Spec Check - Long time since I built a PC!

Asad

Asad

Asad

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Hi,

can I please get your views on the following spec:-

PC_Spec.JPG


Its for a friend who wants to build a future proof gaming machine that can run at 4K. I've already gone over his budget of £2k ha ha.

Thanks

Asad
 
If your friend wants to game at 4K, he'll be better advised to wait until Nvidia's next generation cards are announced. I've seen mention of the end of this month, but it's all rumour. 3 GB VRAM is enough for a single GPU but a single 780 Ti only gives max settings at 4K on older games like Borderlands 2 and Darkstar One; I only get Medium/high on Tomb Raider. Assume your friend is going to want multiple GPUs eventually to get max graphics at 4K, so you'll be looking at 6 or 8 GB VRAM. A requirement for multiple GPUs leads me to recommend the 5830 over the 5820 as the CPU for the increased number of PCIe lanes.

Beyond that, your 250 GB SSD seems rather small: I'd suggest the 500 GB model and ditch the HDD entirely.

Ditch the water cooling kit for the moment.

You could probably save a lot of money by going for an i5-4570 or i5-4670 and appropriate motherboard and RAM.
 
stulid said:
Looks fine.

Does this bundle make it any cheaper? - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-022-AS&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=2858


Slightly worried the case may not have all the room you really want to do a nice clean install of the water cooling gear.

Phanteks Enthoo Pro which is £79.99 without window or £89.99 with window I feel will take much more water cooling parts and allow you to do a cleaner install.
Click to expand...

Thanks! that knocks £20 off the total :)
 
Quartz,

he'll be along shortly - just waiting for his account to be approved.

With this CPU, chipset combo, he should be able to upgrade at a later date to the newer NVidia or SLI etc. I saw the rumours too, but I suspect they wont come out until closer to the end of the year.

I was looking at the 4770 as a good overclockable CPU, but getting the newer LGA2011 v3 makes sense from a future compatibility perspective.

i'll check out the 5830.
 
Fair enough that you are going for 2011-3 gen although at this stage I would advise that you will see zero performance increase for gaming at 4k because of the GPU limits and that is going to be the same for a while to come.

1150/Z97 set-ups at the moment are still the way to go for gaming rigs.

Also if you not intending on using more than a dual GPU set-up in future date then you won't need more than 5820k if you stick to 2011-3, the extra lanes you gain on the 5930k are not worth the extra outlay. There are zero other benefits to go for the 5930k. If however you want to use 3-way SLI then maybe and that is still quite a large maybe the 5930k becomes a better option.

SLi 780Ti's are also needed to get the best out of 4K.

In regards to Vram I own 6GB 780's and have tried 3GB 780Ti's. I have in every situation got higher fps with the 3GB 780Ti's which would lead me to believe that the 6GB 780's are not worth the extra investment that I out-laid which is a shame but at least it helps for others.

This would be my spec choice at this time for a 4k system although really I would be looking at SLI but you just don't have the budget for high performance 4k. £2.5k is about where it sits to get what is needed at moment.

YOUR BASKET
1 x EPIC POWER BUNDLE: Intel 4790K, Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7, Kingston 16GB 2400MHz Kit, Superflower 1000W Platinum PSU & FREE STUFF!! **£50 SAVING** £613.97
1 x Acer 4k2k XB280HK 28" G-Sync Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £499.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 780Ti DirectCU II 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £499.99
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £179.99
1 x XSPC RayStorm 750 EX240 WaterCooling Kit £129.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian 450D High Airflow Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011049-WW) £91.99
1 x Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £2,057.99 (includes shipping : £20.10).

 
If you really want to stick to 2011-E set-up then below would be my personal choice.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Acer 4k2k XB280HK 28" G-Sync Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £499.99
1 x Asus X99-S - Intel Core i7 5820K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle ***Exclusive Board and £20 Saving*** £479.99
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 780Ti "Own Design" 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £425.99
1 x G.Skill Ripjaws 4 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Blue (F4-2400C15Q-16GRB) £239.99
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £179.99
1 x XSPC RayStorm 750 EX240 WaterCooling Kit £129.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian 450D High Airflow Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011049-WW) £91.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 750W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £89.99
1 x Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £2,179.98 (includes shipping : £20.10).



