Thinking of upgrading [gaming] + NAS enclosure

kaimera

1. What is your budget? Max €2000

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Yes - intel g2 ssd, cosmos 1000 chassis, corsair 850w psu

5. Do you need a monitor? No

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? 2560*1600

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

8. How can you pay? Any

9. When are you purchasing? Near future; parts pending of course

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Dublin

Current:
i7-920 @ 3.7 - noctua push/pull hsf
10GB RAM
Asus p6t (with a dodgy ram slot hence 10gb and dodgy sata ports)
570gtx oc'd
intel ssd, second cheap ssd,2 2*2tb, 2*1.5tb
pci2sata board

Looking for a good upgrade over the current rig; she creaks quite a bit in games trying to run full @ 1600p. That's my benchmark, no less than 60fps at that res, otherwise I may as well get rid of the 30" as close to full @ 1600p/60fps

Would do some slight OC-ing; nothing overly heavy but a decent boost would be nice.

Max out the ram in a mobo; i play with VMs.

780Ti I believe?

Oh, also a mikrotik router and a lil 6-8 port switch

Also would like a recommended 4 bay NAS enclosure for the hdds (2tb & 1.5tb i'll use in NAS)

Under 2k would be great, well under even better but I just want something to sparkle a bit.

yawhat!

Maybe two R9 290s in crossfire?

kaimera

Is microstutter still an issue in CF/SLI?

Surely a single card would drive maxed out @ 2560*1600

NTMK

kaimera wrote: »

Is microstutter still an issue in CF/SLI?

Surely a single card would drive maxed out @ 2560*1600

As far as im aware they fixed the Microstutter issue

2560*1600 would be pushing it for a 780 maxed out. i usually have to tweek settings to keep above 60fps @2560*1440

marco_polo

You might be interest in this article.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/catalyst-13.8-frame-pacing-crossfire,3595.html

There is also a r9 290 crossfire review here that also contains some FCAT frame pacing analysis of Tomb Raider, Bioshock and and Hitman, the main thing to take away from it however is that for the really heavy graphic hitters the likes of Metro LL and Crysis 3 some form of Crossfire/SLI almost essential for hitting 60 FPS (maxed out with little or no tweaking of settings ) even @1440p much less 1600p.


http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_r9_290_crossfire_review_benchmarks,1.html

Luck100

It's true, trying to hit 60+ FPS @1440p is pretty demanding in stuff like Metro and Crysis 3 at max settings. And those are just average FPS, if you want to keep min FPS above 60 you'll need even more.

The good news is that most other games (even new releases) are not as demanding, and you can pick up a fair bit of performance by dialing AA back from highest settings. MSAA is a big performance hog on nvidia cards but FXAA runs almost for free.

kaimera

Ignoring metro/crysis (didn't take the c3 and while I liked metro, low framerate stopped me playing)

a single 290 @ 1600p dialled back a bit?

Still need a cpu/mobo/ssd/single storage hdd (hybrid drive any use?) and nas enclosure

Luck100

The 290's which are currently available are all based on the crappy reference cooler. The non-reference ones are looking vastly better but you'll have to wait a few weeks at least.

If you don't want to wait, I'd say go for something like the EVGA GTX 780 Superclocked ACX. It overclocks well and has good cooling. It's more expensive than the current 290's, but the non-reference 290's will probably be near that price when they arrive.

marco_polo

kaimera wrote: »

Ignoring metro/crysis (didn't take the c3 and while I liked metro, low framerate stopped me playing)

a single 290 @ 1600p dialled back a bit?

Still need a cpu/mobo/ssd/single storage hdd (hybrid drive any use?) and nas enclosure

You could absolutely manage with a single R9 290 and a small bit of tweaking, although I reckon the next gen games cross platform games will be heading towards towards M:LL/C3 performance levels sooner rather than later.

Of course you don't have to go crossfire from the get go, but I would leave the option open by getting the right PSU (which you have already) and motherboard with a possible later upgrade in mind if needs be.

If I had €2000 I'd be tempted by a big ssd and a SSHD just for my steam library , the cache makes it pretty good at loading games quickly but the 2TB is a shade over €100, and really your probably as well off with a normal drive and getting a large SATA3 SSD.

Something like this perhaps (obviously the i7, 480GB SSD and SSHD are luxuries that can be trimmed back a bit without much negative impact ), can you reuse the existing

Item|Price
ASRock Z87 Extreme4, Sockel 1150, ATX|€119.15
2 x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9|€136.98
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€292.89
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 500GB SATA 6Gb/s|€279.99
Seagate Desktop SSHD 2TB SATA 6Gb/s NCQ 8,9cm (3,5") SSHD (8MB)|€103.55
Sapphire Radeon R9 290, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, full retail|€353.49
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1305.04

kaimera

@marco

500gb ssd is overkill; Only need it for OS and apps (might even stick my steam/origin exes on my intel ssd) and game dirs will be on the storage dev.

2k would be the very upper limit but I quite like what you've specced (drop the ssd to 250gb perhaps). Room for expansion in it.

Also...to throw a spanner in the works...hackintosh...need to be pretty specific about parts right? Just enquiring!

[edit]

HSF - I've no probs with the noctua I have atm; but one of the AIO enclosed water cooled cpu coolers ala the corsair hydro series (the cosmos 1000 dual exhaust fans at the top is good placement for a fan unit) - worthwhile?

NTMK

kaimera wrote: »

@marco

500gb ssd is overkill; Only need it for OS and apps (might even stick my steam/origin exes on my intel ssd) and game dirs will be on the storage dev.

