Need Advice on PC Upgrades

[DaemonGrin]

Ok this is my current shopping list 

 

CPU - Intel i5 4670k Haswell

MB - Gigabyte Z87X - D3H

GFX - EVGA GeForce GTX 760 4gb vram 256-bit

SSD - Samsung Evo 120gb

HDD - WD Black 1TB 

RAM - Corsair Dominator 16gb (8gb x 2)

OS - Win 7 Ult.

Thermaltake Chaser series Full tower case

 

Have a Corsiar Power unit already. Let me know what yall think of this combo of items purty please!

 

Thanks!

[Spartan 363]

 

I would stay away from those because they are indeed overpriced for brand recognition purposes.  I would just buy all the components separately as they are usually cheaper and it's the same or even better than the ones found in Alienwares and such.  Building PC's is fun and you learn a lot on maintaining and upgrading them, you also learn that it's cheaper to build your own vs buying a built gaming PC too.   I would also stick with Intel for your first build as the CPU has no pins to screw up installation unlike the AMD CPUs that do.  I learned a hard lesson when I bent one of the pins on my then monster AMD Athlon FX-62 CPU that cost me $1000 back in 2005, lol.  I did bend it back with precision and never again deal with AMD and plus, Intel Core i7's are better too.  I'm still rocking my old Intel i7 990x 6 core CPU and an aging MSI X-58 Pro-E mobo with 12GB of Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 RAM.  Just upgrading my GPU and HDD to SSD has kept my gaming rig up to speed with the best of today.  It's about 5 years old too, lol.

 

This is my current gaming rig, the GPU(s) are a EVGA GTX 670 FTW 2GB and a PNY GTX 560 Ti for PhysX processing.  I'm going to upgrade to a EVGA GTX 760 FTW 4GB because Skyrim is killing the 2GB VRAM on my 670.  Then I will use the 670 for PhysX duty, lol.  Behold, my 5 year old PC with a few upgraded goodies built from scratch

 

 

 

Nice rig but x-58 is from end of 2009 and your MB is gen 1 plus some other limtations with will bottleneck your system with newer generation hardware.

 

And you mean it can handle most games of today and not todays PC'S becouse it can't hehe.

 

But thats only importend if you realy want top notch and OC performance.

 

Your MB also dont support dual DDR3 (only triple which prolly not sold anymore)and higher GHZ frequency of today.

 

Again its not an attack on your system its realy nice and great you still use it and upgrade.

 

 

 

No problem, I know it's an aging system, but I have it OC'ed nicely for being an air cooled rig.  My CPU is OC'ed to 4 GHZ because I prefer it running cooler when it won't make much of a difference having it at 4.5 GHZ.  I did OC it to 5 GHZ one time, but it was very unstable and nearly overheated when running a few benchmarks, for that speed, it's going to need water cooling, but that is only for showing how big your PC's dick is, no need for it for gaming lol.  My CPU still holds it's own against the good ones today when OC'ed, but is easily outclassed when the new ones are OC'ed.  I have Hyper Threading turned off when I game on Skyrim and turn it on when I do some video and 3D editing, that's where it still shines today. 

 

My RAM is still pretty solid for the gaming I do today and I do have spare Triple Channel RAM in case a set of mine takes a dump. 

 

 

My Mobo is still good for gaming when PCI-E 3.0 hardware is not much faster than the PCI-E 2.1 in my mobo.  I'm not going to lose sleep when I'm losing 1-3 FPS because of this, lol. 

 

 

I do plan on upgrading during tax return season.  I'm thinking about getting the new Intel Haswell-E EE 8 core CPU's, Intel based x99 chipset mobo and off course DDR4 2667+ RAM if they come out then and looked into either getting discounted GTX Titan or whatever new generation GTX 8XX series will be unless I buy the GTX 760 and just buy another to SLI them.  Then I will keep it for about 4-5 years before my next upgrade cycle besides GPU's and SSD's.  It's going to hurt my wallet but sure as hell going to give me a bigger smile than the Joker can ever muster, lol.

 

 

[Spartan 363]

Ok this is my current shopping list 

 

CPU - Intel i5 4670k Haswell

MB - Gigabyte Z87X - D3H

GFX - EVGA GeForce GTX 660 3gb vram

SSD - Samsung Evo 120gb

HDD - WD Black 1TB 

RAM - Corsair Dominator 16gb (8gb x 2)

OS - Win 7 Ult.

Thermaltake Chaser series Full tower case

 

Have a Corsiar Power unit already. Let me know what yall think of this combo of items purty please!

 

Thanks!

