Would this be a nice Haswell upgrade?

Sycho

Sycho

Sycho

Soldato
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I got to admit it's very very hard picking motherboard/ram for Haswell so i am asking you guys what you think.:)

I am pretty sure the Corsair H80i is the best cooler to have for my case as i can't really manage a large rad inside it and i also like the performance of it for the price.

Would the 4770k be more beneficial for my SLI setup? i've read posts on here of people experiencing better minimum fps when going from 3570k to 3770k so wondering if this is the same?

Also is it worth paying the £50 extra for the Samsung SSD? i remember this Sandisk model being good from what i read.

I do not wish to spend more than £800 really but this is what i've come up with:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £275.99
(£229.99) £275.99
(£229.99)
MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £157.99
(£131.66) £157.99
(£131.66)
SanDisk Extreme SSD 240GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDX-240G-G25) SanDisk Extreme SSD 240GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDX-240G-G25) £143.99
(£119.99) £143.99
(£119.99)
GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £95.99
(£79.99) £95.99
(£79.99)
Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / 1150 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / LGA2011/ AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / 1150 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / LGA2011/ AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £76.99
(£64.16) £76.99
(£64.16)
Sub Total : £625.79
Shipping cost based on delivery to Credit/debit card billing address, UB6 9TP with:
FREE SHIPPING (DPD Next Day)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £125.16
Total : £750.95
 
Hmmm ok probably will go for 4670k with 8gb geil black dragon, but what cooler you guys think? Corsair H80i or K2 Mount Doom?:p

Haha the pic above.:D
 
Depends what you do with the rig fella. The i7 is debatable for gaming although yes I've heard it can help with multiple GPUs.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £275.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £158.99
1 x Plextor M5S 256GB Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5S) £139.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001008G-2CW) - Blue Light £89.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £736.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).



The Sandisk SSD uses the sandforce controller which we do try to avoid. This RAM kit does have some decent OC'ing potential. That said for gaming only you could save a fair bit of poppy.....

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £191.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £158.99
1 x Plextor M5S 256GB Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5S) £139.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001004G-2CI) - Blue Light £67.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £630.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Ram is guaranteed at 2400Mhz and 8GB is ample for gaming to be honest. Yes I would personally take the K2 Mount Doom over a 120mm CLC
 
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Go for the H80i. I've worked with big air coolers before & still got the scars to prove it. It can become a nightmare sometimes trying to work around it & even getting it installed is sometimes a 2 man job. One thing these enclosed loops bring to the table (apart from decent cooling performance) is ease of use & unparalleled convenience.

If it was my cooler I'd replace the noisy stock fans with some 1850rpm Gentle Typhoons & smile at my awesome temps & whisper quiet system :)
 
get the i7, if the next consoles have more cores, which they do, then our shoddy ports will run much better on more cores.


remember when gta IV came out? optimised for the multi core consoles and ran like arse on dual cores.

i have a feeling that the i7s with hyper threading and hex cores etc. will start to show some advances when we are in the 'next gen' console cycle
 
James how is your GTX690 performing in games such as BF3/Witcher 2/Borderlands 2/SC 2? you getting max gpu useage on each?

Thanks for the replies all by the way...making it easier to choose now. :p
 
Sycho said:
James how is your GTX690 performing in games such as BF3/Witcher 2/Borderlands 2/SC 2? you getting max gpu useage on each?

Thanks for the replies all by the way...making it easier to choose now. :p
Click to expand...

i run adaptive vsync. so if its running at or above 60 fps then it scales back. so in most games i wont have anywhere near max usage, quite often it doesnt even run at max clockspeed! (at 1440p)

but if i remove the vsync then more often than not, its max yes. some MMOs etc seem rather cpu bound though.

for example, saints row the third at 1440, runs at 98% gpu usage on both cores. (if vsync is off)

Regarding how it performs, nothing really has had lower than 60fps @ max 1440p. there are the odd exceptions of course. but its a fantastic card for this res and single monitor.
 
honosuseri said:
Depends what you do with the rig fella. The i7 is debatable for gaming although yes I've heard it can help with multiple GPUs.





Yes I would personally take the K2 Mount Doom over a 120mm CLC
Click to expand...
After making the switch from a 3570k to a 3770k, the latter does help with some games in a multi gpu setup. With the 3570k at 4.5ghz, my gpu usage per card in bf3 was maxing at 80% per card. With the 3770k at stock, card use maxes at 91%. Game feels a lot smoother as well.

Also agree about the k2, an excellent cooler. Just need low profile ram with it though as it takes up a lot of space.
 
honosuseri said:
Depends what you do with the rig fella. The i7 is debatable for gaming although yes I've heard it can help with multiple GPUs.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £275.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £158.99
1 x Plextor M5S 256GB Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5S) £139.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001008G-2CW) - Blue Light £89.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £736.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).



The Sandisk SSD uses the sandforce controller which we do try to avoid. This RAM kit does have some decent OC'ing potential. That said for gaming only you could save a fair bit of poppy.....

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £191.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £158.99
1 x Plextor M5S 256GB Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5S) £139.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001004G-2CI) - Blue Light £67.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £630.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Ram is guaranteed at 2400Mhz and 8GB is ample for gaming to be honest. Yes I would personally take the K2 Mount Doom over a 120mm CLC
Click to expand...

Avoiding sandforce is not a smart idea :) sandforce based drives are recommended for all kinds of applications including gaming. The major benefit what I see is the way sandforce tries to handle incompressible data in games & also the award winning durawrite technology (in intel drives) which enhances read/write speeds.
 
Johnchristin said:
Avoiding sandforce is not a smart idea :) sandforce based drives are recommended for all kinds of applications including gaming. The major benefit what I see is the way sandforce tries to handle incompressible data in games & also the award winning durawrite technology (in intel drives) which enhances read/write speeds.
Click to expand...

The Sandforce controller from what I understood has a performance advantage working with compressible data. Flaky firmware and poor reliability has put many of us off spec'ing the drives.

It's very common to see Samsung 840s,Toshiba and Plextor drives suggested and these don't use the Sandforce controller.
 
honosuseri said:
The Sandforce controller from what I understood has a performance advantage working with compressible data. Flaky firmware and poor reliability has put many of us off spec'ing the drives.

It's very common to see Samsung 840s,Toshiba and Plextor drives suggested and these don't use the Sandforce controller.
Click to expand...

Compressible data is a major challenge for any SSD. The technology requires a complex algorithm to assess this & hence different SSD controller behave differently. sandforce initially renders compressible data slowly & once this is cached up in OP space, the successive requests of read/write would be fast. Good that other competitors have left out sf controllers, else these would not even have existed :D
 
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