Need advice on Gaming PC Build

[Roquemore92]

Approximate Purchase Date: Probably around July/August

Budget Range: about $2500

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Movies, Music, School work, Internet

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers, Monitor, OS

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: whatever is cheapest (i have only used Newegg and Amazon in the past

Country: US

Parts Preferences: I prefer Intel CPU's

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: Yes

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: Here's what I have so far, I would really like to know what others think about it. Compatibility, performance, bottlenecks, etc. Also what could be improved for about the same price? Also, is any of this overkill? Or am I making any obvious mistakes with this build? Thank you in advance for any help!

CPU: Intel i7-3930K

Motherboard: ASRock Extreme9 LGA 2011 Intel X79

Case: Thermaltake Chaser MK-1

Video Cards (x2 in Crossfire): XFX HD-687X-CNFC Radeon HD 6870 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16

Power Supply: ABS Majesty series MJ1100-M

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Hard Drive (x2 in RAID): Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM

SSD: Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB 2.5" 120GB SATA III (I currently have another one of these in a laptop and will pull that one to run in RAID with a new one.

Optical Drive 1: Pioneer Black Internal BD/DVD/CD Writer BDR-207DBKS

Optical Drive 2: LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer

Media Card Reader: Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader

CPU Water Cooler: CORSAIR H100

 

[venur]

-Get an i5-3570k the i7 bring nothing to gaming (you won't even have a 1% performance increase)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

-You don't need crossfire/sli for 1080p gaming. For that budget range get a 680gtx if you can't get one go for a hd7970. Going crossfire 6870 make no sense especialy on a 2500$ PC.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162095
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982


-Ram 2x4g (since they are so cheap you might go the 4x4G but you won,t use that much while gaming). Corsair and G.Skill are two good brand either go 1333Hz pr 1600Hz (anything higher is useless and asking for trouble on a gaming PC).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233180 (the ones I'm using)

-If your going to watch movie and have a 2500$ budget range I'd get a Blue-ray burner if I was you.

-PSU: get a platinium rated PSU I'd say. I don,t know the brand you've listed so I can,t say if it is good or not.

 

[g-unit1111]

-Ram 2x4g (since they are so cheap you might go the 4x4G but you won,t use that much while gaming). Corsair and G.Skill are two good brand either go 1333Hz pr 1600Hz (anything higher is useless and asking for trouble on a gaming PC).

2 x 4GB won't work in an X79 configuration - you will need 4 x 4GB and I'd go for Windows 7 Pro as it does away with Home Premium's RAM limitations - you don't want to forfeit access to your RAM if you go X79.

-PSU: get a platinium rated PSU I'd say. I don,t know the brand you've listed so I can,t say if it is good or not.

I'd definitely ditch the PSU - 1100W isn't needed and that brand is very questionable - this is one area where you don't want to skimp, compromise or go cheap as it can cost you your whole build.

 

[venur]

2 x 4GB won't work in an X79 configuration - you will need 4 x 4GB and I'd go for Windows 7 Pro as it does away with Home Premium's RAM limitations - you don't want to forfeit access to your RAM if you go X79. .

I agree with you on that but he realy don,t need the x79 in the first place since he is only going to play games,watch movie, do homework and surf on the web. Their is no need for a 500$+ CPU since he won't do anything the i5 can't do.

 

[Roquemore92]

Thank you both for the response.

I went with the i7 because I like the features of the x79 chipset and LGA 2011 boards. Just from what I have seen, I prefer the Sandy Bridge E series over Ivy Bridge.

I will look at the graphics cards, but a quick look at newegg shows all but one GTX 680 as out of stock Video cards are one area where I have no idea what to look for.

There is a BD burner as my first optical drive.

As for the PSU I can look for a platinum rated one and what brand would be good for PSU's? How large of a PSU would you recommend?

And for the OS I was going to use Pro anyways due to it having XP mode which I use for various applications.

 

[venur]

Thank you both for the response.

I went with the i7 because I like the features of the x79 chipset and LGA 2011 boards. Just from what I have seen, I prefer the Sandy Bridge E series over Ivy Bridge.

I will look at the graphics cards, but a quick look at newegg shows all but one GTX 680 as out of stock Video cards are one area where I have no idea what to look for.

There is a BD burner as my first optical drive.

As for the PSU I can look for a platinum rated one and what brand would be good for PSU's?

Wich featur of the x79 LGA 2011board you need that much to spend 300$+ ? (I,m curious). And why sandy-bridge-E over ivy-bridge ?

Well anyway i5-3570k + z77 mobo should bring more to the table then going lga 2011 if your not going to use the hypertrading. The CPU only use 77w stock and I'm not sure their is anything the x79 bring to a gamer the z77 do not.

The i5-3570k will be about +10% performance increase (frame per second) for gaming then any stock i7 ivy-bridge-E for a way cheaper. We don't know yet about overclcoked performance but since the stock i5-3570k use only 77w you can suspect it will remain bether. Probably a way easier to cool.

