I'm planning to get a new gaming PC. And this time I'm going to build it myself (for the first time), therefore I would love get some input from you guys :)
I've filled out the sticky questions, to help you see what I'm looking for.
Budget. How much are you willing to spend? ~1500€ / ~2000$
Where do you live (what country), and what currency do you use? Denmark, prefer € or DKR
Do you need or already have peripherals? Already have monitor, keyboard, mouse & headset
What will you be using your future computer for? Mainly gaming, but also online poker (huge poker database)
Do you overclock or want to get into overclocking? Never overclocked
Do you plan on going for custom watercooling now, or in the future? No
OS. Do you need a new one? I would like Windows 8
Do you plan on Mining BTC either for yourself or Tek Syndicate? No
If you Game-
What kind of settings do you like or what FPS do you want to play at? Max
What resolution will you be playing at? //or would like to play at. Would like to play 1920x1200
What kind of games do you like to play? Civilization 5, League of Legends, CS:Go. I'm planning to get new games when I get my new rig though (as my current one, can't play the really resource intensive ones)
I would really like the machine to be silent as possible.
I'm a bit in doubt how much noise the GPU makes, but all the geforce cards seem to have only 1 fan, while the radeon cards seem to have more custom fans. So thought the radeon cards might be less noisy, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
You've hit the nail on the head. Your proposed build is a really silent design, and comes with nice amount of SSD capacity. Really good choice of SSD, it's the same one I have. I can understand avoiding the use of noisy HDDs, but that 256GB might fill up quickly. Be prepared, you might have to buy a second SSD, to meet your possible requirement.
I know you said that you do not wish to overclock, but I would still spend the extra to get the "K" edition of your chosen processor. You might want to overclock in future, or if you choose to sell your rig, the K edition would fetch a higher value. Very little reason to place a non-k processor on such an expensive overclocking Z87 motherboard.
The ASUS cooler on the card is one of the best aftermarket coolers. Runs more silent than most.
If you want to max out some of the newer AAA titles, I would advise upgrading to the 7950. It's a very good card, balanced. It has 3GB of Vram which you can use for mods, multiple monitor, or higher resolutions. BUt, the 7870 is a good card. The 7870 will handle league and civ 5 really easily.
@Beserker: Thanks for your response, good to hear I'm heading in the right direction (lurked a bit on the forums). I actually forgot to add to add an HDD for extra storage (using SSD only for storage, might be a little too expensive for me) and the added noise won't be that much of an issue. Any good HDD's you can recommend?
I've never played around with overclocking, but it's perhaps something I should start looking into, so I will consider getting the K edition.
Btw. I forgot to add, I actually run 2 monitors (19" and 26"), but only one of them used while gaming (the other one is just showing my desktop). So I assume it's not something that is taking alot more resources?
If you grab an ASUS motherboard with your 4670K, you will encounter something called one-click-overclocking (that is what I call it...). It will automatically set your clock speed at either 4.2, 4.4, or 4.6. This can be done from the BIOS. It is definitely recommended, it is free additional performance. A safe overclock of 4.2 is all that is needed for a gaming system, this will output less heat than higher overclocks.
I am unsure if the MSI motherboard has this feature. I found this feature on my ASUS ROG Hero Z87. The Hero is a good motherboard, but lacks certain wifi features and bluetooth found in other motherboards.
Most HDDs are the same. I would recommend either Western Digital caviar blues as a standard drive, or the caviar black for extra warranty. Both are offered in 1TB and 2TB, I believe.
If you use one monitor for gaming, the second will not take up any resources from your GPU. If you use your second monitor for browsing the internet while you game, this will have more impact on your RAM. However, 8GB of 1600 is more than sufficient for gaming whilst having dozens of internet browser windows/tabs open.
If you are sourcing parts from Germany, near your location. PC partpicker has an option in the top right to select Deutschland. This will be easier for calculating your parts in Euros (I know Denmark uses the Krone), and it will show you a number of websites to purchase components from. This might be more convenient for you?
Depending on where you live in denmark. Sweden is pretty close. We have a store called netonnet (Netonnet.se) that sells computer components very cheap. I tried finding better prices on amazon.co.uk but i saved about 20$ at most. So if you are willing to drive for about an hour you can get the parts from there.
i also found a fanless gtx 680 http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/First-Fanless-GeForceGTX-680-Displayed-8.jpg/
edit with this psu as long as you are using under 300w this psu( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151105&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID= ) will not use its fan. thus its silent under 300w. So if your online or watching movies your psu will not make any noise.
Just used PCpartpicker as it was what they suggested in the sticky. I might look into buying parts from germany, UK or sweden. However if there is not much to be saved, I might just buy from danish vendors, as it will be alot more convenient if something has to be returned etc.
@Beserker: One-click-overclocking definitely sounds like something for me (if I decide to go that route). Will overclocking decrease lifetime of the CPU or is it not something that's significant?
@TeSekr: Never heard of the site, but I'll check it out, thanks for the suggestion.
@Akira49: Why would you go with i7 when the system is mainly used for gaming. Wouldn't it be a bit of a waste? The fanless gtx 680 looks cool, but I bet it's very expensive?
Running a higher voltage on your chip can diminish its life. It is advisable to overclock the chip within safe limits.
In terms of heat output, anything above 80 degrees will shortened the life of the chip (Intel). Most overclockers will keep their chip well within safe temperatures. E.g around (or under) 60 degrees C. What level of overclock you can achieve will be dependent on your choice of cooling.
One click overclocking to a mild value of 4.2 will be highly beneficial. It will enhance your gaming performance, usually raising your minimum FPS, whilst producing a low enough temperature that it won't stress your CPU.
By all means, buy from Danish vendors. I thought the cost of the system calculated in Euros on PC Partpicker would have been beneficial to you. Opposed to using UK or US prices.
Asus's gimmick is available for other motherboards. It's nothing new, I had this kind of software on an old lga775 gigabyte. It's only gotten better, and it's easy for noobs to overclock without risking anything.
Any z87 board can overclock. The CPUs can't, and there isn't any tangible difference for gaming. If you want silent, keep it stock, you won't need the extra heat. By the way, haswells are way hotter than older gen intel extreme and fx 8350. Buying that and with the money saved you can add some nice antiphon foam (akasa, cooltek, nexus, etc.). That and big and low rpm fans are what true silent PCs are made of.
Remember to use power saving feautures as much as possible. I'm very happy with my 4770, much cooler and efficient when browsing the web, reading and idle than my old Core 2 Duo. I've also underclocked and undervolted my GPU on 2d settings, the only fan I can hear is the PSU fan. To fix that I would buy a nice Nexus or whatever brand noiseless PSU (low heat, fan won't kick in most of the time 0db)
You can always look for passive cooling. There was even one case modder guy a while back who built a case out of a block of alluminum and copper pipes, and everything is passively cooled by a big massive heatsink, no sound at all (using SSD).
I see you've got a pretty big cooler, but tjmax on haswells is 105, full load in synthetics is around 80 with stock cooler. Haswell is very stable and alive, very much so, at high temps, that's how it was built (think of notebook cooling, how every mainstream laptop reaches 60 with no sweat). The temperature is not the problem when overclocking, the voltage is, because of the "FIVR".
I don't see the point in overclocking a silent PC, when it's good as it is, but whatever.
If you want to play around and learn, this platform is the worst you can do it on. You won't learn anything, everything is automated, there's software that does it for you, haswells don't overclock that much compared to older CPUs, you'd be better off getting an older rig pre-2009, and pushing that to the max (while trying not to break it, otherwise it defeats the purpose)