Need help with custom gaming PC please!

[DSF]

This is obviously a lot better than what the OP originally had, but I would make a few changes:

- CPU: For a pure gaming rig, I see no reason to get the 3770K over the 3570K. HT only gets you a very minimal improvement in gaming performance.
- Mobo: Obviously a very nice board, but given my comments above, I don't really see the point in getting a CFX capable board for 1080p. The Z77 Pro3 is a good fit IMHO.
- RAM: Good deal, but I'm not convinced of it's utility for a gaming machine. 8GB is enough for gaming. Hell, most games aren't even 64-bit.
- HDD : Reasonable value with the promo
- SSD : Good
- ODD : Good if the OP wants Blu-Ray
- PSU : Good unit for a good price, but since CFX is not really a good upgrade path, this Silencer Mk III 600W for $57 AR AP is more than sufficient.
- GPU: Surprisingly not bad since it's sub $500
- HSF: Overkill for a beginner overclocker. The Scythe Mugen 3 performs extremely well and is less of a hassle because you don't have to mount it to the case.
- OS: Good
- Case: Kind of overpriced, but I guess personal preference plays a big role here
- Sound card: Fine card, but the Companion 5's have their own USB sound card, and completely lack an analog input as far as I can tell. So the Xonar would be of limited utility.

I agree with mfenn's changes.

 

[lakedude]

750W is plenty.

Wow, where are they getting their numbers from?

I've got a HD-7850 that the link shows drawing 289 Watts in Metro.

According to the Kill-a-Watt my system draws ~265 Watts running LinPack and FurMark, ~185 Watts running both CPU and GPU BOINC projects (OCed), and as little as ~135 Watts playing FarCry 2 in DX10 with the settings up pretty high. I think it might draw a little more running DX9 for some reason ~165 Watts or so.

My HD-7850 / i7-3770s system has never pulled 289 Watts even when purposely trying to max it out. They must be running the biggest power sucking CPU they can find to run these benchmarks.

Oh this is kinda fishy, they are claiming only 218 Watts running OCCT but 289 Watts running Metro?? That seems backward to me! OCCT should be similar to when I ran LinPack and FurMark.

Investigating...

Yeah something ain't right with those figures. The Kill-a-Watt says ~175 Watts with Metro, and ~260 Watts with OCCT.

 

[blaknwite]

This is obviously a lot better than what the OP originally had, but I would make a few changes:

- CPU: For a pure gaming rig, I see no reason to get the 3770K over the 3570K. HT only gets you a very minimal improvement in gaming performance.
- Mobo: Obviously a very nice board, but given my comments above, I don't really see the point in getting a CFX capable board for 1080p. The Z77 Pro3 is a good fit IMHO.
- RAM: Good deal, but I'm not convinced of it's utility for a gaming machine. 8GB is enough for gaming. Hell, most games aren't even 64-bit.
- HDD : Reasonable value with the promo
- SSD : Good
- ODD : Good if the OP wants Blu-Ray
- PSU : Good unit for a good price, but since CFX is not really a good upgrade path, this Silencer Mk III 600W for $57 AR AP is more than sufficient.
- GPU: Surprisingly not bad since it's sub $500
- HSF: Overkill for a beginner overclocker. The Scythe Mugen 3 performs extremely well and is less of a hassle because you don't have to mount it to the case.
- OS: Good
- Case: Kind of overpriced, but I guess personal preference plays a big role here
- Sound card: Fine card, but the Companion 5's have their own USB sound card, and completely lack an analog input as far as I can tell. So the Xonar would be of limited utility.

Thanks for the reply, I'll take some of your adjustments into consideration. Also thanks a ton for the insight on the crossfire of the 7970s!

2 questions arising from this...

1. Assuming I want to keep the Corsair H100 would that case work with it? Does anyone know? I saw some vids on the H100 and it's pretty big so I'm worried about being able to mount it properly.

2. @ mfenn, I'm not sure what your suggestion means about the sound card. It's easily the part I know the least about (never bought a dedicated sound card before) Did you mean I should look at a different card?

 

[Durvelle27]

Thanks for the reply, I'll take some of your adjustments into consideration. Also thanks a ton for the insight on the crossfire of the 7970s!

2 questions arising from this...

1. Assuming I want to keep the Corsair H100 would that case work with it? Does anyone know? I saw some vids on the H100 and it's pretty big so I'm worried about being able to mount it properly.