 

[g-unit1111]

Thank you both for the response.

I went with the i7 because I like the features of the x79 chipset and LGA 2011 boards. Just from what I have seen, I prefer the Sandy Bridge E series over Ivy Bridge.

I will look at the graphics cards, but a quick look at newegg shows all but one GTX 680 as out of stock Video cards are one area where I have no idea what to look for.

There is a BD burner as my first optical drive.

As for the PSU I can look for a platinum rated one and what brand would be good for PSU's?

Give it a month and the 680 will be back in stock - I'm sure most manufacturers are scrambling to meet the unusually high demand for them right now.

Platinum PSUs are fine - it won't make that much of a difference if you get a gold one or not. 1100W is major overkill for a 680. Actually pretty much anything above 900W you could say

Try this setup for a $2500 rig:

Case: Corsair Carbide 500R - $139.99
PSU: PC Power & Cooling - $149.99
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X79 - $319.99
CPU: 3.2GHz Intel Core i7-3930K - $559.99
Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 Socket LGA 2011 Edition - $89.99
RAM: 16GB (4 x 4GB) Mushkin Enhanced Redline Quad Channel 1600MHz - $114.99
SSD: 128GB Plextor PX-M3 - $179.99
Optical: LG Black BD-R Burner - $79.99
Video Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 680 - $499.99
OS: Windows 7 Pro - $139.99

Total: $2,409.89

 

[Roquemore92]

The x79 supports more PCIe bandwidth, has more USB 3.0 headers, and I would like to have the quad-channel support (I know it isn't necessary for the gaming now).

As for the Ivy Bridge vs Sandy Bridge-E. I have read several reviews that show the Ivy Bridges run much hotter for some reason and as of right now, none have more than 4 cores and they run at the same clock as the sandy bridge ones.

Is there a reason to go with the z77 over x79 other than price? If I have it in the budget, why not go for it? Or is there somewhere else that money would be better used? I'm not trying to disregard the advice, only understand why you think I shouldn't go for the x79.

I personally would like to future proof the machine as much as I can.

 

[venur]

The x79 supports more PCIe bandwidth, has more USB 3.0 headers, and I would like to have the quad-channel support (I know it isn't necessary for the gaming now).

As for the Ivy Bridge vs Sandy Bridge-E. I have read several reviews that show the Ivy Bridges run much hotter for some reason and as of right now, none have more than 4 cores and they run at the same clock as the sandy bridge ones.

Is there a reason to go with the z77 over x79 other than price? If I have it in the budget, why not go for it? Or is there somewhere else that money would be better used? I'm not trying to disregard the advice, only understand why you think I shouldn't go for the x79.

I personally would like to future proof the machine as much as I can.

1) the p8z77 WS (the board I own) is 340$ with 3 PCIe 3.0 slot. And you don,t need the 3.0 slot for a 1080p gaming the 2.0slot bottleneck a single 680gtx and even 2 way sly 680gtx in 1080p. I went with that mobo because I go for 3 monior set-up with 3x 680gtx. For a 1080p build I wouldn't buy such a high priced mobo since you won,t use the feature it has over something at the 200$ price tag. The x79 realy bring nothing to a gamer a 1155board can't bring.

2)Like I've said futur proof for gaming the i5-3570k > sandy bridge E in performance.

going for the CPU you've listed you actualy build a weaker gaming PC. Even if your set-up was the same price the ivybridge will beat yours for gaming.

I'm dumping over 5000$ on the tower I'm building so my opinion aren't affected by the price. I wen't the ivy bridge route because they beat sandy-bridge E for gaming and I didn't bought the i7-3770k simply because gaming do not use hypertrading and the i7-2600k had performance lost over the i5-2500k in some games.

 

[g-unit1111]

1) the p8z77 WS (the board I own) is 340$ with 3 PCIe 3.0 slot. And you don,t need the 3.0 slot for a 1080p gaming the 2.0slot bottleneck a single 680gtx and even 2 way sly 680gtx in 1080p. I went with that mobo because I go for 3 monior set-up with 3x 680gtx. For a 1080p build I wouldn't buy such a high priced mobo since you won,t use the feature it has over something at the 200$ price tag. The x79 realy bring nothing to a gamer a 1155board can't bring.

I personally wouldn't spend $340 on a motherboard unless it's X79. If you're going Z77 the only way I'd spend $340 on a motherboard would be EVGA's Z77 FTW - however you most likely won't be using quad 680s and it's a monster motherboard and requires an XL-ATX case which would totally alter the configuration.

2)Like I've said futur proof for gaming the i5-3570k > sandy bridge E in performance.

Ivy is supposedly the end of the line - Haswell will be using an entirely new manufacturing process and design, and subsequently socket. Which means in the end that X79 will still be around. Look at P55 and X58 - you *NEVER* see P55 systems around anymore but people still hang on to their X58 systems. Why? The X58 CPUs are still pretty damn good and have held up well over the last several years where P55 just fizzled out.

