Finally building a new gaming beast - need some advice

[lombardsoup]

But crappy console ports use 4+ VRAM easly, look at how shit ACU for example runs, even on modern hardware, just saying.

thanks consoles

Granted, Ass Greed Poonity runs like, well, ass to begin with even after several patches.  Ubi is known for this kind of crap

[Kafein]

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).

[Tore]

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

Also, playing at high resolutions and having realy high quality texture mods will eat up lots of vram, like modded skyrim.

[Senni__Ti]

Rumoured R9 390X and GTX 980Ti/Titan 2 due out at some point, probably next year Feb/March, but worth keeping in mind.

[Andswaru]

This true? maybe I need to look into this!

Well I thought it was true, and indeed it used to be true, i was looking for an article to back up my preaching and found out that "modern" cooling fans (round the 30€ mark) are delivering much more than they used to too back in the old days when i started using water cooling (Pentium 4 era), meaning that unless your a crazy overclocker... just dont bother watercooling.

[Senni__Ti]

I get similar results with my air cooling to my friends H80 watercooler.

Downside is it's a hefty chunk of metal, so it may end up warping the motherboard.
Though the downside of those closed loops is leaks. (rare, but I'm a zero risk individual )

[Kafein]

(rare, but I'm a zero risk individual )

Bayesians hate him!

[Vibe]

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.

[Kafein]

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.

"need" is an ill-defined concept. You don't need a computer either. The point of watercooling for me is reducing noise to the minimum. That counts even if you don't OC, and pretty much everybody cares about noise. Sure, you can keep your rig freezing if you go full AC130, but it's not actually helpful to go any lower than the temp at which your CPU is stable.

[[ptx]]

Okay, so spent a gift card to get myself some 500W PSU and got the shopping list for the rest of the parts finalized:

• 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

Transferring a 120Gb Kingston HyperX SSD and a 2Tb HDD from my current PC.

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

[Senni__Ti]

Okay, so spent a gift card to get myself some 500W PSU and got the shopping list for the rest of the parts finalized:

• 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

Transferring a 120Gb Kingston HyperX SSD and a 2Tb HDD from my current PC.

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

Isn't there a EVGA or ASUS 970 at roughly the same price?
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.
Do you need the soundcard?
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.
    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)

[[ptx]]

Isn't there a EVGA or ASUS 970 at roughly the same price?
I find MSI are fine and all, but ASUS and EVGA are quite a bit better.

Went through reviews for GTX 970 variants, most say MSI is the best... I don't do a whole lot of overclocking though.

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?
The GD65 should come with a soundblaster chip built in? (my Z87 version does)

It's a whim of mine, am a bit of an audiophile.

The 400R doesn't come with most it's fan slots occupied, so you may want to add some of those.
    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)

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.

[Nightmare798]

Ill give you some advice, Buy a keyboard that does not have either alt key, or F4 key.

[Senni__Ti]

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.

Looked up some reviews, fair enough for the MSI card. Seems they have really pulled out all the stops for the 970.
I'd still recommend going for CL9 RAM if the price difference isn't huge.
Fair enough.
2-3 extra fans would be a good idea, with top and back fans you could get a really good air flow going.

[Kafein]

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.