Time to move away from my 6 core AMD and a GTX 670
This PC is going to be used for Blender, Photoshop and various other productivity applications.
I also play a wide variety of games: Unity games, AAA games, older stuff like Fallout and TES and CS:GO.
General recommendations and a boot SSD recommendation.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gwVyBm
Curious to see why you're going with that noctua instead of a NH-D14 or NH-D15 (both of which are no more than roughly $20 more expensive)?
Also bump because I'd also like to see what SSDs people'd recommend for a boot drive nowadays.
I am not really sure what Noctua Cooler I should grab, do you have any recommendations?
The NH-D15 seems to be the king of air coolers pretty much atm, at elas that's what I've heard. Check some benchmarks.
If you go with the NH-D14 or D15, just remember those things are HUGE. So check compatibility for ram clearance, and make sure your case can actually fit it. If you need to go with a single heatsink cooler, the nh-u14s is fantastic.
My favorite SSD thus far is the Kingston Hyperx 3k, I forget if there is a new version of this. Also would be worth looking at the Samsung 850 EVO and the Intel 750.
Otherwise, nice build!
That power supply is WAY overkill. and the green drive isn't really a storage drive(as in reading games/files from all day) I think you should do a Samsung 840 evo and a 1-2tb wd black and a xfx 650 gold rated powersupply
The HDD are already purchased, have been for a few years.
I know the PSU is overkill, but that means it will never go over 50% usage and the fan will never turn on.
Good point, if you plan on SLI'ing another 980 in the future, it is worth having something that high in wattage though.
if you don't go over 50% you are wasting the platinum rating. i have the xfx unit i linked i never hear it running over the 980 acx 2.0 cooler. it has active fan shut off as well when.
the way the ratings work is above 80% usage it is bronze gold w/e below that it could be worse then if you were to have a smaller unit running 90% at gold rating. the platinum doesn't suffer from that but it is till over kill and a waste of extra money. and I doubt you would even use 30% of a 1000w unit making it even more inefficient.
@Masterfulliam if you want two 980 i would probably go with a gold rated 750
Once again, the PSU choice is about silence, I know it's inefficient and a lot more than I need.
If you know a silent 800-750 Watt PSU, please enlighten me.
1) i'd take closed liquid loop cooling they are better, take less space, and so on.
2) for animation you'd be better with amd, it has more power and renders faster than nvidia (3dsmax expierance + opencl performance)
3) You don't need 1k psu... in your place i'd take 700W Gold/Plat enermax or some silent ones.
Blender usually prefers Nvidia for rendering, I have a student copy of 3DS Max but I never use it because I have no where to learn how to use it right now.
Any specific PSUs you recommend?
I don't know if you saw my link but here it is for the one i suggested. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207031
It doesn't really matter. just trying to save you a few bucks.
actually on most psu's 50% is the sweet spot for efficiency go look up any load/efficiency test....and to get a platinum rating it has to be 90% efficent at 20% load, 92% at 50% load and 89% at 100%load
i'd take some closed loop cooling... like corsair h80 or something of that level... you won't regret it. Trust me, im a dolphin.
Linus Tech Tips did a comparison between this Noctua Cooler and some closed loop coolers, and they didn't stand a chance. Closed loop coolers are also louder, because of their pumps.
I have never trusted aquatic mammals and I am not about to start.
that test is flawed, as it takes test in open environment where they stress only cpu.
Try stressing whole PC, memory, gpu, cpu and psu... you'll see closed loops preform better as they do not push hot air on other components as they can't by design. While those... they take a lot of space and heat up everything near.
My points about silence still stand, and that takes priority for me with this build.
To each their own. :)