Hi & Infinity Tesseract Questions

Papablu

Papablu

Papablu

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Joined
25 Feb 2014
Posts
152
Location
Bournemouth UK
Firstly, Hi to everyone, I'm new here, my name's Mark and I'm from Bournemouth in the UK.

I only recently got back into PC gaming after 10 years in the console wilderness. I was waiting for a PS4 but soon came to realise they were way behind a decent PC in the power stakes so I cancelled that order and got a PC. However, that PC is not going to cut it now as I will be getting a 4K TV very soon, so I'm looking at the Infinity Tesseract as a 4K gaming rig which I intend to purchase next week..

I just have a couple of issues that I can't find the answers for though. Firstly the hard drive setups in new rigs are confusing to me. The PC will be used only for gaming and web browsing on a 65 inch 4K TV. I am currently using about 700 GB on my PC for storing games and ideally I'd like to keep most of the games on the PC rather than deleting them when finished, as I do tend to revisit older games often.

With that in mind, my issue is with the SSD and HDD setups. I have no clue what to do :o The Infinity as standard comes with a 120GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. I thought I would need to upgrade the SSD to at least the 1TB Samsung Evo so that I could fit all my games on the SSD along with Windows, but is this necessary/ideal at all?

I understand it's a dumb question but I don't understand how these drives are set up, and with a large capacity needed for games would this upgrade be the best path to take, or do you guys have any other suggestions and could you please pass on your expertise on this SSD and HDD matter and how you have your setup configured ? (Treat me as a total newb please)

My second dilemma is regarding the two Radeon R9 290X cards. Being 4GB cards, would these be a better option than switching to 2 3GB GTX 780 Ti's for 4K gaming ?

I have only owned one AMD card previously and I had a bad experience with that, giving up the ghost after one year and one day of ownership. Out of warranty by just one day and I had to replace it myself so it was rather gutting after spending £400 on a card and back then money was harder to come by. I had previously and thereafter stuck to NVidia cards and I intended to stick with them so switching to a Radeon based system does concern me. But if they are the best option for 4K then so be it, I'm willing to give them another shot.

Well I've rambled on way too much already so my apologies for that. I look forward to any and all advice you guys can throw at me.
 
Hello & Welcome to the Forum!

While the Tesseract is a really nice build, have you considered building yourself? You'll get better value for money and choice of components.

However, from what you have mentioned, the 1TB SSD would be a good idea, that would be my ideal setup. If you wanted to add bigger/more drives, call their Customer Services, or use the CS Forum Section, and they will assist with amending the build.

Regarding your 4K dilemma, looking at the reviews & tests, it would suggest that the 780Ti would dominate the 290x and while I really like the 290x cards, I think the 780Ti would be better. Overclocking these cards would also give you more performance.

Just to make you aware, nVidia are planning a GTX790 which will be 2 GPUs on 1 PCB, 6GB RAM, similar to the ATI 7990.

Does this help?
 
Hi Snips,

Does that help ? Yes it does, it helps a lot, thank you so much for taking the time to give me your advice.

So basically the 1TB SSD will house Windows and all my 'heavy duty' games and I'll use the 2TB HDD just for storing other stuff, or less demanding games. Is that the way you'd go with that setup ?

Oh my, the news on the 790 really has thrown a spanner into the works now. I obviously want the best frame rates in 4K so the GTX 790 sounds ideal, especially if I could add 2 of them but with no news of a release date I'm not sure I'd want to wait.

Oh yeah, almost forgot : There's no way I'd attempt a self build at this time and would definitely prefer the pro's to put this one together for me. I'd really like the warranty, to be sure that my money wasn't wasted, especially on an OC water cooled system.
My only problem with going for the water cooled system is the ease of transferring the cooling system over to new cards if I was to upgrade to the 790's for example. Are the water cooled parts easily used on any card or are they custom made for a specific card setup ?

I must sound really dumb but I'm totally new to a water cooled setup and would rather ask and look stupid than make a big mistake. I've gotta get this right as I've only had my current PC since November and already wasted £1,300 on that. The Mrs is great, she gives her consent to anything but I'd feel bad if I had to spend out even more on this new system after a few months if I didn't get it right.

Thanks again Snips, I really appreciate your advice.
 
With the 1TB, yes! That would be my ideal situation. It also depends on your preference. Do you want to split your OS/Games or do you need too? If it's easier for you to keep it all on one, then that's the way to do it.

The 790 is a beaut, but there is no tangible evidence around release/spec to the point you can make an informed decision. I think 2x 780Ti's would be a good choice, but bear in mind, performance may not be what you expect. 2x 780Ti's may well get choked at 4k, but you couldn't go wrong in all honesty - you'd be impressed no matter what.
 
Thanks again Snips, that's excellent. No there's no need for me to split the OS/Games. As there's nothing other than gaming going on it'll be easy enough to give it all a freshen up once a year and I'll only need to backup my game saves.

At the moment I have an Alienware X51 with a GTX 670 but I recently found out that the card is somewhat restricted compared to others so I was a little annoyed about that. But most games I can set to ultra with just the odd setting that will need dropping down a notch, for which I usually choose shadows. So it's a decent machine for right now but not anywhere near good enough for 4K.
2x 780 Ti's sounds like the right choice to me too but I do worry about the total of 6GB RAM for the 4K, that's just 1.5GB per 1080p.
I don't mind knocking back the settings when it comes to the 4K, hopefully the resolution will make up for any shortcomings in the lesser settings. Or even if I can run the game at somewhere between the 4K and 1080p I'd be happy enough.
 
Surely if your set on 4k gaming isn't it just worthwhile using the nice spec laptop for the time being and waiting a few months / end of the year when the 790 should be here and possibly the new intel cpu's?
 
The Haswell refresh will not be worth it. The difference will be 100mhz which is hardly going to be worth it.

790......not sure there. Depends how impatient the OP is :)
 
Yeah, not a fan on those to be honest. How come your changing it?
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I thought it was great to begin with, I was clueless about PC hardware after being out of the loop for so long. I tried to get a couple of local companies involved in modding it and neither of them replied to me so they lost me as a customer and ironically, I'm now spending £3.5k on a new PC and they'll see none of it :)

I have it in my lounge and I have figured out a way to get a larger PC looking right in there now so I can do this upgrade. That and the 4K need is enough for me to want a new setup :) I'm keeping the X51 connected to the TV, I'll use it for Blu rays, 4k films etc as my C200 Popcorn hour PSU took a nose dive last year.

Surely if your set on 4k gaming isn't it just worthwhile using the nice spec laptop for the time being and waiting a few months / end of the year when the 790 should be here and possibly the new intel cpu's?
Click to expand...

The Haswell refresh will not be worth it. The difference will be 100mhz which is hardly going to be worth it.

790......not sure there. Depends how impatient the OP is
Click to expand...

I am definitely way too impatient. Money burns a hole in my pocket and I'm all for the 'Living Now' ideal. Who knows, I may not be around in a year so I say 'spend it when you get it' :)
 
After scouring the net for the last 4 hours I've come to the conclusion that I'll leave the 290x cards in the system build. For 4K gaming it will be the wiser option. I was really on the fence with that one but with a fully water cooled rig they will do a decent job I'm sure.

So I'm kinda sorted with everything then guys, thanks again Snips, you were a huge help.

Although I have also been considering getting a configured build done on the OC site but in all honesty I wouldn't know what I would need. I'd have £3,500 to spend and it would have to be a good looker but I would have to have the Corsair case the same as the Infinity Tesseract. I've had a try at it but all the fancy stuff like lighting etc is just too confusing for a layman like myself so I'll likely stick to the I-T.
 
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