4790k + 980 gaming rig for $2000

[May90]

Hello everyone.

The time has come! I am buying a high-end gaming PC in 2 weeks. My budget is around $2000. Here is a list of parts I came up with:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($309.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X60 98.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($139.99 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($187.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($196.97 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($569.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 780T ATX Full Tower Case ($171.36 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Cooler Master VSM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer ($12.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1839.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-03 00:48 EDT-0400

I will also probably purchase a second 980 GTX in November. Let's run over this list and comment on each of them.


PROBABLY NOT TO BE CHANGED:

1. CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($309.99 @ Amazon)
Best affordable CPU on the market. Not a subject to change.

2. Motherboard: Asus Z97-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($187.99 @ Newegg)
Has about the best sound among all affordable motherboards. Sound is very important for me, so I am willing to overpay for this mobo.

3. Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($196.97 @ OutletPC)
Best SSD series on the market. I don't need any more than 256 GB, hell, I probably don't even need above 128 GB, but I like to have some extra space.

4. Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($569.99 @ Amazon)
Best video card on the market. I will add one more 980 in November.

5. Power Supply: Cooler Master VSM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Newegg)
650w should be more than enough to power two 980 GTX and i7 4790k. I chose an expensive one so it lasts longer.

6. Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer ($12.99 @ Newegg)
I chose the cheapest available since I need it only to install Windows.


SUBJECT TO CHANGE

1. CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X60 98.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($139.99 @ TigerDirect)
I found this cooler taking the 1st place in many cooler benchmarks. I am crazy about cooling so I simply need the best available! I don't really care about noise since I game in insulating headphones and can't hear a thing anyway. But do I even need such a cooler if I am not going to overclock like crazy? Maybe cheaper variants won't fail me either?

2. Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($149.99 @ Newegg)
My knowledge of memory is very poor. I remember a typical advice of mid 2000-s about the memory frequency being correlated with the mobo bus frequency, that is for 3200 mobo I need 1600 memory as in 3200/2 (I haven't found a decent 3200 memory - are there any?). But what is so special about Ripjaws X Series compared to "regular" memory? Are there any real benefits? And do I even need 16 GB if primarily I am going to be gaming on this PC?

3. Case: Corsair 780T ATX Full Tower Case ($171.36 @ Amazon)
This is the hardest choice for me by far. I am pretty positive that I am going to take an ATX Full Tower case, but the choice is so big that it literally took me 5 hours of browsing through different cases to stick with this one. Are there any better suggestions? Again, noise level doesn't really matter, I just want the best air flow.


Any recommendations on what to change are very-very welcome. There are about two weeks before I am going to start ordering parts, so we can come to some kind of perfect configuration in the meantime.

Thanks a lot!

[Kneckt]

Hey May90! , i litteraly just made this account to reply to you. Everything looks great , but there is probably alot more cases to choose from with more fans to keep everything nice and cool. that looks to only have 2 but i could be wrong, my AzzA Case has a giant fan on top and one on the front and one on the side , and my gpu stays at a nice 45-54 celcius running WoW on ultra throughout the day. But ovverall great rig and choices. you're right on the power supply does not need to be any more because of the gold certified. And possibly you could get 8gb's of RAM instead of 16 unless you really want it for maybe if you do video editing or stuff like that.

[Dawnshadow]

If you're not overclocking and air cooling would work, I'd go with air cooling. Water cooling is higher maintenance, and one leak-- one bd seal or hard enough bump-- and your computer might fry. (Granted, I don't trust water cooling.)

[May90]

Hey May90! , i litteraly just made this account to reply to you. Everything looks great , but there is probably alot more cases to choose from with more fans to keep everything nice and cool. that looks to only have 2 but i could be wrong, my AzzA Case has a giant fan on top and one on the front and one on the side , and my gpu stays at a nice 45-54 celcius running WoW on ultra throughout the day. But ovverall great rig and choices. you're right on the power supply does not need to be any more because of the gold certified. And possibly you could get 8gb's of RAM instead of 16 unless you really want it for maybe if you do video editing or stuff like that.

Thank you for going as far as creating an account just to reply!

Yes, the case is the hardest choice for me. The one I chose, indeed, doesn't have many fans, but the general opinion in the Internet about it seems to be quite high. I'll try to research this more. Among other choices I favored this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133188
However, for some reason, it was not listed on pcpartpicker under compatibility option, so I guess there might be something that won't fit in into it.

