Replacing some key components in the rig. Would like some wiser perspectives.

A

Arconvict

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Jan 2, 2012
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1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, and basically anything else bar hardcore video editing stuff, hence the floating top end of the budget.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Willing to pay for good parts, cap is floating atm.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Canada, Ontario, GTA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Motherboard definitely want to be able to run two video cards. So crossfire/sli is a must.
Ram
intel CPU unless i'm convinced AMD is better.
nvidea GTX 970 video card x2

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Power Supply: Corsair TX750M
Case: HAF 912 from Coolermaster
Fans: Have one 200mm on front of case, one 200mm on top rear of case, 160mm on side of case, 140mm on rear of case.
Hard drives: will probably be adding on another one though, have heard talk that hybrid drives ssd/optical are something to take note of.
Have 2TB, and 500gb, os is currently running off of the 500gb, would be willing to make a hybrid drive the boot drive if it is beneficial.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Not at the moment. Would like to see what the computer can do without first, then upgrade the stock cooler/anything else if needed.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920x1080 on both of them.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Soon. Probably less than a week.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Would like lots of USB 3.0
Sata 6Gb/s
Would like space for two GTX 970s as their price to power ratio is off the chain.
Would like an ATX board

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes 64 bit windows 7... What has peoples experience with windows 10 been like?


Would be happy to hear any and all opinions :D thanks in advance for your help.
Any more questions just ask away.
 
Sounds like you would be fine with an i5-6600 and a motherboard. I would suggest looking at a 980ti instead of 2 970sli's if you are going to do 1080p gaming. The 980ti SCORCHES on 1440p gaming without a hitch, and you can get one now for $550 which is roughly $50 more than a 970 sli solution if you get a good deal on the 970's.

The main reason I was answering this is to talk about windows 10. Windows 10 for me has been pretty okay but I also have a machine running windows 8.1 right by it. The windows 10 machine is mostly used for photo editing, but on gaming it does feel like it's a little bit slower input wise than the 8.1 machine. But the 8.1 machine is also faster (5930k vs 4930k) and has a better video card.

I think windows 10 isn't bad, but I do think windows 7 and 8 might perform just slightly faster right now.

A midrange z170 motherboard has a bunch of usb 3.0 slots and a bunch of nice other features.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157635
 
Well you sound like you want/need an i5 6600 unless you want to overclock for serious later on then get the i5 6600K. Besides a price premium, the "K" series has an unlocked multiplier and allows for much higher clock speeds than the vanilla 6600.

Why do you need two GPUs? Do you intend to run higher than 1080P resolutions or multiple monitors while gaming?

Avoid hybrid hard drives. Just go with a 500+GB SSD in your price budget.
 
OP if you don't want to overclock I suggest then go a step above to the 6700K which have a higher default clock. so its set an forget about it, also I agree going with a single and powerful GTX 980TI its faster than couple of GTX 970 in SLI, as SLI scaling isn't perfect and also, 980TI its cheaper ATM.
 
Skillz said:
Why do you need two GPUs? Do you intend to run higher than 1080P resolutions or multiple monitors while gaming?

Avoid hybrid hard drives. Just go with a 500+GB SSD in your price budget.
Click to expand...

Sorry if I neglected to mention this in the first post, but I do plan on running multiple monitors, two 1920x1080 monitors and a 1920x1080 TV.

I'll take your advice on the SSD, haven't been able to justify the price to myself in the past.

Not a fan of the asrock board that was suggested... I went for a midrange mobo on my last build and I cant say I was impressed. Would anyone be able to suggest a slightly higher end mobo, maybe an asus board or some such?
 
Do you plan on gaming on both of those monitors at the same time as a single display?

What did your last "midrange" board come up short on exactly?
 
Gaming on one, second monitor is set up in portrait atm for everything other than gaming, the tv I use for streams, movies and the like.

I've just had a lot of trouble with the sound card and usb functionality on the board I'm currently running, for instance only 3/6 usb ports operational after the 2-3 years I've had it, sound card completely inoperative, which only happened recently.

With all the aggravation with this board I'd be willing to spring for a nice mobo.
 
Then you don't need multiple GPUs if you are only gaming on one card. A single 970 can handle all your monitors plus TV just fine.

What motherboard did you have previously? A more expensive motherboard wont necessarily guarantee trouble free operating during it's lifetime. I'm still rocking mid-range/low-end motherboard in my HTPC. A BIOSTAR H61MGC 1155 board that I bought a while ago. Still working just as well as it did the first day I bought it.
 
Current mobo with the issues is a gigabyte z77x-d3h.
Just feels like running three screens off of one GPU would be asking a lot of the lone 970.
I could be biased though, haven't had much luck with running three monitors at once off of one GPU in the past.
 
