Time for a new build and I've been out for a while!

[Nephelim]

My present gaming machine is way long in the tooth. It was built back in 2007, and has somehow managed to suit my needs until recently. In the meantime, I drifted away from [H] so I'm out of the loop.

Upgrading from:
E8400 @ 3.6 (was 4, became unstable over time)
DFI Lanparty DK P35+
EVGA GTX570
An actual spinning disk! Going to SSD is going to make a huge difference (perception-wise)
Samsung 22" monitor (can't remember model and who cares)

Usage? Gaming. Budget? Less than 5k total.

It looks like the Haswell CPUs aren't a big deal for gaming, so no need to go there.

Rough plan:
27" Monitor -- Thinking maybe the newish Asus (One at start, potential to move to 3) -- Probably use the old samsung 22" in landscape on the side in short term.
GTX970 or 980 -- Single to start, expand to SLI later
Air cooling at start, WC later (probably at SLI adoption)
SSD - Need guidance here, gut feel is Samsung 840 in 500G range. I don't know if something else has surpassed it for performance/price.
Proc - Guidance again. People seem to be enjoying their i7-4970Ks
MB - I've been an Asus fan a while. 4970k means 1150. I'd like headroom for 32G.
Wireless -- On board or add-on card, don't care. 802.11ac

I will likely overclock CPU, since I enjoy the game of twiddling bios. GPU I'll only OC if it's going to make an actual difference at my resolution.

 

[Armenius]

Could you answer the questions from the sticky at the top, please?
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1349433

From what you have described, though, I can definitely say a new build will cost you a lot less than $5k US.

SSD: Look at the new 850 Pro. I think the consistency and reliability of the 3D VNAND is worth the price premium, personally.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8216/samsung-ssd-850-pro-128gb-256gb-1tb-review-enter-the-3d-era/7

The 840 EVO drives had a firmware issue that was causing slowdowns in read access at best or early death at worst. I don't know if newer retail stock has the issue resolved, but Samsung offers a free utility to fix it.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8617/...e-to-fix-the-ssd-840-evo-read-performance-bug

Proc: If you plan on going more than 2-way SLI and/or adding a PCI-E SSD you may want to consider LGA2011-v3. Otherwise the i7-4690K may be a more economical choice since you won't gain much, if anything, from the hyperthreading offered by the i7-4790K.

I upgraded from a similar system a year ago (Kentsfield LGA775, same video card) and was blown away by how much quieter everything runs now with the jump in performance you get..

 

[Nephelim]

Could you answer the questions from the sticky at the top, please?
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1349433

Oops! thought I had answered them, but skipped a couple.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Gaming.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

5k - Yes

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

US, California, San Jose

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, Proc, memory, drive(s), Monitor, GPU, PSU, Case

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

KB/mouse will be reused, old box will become linux host

6) Will you be overclocking?

CPU only on air at first. GPU/CPU to their limits when I move to water

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

Leaning towards ROG SWIFT PG278Q as monitor. 27" 2560x1440 -- Possibility of moving to 3 of them when moving to SLI and water.

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

In the next 4 - 6 weeks.

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.

SLI support for expansion. Slight pref for onboard wifi. No need for onboard video. USB 3.0. No need for eSATA.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

I'll reuse my win7 64-bit license as existing host will become a linux box.


---

Given that one of my biggest pain points at the moment is slow-ass spinning disk, I'll certainly take your advice on the 850 Pro.

I'll see if I want to go the PCI-E SSD route. Again, given my annoyance at the slow disk subsystem I'm dealing with now, I'm inclined to overcompensate.

 

[Dangman]

You're planning your build a tad too early IMO since the BF, Cyber Monday, and Xmas Sales tends to have a big influence of what parts we recommend. I recommend waiting until you're 1-2 weeks away from building the PC to ask for advice.

With that said, some general advice:
1) Since you're only gaming, you really don't need a Core i7 4790K CPU in general. You honestly would be fine with the Core i5 4690K. With that said, if you want to burn some of that money, then go for the 4790K. At least it's not as bad of an idea of going with the X99 platform for single GPU gaming.

2) With a $5K budget, you can easily go SLI right off the bat. No real need to wait. Nvidia cards tends to stay at or near their MSRP until the release of a new set of Nvidia cards.

3) As soon as you can, upgrade to Windows 10 when it gets released. Windows 8.1 already has under-the-hood enhancements that allowed it to perform better than Windows 7 when it comes to games. Since Windows 10 supposedly features even more under-the-hood enhancements and it's due out some time next year, might as well skip 8.1.

 

[Nephelim]

4690k versus 4790k makes sense, and seems backed up benchmarks.

Yeah, SLI is in the budget from the start as would be water cooling. Going SLI on a 980 or 970 without the triple-monitor setup seems overkill. The other reason I want to wait on SLI is to also wait on WC until block choices for the 980/970 have sorted themselves out, and not doing WC at the start opens me up to using a non-reference design. At least that's been my thinking so far on the matter.

On timing. I'm hoping to spec out what I want to get before the big deals show up, so I can jump on deals that I notice.

 

[Dangman]

4690k versus 4790k makes sense, and seems backed up benchmarks./QUOTE]
With that said, in games like BF4 and Arma 3, the 4790K does provide a bit of edge over the 4690K. So if those are the type of games you're going to playing, might want to spend the extra cash for the 4790K.

Yeah, SLI is in the budget from the start as would be water cooling. Going SLI on a 980 or 970 without the triple-monitor setup seems overkill. The other reason I want to wait on SLI is to also wait on WC until block choices for the 980/970 have sorted themselves out, and not doing WC at the start opens me up to using a non-reference design. At least that's been my thinking so far on the matter.