I am not sure about 8/16 GB either: I am not going to perform any video editing in the nearest future and, if I wanted, I would always be able to simply buy 8 more GB for $70. But somehow this number of 16GB sits in my head as some magical number standard for the modern gaming PCs.

If you're not overclocking and air cooling would work, I'd go with air cooling. Water cooling is higher maintenance, and one leak-- one bd seal or hard enough bump-- and your computer might fry. (Granted, I don't trust water cooling.)

This was my concern as well: I trust air cooling more than water cooling. However the difference between the best air cooling and the best water cooling in benchmark seems to be quite significant. I am not sure if this difference is worth the risk, but then I also want the temperatures to be as low as possible.

As for overclocking, I am not planning on doing a very hard overclocking, just some minor one in case I have a temperature room for it. I am not sure I will even need overclocking after buying the second 980: I game at normal 1080p and I never turn on shadows (personal preference), so even not overclocked configuration such as this might be an overkill for the games I am going to play.

[Deleted]

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-...case-rc942kkn1

Full tower with good airflow

also this = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811147158

Has 4 fans included, Front,Rear,Top and Side

[Gumboy]

Are you SURE you only need 256 GB? you realize things change rapidly in the world of storage, your next OS may take up half of that :P

[Deleted]

This rig looks good to me,

I would just replace the power supply by a Seasonic since you said you want something really solid,

and also you might wanna think twice about adding a second 980 so early, for many reasons, You'll most probably run every game on the market this year even in 2550x1440 on max settings, so adding another one wont change anything at all, and if you wait until its actually useful, the price will probably have dropped.

Also you might wanna check out the Bitfenix cases, like the Colossus for exemple, awesome quiet big fans included.

[SKLR]

If you're not overclocking, then the cooler that comes with the cpu will do just fine. You also don't need a CPU that's made for overclocking. If you play without shadows at 1080p you don't even need one 980gtx, nevermind two of them. I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything, but you may be going at this whole upgrade thing the wrong way. You're buying all this top of the line hardware, but you're not using it.

[Deleted]

If you're not overclocking, then the cooler that comes with the cpu will do just fine. You also don't need a CPU that's made for overclocking. If you play without shadows at 1080p you don't even need one 980gtx, nevermind two of them. I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything, but you may be going at this whole upgrade thing the wrong way. You're buying all this top of the line hardware, but you're not using it.

How about buying "top of the line" to keep it longer ?

[May90]

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-...case-rc942kkn1

Full tower with good airflow

also this = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811147158

Has 4 fans included, Front,Rear,Top and Side

Thank you, I like the 2nd case a lot.
It is so hard to choose between different cases... It is easy for, say, different video cards since you can objectively compare their performance, but with cases it is not so clear.

Are you SURE you only need 256 GB? you realize things change rapidly in the world of storage, your next OS may take up half of that :P

Fairly sure. In case I will need more space for data, I might add a usual HDD later on, they are very cheap nowadays. But currently, for example, I am using only about 180 GB of my space, and I have a lot of things to clean up, so it might be reduced to 120 GB. 256 GB is a very safe bet; I might take 512 GB if this change will fit into the $2,000 budget, but I don't really think I will need it.

[SKLR]

How about buying "top of the line" to keep it longer ?

That's perfectly fine, you want to future proof your build as much as possible. However, in this case we're talking about no video editing and playing games on 1080p at less than max settings (shadows are a pretty big chunk of performance). Now add to that the fact that 90% of games come from "next gen" consoles with hardware already outdated 2 years ago... I'm just a bit confused.

[May90]

This rig looks good to me,

I would just replace the power supply by a Seasonic since you said you want something really solid,

and also you might wanna think twice about adding a second 980 so early, for many reasons, You'll most probably run every game on the market this year even in 2550x1440 on max settings, so adding another one wont change anything at all, and if you wait until its actually useful, the price will probably have dropped.

Also you might wanna check out the Bitfenix cases, like the Colossus for exemple, awesome quiet big fans included.

Well, while I won't be gaming on anything bigger than 1080p, I might use downscaling from higher resolutions, simply because I can. Also I am an anti-aliasing junkie and I would like to run every game at 16x multisampling + 8x supersampling - here two cards will come in handy. I am not even sure they will be able to handle that on 1080p since supersampling is VERY resource demanding. Anyway, I will definitely make sure first that I actually need it.

I will look into Colossus series; I like their appearance already.