2. @ mfenn, I'm not sure what your suggestion means about the sound card. It's easily the part I know the least about (never bought a dedicated sound card before) Did you mean I should look at a different card?

1.yes it would fit
2. and he was saying with the speakers you have a sound really wouldn't be needed

 

[DSF]

Thanks for the reply, I'll take some of your adjustments into consideration. Also thanks a ton for the insight on the crossfire of the 7970s!

2 questions arising from this...

1. Assuming I want to keep the Corsair H100 would that case work with it? Does anyone know? I saw some vids on the H100 and it's pretty big so I'm worried about being able to mount it properly.

2. @ mfenn, I'm not sure what your suggestion means about the sound card. It's easily the part I know the least about (never bought a dedicated sound card before) Did you mean I should look at a different card?

What makes you want the H100?

 

[krnmastersgt]

The H100 is a decent designed product, however for the price and the performance it gives it's general considered not worth it. There are mass air coolers that are more effective at cooling than the H100, the H60 was a great product and worked wonders for the cost it came in at but Corsair has tried to continue the line a little too long.

 

[blaknwite]

@ Durvelle: Thanks for clearing that up! Wouldn't getting a sound card potentially help performance though? When it comes to games? even with my speakers.

@ DSF: Well, I'm still undecided but in case I do want to overclock I want to make sure that I have the appropriate cooling for my CPU


In terms of some of mfenn's suggested changes, I'm mostly a bit torn on the motherboard. I feel like the one suggested by Durvelle might work better for me due to its capacity for other devices.

Other than that looks like I have everything else just about ready to get started

 

[Durvelle27]

@ Durvelle: Thanks for clearing that up! Wouldn't getting a sound card potentially help performance though? When it comes to games? even with my speakers.

@ DSF: Well, I'm still undecided but in case I do want to overclock I want to make sure that I have the appropriate cooling for my CPU


In terms of some of mfenn's suggested changes, I'm mostly a bit torn on the motherboard. I feel like the one suggested by Durvelle might work better for me due to its capacity for other devices.

Other than that looks like I have everything else just about ready to get started

no as a sound card has nothing to do with performance at all ?

 

[blaknwite]

no as a sound card has nothing to do with performance at all ?

ah ok, like i said I know nothing about sound cards, I remember reading somewhere that getting a dedicated one could potentially help, but if not I guess I can leave that part out of the build.

 

[Durvelle27]

yes you want need it on board sound has gotten pretty good over the past years ?

 

[blaknwite]

The H100 is a decent designed product, however for the price and the performance it gives it's general considered not worth it. There are mass air coolers that are more effective at cooling than the H100, the H60 was a great product and worked wonders for the cost it came in at but Corsair has tried to continue the line a little too long.

hmm. Would you guys say that even with overclocking the system that Durvelle and mfenn suggested I wouldnt need any liquid cooling? a fan and heatsink setup would work?

What about this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118129

 

[Durvelle27]

hmm. Would you guys say that even with overclocking the system that Durvelle and mfenn suggested I wouldnt need any liquid cooling? a fan and heatsink setup would work?

What about this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118129

i really only trust Corsair water coolers

 

[DSF]

You're still way overspending.

If you put a lot of emphasis on quiet operation something like the Scythe Mugen 3 is a good choice and shouldn't cost you more than $50 or so.

The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ (or its slightly better cousin the 212 Evo) is also very frequently recommended as a great cooler for the price. ($20-30) On your budget though, I'm guessing you'd go more for something like the Mugen.

Spending $100, or even $60-80 on a cooler for a build like this is a waste of money. That stuff is for three kinds of people:

1) People who just don't know any better.
2) People who are intending to push their overclock to the limit. (Since you're not even sure how overclocking works yet, this probably isn't you.)
3) People who would like to be able to brag about what's in their computer, even if it's actually unnecessary.

But to directly answer your question, that's correct. You do not need liquid cooling to safely overclock a system. In fact, $100 water cooling isn't actually any more effective than $50 air cooling. (Or at least, not effective enough to justify the price increase.)

 

[blaknwite]

You're still way overspending.

If you put a lot of emphasis on quiet operation something like the Scythe Mugen 3 is a good choice and shouldn't cost you more than $50 or so.

The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ (or its slightly better cousin the 212 Evo) is also very frequently recommended as a great cooler for the price. ($20-30) On your budget though, I'm guessing you'd go more for something like the Mugen.

