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[Sensei]

Well, I've been saving up, and my laptop is getting old quickly, so I've decided it's time to start planning out a gaming desktop build. My target budget is $1000-1200, and I have all my peripherals (monitor is 1080p) already. I haven't got all my money together, but this is roughly the build I have in mind. It'll be about a month before I buy the important stuff, so I might be looking for price drops in June.

My goal is to make a computer that can play everything with the graphics turned up at 1080p, or maybe later 1440p, for the next four years or so, either as-is or at least only by adding components rather than replacing stuff I already paid for.

So, give me suggestions on the current plan. The main reason I'm making this thread now though, instead of next month, is that I'm ready to pick out a case and PSU now (they're not going to change much in a month) and I hope maybe I can grab something on sale by watching the usual suspects for a while. I also know the least about the case and PSU I want, see below.

GPU: GTX 970. $330. I'm hoping that when AMD and Nvidia both launch new flagship GPUs in late June, there will be price drops here. One GTX 970 should be enough for now, but in a few years, I'd like to have room for a second 970 in SLI.

CPU: i5 4690k or i7 4790k. $225-310. Both of these are socket 1150, which I hope will still provide me a good upgrade path in a few years. I believe the i5 to be totally adequate for gaming right now, and the i7 is probably overkill but would be nice for futureproofing if I can spare the money.

Some cooler: Around $50. Watercooling almost certainly not worth it.

Mobo: Something Z97. Around $170, open to suggestions here. Should be able to comfortably fit two GTX 970's in the future, as well as an SSD and an HDD or two. I'd also like to have room to possibly add a wifi card.

Memory: 8GB DDR3, in the form of 2x4GB cards. I should be able to upgrade to 16GB easily, if that ever becomes necessary. Logical increments tells me this will cost $54, I'm open to arguments about whether it's worth it to get expensive RAM or something.

Storage: 2TB HDD ($80) and 240GB SSD ($100). I'm hoping I'll see SSD prices drop, I'll probably get the largest SSD I can for $100. Two 1TB hard drives in RAID 0 would be neat, but I don't know anything about implementing RAID. Are there any Z97 motherboards that support it without an added RAID card?

So far that adds up to $1000 already. I'd like to not spend more than $200 on my case and PSU if I can help it.

Case: Around $100, must be portable! I like the idea of a full ATX case, but it has to be relatively convenient to move around. I often want to play games in different rooms in my house and there's not much I can do to get around it. The Cooler Master Grey Cube HAFXBEVONASDJAL is the obvious choice, but I'm interested in other options. I did hear it's hard to keep a lot of storage drives in it, and hard to cool them (with drives failing from heat in some cases). Oh yeah, and I'd like room for a DVD drive as well (I can salvage one from an old computer for free).

PSU: Whatever's enough to drive two 970's, and i7, plus the motherboard, storage etc. I believe that's around 600W (300 for the video cards, 100 for the CPU, 200 for other junk). Must also be modular, I built my girlfriend's computer with a non-modular PSU and now it has two empty drive bays stuffed full of power cables. I also expect this would cost around $100.

So yeah, suggest me a PSU and case. Especially, point me towards sales on those in the next month! Also, advise me on my choice of the main components.

[David Holmes]

My completely uninformed personal gut feelings:

CPU/Cooler: If you get the i5 and don't overclock it, you could maybe get away with the stock cooler and save yourself $50.

Memory: Not worth it to get expensive RAM, but might be worth it to get more RAM, depending on how you use your computer.  With 16GB you can run damn near anything without ever paging to disk.  If you're not in the habit of having 30 browser tabs and Photoshop open while playing Triple-A games, you might not care.

Storage:  I think that rather than RAID 0, your money would be better spent on a bigger SSD. Triple-A games these days seem to think 60GB is a reasonable amount of disk space to use, so if you like keeping both your OS and games on an SSD (which I do), 512GB with carry you a lot further than 256GB. You get much less bang for your buck going down to 1TB drives, and even with RAID 0, their performance will be utter crap compared to an SSD. I think RAID on desktop computers is usually more trouble than it's worth anyways. 

