$2500 Build - Feedback?


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I've made a build which I'll be building for summer 2014, it has drastically changed from my last build in February because I've decided to use Unreal Engine 4 now. My budget is USD$2500, with a bit of leeway. I'll be building either in late May or early August. I'll be using Visual Studio 2013, Unreal Engine 4, Hitfilm 2 Ultimate, Paint.NET, and will be playing Watch_Dogs, Titanfall, and other next-generation titles, as they come out, along with Humble Bundle games, and maybe a bit of CAD using Autodesk Inventor.

I will be overclocking.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3ABLD

CPU: Intel Core i7-4930K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  ($529.99 @ Micro Center)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($92.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 LE ATX LGA2011 Motherboard  ($229.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($269.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($459.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Superclocked ACX Video Card  ($499.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: NZXT H440 (White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($149.98 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Asus VS238H-P 23.0" Monitor  ($134.99 @ NCIX US)
Keyboard: Logitech G105 Wired Gaming Keyboard  ($47.39 @ Amazon)
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Wired Laser Mouse  ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $2594.28

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Get Steelseries for mouse. Razer mice craps themselves after a bit usage.

 

On the other hand, drop that keyboard. Get Razer Black Widow Ultimate (silent if you can order from razer store).

 

For the record: I have naga, naga hex, mamba, black widow ultimate, onza tournament.

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I think that build is just fine, but I would suggest a smaller SSD for Windows and programs and a 7200rpm HDD for your main storage and games. It should also bring the price down a bit, and you will get the same performance anyway.

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Get Steelseries for mouse. Razer mice craps themselves after a bit usage.

On the other hand, drop that keyboard. Get Razer Black Widow Ultimate (silent if you can order from razer store).

For the record: I have naga, naga hex, mamba, black widow ultimate, onza tournament.

Yeah I wasn't too sure about the peripherals, thanks for the suggestions
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Is there a reason why you chose an i7 over an i5? From a price to performance ratio (for gaming) the i5 is a better choice. Unless you're planning on doing some really CPU intensive computing, an i7 doesn't buy you much.

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Is there a reason why you chose an i7 over an i5? From a price to performance ratio (for gaming) the i5 is a better choice. Unless you're planning on doing some really CPU intensive computing, an i7 doesn't buy you much.

 

I think what you are saying was true 18 months ago, but there are many games coming out in the last 6 months and onward that are optimized for the extra cores. Couple with release of the new consoles and we will see much more use of 8+ cores in future games. My i5 often bottlenecks my SLI 760's in BF4 on 64 player maps. If you were going for a budget build I would be all for i5 but seeing as your are wanting to pay decent money you may as well get the i7 and not have to worry about upgrading your CPU for a good 2+ years

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Get Steelseries for mouse. Razer mice craps themselves after a bit usage.

 

On the other hand, drop that keyboard. Get Razer Black Widow Ultimate (silent if you can order from razer store).

 

For the record: I have naga, naga hex, mamba, black widow ultimate, onza tournament.

 

That seems to be the opposite of my experience with the razer mouse i currently use, a 3 year old razer naga. Every other gaming mouse i've had has died far sooner at right around 2 years.

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Is there a reason why you chose an i7 over an i5? From a price to performance ratio (for gaming) the i5 is a better choice. Unless you're planning on doing some really CPU intensive computing, an i7 doesn't buy you much.

I am not just gaming, as said in the OP. Also, games are going to be using more threads, especially when DX12 comes out
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I think that build is just fine, but I would suggest a smaller SSD for Windows and programs and a 7200rpm HDD for your main storage and games. It should also bring the price down a bit, and you will get the same performance anyway.

I'm not too concerned about the price and I guess it would be better to have all my data on an SSD anyway instead of just an OS and some programs
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If your going to build in August your list is going to completely change.

 

For Titanfall just about any system built within the last 2 years should be able to run it at max settings, Watchdogs requires an i7 processor or equivalent and a Nvidia GTX 670 / AMD Radeon HD 7970 and above to run at max settings. You easily cover these games at max settings with that build.

 

I personally prefer Wireless peripherals which are slightly more expensive than wired keyboard and mouse but are worth it in my opinion.

