Maxxtraxx

Hello all,

I am putting some ideas together for a Gaming build for a friend and I am looking for any helpful input or recommendations.

1: Budget: approx. $1200 US  Location: USA East Coast

2: Aim: Gaming with a desire for Maximum graphical beauty with both AAA titles and MMO's

3: Screen: 1080p currently with a eventual upgrade to 1440p

4: Peripherals: All accounted for including Monitor.

5: Reason for Upgrade: A several year old store bought HP is his current "gaming" PC.

Build:

Here

About $100ish US

Spot on, $100-120 USD

it has the same cooler as the ftw...

That is not true, the Classified card is approx 1 inch taller than the FTW version to accomodate a larger PCB that supports 14+3 phase power(which is the best of ANY 980Ti i'm aware of) and also houses a larger cooler.​

I wouldn't OC a 4790k with that cooler

Is there a specific reason not to overclock with a 212evo? The cooler far exceeds the stock intel cooler, provides great temperature control, is a great price, is it that much worse than some of the other 2lb blocks of metal called heat sinks?

I'm at a conservative 4.5GHz with an i5-2500k on a Hyper 212 PLUS(older non evo version)

(oh... and zero thermal problems with plenty of room to spare)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%2050001402%20600565061&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=48%7C14-487-142%5E14-487-142%2C14-487-146%5E14-487-146%2C14-487-160%5E14-487-160&percm=14-487-142%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14-487-146%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B14-487-160%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24 i dont know the diference other than clock speeds, which of these three should i get

​The evga classified edition is one of the very best cards you can get and one of the best cooling solutions you can get and includes evga's legendary customer support and rma support. That's a lot of ands for a very good card...

Ok. I also saw that the EK predator should fit in my case since it supports a 420mm rad, so that would be enough for the 360mm rad and the pump and res on the predator. This would fit but I would have to mod my case (Phanteks Enthoo Luxe) by cutting it at the top to make the fans mount on top with enough room for my mobo.

I wouldn't go through the hassle of modding your case. You should be fine with the 360mm radiator, it is overkill for just a cpu. Remember the graphics card draws way more power than the cpu in most cases and thus needs much more cooling.

For the money that is not a bad choice. It will serve you well.

One more question. If I can get the fractal design Kelvin S36 would that be good?

​If it fits in your case and works with your cpu choice... yes it would be fine... that is a huge cooler.

Would I be fine just by doing a air cooled g[u instead of water cooling it and only liquid cooling my cpu (i7 6700k)? Because I was still thinking about getting the matrix 980ti.

​Yes, absolutely.

EVGA water cooled card options here.

Corsair CPU cooling here.

Ok say if I went with an aio liquid cooler which one would you recommend?

These are just simple recommendations, ​For the cpu the Corsair h100i gtx is a simple choice with excellent cooling(there are many other options as well that perform similar).

For the graphics card, if you choose Nvidia then EVGA sells many cards with aio water cooling already installed or available for purchase separately.

If you choose AMD then most cards are air cooled but the r9 fury x is factory liquid cooled.

Looks good overall, however I feel that a more powerful graphics card would be advisable (980, 980ti, titan x, r9 390x, r9 fury, r9 fury x).

That cpu cooler is great, I have a i5 2500k running at 4.5ghz all day on the hyper 212 plus(the older/not as good version)

So should I even spend the $400 to custom watercool my gpu and cpu or just do a aio and get a good card like the matrix or msi 6g?

I am saying this in the most respectful way possible. From the questions you've put to us and the level of knowledge and experience that it implies I would recommend that you stick to either excellent air cooled options or AIO(all in one) liquid coolers. The level of complexity and potential for catastrophic damage and problems is much much higher with custom water cooling.

Also wondering if the Asus 980ti strix would be a good card or the EVGA 980ti Classified

If you plan to use an EK full cover waterblock you need to check compatibility, many of the non reference design cards use a custom made circuit board that a reference design waterblock will not fit unless EK specifically says so.

I worded this wrong and I meant about 1500 MHz not 1522 which is not guaranteed by any means. So would I be better of going with the matrix and losing the cool fan and led to have a little more performance or hook it up to the EK KIT X360 that I was planning on doing?

Remember there is no guarantee you'll be able to get even 1 Mhz above stock clocks, overclocking is simply extra performance when possible, the silicon lottery determines what your card is capable of with no guarantees.

that would imply i know how to overclock

If you do not wish to overclock yourself many of the partners(like EVGA, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI) offer factory overclocked 980ti cards that will offer performance within a few percentage points of a titan x.

Why, what makes it worth the extra 300$

Two 980ti's will provide approx 170% of the performance of a single titan x. Remember the titan x and the 980ti are the same gpu with the titan having slightly more of the chip enabled/functioning. The 980ti also has the benefit of better partner pcb's with better power delivery and better cooling options. 

A 980ti will provide nearly identical performance to the titan x when overclocked, the titan x is more about the price is no object best of the best being a priority(though with poor factory cooling).

​From your description you've met the PSU wattage requirement and the board has a pci express 16x slot. So long as you choose a card that will fit in your case... then you'll be fine.

Well, you have made a few assumptions here.

There is no guarantee that getting a 980ti Poseidon that you can get 1522mhz, thats not how the silicon lottery works

The temperature difference is a bit easier to predict but also heavily dependent on the card, the cooler, your case and your usage.

The stability of an overclock is not determined by the card itself but the testing and verification of the system stability by you, the person doing the overclocking.

Any 980ti will play witcher 3 well regardless of brand

The big questions to answer are

1: are you going to put the money and effort into doing a custom liquid loop?

2: would you rather use an easier to build/use AIO liquid cooler, from brands like EVGA, gigabyte, MSI, ect.

3: are you willing to pay extra for a better binned AISC valued card for the theoretical potential of better overclocking.

 ​hmm, I would say that the case's fan hub should not be plugged into the cpu header, but if the case has a variable speed controller that it should be plugged directly into the psu as to not overdraw any of the motherboard fan headers.

I would recommend that if your using a newer motherboard with onboard fan speed controls based off system temperatures then it would be better to use that than a fan hub.

As far as the pump overdrawing, I believe that my h100i gtx has a separate power cable that plugs into a sata power connector to pull its power from so overdrawing the cpu fan header should not be an issue since it does not get its primary power from there.

with someone whos never seen it, 4,5,6,1,2,3. With people who know it, 1,2,3,4,5,6

agreed!​

7950 3gb of Vram and a 348bit bus

Yeah, seems to be a solid choice in the 80-100 dollar range.

I found one for $90 the other day.  What makes this GPU better than others

Well fps per dollar is what you're after I assume, this is a pretty good choice.

Can I link ebay here? I will gladly delete this if not.

Example A

Example B