[nenjin]

I'd go with the i7. It's not much of a price jump for a pretty respectable jump in performance.

RE: Cooler. Best reason I can see to get an aftermarket one is Intel's stock cooler's method of attachment to the mobo is shit. No back plate, just some shitty plastic tabs than you can totally break.

As always, if you haven't been there yet: http://www.logicalincrements.com/

[Sensei]

Rest assured I've read Logical Increments, it's where I based a lot of this plan on.

I'm curious, if anyone knows, what programs (esp. games) make use of an overclocked i7 processor? I know LI recommends an aftermarket cooler but I probably am fine without an aftermarket cooler if I'm not overclocking. I imagine that a few years from now I'll definitely OC but I probably don't need to do it now. Also, the K processors do come with a cooler right? I know AMD's equivalent (Black I think) don't come with a cooler because they assume you're going to use an aftermarket one.

Re: 512GB SSD: Ooh, it looks like those start at $175, which kinda hurts to spend on storage. Being inexperienced with RAID, I'm assuming I could probably get a raid-supporting motherboard for less than a $75 price hike over a regular one, right?

And OFC, if any of you bought a case with a carrying handle, I'd really like to know what it was and how much you liked it.


Also, editing in lieu of a double post: Can someone elighten me as to the difference between this this ASRock Z97 mobo at $90 and the MSI or Gigabyte Z97 mobos that LI recommends, at twice the price? They seemingly have the same feature set. Is ASRock just so horrible their motherboards aren't worth recommending at half the price? Is it inferior for OC'ing? Also, how much of a terrible idea are open box mobos?

[David Holmes]

RE: Cooler. Best reason I can see to get an aftermarket one is Intel's stock cooler's method of attachment to the mobo is shit. No back plate, just some shitty plastic tabs than you can totally break.

True that... the one time I needed an aftermarket heatsink in recent years was because the stock heatsink just broke right off.

Re: 512GB SSD: Ooh, it looks like those start at $175, which kinda hurts to spend on storage. Being inexperienced with RAID, I'm assuming I could probably get a raid-supporting motherboard for less than a $75 price hike over a regular one, right?

RAID on the motherboard probably won't cost you anything at all (edit: all three of the motherboards you list have it). The reason it's more expensive is that two 1TB drives costs more than 1 2TB drive.  I just think the performance benefit isn't really worth the added complexity.  RAID 0 can get you twice the throughput of a single drive for sequential I/O, but SSDs are dozens of times faster, and hundreds of times faster for random I/O latency.  After using an SSD, trying to make 7200 RPM hard drives faster with RAID just doesn't seem that cool any more.

Also, editing in lieu of a double post: Can someone elighten me as to the difference between this this ASRock Z97 mobo at $90 and the MSI or Gigabyte Z97 mobos that LI recommends, at twice the price? They seemingly have the same feature set. Is ASRock just so horrible their motherboards aren't worth recommending at half the price? Is it inferior for OC'ing? Also, how much of a terrible idea are open box mobos?

That ASRock board only has one 16X PCIE 3.0 slot, so it doesn't support SLI or CrossFire.

The other two boards also have high-end gaming network adapters built-in.  I haven't ever used one of those so I can't say if it matters.

They have M.2 ports for high-speed M.2/SATA Express SSDs, whereas the ASRock board has only SATA 3.0.

The ASRock board has no on-board video at all, and cheaper built-in audio (no S/PDIF). I lied; it does have an HDMI port.

In short, the latter two are more cutting-edge, high end boards.  That's not to say the ASRock is bad by any means... it just has fewer bells and whistles.

[Thief^]

I wouldn't worry about "upgrading" to SLI "in a few years". By then it'll likely be better bang/buck to replace the card with an 11/12 series rather than add a 3-year-old (by then) 970.

I'd save some money and get a smaller non-SLI motherboard now. If you want portable, getting a micro-atx (i.e. small, non-sli) motherboard will allow you to use a far smaller micro-atx case too!

