$2500 Hassle-Free Gaming

Budget:
$2500 max

Expectations:
3-5 years of not having to worry about fiddling with quality settings in games.

Usage:
Single-player and MMO games. Single monitor at 27" (2560 x 1440).

Special Needs:
Dust protection

Saved Ticket #: 877529

Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Digital Storm ODE V3
Processor: Intel Core i5 4670K 3.40 GHz (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Z87-EXPERT (Intel Z87 Chipset) (Features Intel Thunderbolt Technology)
System Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 750W Corsair CX
Storage Set 1: 1x (120GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Neutron GTX Series) (SATA 6Gbps)
Storage Set 2: 1x (120GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Neutron GTX Series) (SATA 6Gbps)
Storage Set 3: - No Thanks
Graphics Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB (Includes PhysX)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 1: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (High Performance Cooler)
Chassis Fans: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock CPU 4.0GHz to 4.4GHz
Boost Graphics Card(s): - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system

Questions
I have not built a system in quite some time. I know what the components do, but I'm not up to speed on the particulars of them, compatibility, etc.

I think I want a 780. I don't game in multi-monitor mode so I have little reason to SLI; and I don't want to deal with SLI issues. The Titan... I just don't get it. Sounds like they need an economics refresher. Feel free to enlighten me.

1. Air/Liquid/Hybrid Cooling

It doesn't have to be pin-drop silent, but I don't want a jet landing every few minutes while I'm gaming. When I last built a system, liquid cooling was pretty new and viewed with some skepticism. I assume they've worked out most of the problems by now. I think I could live with a cup of liquid sitting on my motherboard at this point, but it would need to be zero maintenance.

Also, I live in a converted warehouse with lots of dust just can't be kept up with. I can keep the rig off the floor, but a case with a lot of grills sucking air through it will probably not work. What is there in the way of sealed/filtered intake that could help with this? Or am I looking at liquid cooling everything?

2. Motherboard/RAM

I have some budget to spare, so I thought I'd upgrade the RAM, but I'm not sure how much 1866 or 2100 would really bring to the table. I also don't which boards are compatible with those, or if there are issues with certain games, etc. It used to be that putting high-end RAM in a low-end motherboard was a waste because your bus would bottleneck the RAM anyway. Probably that's still the case. Could use some advice.

3. Processor

I know the ideal design of 3d games is to maximize video card use and minimize CPU use, but the fact is the developers tend to optimize for either Nvidia or ATI and almost completely ignore the other. Also there are things like Scaleform (Flash-based UI API for game developers) that are horribly inefficient and use almost no video resources, so some overhead can definitely help. I'm not sure whether today's games are making use of 6 cores vs 4, though. The price difference is pretty crazy. I don't want to gimp myself but I also want a good performance to price ratio.

4. Overclocking

I think I'm out of the loop on overclocking. It was pretty arcane when I was doing it, and there was always the ominous 'without a net' aspect of blowing your warranty. Now it seems like companies are designing with overclocking in mind. I'm still a little nervous about it, thinking in 4 months my CPU is gonna melt and I'm SOL because "overclocking is at your own risk" or whatever.

So, if I should be letting the builders supe this up however they can, then fine. Otherwise I would shy away from this.

...

I don't want to tinker with this. I can replace components that go bad, but I probably won't upgrade anything after I buy; if it becomes antiquated I'll just buy a new one and trade this down to my work system (graphic design and programming).

Thanks in advance.

Edited by Furiant - 05 Oct 2013 at 6:26am

I'd second the build bprat22 posted/recommended above... It's the same build I would've recommended (was busy replying to another build post! )

Thanks for the input, guys. My choice of (2) 120 SSDs was based on wanting the OS and non-game applications to have a drive of their own, then my games would have a separate drive. My experience with platters is that it's more efficient to have System and game storage separate. Maybe that's no longer the case. Does save a chunk of change though.

Good catch on the power supply, thanks. Also confirmed my suspicions about the CPU and RAM.

I expected someone to choose a different case, but it looks like this will suit.

I'll probably purchase this soon.