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Build Theory

Post Date: 2011-11-12
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BeerHunter View Drop Down
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Posts: 47 		  Quote BeerHunter Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Build Theory
    Posted: 12 Nov 2011 at 8:57am

DS Team,

I am planning to buy a new system from DS here in the next month or so, and have been very impressed with the degree of knowledge and willingness to help here in the forums. I am slightly challenged in that I am currently overseas and cannot get to the configurator to work on the network here at work (firewall issues with the network fun police…)  So what I was hoping to do was gain some insight from you guys on the “theory” of the build, and then move to the configuration forums when I can sneak off to a civilian web connection…any thoughts are appreciated.

I am looking to build a “future-proof” system (I get authorization from my wife to upgrade my equipment every 5 years or so…) My budget is between $5000-$7000, although I am happy to be closer to 5 than 7 if possible.  What I am getting at is that I am ok with system “overkill” right now…with the thought that the games will eventually “catch up” to my hardware (and I would like that date to be as far off as possible…).   My previous mode of buying has been to just get the “newest”/ “best” I could afford…but after reading the posts in this forum, it seems that the newest isn’t always the “best.”  Reading these forums has opened my mind to that possibility…

I play a lot of FPS (BF2 BC/ BF3; Rage, COD, MOH, TF2 Mass Effect etc) I also play a lot of Creative Assembly Games (Empire and Shogun Total War Series) and some RTS and Simulations.  Right now I have a 25” 1920x1200 monitor, but will be looking to upgrade to a 3x monitor set-up (as soon as my finances and wife recover from the computer purchase).  I would like a rig powerful enough to play all of these  games with all the “bells and whistles” maxed out for as long as possible. This will be a pure gaming rig.

Some specific questions/ Issues:

Processor/ MB. 990x/ X58 vs. 2700K/ Z68 (or waiting for the X79 chips to come out…)? Ordinarily I would have just jumped on the 990x/X58 as being the “best”, but after some research and reading the forum, it seems that the 2700K/ Z68 (and the SB-E coming out soon) may be a better and  cheaper choice…I was convinced of this until I noticed that DST4ME and some of the other “heavy hitters” in the forums are running on X58s 990x’s… I would be REALLY interested to know why.

Overclocking and Liquid Cooling. I am very interested in both (although I have zero experience with either).  I was thinking to LC the CPU and the GPUs…would be interested to hear from anyone with experience with the Cryo-TEC system…I thought for sure I wanted LC until I read some “horror stories” about the systems clogging with algae and that the “UV fluids” that run them are crap, etc…any of you guys with experience on LC, I’d appreciate your recommendations.  I prefer the OBSIDIAN 800D case if that makes a difference to anyone…

RAM. Is it better to have more RAM or faster RAM? (Again, I am OK with overkill “today”…I assume that everything else will catch up in the future…) I am thinking MORE is better…am I right?

GPU.  I was looking to “max out” the GPUs in an SLI configuration (I prefer NVIDIA) I was thinking of a 2x GTX 590 (Liquid Cooled? Is it worth it?) SLI config, although I have seen others argue for 3x 580s…do I have to have 3x 580s in order to “beat” the 2x 590s? Is the advantage of having 3x cards worth it?

That is probably more than enough…If you’ve made it to the end of this, and feel like helping me out, I’d appreciate it! Thanks in advance…

-BH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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DST4ME View Drop Down
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 12 Nov 2011 at 3:42pm
Lets clarify one things first, there is no such thing as “future-proof” and even if there was you are not gonna get it by overkill, give you an example, tri sli 275 gtx from 3 years ago was not future proofing you last year or this or next, it was and will be waste of money, two of those is less powerful then the 570 gtx, has less vram and does not support dx11, so did somebody that got overkill tri sli 275 get any futrure proofing at all? NO, he does not have enough vram to max the games out, he can't do the games at dx11, and the gpu power itself is not enough.

Now if that same person had just gotten say a single 275 which for our example is all he needed, then in 2 years he could have upgraded the gpu ot gone sli new gpus and then he would be future proof.

so in short the closest thing to future proof is on gpus, and what you do is get what you want and then upgrade them in 2 years so that in gaming the pc feels new.

Processor/ MB: I use the 980x cause when I got my pc, SB was not even out yet.

but your budget and needs in the processor we might go 6 core, here is the only place you may ge a bet of future proof and I'm saying this just cause you have to run this pc for 5 years.

