Planning to build a gaming rig

[Eminster]

So just to let anyone interested know I am located in the U.S.  And haven't build a new pc since PII's were the latest rage.  After buying medocre pc's for the last ice age or so, I decided I wanted to build one again since that seems to be where you get the best bang for your buck.  And after watching Linus build his 4k rig, which I would love but am unable to afford at the moment.  So here are the items I am looking at putting into my new/first build since Hoover was in office.

 

I am mostly going to use this as a gaming pc but will need to use it as a remote workstation for when I have to do work from home but I don't think that should be any kind of issue.  I am going to be playing games like Dragon Age Inquisition and I have a heavily modded Skyrim that I am playing right now.

 

Hard drives in my current build I only have a 24gb solid state and a 3tb 7200 rpm mechanical drive.  Should I go with 2 solid state drives and forget about mechanical drives all together?

 

Looking to spend between $1500-$2000 if cost goes over a bit that's fine, I'm looking for sales and may buy this piece by piece.

 

Monitors: 2 Acer H236HL BID 23-inch widescreen LCD set to 1920x1080, I just bought these last year so no need to replace them.

 

Case:  Corsair Graphite Series Arctic White 760T Full Tower Windowed Case CC-9011045-WW

 

Processor:  Intel Core i7-4790K Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.40 GHz) (BX80646I74790​K)

 

Processor Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H110 280 mm High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

 

Video Card:  EVGA GeForce GTX760 FTW with ACX Cooler 4GB GDDR5 256Bit Dual-Link DVI-I DVI-D HDMI DP SLI Ready 04G-P4-3768-KR (Thinking about SLI but still a bit confused by that setup but looks pretty nice)

 

Power Supply:  Corsair RM series 750 Watt ATX/EPS 80Plus Gold Certified Power Supply CP-9020055-NA RM750

 

RAM memory: I have no clue what would be the best ram to purchase?

 

3 motherboards I am looking at are:

 

ASUS MAXIMUS VII HERO Z97 ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards MAXIMUS VII HERO

 

EVGA Z97 FTW LGA1150 ATX 4 DIMM Dual-Channel DDR3 2666MHz Motherboard 142-HR-E977-KR

 

MSI ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards Z97-GD65 GAMING

 

I'm not sure which one would be the best one for gaming.  Or if anyone has suggestions for a different board.

 

As for operating system I will probably load win 8.1 64, unless I can find Win 7 64 real cheap somewhere.

 

I have a new KB and mouse already, and a 2tb external hard drive that I use for backup.

 

Any comments, questions, or HELP is much appreciated.

[MattWakey]

only thing i would say is unless you plan to do some video editing, theres no need for a i7, an i5 will do just fine.

Same for the RAM, unless you're editing or doing some serious multitasking, 8gb would be fine

the psu is overkill aswell

[Rexchaos]

Contrary to others, i would get a 4790k. I'm going to be building a computer soon and since i want it to last a pretty long time, why not having the more stable clock and more cores for just about anything? More games, like BF3,The witcher 2, getting a better cored cpu helps for select games. And since he wants to go 4k, i don't see why not.

As for GPU, i'd rather get a 970, pay a little more but better OC and temperatures. It's only $100 more and blows it pretty much out of the water. I'm not sure how good 4gb vram is for 4k atm, but theres 8k 290x's, just pointing it out there. Not much an amd fan though tbh.

[Laputacake]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($299.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H105 73.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($94.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($125.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Kingston Fury Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Kingston Fury White Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($82.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: A-Data XPG SX900 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($107.04 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card  ($598.50 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 760T White ATX Full Tower Case  ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1679.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-21 17:07 EST-0500

[Kiwiandapple]

@MattWakey

 

You are correct about the CPU and RAM. However, a remote workstation - depending on the actuall work that he needs to perform, is something you want to have an i7 for.

It really all does matter what kind of work he does. So perhaps the i5 would be indeed a better choice. 

 

@Rexchaos 

 

The only difference between an i5 and i7 is hyperthreading. They both have 4 cores. I am pretty bad at using all the correct terms, but i'll quote a part out of wiki.

 

"Hyper-Threading Technology is a form of simultaneous multithreading technology introduced by Intel. Architecturally, a processor with Hyper-Threading Technology consists of two logical processors per core, each of which has its own processor architectural state. Each logical processor can be individually halted, interrupted or directed to execute a specified thread, independently from the other logical processor sharing the same physical core."

 

This isn't easy for games to take advantage of, because almost all games are designed to run on 2 cores. It's very complicated and I do agree that games are starting to make use of hyperthreading. But not nearly as much. It would as well be slightly weird move from a game developer to optimise a game for hyperthreaded CPUs. This would force the end user to buy i7s who are expensive. Wich they just don't do. Wich would mean "worse" performance for probably over 90% of their customers and likely make them "rage/hate". 

