Ultimate gaming PC

[warpus]

When I say "Ultimate gaming PC", keep in mind that I do not mean super latest of the line and flashiest possible gaming PC, because I don't really have thousands of dollars to throw around. I mean "Ultimate" in the sense that the video card is top notch and the rest of the system has the juice to keep up with the speed, power & computing requirements.

Here's the first rough sketch of a part list:

GPU: EVGA ACX Cooler GeForce GTX 780 3GB 384-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
Mobo: ASRock Z87 Extreme6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
RAM: Mushkin Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory
PSU: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler
edit: HD: Seagate SSD 240GB SATA3

I had a case picked out, but I have no idea where the hell the link is, so I'll have to go look for it again. Feel free to suggest any slick looking cases.

I also already have 2 24 inch monitors, so I'm good there. I know what mouse I'm getting (a laser gaming one) and the keyboard is going to be some sort of a natural keyboard I think. Not sure about the specifics either.

I will also need to get quiet case fans. I haven't started looking into that yet.

So what do you think, is that a decent "ultimate gaming pc" ? What would you change? Do you think the parts will play nice together? I realize that the CPU can be i7, but I don't see the cost benefit. The video card is expensive, but I can get it cheaper from a private source. Everything else seems "economical" yet powerful. Thoughts?

 

[illram]

I think you will be more than happy with that build. But, if you want suggestions from the peanut gallery:

I would say save money on a smaller PSU and buy an SSD.

If you do not want to overclock save money on a non K chip and an H or B motherboard rather than a Z.Even if you do OC, these days, I do not see much reason to buy a full ATX board at all if you do not plan on using multiple GPUs or PCI cards. Micro or mini ITX are usually cheaper and offer most of the features your average PC gamer wants.

Also I do not think 2400 RAM is necessary. You should be ok with 1833 or 1600.

Been a while since I needed after market cooling so cannot comment on the cooler. You can also drop that if you do not plan on overclocking.

 

[leif erikson]

If you are going to overclock and want to try something different, I installed one of these water coolers in my latest build.

Went AMD 6-core and oveclocked the heck out of it and my cpu stays around 40 degrees C under load. The fan can get a bit loud, but you can turn it down with their software if you like.

If you do not overclock, really do not need it.

If you try one, please make sure you get a big enough case. Mine was just a tad small, so improvisation was needed.

Your system looks quite similar to one I considered building, but couldn't afford it.

edit - agree with illram, SSD is the way to go! Very fast boot times.

Good luck with it.

 

[Zelig]

SSD mandatory. My mom has an SSD in her $600 PC. You don't want a computer that's slower than my mom's for desktop use, do you?

I like microatx builds because I'm never going to use any 5.25" bays again, so it's just a waste of space to get a case with those. If I was building a desktop today, I'd probably use this case: http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=392 (It's not exactly what I'd like yet, I'd like to eliminate the spot for the slot-loading drive too.)
Nice highend build in that case.

At 1080p you're wasting money on anything more than a GTX 770 2GB. Save your money and get Dell's 4K 28" monitor when it comes out soon.

I'm not big on DDR3-2400, it's expensive, doesn't give much performance benefit (excepting integrated graphics) and needs extra voltage to run. IMO best bang-for-the-buck currently is DDR3-1866 CAS9 1.5V.

Good cooler is worth getting if you don't like noise. Noctua is very good, I've got the C12P SE14 in my home server.

Laser mice are overrated, optical sensors have better precision unless you're using them on glass or a mirror or such. That being said, I'm currently using a G700s, which is my favorite mouse from the dozens I've used. I'm also big on ergonomic keyboards, I've got a couple different ones, but they're junky for gaming, I use a Logitech G13 for games. Razer also have some gamepads which look good. (But all their better-looking ones came out after I bought my G13 and I haven't tried them myself.)

If you are going to overclock and want to try something different, I installed one of these water coolers in my latest build.

I really like the idea of these since they save on space and if you can attach the fan to vent air directly from the case, but once you add the fan and pump noises, there aren't any yet that can consistently outperform high-end air coolers across thermal loads.

 

[warpus]

Dont' have much time right now, but I want to say that I received my 256gb SSD in the mail today

I totally forgot to mention that in the OP - the first piece of the puzzle has arrived. Thank you for your posts, I will read them when I get a chance tomorrow.

 

[Quintillus]

Don't get Dell's 4K 28" monitor. It only refreshes at 30 Hertz, which means you will be limited to 30 FPS, which would be a major bummer in a gaming PC. The two 24-inch ones you already have will be a much better choice for a gaming PC.

