A build

Give me your most harshest criticism you've ever given anyone teksyndicate.

 

Core - i7-4770k

Motherboard - MSI Z87-GD65-Gaming

Video card - Gigabyte 4gb GTX 770

Case - H440

Power - Toughpower 80+ Gold 750

HDD - WD Green EZRX 1TB (x2 raid 0)

RAM - 8gb KIT 1600 Kingston HyperX

SSD - HyperX SSD 240gb

CPU cooler - Hyper 212X

Soundcard - Xonar DX

 

Grand total of $2120.

1.   Tell me if you know any similar parts but less expensive, or just generally any way to tone down my pricing. Keep in mind I live in Australia, so forget about amazon buying, the shipping cost is fucking 100 extra bucks

2.   I have another mother board up for the choosing, that is the GA-Z87X-UD5H, it is a gigabyte motherboard and it's very similar, more expensive but the same brand as the GPU. I've heard that picking the same brand GPU and mobo makes the world of a difference but I'm not to sure.

3.   I was looking at the i7-4771 but it was a locked multiplier chip so I went with the i7-4770k, for the future when games start getting bigger and really intense, is this a bad move? The i7-4771 is cheaper so...

4.   Can I get some input from you guys that have tried PC's with and without soundcards? Is it really that great?

5.   I have two 1680x1050 screens, I actually need help on how to split DVI-D ports to two monitors

 

EDIT: Before you ask what I'm going to be doing with this rig; everything. Yes that's right, music mixing and making, video editing, gaming, small server hositng (especially concerned with 16 player arma2/3 servers), etc etc. Apsalute budget of $2500 and perhaps slightly over, would like it to be around 1850-2000

so you are telling me that you are spending 2k on a PC and you have 1680x1050 screens?!?

What i did with the build, is i cut some corners but still retaining the same level of performance, with quality parts and everything OC ready, but with a smaller price tag, so i could add a nice monitor for you

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3ae7o

Improvements:

Better cpu cooling

16 GB of ram compared to 8

2 TB of space in RAID1 compared to 1

250GB SSD with as fast or faster operation as the hyperX 3k

a 1080P monitor with 1 ms response time

all for around 2250$ au

hope i helped :)

I would agree with hoocee on the RAM and the screen. Especially for video editing since 1080p is the most common resolution when it comes to gaming and videos.

You could save a few bucks on the NT. Even with maxed out overclocking on GPU and CPU the NT will just have to provide about 400 Watts. So everything with 500 Watts or more will be perfectly fine.

That's all I have to add.

I've had bad experiences with the R9 series, they don't seem all that great either. I don't really care for a better monitor, those things are easily bought in the future, for now my two screens are fine. Seagate barracudas are apparently really shitty quality for hard drives, and fail a fair bit. The WD Green EZRX SATA3 2TB is actually a doller cheaper than the 2TB seagate. the MS response times are just a marketing gimmick, a 5ms delay to a 1ms delay is so very very tiny in difference it doesn't even matter(Besides one of my current screens is already a 2ms delay screen).

Yeah, I really only picked the hyperX SSD because it's named the same as my RAM and CPU cooler...

Are you sure that 650w power supply will suffice for your version of the build? Will it suffice for my version?

  • Don't get a soundcard. Get a DAC and amplifier if anything.
  • Get 16 GB of RAM if you're doing editing.
  • The 4770K has a poor price to performance ratio. Perhaps the AMD FX-8350 or 8320 is a better option.

AMD chip...

bought one once. Once.

Seriously, never again, it overheats like crazy and the performance is just not matching with similar intel chips that supposidly perform the same.

Why not get a soundcard? Any particular bad experience or you just think a DAC or an amplifier will perform just as good for a cheaper price or something? I'm still going to be using FL studio to create some beats and I also listen to a lot of music (Like some 2k songs or something)

I have no experience with the Xonar card, but I do have a Soundblaster Zx and it definitely kills the onboard sound on my Rampage IV Formula. That being said, if I had been smart I would have gotten the Mayflower USB DAC had I known anything about it before. I still love my Zx, but I think I should have spent the money on the DAC.

hes playing arma so intel is obvious the better choice. He also does video editing and stuf, in my opinnion an i7 would be a good choice for him overall. if he also does productivity. psu is a bit overkill basicly 650W would be more then enough. i will look what i can make for the money.

Do you prefer any color scheme?

AMD chips generally have a much higher price to performance for medium priced CPUs compared to Intel. The CPU you got is not indicative of all AMD CPUs.

Soundcards add unnecessary noise to your audio. A DAC and amplifier setup will produce the most true audio experience. If you want more bass or certain equalisation, use software to perform it, rather than having your hardware corrupt all your audio signals.

Especially if you're doing sound production, you want the audio you hear to be most representative of it's composition. A sound card will distort this representation to give you a false perception of the music you hear. Again, if you like a certain equalisation, software does exactly the same thing as a soundcard.

Update: I will eventually move to one or two 2560x1600 monitors. Are you guys sure a 650w is enough? It doesn't seem very great for the future either...

Thank you so much, that Mayflower looks amazing :D although significantly more expensive.

i made this option1: http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3aAZX

Its arround $100 more then your original build, But thease components are worth it. 650W is more then enough for a single gpu setup, unless you wanne go into CF/sli, then an 750/850W would be recommended. 

I will also look for a cheaper build in an moment

Cheaper option2: http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3aBCV

Cheaper option3: http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3aBxA

An R9-290 will blow a GTX770 out of the water, especialy with the resolutions you plan to game on in the future.

Thanks for the builds, they look nice and solid.

Also, what about two 2gb GTX 770's vs a R9-290?

Well if you play games that are good optimized for it, then a GTX770 sli is very nice, but, you also gonne need a 750W psu then. But remember there are also games, that are not working great with sli/cf setups and thats gonne be a pain in the ass. Also you can only run a sli setup on hasswell at 8x but thats not realy an issue.

I personaly more a fan of a single highend gpu setup, but for the price of the 2x770 you could also buy a  GTX-780Ti. But the GTX780ti is offcourse the best single gpu on the market right now, but, the R9-290 is not that far behind especialy on highres gaming, concidering the price diffrence. i guess its not worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfAzZjzVcXE

Fair enough! Thank you so much for telling me about those differences, I never would have understood it otherwise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU0yadKm328

Crysis 3 realy kill graphic cards you can see how close.