Custom Build Advice Needed

[Souryu]

Hello folks,

I'm new here and require your assistance with a few technical questions and recommendations. Here's my idea for a new custom build which I'm planning to assemble myself as nowadays it really isn't that hard anymore and it will roughly save me 200 euros.

Corsair Obsidian 750D
Intel® Core™ i7-4790K
Corsair Hydro Series H100i
Corsair DIMM 16 GB DDR3-2400 Kit
Samsung 840 EVO 2,5" 250 GB
Western Digital WD2003FZEX 2 TB
Corsair AX860i (it's efficent and leaves room for upgradeability, especially with the GPUs)
3x Corsair Air Series AF120Q white LED
2x Corsair Air Series SP120 white LED

As you can see I haven't listed neither a mainboard, nor a graphics card, reason being that I'm not quite sure about what to pick.

What is a decent mainboard to use here? It should stay in the around 150€ range.

I have thought about the following:

ASUS MAXIMUS VII RANGER
GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z97
GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-Gaming 5
MSI Z97 GAMING 5

I should add that I'm most-likely going for a black/red build with white LED fans. This rules out quite a few board and leaves me to pick either of the above. They all cost more or less the same. The ASUS and the MSI however look a tad better because they don't have this silly eye. I suppose the Ranger is my best pick?

My next concern is finding a fitting GPU. I will be playing games on a 27' 1440p monitor (no surround, no 4k planned anytime soon) and aim to get the best possible performance for a reasonable price. The following choices are possible:

1x GeForce GTX 780 Ti
1x GeForce GTX 980
2x GeForce GTX 970 running in SLI

I am a GeForce fanboy and won't accept any Radeon recommendations. I tend to pick the 780 Ti or the 2 970s over the 980 but I'm still unsure as to what my best bet is.

My last question is that either of the above mainboards is going to support the 2400 mhz RAM but the CPU seems to only support 1600 mhz. The difference in pricing is so small that I really don't care about it, I merely wonder whether or not I will benefit in any way from the additional 800 mhz?


Thanks for your help, I'm looking forward to reading your replies.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Welcome to the zoo.

Is gaming the only thing that you are going to do with this rig? If not, what other high power uses do you intend? You are set up to overclock. Are you, in fact, going to do this? Memory and motherboard advice depends on the answer.

 

[Souryu]

Thank you for reading this through.

I am in fact planning to do some light overclocking but I'm by no means an expert in this domain. The power supply sounds ambitious, I know, and so does the RAM but the differences in pricing are so low that I might as well pick the more premium option. You could say I'm slightly worried about future-proofing my build.

I'm going to use this for gaming, of course. I will however not do any heavy video rendering or what else you could think of that needs quite some horsepower. I just want my machine to work fast enough and as silent as possible for daily tasks (which I suppose this build is overkill for) and work at peak efficency when gaming at native resolution and high details, hence also the question about the GPU.

I've asked about the RAM because I heard most newer games would benefit from the additional frequency and I'm wondering about the extend of just that.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

OK. Thanks for the feedback. Gaming at this level needs only 8Gb of memory, with 4Gb extra on your video card. The ASUS Maximus supports 4 memory sticks, so you could start with 2 x 4Gb and add another 2 x 4Gb if you need it.

To use memory speed you need the processor speed and voltage and the motherboard to do so.

Here's a thread which addresses this. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/319755-30-ddr3-2400-1600

The specs say that one GTX 980 should do everything that you need, and you could always SLI that if you need more

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/review-gigabyte-geforce-gtx-980-g1-gaming.html

 

[Souryu]

Just to be clear, the system is not getting anything from the 2400 mhz since the CPU doesn't fully support it and I might in fact risk an unstable system by constantly having the memory underclocked to match the frequency my CPU supports? Then I will indeed purchase a 1600 mhz kit.

The benchmarks proved that the GTX 980 performs indeed better than the GTX 780 Ti so that's an obvious choice as both come at much the same price point.


Thanks for your help!

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Not just the price. The lower TDP of the GTX980 lowers power, heat, and stress on the system.

If and when you overclock, you may be able to use faster memory, so starting with 1866 would be fine.

Latency (CAS) can help too, but this is all an FPS or two here or there. Starting with a fast OCed 980 will help too.