The reason why I mention doing SLI right off the bat is because in all my years helping out people here in General Hardware, almost like 95% of the time people who said they were going to go SLI or CFX never actually did so. As such, they ended up wasting money on SLI/CFX compatible parts. In other words, if you don't do SLI right away or withing six months or so, from what I've noticed, the chances of you going SLI after that period dramatically decreases.

Also judging from the system requirements for Star Citizen, GTX 970/980 SLI for 2560x1440 doesn't look that overkill. That is if you're planning on playing that game.

On timing. I'm hoping to spec out what I want to get before the big deals show up, so I can jump on deals that I notice.

The parts that we recommend may not get deals at all.

But some general advice:
If you see the Core i7 4790K for less than $340, it's a good deal.
If you see single 8GB or 16GB (2 x 8GB) of DDR3 1600 RAM for less than $70 and $140 respectively, it's a good deal.
If you see the Samsung 840 Pro, 840 Evo, or 850 Pro on sale, it's a deal. Aim for the 850 Pro if possible.

Some case recommendations:
$100 - Phanteks “Enthoo Pro Series“ Black ATX Case
$110 - Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Gunmetal Black ATX Case
$115 - Corsair Carbide Series 500R ATX Case
$116 - Thermaltake Chaser A71 Full Tower ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Graphite Series 730T ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Obsidian Series 450D ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$133 - NZXT Phantom 530 Black Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - Corsair Graphite Series 600TM ATX Case
$140 - Corsair Obsidian Series 750D ATX Case
$150 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case
$152 - Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$150 - NZXT Phantom 630 White Windowed Full Tower ATX Case
$158 - NZXT Phantom 630 Gunmetal Full Tower ATX Case
$170 - Thermaltake Urban T81 Full Tower ATX Case
$190 - Corsair Graphite Series 760T ATX Case
197 - Corsair Graphite Black ATX Full Tower 780T
208 - Corsair Graphite White ATX Full Tower 780T
$240 - Silverstone FT02B-USB3.0 ATX Case

 

[Nephelim]

The reason why I mention doing SLI right off the bat is because in all my years helping out people here in General Hardware, almost like 95% of the time people who said they were going to go SLI or CFX never actually did so.

That's a fair point. The only time I've done SLI was when I did it from the start.

Also judging from the system requirements for Star Citizen, GTX 970/980 SLI for 2560x1440 doesn't look that overkill. That is if you're planning on playing that game.

I've been playing Eliteangerous. I love what I've seen of SC, but it's not done enough for me yet. At least last I looked.

The parts that we recommend may not get deals at all.

Some case recommendations:

Thanks for that. I hadn't starting working on what to fit this all into yet.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mdlman/saved/hkXhP6

is what I've done so far. My GTX570 is EVGA superclock and I've been happy with it. I was going to go all Asus all the time, but we'll have to see how stock issues sort out.

CPU 	
        Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core 
Motherboard 	
       Asus MAXIMUS VII FORMULA ATX LGA1150 	
Memory 	
       G.Skill Trident X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 	
Storage 	
       Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" SSD 	
Video Card 	
        EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 	
	EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 	
Power Supply 	
        Antec 1000W ATX12V / EPS12V 	
Optical Drive 	
        Asus BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer 
Monitor 	
        Asus ROG SWIFT PG278Q 27.0"

 

[Dangman]

That setup doesn't look that good so far:

- IMO, the most you should spend on ANY Z97 motherboard is $200. Any more than that and you might as well go for the X99 platform. To me, spending $200 and more on a Z97 motherboard is akin to spending $40,000 on a 2014 Honda Civic with every option and accessories possible. You can certainly do that but it doesn't mean that's a good expenditure since the Civic is suppose to be a budget car. The Z97 is suppose to be the mainstream line. Based on what you've said so far, the $140 Asus Z97-A should do just fine. I recommend separate dedicated wifi cards because of the chance that wifi might die. As such, you would not have to send back your entire motherboard just to get the wifi fixed. Plus there might be better dedicated wifi cards than the onboard.

Then again, I recommend Ethernet over wifi any day of the year. $5000 budget and you can't afford to wire up the house with Ethernet? Or buy a long long ethernet cable? Or have a switch located midway between the PC and the router?

- Even if you were buying right now, that G.Skill RAM is overpriced for what it is. With Intel platforms, they really don't benefit that much from higher speed RAM in most real world situations. So DDR3 1866 speed is not worth the extra cash over DDR3 1600 unless the price difference per 8GB stick is like $2. Maaaybe $5. In addition, the voltage is a tad too high at 1.6V. You want 1.5V since that's what Intel recommends. Yes people have used 1.6V and higher just fine on Intel platforms but considering the sheer amount of money you're spending and the fact that performance increase is pretty much non-existent, why not err on the side of caution? Finally, the tall heatsinks on that RAM would interfere with the installation of most mid to high-end air cooling HSF out there. IN other words, that RAM is basically meant to be use with water cooling/liquid AIO.

- You really don't need a 1000W PSU. As HardOCP recently showed, a test system with a massively overclocked 3770K and GTX 980 overclocked SLI was around 600W at full load
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...980_sli_overclocked_gpu_review/6#.VGluc_nF_t8

So with your water cooling plans you would be fine with a good quality 850W PSU. With that said, if I was aiming for a 1000W PSU for a system that actually needed it, I would go for this Seasonic:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00608FKN8/?tag=extension-kb-20