Spending $100, or even $60-80 on a cooler for a build like this is a waste of money. That stuff is for three kinds of people:

1) People who just don't know any better.
2) People who are intending to push their overclock to the limit. (Since you're not even sure how overclocking works yet, this probably isn't you.)
3) People who would like to be able to brag about what's in their computer, even if it's actually unnecessary.

But to directly answer your question, that's correct. You do not need liquid cooling to safely overclock a system. In fact, $100 water cooling isn't actually any more effective than $50 air cooling. (Or at least, not effective enough to justify the price increase.)

Well this is definately informative. I was under the impression that liquid cooling was simply worlds better than fan/heatsink cooling and that on a gaming PC you had to be crazy to not get liquid cooling.

If this really is the case, hell I'll be happy to spend less and besides the Mugen lokks WAY easier to install haha

As far as overclocking goes, I hope that this kind of rig doesn't even require me to overclock at all! But I like to have the option available should I need to do so and if the Mugen can handle it then I have no quarels with it

2 more questions

1. Is there any substantial difference between say the H100 and the Mugen in terms of loudness? My current PC tends to get pretty loud (though it's mostly the GPU) and one of my goals is to have as quiet a system as possible.

2. Might be a stupid question :$ but does adding more SSDs and HDDs influence the PSU in any real way? That is, If I'm considering a lot of drives should that affect my PSU purchase at all?

PS: Thanks to everyone on this thread, you guys have been so insightful (and lightning fast) with your responses, really great community!

 

[krnmastersgt]

True liquid cooling set ups (not simple closed system units like the H100) are quite a bit better at cooling, however there is a large degree of set-up and maintenance involved with them and typically only true hardware enthusiasts should utilize them.

1. The loudness comes more from the fan than the cooler, though a poor cooler will force the fan to work faster. There are a number of very high airflow fans on the market that are very very quiet all things considered, they do cost a fair amount though. I think you'd be fine with a Hyper 212+ for a very minor overclock if you want to OC at all, could just buy some nicer fans to keep the whole thing dead silent.

2. Yes it does, however the additional power draw of an additional mechanical drive is almost negligible. The addition of an SSD makes virtually no difference, which is another one of its benefits.

 

[blaknwite]

True liquid cooling set ups (not simple closed system units like the H100) are quite a bit better at cooling, however there is a large degree of set-up and maintenance involved with them and typically only true hardware enthusiasts should utilize them.

1. The loudness comes more from the fan than the cooler, though a poor cooler will force the fan to work faster. There are a number of very high airflow fans on the market that are very very quiet all things considered, they do cost a fair amount though. I think you'd be fine with a Hyper 212+ for a very minor overclock if you want to OC at all, could just buy some nicer fans to keep the whole thing dead silent.

2. Yes it does, however the additional power draw of an additional mechanical drive is almost negligible. The addition of an SSD makes virtually no difference, which is another one of its benefits.

I see, would you recommend the Hyper 212+ over the Scythe SCMG-3100? I was looking at those (and some of the other fans mentioned in this topic like the 212 EVO) and I can't honestly tell much of a difference between them, they all seem to be about the same specs so I'm guessing the difference just comes from how well they typically perform?

 

[mfenn]

OK, lots of misunderstanding happening in this post.

Short answer: No, there is nothing wrong with Anandtech's numbers.
Long answer: Lets go point by point.

Wow, where are they getting their numbers from?

I've got a HD-7850 that the link shows drawing 289 Watts in Metro.

According to the Kill-a-Watt my system draws ~265 Watts running LinPack and FurMark, ~185 Watts running both CPU and GPU BOINC projects (OCed), and as little as ~135 Watts playing FarCry 2 in DX10 with the settings up pretty high. I think it might draw a little more running DX9 for some reason ~165 Watts or so.

My HD-7850 / i7-3770s system has never pulled 289 Watts even when purposely trying to max it out. They must be running the biggest power sucking CPU they can find to run these benchmarks.

The goal of benchmarking an individual component is to show the performance impact that component has on your system. To do that, you have to eliminate all other potential bottlenecks. That means that they run with the biggest, baddest CPU they can (i7 3960X with an overclock). The power numbers are useful in two ways:
- To see the relative difference in power consumption between two GPUs.
- If you make a recommendation based on the numbers in bench and the user isn't running SNB-E, you will have a nice and easy built in safety factor.

Oh this is kinda fishy, they are claiming only 218 Watts running OCCT but 289 Watts running Metro?? That seems backward to me! OCCT should be similar to when I ran LinPack and FurMark.

Investigating...

Yeah something ain't right with those figures. The Kill-a-Watt says ~175 Watts with Metro, and ~260 Watts with OCCT.

