A couple of questions, that i didn't really figure out by myself:
- Planning on getting a GTX 980 - but there's a whole bunch of variants for this, with greatly varying prices. Which one would be best? Was reading reviews about Zotac AMP!, some say it's awesome, other's say it's meh.
- Going for DDR3 memory, since DDR4 (together with a mobo and CPU to support it) seems way of an overkill. Going for 8GB initially, might upgrade later - is it worth it to go above 1866Mhz memory?
Might have more questions later. Thanks in advance.
I am thinking like 100€ for the board, a i5-4690K for 200€ and some 8GB ram kit... no fancy water cooling, just a nice silent cooler for "something"...
I appreciate the help :wink:
Edit: Came across this just now and it seems that even the smallest i7 performs better :o
http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hardware/prozessoren/32452-intel-core-i5-4690k-im-test.html?start=10
German site but page 10 and 11 have the proper benchmarks.
1) Add 100 euros to GPU budget
Xeon E3-1231v3 is what I use. About 20€ more than i5-4690K but better and on par or very close to i7-4770K/4790K, where as the latter two are much more expensive.Yea, I had my eye on the E3, read about it as a tip for gamer. Certainly considering that CPU.
This was my build:(click to show/hide)
Used idealo.de with hardwareversand.de to get them parts cheaper.
Yea, I had my eye on the E3, read about it as a tip for gamer. Certainly considering that CPU.
Edit: idealo.de? hardwareversand.de? huh? You're German/Austrian? Always figured you as "Eastern Block" for some reason...
3 more questions - i'm not quite sure, but, right now all DDR3 memory is of the same slot type, right? Also, how big a PSU is it worth getting? And that latency = CL, right? Is CL11 okay?
What is the actual name of the CPU?E31230V3
You might aswell get a z-97 MOBO molly for like an extra £10That's fine tuning which I gonna do when I prepare the actual purchase. Right now I am just curious about the price developement around Xmas, curious if there actually is a price raise before it and a drop after it. Like a big change around 50€... I don't care if there are like 20€ more or less on the tap... not that strictly bound to the 500€ budget.
E31230V3
Looks like a very slightly slower 4770K with no integrated GPU. Might be a little risky if you don't have a spare GPU. Of course that means you need a mobo with DVI output if you want to be able to use the integrated graphics for whatever reason.
If I have learned anything on this forum then it is to never listen Kafein when it comes to picking up pc parts.Care to elaborate? :D
A couple of questions, that i didn't really figure out by myself:
- Planning on getting a GTX 980 - but there's a whole bunch of variants for this, with greatly varying prices. Which one would be best? Was reading reviews about Zotac AMP!, some say it's awesome, other's say it's meh.
- Going for DDR3 memory, since DDR4 (together with a mobo and CPU to support it) seems way of an overkill. Going for 8GB initially, might upgrade later - is it worth it to go above 1866Mhz memory?
Might have more questions later. Thanks in advance.
To be honest I doubt if there is a point in buying cpu that uses Hyper Threading if you are a gamer, unless you do some rendering and some more proffesional stuff you really won't benefit that much from it. I don't know if you have a SSD drive, but it sure is worth to consider buying one.
I believe that i5 4460 or 4590 will perform pretty much same like xeon E31230V3, but you will save some cash. Also getting motherbord with z87/97 chipset if you your are planning to buy locked cpu is a waste of money. another few more euros in your pocket if you buy mobo with h97/87 cheapset. Or even something cheaper. it's not like more expensive motherboards will give performance boost, cheaper ones just lack few features that you won't ever use.
If you check those screens... they have the E3 2 times in each. At stock speed and at OC speed with 3.7GHz.(click to show/hide)
I can honestly say listen to Dahli... I own a i7-2600k one of the best i7 ever made (in my humble opinion) and its totally wasted for games... its never at more than 60% or so except when RTW2 goes retarded and insists it can only run on a single thread.
Go try Arma 3 multiplayer, it will melt your machine (although that's partially the hosting server's fault) :D
Normally bottlenecks in my gpu then sadly... fucking arma 3. I love and hate that game in equal measure.
Also buy a water cooled case and be nice too your electric costs.. they will sink more than you'd expect.
lmao @ people saying you need 8 GB vram and shit looking down. Too many PC gamers are indulgently wasteful of money on hardware that is simply not needed. Much cheaper to get good deals on medium-tier cards (that all blow PS4 out of the water mind you) and upgrade every couple years or something instead. My 7950 runs all the console ports ultra textures no issue.
lmao @ people saying you need 8 GB vram and shit looking down. Too many PC gamers are indulgently wasteful of money on hardware that is simply not needed. Much cheaper to get good deals on medium-tier cards (that all blow PS4 out of the water mind you) and upgrade every couple years or something instead. My 7950 runs all the console ports ultra textures no issue.
That only matters if all the good heavy games are console ports. I think that's going to change in the near future, first and foremost with Star Citizen. More importantly, I feel there's a general sentiment with independent studios to say "fuck it" and go PC exclusive considering console hardware is just completely outdated nowadays.
lmao @ people saying you need 8 GB vram and shit looking down. Too many PC gamers are indulgently wasteful of money on hardware that is simply not needed. Much cheaper to get good deals on medium-tier cards (that all blow PS4 out of the water mind you) and upgrade every couple years or something instead. My 7950 runs all the console ports ultra textures no issue.
