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Looking for critique on ~$3000 setup

C

CompletelyClueless

n00b
Joined
Jul 5, 2009
Messages
59
Hello everyone, I've been doing some research for a new setup and I'd like to see your opinion on this build plan
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/pvgLFT


1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, movies, browsing in roughly equal proportions; somehow became designated the archivist for my extended family's home movies and such

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
looking at 3000-3200USD; tax and shipping not included

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

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.
Mobo, CPU, RAM, GPU, PSU, cpu-cooler/thermal compound, case, various HDDs + one SSD, monitor, mechanical keyboard, wireless mouse

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Will be reusing audio for the time being; using my immortal Logitech X-230 speaker set and AudioTechnica AD700 headphones

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes; both CPU and GPU

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Committing to a BenQ BL3200PT 1440p 32" monitor

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This month

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.
RAID, DisplayPort, Xfire/SLI support as an open option

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Will be using Windows7 64bit HomePrem from a brick n' mortar shop




After a bit of research over the last week I do think I'm committed to the BenQ BL3200PT monitor and Radeon R9 290X Sapphire aftermarket video card, but im still open to alarmed protestations

With regards to the CPU, my taste sometimes lends itself towards games that sometimes get CPU bound like Planetside2, the ARMA series, and the Battlefield series.

Mechanical keyboards are something im new to but after research i think im partial to MX Blue switches, not necessarily the Corsair board itself

With regards to drives, i feel inexplicably drawn to the 1tb samsung SSD; i'm probably not going to be able to use it fully but then again new games like Wolfenstein seem to be piling on the jiggabits more and more, and in any case apparently samsung SSDs have a reputation for lasting forever anyway for maximum reusability
looking for a nice pair of drives to put into raid array to archive movies and pictures (or just manual backups, im aware of the hollering about raid1 and backups)

Not entirely sure which of the noctua coolers are best for me; not entirely sure if their massive flagship NH-D14 will fit over the RAM, not sure if the NH-U14S is too tall for a typical case.. in any situation i could go with the conservative NH-U9B or a Cooler Master Hyper 212

The selected Mobo, power supply, and RAM choices pretty open to reselecting

Completely unsure what to get for a case; I've had to move my cases a bit in the past so the handle in the CM Storm series seemed attractive but I don't know if this thing will end up weighing more than the 70-pound limit its listed at.

For what its worth, my buying pattern seems to be a new tower + peripherals roughly every 4 years barring no breakdowns (though this new setup was precipitated in part by one my GTX460's in SLI burning out 3 months ago)

Thanks for your input
 
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Ditch the add-on thermal paste: The stock thermal paste that comes with most good quality HSF out there are generally good enough as is. As for the HSF, in terms of best bang for the buck, you should be looking at the Coolermaster Seidon 120V Liquid AIO cooler:
$50 - Cooler Master Seidon 120V Liquid Cooling System

It actually outperforms the highest-end Noctuc HSF out now, the $90 NH-D15:
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2766&page=5

AS for the hard drives, ditch the AV-GP drives as they're not that great drives. Nor would I recommend that WD Black drive either as WD Black drives really don't offer that any sort of noticeable performance increase to justify the price alone. If you have to stick with WD, go for the WD Red drives as those are made for RAIDs. Personally however, I'd go with these Seagates:
$103 - Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive

As for the case, the Storm series in general aren't really great cases IMO. There are better cases:
$63 - Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black ATX Case
$75 - Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black w/ Window ATX Case
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Case
$100 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 500R ATX Case
$120 - Antec 1100 ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Obsidian Series 450D ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Arctic White ATX Case
$110 - Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Gunmetal Black ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-002OR Black Finish w/Orange Trim Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - NZXT Phantom 530 Black Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - Corsair Graphite Series 600TM ATX Case
$140 - Corsair Graphite Series 730T ATX Case
$150 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case
$160 - Corsair Obsidian Series 750D ATX Case
$160 - Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$170 - NZXT Phantom 630 Gunmetal Full Tower ATX Case
$170 - NZXT Phantom 630 White Full Tower ATX Case
$190 - Corsair Graphite Series 760T ATX Case
$230 - Silverstone FT02B-USB3.0 ATX Case
$250 - Silverstone FT02S-W-USB3.0 ATX Case

As for weight, the weight you see listed for cases is usually for the case itself and maybe the packaging material. It never includes the weight of an actual PC inside of it due to massive variations in hardware weight. As an example, that eVGA SuperNova 1000G2 weight 6.6lbs alone. The Seagate drive I listed weigh 1.4lbs.
 
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I'm really digging the Seidon, i wasn't expecting a closed loop being available under 90 dollars
but i see a few reviewers grumbling about it when its pushed? How well does it handle overclocking chips? How is that 120M version? Whats funny is it looks like that sucker has a rebate active right now that puts it at 45USD from 65 but will be dead by the 13th...

With regards to Seagate, i heard about their failure rates. Also the Amazon comments page seems to have a bit of... controversy stirring about that particular drive. What's your take on it?

I will be scoping out that nice selection of cases
 
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CompletelyClueless said:
I'm really digging the Seidon, i wasn't expecting a closed loop being available under 90 dollars
but i see a few reviewers grumbling about it when its pushed? How well does it handle overclocking chips?
Click to expand...
It handles it pretty well depending on how high of the overclock is. If you somehow manage to get the chip to use well over 200W, then the Noctua has a slight edge there.

CompletelyClueless said:
How is that 120M version? Whats funny is it looks like that sucker has a rebate active right now that puts it at 45USD from 65 but will be dead by the 13th...
Click to expand...
CompletelyClueless said:
With regards to Seagate, i heard about their failure rates. Also the Amazon comments page seems to have a bit of... controversy stirring about that particular drive. What's your take on it?
Click to expand...
My personal opinion is that if you truly care about your data, you should have it backed to one or more different medias. For example, I have all of my most important data backed to both an external hard drive and a file server. So if my files were on a Seagate drive, I'd still have copies elsewhere if that Seagate drive dies. Also note that you could still have a run of bad luck and have multiple drive failures from a different HDD manufacturer despite spending the extra cash for it. As such, you'll be far more protected with multiple layers of media storage than relying on a single drive that may or may not be more reliable. It's for those reasons that I just bought a Seagate 4TB hard drive not too long ago.
 
For the mechanical keyboard, you might want to make a separate post in the relevant subforum if you want a lot of recommendations. I'll just throw out that I really enjoy my Das Keyboards (brown switches at work, blue at home). Input devices are kind of a subjective thing, of course.

If you're doing Intel/Windows software RAID 1, it doesn't particularly matter which drives you go with. I'm a big fan of the WD reds for mass storage, mainly because they're so quiet. Any drive can fail, though.

Also a reminder that Windows 7 Home Premium is limited to 16GB RAM, if you think you might upgrade to 32GB down the line.
 
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