Gaming / Editing PC

[Deleted]

Budget: 1.000€
Resolution: 1920x1080
Games / Settings Desired: WoW, various singleplayer games such as Crysis, Bioshock
Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc) Yes, video rendering and few 3d modelling.
Country: Germany
Parts that can be reused: see below


Hey so right now I have made this build with some help I gathered from few threads on here,
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (€284.90 @ Caseking)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste (€4.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€128.37 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€124.78 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital WD Green 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (€71.90 @ Pixmania DE)
Case: Cooler Master HAF X ATX Full Tower Case (€144.62 @ Hardwareversand)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer (€20.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €874.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-14 13:58 CET+0100)

Parts that I may be able to reuse from my current PC, but I'm not certain, would like to have some advice. :

1. I got gtx580 right now, which I can reuse untill 800 series is released. I then want to get a gtx770.
2. Can I reuse my old noctua nh-d14? It's been in use for roughly 1,5 years (still is right now, temps are still good). I won't be overclocking untill I get the new graphics card so I will use the stock cooler for the time being.
3. Also got a spare HX1050 — 80 PLUS® Silver PSU, which is obviously overkill for this machine but it would save me the inital cost of getting a new psu? I'm not sure if it consumes more power because it's higher than a 650w? which I would get, but money is tight right now. Any insight would be great.

Also about the case: I've chosen the HAF X for now because I want the space in there (I will never have 4 graphics card or anything crazy), I have an Antec Nine Hundred Two right now and I really don't like it. Putting my first (current) PC together was hard because the cables were really short (power up etc.) aswell as connecting the motherboard to the PSU was painful. And since I want to get a modular PSU, I want to have good cable management options.

Thanks!

[Tehterokkar]

I would swap out the RAM for a 2x 8GB Kit. Dual Channel works out better than other combinations usually.

The PSU you have should be fine, It will just sit pretty much idle for eternity especially after you upgrade your GPU(GTX 580 takes quite a bit of power compared to 6xx or 7xx series).

You should definitely use the NH-D14 cooler and overclock the CPU, no reason not to. You gain a large performance increase in video editing/3D modeling, WoW FPS and other stuff you do and even a modest OC of 4-4.2 GHz won't be hard to achieve as at that point it's just as simple as changing CPU multiplier in BIOS from stock(35?) to 40-42

[Cyrops]

Budget: 1.000€
Resolution: 1920x1080
Games / Settings Desired: WoW, various singleplayer games such as Crysis, Bioshock
Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc) Yes, video rendering and few 3d modelling.
Country: Germany
Parts that can be reused: see below


Hey so right now I have made this build with some help I gathered from few threads on here,
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (€284.90 @ Caseking)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste (€4.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€128.37 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€124.78 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital WD Green 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (€71.90 @ Pixmania DE)
Case: Cooler Master HAF X ATX Full Tower Case (€144.62 @ Hardwareversand)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer (€20.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €874.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-14 13:58 CET+0100)

Parts that I may be able to reuse from my current PC, but I'm not certain, would like to have some advice. :

1. I got gtx580 right now, which I can reuse untill 800 series is released. I then want to get a gtx770.
2. Can I reuse my old noctua nh-d14? It's been in use for roughly 1,5 years (still is right now, temps are still good). I won't be overclocking untill I get the new graphics card so I will use the stock cooler for the time being.
3. Also got a spare HX1050 — 80 PLUS® Silver PSU, which is obviously overkill for this machine but it would save me the inital cost of getting a new psu? I'm not sure if it consumes more power because it's higher than a 650w? which I would get, but money is tight right now. Any insight would be great.

Also about the case: I've chosen the HAF X for now because I want the space in there (I will never have 4 graphics card or anything crazy), I have an Antec Nine Hundred Two right now and I really don't like it. Putting my first (current) PC together was hard because the cables were really short (power up etc.) aswell as connecting the motherboard to the PSU was painful. And since I want to get a modular PSU, I want to have good cable management options.

Thanks!

First of all about the parts you can reuse:
Gtx580 will do you good for now, though keep in mind the 800 series could be overhyped (early rumors on another thread), anyway no harm in waiting.
Noctua nh-d14 will fit 1150 socket, so you can use that, just clean the old thermal paste and apply new one.
Feel free to use HX1050, it's overkill for sure, but it won't draw more power than it has to, replace when you want.

onto the build:
You said money is tight, yet you chose 150euro case? ^_^

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (€284.90 @ Caseking)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste (€6.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€128.37 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (€136.85 @ Alternate)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€47.55 @ Pixmania DE)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (€74.00 @ Pixmania DE)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer (€20.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €794.02
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-14 14:31 CET+0100)

For editing you definetly want faster RAM
Also your select 5400RPM WD HDD, it's only good for keeping movies, photos, music and some other documents, but if you have 2TB of music, definetly don't mind my suggestion.