First of all, they are only running the GPU stress portion of OCCT. The CPU is essentially sitting idle, so your LinPack + FurMark numbers or OCCT CPU + GPU stress numbers are not comparable.

Second, the reason that they test with an actual game instead of just synthetic tests is twofold. As mentioned before, the GPU-only test leaves the CPU idle, which is not what will happen in a real world gaming scenario. Another reason that OCCT by itself is not sufficient is that AMD and NVIDIA quite famously detect and throttle programs like Furmark and OCCT because they deem them to be "power viruses". An actual game doesn't get throttled, so again the numbers are more realistic.

In summary, yes Anandtech's numbers are correct and there is a reason why I always show the Metro 2033 numbers instead of the synthetic numbers.

 

[mfenn]

I see, would you recommend the Hyper 212+ over the Scythe SCMG-3100? I was looking at those (and some of the other fans mentioned in this topic like the 212 EVO) and I can't honestly tell much of a difference between them, they all seem to be about the same specs so I'm guessing the difference just comes from how well they typically perform?

The advantage of the Hyper 212+ its cousins is that they cost less than a higher-end cooler like the Mugen 3. The Mugen 3 cools marginally better but more importantly is quieter. Either is fine for a beginning overclocker.

 

[blaknwite]

The advantage of the Hyper 212+ its cousins is that they cost less than a higher-end cooler like the Mugen 3. The Mugen 3 cools marginally better but more importantly is quieter. Either is fine for a beginning overclocker.

Awesome! Great advice, on a final note, is there anything else I could get to improve the rig?

Don't get me wrong, i love saving money but this is way less than what I was expecting to spend so if there's anything that I should get NOW I would consider it.

GPU is good? I know I mentioned I wanted ATI, or I guess AMD now but I'm not against Nvidia so am I good with the 7970?

Basically just doing a last call haha anything else to add or change before the next step?

 

[lakedude]

Thanks for the info mfenn.

Evidently I incorrectly assumed they ran the power supply test on OCCT.

 

[lakedude]

So I just ran OCCT GPU only on my system and it pulled 175-180 Watts, or about the same as Metro??

 

[Pr0d1gy]

I just wanted to chime in to point out to the OP that games like Crysis 3 should easily run on this quality of system, but often devs will code those "resource heavy" games in an intentionally clumsy manner just so these companies have a reason for people to buy their super high end components. Don't let these types of games determine your rig, because if you do you will end up spending thousands of dollars every couple or few years trying to keep up with it and missing out on truly great games that are properly coded.

 

[Raincity]

I recently did a new build last week. I found the onboard audio a bit lacking in my opinion. The intergrated audio chipset was a Realtec 892. I disabled it a replaced the audio with a Asus Xonar DG for $30 and it was a decent improvement in audio quality over the Realtec 892.

 

[lakedude]

Okay had a chance to look it all over and here is my 2c:

1) Good job Durvelle27 catching the socket thing and coming up with a nice build.

2) Not a big deal but at this price level (up to $2500) I like the 3770k over the 3570k just to have the HT in case it is ever needed. I've got a 2500k (no HT) and a 3770 (with HT). The 2500k is fine but I always felt like I was missing out. If budget was a bigger issue then the 3570k would be the best choice.

3) This is the big one. Since we seem to have money left over in the budget maybe we can spend it on a better monitor than the 1920x1080? Maybe get one of those Catleaps you guys are always talking about?

4) If BlaknWite does get a 2560x1440 or other higher res monitor will that change the way you feel about doubling up on the GPU?

 

[blaknwite]

Okay had a chance to look it all over and here is my 2c:

1) Good job Durvelle27 catching the socket thing and coming up with a nice build.

2) Not a big deal but at this price level (up to $2500) I like the 3770k over the 3570k just to have the HT in case it is ever needed. I've got a 2500k (no HT) and a 3770 (with HT). The 2500k is fine but I always felt like I was missing out. If budget was a bigger issue then the 3570k would be the best choice.

3) This is the big one. Since we seem to have money left over in the budget maybe we can spend it on a better monitor than the 1920x1080? Maybe get one of those Catleaps you guys are always talking about?

4) If BlaknWite does get a 2560x1440 or other higher res monitor will that change the way you feel about doubling up on the GPU?

I'm very interested in what people have to say about numbers 3 and 4.

I have a monitor but would love to get recommendations on a higher res monitor if it's viable for the rig setup you guys were suggesting