I hope you can help me convincing my friend what I am telling him.
This is his build so far: i5-4670k msi z87-g45 (Gaming edition) corsair vengeance LP ram 2x8 gb 1600mhz Hyper 212 EVO Corair RM 850W Samsung 840 EVO 120GB Western digital caviar green 2tb (NZXT Phantom)
GTX 780 TI
The last part is my case of concern and I hope that one of you can help me. I think that he shouldn't pay this much for this tiny bit of performance he maybe can't use, also because his maximum resolution is 1920:1080 and 75hz. I recommend hem the R9 x290 because its much cheaper and than he has money for a screen/keyboard/better ram. Is the i5-4670k not a bottleneck for a 700 euro GTX 780 TI? Does he need water cooling?
I really hope for good arguments and also feedback on the whole build.
I agree that he should not get a 780Ti, it is not worth the price for 1080p gaming. The 780Ti is more designed for 1440p. I would recommend that he gets a 780 (the Asus one IMO) and overclock it. The value proposition of an overclocked 780 is better for 1080p. The R9 290x could also be viable but not recommended at the moment
As for the other questions:
The i5 should not bottleneck the card too bad.
No water cooling is not needed as the non reference cards have fantastic cooling already
1080p gaming will be just fine currently with the 290 or even the non ti version of the 780. Those cards should allow for max details in games of today with no issues. The 780 ti is a nice card however it is pricy.
That i5 wouldn't be a bottleneck for any of those cards in gaming scenarios.
No one NEEDS water cooling, unless your are wanting to do dramatic overclocking, want more silent operation or lower temperatures. Water is a much better conductor of heat and radiators have, in general, more surface area to transfer the heat to the air than most air coolers. That being said, I think water cooling is one of the "coolest" upgrades for the vast majority of geeks like us. And I recommend it in most of my builds for clients, although few take that option as it does add a significant amount to the cost of the computer.
I dont think that motherboard can crossfire. Get a cheaper lower wattage psu. I recommend a decent 550-600w. RM550, Seasonic, corsair, or xfx should be just fine.
i5 will not be bottlenecked with a 780ti or 290x. I would just go with a 780, though.
If he's new, just do some nice air cooling like the noctua nh-d14
That motherboard can Crossfire though. It has 3 PCIE 3.0 slots/ They will run at x8/x8 which is perfectly fine for Crossfire/SLI. They will also run at x8/x4/x4 which you could prob get away with if you wanted a triple card setup
There isn't a GPU on the market (for the next 5 years, FOR SURE) that an i5 would bottleneck... it's a nice processor...
Biggest problem I see in it's the 5400 RPM HDD and overkill 850w PSU... if he wants the 780ti, let him get it... it'll last a little longer than the 780... if he ever upgrades to 1440p he might be able to push it... does he need it? no... for 1080p anything over a GTX 770 is overkill.... does he need 16GB of ram, no... is it handy with video processing, virtualization, and multitasking? sure it is...
Bottom line, if you have the money to blow and you want something that'll make you happy... buy it... I'd rather overbuild than regret a $500+ purchase... that being said... the regular 780's a beast and they have significantly overclocked models of that card available as well... all of them will spit out 85+ FPS on BF4 ultra
Watercooling's overrated, expensive, requires maintenance, and can kill your whole computer if not installed correctly... for the extra 2-400mhz of overclock (which really isn't a huge real life performance boost), not worth it in my book... people always say it runs quieter but every radiator I've heard is significantly louder than my Enermax fans... which I guess any noise is louder cause I can't hear them...