High-End Gaming PC | Need Feedback

[virusal19]

I need some feedback. This will be my first water-cooling rig. My budget is under $5000AU.

Colour Scheme: Orange and Black

PC Build Name: Orange Juice

To be used with 3x Asus PB278Q monitors

Aiming to get a stable OC of 5.2 GHz

Going to overclock both GPU

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=wish_lists&wlcId=155501&action=wish_lists

CPU - Intel core i7 3770k

MOBO - Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP7

RAM - Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB 1600MHz (4x8GB)

GPU - 2x EVGA GeForce GTX 680 4GB FTW + with backplate

PSU - Corsair AX1200i

Case - Corsair Obsidian 800D

SSD - Intel 520 Series 240GB

HDD - Western Digital WD Black 4TB

Radiator - Black Ice GTX 480 Rad

Tubing - XSPC FLX Tubing Clear 1/2ID 3/4OD

GPU Block - XSPC Razor GTX 680 Full Coverage

CPU Block - XSPC RayStorm CPU Waterblock Chrome Edition

Reservoir - Bitspower Water Tank Z-Multi 400 ICE Black

Pump - Swiftech MCP655 Laing D5

Dye - Mayhens Orange Dye (will add biocide)

OS - Windows 7 Pro

Fittings - ----------Undecided----------

What do you guys think? Should I change anything?

(Might wait for Haswell CPU and a Haswell compatible motherboard with a black and orange theme. Might also wait for the 900D case)

(Nothing is set in stone yet)http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=wish_lists&wlcId=155501&action=wish_lists

[joelthezombie15]

Black and orange case BAM!!! [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146073]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146073[/url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146073]

[virusal19]

Black and orange case BAM!!! [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146073]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146073[/url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146073]

It doesn't support a Quad Radiator.

[hiyayhi]

Why the 1200i for PSU?

you could easily get away with something like an 860i. Other than that All I can say is that for that kind of price point I would be going the 2011 platform or ​waiting for the next gen CPU's to arrive. (I probably wouldn't go 2011 though as it is going to be replaced with ivybridge-E soon.)

[crazycanadian96]

you dont need 32gb of memory i would drop down to 16gbs but go with a higher frequency because unless you plan on doing some crazy multi-tasking and video encoding you wont need neraly 32gb.

[Guest]

Looking at what you've listed vs what you aim for, the first thing I would be changing up would be the RAM. As mentioned, you certainly don't need 32GB of RAM. If you so want to fill all the DIMM's then I would go with a 4x4GB kit of G.Skill F3 RAM because for one, it is orange and two, it saves you about $200. Next up, the HDD. I personally am not a fan of 4TB drives - I don't know what it is but I just don't trust them. Probably because most of the stories I've heard of people using them normally result in a dead drive. Do you really need 4TB worth of storage? Why not 2 Seagate Barracuda 2TB drives for about $130 less?

Something to keep in mind is that those PSU cables you've chosen are only extensions. That's not really a bad thing but just checking you're aware.

Also with your tubing - why not get orange tubing with black fittings?

[virusal19]

Looking at what you've listed vs what you aim for, the first thing I would be changing up would be the RAM. As mentioned, you certainly don't need 32GB of RAM. If you so want to fill all the DIMM's then I would go with a 4x4GB kit of G.Skill F3 RAM because for one, it is orange and two, it saves you about $200. Next up, the HDD. I personally am not a fan of 4TB drives - I don't know what it is but I just don't trust them. Probably because most of the stories I've heard of people using them normally result in a dead drive. Do you really need 4TB worth of storage? Why not 2 Seagate Barracuda 2TB drives for about $130 less?

Something to keep in mind is that those PSU cables you've chosen are only extensions. That's not really a bad thing but just checking you're aware.

Also with your tubing - why not get orange tubing with black fittings?

Yes, i am aware that the Bitfenix alchemy cables are extensions.

As for the 32GB RAM, I know it is not needed. I just want some crazy specs. (Although, I do use After Effects, Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Adobe premiere and Cinema 4D)

The 4TB Hard-Drive wasn't meant to be on the list, sorry. I was meant to change that to a 2TB Western Digital Black (I am choosing this brand of hard drive as i trust it because i have used them in the past, i am not saying that i don't trust Seagate)

As for the tubing, i've went with a clear tube because as "Ghost" has said on his "Watercooling FAQ - Some Basic Q&A"

"...clear tubes you will get better looks. You will also be able to bleed your loop more easily as you can actually see bubbles. From experience when using colored tubes, especially ones that aren't partially see-through you can never tell if your system has bled all the air because you cannot see the bubbles." - Ghost

I am going with Clear tubes because this will be the first time i make my own watercooling loop and i want it to be easier to bleed.