Edit:Re PSU:
My only advice is to get an "80+" rated one. It's as much an indicator of quality as efficiency, and you don't want a cheap one which catches fire (actually had that happen with a qtec quite a few years ago).

Edit 2: Re CPU/cooler:
Get the i5, an i7 is almost certainly not worth it. Cooler wise, stock should be fine, or else I generally recommend the Arctic Cooling Freezer series.

Edit 3: Re Raid:
Don't bother with raid for performance, totally not worth it compared to ssds.

[Sensei]

I might consider micro ATX, does anyone have recommendations for micro ATX cases with good portability and air flow? Mind, I'm still a little inclined towards full ATX for being easily upgradeable- the option to get SLI or numerous storage drives sometime in the future appeals to me, as does a big cooler if I want to get the most out of an aging CPU- I'd like to delay buying a new motherboard as long as possible.

I would definitely be getting a SSD for a few games and the OS, but RAID is still a somewhat appealing option for my main storage. It's hardly as if I can afford an SSD that will hold all my games- I really want that two terabytes! Of course, it does appear that Hitachi now has a 2TB HDD for $60, whereas 1TB HDDs still start around $50, so I'd be paying $40 just for RAID. OFC if my mobo supports it and I have two hard drives at any point in the future, I see little reason NOT to go RAID, if I make good backups. I could always get greedy and run two 2TB HDDs in RAID 0, and have 4TB of space at double speed...

I'll probably go with the stock cooler to start with, it's not like I can't change it later.

I would DEFINITELY get an 80+ PSU, I appreciate power efficiency and I know better than to get a cheap PSU regardless. I would probably get one of the 600-ish-watt ones LI recommends, I'm mainly just hoping you guys will point me to any sales on good PSUs.

[wierd]

For SLI rigs, you are going to want a 750W PSU.  No. Really.  Modern gaming GPUs are power hungry things. very power hungry.  You wont want a cheap one either. Get a Rosewill or a Corsair.

[Thief^]

The 900 series is actually very low power usage compared to the last generation. The 970 is only 165W, or 330W SLI. The i7 is also fantastically efficient at only 88W.  That's only 418W for the power-hungry parts. Even allowing 150W for the rest of the system (which is more than enough), a 600W PSU is perfectly adequate even for SLI. For a non-sli build, a 450W PSU would be plenty! Provided in both cases the PSU is rated for sustaining 100% output, which all 80+ PSUs are.

[Sensei]

I've assembled a tentative parts list, where the case is a placeholder and the SSD is probably subject to change in a month. I think I'll probably go with the CM Storm Scout II for my case, although the Grey Cube is still in the running.

I've also decided I'll go with the i7: I shouldn't need to upgrade it for a long time, and although I will probably need a new mobo when I do, I can't really justify the expense of an LGA 2011 mobo right now. The GTX 970 should be ample for a while and I can replace it with a new single card when the time comes.

[Thief^]

Looks pretty good! I have the Evo 840 ssd myself, it's amazing, and all the reviews I've seen if the 850 say it's even better, so it's a good pick.

[David Holmes]

I also recommend the Samsung 850 EVO. Definitely the best choice for an SSD right now.

[Mimos]

I'd recommend to not use SLI (or any dual graphics) because of many reasons:
- it often produces uneven frametimes which result in a framerate that seems a lot lower than it actually is. example: 50fps which usually means one frame each 20ms. but with sli it can happen that it results in 5ms 35ms 5ms 35ms.... which the looks like 28fps.
- sli efficiency nearly never reaches 100% (and is often a lot less) which means that you don't touble the performance
- higher power consumtion, requiring a bigger psu resulting in lower efficiency when your computer is idle. also harder to cool
- if two cards are directyl above each other airflow can be an issue
- It also makes it harder to impossible to build a mico atx pc
-> get an new card in a while which also might have new features (maybe next direct X generation)
if you still consider dual graphics make sure that the 16x slots you are going to use are far enough apart (better more than one slot in between them) and that both are connected with at least 8 PCIe lanes. And ideally the mb uses no bridging chip for doing that, because that increases latencies.

