread for watercooling your rig.i am sure you will get great guidance.

 

[Tavo_Nova]

g.skill ripjaws Z 16gb (4x4gb) 1600/1866 or higher Mhz cl9 is a better memory IMO it's suited for x79 platform

for me the standard would be 23" for 1080p fullhd resolution but I do suggest bigger size for you those at 27" to 30" at 120h monitor would be awesome

 

[hellfire24]

why is that ram better?kingstone makes great products.from SSDs to rams.it's 1.5V,the one i suggested was 1.65V which works great with LGA2011,1.5V is for 1155.
my brother uses a 27" 1080p monitor.it's great but image looks a bit less sharper then a 24" 1080p monitor.it's because of less pixel density.so 23~24 is a better option.120mhz is great but may be because anything above 60 fps is useless.but if OP wants it then it's good to have one.

 

[dalauder]

Overall, your build is pretty solid. At your price point, I'd go ahead and pick up a 240GB SSD considering they are very common in the sub $300 range now.

If you see a sale on RAM from G.Skill, Corsair, Kingston, or Mushkin, then you could upgrade. But you won't actually see a performance improvement unless you benchmark (and even then it'll be small in most tasks).

I do strongly suggest you go 3D for your build. Considering a single GTX 680 can run pretty much any game except Metro 2033, Crysis 2, & BF3 maxed out in 3D (120Hz), you have to go 3D with SLI'd GTX 680's or they're completely wasted.

Honestly, I'd say only get one GTX 680 right now. Then buy a second if you can think of a single reason you could use more graphics horsepower.

Alternatively, get three 22" 1080p screens and game on those to use the GTX 680's--although I'd still say start with one. Anyhow...go 3D or multiscreen or you're wasting your graphics.

Btw, what cooler are you using before you go to water? I suggest something not crazy expensive like the Thermaltake Frio: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106150

It's markedly better than the Hyper 212+ with performance on par with $90 Noctuas.

 

[tburk]

Now my only beef with the Kingston RAM in this price slot is the lack of color options. I really want something neutral, a black or maybe the corsair vengeance in brown.. for my color scheme I am trying to avoid any reds or blues.

As for the HDD.. My only thought now is will I be disappointed with a 5900rpm drive vs 7200rpm.. If I go 5900 you are probably right that Samsung has some good reviews for a 2TB drive.. In reality 1 or 1.5TB will more than suit my needs.. I wonder if a 7200rpm 6gb/s WD Black 1.5tb ($30 more) would show a performance gain.. The drive wont be used for its speed I suppose but speed never hurts. I will have mostly videos, music, downloads, and documents with a few non essential, non speed driven programs. I'd like to keep the SSD clean with my OS and a game or two, whatever Im playing, and then a few speed oriented programs.

 

[dalauder]

Keep in mind that your $2500 computer will be bested by Ivy Bridge quad core i7's that cost less when they launch on April 29th: http://epluskeys.com/blog/technology/intel-ivy-bridge-2012-processor-final-release-date.html/

 

[tburk]

As for the cooler, I hadnt put much thought into having an alternative to my water cooling.. If I have holdups (especially on the GPU end) I had though of creating a messy CPU only loop first and then creating a tidy loop once I have all components. In reality, I might not even boot the system until I have everything in place because I currently have another laptop that will suite me just fine for those "OH *** ITS NOT WORKING" forum scrambles

 

[dalauder]

If you need color options, go with Geil or Crucial. They are both great RAM makers and have some of the coolest color options.

 

[tburk]

In response to Ivy Bridge.. I would say I disagree. First, to the best of my knowledge and from all intel out there.. IB will be all 4C processors.. the current SB-E chips (6c/12t) will (intuitively) outperform the IB chips (which are meant to replace Sandy Bridge). Now surely the IB-E chips that will eventually be released (I first heard late summer 2012, now I hear 2013) will outperform my 3930k.. but at that point I can make the decision whether to upgrade again or stick with my chip.

Either way, the LGA 2011 socket from everything I hear will have a few more months of legs on it over the 1155, if not 2 chip releases.. which is all you can ask for in this game we love

 

[Tavo_Nova]

i got 120hz and 60hz monitor in 3 on different brands and models, some at 27"or 30" most are at 23" as I do believe I like it better on a 23".

G.skill one is a much better choice based on my experience since the lga 1155 socket was around when I started using g.skill. I used to use other brands but well.