I agree with the suggestions to save some dosh on RAM and get 1600 or 1866 MHz RAM instead. As Zelig said, unless you have integrated graphics, the speed doesn't matter a whole lot.

The only glaring missing item is a hard drive. Granted, you already have an SSD, but 240 GB isn't very much these days, and my guess is you'll eventually need more space. I recommend Toshiba's 7200 RPM, 2 TB hard drives for cavernous space that's still pretty quick for a hard drive. And, regardless of if you add a HDD for more data or not, make sure you have a backup. The backup doesn't have to be fast, but if you're spending enough to build an ultimate gaming PC, you shouldn't cheap out on a backup.

Oh, and I recommend buying hard drives locally. Whatever you do, do not order a hard drive from Newegg. They have a terrible reputation for hard drive packaging, which in turn leads to unusually high failure rates. Brick-and-mortar may cost a bit more, but it's worth it for mechanical hard drives.

Otherwise, the fundamentals look sound. I'd likely go with an ATI video card instead, but that's personal preference, and it sounds like you have a good deal on the nVIDIA. That i5 is the sweet spot for a fast CPU, and I agree, the i7 isn't worth the cost increase. I do agree with illram that you could probably get by with a less powerful power supply, but that one looks good, and Corsair is a good choice. I'd add an optical drive myself, but whether one is needed depends on what you plan to install (I actually installed a game from a CD last week!), and movie/music preferences. And it'd be easy to add later if needed.

As for the parts working together, the only concern I'd have is making sure the GPU outputs line up with your monitor inputs. It probably will, but better to check first than have everything ready and have to go out and buy adaptors to be able to get a picture.

 

[Zelig]

Oh yeah, don't get the Dell monitor then.

I wouldn't use any plain HDD for any OS/app/game installs (ie. anything but media). Seagate has some hybrid drives or sandisk sells a caching SSD you can use with any drive. It's too bad Apple has the best SSD caching implementation with their Fusion drives, with nothing equivalent on PC.

If you really need an optical drive just get a usb one that you can use with any computer going forward.

 

[warpus]

I'll have that 256GB SSD drive for the OS and about 3.5TB storage on external HDs

 

[Zelig]

Otherwise, the fundamentals look sound. I'd likely go with an ATI video card instead, but that's personal preference, and it sounds like you have a good deal on the nVIDIA.

Missed this, but problem now is that AMD's cards are priced way above where they should be, presumably because of demand from cryptocoin miners.

 

[illram]

Yeah AMD is unfortunately not a wise choice these days.

What cases are you thinking of Warpus? If you go the micro-atx route, the SG10 suggested by Zelig is good, and another popular option is the Silvertsone Temjin TJ08B-E--$109, or the Fractal Design Define Mini for $99. With the define mini you will need to remove one of the HD bays to fit the 780. (Just make sure your card is under 13.25 inches for the Temjin, and under 15 inches for the define mini.)

All three are highly rated and I know from personal experience the Define Mini is super quiet. I almost bought the Temjin once and if I ever do another micro-atx build for anyone else it would be on my short list. The Temjin includes one 180mm fan, and SPCR says it is reasonably quiet (big fans are quieter, they move more air at slower speeds. That is why 80mm fan solutions in large cases are falling out of fashion.)

 

[Theov]

What's your budget?
Looks like we're trying to build the same thing

 

[warpus]

What cases are you thinking of Warpus? If you go the micro-atx route, the SG10 suggested by Zelig is good, and another popular option is the Silvertsone Temjin TJ08B-E--$109, or the Fractal Design Define Mini for $99. With the define mini you will need to remove one of the HD bays to fit the 780. (Just make sure your card is under 13.25 inches for the Temjin, and under 15 inches for the define mini.)

I have been mainly looking at ATX cases. The NZXT H440 Mid-Tower has struck my fancy, but I've been way too distracted and busy lately to really do much research.

There are some weird things about it, like no large bays at all (not a big deal and in many ways kinda cool), it has stuff for watercooling built in (and that's not something I'm after, but could come in handy in the future), and the PSU gets installed in a strange way somehow (potentially an issue?), but other than that it seems mightily sexy.. For $119CDN it seems like a steal.

I have looked at a couple Temjin cases and they all look nice, but for the most part kinda pricy. The cheaper ones were cheaper, but the front wasn't as sexy. Sexyness seems to be important to me, I guess.. I mean.. I might as well make it look sexy if it's going to be something I'm going to be spending the next 5-8 years with, right? But then I don't want to spend $300 on the case either, so it limits my options somewhat.

