Advice on gaming build - €2500 approx

MajesticDonkey

Here's my planned spec list:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 4770k
• Cooler: Cooler Master Nepton 280L
• Motherboard: ASUS Maximus VI Formula
• RAM: Corsair Vengence Pro 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-2440
• Power: Cooler Master V 1000
• Graphics Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti Direct CU II
• Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D
• Monitor: BenQ XL2420T 24" (x2) (maybe + dual monitor stand)
• Speakers: Logitech Z506

My budget is just for the new items above.

Other items which I already have:

• SSD: 500GB Samsung 840 EVO
• Sound: ASUS Xonar Phoebus
• Headset: Sennheiser PC360
• Mouse: Zowie EC1 eVo
• Keyboard: Corsair Vengence K95

Questions:

1. It has been suggested to me to go with an Ivy-E CPU such as a 4820k as opposed to the 4770k because I will be looking at getting another 780 Ti either at the end of the year or early next year. With all those lovely extra PCI lanes, is the difference that noticeable when running SLI? Personally I'd prefer to have the newer bridge technology.
2. Not 100% on the chosen PSU, although I suppose you can't go too wrong with Corsair products. Would I be better with a more enthusiast-grade Seasonic 1000W PSU or something similar? Reason I'm not going with the Corsair AX860i is because of point 1 above, and the possibility of not having enough power when putting in a second GPU.

Thanks for any help.

SterlingArcher

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Here's my planned spec list:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 4770k
• Cooler: Cooler Master Nepton 280L
• Motherboard: ASUS Maximus VI Formula
• RAM: Corsair Vengence Pro 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-2440
• Power: Corsair RM1000
• Graphics Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti Direct CU II
• Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D
• Monitor: BenQ XL2420T 24" (x2) (maybe + dual monitor stand)
• Speakers: Logitech Z506

My budget is just for the new items above.

Other items which I already have:

• Sound: ASUS Xonar Phoebus
• Headset: Sennheiser PC360
• Mouse: Zowie EC1 eVo
• Keyboard: Corsair Vengence K95

Questions:

1. It has been suggested to me to go with an Ivy-E CPU such as a 4820k as opposed to the 4770k because I will be looking at getting another 780 Ti either at the end of the year or early next year. With all those lovely extra PCI lanes, is the difference that noticeable when running SLI? Personally I'd prefer to have the newer bridge technology.
2. Not 100% on the chosen PSU, although I suppose you can't go too wrong with Corsair products. Would I be better with a more enthusiast-grade Seasonic 1000W PSU or something similar? Reason I'm not going with the Corsair AX860i is because of point 1 above, and the possibility of not having enough power when putting in a second GPU.

Thanks for any help.

Don't go ivy. Go haswell.

yawhat!

Any plans on going 1440P?

SterlingArcher

yawhat! wrote: »

Any plans on going 1440P?

Really should be with this spec.

MajesticDonkey

That was also something I meant to ask. Really stuck between two 1080p monitors or one 1440p monitor. Personally, I think I'd get more use out of two 1080p monitors because I do quite a bit of dev work and a bit of Photoshop as well, so having a second screen might be handy.

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Don't go ivy. Go haswell.

Reasons?

Luck100

Why two 144 Hz monitors? I can understand one or three, but how do you use two for gaming?

1440p is very nice, but there's still some tough choices to be made in that you can't get beyond 60Hz with a name brand monitor. I think there will be mainstream 1440p G-sync monitors coming later this year (Asus?) although they will still be TN and not IPS.

yawhat!

Starting point anyway for 1440P build

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€297.43
Nanoxia Deep Silence One Dark Anthracite, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€94.89
ASRock Z87 Extreme4, Sockel 1150, ATX|€120.26
8GB Corsair Vengeance PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-27|€73.62
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€51.27
Corsair Enthusiast Series RM1000, Modular, 80 Plus Gold 1000 Watt|€159.65
2 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC Windforce 3, 4GB DDR5, PCI-Express|€778.48
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 250GB SATA 6Gb/s|€134.99
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1729.58

Heres what I would be starting out with anyway. An Extra SSD and Ram if needed could be added at a later date.

I would be watercooling the CPU and Graphics cards as well. Not to up on that someone else might have better knowledge.

For an 1080P build I would just get the 780 TI

Luck100

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

That was also something I meant to ask. Really stuck between two 1080p monitors or one 1440p monitor. Personally, I think I'd get more use out of two 1080p monitors because I do quite a bit of dev work and a bit of Photoshop as well, so having a second screen might be handy.


Reasons?

Ah, ok I get it. Personally I have a 27" 1440p which gets used 99% of the time and a much older 19" 1600x1200 which I use for a second screen occasionally when I'm trying to look at a couple of spreadsheets and documents at the same time. But the 1440p gets all the use for gaming and photos.

MajesticDonkey

I forgot to mention I already have a 500GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, so won't need any other storage for the time being. Will probably look at setting up some sort of NAS solution in the future.

Luck100 wrote: »

Why two 144 Hz monitors? I can understand one or three, but how do you use two for gaming?

1440p is very nice, but there's still some tough choices to be made in that you can't get beyond 60Hz with a name brand monitor. I think there will be mainstream 1440p G-sync monitors coming later this year (Asus?) although they will still be TN and not IPS.

