Christmas build rating, looking for suggestions I may not have thought of

[Medwynd]

1. Build for mostly gaming and some development.
2. Budget in the $2500 range
3. Buying in the USA
5. Intel for the processor, can go either AMD or nVidia for graphics, they both have their pros/cons
6. Not reusing any parts but currently have the HX850 and HAF-X purchased
7. Looking for minor overclocks on the processor and then the video cards if I have enough power to keep it stable. Willing to bump the PSU to 1000W+ if necessary.
8. Running at 2560x1600 on a Dell 3000WFP
9. Looking for a build date around Christmas hoping to get some BF deals

EDIT: Added ballpark Newegg prices including current discounts but not coupon codes

Pretty much everything is open for change at this point. I have some questions and more details on usage in each component section.

Motherboard
ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131989
$219.99 -$15.00 Instant $204.99
- Should provide ability for a good overclock.
- Slots for the video cards are spaced far enough apart for a XFIRE or SLI aftermarket solution so they are not sandwiched together and the cards can breathe.
- Will probably go with a non-reference cooler since the HAF-X should be able to exhaust the extra heat vs a blower type cooler.
- Has a 1x PCIE slot that sits under the video cards for use with the Soundblaster ZX.

CPU
Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I74770K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116901
$349.99 -$10.00 Instant $339.99

CPU Cooler
CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Extreme Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler. 240mm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181032
$129.99 -$10.00 Instant $119.99
- Will be mounting the rad on top of the HAF-X with 4 fans in a push/pull config

Soundcard
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Zx soundcard Model #:70SB150600000
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102049
$149.99 -$35.00 Instant $114.99

Case
Cooler Master HAF X Blue Edition - High Air Flow Full Tower Computer Case with Windowed Side Panel and USB 3.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119239
$219.99 -$15.00 Instant $204.99
- Purchased already w/ extra fans

RAM
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231503
DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000)
Timing 9-11-10-28
Cas Latency 9
Voltage 1.65V
$169.99
OR
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231315
DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Timing 9-9-9-24-2N
Cas Latency 9
Voltage 1.5V
$139.99
- Looking to run 16GB instead of 8GB to use the extra for a RAM drive with certain development stuff I work on, plus it's not that much more because RAM is relatively cheap.
- Is it worth the bump to 2133 over 1600 for +$30?

PSU
CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139011
$189.99 -$40.00 Instant $149.99
OR
CORSAIR HX Series HX1050 1050W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139034
$229.99 -$10.00 Instant $219.99
- HX850 is currently purchased but can upgrade to the HX1050 if the power for a moderate overclock is necessary

Hard drives
SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147193
$249.99 -$10.00 Instant $239.99
OR
SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD512BW 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147194
$479.99

- I could go with the EVO series on the hard drives as well to save a few bucks
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147248
$189.99 -$10.00 Instant $179.99

SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE500BW 2.5" 500GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147249
$339.99

AND

WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822236624
$159.99
OR
WD BLACK SERIES WD3003FZEX 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822236623
$219.99 -$10.00 Instant $209.99
- The Seagate hard drives are a bit cheaper than WD although I haven't run a Seagate in a long time so I don't know about their quality.
Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
$99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148834

Video cards
Still torn on this between 2 x R290X or 2 x 780GTXti.

They both have their pros and cons for me.
R290X:
Pros: 4GB VRAM, possible Mantle improvements, TrueAudio I don't care about, good price, possible better scaling at high resolutions
Cons: Crossfire frame pacing issues should be fixed for my resolution but not in older DX games, some teething issues people have been running into

780GTXti:
Pros: ShadowPlay, Been using SLI for ever and had no problems
Cons: 3GB VRAM, a pretty large price premium

 

[piasabird]

My advice is pay attention to the black Friday deals at newegg. They have been putting things on sale for like 1-2 days. Things like WD Black Hard Drives and Crucial SSD's Etc. Sign up for the Newsletter. They had the Crucial 240gig SSD on sale for $150.

So many sales and not enough money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148694

I don't know how these rate As to quality.

 

[Medwynd]

My advice is pay attention to the black Friday deals at newegg. They have been putting things on sale for like 1-2 days. Things like WD Black Hard Drives and Crucial SSD's Etc. Sign up for the Newsletter. They had the Crucial 240gig SSD on sale for $150.

So many sales and not enough money.

I've been trying to pay attention to the deals but so many going on right now I seem to be missing some.

 

[Blain]

I've been trying to pay attention to the deals but so many going on right now I seem to be missing some.

You are missing some, but waiting will yield you more performance and quality for less $$.

 

[Medwynd]

UPDATE - Saw the 4770K at microcenter for $200 and since I am heading to Dallas tomorrow decided to swing by and grab that

 

[Medwynd]

Since my post seemed a little too wall of text to get responses I thought I would just condense my actual questions down to a few lines here. All opinions on any of the parts are welcome though.

1. Is it worth the bump to 2133 over 1600 for +$30?
2. WD Black series vs a cheaper Seagate physical hard drive as I haven't used Seagate in a long time.
3. Corsair HX850 vs HX1050. For modest overclocking do you think I should step up to the 1050W PSU?