If someone could convince me that the bays don't matter and that the seemingly unorthodox power supply installation is not a big deal, and that the potentially built in lights or lighting system or whatever the review might have been alluding to or explaining when I glossed through it isn't too annoying and that my office will be dark when I turn off my office light.. then I should be almost 100% on board with getting this case, because I like the way it looks just so much.

edit: I'm partial to ATX because small cases just sort of look amputated to me and not glorious. And my computer is my best friend, so it's gotta look good and nostalgic. Plus there's increased room for better circulation and cooling and the motherboards come with more features. And I like placing dinner plates on my case while I play video games and am too lazy to carry the remains of my dinner downstairs to the kitchen.

What's your budget?
Looks like we're trying to build the same thing

It started off with "How about $1,000?", but now it's more like "Whacha got?"

I will definitely not be spending more than $3,000 and probably not more than $2,000. I want to pack a punch while remaining slightly economical. I'm thinking $1,500ish with an error margin of 30%ish

 

[Zelig]

Plus there's increased room for better circulation and cooling

Not really, the new Mac Pro outperforms pretty much anything with less than two physical CPUs and has best-in-class cooling:

 

[Quintillus]

I wouldn't use any plain HDD for any OS/app/game installs (ie. anything but media). Seagate has some hybrid drives or sandisk sells a caching SSD you can use with any drive. It's too bad Apple has the best SSD caching implementation with their Fusion drives, with nothing equivalent on PC.

Ideally, yes, installing everything on an SSD would be great. But it's also a lot more expensive. In a day when a single game can take 15 GB without mods, sometimes more, the SSD space gets eaten up quickly. I think the 256 GB SSD + hard drives for the rest is a good combo. It's enough SSD to install your most commonly used stuff comfortably, but while still keeping the price pretty moderate. Add another 512 GB SSD in 18 months when it's half the price per GB if you decide you want more stuff on the SSD.

The hybrid drive is an interesting one. Compared to a regular notebook drive, it's not that much more expensive, either. It's kinda low on flash, though (8 GB I think?), so it's a bit of a harder sell in a desktop. mSATA SSDs are another option - I'm not sure if the Sandisk one you mentioned is mSATA or not. I don't know as much about them as the Seagate hybrids, but they do tend to be larger, more like 20 GB, and thus can cache more. Only downside is you need drivers for them - I think Windows 7+ supports mSATA, not sure about Linux.

I'd forgotten that AMD cards' prices were high due to mining, but you're right about that. At the high end, it isn't a great time to buy AMD. The low end cards are still competitive, but they aren't going to compete with a GTX 780, either.

Not really, the new Mac Pro outperforms pretty much anything with less than two physical CPUs and has best-in-class cooling:

But Apple also specifically designed the whole computer so that would work. It is really impressive, but you can't expect an off-the-shelf case with off-the-shelf components inside to do the same thing. The new Mac Pro really shows the advantage of having so much of the process integrated.

I went ATX on my computer, in part because I felt like I should build at least one ATX computer. It's served me well, but it's relatively big and relatively heavy (though friends who built them in the '90s say it's relatively light). mini-ATX probably would have been just fine. But, on the other hand, I also have plenty of space for it. So that isn't an issue, and it makes it pretty easy to swap in a new hard drive and such. I hadn't thought of using it to store dinner plates - I typically use mine as a resting place for my headphones when I'm not wearing them.

 

[Zelig]

Performance justifies the expense. If I really needed more space than possible on SSD I'd get a 4TB drive and set up a 128GB SSD as a cache drive for it.

The Sandisk caching drive isn't msata (and 32GB vs. 8GB for Seagate's hydrid drives and 128GB for Apple's), but I don't know why you'd want msata in a desktop. You don't need particular drivers for msata it connects to the same host controller as a standard sata drive, but I don't know of any desktop cases that have mounting points for msata drives or if any ATX or mATX mobos have plugs for them.

You need software for the SSD caching function other than in a hybrid drive, Sandisk includes them, or Intel has some, or there are others if you're on an AMD platform.

But Apple also specifically designed the whole computer so that would work. It is really impressive, but you can't expect an off-the-shelf case with off-the-shelf components inside to do the same thing. The new Mac Pro really shows the advantage of having so much of the process integrated.

Well you can't build anything similar with off-the-shelf components, I'm just using it for my point that bigger doesn't necessarily mean better cooling. The Silverstone FT02 has pretty unmatched cooling, but that's because the entire bottom of the case is fans - any standard case has a ton of empty space that isn't contributing anything to cooling performance.

