Haswell refresh, final parts ordered

[Bateluer]

Parts ordered.

Final breakdown below.

Seasonic M12II SS-750AM - (Decided to go with this PSU over the Rosewill Capstone for the discount code offered and because it was modular. )

ASRock X87 Extreme4
Seagate 7200RPM 3TB and 2TB drives. I'll sell off the 1TBs on CL for cheap after I move my data over and scrub them
i5 4670, had a small discount code that knocked 10 dollars off it.
Fractal Design R4, Black w/ Window, also had a discount code
An extra 140mm fan for the Fractal case.

Total cost was about 776 shipped.


Some time around Christmas or New Years, I'll begin Phase 2. Replacing my 4x4GB DDR3 with 4x8GB faster stick, something in the PC3-1600+ range, and replacing my Radeon 7950 3GB with something from the Volcanic Islands family.

 

[2timer]

That's an awful lot of money to spend on a PSU when you are only driving one GPU. Unless you have imminent plans for an SLI/Xfire setup, you can get by with something much less beefy than that.

Also, I'm questioning the choice of cases, quite frankly. You're paying over $100 for what's basically an aluminum case. Does it look and feel pretty? Sure. Does it do a better job of cooling or storage than a budget case would? No.

If you were to go with this NZXT Source 210 and this Rosewill Capstone 550 PSU, not only would that give you room for a 13" GPU, it would save you a total of $130 on your build. That's nothing to scoff at.

 

[Bateluer]

That's an awful lot of money to spend on a PSU when you are only driving one GPU. Unless you have imminent plans for an SLI/Xfire setup, you can get by with something much less beefy than that.

Also, I'm questioning the choice of cases, quite frankly. You're paying over $100 for what's basically an aluminum case. Does it look and feel pretty? Sure. Does it do a better job of cooling or storage than a budget case would? No.

If you were to go with this NZXT Source 210 and this Rosewill Capstone 550 PSU, not only would that give you room for a 13" GPU, it would save you a total of $130 on your build. That's nothing to scoff at.

I've been using Lian Li cases for almost 15 years now, and they've always been top quality, well designed, tool-less, and a joy to work with. I've an inexpensive Rosewill case that occasionally houses spare parts, and I end up cutting my hands on the edges most of the time. Doesn't happen with Lian Li products.

Thats a 550W PSU, with less wattage and less amperage on the 12V rail than my aging Seasonic. Sadly, I have learned the hard way to never buy cheap PSUs. As far as my future plans for SLI/Crossfire, theres a chance I may be buying two of the next gen Radeons in a few months, depends on my budget, the performance of the cards, and my budget at the time. I should have noted that in the original post, my bad. Regardless, I do plan on buying a next gen card either before the end of the year or early in 2014, and wanted the realistic option of dual cards with the mainboard and PSU.

I have sufficient budget and firmly believe in buying quality components that last, not bottom feeding junk that needs replacing every 12 months.

Edit - I was also considering this model case, but couldn't confirm the video card length it would allow.
LIAN LI PC-7B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112099

 

[2timer]

Suit yourself. I was just trying to save you money, I guess you don't want that. The two items I recommended both have an average rating of 5 eggs, so I can't understand why you would think they are junk. If you think that more expensive components are always better and less expensive components are junk, then that's your issue. I've learned that there's great value in less expensive but equally reliable brands. Sure, you get burned once or twice, but no less than with some "top" brands.

Anyways, I'm not trying to be a prick, good luck.

 

[Bateluer]

Suit yourself. I was just trying to save you money, I guess you don't want that. The two items I recommended both have an average rating of 5 eggs, so I can't understand why you would think they are junk. If you think that more expensive components are always better and less expensive components are junk, then that's your issue. I've learned that there's great value in less expensive but equally reliable brands. Sure, you get burned once or twice, but no less than with some "top" brands.

Anyways, I'm not trying to be a prick, good luck.

