Would you mind QCing my planned build?

[wildmanwoody31]

Hey PC enthusiasts. I am currently working on my 2nd build ever here in the US. It is aimed squarely at graphic intensive gaming. I sold my PS4 to help pay for the parts after I fell in love with Steam and PC gaming on my deployment overseas (a laptop is much easier to pack than a console and TV). My original intent was to make a mid-range gaming PC, but I eventually convinced my wife to let me stretch my budget by quite a bit (she's awesome like that). 

 

My last build was from 2010 and recently stopped posting. Haven't had time yet to dig in and identify what died, but I'm guessing the motherboard bit the dust. I am reusing my old HDD, OS, mouse, and keyboard to cut costs for now. I plan to upgrade the mouse and keyboard later.

 

My current list of parts is as follows:

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wWbVRB 

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($200.00 from bundle-deal from MicroCenter) 

CPU Cooler: Corsair H110 94.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (Purchased For $96.10) 

Motherboard: MSI Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($100.00 from bundle-deal from MicroCenter) 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory  ($92.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($119.95 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($0.00) 

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI)  (Purchased For $339.99) 

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI)  (Purchased For $339.99) 

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($117.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($117.99 @ NCIX US) 

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Monitor: Asus ROG SWIFT PG278Q 144Hz 27.0" Monitor  ($779.89 @ Amazon) 

Keyboard: Logitech diNovo Edge Bluetooth Wireless Mini Keyboard  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Mouse: Logitech M505 Wireless Laser Mouse  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Total: $2304.89

 

I have already ordered the GPUs and the H110, but I was hoping for a second pair of eyes on my build plans before I continued buying the parts up as they go on sale. 

 

Thank for the help!

[CoolaxGaming]

Sweet build, I cant find a flaw. Good luck with it!

[thatguyyouknow75]

850w may be a bit overkill for 970s, but overall a great build

[DeViLzzz]

WTF is QCing?

[brob]

WTF is QCing?

 

Quality Control.

[Moses Bulpett]

This build looks great, there are a few minor suggestions I have altho these are not at all crucial issues.

1. I would suggest the use of a single 8gb stick of kingston HyperX blu to maximize the potential of your motherboard's 32gb DDR3 capacity.
2. The peripherals you have chosen are great if you constantly move your setup although I would definitely advise you to get a key board with a full number pad as many games and mods utilize it. If you can afford it mechanical keyboards are worthwhile investments.

3. In regard to your mouse, a more ergonomic wired mouse would be a definite improvement as smaller mice can cause finger cramps.

[y11971alex]

From my experience, if you don't plan to expand to 32 gB in the near future, filling the DIMMs to the brim (such as 4x 2 gB vs 1x 8 gB) is usually preferable.

[Eniqmatic]

This build looks great, there are a few minor suggestions I have altho these are not at all crucial issues.

1. I would suggest the use of a single 8gb stick of kingston HyperX blu to maximize the potential of your motherboard's 32gb DDR3 capacity.

2. The peripherals you have chosen are great if you constantly move your setup although I would definitely advise you to get a key board with a full number pad as many games and mods utilize it. If you can afford it mechanical keyboards are worthwhile investments.

3. In regard to your mouse, a more ergonomic wired mouse would be a definite improvement as smaller mice can cause finger cramps.

With regards to your first point, are you saying that he should run a single stick rather than 2? If so, I would personally disagree with you on here and suggest keeping it as is if you don't want to go higher than 8GB, you want to have 2 sticks to run in dual channel.

[DeViLzzz]

Other than the MSI board I love the build.  I am not going to go on record and say that is a bad board or anything but I would prefer something from other manufacturers such as Asus, Gigabyte and even ASRock who Asus now loves and wants back in the fold.

[wildmanwoody31]

Thanks to everyone who checked my build plan. As I will only be using this machine for gaming, I don't ever plan on maxing out the motherboard's 32GB of RAM and will probably stick with 2x4 sticks to take advantage of the dual channel speed boost.

I really want to upgrade to a mechanical keyboard but was actually looking at tenkeyless ones like the Corsair K65. I haven't even touched the numpad on my keyboards since I was probably 10 playing heavy gear 2. What kinds of games use it nowadays? Are they easily remappable to other keys?

I picked the MSI Gaming 5 because of the price, reviews, and aesthetics. I gathered from my research that ASUS is probably the top brand for motherboards but I really hated the gold plated look and the ROG series choices were much more expensive. I also liked the board matching the style of the GPUs. Is there a good reason to avoid MSI?

I've toyed with the idea of harvesting my 2x2 1333mhz 7CL G.Skill RAM from my old build and adding another 2x2 matching set for a total of 8GB. I've read that faster frequency RAM doesn't help with gaming fps except for simulation games. As I would like to try out ARMA 3, I thought it worth it to upgrade to my corsair choice. Do you guys agree?

Finally, my old Corsair TX750 probably has some life left in it, but since I'm planning on overclocking and running SLI I reasoned that it would be best to ensure all the parts were getting the cleanest power that I could. Is this a smart choice?