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Almost ready to pull the trigger.

Post Date: 2013-12-23
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Nightfreeze View Drop Down
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Posts: 12 		  Quote Nightfreeze Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Almost ready to pull the trigger.
    Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 7:08am
I was going to purchase my rig yesterday but I still wasn't satisfied with my build. My wife and I finally agreed on a 6,000$ budget but we both want the best bang for our buck and no upgrades that would give little performance per dollar. I was going to go liquid cooled GPU's until I realized that I would never actually overclock my graphic cards anyway. I still want my processor liquid cooled though so I can overclock the heck out of it. I am grateful for the advice you guys have given me so far but I have a few more questions before I pull the trigger.

1. What motherboard should I get?

2. Would going 6 cores benefit me at some point in the near future for gaming? (a year or two)

3. Any bottlenecks with this build? How satisfied would I be with this build with a 4k monitor? I'm sure it would work great with a 2560x1600 monitor but what about 4k?

4. Ram speed would make little difference in gaming from what I heard?

5. Will this computer make me breakfast in the morning? (My wife works in the morning and her cooking sucks anyway.) ...Don't tell her I said that by the way! Whoa

Oh, and below are the specs for quick viewing. 

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 4820K 3.7GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme Overclocking) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X79 (Intel X79 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Optical Drive: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Storage Set 1: 1x (256GB Solid State (By: Samsung) (Model: 840 Pro Series)
Storage Set 2: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (Model: Black Edition)
Storage Set 3: - No Thanks
RAID Config: - No Thanks
RAID Card: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Graphics Card(s): 3x SLI Triple (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB (EVGA Superclocked ACX Cooler Edition)
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Z
HPC Processor: - No Thanks
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Corsair H110 280mm Radiator Liquid CPU Cooler (Extreme-Performance Edition)
H20 Tube Color: - Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Fans: Upgrade Chassis With LED Performance Fans (Red) (Up to 6 Fans)
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Airflow Control: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
CPU Boost: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro/Deluxe/Sabertooth Motherboard)
Graphics Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Memory Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
OS Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
Portable Gaming: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty (3 Year Labor & 1 Year Part Replacement)
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Counsel View Drop Down
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Posts: 125 		  Quote Counsel Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 7:50am
Originally posted by Nightfreeze

3. Any bottlenecks with this build? How satisfied would I be with this build with a 4k monitor? I'm sure it would work great with a 2560x1600 monitor but what about 4k?
4. Ram speed would make little difference in gaming from what I heard?
5. Will this computer make me breakfast in the morning?


I'll let some of the older hands handle questions 1 and 2, but here are my thoughts on 3 through 5:

3. Tom's Hardware did a recent test on this very question, and double reference 780s were pushing Tomb Raider at 64fps on Ultra settings:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pq321q-4k-gaming,3620-10.html
Tri-SLI overclocked 780s should produce solid results at 4K, though, as always, ultra-demanding games and/or games that are poorly optimized for SLI will be the exception.

4. RAM speed isn't particularly important for gaming unless you're on integrated graphics. Ananadtech did a test on this in September and had a hard time recommending anything over 1866 Mhz:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell/10

5. Three 780s WILL put out a great deal of heat, but unfortunately the HAF-X case will be dispersing it from multiple points, complicating any attempts at toasting or frying. For improved breakfast-making capabilities, I recommend upgrading your computer with a solid USB toaster:



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danjw1 View Drop Down
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Posts: 667 		  Quote danjw1 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 9:32am
I would suggest taking a look at this review, it shows the current generation of graphics cards at a resolution that is close to what you are looking at, 2560x1440 you should expect about 90% of the frame rates shown: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review

Also, the Sabertooth X79 is only able to support two card SLI. The quad GPU SLI mentioned in the specs refers to dual GPU cards like the GTX 690.

Right now, at least, pretty much every game is limited to using 4 Cores. Who knows if that will change in the near future or not.

I think you would be better off with a Haswell based system (Z87) rather then Ivy Bridge-E that you have listed. The big thing about Ivy Bridge-E is the additional cores and 4 vs 2 memory channels. Most games won't be able to take advantage of that.

This is what I would suggest in your budget: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploaddreadnought.asp?id=909006

or for liquid cooled: https://www.digitalstormonline.com/doneconfig.asp?id=909005

Edited by danjw1 - 23 Dec 2013 at 9:47am
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Nightfreeze View Drop Down
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Posts: 12 		  Quote Nightfreeze Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 10:35am
Originally posted by danjw1

I would suggest taking a look at this review, it shows the current generation of graphics cards at a resolution that is close to what you are looking at, 2560x1440 you should expect about 90% of the frame rates shown: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review

Also, the Sabertooth X79 is only able to support two card SLI. The quad GPU SLI mentioned in the specs refers to dual GPU cards like the GTX 690.

