Looking to build high-end system

[SGCnadry]

Hi, I am looking to build myself a very high end system. I wrote this thread to ask for your advice and opinions. This will be the first system i will build myself, and the questions I have for you are:

-Is this just a waste of money?
-Are there any parts I should switch?
-Compatibility issues?
-Is it retarded to build a system like this as my first?

Okay, so the thing is that I want to build a future-proof computer that will serve me for gaming/streaming purposes. No overclocking planned tbh.

I do not really care that much about the price, but would love to know your opinion, wether its just a freaking overkill, or its worth the money I will pay for it.

I do realize that I could get a system for half the price, that would serve me as good right now, but as I said, looking for a future-proof system.

I might sound as a bit of a hypocrite, but I am not really looking for type of advice: "Get a i7-5960x, its better." I am looking for value for my money. The price ceiling for the whole system with peripherals and monitors should not go over 4k€

CPU: i7-5930k
Motherboard: Asus Rampage V extreme
Memory: 4x8GB Kingston FURY DDR4-2666
Video cards: 2x GeForce GTX 980ti EVGA 06G-P4-4992-KR
Power: Corsair AX860i
Case: Corsair Air 540

Also, next question i have for you is: I would prefer to have just a classic fan cooling in the system, but have seen a lot of mixed CPU coolers in high end systems lately. Is there a specific reason for this, or just pure preference?



Thanks in advance!

 

[Shalaska]

OK, first off, I am bias as I just recently built a similar overkill computer seen here. For cooling the CPU I highly recommend the Noctua brand coolers although you must make sure that the one you go with will fit in your case! They are big but they vastly outperform even watercoolers such as the H100i.

I am a fan of your CPU, although I would suggest at least doing a modest overclock as it is clocked really low which will have an effect on gaming. I got mine to 4.4 with no problem but even going to 4.0 or 4.1 would be a big boost over the 3.5 it comes at stock.

The only thing I would suggest changing, and this is just a personal recommendation since I don't know your use case, but 4x8GB of RAM is probably overkill. While I do have that as well in my system (and have considered multiple times going up to 8x8GB) I also run virtual machines which can take up a lot of RAM. While gaming I have not seen the ram break 8GB never mind 16Gb that 4x4GB would clock in at. That said the amount of money you save there versus what you are spending on the rest of the system isn't much so I understand going with 32GB.

One thing you don't show is a hard drive solution, I highly recommend you at least get a SSD for your OS drive even if you go with a HDD for your storage drive. I have a 1TB SSD and I absolutely love the boot and reboot times it provides.

And as for people telling you the 5960x is better, it is not better for gaming as it can't be clocked as high, and at this time no games utilize the additional cores it provides. The only time a 5960x is better is if you also do video rendering etc which will utilize the additional cores.

 

[zared619]

Here are my suggestions, and they are reflected in the build I will post. To start, you are going completely overkill on your motherboard. If you aren't super-interested in overclocking, you won't need the rampage. The sabertooth is a great board and will serve you well.

As with the previous poster, I can't imagine you ever needing 16 Gb of RAM, let alone 32. At least not within the next 10 years. From what I've seen AMD's Fury X should be able to top the 980Ti, so I recommend going with those when they are released next week.

Even if you stick with the 980Ti's I recommend a 1000 watt PSU. This will ensure that you aren't straining your PSU all the time.

If you have any questions, just ask.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£409.98 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£65.46 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH X99 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£265.18 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£134.45 @ More Computers)
Storage: Intel 750 Series 1.2TB PCI-E Solid State Drive (£820.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£575.94 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£575.94 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case (£115.72 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 1000W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£152.12 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Samsung U28D590D 60Hz 28.0" Monitor (£351.55 @ More Computers)
Total: £3467.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-19 18:04 BST+0100

 

[SGCnadry]

Thanks for the fast replies.

as long as storage is concerned, i will probably go for smthing like 256gb SSD for system files and then a 7.2k rpm hdd for the rest. Do you think its worth it to have ALL the files on SSD? the price seems to be freaking high for those high memory SSD's.

to RAM, thanks for your opinions, Shalaska you got it right, when you predicted my thinking there ^^ yet, I've been thinking about getting 2x8 and in case of alien technology invasion just adding some more later. You think this is a better way to look at it?

overclocking: well, to be honest with you, I just have no experience with it. Do you think that not overclocking that CPU would affect me while playing/streaming right now? Isn't overclocking influencing the lifespan of CPU? would love to hear an opinion on that.

