$4500 Build, need advice

[Arom123]

Alright so i've been saving money for about a year and a half and i think i'm ready to do my build. 
I do 3D art and rendering, software development, along with gaming like ARMA 3, Crysis 3 and other similar games. I'm not new to building PCs but this is my first extreme high end build, and also my first build with water cooling. 

My part list:

Tower:

ASUS Rampage V Extreme Motherboard $470

Intel Core i-7 5930k CPU $576

Corsair Dominator Platinum 16gb 2666 RAM $395

EVGA GTX 980 SC ACX GPU $555

EVGA Supernova 1000 P2 $0(Coming out of my old PC)

Enthoo Primo Case $250

Also pulling my 2 WD Caviar black HDDs and i have a load of case fans from previous builds



Watercooling:

XSPC Dual bay D5 Pump Res Combo $270

2 x XSPC RX360mm Rads $210

14 x XSPC Compression fittings $120

Swiftech Apogee Waterblock $64

XSPC Razer GPU Block $134

XSPC Backplate $40

PrimoFlex Advanced LRT Onyx Black $26

6 x Noctua nf-f12 IPPC fans $156

Distilled water and PT Nuke




I'm also going to be buying a new desk($120), 2 ASUS PB278Q($840), monitor mounts, case lighting, and accent lighting, along with a few other accessories.

The total cost is $4472, while i saved $5000 for the whole thing. 

I will be over clocking both the GPU and CPU.

I just wanted to make sure I've covered everything, and i'm not forgetting anything. I plan on doing the build over spring break(March 20- April 10), and i haven't ordered anything yet. It would really suck if i forgot something really stupid for the Water cooling loop or a major PC component.

[Meladath]

I wouldn't recommend the 5930K unless you plan to use 3 GPU's. It has no upsides over the 5820K other than the PCI lines since you can overclock it just as high and costs far more. That would save you a huge amount of money to spend on a few of my other recommendations.

 

I would recommend waiting for the new AMD series and looking at their stuff, get 2 380X or 980's when they price drop.

 

You may also want to consider 32GB of RAM given your line of work, a lot of the speeds of DDR4 don't matter too much, the majority of kits you can overclock to similar levels than you buy the more expensive kits at so I would recommend the "cheapest/slowest" kit you can buy and OC if the speed matters much (which it doesn't as linus has proved)

 

Also are you not using/getting an SSD? If not.. why not? They are amazing.

[JoshM]

I wouldn't recommend the 5930K unless you plan to use 3 GPU's. It has no upsides over the 5820K other than the PCI lines since you can overclock it just as high and costs far more.

That would save you a huge amount of money. I would recommend waiting for the new AMD series and looking at their stuff, get 2 380X or 980's when they price drop.

Also SSD?

I agree, even linus proved that the extra pci lanes didn't make a difference in multi gpu configs 

[EmeraldKiwi]

I would also recommend the Enthoo Luxe instead of the primo. Its a lot cheaper, and personally, I like it more anyways.

[Syntaxvgm]

I too recommend an SSD. They really help with dealing with raw video playback and recording. 

[Arom123]

I wouldn't recommend the 5930K unless you plan to use 3 GPU's. It has no upsides over the 5820K other than the PCI lines since you can overclock it just as high and costs far more. That would save you a huge amount of money to spend on a few of my other recommendations.

 

I would recommend waiting for the new AMD series and looking at their stuff, get 2 380X or 980's when they price drop.

 

You may also want to consider 32GB of RAM given your line of work, a lot of the speeds of DDR4 don't matter too much, the majority of kits you can overclock to similar levels than you buy the more expensive kits at so I would recommend the "cheapest/slowest" kit you can buy and OC if the speed matters much (which it doesn't as linus has proved)

 

Also are you not using/getting an SSD? If not.. why not? They are amazing.

Thats the reason im only getting one 980 instead of 2 or 3, i dont want to blow $1500 on graphics cards just to have them be outdated quickly, but at the same time, i cant wait for the new AMD cards, i need my computer for work. So i have to do something. Im ok with getting the 980 now, and then buying 2-3 of the new AMD cards when they come out.  Hence the 5930k. Also i forgot to mention i have 2 intel 730 480gb SSDs that im putting in RAID 0 for my OS, then using the 2 HDDs for Data storage. Oops.

[Tagiau]

I wouldn't recommend the 5930K unless you plan to use 3 GPU's. 

I think you mean 4. The 5820k can handle trifire/3 way sli. 

[Imakuni]

I wouldn't recommend the 5930K unless you plan to use 3 GPU's. It has no upsides over the 5820K other than the PCI lines since you can overclock it just as high and costs far more. That would save you a huge amount of money to spend on a few of my other recommendations.

^This. So much this.

 

Anyway, there you have it. I included the price of the table under the "Watercooling kit" price. I also included a copy of windows. And I know you said you'll be reusing your PSU, but please don't do it. Reason being, that thing is only going to draw 400W max, and this is not the optimal point for PSU efficiency, so I included a more resonable 750W PSU. Oh yeah, and a 2nd Gtx 980.

 

Have fun!

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor  ($392.98 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($191.98 @ Newegg)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($220.98 @ Newegg)

Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP900 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($179.99 @ NCIX US)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($549.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($549.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Primo ATX Full Tower Case  ($241.98 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit)  ($92.00 @ B&H)

Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor  ($419.98 @ NCIX US)

Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor  ($419.98 @ NCIX US)

Other: Watercooling kit ($1140.00)

Total: $4464.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-06 08:15 EST-0500

[Arom123]

I would also recommend the Enthoo Luxe instead of the primo. Its a lot cheaper, and personally, I like it more anyways.

I was looking at it and it cant fit all of the radiators i want, plus i dont mind the price. I might build my girlfriend a pc in the Luxe though... i agree it looks very good.

[Arom123]

^This. So much this.

 

Anyway, there you have it. I included the price of the table under the "Watercooling kit" price. I also included a copy of windows. And I know you said you'll be reusing your PSU, but please don't do it. Reason being, that thing is only going to draw 400W max, and this is not the optimal point for PSU efficiency, so I included a more resonable 750W PSU. Oh yeah, and a 2nd Gtx 980.

 

Have fun!

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor  ($392.98 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($191.98 @ Newegg)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($220.98 @ Newegg)

Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP900 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($179.99 @ NCIX US)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($549.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($549.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Primo ATX Full Tower Case  ($241.98 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit)  ($92.00 @ B&H)

Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor  ($419.98 @ NCIX US)

Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor  ($419.98 @ NCIX US)

Other: Watercooling kit ($1140.00)

Total: $4464.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-06 08:15 EST-0500

Thanks for the awesome feedback! Im gonna take your advice and get a smaller PSU, but I dont want to spend too much on the graphics now, with AMD set to come out with the R9 3xx series, but who knows, maybe the 980 will be cheaper when i buy my parts...thanks again!

[Imakuni]

Thanks for the awesome feedback! Im gonna take your advice and get a smaller PSU, but I dont want to spend too much on the graphics now, with AMD set to come out with the R9 3xx series, but who knows, maybe the 980 will be cheaper when i buy my parts...thanks again!

The thing is, if the software you use has support for CUDA acceleration (and it probably does), you should better go with 980s, even with AMD's new lineup.

 

I guess you could do SLI 970s to save some money and still have killer performance. OR, you could just save for AMD, but my instincts tell me that it won't be good enough for a 3D professional. That's just me, though.