Arconvict said:
Current mobo with the issues is a gigabyte z77x-d3h.
Just feels like running three screens off of one GPU would be asking a lot of the lone 970.
I could be biased though, haven't had much luck with running three monitors at once off of one GPU in the past.
Click to expand...

Did you start having issues after the 3 year warranty was up? Gigabyte is good about honoring it's warranty. I can say that even if you spent $100 more on a higher end 1155 motherboard that still wouldn't have guaranteed that you didn't run into issues with it. I've been buying used 1155 motherboard and folding on them for the past month. Some of these boards are really old and still function great while being low range motherboards. It's your money though. If you feel you need to spend top dollar for false security then go for it. My only suggestion is to make sure you get one that has a long warranty to justify the extra costs.

Well it doesn't take much power at all to display a "desktop" on the second display and just a tad bit more power to display a movie on the "TV". Most of the computing power is required for gaming, but since that's done on one monitor it wont matter.

Additionally, you can run the TV or even the second monitor off the Intel HD Graphics. Just ensure you get a motherboard that has HDMI for the TV if you choose that route. Though like I said. One GTX 970 can handle all that without breaking much of a sweat.
 
The warranty was up on the gigabyte board when I started noticing issues.
I would like a nice long warranty on the new board I get, but like I said from the first, I wouldn't mind paying a little bit more for a better part.

I would like to stay away from using on-board gfx, seems tacky to me, especially if a single 970 could handle the three screens without much of a hitch.
 
Then you'll want to look at the ASUS Z170 Sabertooth Mark 1 motherboard that has a 5 year warranty. Due note that it's a USD $250 + shipping motherboard. Canada will probably be more expensive but as far as I know it's the only Z170 motherboard with a 5 year warranty. Over $100 more than, what I personally think will be a better suited board posted above.

Then pair that with an i5 6600K. It's an overclocking enthusiast processor and even though you wont be overclocking now if you intend to in the future with this setup then the "K" series processors is what you want.

It also has room for a second 970 should, for whatever reason, you don't think one will be enough.

Also how old is that PSU? The older a PSU gets the more it's efficiency degrades. No matter how well built a PSU is they all experience degradation over time. I would highly suggest replacing the PSU for your new, higher than normal end computer parts.
 
The tx750m has three years on it as I put it in the current rig when I built it, and I must say it's shown some awesome performance.

I'm getting butterflies looking at that mobo... the 6600k I like as well... room for OC and a second gtx 970...

Time to start pricing...
 
I lean more towards eVGA due to their superior customer support. I also have four of their 970s and one of their 980s and they've been rock solid. I've got a zotac 970 and it seems to be the slowest out of the five 970s I have even after overclocking it to similar core clocks as the eVGA 970s.
 
One of my monitors along with the TV is HDMI, while the second monitor is DVI, are there many 970s around with dual HDMI ports?
 
You're gonna need an adapter then. IIRC they only have one HDMI port. Otherwise connect the TV to the motherboard and use the graphics on the 6600k.
 
I've got the TV hooked up right now with an HDMI cable going into a displayport cable which plugs into the videocard, should that be good enough to run the TV with the new hardware?
 
Mobo: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...e=asus_z170_sabertooth-_-13-132-639-_-Product

Chip: http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_1210_65&item_id=086201

I know i'm going with EVGA for the gtx 970, just not sure about the options I'm being presented with at the moment though...

From what I've read so far the FTWs have a factory OC on them that makes them a force to be reckoned with...

On the other hand, this SSC version is only 1 step down from the FTW 2 and is $100 cheaper...
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_559&item_id=079855

Thoughts?
 
Probably just a typo. Go with whichever model you can afford. Overclocking is as easy as installing MSI Afterburner and sliding the core clock slider over however many Mhz you want then ticking the little icon that says load when Windows loads. With that being said I have two FTW versions, two SC versions and an SSC version. I have them all overclocked and the FTW versions seem to have more ass as they constantly generate more PPD than the others despite them all being above 1500Mhz on the core clock and -500Mhz on the P2 memory clock.
 
So, I've received the chip, motherboard, ram and video card. I have yet to pick up an SSD. Any opinion on the M.2 card i've received with the mobo? Would it be worth putting some money into a 256 M.2 ssd and install the OS on that?
 
Do you mind listing what you paid and then comparing that to what you could've paid for them if you waited till tomorrow?

No idea about the M.2 but the Samsung Evo 850 480GB is on sale for $179 (and there's a $20 discount if you use visacheckout if you spend $200) at newegg

Unless you wanna save $$, the ADATA 480GB is $140
 
Absolutely no idea what I could have saved, would be completely fine if it stayed that way.

Anyone have any actual experience with M.2?
 
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