Every half a decade or so, I upgrade my computer. I expect this to last at least 4-5 years, and since I do video editing and YouTube basically as a part time job, I'm not afraid to go all-out.
Here's what I have so far: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/angstrom/saved/gcYfrH
Looking for advice on:
PSU: I've been out of the PC market for a while, so I'm not familiar with the best brands. I've heard Seasonic is among the best. I really wanted a multi-rail PSU, but all the ones I've found that have what I'm looking for are either poorly rated or are from brands I'm very unfamiliar with (Enermax? Lepa?). However, from what I understand, Seasonic is very reliable and shouldn't be an issue. Needs to be fully moduluar, 1200w+, top quality.
CPU Cooler: I've been happy with Corsair AIO water coolers in the past, but I'm not sure which are the best at the moment. Needs to fit 2x 120mm fans on the top.
RAM: My current comp has 16GB which seems to be enough. For editing video, is 32GB necessary? I could always upgrade later, the x99-Deluxe has 8 slots.
Motherboard: I'm not scared off by the bad reviews on this one, seems like most are just from DOAs. Not sure if this is really the best one though. I've made the mistake of getting a cheapo motherboard before, never again! Really want the best, not worried about paying for it. Should I go with E-ATX? I'm thinking about future 3-way-SLI and even airflow space with 2-way.
Have you looked at the Asus X99-E WS? It's a little more expensive, but if you're looking for superb reliability it might be better than the X99-Deluxe. It also has some crazy configuration that they claim allows it to have four full x16 PCIe slots. I'm not sure how that works considering that Intel doesn't sell any cpus with 64 PCIe lanes, but it might help if you plan to do 3 way SLI plus a couple other random expansion cards at some point.
Also, if you want to go with a Corsair AIO water cooler, that H105 is definitely your best bet. I have an H80i and an Asus mobo, and I have had many problems with the fan control in Corsair Link and the default Asus fan control software not playing nice together, so I would steer clear of the H100i.
Well, that is certainly a high end machine. Buying performance in reserve is generally not a very good idea with computer parts, but apperently you have much gold :D.
PSU: If you want to overclock and maybe add a third 980 later on (what are you doing, 4k gaming?) around 1200W sounds right. Seasonic is a safe bet since they are an oem for quality psus, with many brands the quality depends a bit on who their manufacturer is. Another good oem is superflower although their psus might seem like cheap knock off explosive devices if you dont know them (always with the blue leds O.o).
PSU efficiency goes up from 80+ to bronze, silver, gold, platinum, titanium, some platinum and titanium psus shut off their fan on low load since they only produce a dozen or two watts of heat at that point. A little bit higher quality would be this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151140&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
Cpu cooler: If you are going for performance a custom loop would obviosly be better, but you probably dont want to bother with that. A thicker rad like the h100i might be 1 or 2 C° cooler, other then that you could go with a 280mm rad.
Ram: I really think you should save some money here. four sticks of 4gb 2133 mhz cas 15 ram cost only a third of your 3000mhz cas 15 ram. While the more expensive ram would be a bit better for your video editing I expect ddr4 to improve in the next one or two years. The 300 $ you save now would probably net you some better memory later on than 500 now.
Way overkill on the psu - I have a 1x gtx980 and overclocked watercooled rig and I struggle to pull 300w from the wall in benchmarks. You can get away with much, much less for your build. 800w seasonic / xfx unit would be more than adequate with bootloads of headroom.
Dont bother with arctic silver, what comes supplied with the corsair units is fine. Rest seems fine enough and will be a beast.
An overclocked 5960x alone can pull close to 350 watts and each GTX 980 can pull about 180 watts. Throw in the rest of his components and he could potentially pull close to 800 watts from the wall. This would be worst case (i.e. every component simultaneously stressed), but when you are investing this much into a system you definitely want some margin in your psu even for a worst case scenario. I think it would be well worth it to stick with what he has, as much as he's investing in his system, spending an extra 1-2% (of your total system cost) on a power supply for extra peace of mind is a very small price to pay.
378 load - 69 idle = 309 watts power consumption assuming the cpu uses 0 watts at idle. Obviously the cpu will draw some power at idle so I just rounded the load power consumption up to 350 watts.
EDIT: Yes the 350 watt figure was deduced from total system consumption, but the load power consumption was measured in a prime95 run (stresses CPU) and compared to the idle load and the difference in power was assumed to be the increased power consumption of just the CPU. When you account for nominal idle power consumption, the total power consumption of just the overclocked 5960x approaches 350 watts.
pcpartpicker states .... Estimated Wattage: 619W .... even more if you OC the CPU and OC the GPUs under full load ... I would not use less than an 850w PSU Gold cert and overkill on PSU is a good thing IMO
plus I would add another nas drive and run them in raid 10
I would consider the 5930K cpu if it is to be a gamer instead of the slower 8 core CPU
A overclocked 980 can use around 250 watts and he is thinking about going tripple sli, so I think 1200 watts is quite adequate.
Sure we are talking about worst case, synthetic load peak power usage, but if he is gonna fraps his 4k gameplay while rendering a video (something you can do with a 16 threads of pure bliss) I dont see a reason to stress out a smaller psu just to save 1% build cost.
I totally agree a large wattage psu for the extreme realms of everything being heavily oc'd (not that op mentions he intends to do this) & pushed to its limits and 3 gpus + full water loop cause it'll need it ( i just looked at the build list and failed to notice plans for a 3rd card ~ my bad).
Ran my reference 980 to a moderate oc of 1446 boost core and ran some quick consumption testing just before.
system - cpu 100% load (prime) = 190w || 980 stock firestrike ultra=298w || 980 oc firestrike ultra=339w
gpu ~ 10w idle
(my psu is also bronze as well so account for that and includes d5 pump + lighting + 11 fans, 1 ssd & 2 hdds)
I pick up the waterblock for it tomorrow and I give it some more thrashing but these things sip the power they really do.
platinum 1000 watt PSU (should be all you need. tri SLI is the pointless)
Noctua fans.. (personal preference, but based on excellent personal experience)
Added a 128 GB SSD as a windows drive. Leaves full bandwidth available on other drives and provides a bit added data security (less use means longer life span, and you can easily reinstall windows if you need to)
Opted for lower CAS latency ram instead of just highest frequency (also saved you money coincidentally)
As a personal note, I would change all the fans to noctua at this budget. They give the best performance/noise ratio in my opinion. Even though they remain quiet, they still perform exceedingly well.
For the PSU I've decided to stay with the 1250w just to be safe in the case of overlcocking, to future proof it, and I wouldn't want a lower wattage PSU to be running near it's max capacity even if it could handle it.
For the RAM, I decided to get the cheaper 16GB 2400 MHz at 15 cas, since it looks like some much better ram is coming out soon at both higher frequencies and lower timings. Response time (calculated it) for the new ram would be about 12.5ns as opposed to the 3000 MHz which was about 10. But with DD4, quad channel, and more pins, it's still going to be way faster than my current computer with 1600 MHz @ 7 cas.
For motherboard I decided to switch to the Asus Rampage V for the overclocking features. Also added Noctura fans for the side of the case. Looks like there's some specials ending soon on some of these parts so I'll probably be ordering at least those now and probably build the computer some time in the next couple weeks. If anyone else has suggestions there, is still room for a bit of change but I think that list is pretty much final. I'll have to post a build video, last couple I made time lapses which were fun.