Building a PC

SkyTime said:

I don't need to bother my self with petty things like eating though

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Words of wisdom.

SkyTime said:

So, from all the generations you'd still pick 2500k, even though they're all pretty much the same price for me?

Also how major is this difference in the clocking capabilities? And how about the Intel Core i7-3820 @ 3.60GHz Ancalimon suggested? It's around 310 euros.

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It's running at 4.2 Ghz by just maxing the multiplier. I guess you could overclock it up to 5ghz with proper cooling.

Alright so I took some time today and quicky picked up some parts. I'm still not quite sure about half the choices so I'd appreciate if you could give me some opinions. The price from the site I picked them up from is 1600-1800e depending on a few choices, but I'm sure I can find at least some parts cheaper elsewhere.

Core i7-3820, LGA2011, 3.60GHz, 10MB, Boxed
Sabertooth X79, LGA2011, Intel X79, DDR3, ATX OR GA-X79-UD3, LGA2011, Intel X79, DDR3, ATX price difference is around 100 euros.
Corsair 8GB (2 x 4GB) Vengeance Pro DDR3 1600MHz, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V
Seagate 2TB Barracuda, SATA III, 7200RPM, 64MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 TI, 3GB GDDR5, 2xDVI/HDMI/DP, PCI-E 3.0 + Pirates, Heroes & Spies
Thermaltake SMART 850W - 80plus Bronze - Cable Management
Corsair Hydro H55, vesijäähdytysjärjestelmä prosessorille, LGA1155/2011 AMD AM2/AM3 Now there were a handful of different versions of these coolers to choose from so I just picked up the cheapest one, I'm not sure if the difference between them is that great.

Also Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus to fit all this junk into, I hope it's large enough.

Ideas?

E: Also not sure about the size of the PSU, is it enough? I'll be adding an SSD and all the fan coolers the case can support.

X79 is a waste of money if this build is specifically for gaming.

Psu should be around 750w for that 780 i believe, it should list what is recommended on the gpu page. Ssd and fans barely require any power.

That's what I liked to hear, thanks. I'll definitely pick up the UP4 for 100e less then. The 750w PSU's aren't really that much cheaper than the one I picked so I guess I'll stick with that.


E: Also should I go for a Radeon HD 7990 instead of the GTX 780 ti? I hear it's better and did read to from a few reviews where they compared them. Is the difference really noticeable now and in long term? I'm quite leaning towards 780 though.

780 TI is the best on the market. The 7990 was comparable to the 780, but the TI was released about a month ago to trump it.

Oh, well I suppose it'll do then. Has to do actually, I can't find a 7990 that I could afford, all the cheap ones have been sold from what a quick look brought up.

Fehnor said:

780 TI is the best on the market. The 7990 was comparable to the 780, but the TI was released about a month ago to trump it.

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Guess you never heard of AMDs 290 cards (with a bios change some cards can even become 290x).

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-5.html

Around $100 or so cheaper for slightly less performance. You really don't even need something this powerful unless you plan on running 1440p Skytime.

With mantle soon to be released for BF4 the AMD cards are about to start killing nvidia in any game using it (I hope nvidia picks it up also). Last generation AMD/Nvidia were basically neck and neck but I went with AMD since they included a bunch of games whereas Nvidia offered ****ty free to play coupons I had no interest again (this time around nvidia actually includes decent games at least). This time around I don't even see why anyone would pick up Nvidia with mantle coming out. A lot of the top tier game companies are already using this so expect to see AMD dominating the benchmarks in games where this is implemented (star citizen is going to have it so I just hope Nvidia embraces it but who knows).

I can definitely see your point, however I must now trust on Nvidia to pick up all the cool stuff. If not, you're free to point a finger at me and laugh when I cry with my 780ti.

Whatever happens, it'll still be an improvement over my current one which is enough for me. I also won't be upgrading in a long time to come since I doubt I'll stumple upon such a pile of money again.


Thanks for the help and info, it's been of most value. Now I just need to gather all my monies and start spending it.