Zared, thannks for the PSU advice, I think that for the moment I will stick with the 980ti's yet I will probably wait with order for the fury to come out.

Cooling, yea, I was actually looking precisely at Noctua coolers from the reviews i've read, but the color is just... not like I want to have a fancy led blinking machine, but that color is just...

Zared, I would also love to ask you about the motherboards: I have troubles understanding the pricing and differences withing motherboards. I do realize that I am looking for x99 chipset, but besides that, what do I need from the motherboard? Number of slots etc. cannot make such a price difference.

 

[Shalaska]

First, I have a 1TB SSD, you are right it was expensive and I would have been better served with a smaller SSD and a large HDD for my files. That said I am too lazy to properly send the files to a seperate drive so for me, the cost was worth my laziness. That is very personal and is up to you.

For RAM, I would not suggest getting 2x8GB. I suggested 4x4GB because the x99 chipset works on Quad-Channel RAM. What that means is that you get the best performance by having 4 identical sticks in the system instead of 2 bigger sticks. Now that does lower your maximum RAM capacity without replacing the existing sticks, but again 16GB is fine never mind the max of 32GB that most x99 MOBOs would give you (8x4GB sticks) instead of the 64GB you could theoretically have with 8x8GB sticks.

Yes, overclocking will influence the lifespan of the CPU. That is true, but it heavily depends on how hard you overclock it. If I remember correctly I pushed my 5930k almost if not all the way to 4.0ghz without needing to touch the voltage. I would try that and get it stable at a higher clock speed without changing the voltage and then decide if you want faster. By increasing the voltage you are wearing out the CPU faster, but it should still last you for a number of years either way so it is just a question of just how many years you intend to hold onto this CPU for.

For the PSU, just remember you want to run your PSU at more then 50% capacity and less then 80% capacity the majority of the time. If you over size it and use less then 50% capacity then you will get less efficiency then is rated, and if you are constantly running it above 80% capacity then you are overworking the PSU. I use this site to help me calculate my PSU needs and adjust from there.

I agree that the Noctua coolers are ugly. It ruins the whole look of my system, but the question is do you want it looking good, or cool and quiet. If you want cool and quiet the Noctua are the way to go. If you want both then you really need to run a custom water cooling loop and there is still a good chance you are going to lose that quiet part.

With motherboards the big thing is to
1) make sure it is coming from a reputable manufacturer with good firmware support (I wholeheartedly support ASUS as the firmware updates on my Rampage V Extreme have been great)
2) Does it have all the features you need, for example I need WIFI so I was thrilled that the Rampage V Extreme comes with it instead of requiring me to buy an additional Wifi solution
3) Does it conform to the look of your build. Lets be honest at the crazy money we are spending you should at least like the look.
4) How well does it overclock. This is where he suggested you step down. The Rampage V Extreme overclocks well. It has a ton of features and it is great to work with. BUT if you are not planning on pushing your overclock hard then there is no need for many of the features that it has.

I would suggest that you ensure that the board has at a minimum 8xRAM slots. This will allow you to put in 2 quad-channel kits letting you get one now and upgrade one later. For PCI-E I like having 2x 16x slots for my SLI, but they have shown that at the current speeds of graphic cards even 2x 8x slots does not bottleneck the graphics card so that isn't really a problem. Outside of that it is up to you as to if you need Gigabit ethernet ports, better built in sound quality (unless you are going with a PCI sound card), built in wifi etc. Most x99 boards are completely overbuilt and will have more then what you need since they are designed for the enthusiast market, but just make sure you don't compromise too much on the board as it is the backbone of the system.

Let me know if you have any other questions I can help you with.

 

[zared619]

Thanks for the fast replies.

as long as storage is concerned, i will probably go for smthing like 256gb SSD for system files and then a 7.2k rpm hdd for the rest. Do you think its worth it to have ALL the files on SSD? the price seems to be freaking high for those high memory SSD's.

to RAM, thanks for your opinions, Shalaska you got it right, when you predicted my thinking there ^^ yet, I've been thinking about getting 2x8 and in case of alien technology invasion just adding some more later. You think this is a better way to look at it?

overclocking: well, to be honest with you, I just have no experience with it. Do you think that not overclocking that CPU would affect me while playing/streaming right now? Isn't overclocking influencing the lifespan of CPU? would love to hear an opinion on that.