I have 1 i7 3960X gaming/work station system 2 i7 3930K gaming/work station system and 1 i7 3820 gaming/work station system
2 i5 2500k gaming system, 1 i5 2400 gaming system, 2 i3 2100 gaming system h61 and h67, apu a6 3670k and a8 3870k, 1 i7 2600K gaming system

these are the systems I have which uses g.skill and so far non of them even had a single problems, some problems I had on them are either MOBO,SSD, so far maybe I'm just lucky but I never had problem with G.skill ram.

so far on corsair ram I had 3 problems with it but everything else was smooth in transaction of warranty and all. so I do recommend those too but not the tall one if your using air cooling as sometimes it gives problem if you don't research a lot.

so far geil and team elite wasn't bad and I also use kingston on my other builds too. but majority of my system has g.skill.

also got couple of core 2 duo systems pentium 4, i7 990x i7 970, and some more.

been a building addict for a long time but some what still being a sucker for new technology meh.

btw I do agree with you hellfire, 23"is actually the best sweet spot for full hd 1080p anything above is not so great as it look's

for FPS on games, average of 30-40is actually all we need, if you think about it our eyes won't notice much from 60hz - 120hz unless your superman or God or something.

I still have a Dell Studio Hybrid with 2gb ram core 2 duo processor, I use it as extra internet/microsoft office pc(well my wife does) and tried installing battlefield 3 but seeing with a 3xxmb video memory as onboard graphics it didn't fair too well. estimating it with the way my eyes see it, was like around 1-5fps lol.

for SSD, I have couple of corsair force 3 and worked well for all this time never had any major problems with it just updated fw and works like a charm, but well with corsair force gt 120gb i don't know long before when it was new I bought all 4 at the same time but just few weeks ago all 4 of them died, manage to get them for rma on distro and now seems to be working fine, although now i'm using intel 510 ssds and crucial on my main system all works awesome.

samsung ssd is something you will never go wrong with, sadly I can't get my hands on those free or even when I'll be spending my own cash for it.

no actually gtx680 isn't wasted even if you don't go 3D, it gives performance for the money you pay for it.

I've tried playing a trifire 7970 on a 1024x720 resolution (old monitor) and if your the type who likes FPS then your best bet is to play on 800x600 on all low settings,
well I just wanted to see how it fairs on it and it was all utterly stupidly high fps used on a bad resolution.

note on kingston ram I've only had the genesis and the black one but that was some time ago and they fair really well when I was testing it since that time some guys were saying kingston ram is crap and stuff but after getting my hands on one and after 2 months of stability test on 24/7 usage, 14 hours gaming and the rest at Idle performance was great.

but hey kingston rams are good too, TS can grab those 8x4gb kits of kingston hyper x genesis or something which is cheaper (at least in my local store) those are 1.65v but still works wonders.

well so far his x79 system will last longer than the 1155 sb system as most people would go for ivy bridge for their 5-15% performance increase, as for me If I were on a tight budget I would opt for sandy i5 2500k for gaming even after ivy is out but well I love new tech and hoping I'll get some soon on supplier. would be awesome to play around it

 

[tburk]

Alright thanks for the great insight everyone, I'll go ahead and edit my tweaked build in up top after consulting each one of your comments plus doing a bit more research and looking into reviews.... greatly appreciated!

 

[hellfire24]

^good call,researching is good.

 

[tburk]

Best answer selected by tburk.

 

[dalauder]

A Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB is about as fast as Caviar Blacks and costs less.

 

[dalauder]

...no actually gtx680 isn't wasted even if you don't go 3D, it gives performance for the money you pay for it...

Wow, that was an impressively thorough post of user experience (with Intel). My only point of contest is--how does the GTX 680 give performance that is useful if it's over 60fps on a 60Hz screen? That was mostly all I meant about a second being useless--at least on a single 1080p screen.

 

[tburk]

Hey guys thanks again for the help, I'm a philanderer, mixing around in all different forums but I'm mostly over at Overclock.net .. Just started a build log over there if anyone is interested or just wants to poke fun at me

http://www.overclock.net/t/1239007/build-log-wild-bill-i7-3930k-wet-an-adventure/0_40#post_16895769

Gonna do some cool stuff with the case I think (at least cool to me) (and if you were looking at my build thinking of doing a rig close to this, maybe I will help you see a bit better at what you'd be looking at)

 

[scott71_70]

very good choice in parts great set up