I'm dumping over 5000$ on the tower I'm building so my opinion aren't affected by the price. I wen't the ivy bridge route because they beat sandy-bridge E for gaming and I didn't bought the i7-3770k simply because gaming do not use hypertrading and the i7-2600k had performance lost over the i5-2500k in some games.

I wish I had $5K to spend on a tower but I'd probably just spend $1500 on a tower and use the other $3500 to take a nice vacation or put toward my next car. :lol:

 

[venur]

1) the p8z77 WS (the board I own) is 340$ with 3 PCIe 3.0 slot. And you don,t need the 3.0 slot for a 1080p gaming the 2.0slot bottleneck a single 680gtx and even 2 way sly 680gtx in 1080p. I went with that mobo because I go for 3 monior set-up with 3x 680gtx. For a 1080p build I wouldn't buy such a high priced mobo since you won,t use the feature it has over something at the 200$ price tag. The x79 realy bring nothing to a gamer a 1155board can't bring.

I personally wouldn't spend $340 on a motherboard unless it's X79. If you're going Z77 the only way I'd spend $340 on a motherboard would be EVGA's Z77 FTW - however you most likely won't be using quad 680s and it's a monster motherboard and requires an XL-ATX case which would totally alter the configuration.

2)Like I've said futur proof for gaming the i5-3570k > sandy bridge E in performance.

Ivy is supposedly the end of the line - Haswell will be using an entirely new manufacturing process and design, and subsequently socket. Which means in the end that X79 will still be around. Look at P55 and X58 - you *NEVER* see P55 systems around anymore but people still hang on to their X58 systems. Why? The X58 CPUs are still pretty damn good and have held up well over the last several years where P55 just fizzled out.

I'm dumping over 5000$ on the tower I'm building so my opinion aren't affected by the price. I wen't the ivy bridge route because they beat sandy-bridge E for gaming and I didn't bought the i7-3770k simply because gaming do not use hypertrading and the i7-2600k had performance lost over the i5-2500k in some games.

I wish I had $5K to spend on a tower but I'd probably just spend $1500 on a tower and use the other $3500 to take a nice vacation or put toward my next car. :lol:

I think you've miss understood what I meant.

1) I stated that board was overkill for his need (still he is actualy looking for a mobo at the same price tag if he is going for the lga 2011) I've said a 200$ would suite him.

2) Never said the x79 isn't good but looking to buy one for gamer nowadays isn't the best idea.

3) Point was that his particular build would cost more for lower performance for his own needs

4) stated the price of my rig because he was wondering if I wasn't giving cheaper advice just to save money.

5) The money somene spend on a tower depend on his budget and his need. I'm totaly aware that 99.9% of gamer won't spend as much as me on a PC especialy since you can cap any game in 1080p for around 1500$.

 

[g-unit1111]

1) I stated that board was overkill for his need (still he is actualy looking for a mobo at the same price tag if he is going for the lga 2011)

2) Never said the x79 isn't good but looking to pay 350$ for one for a new gaming system isn't a good idea

That depends on what the primary use is - sure. If it's gaming strictly then you go for Z77/Z68. If it's gaming with other purposes (video editing, CS5) then you go for X79. I'm fully aware of that.

3) Point was that his particular build would cost more for lower performance for his own needs

Can't really argue with that.

5) Money somene spend on a tower depend on his budget and his need. I'm totaly aware that 99.9% of gamer won't spend as much as me on a PC especialy since you can cap any game in 1080p for around 1500$.

Certainly true that most people wouldn't spend $5000 on a tower when they could spend ~$1200 and still get a fairly killer system. But that all depends on the needs. I always look at is it's not my system - it's the OPs, I'm just merely offering suggestions - they ultimately decide where the money goes.

 

[venur]

[/quote]

That depends on what the primary use is - sure. If it's gaming strictly then you go for Z77/Z68. If it's gaming with other purposes (video editing, CS5) then you go for X79. I'm fully aware of that.

He said gaming, movie, web surfing kidna the reason why I try to convince him to not spend 500$+ on a i7

 

[FinneousPJ]

I agree it doesn't make sense for you to go 2011. Use it on a bigger SSD or crossfire 7970s since the 680 is unavailable.

 

[g-unit1111]

I agree it doesn't make sense for you to go 2011. Use it on a bigger SSD or crossfire 7970s since the 680 is unavailable.

OK I can see where it wouldn't make sense now - but as far as the 680 goes - give it a month or two before it comes back in stock - I'm sure most manufacturers didn't anticipate the unusually high demand.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Sure, if you want to wait.

Point is, that's money better spent than 800 on just a CPU plus mobo.

 

[venur]

Sure, if you want to wait.

Point is, that's money better spent than 800 on just a CPU plus mobo.

yeah + OP stated july/august so the 680gtx supply shouldn't be aproblem anymore.