Joe's (hopefully) awesome gaming PC

Hardware Build a PC
1

Hey Guys,

I have recently delved into the world of PC gaming by spending hours on researching a great build that could carry me through the next generation of games. I would like to play all games on maxed out settings 60 fps and above. My Budget is about 2500$ and i have just recently reached that target amount. ( I am actually 33$ over so dont tell my mom.) well, here we go.

CPU: Intel i5 4670k

GPU: 2 EVGA Superclocked GTX 760s

PSU: Thermaltake Evo Blue 2.0 750w 80 plus gold

Case: Thermaltake chaser mk1

CPU Cooler: PHANTEKS PH-TC14PE_BL 5 x?8mm Dual Heat-Pipes Dual 140mm Premium Fans and Quiet CPU Cooler with Patented P.A.T.S Coating

RAM: Kingston Hyperx Blu 16gb 2x8gb

SSD: Samsung 840 Pro series 256gb

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1tb

MOBO: Asus MAXIMUS 6 Hero

Mouse: ROCCAT Kone XTD

Keyboard: Corsair K70 (Silver Edition)

Disc Drive: ASUS 24xDVD-RW serial ATA Drive

Monitor: ASUS VG248QE 24 inch led lit screen

OS: Windows 8 professionial System Builder

Headset: Leftover Astro 60 headset (not part of budget)

Mousepad: Roccat Sense chrome gaming mousepad

That is pretty much it... if you happen to be adding up the value and something dosent seem right there are a couple reaons why. 1. I split these parts between amazon and newegg to maximize value. 2. I left out a few inconsequential items like static wristband and thermal compound.

I entrust this build to this forum of gamers and geeks to be evaluated and critiqued..

Thank you in advance,

Joe

 

 

2

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1mqDS

I'd go for 1440p and a 780, if I were you.

4670k and MVIG; mATX is more expansion than you will ever need on Haswell, plus, fantastic overclocking, especially with the PH-TC14PE and PK1 I threw in there.

Zotac 780; cheapest reference 780 I found. More than enough power for 1440p, which is 80% more pixels than 1080p.

16GB of G.SKILL Sniper 1866mHz CL9 1.5V memory in 8GB sticks, so you can max out your system later to 32GB. Low profile, looks great, cheapish.

256GB ADATA SX900 SSD; not quite as fast as the 840 Pro, about 10-15 MB/s slower, if I recall correctly, but a great price for 500 MB/s+ on reads and writes.

Silverstone TJ08B-E; the best mATX case for the price. Gorgeous, well built, and just a feature packed little case.

Your same keyboard and mouse, but the 1440p Asus PB278Q, which is a fantastic monitor. If you want to save even more money, you could get some cheap Korean IPS or PLS 1440p panel on Ebay for maybe $200 to $100 cheaper, depending on which one you get.

This is what I'd buy were I building a pure gaming rig off of Haswell.

3

Hey Brennan,

-Thanks for the constructive criticism however the teo 760s at about 500-520$ easily outperform the gtx 780 at about 150$ less they also trade blows with the GTX TITAN a 1000$ card http://www.techoftomorrow.com/2013/pc/nvidia-gtx-760-2-way-sli-performance-benchmarks-evga-gigabyte/ 

-Furthermore many people say that 1080p is the most natural pixel density for the human eye to look at and 1440p would require alot more graphical power to perform at max settings, especially for graphically straining next gen games.

-Also, i was really looking forward to using the thermaltake mk 1 as a full tower case as it possesses very good reviews and looks freaking awesome (it alos fits with my blue color) scheme 

-This build would alos force me to disregard the WD Caviar black in favor of 1 ssd and i only intened to use the ssd for games and my OS. The hdd would be for general storage.

So, thanks anyway, but no thaks, i think i will be sticking with my build in the end.

 

4

I could easily tighten the rig up to throw in an HDD, but if you are dead set on the 760 SLI, then be my guest.

Keep in mind, it wull use more power, generate more heat, give you much less room to expand, support less games, and be limited to 2GB of VRAM.

1440p is perfectly fine for human perception. It is the 4x monitors, at 30 to 33", taht everyone is making a fuss about. More pixels is better, really, but after a while, you can't see them any differently than a lower resolution. I highly recommond going 1440p, and if you were to go 1440p, to get a single 780. More VRAM, for the higher res, plenty of power to max out most games on 1440p, and you don't have no muck about with SLI, and the frame times/microstuttering.

I know that 760 SLI beats the 780, but you are sacrificing so much by going with two weaker cards when you can afford a better single card that will handle all of your needs and much more. To be fair, a singl 760 is overkill for a single 1080p screen.

Regardless of what the rest of your build is, you should get the Seasonic X650 PSU I listed, by the end of tomorrow. It is on sale for $80, and wipes the floor with most, if not all other PSUs for $80. Great ripple, around 20mV or less on all rails, and hitting 80+ Platinum on cold loads with graet load line regulation. If you get 760 SLI, get the X650 tomorrow. If you get a 780, which I highly, highly recommend, get the X650. It is massive overkill for your system, but at a great price.

5

-Other benchmarking sites reported litlle to none micro stuttering when the 760s were in sli mode. Also, even if microstuttering is present a monitor (such as the one i have) running a gmae at 60+ fps with a 144hz refresh rate will more tahn compromise for it.

-Furthermore, 2gb of VRAM is def enough for one monitor be it 1440p or 1080p, i mean crysis 3 on max settings only uses 1.2gb of vram and that is a beast of a game.

-For a 1440p monitor and a 780 is equivelent to 500 extra unnneded dollars spent.

-The reason i wanted a slightly higher PSU was so i could transport it to my next build without any issues.