 

[illram]

I have been mainly looking at ATX cases. The NZXT H440 Mid-Tower has struck my fancy, but I've been way too distracted and busy lately to really do much research.

There are some weird things about it, like no large bays at all (not a big deal and in many ways kinda cool), it has stuff for watercooling built in (and that's not something I'm after, but could come in handy in the future), and the PSU gets installed in a strange way somehow (potentially an issue?), but other than that it seems mightily sexy.. For $119CDN it seems like a steal.

I have looked at a couple Temjin cases and they all look nice, but for the most part kinda pricy. The cheaper ones were cheaper, but the front wasn't as sexy. Sexyness seems to be important to me, I guess.. I mean.. I might as well make it look sexy if it's going to be something I'm going to be spending the next 5-8 years with, right? But then I don't want to spend $300 on the case either, so it limits my options somewhat.

If someone could convince me that the bays don't matter and that the seemingly unorthodox power supply installation is not a big deal, and that the potentially built in lights or lighting system or whatever the review might have been alluding to or explaining when I glossed through it isn't too annoying and that my office will be dark when I turn off my office light.. then I should be almost 100% on board with getting this case, because I like the way it looks just so much.

edit: I'm partial to ATX because small cases just sort of look amputated to me and not glorious. And my computer is my best friend, so it's gotta look good and nostalgic. Plus there's increased room for better circulation and cooling and the motherboards come with more features. And I like placing dinner plates on my case while I play video games and am too lazy to carry the remains of my dinner downstairs to the kitchen.



It started off with "How about $1,000?", but now it's more like "Whacha got?"

I will definitely not be spending more than $3,000 and probably not more than $2,000. I want to pack a punch while remaining slightly economical. I'm thinking $1,500ish with an error margin of 30%ish

If that's the case you like, go for it if the reviews are good. Like you, I also tend to like minimalist designs like that NZXT, which is why I usually like Lian Li and Fractal Design cases. If you are still curious, do some window shopping on Newegg at their stuff to see if any strike your fancy.

Just remember that good temps are more about airflow than size. General rule of thumb: intake cold air from the front and bottom of the case, exhaust hot air out the back and the top. Hence most modern cases placing the PSU at the bottom of the case, like the NZXT. A well designed small case will easily outperform a poorly designed or poorly outfitted big case. The Bitfenix Prodigy got glowing reviews for temps and airflow, as did the Fractal Design Define Mini. (And the Define Mini looks like that NZXT.)

 

[Zelig]

Yeah, I like Lian Li too, my current home server build is in a Lian Li PC-V354 case, it's mATX, but it still has room for 1 x 5.25", 7 x 3.5", 4 x 2.5".

Spoiler :

I like pcpartpicker better than newegg for sorting through cases, I find the filtering options better. (ie. it lets me filter away any cases with 5.25" slots)

 

[warpus]

Hey, it seems a plate would fit on your case. I still like the one I picked out though, I'm feeling good about it.

Pcpartpicker seems like a godsend.

 

[Quintillus]

Performance justifies the expense. If I really needed more space than possible on SSD I'd get a 4TB drive and set up a 128GB SSD as a cache drive for it.

The Sandisk caching drive isn't msata (and 32GB vs. 8GB for Seagate's hydrid drives and 128GB for Apple's), but I don't know why you'd want msata in a desktop. You don't need particular drivers for msata it connects to the same host controller as a standard sata drive, but I don't know of any desktop cases that have mounting points for msata drives or if any ATX or mATX mobos have plugs for them.

You need software for the SSD caching function other than in a hybrid drive, Sandisk includes them, or Intel has some, or there are others if you're on an AMD platform.

I don't actually know how common mSATA is in desktops. The midrange Z68 motherboard I bought in 2011 had an mSATA slot built in, and I kind of figured it would become more common with time, but I haven't followed motherboards closely since I don't need a new one anymore, and that trend may not have happened.

The caching SSD does sound like a decent option to consider, and one that would be pretty reasonable in cost, too.

 

[GoodGame]

I also use the Logitech G13 for gaming, but just DOTA2. The pros for it is that it uses ergonomic key spacing. The cons were it took a while to break in, and then it loss some activation (i.e. have to push keys harder). Next time I look for such a device again, I will probably look out for mechanical activation keys (e.g. currently only Razer does that for these mini-keyboards).

@Zelig, so you use the home server as your PC as well, or is it just the most external part of your network?