New build for new Monitor setup

[Devboy]

So I'm now running with an Eyefinity setup. and I've found that my FPS is lower than what I was getting before (understandable)

So I'm intending to upgrade, and given that my current PC is about 3 years old I feel its time anyway.

Budget - Haven't set this yet, as I want to sell my current PC first anyway, but likely between £1000-£1500
Resolution - 3x 1920 x 1080p 24" displays, so 5760 x 1080 reso (about 5970 with custom setup)
Games / Settings Desired - A lot of WoW, 25 man, ideally on high / ultra settings, as well as all the new games coming out (Titanfall / WatchDogs etc etc)
Any other intensive software or special things you do - not really. I intend to do some streaming / recording and editing of game footage.
Country - UK
Parts that can be reused - 2 x HDD's (storage purposes 1 2TB and 1 500gb)
Do you need an OS? - Yes, Windows 7 is prefered.
Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc) No.

Thanks for the help guys

P.S I'm looking to buy prebuilt, as I fear if I build it myself, that I will fuck something up and damage a component and have to buy a new one. (unless im being overly cautious and it really isn't that difficult to do it myself?)

[Deleted]

It's not overly complicated, just take your time, put the case and motherboard manual to good use, double check if in doubt, watch a video or two to get started. Well worth it.



This is also a good series of videos:

Newegg TV: How To Build a Computer - Part 1 - Choosing Your Components
Newegg TV: How To Build a Computer - Part 2 - The Build
Newegg TV: How To Build a Computer - Part 3 - Installing Windows & Finishing Touches

I would recommend swapping to Windows 8 and just using a simple free app like ClassicShell and it'll look more or less like the Windows 7 you're used to, multi monitor support is great.

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£233.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H75 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£63.72 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G55 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£91.00 @ Aria PC)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£68.81 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£85.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Video Card (£509.74 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 500R Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£94.16 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£73.32 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.78 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£79.81 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1311.33
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-06 16:30 GMT+0000)

Now, there are a few options for the GPU. The above 780Ti should do quite well in WoW and decent in games like BF4, if you want to max things completely it will start to struggle from what I've gathered. With the single 780Ti you wont have to mess with SLI, higher power draw etc.

If you're looking to push things in other games perhaps 2 cheaper cards might make more sense, wait for input from others as well and of course it's also about how much money you're willing to spend.

MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB x2
Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB x2

Following cases I think would be pretty good for an SLI/CF (the above 500R will also support this) but I wasn't sure about the aesthetics, might not be for everyone:

Corsair Air 540
Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black)

A bigger and more expensive case is also an option but a necessity by any means:

Corsair 750D
Cooler Master Storm Trooper
Cooler Master Storm Trooper (White)
NZXT H440 (midtower, pre-order only)

[Devboy]

Thanks bro, that's really helpful. What I also might do is look at some custom build PC sites, input these specs and see what price it chunks out, if its only a little bit more than what I would pay for individual parts etc I might just go that route rather than building myself :P. Don't suppose you might recommend any?

From what I've read, the i7 4770K is sometimes considered unnecessary, and you can get similar if not better performance from other cheaper CPU's, but I could be wrong?

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Another question I had. Is installing watercooling more difficult compared to fan cooling for the CPU? admittedly this is the part I am most cautious about.

[Deleted]

Another question I had. Is installing watercooling more difficult compared to fan cooling for the CPU? admittedly this is the part I am most cautious about.

Each specific cooler is different of course but no generally it's not more difficult, sometimes even easier compared to the more bulky Air heatsinks. If you prefer air here are some I would recommend:

NZXT HAVIK 140
Noctua NH-D14

Something cheap, better and quieter than stock heatsink, enough for light to medium overclock:

Enermax ETS-T40-TB
Silverstone AR03

From what I've read, the i7 4770K is sometimes considered unnecessary, and you can get similar if not better performance from other cheaper CPU's, but I could be wrong?

I included the i7 because you mentioned streaming, recording, editing. This can still be done with the i5-4670k but you might be limited when it comes to streaming, depending on quality and game. For rendering it's about ~15-20% difference. I the event of going SLI I also believe having a more powerful CPU can help, it's been a while since I last read up on that though to be sure. So you have to decide if the $100 is worth the difference in performance like rendering and streaming.

Thanks bro, that's really helpful. What I also might do is look at some custom build PC sites, input these specs and see what price it chunks out, if its only a little bit more than what I would pay for individual parts etc I might just go that route rather than building myself :P. Don't suppose you might recommend any?

You can try but I can almost guarantee you won't find a site able to price match the above, not even close.

I don't really know which site is best to look at.

Is it possible you know someone that might be able to help you build? Or get a local PC shop to build it, for a cost of course?

[Devboy]

Thats cool. I'm not against watercooling, I'm just a bit nervous about getting it right

And ok fair enough, the i7 will likely be the better choice then.

I don't know anyway that lives relatively nearby that would be able to assist me really. And not any local PC shops either really.

Additionally, If I was to go with a dual GPU, would you still recommend the cards you originally linked? Provided I don't go too far over 1.5k I think I can manage the cost.

[Deleted]

Yes same suggestions for SLI/CF.

[Devboy]

So I incorprated a build with 2 GPU's.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£236.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H75 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£64.46 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G55 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£97.32 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£64.39 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£89.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£369.91 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£369.91 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Corsair 500R Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£94.16 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£73.32 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.78 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£79.81 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1552.04
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-10 09:01 GMT+0000)

Can anyone do better? or is this roughly the cheapest I'm going to get?

