Please help spec me a £4k gaming rig

[Papablu]

Hi guys, please could someone help me spec a new pc.

I've been having major issues with my Infinity Tesseract system as it totally failed on me today and one of my 290X's was on fire.

So ocuk have offered me a full refund and I would like to purchase from them again.

I have just under £4,000 to spend and would like a Red, Black and White theme as I don't wanna just get something the same as the IT. But this is open to other suggestions.

Ideally I'd like triple crossfire 290x or triple SLi 780Ti . After experiencing how good three cards were I could not go back to two.

I'm open to full watercooling or Air/water and if the cards are 290X then they must be watercooled as I need it as quiet as possible.

A 1TB SSD for games and 1TB secondary HDD for storage would be good.

Case wise I need a cube style as it's going somewhere very specific. At the moment I have the Corsair Air 540 so something similar.

Basically the best gaming rig I can get for the money but I will be getting ocuk to build it as I need the warranty, so take that into account please.

Many thanks for looking.

 

[Threepwood]

one of my 290X's was on fire.

 

[Papablu]

I know, it was a pretty hairy moment, I shut the power off right away and had to just wait till it stopped smoking. I'm none the wiser as to how this happened but I sure ain't taking the risk of the same setup again. The card was unplugged and the system was tried again and it's totally dead.

 

[Curlyriff]

Bloody hell.

Is that £4k for just the tower and windows?

 

[Curlyriff]

And shame your budget isn't just a little more because something like this would be fun:

YOUR BASKET
2 x PowerColor AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £999.95 (£1.00)
1 x Samsung 1TB SSD 850 PRO SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND (MZ-7KE1T0BW) £495.98
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £429.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Quad/Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY32GX3M4A2400C11R) £339.95
1 x Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £309.95
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 1600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-G2-1600-X3) £269.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump) £107.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £98.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x EK CoolStream RAD XTX (360) £74.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel £52.99
2 x Mayhems Pastel - Red Coolant 1L £14.99 (£29.98)
6 x Aerocool DS Edition Fan - White - 120mm £12.49 (£74.94)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - White £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x Mayhems Fine Silver Kill Coil £4.5 (£9.00)
6 x Bitspower Premium G1/4" High Flow 3/8" Fitting - Black Matte Finish £3.98 (£23.88)
Total : £4,405.43 (includes shipping : ).

 

[ShivP]

I think ethel needs to get in here...

 

[scotsdragon]

Wait for the x99 im not saying it will be great but its very close, always nice to have all your options in front of you before deciding

 

[Curlyriff]

What scotsdragon is true but was on the assumption you want to be gaming now on a beast of a machine since you have only recently been playing.

If you are willing to wait though then yes that would give you much more options. Current release date is what September at moment? Or there about's at least.

 

[Papablu]

Thanks so much Curlyriff, I like that setup, it seems a good price for what you get too although the 295x is not a great looking card, it stands out a little to much although I like the idea of the power.

I'm just waiting for a call from ocuk now and I'll see what they can do.

 

[Papablu]

I never heard about the x99 guys, that does sound like a good option. I'll look into that a little more before deciding. The way I see it, we are very close to that changeover point and diving in too hastily may be a bad choice.

 

[ShivP]

And shame your budget isn't just a little more because something like this would be fun:

YOUR BASKET
2 x PowerColor AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £999.95 (£1.00)
1 x Samsung 1TB SSD 850 PRO SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND (MZ-7KE1T0BW) £495.98
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £429.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Quad/Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY32GX3M4A2400C11R) £339.95
1 x Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £309.95
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 1600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-G2-1600-X3) £269.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump) £107.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £98.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x EK CoolStream RAD XTX (360) £74.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel £52.99
2 x Mayhems Pastel - Red Coolant 1L £14.99 (£29.98)
6 x Aerocool DS Edition Fan - White - 120mm £12.49 (£74.94)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - White £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x Mayhems Fine Silver Kill Coil £4.5 (£9.00)
6 x Bitspower Premium G1/4" High Flow 3/8" Fitting - Black Matte Finish £3.98 (£23.88)
Total : £4,405.43 (includes shipping : ).

Couple o' things

No 1TB HDD for storage
The 1TB Samsung 850 is vastly overpriced and not needed for the spec, a 1TB 840 Evo is considerably cheaper and you probably won't feel much difference in terms of speed
32GB of RAM just isn't needed lol, also Vengeance Pro is quite expensive and there are better looking/performing solutions for cheaper

 

[Papablu]

I have the EVO now Shivy and I was very happy with it so I agree, that would do for me again. I am thinking that ocuk may be able to re-use some of my components too which would bring the price down somewhat.

