Building new computer after 4-5 years.

[Elvine]

Budget $1,000-$1,500

CPU: Intel Core i7 4770k
MOBO: ASUS Sabertooth Z87
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB
CASE: NZXT Phantom Full Tower
Liquid Cooling: Corsair Hydro H100i


Subtotal $1,299.94
Tax $78.00
Grand Total $1,377.94

I already have these parts from my previous build.

RAM: 16GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM
PSU: 750W Rosewill PSU
DVD: Samsung 22x DVD burner

I'm a livestreamer w/ cam & mic at 1080p and run 2 monitors if it matters.

Rate? Critics?

[chazus]

Do you need an i7?
I wouldn't recommend the 840 Pro, waste of money. 840 is fine.
Sabertooth boards are always a waste of money, unless you feel that the 'look' is worth $100

[Deleted]

1) I wouldn't recommend the i7 unless you're doing heavy rendering work;
2) for $25 more, you can get the 250GB Samsung 840 SSD. I'd take that
3) Sabertooth boards are more for enthusiasts who won't fork out for the 2011 CPU/Mobo sets;
4) With the savings there, you can push for the GTX780 ACX from EVGA, which may be overkill for your purposes.

[Elvine]

I'm trying to future proof myself as long as possible. The board and CPU have a combo so it has $40 off, the SSD has "Purchase any Intel 4th Gen processor and save an additional $20 with in-store coupon bundle" but so does the 840. So I could send only $99 - $20 instead of $139 - $20.

Which board would you recommend with the i7? I thought that specific new Haswell was a great deal since it was $70 price difference from newegg.

Added notes that I'm a livestreamer as well, also I do a lot of multitasking with large programs or multiple game clients at once.

[Godspeed]

Do not listen to them, Sabertooth is very well worth the money you are giving for it. It has 5 years warranty unlike other motherboards and it is one of the best built motherboards out there. It is always better to buy a really good processor than GPU, i7 is a really good long term investment, especially if you are planing for this build to last as the one you had before. Also the difference between 840 and 840 Pro SSD is that 840 Pro has a really good WRITE along with READ, which for me personally is also very well worth the money, especially if you buy another one later on and configure them in Raid 0 which would give you almost 1GB of READ/WRITE.

Some people here are like parrots with recommending stuff that isn't worth the money (i5 3570k/i5 4670k), when building a computer you need to take into account everything, you are not building a gaming console...

[chazus]

Some people here are like parrots with recommending stuff that isn't worth the money (i5 3570k/i5 4670k), when building a computer you need to take into account everything, you are not building a gaming console...

I love it when people talk about 'parroting' and then make poor suggestions.

Sabertooth is very well worth the money you are giving for it. It has 5 years warranty unlike other motherboards and it is one of the best built motherboards out there.

I never said it was bad, but honestly the extra 2 year warranty over most boards is not worth $100, considering you may end up replacing it before that.

i7 is a really good long term investment, especially if you are planing for this build to last as the one you had before.

i7 isn't any better than the i5 as far as investment goes. It doesn't 'futureproof' any better. I don't think you quite understand what the difference between i5 and i7 is. However, since the OP does livestreaming, it _might_ be worthwhile.

the difference between 840 and 840 Pro SSD is that 840 Pro has a really good WRITE along with READ

Correct. However Write speed pretty much doesn't matter. The main benefit of the SSD is it's read speed, of which the 840 and 840 Pro are the same.

especially if you buy another one later on and configure them in Raid 0 which would give you almost 1GB of READ/WRITE.

Who's parroting now? Raiding SSD's is entirely, utterly, completely useless, and benefits little beyond creating less data safety, and keeping older hardware around longer. Oh, you can totally make awesome benchmarks too, but not much else.

stuff that isn't worth the money (i5 3570k/i5 4670k), when building a computer you need to take into account everything

I don't even know what this means. If you're suggesting that the i7 is 'better' for gaming, you're just flat out wrong there. Sorry.

Do some research before you parrot about parroting.

[Elvine]

I see you answered the "parrot", but can you answer my questions?

[chazus]

Which board would you recommend with the i7?

The Asrock Z87 Extreme4 would work well. It's $100 cheaper, and still has a 12-phase VRM.

I'm assuming you actually have a microcenter near you, yes?

