Opinions on my planned gaming/main system

Crowcore · March 28, 2014

Greetings,

I will in the coming weeks order the components for my upcoming rig, and was wondering what you guys think about the list. I will justify each choice in detail to give you an idea of what I am going for and because some choices may seem strange at first.

[Objective] Even though I only game abt two hours a week, I still want current and upcoming games to be smooth at ultra presets. I really don't appreciate having to sacrifice any eye-candy. What also matters to me is to not have a cliché build that has been seen again and again. I want relatively original components that not everyone else "and their dog" has. This means no Asus motherboard & GPU, no Corsair memory, no Corsair AIO water-cooling, no Corsair PSU and no Samsung SSD... Finally, it has to be almost silent.

GPU: Msi GTX 770. It's as far as I know the quietest cooling solution for the 700 series. It should do fine at 1920x1200. Geforce because of PhysX.

CPU: E3 1240v3. It's a i7 4770 without integrated graphics. Because I obviously have a dedicated GPU, there is no reason why not to save 22€ by going with the E3. Still, an i5 like the 4670 would have been enough. I'm not planning to do any video editing, so the 8 threads are too much. I am aware of it. However, I have been CPU bottlenecked for the last 12 months, so now I am paranoid. Also, anyone can predict that upcoming titles will be able to take advantage of more than four threads. It not, well I'm not sacrificing any single core performance so it will be fine even then. In comparison to the i5, the E3 1240v3 is +50€. Of course I would have obtained better Fps putting these 50€ to order a GTX 780 and going with an i5 4670, but... I want 8 threads, even if I don't really need them.

SSD: Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme 256GB. It's one of the five best performing SSDs with a 5Y warranty and it looks very sleek. The capacity is more than I need for games (I don't install a lot at the same time), OS and programs, but I want it to never be more than 50% occupied, to keep a decent performance. But most important of all, I can get a deal on it.

HDD: Western Digital WD10EZRX (64MB cache, 1 TB). I don't need more storage and these green drives not only emit less heat, but are also a lot quieter than normal HDDs. For manual backup once month I will have my current older generation 1TB green drive.

Mobo: Asrock Z87M OC Formula. Not only do I choose a chipset for overclockers while going with a non-K CPU, but I also go as far as to select a part intended for extreme OC. Well... I'm not interested in OC, but I do want to use very durable, robust and overbuild components. And that one has more features and functionality than the other high-end micro-ATX motherboards while being 10-20€ less expensive. By the way, as the only PCIe cards I will be using are a dual slot GPU and a single slot wi-fi adapter, this is of course a micro-ATX project.

Case: I don't know. My head hurts from all the hesitation. There is not one case on the market that convinces me entirely. For me, the prettiest one is the 350D, the one with the best internal layout and features is the Arc Mini R2, but I find it to be too large at 23cm, and the best price/performance ratio goes to the N200, but it's too entry-level and cable-mgt space is a joke. I have a list of most mini-tower cases that came out in the last year for your review. What I am looking for: No cube format, 160mm HSF clearance is a minimum, I/O panel not on the side, and decent cable-mgt space...

Sound card: I read in this forum that my chosen mobo (and the Z87M Extreme4) has the best implementation of the Realtek 1150 audio chip. So I trust I will be fine.

PSU: Cooler Master V450S (80+ Gold, semi-modular, and imo best looking PSU series by far). This power supply is very solid and trustworthy. For the same price, I prefer to buy a high-end low wattage PSU than a high wattage mid-range and average quality one. With my chosen components and contrary to popular belief, I will never actually need more than 450W, even if everything were to be OCed, which it will not be.

RAM: Crucial Ballistix "BLT2C4G3D1608ET3LX0CEU". This 8GB kit is very lovable. Standard frequency of 1600 MHz but running at a low and less heat-emitting 1.3V. I think the latency is slightly better than average, at 8-8-8-24, but I don't know much about that. Will it be running at that by default or must we set smth up in the UEFI ? Also: Despite the presence of a heat spreader, it still manages to be less high than basic "naked" RAM DIMMs... Impressive accomplishment. As you will learn in the next paragraph, I am into air cooling, so with this compatibility will never be an issue. Also it matches the motherboard perfectly, not that I care but it's still a nice side benefit.

HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 412S. It's unexpensive, quiet, looks good and performs well enough, especially for a 80W TDP CPU. As the same time, I admire the Noctua NH-U14S a lot. It's such a well build product that performs as well as CPU coolers twice its size and weight. In addition, the quality of the included fan is unheard of. So I'm still hesitating.

Fans: Zero. I will even dismount the ones that come with whatever case I end up ordering. The case should be near silent, so I keep the number of fans to a minimum. It will be fine. As seen, my CPU, RAM and HDD won't get very hot and the GTX 770... well this component will but it's ok. Hot air can slowly exit through the top and it will be idling 80% of the time anyway.