2k would be the very upper limit but I quite like what you've specced (drop the ssd to 250gb perhaps). Room for expansion in it.

Also...to throw a spanner in the works...hackintosh...need to be pretty specific about parts right? Just enquiring!

Hackintosh is very specific and Its not an easy build in my experience

250GB is enough for Apps and OS and i wouldnt bother with High capacity SSDs as they seem to be moving in price again

kaimera

Item|Price
ASRock Z87 Extreme4, Sockel 1150, ATX|€119.15
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 250GB SATA 6Gb/s|€142.99
Sapphire Radeon R9 290, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, full retail|€353.49
Seagate Desktop SSHD 2TB SATA 6Gb/s NCQ 8,9cm (3,5") SSHD (8MB)|€103.55
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€292.89
4 x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9|€273.96
Corsair Hydro Series H110|€111.38
Buffalo LinkStation Pro Quad High Speed NAS Leergehäuse|€171.16
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1587.56

Would like the 4 bay NAS; is there something cheaper/better?
32GB RAM - might be overkill but I'd rather not upgrade again for another 5 years.
CPU cooler - I'd do some OC-ing if the mobo/cpu combo allows for relatively good OC-ing so is this overkill?

marco_polo

kaimera wrote: »

@marco

500gb ssd is overkill; Only need it for OS and apps (might even stick my steam/origin exes on my intel ssd) and game dirs will be on the storage dev.

2k would be the very upper limit but I quite like what you've specced (drop the ssd to 250gb perhaps). Room for expansion in it.

Also...to throw a spanner in the works...hackintosh...need to be pretty specific about parts right? Just enquiring!

[edit]

HSF - I've no probs with the noctua I have atm; but one of the AIO enclosed water cooled cpu coolers ala the corsair hydro series (the cosmos 1000 dual exhaust fans at the top is good placement for a fan unit) - worthwhile?

Ah yeah if 250GB is fine then go for it, you know what you need better than I would. Its easy to spend someone elses money , go for that and maybe a 1TB WD Blue if you do need another HDD instead of the SSHD, especially as you have a second SSD for games already.

With a budget blindfold I would probably have gone for the i5-4670K over the i7 as well, as there is not a huge amount of benefit to the i7 games at the moment, although that may change slightly in the future as more highly threaded game engines may be able to utilize hyperthreading. Even at that it is never going to be 50% better which is the current price premium on the i7 is, the max possible gains from HT in a perfect scenario are probably in the order of 25%-30% (and not really in current games at all).

I don't believe the H100i and the like are supposed to be much if any better than the top air coolers for noise or temps, I'd probably just move over your existing one Noctura TBH.

NTMK

kaimera wrote: »

Item|Price
ASRock Z87 Extreme4, Sockel 1150, ATX|€119.15
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 250GB SATA 6Gb/s|€142.99
Sapphire Radeon R9 290, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, full retail|€353.49
Seagate Desktop SSHD 2TB SATA 6Gb/s NCQ 8,9cm (3,5") SSHD (8MB)|€103.55
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€292.89
4 x 8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9|€273.96
Corsair Hydro Series H110|€111.38
Buffalo LinkStation Pro Quad High Speed NAS Leergehäuse|€171.16
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1587.56

Would like the 4 bay NAS; is there something cheaper/better?
32GB RAM - might be overkill but I'd rather not upgrade again for another 5 years.
CPU cooler - I'd do some OC-ing if the mobo/cpu combo allows for relatively good OC-ing so is this overkill?

Cant tell you about nas unfortunatly

buy 32GB if your goning to use it but if you plan on duing a CPU upgrade in say 2 years DDR4 will be in place so your ram may not be usuable come upgrade time

H110 is a good cooler but make sure your case can hold the Fan Size, 140mm iirc.

kaimera

NTMK wrote: »

Cant tell you about nas unfortunatly

buy 32GB if your goning to use it but if you plan on duing a CPU upgrade in say 2 years DDR4 will be in place so your ram may not be usuable come upgrade time

H110 is a good cooler but make sure your case can hold the Fan Size, 140mm iirc.

Hmm...don't think I can wait 2 years to upgrade :pac: tho 16gb might do suffice. Can always buy more if needs.

New intel/amd sockets will be out for DDR4? New cpu would mean new mobo. I'd keep the rig and upgrade gpu etc as needed

Cosmos 1000 chassis should take the h110 no probs.

marco_polo

Actually H110 is a good bit stronger on temps than I thought compared to say an NH-C14, but then again in this review ithey are using a 6-core 32 nm Sandybridge-E processor, which should be generating a fair bit more heat than a 22nm Ivybridge i7/i5.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Corsair/H110/6.html

NTMK

kaimera wrote: »

Hmm...don't think I can wait 2 years to upgrade :pac:

New intel/amd sockets will be out for DDR4? New cpu would mean new mobo. I'd keep the rig and upgrade gpu etc as needed

Cosmos 1000 chassis should take the h110 no probs.

By all means upgrade now its just a word of warning that €280 is a lot of money for ram that cant be brought onto new Intel platforms from next year on if your not using all of it

Haswell E will be DDR4 and Skylake (2015) is planned DDR4 so if you were buying ram id buy the amount you need/Plan to need for the next 2 years

kaimera

hm, maybe 16GB might do me so.

Thanks for the input, i'm still a bit away from buying but I think the 780Ti is a better purchase than the 290 (at current stock) but at the res I play at, s the 1GB of vram that much of a difference between the cards?

Anyone have an inout on the NAS box? the one I selected seems grand, torrent clent and all.