Didn't say you were. This is why we post prospective build lists, to get feedback. Others can criticize my choices, suggest alternatives, etc, and my component choices should be able to stand up to criticism. You posted solid bang for buck parts, they just didn't meet my desires and needs.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The 4570S doesnt make sense. The S and T models are designed for cases with a fixed TDP. Its not gonna save you any power. It will only be slower or take longer time vs the non S.

Get a 4570, 4670 or 4670K if you wish to OC. You are getting a Z series board. So if you dont get a K CPU, you can just as well get a H87 or B85 board.

 

[mfenn]

Thats a 550W PSU, with less wattage and less amperage on the 12V rail than my aging Seasonic. Sadly, I have learned the hard way to never buy cheap PSUs. As far as my future plans for SLI/Crossfire, theres a chance I may be buying two of the next gen Radeons in a few months, depends on my budget, the performance of the cards, and my budget at the time. I should have noted that in the original post, my bad. Regardless, I do plan on buying a next gen card either before the end of the year or early in 2014, and wanted the realistic option of dual cards with the mainboard and PSU.

I have sufficient budget and firmly believe in buying quality components that last, not bottom feeding junk that needs replacing every 12 months.

I'm not sure how you got the idea that the Rosewill Capstone series is "bottom feeding junk". They're built by SuperFlower, which is regarded as a higher tier PSU OEM than FSP.

Also, 550W is the correct wattage recommendation for a 7950 rig. For dual-GPU, the 750W Capstone would be an excellent choice for less than the cost of the FSP. Please don't venomously criticize recommendations that are slightly incorrect due to a lack of mind-reading powers.

 

[mfenn]

Lian Li PC-9F
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112304

I'm not sure about this case, exactly. In order to support 2x SSDs, 2x 1TBs, and 1x 4TB, there needs to be a certain number of internal bays and it still needs to support high end video cards. The official specs for this give it a maximum video card length of 11.2 inches. Sufficient for my current 7950B card @ 10.63in. But I have some concerns about future cards. I'd like to think I could keep the case for a number of years before dealing with that headache. Lian Li cases have always been good to me in the past, but I'm having difficulty finding a mid-tower case in their portfolio that means my desires, primarily room for long video cards and bays for 3x 3.5in HDDs, 2x 2.5in SSDs, and 1x 5.25 optical drive. Definitely open to suggestions on an alternative.

IMHO Lian-Li stopped innovating around 2006 or so. Now they just build rehashes of their classic products. If that's what you're looking for, then you won't go wrong with the 9F.

Seagate STBD4000400 4TB 64MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822178326

Lots of space, good price. I was originally looking at a Western Digital 4TB drive, as both my current 1TBs are WD Caviar Blacks and have worked like champs. And I was put off on Seagate due to one of my 500GB drives failing under warranty, Seagate being slow with the RMA, and then sending a refurb drive that failed in less than a week.

Keeping in mind that this is a 5400RPM-class drive, you're looking at $47.5/TB. That's slightly more expensive than the 3TB version of the drive. All else being equal, the 3TB drive will be more reliable because it has 3 platters instead of 4.

ASRock Z87M Extreme 4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157373

Current board is also an ASRock and its been solid as a rock. This model is a micro ATX, and meets my goals of 32GB RAM support and 2x PCIe 3.0 slots.

This a good single-GPU board, but not a great Crossfire board because there's only one slot between the CPU-driven PCIe x16 slots. That means that two typical dual slot GPUs will be right next to each other, with the top card starving for air.

For Crossfire, you want a board with lots of room between x16 slots like the full ATX Z87 Extreme3.

Core i5 4570S
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116897

I was torn here, between the i5 4670 and the lowest tier Haswell i7, but I don't think the benchmarks really justify the 100 dollar premium for the cheaper i7. The 4570S is priced identically to the 4670, but is a 65W TDP part and clocked a little slower.

I agree with Shintai here, the reduced-TDP parts make no sense in a desktop. His reasoning is exactly correct.

FSP Group AURUM GOLD 750W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104127

My current PSU is a Seasonic 650W thats been in use since 2005, and its done an amazing job. No issues at all with it, but I think its time to replace it for something newer, more amperage/wattage, and modular.