Keyboard is a solar powered keyboard which I've never had to connect to a charger or change batteries and the mouse has a dock which it sits in to charge when not in use.

 

I also use a HDTV as my monitor via hdmi outputs on the GPU, pretty nice playing BF4 or Red Alert 2 (Classic game) on a 60" screen. :)

 

Specs wise I think you nailed it for that price range, I just dont agree with your peripherals and monitor. But all else is good if you were buying today.

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If your going to build in August your list is going to completely change.

For Titanfall just about any system built within the last 2 years should be able to run it at max settings, Watchdogs requires an i7 processor or equivalent and a Nvidia GTX 670 / AMD Radeon HD 7970 and above to run at max settings. You easily cover these games at max settings with that build.

I personally prefer Wireless peripherals which are slightly more expensive than wired keyboard and mouse but are worth it in my opinion.

Keyboard is a solar powered keyboard which I've never had to connect to a charger or change batteries and the mouse has a dock which it sits in to charge when not in use.

I also use a HDTV as my monitor via hdmi outputs on the GPU, pretty nice playing BF4 or Red Alert 2 (Classic game) on a 60" screen. :)

Specs wise I think you nailed it for that price range, I just dont agree with your peripherals and monitor. But all else is good if you were buying today.

I have experienced lag in the past with wireless keyboards, have things changed so there isn't noticeable lag? I am also concerned about the possibility of interference.

Unfortunately I haven't bought any monitors, keyboards, or mice in a while

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I'd be more tempted to get a decent but smaller SSD for OS, and then 4 x 1TB 7200 disks setup using storage spaces for decent performance and redundancy.

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I am not just gaming, as said in the OP. Also, games are going to be using more threads, especially when DX12 comes out

 

No DX12 is going to let games use the threads they do use better. effectively it will make the i5 a better gaming cpu with little to no change on the i7 since no game will be close to hitting the max single thread performance of an i5, they don't even do that today and own't for many years. games barely use cpu. 

 

I'm also highly skeptical of any claims that BF4 bottlenecks on an i5 today. seems highly unrealistic it doesn't even bottleneck on my AMD with a lot less per thread performance(maybe he has one of those 2 core i5's... even then... I'm skeptical).

 

I'm assuming hitfilm 2 ultimate is some video editing/rendering program and that you will be editing and thus rendering a LOT though, which would make the i7 make sense, as there's no other of your apps who need the high per core performance of the i7, not even CAD.

 

So if you're just going to be casually editing movies, where overnight rendering of the longer sequences is the norm, then an i5 would probably be a better solution, or at least the i7 would be unnecessary.  But if you have the money to throw away, I'm not one to criticize, do what you want with them. 

I have experienced lag in the past with wireless keyboards, have things changed so there isn't noticeable lag? I am also concerned about the possibility of interference.

Unfortunately I haven't bought any monitors, keyboards, or mice in a while

 

Modern wireless keyboards and mouse have zero noticeable lag. some logitech mice even have a lower latency at their highest gamer settings than wired. 

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No DX12 is going to let games use the threads they do use better. effectively it will make the i5 a better gaming cpu with little to no change on the i7 since no game will be close to hitting the max single thread performance of an i5, they don't even do that today and own't for many years. games barely use cpu. 

 

I'm also highly skeptical of any claims that BF4 bottlenecks on an i5 today. seems highly unrealistic it doesn't even bottleneck on my AMD with a lot less per thread performance(maybe he has one of those 2 core i5's... even then... I'm skeptical).

 

I'm assuming hitfilm 2 ultimate is some video editing/rendering program and that you will be editing and thus rendering a LOT though, which would make the i7 make sense, as there's no other of your apps who need the high per core performance of the i7, not even CAD.

 

So if you're just going to be casually editing movies, where overnight rendering of the longer sequences is the norm, then an i5 would probably be a better solution, or at least the i7 would be unnecessary.  But if you have the money to throw away, I'm not one to criticize, do what you want with them. 

 

Modern wireless keyboards and mouse have zero noticeable lag. some logitech mice even have a lower latency at their highest gamer settings than wired. 

 

The new i7's are 6-core.