But crappy console ports use 4+ VRAM easly, look at how shit ACU for example runs, even on modern hardware, just saying.
thanks consoles
But crappy console ports use 4+ VRAM easly, look at how shit ACU for example runs, even on modern hardware, just saying.
thanks consoles
Yeah... no they don't. Except for a few exceptions due to terrible coding (ACU being one of those, as it doesn't show anything to justify that absurd VRAM usage).Did I say it was "justified"? I only said that various console ports and possible more uses more than 4gb vram. I have a 2gb myself and wouldn't buy a 8gb card, just tellin facts mang
This true? maybe I need to look into this!
(rare, but I'm a zero risk individual :P)
You'd have to do some serious overclocking to actually need watercooling. My custom CPU fan and the 3 GIGABYTE fans on my GPU (+4 or 5 on the case?) and the temperatures never go high.
Electricity cost? Can't say until the end of the year, because it's flat rate with "cover the differences" later.
Okay, so spent a gift card to get myself some 500W PSU and got the shopping list for the rest of the parts finalized:Transferring a 120Gb Kingston HyperX SSD and a 2Tb HDD from my current PC.
- Crucial DDR3 8GB 1600Mhz CL11 RAM
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Fan
- MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4G
- Core i7 4790k
- Corsair Carbide 400R Case
- MSI Z97-GD65 GAMING MoBo
- SoundBlaster Z :P
Can actually order the whole thing from just 2 shops for ~1000Eur, now to figure out if my current savings can support that and lasting till the mid of December :D
Isn't there a EVGA or ASUS 970 at roughly the same price?Went through reviews for GTX 970 variants, most say MSI is the best... I don't do a whole lot of overclocking though.
I find MSI are fine and all, but ASUS and EVGA are quite a bit better.
EDIT: CL 11 RAM, swap for some CL9 RAM ASAP.Why? From what i've read, CL9 has only about 2-3% better performance than CL11 or even less.
Do you need the soundcard?It's a whim of mine, am a bit of an audiophile.
The GD65 should come with a soundblaster chip built in? (my Z87 version does)
The 400R doesn't come with most it's fan slots occupied, so you may want to add some of those.That's a lot of fans O_o
Fan:
2 x 120 mm (front white LED)
1x 120mm (rear)
Not included:
2x 120/140 mm (side panel, optional)
2x 120/140 mm (lid, optional)
1x 140mm (rear optional)
Went through reviews for GTX 970 variants, most say MSI is the best... I don't do a whole lot of overclocking though.Why? From what i've read, CL9 has only about 2-3% better performance than CL11 or even less.
It's a whim of mine, am a bit of an audiophile.
That's a lot of fans O_o
Not sure if i need that many, living in a rather northern country. Guess i'll keep that in mind and see what temperatures it's running at.
More fans means more noise. That 212 evo will already be mighty noisy (I know, I have exactly that one). Honestly unless you live in the Sahel, more case fans isn't all that critical. Again, you don't want your CPU to run at 20 celsius.
I have the SoundBlaster Z. It's a big improvement over the onboard sound on my mobo, but it's made for gamers and not really audiophiles (sound cards for audiophiles are a fair bit more expensive). I really like the sound quality, the virtual surround, the microphone and the software, but it's hard to give an objective assessment of those things. If anything that card is not a critical part of your setup, you could buy it later for sure. Conversely, it will most likely never become obsolete unless new mobos suddenly improve the sound quality, so you might as well buy it now and never worry about that again.
We could spend hours discussing if mentioning "audiophile" and "PC soundcard" in the same context makes any sense but we'll never reach any common ground, I guess. More a question of believing and faith then anything else :D
Just my 3 cents... :wink:
A couple of questions, that i didn't really figure out by myself:
- Planning on getting a GTX 980 - but there's a whole bunch of variants for this, with greatly varying prices. Which one would be best? Was reading reviews about Zotac AMP!, some say it's awesome, other's say it's meh.
- Going for DDR3 memory, since DDR4 (together with a mobo and CPU to support it) seems way of an overkill. Going for 8GB initially, might upgrade later - is it worth it to go above 1866Mhz memory?
Might have more questions later. Thanks in advance.
oh and avoud SLI, a dual or even stronger single chip gpu is better than any SLI setup.
I guess that depends on what screen you have, if it's something up to 27" (1080p or even 1440p) your are fine with just solid single gpu and definatly GTX 970 is one of these, but if you are planning to get something bigger that supports 4k resolution then you might want to consider going for sli/xfire.
For now I am not sure if drivers support is good enough for that, but I never actually had a chance to test it so you may want to ignore that part.
About cases, I own Fractal Design Define R4, and the only thing I hear is silent whisper of my case fans, which is great imrpovement from my old case which was driving me crazy when fans started to buzz. My CPU cooler is rather shitty but still can't hear it. But it has one downside... it's huge and pretty heavy but that actually says a lot about build quality. I think it cost pretty same as Corsair Carbide 400R so you might want to check if you like the look.
Alright, so, it's assembled and set up...
A few things:
First, some lels (http://imgur.com/gallery/NiqDa7j)
Second, i was surprised, when the thing just booted straight to the old Win8.1 installation i had on the SSD that i had transferred over. Did a new install anyway.
Third, gotta love modern cases and being able to insert HDDs and DVD-RWs without any screws.
Fourth, super high settings, here i come :D
1230 is HaswellI am sorry but what exactly is that supposed to tell me now? :P
1231 is Haswell Refresh
Afaik.
Very helpful -.-
(the 1231 requires a #97 board, 1230 #87/97 afaik)
H97-Pro. Don't ask me why the pro. Don't really know. It has Pro in its name and fits the budget... :?
good customer:mrgreen:
I am pretty sure that it doesn't require a #97 chipset, it's a matter of updating bios to version that supports your CPU so it will run with any mobo with 1150 socket. Molly, if you are planning to buy that Asus h97 mobo, then don't bother yourself with what I wrote.