[Deleted]

I assume you have SATA cables for all the HDDs? Just make sure you have one for the SSD, HDDs and the ODD. Not sure how many is in the motherboard box but should be at least 2.

Swap the Sandforce based Kingston SSD to either of the below as they're more reliable:

Crucial M500 240GB
Samsung 840 EVO 250GB

I'd keep the 1866 RAM as the price is minimal, it's the sweet spot for Haswell. If you prefer the slightly lower cost and 1600 then go for it, it's not that big of a deal.

Of course you could save a little by going for 2 x R9 290 but I'm not sure how far AMD has come on the whole CF thing compared to Nvidia.

ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4GB
MSI Radeon R9 290 TWIN FROZR GAMING OC 4GB

[Devboy]

Well, the two current HDD's I obviously have SATA cables for :P and if the Mobo comes with at least two, then I'll have one for the SSD and one for the ODD. I can always grab from work anyway.

I can change up the RAM and I've had mutliple bad experiences with AMD cards previously, as such I will not be using them again Can do the Crucial SSD as well.

[Deleted]

Yeah the cable comment was just to make sure, quite annoying missing a cable when building.

The Nvidia cards might be better for dual GPU anyways and to each his own

[Devboy]

A few of my friends have questioned the choice of 8GB of RAM vs 16GB. now from some research I've done, even on a 64bit OS, your going to roughly max out all the RAM that your PC uses just after 4GB, and with the Video RAM on the GPU's this is even more RAM that the MOBO slotted ones don't need to use resources on for gaming. Is this true?

[Devboy]

The Previous RAM listed is no longer available from retailers from what I can see. Would this be an adequate replacement? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/gski...4900cl10s8gbxl

[Deleted]

The Nvidia cards might be better for dual GPU anyways

I think AMD is just as good at the moment as Nvidia, and maybe a bit better. AMD no longer needs a bridge, and thats were the profit is coming from. The qoute from below is about a 290x review, but the stuttering remark should also apply for the 290

When we look at performance versus NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SLI we also find the XFX R9 290X DD CrossFire coming out on top. This we did not expect. We figured GTX 780 Ti SLI might provide some faster performance in some cases. However, it really didn’t. When playing demanding games at high resolutions and aiming for those high in-game settings R9 290X CrossFire pulled through as the faster solution. When we cranked up AA settings, again R9 290X CrossFire pulled through. There wasn’t one scenario in our gaming experiences that GTX 780 Ti SLI was superior in gameplay experience to R9 290X CrossFire configuration from XFX.

Frame Pacing
Let’s talk about smoothness in gameplay in CrossFire versus SLI. With the AMD R9 290X series AMD fully supports Frame Pacing in Eyefinity and 4K. This option is enabled by default. Our feedback on this technology is that Frame Pacing works well to reduce choppiness and create a smooth and fluid gameplay experience with R9 290X CrossFire. We did not experience any choppiness or stuttering with R9 290X CrossFire like we do with the previous generation. There isn’t much to say on this topic anymore because with R9 290X CrossFire it just works, and it does a good job at it.

We only experienced one stuttering situation and that was with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SLI in Far Cry 3 at 4K. This could simply be a bug, but we did experience it, and it did affect the in-game settings we were able to play at. Overall, the smoothness between SLI and CrossFire in every game seems to be on par now. We have no major complaints.

http://hardocp.com/article/2014/01/2...fire_review/11

[Devboy]

I'm still likely to go with Nvidia, as I've never had any issues with any Nvidia cards that I've owned, but every AMD card that I've owned has had an issue at some point or another. (one I bought was DoA which really pissed me off as it was a replacement for a previous one that was faulty)

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I'm still conflicted about the OS choice... Changing from Win7 something I know and love, to Win8.1 ... is there honestly a massive difference, or would I be fine with win7.

[Deleted]

If you're paying for a new OS I think it would make very little sense to go with W7 for the reasons I mentioned i my first reply (Classic Shell), multi monitor support and future support in general. I wouldn't be scared of the change especially with Classic Shell or similar if you can't stand the UI like a lot of other people.

[Devboy]

new list, mostly the same. Not yet picked the OS as I'm still undecided. Upped the cooler to a different (hopefully better) model.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£236.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£83.88 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G55 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£94.63 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£76.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£81.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£369.91 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£369.91 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Corsair 500R Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£94.16 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£77.32 @ Dabs)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.78 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1496.14
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-18 12:31 GMT+0000)

I'm still kinda concerned in my own head regarding the watercooling and its reliability etc....

[Deleted]

There is a bigger risk but I wouldn't say there is a big risk by any means but if you're concerned then just go with air, it'll perform just as well for less anyways. Just takes up a little more space.

Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 3 £66
NZXT HAVIK 140 £53
Phanteks PH-TC14PE £65

The Phantek heatsink comes in different color schemes as well:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/parts/cpu...=a5&qq=1&m=229

[Devboy]

If it's not a big risk, and just me being overly cautious then I'll get it. so yea... its only a £20 difference, so its not so much the price I'm worried about.

unless there is any one with a compelling reason to not do it :P

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Another quick thing. With the Processor and Mobo would I be able to OC my cpu at all?

[Deleted]

Yes, that's the main reason for an somewhat expensive CPU heatsink, why else would you buy that

[Deleted]

Yes, yes you should - you could coceivably win the silicon lottery and get a chip that goes to 4.5GHz on air cooling. But you should hit a minimum of 4GHz on air now. Don't forget to stress-test your CPU and GPU overclocks using Prime95 for the CPU and Furmark for the GPU on the overclocks.