Zared, thannks for the PSU advice, I think that for the moment I will stick with the 980ti's yet I will probably wait with order for the fury to come out.

Cooling, yea, I was actually looking precisely at Noctua coolers from the reviews i've read, but the color is just... not like I want to have a fancy led blinking machine, but that color is just...

Zared, I would also love to ask you about the motherboards: I have troubles understanding the pricing and differences withing motherboards. I do realize that I am looking for x99 chipset, but besides that, what do I need from the motherboard? Number of slots etc. cannot make such a price difference.

Storage: From a value standpoint, it's definitely better to go with a SSD and a HD. And honestly, you will do just fine with that setup. However, because you have the money to do so, and you will actually notice a performance increase in your boot time and standard use, I recommend going with a PCI-E SSD, such as the one I recommended. Intel makes the 750 in a 400 Gb version that I would go with if I were you. For your HD, get a Western Digital.

RAM: Going with the 2x8 won't make use of the 4 memory channels the new processors have, but going by your logic, which isn't bad, you should be fine with that.

Motherboard/Overclocking: First and foremost, you want quality in a motherboard. This means going with A. Going with a reputable brand, and B. choosing a well-reviewed and tested board. Motherboards can come with all sorts of bells and whistles such as more PCI-E x 16 slots, WiFi, overclocking optimizations and better BIOS software. I'll list the main differences between the Rampage and Sabertooth.

Sabertooth:
Up to 3 GPU's
A few less accessory ports (unless you plan on installing 5 or more cards other than your GPU's you'll be fine)
Standard 8-channel audio
6 USB 3.0 ports
A pile of 2.0 ports
Cool looking dust-guards

Rampage V:
Up to 4 GPU's
A million accessory ports
Super fancy ROG 8-channel audio
10 USB 3.0 ports
A pile of 2.0 ports
Cool overclocking/enthusiast BIOS and optimizations.

A link comparing their features.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=x99%20sabertooth&bop=And&CompareItemList=-1%7C13-132-505%5E13-132-505-TS%2C13-132-518%5E13-132-518-TS&percm=13-132-518%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24

Moral of the story, the Rampage just has a lot more bells and whistles. You can go that route if you want, but I don't think that you'll gain a lot from it. I hope this helps.

 

[SGCnadry]

Thanks a lot guys, you helped a ton and explained some stuff for me. Thanks once again

 

[SGCnadry]

Hey boys, just posting what i decided to order and wondering if you have some kind of last advice, or you think i am doing a good decision

PCU: i7-5930K
Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B
GPU: 2x EVGA GeForce GTX980 Ti Superclocked - (decided that i love the look of it too much, so not waiting for radeon)
Motherboard: Asus x99-S
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000mhz 4x4GB (black)
Storage: 1x Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD (purely for system files)
2x WD Black 1TB (1x2TB would be a bit cheaper, but those two HDD's look really good in the case on the bottom)
Case: Corsair Air 540R
Power Supply: Corsair HX1000i
Fans: 3x Noctua NF-P12 (to replace the two 140's in the front)
3x Noctua NF-A14 (to replace the back fan and put two on the ceiling of the case)
Monitor: Benq xl2430t (adding it to the xl2420t i have atm)

PS: thanks a lot for all your feedback!

 

[zared619]

Hey boys, just posting what i decided to order and wondering if you have some kind of last advice, or you think i am doing a good decision

PCU: i7-5930K
Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B
GPU: 2x EVGA GeForce GTX980 Ti Superclocked - (decided that i love the look of it too much, so not waiting for radeon)
Motherboard: Asus x99-S
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000mhz 4x4GB (black)
Storage: 1x Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD (purely for system files)
2x WD Black 1TB (1x2TB would be a bit cheaper, but those two HDD's look really good in the case on the bottom)
Case: Corsair Air 540R
Power Supply: Corsair HX1000i
Fans: 3x Noctua NF-P12 (to replace the two 140's in the front)
3x Noctua NF-A14 (to replace the back fan and put two on the ceiling of the case)
Monitor: Benq xl2430t (adding it to the xl2420t i have atm)

PS: thanks a lot for all your feedback!

I can't imagine you having any problems putting that build together or it struggling doing anything for the next 5 years. Happy building. I'm glad we could help!
P.S. I think your board should come with at least 4 SATA cables, but you should probably check