Where's the bottleneck?

[Stardar1]

Having not been happy with the performance from my current build, I have decided to upgrade to a liquid cooled I5 4690k and dual GTX 760s.

 

The 760s are generic, and I am exchanging my current CPU, GPU and motherboard for them, otherwise I would choose a 970.

 

I will be overclocking the I5 to 4.2 GHz with a Corsair H55 liquid cooler and Arctic Silver 5. The motherboard I have chosen is the MSI Z97s SLI Krait.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BXV7qs

 

In the build linked above, what will the bottleneck be?

Also, is a 850W PSU sufficient, and is the H55 sufficient for an overclock to 4.2?

[skullbringer]

Probably the 760s with only 2GB of VRAM. Some games may be bottlenecked even at only 1080p.

[Vexzarium]

Having not been happy with the performance from my current build, I have decided to upgrade to a liquid cooled I5 4690k and dual GTX 760s.

 

The 760s are generic, and I am exchanging my current CPU, GPU and motherboard for them, otherwise I would choose a 970.

 

I will be overclocking the I5 to 4.2 GHz with a Corsair H55 liquid cooler and Arctic Silver 5. The motherboard I have chosen is the MSI Z97s SLI Krait.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BXV7qs

 

In the build linked above, what will the bottleneck be?

Also, is a 850W PSU sufficient, and is the H55 sufficient for an overclock to 4.2?

The 760's are likely to hit the VRAM limit before you even stress the CPU. That Kingston SSD should be burned at the stake...

 

RAM looks good, I'd have opted for a lower CAS Latency. The cooler is not great, I'd have opted the CM Hyper 212 Evo. I suspect even the air cooler will do a better job than the H55. For perspective, I can up my voltage to 1.3v, OC my 4690k to a rock-stable 4.7ghz on the CM Hyper 212 Evo and stay within acceptable temps. I choose not to to extend my CPU's life. That's just me, I'm not comfortable with 65-75c during gaming.

[Stardar1]

The 760's are likely to hit the VRAM limit before you even stress the CPU. That Kingston SSD should be burned at the stake...

it was a gift, and its faster than the 5400 RPM laptop drive i was using

[Stardar1]

I have heard that SLI will use a lot of VRAM, would someone care to explain?

 

also i am only gaming on one monitor, at 1080p

[No Nrg]

I have heard that SLI will use a lot of VRAM, would someone care to explain?

 

also i am only gaming on one monitor, at 1080p

SLI will share the 2gb Vram on one card, unfortunately they don't combine. That might change with DirectX 12 though.

 

I would drop the SLI Krait, not a good board, has worrying reviews about game performance like below:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z97_sli_krait_motherboard_review/1

That 3D performance though is more problematic.

If it was just a case of bad benchmark, good gaming then clearly it's easy to recommend because we want real-world performance rather than just a good score. Or if it was a single title it's easier to dismiss it as an aberration. With the Krait though we saw low 3D Mark scores, pretty bad Unigine Valley results and really bad indeed gaming results. In fact as we moved from a test that's very synthetic (3D Mark) to one that tests the whole system (Unigine Valley) before finally hitting the world of actual gaming, the results just got worse and worse. It might be a motherboard capable of 8x/8x SLI but it struggled with a single 16x GTX780Ti so we're not holding out hope that the SLI performance is much better.

 

I'd go with the MSI Gaming 5 for $15 more.

 

You can drop the CPU paste as well, your CPU cooler comes with some pre-applied.

[Stardar1]

If i were to use the 2 cards without SLI, and plug my center monitor into one with my secondary monitors into the other would that improve performance?

[Stardar1]

SLI will share the 2gb Vram on one card, unfortunately they don't combine. That might change with DirectX 12 though.

 

I would drop the SLI Krait, not a good board, has worrying reviews about game performance like below:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z97_sli_krait_motherboard_review/1

 

 

I'd go with the MSI Gaming 5 for $15 more.

 

You can drop the CPU paste as well, your CPU cooler comes with some pre-applied.

the MSI gaming 5 has fewer PCI lanes

 

and Arctic Silver 5 is better than the pre-applied stuff.

[No Nrg]

the MSI gaming 5 has fewer PCI lanes

 

and Arctic Silver 5 is better than the pre-applied stuff.

# of PCI lanes does not = better

 

MSI gaming 5 supports 8x/8x SLI just like the Krait. You're still only going to be able to use 2 cards with either board. The difference with the Gaming 5 is it actually has good reviews and benchmarks. Don't waste your money on a board that gives you 5-10 fps less than competing boards.