Finally building a new gaming beast - need some advice

[lombardsoup]

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.

He can buy an external DAC and amp for the headphones if he doesn't want a sound card.  There's also active speakers to consider.  The other option is running an HDMI cable from his video card to an AV receiver if he wants passive speakers, as some current video cards also have integrated audio.

[Molly]

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

Just my 3 cents...

[lombardsoup]

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

Just my 3 cents...

Haven't bought a sound card in years, they're not worth it for the price when there are better options available.  Even onboard has gotten better over the years, negating sound cards further

[Prpavi]

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.

1. I'd look for the best aftermarket cooling, don't pay more for the OC versions of the card, they are not worth it imo. As for the manufacturer, people tend to have their own preferences, tbh Zotac or Palit never looked too atractive to me and always felt they were 2nd class (probabyl colpletely wrong but still) I own 3rd Ginward card in a row now and never had any problems, though some people say they are crap...

2. 8gb is fine and it's defintely not worth going above 1866mhz, still it depends on what you're going for, only gaming? do you edit videos? etc..

oh and avoud SLI, a dual or even stronger single chip gpu is better than any SLI setup.

[Kafein]

oh and avoud SLI, a dual or even stronger single chip gpu is better than any SLI setup.

I think it's a good idea to prepare for the future. When you finally need more oomph it's much cheaper to purchase a cheap card and run SLI with the old one rather than buy a new expensive card. You can also buy the expensive card anyways and run SLI only in games where it's beneficial. That's one of the greatest things about SLI : you don't need the exact same card to make it work. scratch that, you actually do need to use the same card (however you can purchase from two different manufacturers).

[Dalhi]

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.

[Senni__Ti]

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.

+1 for the Fractal, I have a Corsair 300R personally, a tad noisy, but it doesn't bother me too much.
However the Fractal is incredible, it doesn't have the best airflow, but it's a great looking case and extremely quiet. (when a friend asked me to spec him a pc like mine but better, I suggested the R4, he loves it)

I currently use a 28" 4k monitor, I found it was possible to play a surprising number of games at 4k on a single 780 (30+ fps). I have since gone SLI, I can't say I've had more issues since going SLI, but it is an extra layer of stuff that can go wrong. Frame-pacing is fine for those interested.
SLI scaling isn't as good as xfire, but it's smoother imo. I do have to lower settings on some games to run at 4k, SC in particular requires I drop the resolution to 1440p. (Until they improve SLI support, I can run most the crysis games fine at 4k)

If you plan on 4K, I'd wait until the beefier cards arrive. Otherwise, a 970 should be fine for all applications.

[Kafein]

Senni, I also want to jump to 4K, does it make more sense to buy a screen first and upgrade later (I have a 760GTX), or upgrade first then buy the screen? I wonder whether the 4K screen tech will considerably evolve in the next few months.

[Senni__Ti]

I'd wait for the prices to drop further & wait for freesync, HDMI 2.0 to come out tbh.
You can use the displayport (as I do), but can't have a monitor with sound or headphone ports. (Current HDMI is limited to ~24Hz @4k, displayport for 60Hz)

In terms of what first, probably upgrade first. As using a 4k screen on lower resolutions is pretty ugly. (even 1440p looks kinda bad)
Though the current GPU selection isn't overly amazing 4k wise.

The R9 390X and Titan 2/980Ti specs are looking very promising though. Would probably still need two of the buggers though.
(Will probably be some leaks and stuff in December)

Should be better VR support from future cards too, I know the 900 series have some features for VR.

[v/onMega]

Best cooling solutions for GFX cards = Asus and MSI.
Xeon indeed an option.

Until 4k is mainstream, there will be about 3 new card card generations out!

[[ptx]]

Alright, so, it's assembled and set up...

A few things:
First, some lels
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

[Kafein]

Alright, so, it's assembled and set up...

A few things:
First, some lels
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

You inserted the 1394 cable into the usb slots didn't you, you pleb? You got lucky you did not instantly brick the whole mobo, imagine that. 1394 is something nobody uses anyway, leave that cable alone, cut and isolate it or something.

[[ptx]]

 
Anyway, some results:
The thing boots (from pressing power button to login screen) in 11 seconds.
The Hyper 212 Evo is as entirely silent as the rest of the thing, not sure why you got it different.
I have been unable to make anything put any stress on it so far

[v/onMega]

Your 212 might get louder once you start overclocking / it gets warmer outside.
I own a MSI 970 4G myself. Best 970 on the market (combining all aspects).

The other upgrades will follow soon TM.

[Molly]

Can someone tell me what the exact difference between these 2 is, except for the obvious 100MHz...

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