 

VS, Hitfilm and Paint.NET will all utilize the CPU extensively so a faster CPU with more threads is better. Also not sure what he means by UR4 Engine if he is building games for it or just wants to play games which use it. If his building again CPU is important but in regards to playing games you are correct in saying that the CPU is rarely ever the bottleneck and that is usually on the GPU.

 

 

I have experienced lag in the past with wireless keyboards, have things changed so there isn't noticeable lag? I am also concerned about the possibility of interference.

Unfortunately I haven't bought any monitors, keyboards, or mice in a while

 

No noticeable lag at all, very responsive. In regards to interference I use quite a few wireless devices and haven't had an issue with conflicts or inference from each other or other devices which use the 2.4Ghz frequency range.

I remember the first wireless mouse I had would stop working every now and then or move by itself due to interference but modern wireless mouses have no interference issues that I've seen.

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Also not sure what he means by UR4 Engine if he is building games for it or just wants to play games which use it.

 

I am making games with the Unreal Engine 4 engine. I have the $19/month subscription.

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No DX12 is going to let games use the threads they do use better. effectively it will make the i5 a better gaming cpu with little to no change on the i7 since no game will be close to hitting the max single thread performance of an i5, they don't even do that today and own't for many years. games barely use cpu. 

 

I'm also highly skeptical of any claims that BF4 bottlenecks on an i5 today. seems highly unrealistic it doesn't even bottleneck on my AMD with a lot less per thread performance(maybe he has one of those 2 core i5's... even then... I'm skeptical).

 

I'm assuming hitfilm 2 ultimate is some video editing/rendering program and that you will be editing and thus rendering a LOT though, which would make the i7 make sense, as there's no other of your apps who need the high per core performance of the i7, not even CAD.

 

So if you're just going to be casually editing movies, where overnight rendering of the longer sequences is the norm, then an i5 would probably be a better solution, or at least the i7 would be unnecessary.  But if you have the money to throw away, I'm not one to criticize, do what you want with them. 

 

Modern wireless keyboards and mouse have zero noticeable lag. some logitech mice even have a lower latency at their highest gamer settings than wired. 

Thanks for the clarification about DirectX 12. I thought it enabled better processing across threads because it was supposed to be like Mantle.

Well I'm getting that CPU because of Unreal Engine 4, mostly.

I'll see what I can do about the peripherals.

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For keyboards, any mechanical keyboard will do. They're more durable than the standard chicklet/membrane keyboards. Like others have mention Razer and steelseries are good choices. Other brands/models that you should look at are Logitech G710+, Ducky, Das, Corsair vengence series, Cm Storm Quickfire series. Many will have different types of mechanical switches. You should try them out if appreciable. 

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I'll add to what hawkman is saying:

 

We?ve never been particularly excited about the LGA2011 platform. It has been a niche product since its very inception, targeted at the narrow category of users who need six-core CPUs. And six-core CPUs are only really necessary for high-performance workstations. In everyday applications, particularly in games, four cores is just enough if we talk about Intel CPUs.

The desktop LGA2011 platform is an adaptation of a server solution, which means a lot of issues like the low performance of the memory controller at single-threaded loads or the high power consumption. The biggest issue is that the platform evolves too slowly. When the early Sandy Bridge-E processors hit the market, we had the desktop LGA1155 platform with Sandy Bridge CPUs and there were no questions about the more advanced version of a regular platform. The situation is different now. The new mass platform LGA1150 offers more up-to-date processors based on the Haswell microarchitecture whereas the enthusiast-targeted platform has CPUs with the older Ivy Bridge design.

Besides a certain emotional dissonance, it narrows the scope of applications the LGA2011 platform is optimal for. As we've seen in our performance tests, the Core i7-4820K, the junior quad-core Ivy Bridge-E model, cannot compete against the Core i7-4770K and thus looks completely pointless. The midrange Core i7-4930K with six cores is on average comparable to the senior quad-core Haswell-based model except for the final rendering and video editing tests. The senior $1000 Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition deserves its flagship status, yet its advantage over the Core i7-4770K is small in most of benchmarks while the price difference is substantial. Thus, an LGA1150 configuration with a top-end CPU is going to be more optimal in most cases, even for gamers and enthusiasts.

