Finished Gaming Rig Plan: Help and Opinions Please :) (Veeery long post)

StrangeStranger · July 18, 2014

Hey Everybody,

First of all: After reading through endless posts and watching vids on youtube for hours and hours, I want to thank this community for everything they've done and for giving me the opportunity to leech on your knowledge --> I've finally grown reasonably sized balls to build a gaming rig and not make a fool of myself(as much) anymore.

Second of all, I'm sorry for my english as it wont be anywhere near perfect and probably hard to read but I hope it will suffice for you to help me ^^

Im builiding a computer mainly for gaming and university stuff and by university stuff I naturally mean more gaming. Some Ps and Videoediting will take place but not really a lot.

The following is my setup that I chose due to numerous reasons. I will list it down below and that is partially already bought cause of special prices and such. There's also a german price/compare thingy list at the bottom with all the parts.

My "Battlecruiser" with an all black-ish, white Led mod:

i7 4790K (because the price was neglectable in comp. to the 4770K ~10euros or something) - bought

Sabertooth z97 Mark I - (this pc is supposted to survive me, my children and my childrens children, so the 5 year warranty sounded pretty good! I dont know much about Oc'ing except for it can fuck up waranty and shorten the lifespan of the Oc'ed parts, so I dont really care about that(@ Maximus series), except maybe the Xms profiles and such, so yeah: '#Childrens children) - bought

Corsair Rm1000 - bought

Wd Black 1TB (I really dont need more, like seriously I dont.. #warranty)

Samsung 840 Evo 500gb (I heard its pretty decent, and 500gigs is really enough Ill just have Win8 and like max. 3 Games on it, cause I'm the "I like my pc clean and stuff" -type of guy)

Xigmatek Dark Night Hawk Cooler (Cause it looks epicly epic and I want to mount 2 CM Jetflo120 white led engines on it. I know they're supposted to be loud and everything but if they really are I'll tweak em down or change them for a noctua or something, if its really needed...)

So now for the graphicscard: At first I was planning on Crossfiring 290x tri-x Oc's but then my whole build got delayed due to the store I ordered at bancrupting and then the r9 295x2(sapphire) was born, so I thought: "Yeah why not? its cooler, its less loud and yes its more expensive but if I use it for like 5 years the 300 bucks difference are cents in comparisment to the hours of fun I may have." And the "buy now something *reasonable* and then upgrade to a better one in a year" - tactic isn't for me. I wanna build this thing, and not have to change anything for like ever = a couple of years = >5 years

As for rams: the Sabertooth supports 1866Mhz max. I understand the whole Cal, Frequency thing partially but I still have some questions I'll ask further down below. I plan on getting 16Gb, since thats supposted to be enough for quite some time and I'm already pushing my budget a abit. And by "a bit" I mean the Iron bar in the ass - type of "pushing"

As for the most important thing: ***The Case*** I chose a CM Storm Trooper and I plan on a white Led Mod, for which I placed the first brick today by changing the LED's in the front panel from red to white and it only took me and my poor, electronicly more educated friend, that I asked to help 6 hours to do so Im also planning on putting 2 x 120jetflo fans in the front, cause their leds look super and I can keep em silent with the fancontrol.

Question Time with a Noob:

(Please answer as good and detailed as possible, preferably with reviews and proofs or at least like, good reasons since its really a lot of money and I really want the self confidence in deciding what to buy so I can really enjoy this once in a lifetime computerbuild and erase this point from my lifes to-do list )

Graphics Card:

I am scared of watercooling! I heard tales from the crypt of wet dead computers and gamers who lost everything(e.g. my cousin). Although most of these stories had todo with either Cpu cooling or selfmade ones, still I'm kind of scared. There's a file attached where the computer is going to stand. Should I mount the r9 295x2 radiator on top as suggested or could I also mount it on the bottom so in case of leakage or something the dmg would be minimal?! Would that limits its cooling capacity because of the 2 or 3 cm it would only have to suck air from the ground?!

Also what are your thougts on that card?

I know 2 all-so-holy 780ti's in Sli are "almost" as good and even better in Crysis3 but also more expansive(where I live).

And CS 290x trix is almost the same price, a bit cheaper but like 20C° more heat and waaay louder as to all reviews so far.

PSU:

I alreay heard from many sources the the rm1000 will be enough for a r9 295x2, please ensure me some more If you can ????