Thank You For Your Feedback -

Virusal19

[virusal19]

you dont need 32gb of memory i would drop down to 16gbs but go with a higher frequency because unless you plan on doing some crazy multi-tasking and video encoding you wont need neraly 32gb.

I know i don't need the 32GB of RAM, but i do video editing and 3D rendering. Although the 32GB RAM is not needed, i felt it could be useful when i start getting into the big major stuff.

And who wouldn't like to have 32GB of RAM? :P

[virusal19]

Why the 1200i for PSU?

you could easily get away with something like an 860i. Other than that All I can say is that for that kind of price point I would be going the 2011 platform or ​waiting for the next gen CPU's to arrive. (I probably wouldn't go 2011 though as it is going to be replaced with ivybridge-E soon.)

I was thinking that since the build is a "High-End Gaming PC" I figured, why not have a high-end PSU that I know will last and maybe even be able to reuse for future builds.

As I said, nothing is set in stone yet so I might wait for Haswell or ivybridge-E

Thank you for your feedback - virusal19

[Guest]

Still - it's just a heap of money down the drain - Photoshop will struggle to break about 10, and After Effects and Vegas will be happy with 16. 32 is just a case of other places where money could be better spent. In any case, yes clear tubing makes it easier to see the bubbles but if you do thing properly you won't need to worry about it.

[virusal19]

Still - it's just a heap of money down the drain - Photoshop will struggle to break about 10, and After Effects and Vegas will be happy with 16. 32 is just a case of other places where money could be better spent. In any case, yes clear tubing makes it easier to see the bubbles but if you do thing properly you won't need to worry about it.

Okay, Thank You.

I will take this into consideration.

[TicTac]

Be sure to take photos of you building it and post it on the build logs section :)

[bradscoolio]

Good luck with your build, here is some recommended components I think you could benefit from if you changed out for / add ;)

• I'd get this kit: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186_912&products_id=19766
• 2 of these: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_344&products_id=19554
  
• A 840 pro: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1370&products_id=22032
  
• You don't need 1200w full stop: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_354&products_id=22405
  
• And you might wanna look at Mayhems pastel coolant, i really like to look and it has biocodes and what not pre added: http://www.mayhems.co.uk/front/pastel.html#.UW0OMbVpmPM
  
• And here is some uv orange tubing that will work with pastel: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=207_160_853&products_id=22673
  
• Some really sexy looking orange fans from Cougar: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9_1381&products_id=19938
  

[virusal19]

Be sure to take photos of you building it and post it on the build logs section :)

Will do ^.^

[virusal19]

Good luck with your build, here is some recommended components I think you could benefit from if you changed out for / add ;)

• I'd get this kit: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186_912&products_id=19766
  
• 2 of these: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_344&products_id=19554
  
• A 840 pro: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1370&products_id=22032
  
• You don't need 1200w full stop: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_354&products_id=22405
  
• And you might wanna look at Mayhems pastel coolant, i really like to look and it has biocodes and what not pre added: http://www.mayhems.co.uk/front/pastel.html#.UW0OMbVpmPM
  
• And here is some uv orange tubing that will work with pastel: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=207_160_853&products_id=22673
  
• Some really sexy looking orange fans from Cougar: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9_1381&products_id=19938
  

Thank you for your feedback "bradscoolio"

I will take this into consideration.

-virusal19

[target39]

Well, if you're going to build with an enthusiast's budget, why not go for the top notch components? Sure, the motherboard is black and red, but so what? Red is close enough to orange and the PCIE slots will be covered by the video cards any way, and the red RAM slots and SATA are hardly noticeable and will appear slightly orange under the orange cathodes. You get 4-way SLI GTX680s so you can destroy any game or benchmark over 60fps even on 3 monitors. You are pretty much set to play any game even at 1440p at over 60fps for years. Current games at 1080p will probably be around 120-200+ fps.:D And with a 6 core behemoth of a processor, you'll be able to utilize multi-core hyperthreading hungry software bound to come out in the future. I substituted the 480 radiator for a 360+120 radiator combination so you can fit it in a case. Also, the Corsair 800D does not support 480 radiators without modification. The Xigmatek Elysium is a monster of a case with enough room for push/pull even on a thick 360/420mm radiator at the top. If you decide to put the PSU at the top, or mod the case to fit it in 3-4 of its 12 5.25" drive bays, you can run a 480 rad on the bottom of the case with some case modding to allow a fourth fan vent. If you don't want to modify anything you should be able to run the suggested radiators in tandem for the same performance. Remember for that kind of budget, you can get the best motherboard out there, all the CPU you will ever need, and extreme graphics performance from four of the once world's fastest single GPU graphics card. So why don't should you get a platform that will soon be replaced, when you can get the extreme platform that still has a future and will still be superior to the Haswell Z87 platform? This is everything you need to get your system up and running minus the OS, peripherals and monitors (you can use the current OS you use in your current PC, or use Ubuntu). I chose the regular Raystorm waterblock for the CPU because it was cheaper, provided the same performance, and allows you to insert up to 4x 3mm orange leds in it to make it glow orange. All this for $1AUD under your budget of $5,000AUD. If you really want orange cables, just buy 8x 8 pin PCIE BitFenix orange cables, 8x 6 pin PCIE BitFenix orange cables, 1x 24 pin BitFenix orange cable, 1x 8 pin EPS BitFenix orange cable for a total of $80AUD extra, $79AUD over the budget. As for the SATA/molex cables, you probably won't even see them. By the way, I also changed the SSD to a Samsung 840 250gb, and a single 2tb HDD. I don't think you'll need 4tb, but if you start to fill up 75% of the 2tb HDD, then you can always buy one for $99AUD in the future. Also the Samsung 840 is a great SSD, but it does have a slower write speed than most SSDs. If you use it as a boot drive, it will be blazingly fast, but if you constantly download and install large amounts of software, it'll be slower than a regular SSD, but still faster than an HDD.

