Fine Tunin'

T

tenub

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
355
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/tenub/saved/4141

For those too lazy to click:

* i7-4770K
? Noctua NH-D14
? Asus Z87-PRO (V EDITION)
✔ Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600
✔ Samsung 840 EVO 500GB
✔ Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 7200RPM
✔ EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti
? Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl)
✔ SeaSonic SS-750KM

Please help me fine-tune my selections, most notably the ones with a ?. ✔ indicates already purchased. I am going for a gaming build here with no real limit to my budget - I just want to keep my spending reasonable.

Previously I had wanted to go the mITX route but later realized it isn't particularly practical for ease of maintenance or expandability (read: SLI possibility). My goal is performance, silence, and minimal size. My one concern is that the Fractal case is quite heavy. Thoughts?
 
Why did you go with a NAS drive? It's better suited for backups.

What resolution are you playing games at?

Why did you go with four 4GB sticks (instead of two 8GB sticks)?

How small do you want the case to be?
 
tiraides said:
Why did you go with a NAS drive? It's better suited for backups.

What resolution are you playing games at?

Why did you go with four 4GB sticks (instead of two 8GB sticks)?

How small do you want the case to be?
Click to expand...

  1. 7200 RPM, faster access times / benchmarks than the cheaper counterparts. I'm using it essentially as a backup drive, ie. to store large files.
  2. Currently 1920x1080, but was thinking of getting a QX2710 in the near future.
  3. $53.10 Amazon price. Does 4 vs. 2 really perform that much worse? If so, I'll just sell them for a $100 profit and get a 2x8GB set.
  4. Difficult question to answer. I'd like to be able to overclock a considerable amount and keep decent temperatures while generating minimal noise. I think noise is more of a concern to me in comparison to case size/weight. My current case is a HAF 932 with a full window and the fact that it's almost the size of a full tower and weighs 30 lbs is simply ridiculous. However, it was the only case at the time that would fit a triple radiator up top for my current custom water cooling loop (which I've vowed never to do again due to the maintenance hassle and unseemly amount of noise but at the time told myself I simply must try it!).
 
tenub said:
  1. $53.10 Amazon price. Does 4 vs. 2 really perform that much worse? If so, I'll just sell them for a $100 profit and get a 2x8GB set.
Click to expand...
Not really. It's just that if you ever plan on going past 16GB of RAM, it's means that you have to replace the RAM. With a 2 x 8GB set, you can upgrade without having to replace any RAM.

tenub said:
  1. Difficult question to answer. I'd like to be able to overclock a considerable amount and keep decent temperatures while generating minimal noise. I think noise is more of a concern to me in comparison to case size/weight.
Click to expand...
Pretty much comes down to "choose two". Honestly, there really aren't any cases that would A) be quiet yet B) be more good enough for heavy overclocking as well as C) be light as well and D) be relatively small. Not to mention that C) cancels out A) since a case needs to be heavier in order to absorb the sound coming from the PC. There's a reason why the majority of purpose designed quiet cases out there are made of steel.

If noise is truly a higher priority, the Fractal Design R4 without Window is your best bet. That acrylic window is going to let through more noise than the standard non-windowed side panel.
 
16 GB is more than enough RAM for most people for the life of the system, especially with DDR4 rolling in, so I'd just stick with the 4x4 GB since the price was hard to pass up on your kit (that was a killer price). They are super low profile DIMMs which is great for the DH-14.

Asus Z87-Pro looks fine. The DH-14 will be whisper quiet most of the time so I wouldn't sweat going with a steel chassis. Fractal quality is crap imo (I also despise honeycombs) so I'd get a Lian Li or Silverstone.

short list of well ventilated mid towers:
LL PC-9F: $90
LL PC-7HB: $100 (the HBX has black interior but currently not on NE, the windowed HBWX is available for $125)
SS Temjin TJ04: $146 after MIR (steel/alu mix with window)

btw, I'm not very particular about cable management options because at this point I'm confident I can cable manage well in any case, so the shortcomings of the LL's in the cable management department don't bother me. I don't think it should bother you either if you take some time to plan your cable routing.
 