See the Capstone recommendation in my previous post.

 

[solidsnake1607]

Will be good an I5 4670 non K to run a SLI setup with 2 gtx 760s?

 

[RayTheKing]

Will be good an I5 4670 non K to run a SLI setup with 2 gtx 760s?

It can run even 3-way GPU setups. I don't think 2 GTX 760s is a good idea IMO. You can make a thread to get help on that.

 

[solidsnake1607]

It can run even 3-way GPU setups. I don't think 2 GTX 760s is a good idea IMO. You can make a thread to get help on that.

Why isnt a good idea ? i bought them already through amazon, they will be shipped on monday. Two EVGA GTX 760 FTW 4GB. Is something wrong with that?

 

[RayTheKing]

Not necessarily. It's just that it's hotter and noisier. I'd would've recommended a single, more powerful GPU, like a highest-end HD 7990 6 GB with 8 games included for $590. But, I guess if you can live with the noise, it isn't too bad. 2 760 FTWs seem uber great

 

[solidsnake1607]

Not necessarily. It's just that it's hotter and noisier. I'd would've recommended a single, more powerful GPU. But, I guess if you can live with the noise, it isn't too bad. 2 760 FTWs seem uber great

Yea im a bit worried with the jet noise both of them could cause so im gonna use headsets, hope i do not get distracted lol.. Thanks thought i had to upgrade the cpu too

 

[RayTheKing]

I don't think it'll create enough noise to annoy you while wearing headsets, so I think you're fine . Now, I don't think straying off the topic is good ._.

BTW: 2 GTX 760 beats a GTX 780, and rivals a HD 7990 & GTX TITAN & 690

 

[2timer]

Mfenn, I kind of like the idea of the i5-4570S processor. Let me explain why. True and true, the S models are designed for smaller cases, but let's say you choose an H87 board and do no overclocking. The clock speed difference between the i5-4570 and i5-4570S is only 300 Mhz - negligible in gaming.

Another factor: if this is the OP's 5 year rig, then picking the S model means a 65W processor vs an 84W processor. That's a considerable difference over the course of 5 years. Might end up saving him $100 on power bill during that time.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm not sure how you got the idea that the Rosewill Capstone series is "bottom feeding junk". They're built by SuperFlower, which is regarded as a higher tier PSU OEM than FSP.

Also, 550W is the correct wattage recommendation for a 7950 rig. For dual-GPU, the 750W Capstone would be an excellent choice for less than the cost of the FSP. Please don't venomously criticize recommendations that are slightly incorrect due to a lack of mind-reading powers.

Rosewill is Newegg's house brand, is it not? I was referring more to the case link from 2Timer as bottom feeding, not the Rosewill 550W. The 750W PSU looks like a better fit. I'd prefer dual 12V rails, but 62A on that 750W should be more than enough.

Should I have included the multi-GPU plans into the original post, sorry.

IMHO Lian-Li stopped innovating around 2006 or so. Now they just build rehashes of their classic products. If that's what you're looking for, then you won't go wrong with the 9F.

I don't quite agree with that, but I'm still not finalized a case choice. I know I want out of this gigantic full tower case though.

Keeping in mind that this is a 5400RPM-class drive, you're looking at $47.5/TB. That's slightly more expensive than the 3TB version of the drive. All else being equal, the 3TB drive will be more reliable because it has 3 platters instead of 4.

Oops, missed that being a 5400rpm drive. Less important for being media storage, but odds are pretty good that this drive would end up being used to store/record/transcode FRAPs videos as well. 7200rpm would deliver a more noticeable bump there, I think. I'm just getting started with the whole game recording thing and not fully familiar with the hardware bottlenecks and requirements.

Currently, my 2x 1TBs are acting as media storage and the new large capacity drive would be taking over those duties. The current drives are nearly full. A 3TB drive would still give me a full TB of extra space, and I do plan on doing some 'pruning' when I migrate the data. I've been collecting a lot over the past several years.