 

[Curlyriff]

Couple o' things

No 1TB HDD for storage
The 1TB Samsung 850 is vastly overpriced and not needed for the spec, a 1TB 840 Evo is considerably cheaper and you probably won't feel much difference in terms of speed
32GB of RAM just isn't needed lol, also Vengeance Pro is quite expensive and there are better looking/performing solutions for cheaper

• In regards to storage. I personally don't use HDD for storage. I keep everything on the SSD, although if I had the cash i would be running 2No. 1TB evo's. So that is why I haven't shown it. Plus they are £70 for 3TB so easy enough to pick from.
• The 850 is overpriced but I had it in the basket for myself and forgot to switch it out. I was looking at it due to the warranty given but I also use Evo & Pro models depending on build so yea that could easily be changed.
• The RAM may be overkill but the whole machine probably is tbh and I personally think the Corsair Pro is the best looking kit out there but each to their own on that. You can't really go wrong with RAM and just pick something that looks good. If you want performance then below would be my choice

YOUR BASKET
2 x PowerColor AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £999.95 (£1.00)
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £429.95
1 x Samsung 1TB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE1T0BW) £349.99
1 x Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £309.95
1 x Avexir Blitz 1.1 Original 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001008G-4BZ1) £299.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 1600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-G2-1600-X3) £269.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump) £107.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £98.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x EK CoolStream RAD XTX (360) £74.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel £52.99
2 x Mayhems Pastel - Red Coolant 1L £14.99 (£29.98)
6 x Aerocool DS Edition Fan - White - 120mm £12.49 (£74.94)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - White £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x Mayhems Fine Silver Kill Coil £4.5 (£9.00)
6 x Bitspower Premium G1/4" High Flow 3/8" Fitting - Black Matte Finish £3.98 (£23.88)
Total : £4,219.48 (includes shipping : ).



This is another option to drop the price and keep all the same performance. Your right on the ugly side of the 295 X2 but the performance is awsome. A custom loop with those two would be around £5k - £5.5k build instead so not really something I was willing to suggest.

If you only went for 16GB of RAM which would be fine. I would suggest this as a minimum for this system though then you could get this:

YOUR BASKET
2 x PowerColor AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £999.95 (£1.00)
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £429.95
1 x Samsung 1TB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE1T0BW) £349.99
1 x Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £309.95
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 1600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-G2-1600-X3) £269.99
1 x Avexir Blitz 1.1 Original 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001008G-2BZ1) £161.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump) £107.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £98.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x EK CoolStream RAD XTX (360) £74.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel £52.99
2 x Mayhems Pastel - Red Coolant 1L £14.99 (£29.98)
6 x Aerocool DS Edition Fan - White - 120mm £12.49 (£74.94)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - White £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x Mayhems Fine Silver Kill Coil £4.5 (£9.00)
6 x Bitspower Premium G1/4" High Flow 3/8" Fitting - Black Matte Finish £3.98 (£23.88)
Total : £4,081.48 (includes shipping : ).



Could always chuck a 2nd SSD 1TB Evo in and Raid 0 for performance and mass storage. There are so many options at this price point a lot of it will just be preference.

 

[ShivP]

• In regards to storage. I personally don't use one. So that is why I haven't shown it.
• The 850 is but I was looking for one myself due to the warranty given but I also use Evo & Pro models depending on build so yea that could easily be changed.
• The RAM may be overkill but the whole machine probably is tbh and I personally think the Pro is the best looking kit out there but each to their own on that. You can't really go wrong with RAM and just pick something that looks good.

YOUR BASKET
2 x PowerColor AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £999.95 (£1.00)
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £429.95
1 x Samsung 1TB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE1T0BW) £349.99
1 x Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £309.95
1 x Avexir Blitz 1.1 Original 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001008G-4BZ1) £299.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 1600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-G2-1600-X3) £269.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump) £107.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £98.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x EK CoolStream RAD XTX (360) £74.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel £52.99
2 x Mayhems Pastel - Red Coolant 1L £14.99 (£29.98)
6 x Aerocool DS Edition Fan - White - 120mm £12.49 (£74.94)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - White £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x Mayhems Fine Silver Kill Coil £4.5 (£9.00)
6 x Bitspower Premium G1/4" High Flow 3/8" Fitting - Black Matte Finish £3.98 (£23.88)
Total : £4,219.48 (includes shipping : ).

snip
Could always chuck a 2nd SSD 1TB Evo in and Raid 0 for performance and mass storage. There are so many options at this price point a lot of it will just be preference.