RAM:

Listed from "most prefered" to "omg that shit is disgusting" all at 1866 16gb (2x8)

I love the looks of the Kingston HypX Beast, but they're cl10
the Corsair Dominators have cl9 and awesome white led, which would fit perfectly into my mod, but they are 50 bucks more expensive and kind of "old"
the Corsair Vengeance Pro have also cl9 and their "ok"
the Tridents: Ugly as fuck, but good price and cl8

So how much, do those latency differences REALLY do?! I've read thru tons of benchmarks and at best I've seen like 10 fps difference. Wich shouldn't bother me with that kind of setup, "now". But those 10 frames may be something worth in like 3 years. Or mayb in bf4 since its supposted to like rams more than other games,a nd who knows if future games wont be the same?!

Also, If I buy 2400 Rams with lets say a latency of 10 or 11 for example. and my Mobo will automatically downclock them to 1866, will the latency drop too? Or in other words is a latency of 12 on a 2400 stick a different latency than a latency of 12 on a 1866 stick. So basically could a reference 2400 cl10, downclocked to 1866 cl10, be actually faster than a factory 1866 cl10?!?!

Or for example the Tridents run on 1.6v with a latency of 8, the Hyper x Beast run on 1.5v with cl10. On the Kingston homepage it says, thay can run at 1.65 too. Can I crank em up to 1.65v squeeze the latency down, without ruining the warranty or shortening their lifespan?! Or does that mean that for the Tridents I have to also overclock the cpu?! I understand if the answers arent that easy so im also grateful for good guides, but of course I'd prefer a written answer coming from you guys

So here a list of the Items in German, sorry I dont know any similar english sites but the technical stuff is writen in numbers anyway ^^

http://geizhals.at/eu/?cat=WL-440109

As for a Monitor, I cannot decide if I want a nice ISP Panel with nice colors and a 60hz limitation or not.. tbh It feel like I'm betraying my gamersoul if I choose the nice fluffy colors over frames. Then again a steady 60 fps is technically enough and cheaper than the Rog Swift.

The Rog swift on the other hand must be the portal to a whole new experience of gaming!!! Then again I use an Amd card so loosing the G-sync is it still worth the 800€?! I mean the 144hz and 2k still sounds good enough, but for 800€?! I mean I could take the Xl2720Z or what its called from Benq, its "only" 400 also 27" well not 1440p but at least 144hz. But then the r9 295x2 wont reach its maximum potential

So what are your thoughts? I never played on a bigger screen then 20" never above 60hz and never on ISP, of course Ill go to a store and check em out, but I'd also like to hear your experiences with such things and if they're worth the money?

So sorry for the very long post, but this is my last checkup before I order so I really need proper input and answers and "go aheads" and "no gos" instead of "Yeah I am an Nvidia fanboy and amd sucks, GO NVIDIA!!! *cheerleader stance*" - type of answers

Im very grateful in advance to you guys and hope you can help me fulfill this little dream of mine. Of course I will also make a buildlog and everything once everything is ordered and in my grasp

Greets, Stranger

flexwave · July 18, 2014

Hi there,

Ram first, I spent a bit more on not ugly ram and am a bit annoyed coz you can hardly see it past every other cool thing.

Also I think latency is more of a boost than clock speed is on performance but both are negligable as far as overclocking the ram I don't know too much but I've heard on z97 you can push ram pretty far.

Monitor I personally prefer a high res ips panel but I don't do loads of fps games, but I'd rather play 1440p at 60fps with great colours and contrast than 1080p or 1440p at 120fps on a tn panel personal preference i guess. Id get a 4k dell ips monitor for that much.

StrangeStranger · July 18, 2014

Hey thanks fo your answer

@ram

Hehe yes I know I had that thought too, but its not so much about seeing it, but "knowing" it looks good inside Imaging spending so much money and not beeing completely and utterly happy with every single detail ^^

@monitor

Yeah thats the funny thing with monitors. Every IPS person will tell you Colors are great and they never go back, same goes for people that experienced 120fps gaming ^^

4 K would be overkill since id sit like half a meter away from it and it would allow me like 30-50 fps "only" so basically it would look great but the gameexperience and the dynamcs would be the same as on my computer now with 1080p 2k on the other hand @ ~100fps sounds nice Or Skyrim with ultramods for proper eyegasms with straight 60frames.. Ah first world problems!