Edit: Ask them to spec clear tubing and pastel blue liquid and that could be a really different and unique build rather than the standard red/black themes we get most the time.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Mayhems Pastel - Blue Berry Coolant 1L £14.99
Total : £24.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
3rd option is the following:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Acer 4k2k XB280HK 28" G-Sync Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £499.99
1 x Asus X99-S - Intel Core i7 5820K Six Core CPU & Motherboard Bundle ***Exclusive Board and £20 Saving*** £479.99
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 780Ti "Own Design" 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £425.99
1 x G.Skill Ripjaws 4 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Blue (F4-2400C15Q-16GRB) £239.99
1 x XSPC RayStorm D5 Photon AX240 WaterCooling Kit £234.95
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £179.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 450D High Airflow Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011049-WW) £91.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 750W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £89.99
1 x Samsung SE-S208DB/TSBS External Slimline 8x DVD-RW (TV Connect) - Black £21.98
Total : £2,282.56 (includes shipping : £14.75).



Ask for white tubing and the same mayhems pastel blue and that would really set the build off. They may ask for a few extra quid to the quote above but it would be some a lot more special.

Edit: Also, use an external optical drive as you only really need them if you are a) installing windows and prefer to do this from the disc and b) watching movies on the system. Will keep it cleaner inside. This goes for all the builds I have listed but will just leave this one edited.
 
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Curlyriff said:
SLi 780Ti's are also needed to get the best out of 4K.

In regards to Vram I own 6GB 780's and have tried 3GB 780Ti's. I have in every situation got higher fps with the 3GB 780Ti's which would lead me to believe that the 6GB 780's are not worth the extra investment that I out-laid which is a shame but at least it helps for others.
Click to expand...

It's not just a question of fps. One of the problems that's been pointed out with 3 GB cards is stuttering due to running out of VRAM. This happens less on 4 GB Radeon cards and not at all on the 6 GB cards. But I'll take real-world reports over artificial benchmarks every day.
 
Brilliant. Thanks for the feedback.

Looking at the 5820, the PCI lanes *should* support 3 cards, if need be in a 8x8x8 config. However, I agree that the extra lanes of the 5930 are a bit unnecessary with the current crop of graphics cards etc.

The Asus 780Ti I selected has a clock speed of 876Hz. I'm guessing, and hopefully someone can confirm, but this should be clockable up to the 1Ghz..

I haven't heard of KFA2 before - what are they like for drivers\support etc? I picked the Asus as the board was Asus too.
 
Possibly 1GHz, you also get 3 vs 2 year warranty.

Other suggestion is a Seagate barracuda HDD which is cheaper than the WD Black and HDD aren't gaining any speed these days so side by side you will be hard pressed to tell the difference.
 
Cool so you have dropped £40-50.

My last comment is about the DVD also, external will keep the case looking sleeker, or fit it while installing the OS (just have it hanging out the side) and then chuck it in cupboard to collect dust as everything else can be digitally downloaded.
 
It's not just a question of fps. One of the problems that's been pointed out with 3 GB cards is stuttering due to running out of VRAM. This happens less on 4 GB Radeon cards and not at all on the 6 GB cards. But I'll take real-world reports over artificial benchmarks every day.
Click to expand...

I have to say I have seen no difference with this between the two cards. Not since the latest Nvidia drivers. I had the same stuttering issue with my 6GB EVGA 780's if not worse during one driver update.

I haven't heard of KFA2 before - what are they like for drivers\support etc? I picked the Asus as the board was Asus too.
Click to expand...

KFA2 support I have personally had in the past has been fine. Not sure on other peoples opinions. You are buying through overclockers anyways and they have great customer support.

In regards to drivers, Nvidia direct is the place for that.

Is the PSU a bit of overkill?
Click to expand...

  • The 750w would be ideal for the 4790k build and dual sli.
  • 850w would be ideal for the 5320k build and dual sli.
  • 1000w would be ideal for 3-way sli and once you get to 3-way it would be best to go 1000w be it the 4790k or the 5320k.


I am currently running a 750w for my spec in my signiture with no problems to report form that front. I would avoid corsiar PSU's and choose EVGA, Seasonic or Superflower.

The problem is the Seasonic of the same class as EVGA & Superflower is overpriced.

These are probably the best two options:

YOUR BASKET
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 850W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £109.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
Total : £219.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
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Thanks

Hi All,

Just a quick note to thank you all for your help on this. I have placed my order and your contributions above were invaluable.

Shame I have to wait a month for the Monitor, but Im sure it will be worth it.
 
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