I particularly like that second spec, add a 1TB HDD though as the OP said they wanted one

A 1TB SSD for games and 1TB secondary HDD for storage would be good.

 

[Curlyriff]

Just to give the OP an idea of what would be required if you went full custom loop, this is what you would really be looking at and why it wasn't suggested:

YOUR BASKET
2 x PowerColor AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £999.95 (£1.00)
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £429.95
2 x Samsung 1TB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE1T0BW) £349.99 (£699.98)
1 x Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £309.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian 900D Super Tower Case (CC-9011022-WW) £274.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 1600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-G2-1600-X3) £269.99
1 x Avexir Blitz 1.1 Original 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001008G-2BZ1) £161.99
2 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC R9-295X2 - Nickel £154.99 (£309.98)
2 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump) £107.99 (£215.98)
2 x EK-CoolStream RAD XTX (480) £98.98 (£197.96)
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x EK-CoolStream RAD XTX (240) £64.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel £52.99
4 x Mayhems Pastel - Red Coolant 1L £14.99 (£59.96)
20 x Aerocool DS Edition Fan - White - 120mm £12.49 (£249.80)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - White £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x Mayhems Fine Silver Kill Coil £4.5 (£9.00)
16 x Bitspower Premium G1/4" High Flow 3/8" Fitting - Black Matte Finish £3.98 (£63.68)
Total : £5,458.14 (includes shipping : ).

 

[Curlyriff]

I particularly like that second spec, add a 1TB HDD though as the OP said they wanted one

Fair enough, serves me right for skim reading. So yeah this is what you would be looking at Papablu:

YOUR BASKET
2 x PowerColor AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £999.95 (£1.00)
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £429.95
1 x Samsung 1TB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE1T0BW) £349.99
1 x Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £309.95
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 1600W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-G2-1600-X3) £269.99
1 x Avexir Blitz 1.1 Original 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001008G-2BZ1) £161.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump) £107.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £98.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x EK CoolStream RAD XTX (360) £74.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel £52.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £41.98
2 x Mayhems Pastel - Red Coolant 1L £14.99 (£29.98)
6 x Aerocool DS Edition Fan - White - 120mm £12.49 (£74.94)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - White £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x Mayhems Fine Silver Kill Coil £4.5 (£9.00)
6 x Bitspower Premium G1/4" High Flow 3/8" Fitting - Black Matte Finish £3.98 (£23.88)
Total : £4,123.45 (includes shipping : ).

 

[Papablu]

Thanks a lot Curlyriff, I do like these setups, particularly that full custom loop setup.

I am thinking I may hang tight for a month and get myself something like that. Any other suggestions would be very much appreciated, especially with different schemes as I'm open to anything cool, excuse the pun

 

[Curlyriff]

Haha, everyone likes a full custom loop. Trying to justify the £1400 additional needed though. That can be hard to swallow.

There would be a few minor adjustments needed and some things I should point out if you went with the full loop I have shown, which are the following:

• Some of the fittings would have to be adjusted to suit the loop layout, i.e where 90 degree or 45 degree fittings would make the loop work better and tube runs easier. But you would be able to talk to ocuk about that if you ever go this route.
• I didn't allow enough tubing for the loop. You are likely to need another meter or two for that exact spec.
• It isn't in a cube case like you asked for but a full loop would need compromise. I am not aware of another case that would give you the same freedom of design, at least not that ocuk sell. There is a reason they do their ultimate builds in Caselab cases.
• That case is huge so check and double check the space you have.
• I have allowed for enough fans to be in push/pull on all the radiators but with that in mind a fan controller would be advisable.

 

[Papablu]

That's cool buddy, I would expect a few hiccups with fittings etc and the fan controller would be a must.

I would love the 900D case but sadly that doesn't quite fit. I'll get some pics uploaded of the area it needs to go in and you'll see why. The 750D would fit perfectly though, I just don't know if there'd be enough room for that loop.

 

[Citizensnipss]

Going to new some new underwear now. Soiled myself bigtime