Building a new system in phases

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stimike

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Putting together a new system and doing it in phases and I'm trying to make the best first step I can.

Currently I'm running an i7 920 @ 4.1ghz w/ a gigabyte x58a-ud3r motherboard and GTX 560ti's in SLi

I have about 1400$ to drop on the first phase which I've pretty much narrowed down to two choices:

A.) Case (Corsair 900D), Mobo (Thinking about a Rampage IV Extreme Black Edition), and an i7 4930k (I game. I know it's overkill but I'm planning on not upgrading for quite a while so I'd like to be ahead of the game as much as I can be)

B.) Two GTX 780ti's

I think the 780's would possibly give me the biggest performance increase but I'm not sure if the cpu/mobo I'm currently using would bottleneck me so much that it'd be pointless to do this first so figured I'd come ask here for some opinions! Thanks
 
no reason to buy the rampage 4 be unless you're intending to go with more than 2 cards. the 900d is a water coolers case, if you don't intend on getting wet; don't waste the money. lots of casual builders blah, blah about going liquid or expansive gpu arrays, but then never do. plus, hasewell-e is right around the corner.
 
It's rarely ever a good idea to slowly piece together a system, but in your case it seems as if whatever you intend on buying you'll use right away then upgrade the other components later. With that being said it has potential but we have a lot of questions and nearly all of them can be answered if you answer all the sticky questions.
 
rennyf77 said:
no reason to buy the rampage 4 be unless you're intending to go with more than 2 cards. the 900d is a water coolers case, if you don't intend on getting wet; don't waste the money. lots of casual builders blah, blah about going liquid or expansive gpu arrays, but then never do. plus, hasewell-e is right around the corner.
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Yeah Haswell-E has me wanting to delay a little bit and I *will* be going water cooling. For cooler for now though I'll be using an Swiftech H320.

What mobo would you recommend instead of the rampage then for SLi with some space between the two cards?

Skillz said:
It's rarely ever a good idea to slowly piece together a system, but in your case it seems as if whatever you intend on buying you'll use right away then upgrade the other components later. With that being said it has potential but we have a lot of questions and nearly all of them can be answered if you answer all the sticky questions.
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Yeah I'm aware of the first point and as you said since I will be actively using them as I get them it changes things.

As far as the sticky, some of these questions do not have anything to do with what I'm specifically asking for here and the ones that do I have answered. Like, I'll be gaming, location doesn't matter, price doesn't matter, exact parts are listed, re-used parts are implied, etc etc. However if you'd like to know specifics feel free to ask and I'll gladly provide as much information as you feel you need!
 
stimike said:
As far as the sticky, some of these questions do not have anything to do with what I'm specifically asking for here and the ones that do I have answered. Like, I'll be gaming, location doesn't matter, price doesn't matter, exact parts are listed, re-used parts are implied, etc etc. However if you'd like to know specifics feel free to ask and I'll gladly provide as much information as you feel you need!
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That's why we want you to answer the sticky: So that we can get some specifics out of you.

Unfortunately in the past, what is apparent to one person isn't apparent to another. In addition, there have been numerous times in this forum where the OP failed to mention what parts that person needed and we had to adjust build lists to accomodate those parts which took up some of our valuable time. In addition, some people are not quite as well-informed as they could be and assumed that they could reuse a PSU that was of crap quality or an illegal OS key or the wrong OS for the type of hardware they're getting or they overbought or underbought parts according to their monitor resolution in regards to gaming.

So please just humor us and answer the sticky. We're just trying to help.
 
Dangman said:
That's why we want you to answer the sticky: So that we can get some specifics out of you.

Unfortunately in the past, what is apparent to one person isn't apparent to another. In addition, there have been numerous times in this forum where the OP failed to mention what parts that person needed and we had to adjust build lists to accomodate those parts which took up some of our valuable time. In addition, some people are not quite as well-informed as they could be and assumed that they could reuse a PSU that was of crap quality or an illegal OS key or the wrong OS for the type of hardware they're getting or they overbought or underbought parts according to their monitor resolution in regards to gaming.

So please just humor us and answer the sticky. We're just trying to help.
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Well I guess the point im trying to get across is I'm not looking for a full build. Just which step I should take first out of the two I've mentioned.

I'd be using it to play games. Price Range is about $1400 before shipping/tax, if you pick A i'll be reusing video cards, if you pick B, i'll be reusing mobo/processor/case (HAF 932) which, aside from the case and price I'd already mentioned all the others in the OP. Now obviously I've come here for help so if more information is needed I'd be more than happy to provide it I just want to be as pinpoint as I can be and I don't see any need to answer any other of those questions since they're not really relevant. Thanks for taking the time to read my thread though Dangman and if you have any opinions on which route I should go I'd be glad to hear them!
 