 

If you want to save a few bucks and still want a good quality built case from experience, get the Cougar Evolution full tower case, it has the plugs for WC setups and such.  The case has plenty and good airflow if you decide to go the air cooled way.  It has lots of space for even Quad SLI GTX Titans (Overkill though).  It has plenty of space for many after market CPU coolers, even the gigantic V8 coolers.  It has USB 3.0 ports to connect them to a USB 3.0 mobo and has a fan controller for 2 separate banks of fans.  It also has an adjustable PSU tray for when you get large PSU's like the one in my rig now that fit snugly.  The case has plenty of slots for extra fans too, I highly recommend this case since you can tuck all the wires behind the mobo tray to give your case good airflow and look good too.  It may not look as flashy as others, but I do prefer function over form.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811553002

 

 

 

While the GTX 660 is a respectful GPU, it's 192 bit interface is it's Achilles Heel.  It will start to choke in higher resolution, even at 1080p when you play very graphic intense games.  I would personally go for the EVGA GTX 760 FTW when OC'ed is faster than even a GTX 680 with a mild OC (~100 MHZ) and the 256 bit interface will be a champion for 1080 and above gaming and has more VRAM for when Fallout 4 will come as we all know, ENB and such will make it's way there and it's good to future proof too.  You can always get a second GTX 760 to SLI and even outperform a single GTX Titan for almost half the cost of one when both cards prices are included.  If you do decide to get another GPU to SLI, you will need to upgrade to a 800W+ PSU to be good.

[DaemonGrin]

Am I forgetting about a soundcard? I mean sound would be nice and all haha!

[DaemonGrin]

 

 

 

 

While the GTX 660 is a respectful GPU, it's 192 bit interface is it's Achilles Heel.  It will start to choke in higher resolution, even at 1080p when you play very graphic intense games.  I would personally go for the EVGA GTX 760 FTW when OC'ed is faster than even a GTX 680 with a mild OC (~100 MHZ) and the 256 bit interface will be a champion for 1080 and above gaming and has more VRAM for when Fallout 4 will come as we all know, ENB and such will make it's way there and it's good to future proof too.  You can always get a second GTX 760 to SLI and even outperform a single GTX Titan for almost half the cost of one when both cards prices are included.  If you do decide to get another GPU to SLI, you will need to upgrade to a 800W+ PSU to be good.

 

 

Oh crap haha I was looking at the wrong one yeah the 760 was the one you recommended at the start even bookmarked the page XD. so need to fix that huh XD

[Spartan 363]

Am I forgetting about a soundcard? I mean sound would be nice and all haha!

 

No need for that, back in the day, sound cards were a must to offload the CPU, but ever since 2006, it's not really needed unless you plan to do audio editing and such.  Don't waste your money on it when the sound from mobo's these days are pretty good or even do what I do, let your GPU handle the sound via HDMI, I game on my LG Cinema 3D 55" 1080p 3D TV and the sound is great when it goes through my surround sound system.

[brokencircle]

Don't forget  the optical drive.

[DaemonGrin]

 

Am I forgetting about a soundcard? I mean sound would be nice and all haha!

 

No need for that, back in the day, sound cards were a must to offload the CPU, but ever since 2006, it's not really needed unless you plan to do audio editing and such.  Don't waste your money on it when the sound from mobo's these days are pretty good or even do what I do, let your GPU handle the sound via HDMI, I game on my LG Cinema 3D 55" 1080p 3D TV and the sound is great when it goes through my surround sound system.

 

 

Yeah while not a 3D tv (my eyes can't handle it sadly) I will be gaming on my 55" Samsung HD and surround system. Right now I dual 2 HD 20" LCD screens which I set up when I was going through 3d design and animation classes. Drooling thinking about the next fallout.

[Spartan 363]

Don't forget  the optical drive.

 

If you want to save money, use the ones you have now if they still work good.

[DaemonGrin]

Don't forget  the optical drive.

 

Yeah it slipped my mind thinking about an external since I rarely ever use it. Games are pretty much all downloadable now so no real point to em other then getting the OS on the system etc. 

 

OMG that is an awesome idea! Yay! Indeed I can use my current one nice! It's almost brand new as I said I rarely used it.

[Spartan 363]

 

 

Am I forgetting about a soundcard? I mean sound would be nice and all haha!

 

No need for that, back in the day, sound cards were a must to offload the CPU, but ever since 2006, it's not really needed unless you plan to do audio editing and such.  Don't waste your money on it when the sound from mobo's these days are pretty good or even do what I do, let your GPU handle the sound via HDMI, I game on my LG Cinema 3D 55" 1080p 3D TV and the sound is great when it goes through my surround sound system.

 

 

Yeah while not a 3D tv (my eyes can't handle it sadly) I will be gaming on my 55" Samsung HD and surround system. Right now I dual 2 HD 20" LCD screens which I set up when I was going through 3d design and animation classes. Drooling thinking about the next fallout.