 

Here would be my suggestion:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($299.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 113.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler  ($48.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($88.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($109.96 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($81.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card  ($349.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case  ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit)  ($90.26 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1280.14
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-21 16:52 EST-0500

 

My rationale for the chosen products: 

 

* CPU: Intel quad-core, hyperthreaded CPU clocked at 4,0GHz with a boost up to 4,4GHz. It's unlocked as well so possible to overclock. They as well improved the thermal paste in between the core and heatplate wich means lower tempatures.

* CPU Cooler: I went for a solid air cooler instead of an AIO. I personally find it not needed to go for a watercooling solution for the devil's canyons (4790K) CPUs. They don't get to hot to begin with and tempatures are often not the problem when overclocking. This cooler from BeQuiet is a little difficult to install if you have big hands, but aside from that it's an awesome cooler. It looks awesome and it got a very good fan on it, wich stays quiet for a good amount. You will only be able to hear it once it needs to spin at +60%.

* Motherboard: For the motherboard I went with Gigabytes Z97X-SLI. As the name kinda gives away, it's possible to SLI 2 cards on this motherboard and it got 2 other features that I really like. The on-board audio is on a seperate PCB with high quality audio capacitors. This will result in a more clean and better sound. It as well got a killer NIC. This lets you prioritise the internet for games over random crap that is running in the background. Wich technically results in better latency and connection. I only tested a killer NIC 2 times so far (different motherboards) and only saw the ping drop by about 2-4ms, in CS:GO. But hey, it's something!  

* Memory: RAM is RAM. The only thing that really matters is capacity. For gaming 8GB is enough for now. For video, photo editing, etc.. 8GB might be on the low end. So it's hard for me to suggest 16GB but this is up to you. I don't know wich programs you make use of so I went for 8GB for now. The kit I went for is 2x4GB, 1600MHz, CL9 from G.Skill. G.Skill make good RAM. This set is as well pretty low profile so the CPU cooler will have no problem with it. You still got the possibility to upgrade to 16GB if you need it.  
* Storage: Again I am not 100% sure here. You mentioned you got a 2TB external drive. So I went for a 2TB HDD and a 256GB SSD. This is a good amount of storage and should work pretty well. For the SSD I went for the Crucial MX100, wich just flat out is the best bang for you buck. It performs very well and does not cost a fortune. Here is a good review if you want to read about it, you could just go to the final word to skip the whole review. 
* Video Card: Went for the GTX970 from Gigabyte. This is again one of the "best bang for  buck" with only the R9-290 probably getting closer towards the crown for that. When we talk about high end cards that is. The whole Maxwell architecture is amazing, in case you don't know the features it got, highly suggest to watch this video. Yes Linus talks about the 980, but the 970 got all these features as well. Pretty low power and thus lower tempatures and beastly performance while as well having a good amount of VRAM. 4GB is enough for a single 4K display. However, the raw power from the GTX970 is not enough to play games at 4K @ 60fps on ultra settings. But a 2K (1440p) monitor is a nice alternative (I personally use one and love it) and you will be able to hit 60fps in a few games on ultra, but you only need to lower the AA to get the 60FPS. Here is a very nice review about this card and here is a very solid review about SLI 970. Again 60 fps @ 4K isn't reached, but this is just life right now. 4K is extremely hard to drive and the current generations of cards have trouble with it.  
* Case: I changed the case to the white Phanteks Enthoo Pro. I have it myself, it's freaking amazing. Went for the white one because you wanted the $160 Corsair 760T in white. They as well have a black one. You can check out both of these review why I suggest this case. Linus & HardwareCannucks. It's just a no brainer for the price in my opinion. It's super easy to work in and very flexible. Lots of cooling options and a PSU cover. I only dislike that the cables come out of the side in the PSU cover for the PCI-E cables. 
* Power Supply: 10 year warrenty, 80+ gold, fully modular black sleeved cables, 750W PSU from EVGA. This is a very good PSU for the price, here is a very detailed review from basicly the best PSU reviewer. Spoiler: 9,9/10. There is only 1 PSU that got a 10 from them as of right now. This is as well way to much power for the current system as it would only pull around 325-350W when both the GPU/CPU are overclocked. So this leaves plenty of room for a 2nd GTX970. 
* OS: 8.1 as you wanted anyway, better performance then 7 in games and in my opinion not super terrible. I want that task manager in 7! 

 

Hope you like it and If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[Guest]

@Kiwiandapple

 

The EVGA psu you have chosen isn't the same one as in that review.

 

This is the one reviewed: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-220g20750xr

[Kiwiandapple]

@Kiwiandapple

 

The EVGA psu you have chosen isn't the same one as in that review.

 

This is the one reviewed: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-220g20750xr

 

Great catch, thanks! Fixed.