A New Rig calls to me... (Upgrade Advice, aka Should I Wait?)

[Commander Llama]

I built my first PC in mid-2009, the majority of which specs can be found in my profile. It had a GTX295, which was mostly beastly at the time, though I regretted it in the end, because so many games seemed to ignore its internal SLI and give half performance (looking at you, Total War games). In 2012 it was needing an upgrade, so I doubled the RAM to 12GB and got a GTX680 and gave it a tiny overclock.

 

Overall an amazing PC, it still runs almost everything maxed out at 1920x1080 at acceptable/good FPS. But I'm starting to get an itch, and I have all these digits in my bank account that I don't want anymore. I put together a PCPartPickerCanada list: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/CommanderLlama/saved/4jIU

 

For a monitor, I plan to get the ROG Swift (it'll be expensive, but I can't find any cheap, GOOD 1440p monitors in Canada without getting murdered by import taxes anyway), and the 780Ti SLI benchmarks play most games maxed out at 1440p at around 120Hz. Such a video card combo may also be relevant once 4K monitors become cheaper/better. Or I could just upgrade to the 800/900 series later when I jump to 4K.

 

I feel like I am in a weird spot for wanting to upgrade though.

 

Should I WAIT a few months? Since I have to anyway for the ROG Swift monitor (est. June/July release, maybe more for Canada), but also:

- Haswell-E platform, since I'm already getting top shelf parts

- GTX800 series

- DDR4 RAM (probably not really worth it?  Recalling Linus' RAM video, capacity > speed)

- 4K monitors making 1440p outdated?

 

And if anyone's curious about my usage scenarios when considering my parts:

-Gaming primarily (this will be my Star Citizen build, but there's also Watch Dogs, Arkham Knight, Rome II, etc...loves me them pretty games)

-Folding when I'm writing/idling

-Video rendering, only about ~15 hours a month though

[spwath]

OK less ram. 16 gb or 8gb.

Cheaaper MB

EVGA 850 g2 PSU

[Robin15243]

Wait for Devils Canyon only if you plan to heavily OC, soldered IHS 4790K.

Go for water! Glacer 240L/H105/Kraken x60, any of those will do. 

Save money on the RAM, you'll never use that much. 

AS5 is old. Get some MX-4.

AX860(i) PSU from Corsair - 7 years warranty, dead silent, super low ripple for stable OC'ing. 

 

Good luck with the double 780 ti's! You make me jelly.

[Commander Llama]

Thanks for the tips on the older thermal paste.  It will be my first time using an aftermarket cooler!  Not gonna go water, though.

 

That Corsair PSU is beast, but is 860W still cutting it a little close for x2 GTX780Ti's, accounting for a little bit of upgrade headroom and overclocking?

[WoodenMarker]

Thanks for the tips on the older thermal paste.  It will be my first time using an aftermarket cooler!  Not gonna go water, though.

That Corsair PSU is beast, but is 860W still cutting it a little close for x2 GTX780Ti's, accounting for a little bit of upgrade headroom and overclocking?

Not cutting it close at all. You could run off of a 750w if you really wanted to.

[Commander Llama]

Not cutting it close at all. You could run off of a 750w if you really wanted to.

 

Okay, thanks very much!  Feeling better about the power now.  I think I'll keep it to the Corsair, I like that buffer space.

 

I also compared measurements of the Noctua cooler and 780TI SLI fitting into an R4, and I switched to Low Profile RAM (was only $4 more).  I've never physically seen the Noctua before, or the GTX780Ti, OR an R4, so my only remaining point of contention is whether they will fit in that case nicely.

[WoodenMarker]

Okay, thanks very much! Feeling better about the power now. I think I'll keep it to the Corsair, I like that buffer space.

I also compared measurements of the Noctua cooler and 780TI SLI fitting into an R4, and I switched to Low Profile RAM (was only $4 more). I've never physically seen the Noctua before, or the GTX780Ti, OR an R4, so my only remaining point of contention is whether they will fit in that case nicely.

They easily fit. This be hard pressed to find an air cooler that doesn't fit the r4.