Granted, the Ivy Bridge-E have improved over the Sandy Bridge-E generation. They are 5 to 10% faster, need considerably less power, and offer the same or better overclocking potential. But the Ivy Bridge-E design, although formally new, is in fact outdated already. So if you plan to buy such a CPU and prefer the LGA2011 platform, you should be aware that you pay for an old product that lacks many benefits offered by the more up-to-date CPUs.

It should also be added that the Intel X79, the only chipset for Ivy Bridge-E CPUs, hasn't been updated since times immemorial. It doesn't support USB 3.0 and offers but two SATA 6 Gbit/s ports. Of course, mainboard makers can make up for this deficiency by installing a lot of onboard controllers, but this makes mainboards more expensive and may provoke certain compatibility or performance issues.

So, we can only recommend the current implementation of the LGA2011 platform with the six-core Ivy Bridge-E processors to users who need maximum multithreaded performance or high amounts of system memory (as this platform can offer as many as eight DIMM slots). In other words, today?s LGA2011 CPUs are optimal for workstations rather than for ordinary desktop PCs. And when it comes to workstations, Intel?s Xeon E5 v2 series may be a better choice as they offer eight or even ten computing cores.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-4960x-4930k-4820k_10.html#sect0

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The new i7's are 6-core.

 

VS, Hitfilm and Paint.NET will all utilize the CPU extensively so a faster CPU with more threads is better. Also not sure what he means by UR4 Engine if he is building games for it or just wants to play games which use it. If his building again CPU is important but in regards to playing games you are correct in saying that the CPU is rarely ever the bottleneck and that is usually on the GPU.

 

 

 

what kinda paint.net editing would EVER require more than one core, especially on an i5 or i7. you'd be talking a massive A1 size 1200dpi monster with tones of filters and effects for that to be an issue. 

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Thanks for the clarification about DirectX 12. I thought it enabled better processing across threads because it was supposed to be like Mantle.

Well I'm getting that CPU because of Unreal Engine 4, mostly.

I'll see what I can do about the peripherals.

 

it doesn't enable better processing across threads.

 

the problem today is that multicore games use a lot of one core, but then then barely make use of the other cores. This means for high end CPU's like i5 and i7's games today aren't bottlenecked by the CPU because the individual cores are so fast it doesn't bottleneck the GPU. DX12 will like mantle allow the performance to be spread out across the cores. meaning you get more equal usage of the cores so instead of one core having 70-90% utilization. it's more like 30, 20,20,20. or on more demanding games 50,50,50,50. though that's far in the future, cause that's a LOT of CPU power.

 

that's why Mantle dont' affect fast CPU's as much as it does slow CPU's cause the fast ones aren't bottlenecking. on an i7 which is so fast it doesn't need backup form other cores it will have little effect. on an older AMD 6 core. where each core is like a 4th of the i7 and the lack of threaded optimization causes it to bottleneck the GPU, spreading the work out o all 6 cores evenly will bring it's performance up to modern i7 levels. 

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Not that it's on your list, but I bought this bad boy the other week and I am loving it so far. And it's on sale now!

 

Logitech G930 Wireless Headset

 

 

I've had the G930 since... well last summer or so.

 

DO NOT BUY IT!.

 

IT's good don't get me wrong. BUT it has several major flaws. one being that despite being a stereo headset, you CAN NOT set it to a headset, the driver insist on calling it a 5.1 surround, which has issues in a lot of program and situations, especially music where you sometimes end up with sound in only one side, unless you turn on the dolby switch(you don't want this in stereo, or in games if they're set to stereo).

 

Then there's the battery/charging issues. When the power goes low, it will start making a horrible brain smashing white noise. and it's not just a matter of pluggin in the cable. no once it does this, it has to die from losing power taking a minute or so. then you can plug in the cable wait a minute for charging to get above the level where the sound started, then it will start up again. 

 

What's even better, if it's plugged in, after it's charged to 100% it will naturally stop charging. BUT it won't go over to simply using USB power, It will go back to using battery power. and it will not start charging again when it goes low or even empty. you have to disconnect the cable and plug it back in to start charging. this means even when they're plugged in and you expect them to be fully charged, it will suddenly make the "out of power ear wrenching noise", and you have to unplug, wait for it to die, plug in, wait for it to have charged, then hold the power button forever to start them back up, since they refuse to start up by normal button presses when plugged in.