[Godspeed]

First of all i7 has Hyper Threading enabled, it has a bit higher clock and a larger L3 cache, for me that means that this processor will have more use and will last longer than i5. You obviously do nothing but gaming on PC so I guess read and write on SSD do not matter to you. Like I said, building a computer just as a gaming console is a waste of money. For me personally 5 years warranty means a lot, passive and active cooling that comes with Sabertooth is miles better than anything AsRock has to offer, and not to even mention how much better ASUS is when it comes to support, drivers and overall reliability.

[chazus]

First of all i7 has Hyper Threading enabled

Useless for most things, still. Especially gaming. But most other things. The ONLY benefit, might be this one particular person's case, with livestreaming, which very few people do.

it has a bit higher clock and a larger L3 cache, for me that means that this processor will have more use and will last longer than i5.

That higher base clock is negated by overclocking. It will not 'last longer' than an i5. In fact, it may even last shorter, as Hyperthreading has proven to cause higher temps and instability with overclocking in some cases.

You obviously do nothing but gaming on PC so I guess read and write on SSD do not matter to you.

First, I... don't think you meant to write that? It doesn't even make sense. Anyway. I like that you make assumptions. It's totally cool. You also don't read what I stated. I also don't think you understand how computers entirely work. Your computer does a great deal more reading, than writing. High read speed is the key selling point and benefit of an SSD. High write speed is virtually unnoticeable, outside of benchmarks. You could have a write speed of 500mb/s or 500,000,000,000mb/s and you probably wouldn't notice it, because most writes are pretty dang small, and a quarter as rare.

[Godspeed]

First, I... don't think you meant to write that? It doesn't even make sense. Anyway. I like that you make assumptions. It's totally cool. You also don't read what I stated. I also don't think you understand how computers entirely work. Your computer does a great deal more reading, than writing. High read speed is the key selling point and benefit of an SSD. High write speed is virtually unnoticeable, outside of benchmarks. You could have a write speed of 500mb/s or 500,000,000,000mb/s and you probably wouldn't notice it, because most writes are pretty dang small, and a quarter as rare.

Like I said, you obviously don't use computer for anything else than gaming. If you ever worked with huge audio projects in Cubase or ProTools (or any other DAW) with real time digital recording with huge amount of tracks and heavy usage of VST/RTAS you would understand why having an i7 and very fast read and writes would matter.

[Evil Inside]

Like I said, you obviously don't use computer for anything else than gaming. If you ever worked with huge audio projects in Cubase or ProTools (or any other DAW) with real time digital recording with huge amount of tracks and heavy usage of VST/RTAS you would understand why having an i7 and very fast read and writes would matter.

Perhaps, but stay on topic. Your example hardly applies to OP's needs, i7 is good for that but for a gaming computer it's pretty much pointless and not worth the extra cash that could be used elsewhere.

[Elvine]

The Asrock Z87 Extreme4 would work well. It's $100 cheaper, and still has a 12-phase VRM.

I'm assuming you actually have a microcenter near you, yes?

Yup, I have a Microcenter about 20 mins away.

So outside of you two arguing, does my livestreaming 6-10 hours 6 days a week my gameplay come into play when picking parts? Would hyper threading help? So i5 is fine for most gaming and doesn't lack the future proof of i7?

Shouldn't trust passmark? http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

[Evil Inside]

Yup, I have a Microcenter about 20 mins away.

So outside of you two arguing, does my livestreaming 6-10 hours 6 days a week my gameplay come into play when picking parts? Would hyper threading help? So i5 is fine for most gaming and doesn't lack the future proof of i7?

In your particular case an i7 would help with that much streaming.

[Godspeed]

Yup, I have a Microcenter about 20 mins away.

So outside of you two arguing, does my livestreaming 6-10 hours 6 days a week my gameplay come into play when picking parts? Would hyper threading help? So i5 is fine for most gaming and doesn't lack the future proof of i7?

Yes, Hyper-Threading will help, it basically makes virtual cores and shares the workload. It will help a lot if you have additional stuff running beside the game. If you are streaming in 1080p with high quality details an i7 is actually recommended by Xsplit.