I think I'll go with the 3TB 7200rpm Seagate or WD, whichever offers the most storage for the price when I place the order.

This a good single-GPU board, but not a great Crossfire board because there's only one slot between the CPU-driven PCIe x16 slots. That means that two typical dual slot GPUs will be right next to each other, with the top card starving for air.

For Crossfire, you want a board with lots of room between x16 slots like the full ATX Z87 Extreme3.

The Lian Li's I'm looking at have 1 or 2 12cm fans in the front acting as intakes, which usually blow air over the the HDD bays, to be exhausted out the rear of the case with the video cards in the direct path. I did consider airflow for dual GPUs, but since I haven't had a dual GPU set up before, I've little first hand experience. I would think with cards that intake from the far end would be pulling cool air from those heavy intake fans in the front and then exhausting it out of the case and really be starved for air at all.

I may not buy two cards, but I want the motherboard to support it so I don't get stalled by it.

I did look at only the Z87 chipsets, because the other H and B series boards got filtered out when I selected for 32GB of RAM, dual PCIe 3.0 slots, and required number of SATA ports.

I agree with Shintai here, the reduced-TDP parts make no sense in a desktop. His reasoning is exactly correct.

Like I said, I did go back and forth on the CPU choice. As 2Timer is saying, the lower TDP will save money over the low run, but it boils down to about a $1.66 a month. I might want the slight performance advantage more long term. I'm hoping to be able to hold onto some parts longer than others though, expect video card upgrades 12-18 months, for example.

Right now, after your feedbacks have been considered, I've swapped out a few parts and here's the new list.

$82
LIAN LI PC-7B plus II Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112099

$135
Seagate Barracuda STBD3000100 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Kit -Retail kit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148907

$100
Rosewill CAPSTONE-750 750W Continuous @ 50°C..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182073

$140
ASRock Z87 Extreme4 LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157369
(Extreme4 was only 10 bucks more than the Extreme3 linked by mfenn and offered more SATA ports and better flexibility with the PCIe slots)

$200
Intel Core i5-4570 Haswell 3.2GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54570
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116896

With 3-Day shipping, its $662. Well under budget.




Now to complicate it a little. :sneaky:

The 2x1TB drives are old. They've been reliable and never had any issues, but they are well out of warranty. If I didn't have such stringent requirements for HDD bays and SATA ports, I'd have more flexibility with the case and motherboard.

Hence, a 2TB Seagate 7200rpm is 100 dollars. That would make only 4 bays required, 2TB, 3TB, 2x SSDs, and allow me to go with the smaller Lian Li A55B. Thats a case I really liked for its compact yet spacious design, but had to originally strike from consideration.

Lian Li PC-A55B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112376

Going this route does raise the price by a bit, to 762 shipped. But this sheet would save me a great deal of time on the initial set up. With the first sheet, I would have to migrate all the data from my 2 1TB drives onto the 3TB drive before I could set them up as RAID and begin installing and downloading the Steam library. With this second sheet, I can hook up the 1TB drives via eSATA or USB 3 and migrate that data over to the 3TB drive while simultaneously working on game installs/downloads. Obviously, I would lose the performance benefit of having the 1TBs in RAID0, but with the bulk of my games on the 2TB, I could install those that would benefit most from the SSDs speed to that RAID0 partition.

 

[lehtv]

I wouldn't go with Lian Li at the moment. Fractal Design Define R4 would be my choice, an absolutely great case, so feature rich, nice looking and well designed, and the price is right.

4670K $220 or 4770K $330 @amazon
Arctic Freezer i30 $30 @newegg
Asus Z87-A $145 @newegg
Seagate ST3000DM001 $120 @amazon
Capstone 750W Modular $97 @amazon
Define R4 Black Pearl $80 @amazon + Bitfenix Spectre 140mm $12

= $814 shipped with 4770K

You definitely want an overclockable CPU even if you don't plan on overclocking right now. You're so much under the budget that there's no reason to save money there. An overclocked CPU is less of a hindrance when upgrading the graphics setup, and 1440p definitely can use dual cards. Also, the default cooler on Haswell can be a bit noisy, I would just get an aftermarket cooler right away. The one picked above is extremely quiet as it's 120mm running at about 400-1350 RPM.