LCD: It has to be a 24.1" 1920x1200 IPS based monitor with HDMI input. I will use DVI to connect it to the GPU, but I will acquire a PS3 in the coming months (there are about 10 exclusives that came out during it's lifetime that I really need to play). There are more options on the market that I would have thought. Focusing on releases from the last 12 months or so, we have the: Asus PA249Q, Asus PB248Q, Dell U2413, HP Z24i D7P53A4 (no HDMI), Asus VS24AHL, LG 24EB23PY (no HDMI), Benq BL2411PT, NEC EA244WMi-BK, AOC i2460Pxqu. The website Prad.de makes very/too detailed reviews of displays and their testing indicates that despite the PA249Q being more expensive and newer, the PB248Q is the better option on the following points: gaming, result after calibration, consumption. Any suggestion is very welcome.

Colorimeter: Datacolor Spyder4Express. I'm not doing any color-critical work whatsoever, but... I still want everything that my screen displays to be as close to the intended result as possible in order to have the best possible experience. Also, that one costs 67€, so it's still reasonable. Or do other equally good/better ones exist for less/the same price ?

Sound: I don't use headphones. I have an old Logitech X-540 5.1 setup that I will continue to use. For me, games and movies alike are so much more immerse with real (as opposed to simulated and to "real" but headphone-integrated) 5.1. No change will be done in this department in the foreseeable future.

Thanks for your opinions!

joshuamurphy · March 28, 2014

Greetings,

I will in the coming weeks order the components for my upcoming rig, and was wondering what you guys think about the list. I will justify each choice in detail to give you an idea of what I am going for and because some choices may seem strange at first.

[Objective] Even though I only game abt two hours a week, I still want current and upcoming games to be smooth at ultra presets. I really don't appreciate having to sacrifice any eye-candy. What also matters to me is to not have a cliché build that has been seen again and again. I want relatively original components that not everyone else "and their dog" has. This means no Asus motherboard & GPU, no Corsair memory, no Corsair AIO water-cooling, no Corsair PSU and no Samsung SSD... Finally, it has to be almost silent.

GPU: Msi GTX 770. It's as far as I know the quietest cooling solution for the 700 series. It should do fine at 1920x1200. Geforce because of PhysX.

CPU: E3 1240v3. It's a i7 4770 without integrated graphics. Because I obviously have a dedicated GPU, there is no reason why not to save 22€ by going with the E3. Still, an i5 like the 4670 would have been enough. I'm not planning to do any video editing, so the 8 threads are too much. I am aware of it. However, I have been CPU bottlenecked for the last 12 months, so now I am paranoid. Also, anyone can predict that upcoming titles will be able to take advantage of more than four threads. It not, well I'm not sacrificing any single core performance so it will be fine even then. In comparison to the i5, the E3 1240v3 is +50€. Of course I would have obtained better Fps putting these 50€ to order a GTX 780 and going with an i5 4670, but... I want 8 threads, even if I don't really need them.

SSD: Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme 256GB. It's one of the five best performing SSDs with a 5Y warranty and it looks very sleek. The capacity is more than I need for games (I don't install a lot at the same time), OS and programs, but I want it to never be more than 50% occupied, to keep a decent performance. But most important of all, I can get a deal on it.

HDD: Western Digital WD10EZRX (64MB cache, 1 TB). I don't need more storage and these green drives not only emit less heat, but are also a lot quieter than normal HDDs. For manual backup once month I will have my current older generation 1TB green drive.

Mobo: Asrock Z87M OC Formula. Not only do I choose a chipset for overclockers while going with a non-K CPU, but I also go as far as to select a part intended for extreme OC. Well... I'm not interested in OC, but I do want to use very durable, robust and overbuild components. And that one has more features and functionality than the other high-end micro-ATX motherboards while being 10-20€ less expensive. By the way, as the only PCIe cards I will be using are a dual slot GPU and a single slot wi-fi adapter, this is of course a micro-ATX project.

Case: I don't know. My head hurts from all the hesitation. There is not one case on the market that convinces me entirely. For me, the prettiest one is the 350D, the one with the best internal layout and features is the Arc Mini R2, but I find it to be too large at 23cm, and the best price/performance ratio goes to the N200, but it's too entry-level and cable-mgt space is a joke. I have a list of most mini-tower cases that came out in the last year for your review. What I am looking for: No cube format, 160mm HSF clearance is a minimum, I/O panel not on the side, and decent cable-mgt space...

Sound card: I read in this forum that my chosen mobo (and the Z87M Extreme4) has the best implementation of the Realtek 1150 audio chip. So I trust I will be fine.

PSU: Cooler Master V450S (80+ Gold, semi-modular, and imo best looking PSU series by far). This power supply is very solid and trustworthy. For the same price, I prefer to buy a high-end low wattage PSU than a high wattage mid-range and average quality one. With my chosen components and contrary to popular belief, I will never actually need more than 450W, even if everything were to be OCed, which it will not be.