Fine:
1) What PSU are you reusing? No point in doing any upgrade if the PSU isn't good enough or has enough amperage/wattage.

2) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? UEFI? etc. Can't recommend a different mobo if I don't know what you want in a motherboard.

3) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit? No point in going with the X79 platform if you're using Windows 7 Home Premium or some other gimped Windows OS.

4) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? This lets me know if you're either planning too early or are too close to a new platform release.

5) What's the max resolution of your monitor? I need to know this since you might have a monitor with a resolution that's just too low to justify GTX 780 Ti or would require more GPU power.

All of the above questions let's me figure out which path to recommend for you.
 
Dangman said:
Fine:
1) What PSU are you reusing? No point in doing any upgrade if the PSU isn't good enough or has enough amperage/wattage.

2) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? UEFI? etc. Can't recommend a different mobo if I don't know what you want in a motherboard.

3) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit? No point in going with the X79 platform if you're using Windows 7 Home Premium or some other gimped Windows OS.

4) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? This lets me know if you're either planning too early or are too close to a new platform release.

5) What's the max resolution of your monitor? I need to know this since you might have a monitor with a resolution that's just too low to justify GTX 780 Ti or would require more GPU power.

All of the above questions let's me figure out which path to recommend for you.
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PSU is a Corsair AX1200i, Features I'm not really too picky about, obviously SLi would have to be one of them hence the me either getting two 780's or sticking with my two 560's, Win 7 64Bit Enterprise Ed (more than likely updating to windows 8 upon build completion), Building as soon as I make a rational decision which step to make first. Entire build will probably be completed in about 7 more months. Current max res of my monitor is 1920x1080 but will be upgrading to a 4k.

Also please note I did not make this thread looking for which parts to buy, I made it to see which one is going to give me the biggest initial increase in performance based on what I have now. Like I said, I assume it would be the video cards but will the pcie limitations of my current motherboard bottleneck it below the performance gain of the new mobo/proc? So in my eyes, all of that above information was not needed. Of course, I won't turn away any advice and I appreciate you helping me very much!
 
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Normally id say get the video cards first as a gen 1 i7 at 4ghz is as fast as a current i7 at stock but the 6gb card are around the corner too
 
stimike said:
PSU is a Corsair AX1200i, Features I'm not really too picky about, obviously SLi would have to be one of them hence the me either getting two 780's or sticking with my two 560's, Win 7 64Bit Enterprise Ed (more than likely updating to windows 8 upon build completion), Building as soon as I make a rational decision which step to make first. Entire build will probably be completed in about 7 more months. Current max res of my monitor is 1920x1080 but will be upgrading to a 4k.

Also please note I did not make this thread looking for which parts to buy, I made it to see which one is going to give me the biggest initial increase in performance based on what I have now. Like I said, I assume it would be the video cards but will the pcie limitations of my current motherboard bottleneck it below the performance gain of the new mobo/proc? So in my eyes, all of that above information was not needed. Of course, I won't turn away any advice and I appreciate you helping me very much!
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In my eyes, yes all of the above information was needed since it allows me to recommend alternatives and get a clearer picture of your situation. Again, we're the ones trying to help YOU. So please just be patient and answer our questions so that we can better help. If you have any questions about why I had to ask certain questions, feel to ask away.

Anyway, to answer your question, yes the GPU will help out the most. However, buying GTX 780 TI SLI right now in your case is a waste of money. You're only playing at 1080P and therefore you'll be fine with a single GTX 780 TI. Only when you go 4K would GTX 780 TI SLI be a worthwhile idea. Check the recent HardOCP review of the MSI GTX 780 TI:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...ti_gaming_3g_video_card_review/1#.U1iafvldVWw

Not a single game in the above review required dropping the resolution down to 1080P. So a single GTX 780 TI is more than enough GPU power for 1080P. Considering that 4K is 8 months away, that second GTX 780 TI is effectively wasted power until then. Are you willing to spend $700 on a part that you can't take full advantage of for another 8 months? Especially considering that your platform would limit GTX 780 TI SLI in the first place.

Nor would upgrading to IB-E be a great idea either: It's not going to dramatically improve your gaming performance on account of the weak GPUs you'd be reusing. You'd need faster GPUs in order to justify a full on-upgrade to IB-E. Though, considering that you're effectively going "balls out" on this build, I actually recommend just waiting until the end of the year to go buy everything. Think about it: By the end of the year, we're going to see Maxwell GPUs and Haswell-E, all faster parts than the current generation.

With that said, if gaming performance upgrade was the actual goal and not you trying to aim for the best, then your best bet would be to upgrade now and go with the Core i7 4770K and a single GTX 780 TI.
 
PCI-e lanes will not effect your performance enough to notice unless you're doing benchmarks. In that case, you'll see anywhere between (-1) - 3 FPS increase with the extra lanes. Yes, that is a negative one.
 
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