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Help DR build a gaming rig, 2014 edition

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by Death Rabbit, Jan 23, 2014.

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  1. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Remove all ads!
    Because I are dumbest.

    As per my other topic, I just purchased a Corsair RM750 PSU. Pretty sweet, and got a nice deal on it at a local store. I decided rather than doing one big purchase for a major compy overhaul, I'll divide it into two big chunks.

    Next stop: Motherboard, Processor, and RAM. Later in the year, I'll get an SSD and a new GPU (my nVidia 560ti still has some life left in her).

    I currently have 4gb GSKILL RipJaw DDR3 RAM, which I'll keep if I can. However, a lot of combo deals I see now are offering 16GB. So I may not worry about carrying over the older RAM, and just get the overkill RAM upgrade while the gettin's good.

    The CPU I'm looking at is an i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz. The hope here (vs. getting an Ivy Bridge) is longevity. I want this processor to last me 4+ years.

    For now, I'm hoping to find a good Mobo and RAM set to match. Or, if you have a better idea for the CPU, please suggest away. I'd like to get them all from NewEgg so Tal can get a kickback.

    Thanks, as always, in advance!
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2014
    Death Rabbit, Jan 23, 2014
    #1
  2. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Are you really into the overclocking thing? If not, forget the K processor and get a MB with an H87 chipset; they'll both be cheaper. If you really are, then get a MB with a Z87 chipset.

    The rest of the MB specs depend on what extras you want really.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Jan 23, 2014
    #2
  3. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Not really a big overclocker necessarily. I've experimented with a bit in the past, but the difference I was able to eek out of it seemed negligible to me. Probably because I'm teh n00b.

    How about this one? A little cheaper, too.

    As far as extras, I don't know that I need many. I'm using this machine for games. I kind of want capability for surround sound gaming at some point, but I often play with headphones which do the trick. I will eventually get an SSD with my current 1TB drive as the backup. I have a single optical drive and a wireless card. After my experience with SW:TOR I doubt I will ever play an MMO again, if that helps.
     
    Death Rabbit, Jan 23, 2014
    #3
  4. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Yes, that's what I meant; get the one without the K if you don't want to play around with the clocks.

    I assume you want a regular sized MB (ATX) and not the smaller ones. Here's a list of MBs that will support that CPU with the H87 chipset. I've always bought Gigabyte and haven't been disappointed.

    EDIT
    Here's a larger list for MBs that have the Z87 chipset that allows playing with the clocks if you want.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2014
    Blackthorne TA, Jan 23, 2014
    #4
  5. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Death Rabbit, Jan 23, 2014
    #5
  6. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Looks good to me. It even has two PCIe 3.0 slots so you could SLI if you decided later you wanted to.

    EDIT
    Oh, one more thing: Since you're getting a Z87 chipset MB, you could splurge the extra $20 and get the K processor so you could play with the clocks if you chose to.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Jan 23, 2014
    #6
  7. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Next question.

    Since the board has a PCI Express 3.0 slot (2 of 'em), I shouldn't have any issues with buying a nice new GPU in the next year, right?

    On the SSD front - I've never had one before, but I assume they can hook up by SATA, right?
     
    Death Rabbit, Jan 23, 2014
    #7
  8. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Correct on both counts.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Jan 23, 2014
    #8
  9. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    GROOVY.

    So, new question. I'm about to ask you to predict the future.

    My goal here is to build a system that will last me 3-4 years without having to upgrade anything, and also not pay thousands of dollars. Am I on the right track here?

    Sure, phase 2 of my diabolical plan (GPU, SSD, and possibily a new case) is 6-12 months off, but how am I shaping up so far?

    Also gladly accepting recommendations for said phase 2 upgrades, especially if they're likely to see a price drop in said timeframe.
     
    Death Rabbit, Jan 24, 2014
    #9
  10. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I may not be the best person to ask for this. The last computer I built was in 2006 and it still works fine for me.

    This setup you have would certainly work for me for 3-4 years.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Jan 24, 2014
    #10
  11. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Anyone else up on the latest bits and pieces?
     
    Death Rabbit, Jan 24, 2014
    #11
  12. Darion

    Darion Resident Dissident Veteran BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    This year will also mark a new gaming rig for me and a couple of grands will be spent.

    Right now I'm trying to get back into the game of things-
    The gaming-hardware sector moves quite fast and just when you thing you caught up or think you did, they spring some pet-technology advancements on you.
    And start shooting techno-babble on full-auto...with infinite ammo cheat.