RAM: Crucial Ballistix "BLT2C4G3D1608ET3LX0CEU". This 8GB kit is very lovable. Standard frequency of 1600 MHz but running at a low and less heat-emitting 1.3V. I think the latency is slightly better than average, at 8-8-8-24, but I don't know much about that. Will it be running at that by default or must we set smth up in the UEFI ? Also: Despite the presence of a heat spreader, it still manages to be less high than basic "naked" RAM DIMMs... Impressive accomplishment. As you will learn in the next paragraph, I am into air cooling, so with this compatibility will never be an issue. Also it matches the motherboard perfectly, not that I care but it's still a nice side benefit.

HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 412S. It's unexpensive, quiet, looks good and performs well enough, especially for a 80W TDP CPU. As the same time, I admire the Noctua NH-U14S a lot. It's such a well build product that performs as well as CPU coolers twice its size and weight. In addition, the quality of the included fan is unheard of. So I'm still hesitating.

Fans: Zero. I will even dismount the ones that come with whatever case I end up ordering. The case should be near silent, so I keep the number of fans to a minimum. It will be fine. As seen, my CPU, RAM and HDD won't get very hot and the GTX 770... well this component will but it's ok. Hot air can slowly exit through the top and it will be idling 80% of the time anyway.

LCD: It has to be a 24.1" 1920x1200 IPS based monitor with HDMI input. I will use DVI to connect it to the GPU, but I will acquire a PS3 in the coming months (there are about 10 exclusives that came out during it's lifetime that I really need to play). There are more options on the market that I would have thought. Focusing on releases from the last 12 months or so, we have the: Asus PA249Q, Asus PB248Q, Dell U2413, HP Z24i D7P53A4 (no HDMI), Asus VS24AHL, LG 24EB23PY (no HDMI), Benq BL2411PT, NEC EA244WMi-BK, AOC i2460Pxqu. The website Prad.de makes very/too detailed reviews of displays and their testing indicates that despite the PA249Q being more expensive and newer, the PB248Q is the better option on the following points: gaming, result after calibration, consumption. Any suggestion is very welcome.

Colorimeter: Datacolor Spyder4Express. I'm not doing any color-critical work whatsoever, but... I still want everything that my screen displays to be as close to the intended result as possible in order to have the best possible experience. Also, that one costs 67€, so it's still reasonable. Or do other equally good/better ones exist for less/the same price ?

Sound: I don't use headphones. I have an old Logitech X-540 5.1 setup that I will continue to use. For me, games and movies alike are so much more immerse with real (as opposed to simulated and to "real" but headphone-integrated) 5.1. No change will be done in this department in the foreseeable future.

Thanks for your opinions!

I'm not sure about no fans. I think maybe just keep the ones that come with the case and just have them going super slowly.

WoodenMarker · March 28, 2014

There's no point getting the xeon for gaming since games don't really take advantage of HT. Even if they did, the performance would be at best ~30%.

What kind of deal are you getting the ssd for?

Don't waste money on an expensive board if you're not going to use the features. I don't see why you'd need particular robust or overbuilt components especially if you're not going to oc. There's no need for those types of features otherwise.

You need to setup the ram settings in the bios either by tweaking settings manually or by just turning on the xmp profile if supported.

Why does the display have to be 1200p?

An accurate display is not the same thing as a good looking display. If you want something accurate, just grab a pre calibrated one. You end up getting a better panel without having to buy a colorimeter.

Faceman · March 28, 2014

Best of luck, but your requirements are far too restrictive. There is a reason why certain components from a brand are popular, because they work really well, are cost-effective and customer support is in place. Also going with no fans? I really encourage you to reconsider and go with this build. You will not regret a single component, and it will be a solid performer for many years to come.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3i7MR
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3i7MR/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3i7MR/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($227.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($30.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($64.99 @ Micro Center)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($84.81 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card ($489.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec One ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1194.70
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-28 17:59 EDT-0400)

Crowcore · March 29, 2014

There's no point getting the xeon for gaming since games don't really take advantage of HT. Even if they did, the performance would be at best ~30%.

What kind of deal are you getting the ssd for?

Don't waste money on an expensive board if you're not going to use the features. I don't see why you'd need particular robust or overbuilt components especially if you're not going to oc. There's no need for those types of features otherwise.

You need to setup the ram settings in the bios either by tweaking settings manually or by just turning on the xmp profile if supported.

Why does the display have to be 1200p?

An accurate display is not the same thing as a good looking display. If you want something accurate, just grab a pre calibrated one. You end up getting a better panel without having to buy a colorimeter.

You are right, I think I am going to order with the Asrock Z87M Extreme4 instead. It's still overkill, but to a lesser extend. But I will still go with the E3 though. I want these threads, even if the performance increase is nonexistent to very limited

It needs to be 1200p because I love 16:10

WoodenMarker · March 29, 2014

You are right, I think I am going to order with the Asrock Z87M Extreme4 instead. It's still overkill, but to a lesser extend. But I will still go with the E3 though. I want these threads, even if the performance increase is nonexistent to very limited

It needs to be 1200p because I love 16:10

Why not get a 4670k and oc for some actual usable performance instead?

1200p displays are generally pretty darn expensive compared to 1080p just because they're less common. You might as well bump up to 1440p at that point.