---------- Post added 2013-06-19 at 11:18 AM ----------

Here is a very good guide on how to setup your stream using Xsplit:

http://www.xsplit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13243

[Elvine]

Thanks, now it comes to the SSD, Pro 128GB or non pro 250GB.

I stream with www.obsproject.com right now with quality 8 @ 4000 bitrate (gotta love 10mb+ upload!)

Sabertooth is still recommended for my needs? Everything else looks good? RAM speed & PSU?

[Godspeed]

AsRock will do the job, but it really depends on how long do you intend to use that computer. AsRock Extreme4 and Sabertooth can't really be compared, Sabertooth is on a whole new level when it comes to quality. If I personally was giving that amount of money for a computer, I would without a doubt go for Sabertooth, you just can't go wrong with it."

If you are not going to need write speeds then Samsung 840 will be more than enough, I don't know how you use your computer, but if it isn't anything "heavy", if it's just gaming and regular stuff then 840 is a no brainer.

[Elvine]

AsRock will do the job, but it really depends on how long do you intend to use that computer. AsRock Extreme4 and Sabertooth can't really be compared, Sabertooth is on a whole new level when it comes to quality. If I personally was giving that amount of money for a computer, I would without a doubt go for Sabertooth, you just can't go wrong with it."

If you are not going to need write speeds then Samsung 840 will be more than enough, I don't know how you use your computer, but if it isn't anything "heavy", if it's just gaming and regular stuff then 840 is a no brainer.

I of course want to spend well worth my money. I can get a bundle for the already cheap i7 $279 + tax compared to $349 at Newegg. and Sabertooth for $219, $40 off most places. $529.98 (w/ taxes) compared to $607.98. That being said I think for a $78 dollar savings it's totally worth it.

What would you consider "heavy"? Streaming 1080p while running 2 monitors and multiple gaming clients count? Say if I wanted to log into 2 wow clients w/ 100MB of addon (AH Addons w/ databases stored).

Also, my RAM?

[Deleted]

Thanks, now it comes to the SSD, Pro 128GB or non pro 250GB.

I stream with www.obsproject.com right now with quality 8 @ 4000 bitrate (gotta love 10mb+ upload!)

Sabertooth is still recommended for my needs? Everything else looks good? RAM speed & PSU?

Get a 250GB SSD, you will regret getting the smaller one quite fast.

For the motherboard I'd suggest the ASUS Z87-A really should be all you need and it's an excellent overclocker, SLI support etc.

Review here

The Bottom Line
The ASUS Z87-A motherboard showed to be an incredibly stable piece of overclocking equipment and carried with it an "upgraded experience" when coming from working with the latest Z77 chipset equipped motherboards. If the Z87-A represent the "low end," we think that ASUS has likely nailed down a very solid footprint in the Z87 market.

My experiences with the Z87-A were nothing short of excellent. The out of the box experience was flawless. I had no stability issues or other odd problems. The platform felt more mature than it is. ASUS definitely did a good job as this doesn’t feel like the launch of a new line but rather something that we’ve seen many times before. Unfortunately the chipset and CPU aren’t that exciting alone. Fortunately the ASUS Z87-A motherboard is exicting. ASUS has definitely tried to set the bar high with improvements it has made in the Z87 line. The new CPU fan header, ESD guards, DRAM overcurrent protection, new AI Suite III, improved UEFI, and other new features are all very nice touches that set ASUS apart from the rest.

The RAM is fine, all you need is 1600Mhz.

I would never buy a Rosewill PSU. I assume you have SLI in mind for the future with the ~750W, if that's the case I'd get one of these:

PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 750W
XFX ProSeries 750W
Fractal Design Newton R3 800W Platinum

Edit: Just realized you already have the PSU, just noticed you asked about a PSU last post so yeah... Guess you can ignore above.

[slasher0161]

Second Notarget on this one with the board, the other thing to take into account is haswell has a very broad spectrum of overclocking ranges, some people getting massive numbers out on air others getting chips that are requiring over 1.2v just to push past 4.3ghz (1.25v seems to pretty well push thermal limits on a h100 with haswell from what i've seen). So just keep this in mind when overclocking that if you get a bad chip it isn't your board or cooler or any other what have you holding you back you just got boned on silicon lottery (Also a reason I wouldn't be buying a sabertooth at the moment unless I knew I had a good chip).