EDIT: You'll also need barbs or compression fittings for the watercooling setup to get it up and running. You could also get a couple other accessories too such as a flow meter, temperature probe to measure liquid temperature, etc. Those accessories are not needed for it to run, but the fittings, or barbs are. You also need an optical drive, but those are cheap, and you could probably salvage it from other computers if you have some.

[virusal19]

-Removed-

[virusal19]

Well, if you're going to build with an enthusiast's budget, why not go for the top notch components? Sure, the motherboard is black and red, but so what? Red is close enough to orange and the PCIE slots will be covered by the video cards any way, and the red RAM slots and SATA are hardly noticeable and will appear slightly orange under the orange cathodes. You get 4-way SLI GTX680s so you can destroy any game or benchmark over 60fps even on 3 monitors. You are pretty much set to play any game even at 1440p at over 60fps for years. Current games at 1080p will probably be around 120-200+ fps.:D And with a 6 core behemoth of a processor, you'll be able to utilize multi-core hyperthreading hungry software bound to come out in the future. I substituted the 480 radiator for a 360+120 radiator combination so you can fit it in a case. Also, the Corsair 800D does not support 480 radiators without modification. The Xigmatek Elysium is a monster of a case with enough room for push/pull even on a thick 360/420mm radiator at the top. If you decide to put the PSU at the top, or mod the case to fit it in 3-4 of its 12 5.25" drive bays, you can run a 480 rad on the bottom of the case with some case modding to allow a fourth fan vent. If you don't want to modify anything you should be able to run the suggested radiators in tandem for the same performance. Remember for that kind of budget, you can get the best motherboard out there, all the CPU you will ever need, and extreme graphics performance from four of the once world's fastest single GPU graphics card. So why don't should you get a platform that will soon be replaced, when you can get the extreme platform that still has a future and will still be superior to the Haswell Z87 platform? This is everything you need to get your system up and running minus the OS, peripherals and monitors (you can use the current OS you use in your current PC, or use Ubuntu). I chose the regular Raystorm waterblock for the CPU because it was cheaper, provided the same performance, and allows you to insert up to 4x 3mm orange leds in it to make it glow orange. All this for $1AUD under your budget of $5,000AUD. If you really want orange cables, just buy 8x 8 pin PCIE BitFenix orange cables, 8x 6 pin PCIE BitFenix orange cables, 1x 24 pin BitFenix orange cable, 1x 8 pin EPS BitFenix orange cable for a total of $80AUD extra, $79AUD over the budget. As for the SATA/molex cables, you probably won't even see them. By the way, I also changed the SSD to a Samsung 840 250gb, and a single 2tb HDD. I don't think you'll need 4tb, but if you start to fill up 75% of the 2tb HDD, then you can always buy one for $99AUD in the future. Also the Samsung 840 is a great SSD, but it does have a slower write speed than most SSDs. If you use it as a boot drive, it will be blazingly fast, but if you constantly download and install large amounts of software, it'll be slower than a regular SSD, but still faster than an HDD.

EDIT: You'll also need barbs or compression fittings for the watercooling setup to get it up and running. You could also get a couple other accessories too such as a flow meter, temperature probe to measure liquid temperature, etc. Those accessories are not needed for it to run, but the fittings, or barbs are. You also need an optical drive, but those are cheap, and you could probably salvage it from other computers if you have some.

O.O

Firstly, Thank you for your feedback

Secondly, I don't want to have a quad-SLI GTX 680, It's just not worth the money. 4 GTX 680 = $2400 2 GTX Titans = 2600 Not to mention the quad sli compatibility issues with games.

As for the case and rad, I will be changing the case to the Corsair 900D, so the rad can stay the same as a 480MM.

Everything else that you said, I will consider. Thank you.