- i5 vs i7: depending on your workload, an i7 is roughly 20% faster when all cores are used (same clock of course). At least now games rarely make good use of more than 4 cores but that might change with DX12. if you still consider an i7 you might consider a Xeon E3-1220 v3, too: it has no integrated graphics and thus freeing a few watts for overclocking, is cheaper than an i7 with the same clock and has more features (for virtualization & ECC memory, you might never use them). And it usually fits the same mainboards. But better check that before.
Well... i just saw you are considering something with a higher clock than the Xeon E3-1220... but maybe this is still helpful for someone.

- mainbord: I'd recommend not paying more than around $120. a higher priced mb is usually not less bugged than cheaper ones. they may contain more features (more sata connections for example) but these additional chips usually make booting slower. And they require more power. Also these 12-phase power desing things usually just consume more power and are more expensive but are not really useful 5-7 phases should be ok for everything but extreme overclocking. If you are interested i can look for a board i bought about half a year ago which was booting quite fast :-). Also make sure to set your SATA connections in the BIOS to AHCI instead of IDE if that is not already the case. This should improve your HDD/SSD performance. Do that BEFORE installing windows, otherwise you will get a bluescreen (which you can worked around with some registry fiddling before changing the setting if necessary). Make sure your board has 4 memory slots.

- Raid0 (as already mentioned above): don't unless you really know what you are doing. i personally dont mind if data are transferred with 100 or 200mb/s. which is only the case for sequential access patterns. for random access raid0 is about as slow as a single disk. and when one of the two disks fail you loose all the data.
-> so you better go for a 512 gb SSD, like the Samsung 850 EVO already mentioned. and a bigger hard drive for data storage.
you might also want one more disk for backups. maybe an external one (i'd recommend USB3. eSATA might be better, but only if you know what your doing)

Cooling: watercooling is usually not worth the hassle. especially if you want a mobile micro ATX PC. Better get a decent top blow cooler. Tower colers don't cool the components surrounding your cpu that well. These components include the power regulators which then tend to overheat especially when overclocking. You should try to create a nice airflow through your case. a 120mm inlet fan where the HDD & SSD are and an 120mm outlet fan at the rear where the CPU is should get the job done. You might want to get fans with 4 pin connectors so that the mb can regulate them nicely. If the cooler is to big it can be quite hard to install, especially in small cases. And be careful with those intel default pushpins, they can really give you a hard time. Make sure all 4 are installed correcty. this can bea easier if you install cpu and cooler to the mb before installing it into the case. Are you familiar with assembling a pc yourself?

Memory: get some with the same speed rating as the maximum supported by your cpu. can easily be found on ark.intel.com. and don't spend to much on low latencies. depending on your workload a latency class faster provides around 0%-5% performance gain. usually around 0%-1%. get 2 modules, maybe 4gb each. And make sure to install the correctly so they can run in dual-channel mode. If you want to upgrade later, you can get another 2x4gb or even 2x8gb. I'd recommend kingston without any fancy coolers.

Well... i hope that this is at least a bit helpful and not to confusing due to un-sorted-ness, not to full of typos and my english not to bad because it is way too late for me.

Regards Mimos

[Sensei]

I ended up settling on the CM Storm Scout II case- I received it and it's probably the biggest computer case I've ever owned despite being a mid-tower (all of my Dell computers must be mini towers...) and the handle feels nice and sturdy. So, that's any Micro ATX considerations out of the way, I've got my regular sized computer case now.

However, due to Car Stuff™, I now have no money, so I've got an empty case and about $1100 of saving up to do. By the time I have the money I'll probably want to revise this list, though I doubt my power requirements are likely to change so I'll probably get a PSU before I have the entire installment saved.

[Sensei]

Grabbed this 500GB SSD for $165. Looks like a good deal if you're in the market for an SSD.