Because if I'm getting two monitors I want them to be the same brand and model - for aesthetic purposes
The refresh rate is of course a problem with 1440p monitors, along with the price of them. Add in G-Sync and you're talking about over 800 quid.

yawhat! wrote: »

Starting point anyway for 1440P build
Heres what I would be starting out with anyway. An Extra SSD and Ram if needed could be added at a later date.

I would be watercooling the CPU and Graphics cards as well. Not to up on that someone else might have better knowledge.

For an 1080P build I would just get the 780 TI

I had thought about watercooling, but I'm not sure if I'd be interested in the yearly maintenance. I was also pretty much at my budget (and slightly over it at one stage) so I just cut out the watercooling for a CPU liquid cooler only. You do make a good point about the RAM though...might go with 8GB for the time being and add another 8 in the future.

Serephucus

With that budget, I'd look into watercooling, and possibly Ivy-E, though that depends on what you'll be doing dev-wise.

Also, ditch the 144Hz monitors, please. Pick yourself up a nice pair of IPS monitors instead. I actually just nabbed two U2412Ms on Adverts for €350, so there are plenty of possibilities out there.

The only glaring changes I'd make to your build is to go with cheaper RAM. Even for ridiculously heavy dev work, faster RAM is only of marginal benefit, and completely not worth the price. Go for whatever's cheap, and looks nice, if you're interested in that.

I'd also maybe think about a cheaper motherboard, though if you do go down the watercooling route, don't go with an ASRock board, as no-one makes waterblocks for their stuff, and you'll probably find that your northbridge will overheat on you if you have everything else watercooled with really slow spinning fans.

yimrsg

For the headset, maybe consider a dedicated headphone such as the Beyerdynamic dt770/880/990, Sennheiser 595 or Creative Aurvana Live and a separate microphone, combined headsets like the 360 do have better convenience at a price but they fall short of separates. For microphones, read up on antlion modmic which can attach on to your headphones or blue snowball are highly regarded.

This is the best place guide to help you make up your mind.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/534479/mad-lust-envys-headphone-gaming-guide-update-2-20-2014-boompro-list-chicoloms-faq-added

..Brian..

I've been doing a good bit of research on 1000w PSU market in the last week and the Corsair RM1000 is coming out on bottom nearly everytime. I'd go (and will be getting on myself soon) with CoolerMaster V1000 for about €175.

This PSU is cleaning up in the reviews. Probably the best 1000w PSU out there at the price.

MajesticDonkey

Serephucus wrote: »

With that budget, I'd look into watercooling, and possibly Ivy-E, though that depends on what you'll be doing dev-wise.

Also, ditch the 144Hz monitors, please. Pick yourself up a nice pair of IPS monitors instead. I actually just nabbed two U2412Ms on Adverts for €350, so there are plenty of possibilities out there.

The only glaring changes I'd make to your build is to go with cheaper RAM. Even for ridiculously heavy dev work, faster RAM is only of marginal benefit, and completely not worth the price. Go for whatever's cheap, and looks nice, if you're interested in that.

I'd also maybe think about a cheaper motherboard, though if you do go down the watercooling route, don't go with an ASRock board, as no-one makes waterblocks for their stuff, and you'll probably find that your northbridge will overheat on you if you have everything else watercooled with really slow spinning fans.

Dev-wise, it's really only a bit of programming (primarily web-based, also some Android stuff) so the CPU won't make a massive difference there. It's really the second monitor that will make the difference.

And then regarding the monitor, I also do quite a lot of gaming (mainly FPS) so having a high refresh-rate and low response time obviously makes the difference there. And then there's the whole thing of having two matching monitors

I know where you're coming from regarding the IPS/PLS panels though, however the colour reproduction on the BenQ XL2420T is supposed to be up there with the best TN panels. Granted you don't have the viewing angle, but you do have the low response time and high Hz.

Regarding the RAM, I chose to go 2400MHz because quite a few of the newer games and large production programs do in fact gain quite a bit from higher RAM speeds, though not an awful lot obviously like you said. If I was going to go slightly lower speed, what I'd do is probably go with something like 8gigs of 1866 Dominator RAM instead.

Thanks for the advice regarding the water cooling. I've never really heard anything or even considered ASRock anyway to be honest.

yimrsg wrote: »

For the headset, maybe consider a dedicated headphone such as the Beyerdynamic dt770/880/990, Sennheiser 595 or Creative Aurvana Live and a separate microphone, combined headsets like the 360 do have better convenience at a price but they fall short of separates. For microphones, read up on antlion modmic which can attach on to your headphones or blue snowball are highly regarded.

This is the best place guide to help you make up your mind.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/534479/mad-lust-envys-headphone-gaming-guide-update-2-20-2014-boompro-list-chicoloms-faq-added

Thanks, but I already have the Sennheisers, so I won't be changing them

..Brian.. wrote: »

I've been doing a good bit of research on 1000w PSU market in the last week and the Corsair RM1000 is coming out on bottom nearly everytime. I'd go (and will be getting on myself soon) with CoolerMaster V1000 for about €175.

This PSU is cleaning up in the reviews. Probably the best 1000w PSU out there at the price.

Awesome, thanks for that.