[Deleted]

thanks alot guys!

Also your select 5400RPM WD HDD, it's only good for keeping movies, photos, music and some other documents, but if you have 2TB of music, definetly don't mind my suggestion.

Yep I'll use the WD HDD only for keeping files. I'm gonna use my current HDD (Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB, 7200 rpm) along with the SSD for moving stuff! (fraps etc)

First of all about the parts you can reuse:
Gtx580 will do you good for now, though keep in mind the 800 series could be overhyped (early rumors on another thread), anyway no harm in waiting.

The reason I'm waiting is to hope for price drops of the GTX770, but with your build I guess I could fit one right now even.

The case you linked looks really nice btw, guess its like the haf x without the "xtreme"

You should definitely use the NH-D14 cooler and overclock the CPU, no reason not to. You gain a large performance increase in video editing/3D modeling, WoW FPS and other stuff you do and even a modest OC of 4-4.2 GHz won't be hard to achieve as at that point it's just as simple as changing CPU multiplier in BIOS from stock(35?) to 40-42

It was a hassle installing my noctua last time I did it, (manual was kinda confusing for me), and I didn't really have anything to get the old thermal paste off. But I guess you're right, I will look more into overclocking Haswell. 4-4.2 OC I read is supposed to be "safe" OC? I really don't wanna break anything and last time I tried it at my i7-950 it was alot more confusing.

[Deleted]

This is what I'd build right now, as your strategy is sound:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (€284.90 @ Caseking)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste (€6.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€128.37 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (€136.85 @ Alternate)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital AV-GP 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€85.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital AV-GP 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€85.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Corsair 400R ATX Mid Tower Case (€88.90 @ Pixmania DE)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer (€20.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €933.17
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-14 15:46 CET+0100)

That includes two 2TB HDDs - one of those will be for storage; the other will be your 'scratch' disk, where your editing and portfolio would go. I've gone for the 400R from Corsair, but the case is mainly down to personal preference - You could easily go down to the 300R, the Bitfenix Shinobi or the Fractal Design Arc Midi R2.

[Cyrops]

It was a hassle installing my noctua last time I did it, (manual was kinda confusing for me), and I didn't really have anything to get the old thermal paste off. But I guess you're right, I will look more into overclocking Haswell. 4-4.2 OC I read is supposed to be "safe" OC? I really don't wanna break anything and last time I tried it at my i7-950 it was alot more confusing.

Safe OC is not about Ghz but about volts, anything not exceeding 1.25 is considered safe (for 10y of chip that is)

[Ghâzh]

It was a hassle installing my noctua last time I did it, (manual was kinda confusing for me), and I didn't really have anything to get the old thermal paste off. But I guess you're right, I will look more into overclocking Haswell. 4-4.2 OC I read is supposed to be "safe" OC? I really don't wanna break anything and last time I tried it at my i7-950 it was alot more confusing.

It's gonna be a lot cheaper using the old noctua and buying some 99% alcohol or thermal paste cleaning kit instead of buying completely new cooler. Even further so seeing how NH-D14 is still one of the best air coolers out there. There's not much you could replace it with that would do better cooling wise. If the installation seems hard there's always youtube guides that should clear things up.

[Deleted]

Safe OC is not about Ghz but about volts, anything not exceeding 1.25 is considered safe (for 10y of chip that is)

Yeah thanks as soon as I'm at that point I will look at detailed guides etc

It's gonna be a lot cheaper using the old noctua and buying some 99% alcohol or thermal paste cleaning kit instead of buying completely new cooler. Even further so seeing how NH-D14 is still one of the best air coolers out there. There's not much you could replace it with that would do better cooling wise. If the installation seems hard there's always youtube guides that should clear things up.

Yeah I'll definitely do that!

Anyway, for maintenance/ dust removal I've always used a can of compressed air, although these things didn't really get all the dust on fans etc, you guys got any advice for that? I was thinking about getting a http://www.amazon.com/Metro-Vacuum-E.../dp/B001J4ZOAW in the future, any of you have used it or just cans?