If you're not overclocking, then the cooler that comes with the cpu will do just fine. You also don't need a CPU that's made for overclocking. If you play without shadows at 1080p you don't even need one 980gtx, nevermind two of them. I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything, but you may be going at this whole upgrade thing the wrong way. You're buying all this top of the line hardware, but you're not using it.

I admit I might be a little overzealous about processing power of this rig. However my past experience with cheap builds (might be a little irrelevant here, but still) screams loudly against standard Intel fans; I've always had trouble with them after some time. Now, maybe a cooler for $130 is a little bit too much, but I definitely want some decent cooler instead of the one out of the processor box.
As for two 980 GTX, I believe 8x supersampling + 16x multisampling + possible FXAA might load up these cards even in not that demanding games.

Also, really, I wouldn't call it upgrade, simply because the laptop I am using now is so bad that... well, you wouldn't call buying Ferrari instead of a bicycle bought in the hood for $15, right? That's about the difference we are talking about here. So I'd say I am buying a computer. It is off topic though...

That's perfectly fine, you want to future proof your build as much as possible. However, in this case we're talking about no video editing and playing games on 1080p at less than max settings (shadows are a pretty big chunk of performance). Now add to that the fact that 90% of games come from "next gen" consoles with hardware already outdated 2 years ago... I'm just a bit confused.

Well, 3 years later there might be some games these cards won't be able to handle even at 1080p. I want a future proof build, and by future proof I mean not awfully outdated in, at least, 3-4 years.
Also, it depends on what FPS we are talking about. Right now I am using a 60Hz TV, but in the future I'd like to switch to 120Hz (I loved this refresh rate on my laptop), so everything up to 120 FPS will make a significant difference. Now, the developers of Witcher 3 already claim that one 780 GTX won't be able to push it over 40 FPS, that is 80 FPS for double system and, perhaps, something like 90-100 FPS for double 980 GTX (provided it is VERY well tuned for SLI). I am not sure what resolution they are talking about, but we can see that already there are games able to push these cards quite well. In 3 years... I am not even sure these cards will be relevant at all. And one card will definitely not be relevant.

[Marxman]

I am not sure I will even need overclocking after buying the second 980: I game at normal 1080p and I never turn on shadows (personal preference), so even not overclocked configuration such as this might be an overkill for the games I am going to play.

There's really no reason to go SLI 980s for 1080p gaming. A single 980 is designed for 1440p and up resolutions, so it basically demolishes 1080p all by itself. As was mentioned previously, if you wait for price drops in the future, you could save yourself a lot of money and not really lose any performance at 1080p, especially if you're going to overclock it.

If you aren't going for a heavy CPU overclock, I'd save money on the cooler and go with a decent air cooler, like Noctua NH-D14 or even the old standard CM Hyper 212 Evo. They're more than capable of keeping moderate overclocks cool. Water cooling is for pushing OCs as far as possible, not light-to-moderate OCs.

Everything else looks good. I'd personally go with a 970 and SLI them in the future for 1080p, but if you have the money laying around and want some future-proofing, 980 is a good choice.

Well, 3 years later there might be some games these cards won't be able to handle even at 1080p. I want a future proof build, and by future proof I mean not awfully outdated in, at least, 3-4 years.

Trying to make your PC last as long as possible is a good way to overspend by a lot. You're basically paying a premium now rather than paying a lot less to upgrade in the future for the same performance. It's best to pay for the performance you need right now and upgrade as needed.

[SKLR]

Fair enough, if you're moving up from a laptop, then go ahead and make a party of it

I suggest going for a more beefy PSU for the long term, 650W is cutting it close and it's kind of a bitch to replace later on. I suggest looking at Super Flower as a manufacturer. I know, it's a stupid name, but read up on them. Managed to get myself a 1000W 80+ plat from them last year for a very low price, very happy with it.

Also, stick with 16GB of RAM for the begining, upgradeable to 32. It may be wishful thinking, but maybe heavily moddable games in the future will be able to actually take advantage of all the memory better. What i believe you were talking about in the OP concerning RAM, would be the CPU-RAM FSB ratio. For all intents and purposes, you can ignore that nowadays and just go for the highest freq. RAM you can get (as long as the bottleneck is not your memory, you're fine).

Finally, consider adding a classic HDD from the begining for storage, downloads, moving stuff around etc. The more you take care of your SSD, the better.