You also have the budget for 4770K instead of 4670K. I would buy the 4770K since money isn't that tight. Future games may become increasingly dependent on more than four threads - one indicator is that XBox One and PS4 both use an eight-core CPU. Console games will therefore be more often coded for up to 8 threads than with the previous generation of consoles, and very few games are for PC only.

 

[Bateluer]

I wouldn't go with Lian Li at the moment. Fractal Design Define R4 would be my choice, an absolutely great case, so feature rich, nice looking and well designed, and the price is right.

4670K $220 or 4770K $330 @amazon
Arctic Freezer i30 $30 @newegg
Asus Z87-A $145 @newegg
Seagate ST3000DM001 $120 @amazon
Capstone 750W Modular $97 @amazon
Define R4 Black Pearl $80 @amazon + Bitfenix Spectre 140mm $12

= $814 shipped with 4770K

You definitely want an overclockable CPU even if you don't plan on overclocking right now. You're so much under the budget that there's no reason to save money there. An overclocked CPU is less of a hindrance when upgrading the graphics setup, and 1440p definitely can use dual cards. Also, the default cooler on Haswell can be a bit noisy, I would just get an aftermarket cooler right away. The one picked above is extremely quiet as it's 120mm running at about 400-1350 RPM.

You also have the budget for 4770K instead of 4670K. I would buy the 4770K since money isn't that tight. Future games may become increasingly dependent on more than four threads - one indicator is that XBox One and PS4 both use an eight-core CPU. Console games will therefore be more often coded for up to 8 threads than with the previous generation of consoles, and very few games are for PC only.

That is a pretty nice looking case. Compact and spacious.

On overclocking, I haven't done it in years. It hasn't been necessary, and the Phoenix summers always mean I had to back it off for several months out of the year. Its not worth the head aches.

 

[Remobz]

I wouldn't go with Lian Li at the moment. Fractal Design Define R4 would be my choice, an absolutely great case, so feature rich, nice looking and well designed, and the price is right.

4670K $220 or 4770K $330 @amazon
Arctic Freezer i30 $30 @newegg
Asus Z87-A $145 @newegg
Seagate ST3000DM001 $120 @amazon
Capstone 750W Modular $97 @amazon
Define R4 Black Pearl $80 @amazon + Bitfenix Spectre 140mm $12

= $814 shipped with 4770K

You definitely want an overclockable CPU even if you don't plan on overclocking right now. You're so much under the budget that there's no reason to save money there. An overclocked CPU is less of a hindrance when upgrading the graphics setup, and 1440p definitely can use dual cards. Also, the default cooler on Haswell can be a bit noisy, I would just get an aftermarket cooler right away. The one picked above is extremely quiet as it's 120mm running at about 400-1350 RPM.

You also have the budget for 4770K instead of 4670K. I would buy the 4770K since money isn't that tight. Future games may become increasingly dependent on more than four threads - one indicator is that XBox One and PS4 both use an eight-core CPU. Console games will therefore be more often coded for up to 8 threads than with the previous generation of consoles, and very few games are for PC only.

I was going to get the corsair 350d but that define R4 case looks really good now.

 

[mfenn]

Mfenn, I kind of like the idea of the i5-4570S processor. Let me explain why. True and true, the S models are designed for smaller cases, but let's say you choose an H87 board and do no overclocking. The clock speed difference between the i5-4570 and i5-4570S is only 300 Mhz - negligible in gaming.

Another factor: if this is the OP's 5 year rig, then picking the S model means a 65W processor vs an 84W processor. That's a considerable difference over the course of 5 years. Might end up saving him $100 on power bill during that time.

Doesn't work that way I'm afraid. Given an equal workload, the S and T parts will use the same or more energy than a fully-clocked part due to the race to idle principle. This is doubly true for Haswell because there is so much dynamic range in the chip's power profile.