 

I even got one replaced form logitech, but both of them and my GF's and everyone else that bought one has the same issues. 

 

For the money, buy a good quality fully enclosed stereo headset with a normal jack. For the price of this you'll have MUCH better audio quality, and you won't have to be annoyed by the charging, and being wired doesn't matter since these have to be used wired 70% of the time anyway. 

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That seems to be the opposite of my experience with the razer mouse i currently use, a 3 year old razer naga. Every other gaming mouse i've had has died far sooner at right around 2 years.

That's exception. if you do a little search in net, you'll see plenty of people having this double click issue for years.

 

Their mouse sensors are great but the plastic "buttons" or the switches these buttons press are not good enough. If you are a heavy gamer (esp strategy games), the buttons will soon start double clicking. I have used four of them and they all resulted in same thing within a year. Right now I'm using a Naga Hex that double clicks for left and right click both at times.

Either the switches are "dampened" or the "button" has eroded where it contacts the switch. 

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I've had the G930 since... well last summer or so.

 

DO NOT BUY IT!.

 

IT's good don't get me wrong. BUT it has several major flaws. one being that despite being a stereo headset, you CAN NOT set it to a headset, the driver insist on calling it a 5.1 surround, which has issues in a lot of program and situations, especially music where you sometimes end up with sound in only one side, unless you turn on the dolby switch(you don't want this in stereo, or in games if they're set to stereo).

 

Then there's the battery/charging issues. When the power goes low, it will start making a horrible brain smashing white noise. and it's not just a matter of pluggin in the cable. no once it does this, it has to die from losing power taking a minute or so. then you can plug in the cable wait a minute for charging to get above the level where the sound started, then it will start up again. 

 

What's even better, if it's plugged in, after it's charged to 100% it will naturally stop charging. BUT it won't go over to simply using USB power, It will go back to using battery power. and it will not start charging again when it goes low or even empty. you have to disconnect the cable and plug it back in to start charging. this means even when they're plugged in and you expect them to be fully charged, it will suddenly make the "out of power ear wrenching noise", and you have to unplug, wait for it to die, plug in, wait for it to have charged, then hold the power button forever to start them back up, since they refuse to start up by normal button presses when plugged in.

 

I even got one replaced form logitech, but both of them and my GF's and everyone else that bought one has the same issues. 

 

For the money, buy a good quality fully enclosed stereo headset with a normal jack. For the price of this you'll have MUCH better audio quality, and you won't have to be annoyed by the charging, and being wired doesn't matter since these have to be used wired 70% of the time anyway. 

The g930 is a surround sound headset, and I haven't had any of the issues that you mentioned. It may still not switch over to USB power when fully charged, but I always unplug it when I'm using it. So I haven't had the chance to notice it yet. I definitely have never heard it blast white noise when it was low on battery though. Stereo and surround sound both work great so far.

 

Maybe it's a driver issue with older models?

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I'm also highly skeptical of any claims that BF4 bottlenecks on an i5 today. seems highly unrealistic it doesn't even bottleneck on my AMD with a lot less per thread performance(maybe he has one of those 2 core i5's... even then... I'm skeptical).

How do you know it's not a bottleneck? It's not because the CPU is not at 100% in task manager that's it's not a bottleneck. You'll see an Intel CPU driving a game at a faster framerate than an AMD CPU even though both aren't even close to maxed out on any core. In games the CPU spends a lot of its time waiting after various drivers (esp. D3D) - which causes no visible utilisation in task manager - , but between these calls its speed does make a difference.

 

No DX12 is going to let games use the threads they do use better. effectively it will make the i5 a better gaming cpu with little to no change on the i7 since no game will be close to hitting the max single thread performance of an i5, they don't even do that today and own't for many years. games barely use cpu. 

That doesn't compute. The main reason games "barely use cpu" is driver overhead and that's exactly what DX12 addresses, so we should see a lot better scaling on the CPU, meaning games will be able to push CPUs closer to their limits and effectively scale to multiple cores (including logical ones), so that'll be a net win for hyperthreaded CPUs.

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