[Deleted]

buy 970 and OC it and you'll be within ~5% performance of 980. you don't need 2x 980 for 1080p. unless you are going to buy 4K monitor then save some money. you will have zero performance issues even with 970 at 1080 let alone 2. but it's your money so do whatever you want to do.

for cases take a look at lian-li if you want quality stuff and amazing air flow. hands down the best cases on the market although they can be a bit expensive but they are worth it.

[Deleted]

I also recommend a second storage device. Even just a HDD.

You never know how fast a 256gb will fill up. I don't think you play battlefield, but for example Battlefield 4 with all 5 DLC will not even fit on a 64gb SSD.....
I'm currently at 55GB with the last expansion missing. So if you'd have a 128GB SSD You'd have about 64 left for your OS and other things. Wow of course would take up a bunch too.

I dont know if you play anything else than WoW. (Actually you MUST since your going for SLI 980). But the newest most graphically intense games easily take up 30GB each. BF4 not even fitting on a 64GB SSD..

[BicycleMafioso]

I recommend against a mechanical hard drive, they add noise!
Also, I don't honestly see an advantage in overspending on motherboard on the basis of sound when there are sound cards that are generally better.
Even if it ends up costing more, I would want to hear some strong convincing on the motherboard beyond "sound" for me to agree with such a decision.

[Golbam]

Imo you should wait a little for the i7-5770k and DDR4. Go check benchmarks 5930k vs 4930k. DDR4 is a huge improvement.

[aim87]

So I want to preface this comment by saying, I know exactly where you are, I have been there before, and I can understand how you feel about what you have conceptualized. I have built more gaming computers for family, friends, co-workers and just random ppl who respond to craigslist adds than I can remember.

Now, first of all What Resolution will you be playing on? Are you hooking your rig up to one of the new 4K resolution HDTV's? Cuz if not, you are really going way overboard. Like an above poster said, 2 980's would be necessary if you are playing at 1440P, and even then it would be a bit overboard for 90% of games. A single 970 will play every game out there on ultra settings at 1080P. You are spending way too much money on GPU's. The human eye cannot see things at 200FPS, so there is no need to shoot for that. Games running at 60 FPS are typically very smooth, and you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between 60 fps and 80fps. Spending $800 more than you need to on a GPU in order to make that benchmark go super high is really great...until you realize that you could have used that $800 on something else, like a 60" flatscreen.

Secondly, CPU's with the K are meant to be overclocked. If you won't overclock, don't buy it. And if you are going to overclock, get an i5 instead, save yourself $100. CPUs are almost never the bottleneck of a gaming rig, its almost always the hard drive (when loading level/zone/whatever) or GPU. You can easily get to 4.5 ghz without even bumping up the voltage on an i5 most of the time.

Thirdly, and perhaps, most importantly, that power supply. IF you go through with buying those two 980's, your computer will be struggling with that PSU. Don't get me wrong, its a great PSU, but its not meant for that kind of load. Here's the thing: a PSU's rating is what it could handle theoretically. But all power supplies fail eventually. How long that takes depends on the quality of the parts used, and the load it is put under. That PSU might work fine, for a year. If you get a 900w seasonic or 1000w Corsair power supply, you'd be more likely to make it 6+ years. Here's the other thing: when a power supply fails, sometimes it goes quietly, but sometimes it goes out with a bang. As in, boom your whole computer just became a doorstop. MB, CPU, GPU, Memory, HD, everything can get fried if your PSU fails. Its just not worth risking $2000 worth of hardware on a cheap PSU. NEVER go cheap on the PSU. For the setup you are talking about, I wouldn't feel comfortable (if it was me) with a PSU rated under 1000w, and of a reputable brand such as PC Power&Cooling, Corsair, Seasonic.

The rest of your things look fine to me, although I do wonder about the HD. I thought 256gb would be plenty for me as well on my gaming rig, but somehow I filled it up and needed to buy a larger one. That space goes faster than you think.

The rig you came up with is awesome, and enough to make anyone drool. But you could probably play 95% of games in existence and coming out in the next year at max settings on a 1080P screen with a rig that costs half as much as you are spending. I would be willing to bet you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference in most cases which computer was which. If it was me, and I had that money to blow, I would probably go cheaper on the CPU and GPU, and buy a really nice monitor.

[BicycleMafioso]

Go check benchmarks 5930k vs 4930k. DDR4 is a huge improvement.

Any improvement between the two is unrelated to DDR4 performance - I've only seen RAM write speeds increase, else they're pretty much the same.