Overclocking and Liquid Cooling, oc on cpu is must forget it on gpus.

don't lc your gpus, if things go wrong you have to send the pc back every time.

RAM, again NO, more ram is not needed, faster ram makes no difference, ram also is something that can be added later, but for gaming 6 or 8GB is more then enough, this is not something I see changing anytime soon, but if it does, you can add more ram, and by "you" I mean anybody thats around, adding ram is so easy I can teach a 12 year old that has never seen a pc to install it in 2 minutes or less.

GPU, I addressed this in the first part of the post, so again no going overkill on gpu does not future proof you in anyway, you are just wasting money. instead lets figure out what you need and give you that.

590/6990/295/6890 are all dual gpu cards and bad idea from every direction.


so you got a single 24" now and looking to expand.

are you planing on gaming across all 3 monitors?

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BeerHunter View Drop Down
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Posts: 47 		  Quote BeerHunter Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 3:27am
DST4ME,
 
Thanks for writing back, this is feedback I was looking for.
 
So the power of the GPUs are not "additive" in SLI?  I am definitely glad that I asked...I want to be able to play the games over 3 monitors.
 
Thanks for the advice on the LC too.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 3:45am
If you plan on gaming across 3 monitors IMHO go with the ati cards, the 6970 is a good one, and ati has eyefinity where you can run multi monitors off of one card but you gonna want to get a system that has cf 6970 with option to add a third, this means you want to wait for the x79 platform coming out this month so that you can go tri sli/cf correctly the p67/68 platform can't do tri sli/cf correctly.

when the x79 comes out, make a thread in the config section, post a link to this thread as a reminder for me so that I can look at and remember everything here and what your needs are, then I think for an air cooled system we can have the 6core cpu if you want it, its not needed but it will be the king cpu, and I would recommend it for your budget and keeping pc have good performance for as long as possible, and tri cf 6970 and good cpu cooler and oc and etc for under $5000, now dont hold me to it I'm just guessing based on what I have seen so far but I don't know prices, also fyi there are new gpus coming out between dec to feb, so you got lot of thinking to do, but once you decide what you want to wait for and what you don't want to wait for, I can show you a beast for your money that gives you the most power for your money.

In the meantime checkout eyefinity

Edited by DST4ME - 13 Nov 2011 at 3:46am

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Posts: 47 		  Quote BeerHunter Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 4:00am
Got it.
 
I will hold off until the X79s come out and we'll talk again. If the wait doesn't kill me...in the meantime, I will definitely check out the ATI/ Eyefinity...

Thanks for your help Brother. You are tha MAN.

-BH
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 4:02am
My pleasure and good luck boss

either way you are in for one hell of a beast

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lukexcom View Drop Down
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Posts: 33 		  Quote lukexcom Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 11:34am
Originally posted by BeerHunter

Got it.
 
I will hold off until the X79s come out and we'll talk again. If the wait doesn't kill me...in the meantime, I will definitely check out the ATI/ Eyefinity...

Thanks for your help Brother. You are tha MAN.

-BH


Yeah, deciding to wait an extra few months with all of the games coming out right now is tough, but some time ago I made the decision not to buy any games for at least two months after release date, because they all could probably use a few patches before they can provide the highest level of gaming experience (performance, stability, no content bugs, etc.).

For example, only just this weekend have I started on Deus Ex: HR, despite it being out since late August (and, according to the forum posts, it was buggy and unstable). And as much as I'd love to dive into Skyrim right now, Bethesda has a "reputation" of releasing games that could use some patches (Oblivion, Fallout 3) - it'll probably need a few months of wait time. And I still haven't tried IL2: Cliffs of Dover, despite it coming out in April (historically, many flight and sub sims have been horribly buggy at release time) - I'll probably wait until a year has passed.

Luke
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Posts: 47 		  Quote BeerHunter Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 12:22pm
That is some serious discipline you have there Luke.  I keep telling myself to do the same thing for the same reasons, but I almost never make it...Diablo 3 for example...If it comes out before I get my new rig, my head really will explode.  (I will probably end up buying it and trying to play it on my old FX55...)
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 3:00pm
That is true, most games do need some tweaking after they come out, bf3 users right now I believe need a few things tweaked for it.

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Posts: 47 		  Quote BeerHunter Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 14 Nov 2011 at 12:51pm
Man, what great timing! The X79s came out today! W00t!
 
Here is the config I came up with 617031. Let me know what you all think.
 
-BH
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