The bottom line is that the S and T models are for thermally constrained environments wehere you cannot draw more than X watts period. They are not designed to save energy.

 

[lehtv]

@Bateluer

You don't have AC? How can you survive

Moderate overclocking can be done just fine even with higher ambient temperatures. In any case I think it's pointless to not pay that $10 or so extra for a K chip when you're going to get a Z87 board anyway. And I think even with a non-K chip you're likely to upgrade the cooling on the CPU to something quieter and cooler.

 

[mfenn]

Rosewill is Newegg's house brand, is it not? I was referring more to the case link from 2Timer as bottom feeding, not the Rosewill 550W. The 750W PSU looks like a better fit. I'd prefer dual 12V rails, but 62A on that 750W should be more than enough.

Rosewill started out as Newegg's house brand, but they've since grown enough such that they are a brand in their own right. For PSUs, they farm the work out to OEMs like everybody else. What's really important is who actually makes the PSU, not the label that's on it.

The Lian Li's I'm looking at have 1 or 2 12cm fans in the front acting as intakes, which usually blow air over the the HDD bays, to be exhausted out the rear of the case with the video cards in the direct path. I did consider airflow for dual GPUs, but since I haven't had a dual GPU set up before, I've little first hand experience. I would think with cards that intake from the far end would be pulling cool air from those heavy intake fans in the front and then exhausting it out of the case and really be starved for air at all.

I see that you've switch the motherboard out for a superior choice, but I think the core misunderstanding here still merits explanation. The issue with putting two GPUs right next to each other doesn't really have anything to do with providing sufficient intake air (though you should of course do that).

The issue is that the bottom GPU will be nearly flush with the top GPU, with only a couple millimeters between them. Since all GPUs draw in air from the bottom of the card, the fan on the top card will be almost completely blocked, leading to heat problems no matter how cool the ambient air is. Thus, you should always leave at least one slot completely empty.

Like I said, I did go back and forth on the CPU choice. As 2Timer is saying, the lower TDP will save money over the low run, but it boils down to about a $1.66 a month.

The problem with this reasoning is that you will not save energy by buying a lower TDP part. Yes, it would use less peak power, but you will have to run at max for longer, meaning that you end up using the same or more overall energy.

 

[KentState]

Sure this is just adding to what everyone already said, but something like a NZXT Source 210 is a good case and easy to work with. Purchased two so far for builds and couldn't be happier. I would also go with the 4670, especially when the desktop parts are very similar at idle. The only thing that you will gain is in power savings when you need the CPU the most. For a desktop, that is really counter intuitive IMO.

 

[2timer]

Doesn't work that way I'm afraid. Given an equal workload, the S and T parts will use the same or more energy than a fully-clocked part due to the race to idle principle. This is doubly true for Haswell because there is so much dynamic range in the chip's power profile.

The bottom line is that the S and T models are for thermally constrained environments wehere you cannot draw more than X watts period. They are not designed to save energy.

If the workload has a limited X axis where X=time and Y=wattage, then this is true, both will use roughly equivalent amounts because the faster processor will finish and go to idle.

If the workload is perpetual, such as a period of gaming, then this is not true, because there is no "idle" point at the end, both workloads are equal in time, the only variance would be the wattage. In this case, the lower clocked processor would use less energy, while performance would be slightly less.

 

[mfenn]

If the workload has a limited X axis where X=time and Y=wattage, then this is true, both will use roughly equivalent amounts because the faster processor will finish and go to idle.

If the workload is perpetual, such as a period of gaming, then this is not true, because there is no "idle" point at the end, both workloads are equal in time, the only variance would be the wattage. In this case, the lower clocked processor would use less energy, while performance would be slightly less.

The important thing to realize is that CPUs can go into and out of idle states very quickly, well under a millisecond. Assuming the game is GPU-limited or you're using vSync, there is a fixed amount of work to do per unit time and the CPU will idle the rest of the time.