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rastaban said:
16 GB is more than enough RAM for most people for the life of the system, especially with DDR4 rolling in, so I'd just stick with the 4x4 GB since the price was hard to pass up on your kit.
Click to expand...
For me personally, 16GB of RAM wasn't enough. I'm sitting at 20GB of RAM use right now :)

rastaban said:
Asus Z87-Pro looks fine. The DH-14 will be whisper quiet most of the time so I wouldn't sweat going with a steel chassis. Fractal quality is crap imo (I also despise honeycombs) so I'd get a Lian Li.
Click to expand...
I disagree. Aluminum cases aren't exactly quiet nor as quiet as purpose designed quiet cases due to their very nature. There's also the case fans, video card fans, HDD mounts, and even PSU fans that can all add up to increasing noise levels. Not to mention all of those moving parts will start causing the case vibrate. A solid low noise case can dampen many of those factors.

With that said, Lian Li ATX cases are quite nice in terms of quality and look absolutely beautiful. But unlike rastaban, cable management is a huge and important factor to me. I don't like the layout of many of their cases. Namely the lack of space or limited openings for a 8Pin CPU power cable to route behind the motherboard and over the top of the mobo tray as well as the other lack of cable management features. While yes with enough planning, you can cable manage almost every case (I've had to do just that many times in the past few months, especially with the craptastic NZXT Guardian), it's still an utter pain in the ass to try to cable manage a case with limited cable management options. Not to mention the increased time to do the overall build and the hassle of undoing .

Take for example the difference between my old Antec P180 (original first release version) case and my current NZXT Phantom case. It took me 3-5 hours to get any sort of decent cable management with my P180 due to the relative lack of cable management options. Even then it looked ok at best. Took me about 30 to 45 minutes to do the same with my Phantom and it looked significantly better.

Point is, cable management features matter. It reduces time to actually cable manage the case well and the effort and planning to do so.

As for the TJ04, it didn't review well over Silent PC Review:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1284-page1.html
 
hmm, I've never built in the TJ04 myself, I've always thought it had a very robust design and nice aesthetics, but it looks like SPCR proved the drive cage design wasn't great afterall.

I've worked with the LL 9F and 7HBX and didn't notice any glaring acoustic problems while I still had them. My own A71F has been upgraded with 6x Noiseblockers with a fan controller so the 5 hard disks produce more sound than the fans from where I'm sitting. Cable management really isn't that bad for mid towers and up even without cutouts. Mine's a full tower but here's some pics of what it looks like despite not having cutouts.

CPU/Mobo power
4 fans on mobo headers, 2 on bay controller
7x SATA cables (SSD, 5x HDD, ODD)
3x SATA power cables/splitters
2x PCIe to GPU
molex to sound card
molex to fan controller
USB card reader
2x USB 3.0 20-pins from front panel
front panel audio
front panel LED/power
pSnLpwr.jpg

MLiJi59.jpg
 
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nice, it's really clean. I do like the Phantom but it's use of plastic is unfortunate. Are the HDD's mountable in the other direction? I prefer the power/SATA connectors facing the left panel for easy access, so if the orientation isn't negotiable, it's a deal killer. (The PC-7HB forces the connectors to face the right panel actually, but the system wasn't for me so didn't matter)

I can only imagine what the other side of your case looks like :)
 
rastaban said:
nice, it's really clean. I do like the Phantom but it's use of plastic is unfortunate. Are the HDD's mountable in the other direction? I prefer the power/SATA connectors facing the left panel for easy access, so if the orientation isn't negotiable, it's a deal killer. (The PC-7HB forces the connectors to face the right panel actually, but the system wasn't for me so didn't matter)
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, the HDDs are not mountable in the other direction. I agree with that mounting being a con. The left side facing HDD mounting was a feature I loved in the Antec Sonata II.
rastaban said:
I can only imagine what the other side of your case looks like :)
Click to expand...
Like crap to be honest. Every time I try to clean up the back, I end up having to take it apart again to fix something. Too much of a pain in the ass to do that. So it's just a pile of cables being held up by the back case panel.
 
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