Again, if you aren't gaming at 1440p or higher the 780ti would be essentially a waste of money (unless you have a 120hz monitor or something). I am currently running a 1200p monitor with my 7970 pushing about 40-70+ frames in BF4 at ultra, I also just got a 290 and it was going near 100. I will be upgrading to a 27" 1440p monitor as soon as possible since right now I am not even close to realizing the potential of this thing.

The x79 is also not necessary for gaming, it would be helpful it you needed more cores for something such as 3dstudio max or video rendering but purely gaming a quad core i5 series is the much better choice. You would save probably $100+ which I would use to buy an ssd, that increase from an ssd would trump an x79 chipset.

ALSO, if you can hold off just a bit longer DDR4 memory is coming out. I haven't seen any motherboards that support it so this might be a one or two month wait depending if they actually have launch motherboards or not. The difference in speed is yet to be seen but supposedly, it is going to be good.

PS, I will come back in December when mantle for BF4 is released and if gains are even 10% I will be laughing hard.

I do have an SSD that I bought a couple of months ago. Also I switched the board right away when you gave your answer, I'll meddle around with it and probably post what I end up with tomorrow.

If you can't think of anything to upgrade, get a bigger case 

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me. I thought about it like 5 minutes before I posted and immediately forgot.

The only thing I already got is the 790 so the rest might change a little.

E: Quick question, if an aftermarket cooler is compatible with 780, it works with 780 ti too? I assume it works. Just noticed that the card I ordered has the stock cooler so I might change that in times to come.

Kevlar said:

I also just got a 290 and it was going near 100.

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does the r9 290 get really hot ? and is it loud ?
not sure if i should get that card or the matrix platinum 280x

I'd wait for an aftermarket cooling solution to get maximum performance and lifetime of the card if you went for a 290.

soozo12 said:

Kevlar said:

I also just got a 290 and it was going near 100.

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does the r9 290 get really hot ? and is it loud ?
not sure if i should get that card or the matrix platinum 280x

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Just search for a youtube video and you should find it. I would do one myself but I am already returning it :p

Better to get a 7970 over a 280x most likely since they are basically identical only the 7970 will now be a bit cheaper and they usually come with the never settle bundle (free games).

Kevlar said:

soozo12 said:

Kevlar said:

I also just got a 290 and it was going near 100.

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does the r9 290 get really hot ? and is it loud ?
not sure if i should get that card or the matrix platinum 280x

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Just search for a youtube video and you should find it. I would do one myself but I am already returning it :p

Better to get a 7970 over a 280x most likely since they are basically identical only the 7970 will now be a bit cheaper and they usually come with the never settle bundle (free games).

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i watched a couple of video's yes , the fps is amazing lol but it gets so hot.
i guess i am going to buy a matrix 7970 or 280x then or i'll wait till the aftermarket coolers are released
btw may i ask why you are returning it ?

Hot and loud, also some issues with early drivers which I don't want to deal with. Just going to return it and get one later next year probably.

ok , thanks guys

Another quick question, I noticed that the 780 ti (which arrived today btw) uses a PCI-E 3.0 connection that the Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 doesn't actually seem to have, or at least it's not clearly listed there.

- 2 x PCI-E x16 (x16)
- 2 x PCI-E x16 (x
- 2 x PCI-E x1
- 1 x PCI

Whereas the Sabertooth X79 does.

- 2 x PCI-E 3.0 x16 (Dual @ x16/x16
- 1 x PCI-E 2.0 x16 (PCI-E x16_3 @ x
- 2 x PCI-E 2.0 x1
- 1 x PCI

So I'll need to find a different mobo then? That's quite a kick to the balls.

Also

E: Quick question, if an aftermarket cooler is compatible with 780, it works with 780 ti too? I assume it works. Just noticed that the card I ordered has the stock cooler so I might change that in times to come.

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Though I just read that the stock cooler is actually decent and I might not upgrade it anytime soon since the bloody water cooler costs over 100 euros.