-I did hoever skip a compressed water cooling system in favor of a sweet phantek air cooler that goes with my color scheme shown here  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OQJVP0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

-I alos watched some videos and read some reviews on 1440p gaming and i agree with you... it is the future. However the future is not ready yet, meaning i probaby will only partake in 1440p gaming when i mid-range GPU can easily run high-end games max settings at 60fps... we are close, just not there yet.

Thanks again,

Joe

6

My Skyrim uses over 3GB of VRAM easily, and that is at 1080p with lots and lots of mods.

I have that Phatheks unit, in black, and absolutely love it! PH-TC14PE love :) It was actually in the rig I posted originally.

In what way does having a larger PSU make it easier to move to your next rig? A 650W PSU will handle anf single-GPU and 99% of dual GPU situations out there with severe, severe overclocking.

7

Truthfully, i am little scared that i wont have enough power... I guess it is a little foolish... Any ways could you link me to that PSU you listed earlier... it seems like a great deal. ( STALKER ALERT) I checked out your profile and your rig seems awesome... but you posess an extremely overkill PSU... why? Also Is you monitor the VG248QE, just curious. You also seem like a very smart guy, and alot older than 16 (me) so why the 2400mhz RAM, having higher mhz ram is completely useless unless you take part in 3D adobe/scaleform projects, and even than. Also... i am adding you on Steam... same name. I think that is it.

8

Haven't updated my sig rig; I now have the Seasonic X650, the one I listed earlier.

And, it is a gorgeous, fantastic PSU :D

MADHGMO.jpg5168x2907

I have 2400mHz RAM because I got it on a great deal, and the Trident X modules are great for overclocking, with really tight timings.

And, no, I have a standard 60hZ Asus 24" that I have "overclocked" to around 80hZ refresh rate.

 

9

It looks like you've done a lot of homework. If you want 760 SLI, that is ideally suited to the monitor you have chosen, being 144Hz. I can understand many of the choices you have made.

However, with a budget of $2500, I feel you could do so much more.

This is a trade-off between some serious high-end performance, and having a gaming system which gives you all the trimmings, like extra SSD capacity.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1mwZC

I know I haven't left room for peripherals, but you can save money on the PSU (it is enough for dual 780s!), you can go without mass storage for at least a short while.

I know that you've said previously that 760SLI has a higher performance value than the 780/Titan. However, this is not the whole story. You can have issues with microstutter and other usual dual card complaints.

Don't feel that I am pushing you towards this. We all know that a nice little 1080p 60Hz with a single 760 is a really cool gaming system. But, this is what I would do, I don't know how helpful it will be to yourself. With this kinda of budget, you could even purchase a socket 2011 rig, for all kinds of crazy productivity performance, or future-proofing (I hate that term).

10

I'm telling you, get the X650 tonight or tomorrow before it gous back to full price.

LINK LINKITY LINK LINK.

 

11

Doesn't fit with myyy red and black theeeeme

 

Edit: I just saw the price. That is tremendous.

12

Cool, i am guessing with the case oyu went for the sleek and silent instead of my rugged/badass approach lol. I am considering changing to a less, how do i put this, obnoxiously awesonme case just to look more professionial but i dont know. Also... Steam Buddies? I sent you an invite.

 

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Hey add me on steam so we can chat faster than this please!!!

14

Also as i said before i am pretty set on a 1080p monitor and i did have some reasons for microstutter compensation. Your build, while pretty, compromises too much and the mouse/keyboard i am hoping for would put me WAYYYYY over budget.

15

Yep. Nothing wrong with that. I actually spent £2000+ here in the UK. I am using a fantastic £15 keyboard and mouse combo until the Roccat Ryos (mechanical keyboard) hits the market, and then I will pair that with the Kone XTD. So, there are ways that you can compromise. You might drop the HDD and buy that at a later time. Plenty of things you can do. But, it was just an idea.

I actually made one mistake with that build. I put high profile RAM in a cooler that doesn't offer enough clearance.

My other suggestion (I just reminded myself) is that you have a large enough budget to do some serious watercooling, too. So, it is really up to you how you allocate and balance everything.

Final thing, you only need 8GB of 1600 RAM for gaming. 16GB will be more costly, and it can hurt your performance if you buy 4x4 sticks and populate all your RAM slots.

16

I only bought 2x8gb sticks for that exact reason also for a little bit of a precaution for next-gen games, and watercolling, frankly, scares me to death. Would the cooler be a problem for the vengeance pro listed in my build? Currently the caviar black is 150.00$ off listed price so i want to snatch it up as soon as i can. Does that answer your questions?

17

The Vengeance Pro should be fine; it isn't terribly large, but I'd get G.SKILL Sniper on an aesthetic preference :|

18

2x 8GB is good, because then you are utilising dual channel memory. Only issue is that it has cost more than it really had to. Current generation gaming only uses about 4GB of RAM. But, you can do a good amount of editing with 16GB, if you're interesting in having a YouTube channel.

Well, if you go air cooling, you can always sell the unit when you decide to move onto watercooling. Whenever you're ready.

I believe the vengeance pro will be too tall for that cooler. I run Haswell and I have a Phanteks 12DX. It is the smaller version of the 14PE. Same aesthetic et cetera. It will allow for a reasonable overclock. But, if you do not want to compromise on thermal performance, you will have to change the RAM, unless someone else says otherwise.

19

Hey Berserker,

I cannot find you on steam and i checked your profile. Also the AMD 7950 would be a great alternative AND it has the same performance with 3gb of VRAM, however i have heard that crossfire is not that good compared to SLI and i cant utilize the awesome GeForce drivers or PHYsX that nvidia provides, what do you think. ?

 

20

My color scheme is blue so it wont go sadly :(