 

[mfenn]

Are you looking to build an expensive machine just for the sake of doing so? I'm more than happy to give you some recommendations for equivalent performance for less, but if you're not interested, I'll save my breath. (Not looking to get into a huge argument, sometimes people with huge budgets just want "the best" no matter the alternative.)

To answer your specific questions (this will give you a flavor for my full critique should you be interested):
1. Not for gaming
2. You can almost do a primary/backup pair of Seagates for the price of a single WD Black. I'd get the Seagates, either a single one to save money, or two to get far better reliability than any single drive (WD Black included)
3. 850W is enough for a modest overclock on the 4770K. An R9 280X system or GTX 770 Ti system with a monster overclocked IB-E only draws ~750W. Your Haswell will draw much less.

 

[Medwynd]

There are just a couple areas I haven't followed too closely.



1. Yeah, I didn't think it would but 30$ seemed a modest premium and I had read that bf4 seems to like faster ram.



2. I haven't used Seagates in ages but I haven't seen any quality comparisons so I was asking about them. The 2tb Seagate drives seem to be fairly cheap by the sales I've seen lately.



3. I wasn't so much concerned with the over clock of the CPU drawing too much power as I was the OC on the video cards drawing too much power

 

[mfenn]

You'd need a bigger PSU if you want to overclock the R9 290X. My advice for those is: don't. They're top end cards and honestly don't have a ton of gas left in the tank. You'll pay a huge premium in terms of power, heat, and (even more) noise for very little gain.

You can do a moderate overclock on the 780 Ti though.

 

[Medwynd]

Microcenter has the super clocked evga ti for only 700 so i might jump on that

 

[Braidster]

In your situation I would wait a couple weeks for non reference coolers on both options.

 

[Medwynd]

I should be able to exhaust all the heat from non reference coolers with the hafx case but I usually run blower style coolers so I can get more of an overclock. Thoughts?

 

[Ken g6]

The problem with 1.65V RAM is that the on-die Intel memory controllers aren't rated for more than 1.55V. So 1.65V could damage the CPU.

I haven't seen much benefit to fast RAM unless you either use the on-chip GPU or do some crazy number crunching (e.g. Fast Fourier Transforms).

Why don't you try either this $130 DDR3-2133 or this $110AP DDR3-1600? I left you with the same decision, but at least both choices are cheaper.

Edit: But Blain disagrees with my DDR3-1600 choice below. He could be right.

 

[Medwynd]

Good point, I was going to jump on the 2133 corsair deal for 2x4@52$ a pair but missed it by like an hour

 

[Blain]

If I were shopping for high quality memory, I would use the following parameters as a guide...

* DDR3 rated at 1.5v or lower
* DDR3 rated at the lowest CAS I could afford
* DDR3 rated at the highest clock speed I could afford
* Limit the scope of my purchease to G.Skill, Mushkin, Samsung, Corsair XMS or Crucial (non-Ballistix)

While not wavering on the voltage point, I would balance the other issues with my budget.

Remember, my goal is not pure "benchmarking" performance, but simply finding the highest quality memory I can afford. ^_^

The only reason I pay a premium for low latency, high speed, low voltage memory is...
Quality and quality alone.

1.5v is the JEDEC DDR3 voltage standard.
Stay with 1.5v or less if you can afford it..

What he said

 

[schmuckley]

The problem with 1.65V RAM is that the on-die Intel memory controllers aren't rated for more than 1.55V. So 1.65V could damage the CPU.

I haven't seen much benefit to fast RAM unless you either use the on-chip GPU or do some crazy number crunching (e.g. Fast Fourier Transforms).

Why don't you try either this $130 DDR3-2133 or this $110AP DDR3-1600? I left you with the same decision, but at least both choices are cheaper.

That is false.I know it was printed in some guide,but it's false.

If you want good RAM get these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231678 Double-sided MFR

Some Samsungs..not the greatest bin but massive amounts..http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231590

primo binned: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231679

reasonable sammy kit http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231588

and..Down to earth stuff: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231591

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231587

You may as well make use of the Haswell memory bandwidth
and don't listen to all that low-volt stuff..The RAM I linked is all high-quality.
I'm running an 1156 right now;with 6-7-7-19 1600-ish with the 2600 cas10 kit.
1.87v..max vRAM on 1155,and 2.12v on Haswell..eh..maybe down to 1.96 for daily.
No problems..people have been doing it for years.

 

[Ken g6]

That is false.I know it was printed in some guide,but it's false.

But I've heard this alot, in multiple places. And I've heard of people whose Sandy Bridge processors failed because of running too much voltage on their RAM. Can you link to some proof?

I'm running an 1156 right now;with 6-7-7-19 1600-ish with the 2600 cas10 kit.

Doesn't count: Intel didn't have an on-die memory controller until 1155.

 

[schmuckley]

But I've heard this alot, in multiple places. And I've heard of people whose Sandy Bridge processors failed because of running too much voltage on their RAM. Can you link to some proof?