Right now, at least, pretty much every game is limited to using 4 Cores. Who knows if that will change in the near future or not.

I think you would be better off with a Haswell based system (Z87) rather then Ivy Bridge-E that you have listed. The big thing about Ivy Bridge-E is the additional cores and 4 vs 2 memory channels. Most games won't be able to take advantage of that.

This is what I would suggest in your budget: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploaddreadnought.asp?id=909006

or for liquid cooled: https://www.digitalstormonline.com/doneconfig.asp?id=909005
What is the difference between the 16GB DDR3 2133MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested) and the
16GB DDR3 1866MHz Corsair Dominator Platinum DHX (Extreme-Performance) ram? The DSO ram is much cheaper but has a higher MHz than the Platinum. Silly question but I am not knowledgeable about computer parts. Is it really worth throwing down an extra 100$ for the Platinum?

Edited by Nightfreeze - 23 Dec 2013 at 10:37am
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 1:11pm
The Platinum sticks are advertised as having better quality ic's, passing more strict testing, has light bar for ambience and better cooling.   Not really needed by most but there for those that want the best and the lighting of course. If your into oc'ing the ram then they are more stable, with tighter specs. Plus, they do have a place to connect Corsair Link directly to the chip for monitoring.
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Nightfreeze View Drop Down
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Posts: 12 		  Quote Nightfreeze Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 2:04pm
Originally posted by bprat22

The Platinum sticks are advertised as having better quality ic's, passing more strict testing, has light bar for ambience and better cooling.   Not really needed by most but there for those that want the best and the lighting of course. If your into oc'ing the ram then they are more stable, with tighter specs. Plus, they do have a place to connect Corsair Link directly to the chip for monitoring.
Ah, thanks! I need to know one more thing before I wrap this up. I'm confused as to what motherboard I should get. I don't want something I'll never use. I'm not an overclocker, I'm not comfortable messing around with stuff I know nothing about so a fancy motherboard with a ton of overclocking features wont be much good to me. Should I go with the Sabertooth? I very highly doubt I will ever go quad SLI but I also want a motherboard that will make future upgrades easier. A mobo that will be compatible with new technology for a while.

P.S Thanks again for all your help so far, guys! You're awesome! Wink


Edited by Nightfreeze - 23 Dec 2013 at 2:05pm
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 2:17pm
For your tri-sli needs and nothing extreme, my pick is the x79 Sabertooth. It meets your needs and does have a 5 year warranty as opposed to 3 years for most others. It just works with quality components and nothing you probably won't use.
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Posts: 2551 		  Quote fstcvc Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 23 Dec 2013 at 11:17pm
The X79 cpu/chipset is designed for tasks requiring a bunch of CPU processing power - games rely mainly on GPU processing power and therefore the Z87 series the better buy. I doubt you'd even notice a difference while playing games if you had 2 identical builds (one use X79 and the other Z87). And as far as the OC'ing goes on the Haswell chips, 4.4 vs 4.5+ won't make much of a difference in games, either. They are super tough to clock over 4.4 no matter the cooling. Mine was originally clocked at 4.5 and worked fine for a few things but crashed like crazy doing a lot of other stuff. Changed it to 4.4 and have ZERO issues. Also, the 780ti GPU will eat the 780 for breakfast. If you're monitor will be 1600x2560, then dual SLI GPUs should suffice. If you plan on going 4k (plan on budgeting $3.5k for just the display!), then triple SLI would be highly recommend especially if you want to max out the graphics.

Config for 4k: 909241 $6007
Config for 2560: 909243 $4984

Edited by fstcvc - 23 Dec 2013 at 11:29pm
HailStorm II
i7 4770K @ 4.5GHz
Asus Maximus VI Extreme
16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum
3xSLI EVGA SuperClocked GTX TITAN
Samsung 840Pro SSD 256GB+512GB
HydroLux+XSPC CPU/MoBo/GPU Liquid Cooling
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Posts: 125 		  Quote Counsel Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 24 Dec 2013 at 7:42am
Originally posted by fstcvc

If you plan on going 4k (plan on budgeting $3.5k for just the display!)


Not for too much longer, hopefully. Dell has already announced new 24 and 28 inch UHD monitors for $1400 and "less than $1000" respectively. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7563/dell-24-uhd-up2414q-gets-a-price-28-uhd-4k-3840x2160-announced
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