New Personal Gaming Rig Looking For Input/opinion

[Mistral3031]

Hello Linus forum members,

I am a new member here and in need of a place to just throw ideas and questions out to get some feed back about my new/update build i am doing.  I want to thank everyone ahead of time that responses to this post since i am just basically just getting ideas out of my head.  To give you some light background on myself to date i have built, repaired, updated, and modded approximately 60 PCs for friends, family, coworkers, and people who have just approach me from no were just because of word of mouth.  I have worked on everything from Windows 3.1 to Macs to some light work on Android from Pentium 3 to AMD FX 8350.  But enough about me, i am going to list my current list of parts and a brief reason why i pick them.  I am TOTALLY up for suggestions and will not dismiss any opinions or suggestions except for parts i all ready have. Again THANK YOU in advance i all ready love you guys. Oh almost forgot the reason for the build is i was working on my brother's PC long story short he got my old MB, CPU, RAM, and GPUs. This PC will be for gaming, jack of all trades, being the tech guy i never know what i am going to need my computer from one day to the next.  I guess if i had to say what my budget is(don't really have one just want to get it done by August 2013) it's ~$1800 (U.S dollar)

 

Mother Board: MSI Z77A-GD65- I all ready got it combo with cpu, plus all ready love MSI because i have never had a issue with any of several products i have used. 

CPU: 3570K i5 ivy bridge- Again I all ready have it again got with mobo

RAM:  Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (4x4GB 1866 C9)-  All ready have it, i'll just say for the price it might have fell off of a truck :P

Case: NZXT Switch 810- All ready own it

PSU: Corsair HX850w- All ready own it 

Monitors- LG IPS 23'' x3- VESA Mount, IPS and got them open box

Hard Drives: WD 500gb blue drives- All ready own them, run in raid 0 for local storage which is backed up weekly on 2tb external drive

SSD: SK hynix 256gb, Crucial 64gb M4- All ready own both drives.  The M4 caches the raid 0 via Intel SRT, I wanted a Samsung 840 pro 256gb but got the hynix due to geting it %35 off and good reviews

K ON TO STUFF I DON'T HAVE YET 

Video Cards: MSI GTX670PE 2GB x2 -or- ASUS 670 DirectCU 4GBx2- I have read forum after forum on the great Vram debate, i am obviously going to be running Nvidia Surround set up mainly for racing games with my G27 racing wheel but i also play WoW, and GW2.  But on the flip side i don't want to load up a new game in the near future(aprox. 6 months) and have the game choke. My basic question is do i spend the extra money and get the 4gb card? or get the 2gb card and if i do hit the Vram wall just turn some settings down?..... what would i turn down if that happend? what settings most effects Vram? i know mods due but i can't think of any games i play that do have them unless addons count?

Cooling: Basically i am at a lost here, Thinking of going all Corsair going with a H100i and the full Corsair Link kit with Corsair AF140s for the case and SP quite edition 120s in push pull for the H100i and then also add a air flow pro to tie the ram into the link software.   But i have read a lot of issues on the Corsair forums i don't mind doing testing and troubleshooting but the thought in the back of my head "what if i never get it to work" :(  I am really open to suggestions for fan control options.

Other Bits​: going to be getting extensions for my 24pin, 8pin, and 6pin cables i have sleeved three PSU in my life and unless i  am getting paid don't plan on doing it again also plan on getting some sound damping foam also getting either Bitfenix or NZXT blue LED strips for lighting even if i do go with Corsair link (sorry not going for 3 led per strip and only getting 3 strips gotta due better then that Corsair).  Last ordering a bunch of matching black/blue screws which lead me to my last question, Anyone ever order stuff from Moddiy.com?  There site looks good and they have a lot of the bits i could use just never have order anything from them and would love some feedback from anyone who has shop there.

 

Well Thank you again for those who have read threw my super long post and look back to some feed back, in return i plan on visiting this forum often and hopefully help out if/when i can.  :)     

Also i will be making a post in the near future in the build log forum with the parts i have in my sorta test bed it's on

 

 

  

 

[xxbrock88]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

 

I would first like to say that I like the parts that you have currently selected. They are great parts and are a good start to a great gaming build.

For your gpu i would HIGHLY recommend going with a configuration that has more that 2gb vram. Even though the configuration overall would have 4gb vram, each card has to load the same textures, so you effectively have 2gb vram. I currently own 2 gtx 670 2gb and have noticed that the performance really suffers in surround with only 2gb vram. If you want an enjoyable experience with surround I would recommend going with the 4 gb cards; however, you could also look into AMD cards if you aren't comfortable with the price of the 4gb card. Both the 7950 and 7970 have 3gb vram, which is great for an eyefinity (surround) configuration. They also include Bioshock and Crysis 3, 2 awesome games. So for your GPU I would highly reccomend to go with a configuration that has more than 2 gb per gpu for surround.

As far as cooling goes I would recommend the Swiftech H220. It is an all in one cpu cooler that Linus has shown to be the best on the market. It is also expandable, unlike the H100i, so you can turn it into a full liquid cooling loop. The NZXT Switch 810 is an excellent case for liquid cooling so you may be interested in doing this in the future.

 

Hopefully these recommendations are helpful and I am interested to see you post this in the build logs section of the forum :)

[TheNorthHarrier]

Looking pretty decent. I would go with WD Black Drives 1TB Model in raid 0.  Mobo and CPU seem good. along with the SSD. For video card I if you are going to multiple monitor setup go with the 4gb GTX 670 if single monitor go with dual 2gb cause you only get 2gb of ram in SLI with those card. As for the power supply you do not need that much power for one video card. For cooling I would go with an H110.  Hope it turns out for the best. :-)

[Mistral3031]

Cool, thank you for the super fast replys looks like i will be ordering the Asus 670 4gb cards over my next couple of paychecks that or keep a eye out for a sale on them.  I saw the video on the swifttech H220  will keep these in mind if i don't go with Corsair link system.  ;)  Keep the ideas/opinions coming good people.

[Mistral3031]

After spending hours and hours researching cost/parts/reviews/measurements/tutorials(i love Time to Live Customs, but i don't think i can watch another one of videos for long time after watching soo many) full custom water cooling is just way to far out of my $8/hr budget.   Would take me over 1 year to buy all the stuff i would need to fully finish the build that way.  Thinking i am going to go with Corsair Link system for fan/cooling control. Still open to other suggestions though :D

also should i just fire up a build log now even though it's going to take me till August to finish the build?