Doesn't count: Intel didn't have an on-die memory controller until 1155.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...Pi32m-5GHz-amp-4GHz-Haswell-All-Out-Challenge!

http://www.overclock.net/t/1300766/super-pi-32m-4ghz-efficiency-challenge/0_100

Can you link to where Someone's Sandy Bridge CPU failed because they used too much voltage?

I ran a 2500K with some TEAM ddr3 RAM @ 1.73 for months..no issues..

Sam OCX has never had any issues,Splave has never had any issues;No one I know ever has,either;and we all use 1.72-whatever it takes.

I see you left out "1.87v..max vRAM on 1155,and 2.12v on Haswell..eh..maybe down to 1.96 for daily."

..and the point about the 1156 is the TIMINGS.

 

[Ken g6]

Huh, you're right! Intel certifies (PDF) quite a few 1.65V RAM models as compatible with Sandy, Ivy, and Haswell! Well, that's good to know.

Of course, the OP's other question was whether faster RAM was worthwhile. Ian says it's not worth much for gaming with DGPU. He tested several other scenarios, but it looks like he didn't test compiling.

 

[ShintaiDK]

1.65V is overvolted. And there is no need to buy it. The chips under the heatsink is rated for 1.5V, or in extreme cases 1.35V.

And to the OP, get 2x8GB. Its just silly to buy 4x4GB.

Also the motherboard got:
ROG SupremeFX Audio 8-Channel High Definition Audio

So I would drop the discrete soundcard.

 

[mfenn]

Doesn't count: Intel didn't have an on-die memory controller until 1155.

1156 (Lynnfield) and 1366 (Nehalem) actually do have on-die memory controllers.

 

[mfenn]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...Pi32m-5GHz-amp-4GHz-Haswell-All-Out-Challenge!

http://www.overclock.net/t/1300766/super-pi-32m-4ghz-efficiency-challenge/0_100

Can you link to where Someone's Sandy Bridge CPU failed because they used too much voltage?

I ran a 2500K with some TEAM ddr3 RAM @ 1.73 for months..no issues..

Sam OCX has never had any issues,Splave has never had any issues;No one I know ever has,either;and we all use 1.72-whatever it takes.

I see you left out "1.87v..max vRAM on 1155,and 2.12v on Haswell..eh..maybe down to 1.96 for daily."

..and the point about the 1156 is the TIMINGS.

And how long do you run those systems? Of course an extreme overclocker isn't going to notice long-term degradation of the memory controller over a period of time. They're off to the latest and greatest CPU every year.

Refer to Table 47 in the Haswell processor datasheet for the spec. The nominal memory voltage is 1.5V with a maximum being defined at +5%, which works out to 1.575V. So yeah, 1.65V will work, but it is out of spec and will shorten the life of your memory controller.

 

[Medwynd]

1.65V is overvolted. And there is no need to buy it. The chips under the heatsink is rated for 1.5V, or in extreme cases 1.35V.

And to the OP, get 2x8GB. Its just silly to buy 4x4GB.

Also the motherboard got:
ROG SupremeFX Audio 8-Channel High Definition Audio

So I would drop the discrete soundcard.

Yeah the 2x8 seems like the way to go, which will also result in an easier OC on it. I don't really care about expanding my RAM in the future as I have never really had the need to. The only reason I am going 16gb instead of 8 is to run a ramdisk for some things I am working on.

I actually like the discreet cards from Creative, especially the breakout connector on the Zx.

 

[Medwynd]

And how long do you run those systems? Of course an extreme overclocker isn't going to notice long-term degradation of the memory controller over a period of time. They're off to the latest and greatest CPU every year.

Refer to Table 47 in the Haswell processor datasheet for the spec. The nominal memory voltage is 1.5V with a maximum being defined at +5%, which works out to 1.575V. So yeah, 1.65V will work, but it is out of spec and will shorten the life of your memory controller.

I'm sure you have more experience than me with this, but why do they list it as compatible in their datasheet if running it out of spec will damage the controller?

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...sheets/core-i7-memory-suppliers-datasheet.pdf

More specifically, most of the ram listed for XMP profiles is over 1.5v.

Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (Intel® XMP) allows you to overclock compatible DDR3 memory to perform beyond standard specifications. It’s designed to enhance the gaming features built into Intel® technology–based PCs. If you like to overclock and squeeze as much performance from your PC as possible, then memory based on Intel XMP gives you that extra edge you need to dominate—without breaking a sweat.

Predefined and tested Intel XMP profiles can be loaded via BIOS or a specific tuning application through a computer’s operating system. Often the easiest way to load Intel XMP profiles is using a tuning utility, which may be available depending on the particular board manufacturer. To learn whether a tuning utility is available on your system, you should contact the board manufacturer.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/extreme-memory-profile-xmp.html
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/xmp-for-core-processors.html

 

[Essence_of_War]

2. You can almost do a primary/backup pair of Seagates for the price of a single WD Black. I'd get the Seagates, either a single one to save money, or two to get far better reliability than any single drive (WD Black included)

:thumbsup:

The WD Blacks are just overpriced. Unless they're made of pixie dust and happiness.