    In short I too looking for some advice. ;)
     
    Darion, Jan 24, 2014
    #12
  13. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Well, I can only heartily recommend going for a big enough SSD for your system drive. Well worth the money I spent on my Crucial M4 CT256. There are probably better models on the market by now, but I bought this one last year because it had the most favourable reviews reliability-wise... and you really want that more in a drive over speed, unless you're backing up your data on a daily basis. It's still plenty faster than your ordinary HDDs.

    Graphics-wise I got a GeForce GTX 650 Ti last year and I'm quite happy with it... but I don't really play that many games so I don't need the latest & greatest.
     
    Taluntain, Jan 25, 2014
    #13
  14. Merlanni

    Merlanni Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    It is a bit boring in PC hardware land since AMD stopped being competitive with CPU's.

    Crossfire/SLI is a decision you must make. It sometimes can give problems with new games. A dual chip GPU has the same problems. I advice against it.

    Haswell is fine. I second Gigabyte for a motherboard.

    for a ssd, get 256 gig for programs, keep all other stuff on a conventional disk.

    ---------- Added 0 hours, 10 minutes and 14 seconds later... ----------

    That will not be needed.

    The rat race has slowed down since the consoles came. The next gen consoles are nothing more than medium powerful PC's.

    It is far better to put cash on the counter for things like monitors, mice, keyboards.

    Again the intel's will work fine, no need to shop for AMD.

    The K indeed means overclocking. But those processors are `handpicked´ meaning they perform better. That is why you always take the K if you can afford it, and buy a graphics card that is stock overclocked from the factory.

    This link will give you a basis to search from. Choose the processor that you want, and select the other parts around it: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-4.html
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 27, 2014
    Merlanni, Jan 27, 2014
    #14
  15. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    In that case I will stop worrying about SLI.

    It seems the last few times I've upgraded I've come here asking for advice, and it always seems to be that SLI doesn't offer a huge difference and isn't really worth the money unless you have bottomless funds. I can live without it.
     
    Death Rabbit, Jan 27, 2014
    #15
  16. Darion

    Darion Resident Dissident Veteran BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Seems sensible, Mer.

    And since most games will be console -intended- titles that get a pc port a solid mid-range pc should do it.

    I still have a few months to snoop around for good deals. Been visiting Sites like Tom's on a regular basic. :D
     
    Darion, Jan 27, 2014
    #16
  17. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    My purchase date inches ever closer. My current point of decision oscillation: the processor. I have 3 options:

    1. Keep m4 i5-760 Lynnfield from 2010, which seems to be working fine still.

    2. Get a new i5-4670T Haswell for $230 (plus new mobo and RAM).

    3. Splurge and get a new i7-4770T Haswell for for $330 (plus new mobo and RAM).

    Is option 3 worth the extra hundred if it'll make a lasting difference? Will either make a huge difference over what I already have?

    I did side-by-side comparisons of the three here, but admittedly I'm not well-versed enough in the current tech to see which differences were actually meaningful. I was hoping someone here could help shed some light.
     
    Death Rabbit, Feb 28, 2014
    #17
  18. Topken

    Topken Elven-dragon wizard

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    With the new consoles being what they are i7s may start to become useful over i5s for gaming otherwise the hyperthreading is useless for PC gaming and an i5 will work just fine. So its hard to say at this point in time. I have a i5 3570K personally along with 8gb of ram and a nvidia GTX 660 ti and have had no issues with setting every game to max at 1680x1050 personally. That includes the new Tomb Raider and even Skyrim with several mods and high qauilty textures. But I may need to upgrade something for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 as their games are like the RPG equivalent of Crysis.

    The current games don't really tax the CPUs all that much becuase devs were stuck using 7 year old tech that was weak when the consoles came out. So we may see games start using the full power of i7's now that the current consoles are far more powerful and arent starved like the older ones were.
     
    Topken, Feb 28, 2014
    #18
  19. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Does option 1 mean you don't make a change, or you still replace the MB and RAM but keep the old processor? If the latter, I'd probably go for option 2 or 3; no sense in getting a new MB if you're not going to replace the processor.

    The differences between the new generation i5 and i7 you selected are mainly speed. The i7 has a higher base clock speed, higher turbo clock speed, more cache, and hyperthreading (meaning every real processor can support two threads so your 4 processor chip looks like 8 processors to the OS). All of which make it faster than the i5.

    Is that worth $100 to you?

    Depends. If you really intend to just use it for games, then I doubt you'd notice much difference; most games are limited by the GPU, not the CPU. If you intend to use it for other things that are CPU intensive like video production or 3D modeling and rendering, then maybe you'd prefer the i7.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Feb 28, 2014
    #19
  20. Merlanni

    Merlanni Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    If you have to juggle with money, the I5 paired with a high end graphics card may be best.

    If you can, you will always look at your PC and think what would it be like with the I7?
     
    Merlanni, Feb 28, 2014
    #20
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