 

That sucks, my TV does passive 3D (Think IMAX in the movie theaters)  and is actually much easier on my eyes and you can even adjust the 3D settings to better fit your eyes.  It's a great TV and only cost me 2 big ones, it's the LG 55LM7600 model.  I do like the Nintendo Wii-like controller and makes it easier to go through settings and such, it has a bunch of apps too, but I don't use it when I have my PC connected to it, lol.  It took me a bit though to adjust the settings to get the colors I wanted with deep blacks and such and it looks fabulous now when I play Skyrim with all the eye candy on and also BF4 looks awesome too.

 

Same here, I look forward to the next Fallout game.

[Spartan 363]

 

Don't forget  the optical drive.

 

Yeah it slipped my mind thinking about an external since I rarely ever use it. Games are pretty much all downloadable now so no real point to em other then getting the OS on the system etc. 

 

OMG that is an awesome idea! Yay! Indeed I can use my current one nice! It's almost brand new as I said I rarely used it.

 

I find it much easier and faster to install the OS from a USB flash drive, I can install Windows 7 Ultimate x64 in less than 10 mins from start to desktop on my SSD.  I do have a Blu-ray drive for movies and possibly future games when they are too large for DVD's.  I prefer hard copies in case I have no internet to download them.  Also my DVD-RW drive is over 6 years old and it still works like a champ today, lol.

[DaemonGrin]

 

I find it much easier and faster to install the OS from a USB flash drive, I can install Windows 7 Ultimate x64 in less than 10 mins from start to desktop on my SSD.  I do have a Blu-ray drive for movies and possibly future games when they are too large for DVD's.  I prefer hard copies in case I have no internet to download them.  Also my DVD-RW drive is over 6 years old and it still works like a champ today, lol.

 

 

 

 

I used to prefer hard copies but then I realized I'm a game hoarder and was running out of room XD. Not to mention I got into the expensive habit of buying the limited collector editions that came with statues or weapon replica's etc. I got an expensive ass statue with a POS game I had high hopes for (SWTOR) that helped me to rethink things lol.

 

How do you get Win 7 ult x64 on a USB anyway?

[Spartan 363]

 

 

I find it much easier and faster to install the OS from a USB flash drive, I can install Windows 7 Ultimate x64 in less than 10 mins from start to desktop on my SSD.  I do have a Blu-ray drive for movies and possibly future games when they are too large for DVD's.  I prefer hard copies in case I have no internet to download them.  Also my DVD-RW drive is over 6 years old and it still works like a champ today, lol.

 

 

 

 

I used to prefer hard copies but then I realized I'm a game hoarder and was running out of room XD. Not to mention I got into the expensive habit of buying the limited collector editions that came with statues or weapon replica's etc. I got an expensive ass statue with a POS game I had high hopes for (SWTOR) that helped me to rethink things lol.

 

How do you get Win 7 ult x64 on a USB anyway?

 

It's simple, get the Windows ISO file and mount it to the USB drive as a boot-able device with Ultra ISO or such. Then when it comes to installing Windows, first connect the USB drive with Windows on it and when you turn on your PC, go to your BIOS menu (usually F1 F2 or DEL in most PC's), go to the Boot order menu, then select your USB drive to be the first one in the boot order and then exit the BIOS with the settings saved.  Then reboot and you are good to go, it loads and installs Windows much faster than a DVD.

 

I see, just have a book shelf with all my games, I guess I do have the space when the entire basement of my house is my man cave, lol.

[...0...]

 

 

I would stay away from those because they are indeed overpriced for brand recognition purposes.  I would just buy all the components separately as they are usually cheaper and it's the same or even better than the ones found in Alienwares and such.  Building PC's is fun and you learn a lot on maintaining and upgrading them, you also learn that it's cheaper to build your own vs buying a built gaming PC too.   I would also stick with Intel for your first build as the CPU has no pins to screw up installation unlike the AMD CPUs that do.  I learned a hard lesson when I bent one of the pins on my then monster AMD Athlon FX-62 CPU that cost me $1000 back in 2005, lol.  I did bend it back with precision and never again deal with AMD and plus, Intel Core i7's are better too.  I'm still rocking my old Intel i7 990x 6 core CPU and an aging MSI X-58 Pro-E mobo with 12GB of Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000 RAM.  Just upgrading my GPU and HDD to SSD has kept my gaming rig up to speed with the best of today.  It's about 5 years old too, lol.

 

This is my current gaming rig, the GPU(s) are a EVGA GTX 670 FTW 2GB and a PNY GTX 560 Ti for PhysX processing.  I'm going to upgrade to a EVGA GTX 760 FTW 4GB because Skyrim is killing the 2GB VRAM on my 670.  Then I will use the 670 for PhysX duty, lol.  Behold, my 5 year old PC with a few upgraded goodies built from scratch

 

 

 

Nice rig but x-58 is from end of 2009 and your MB is gen 1 plus some other limtations with will bottleneck your system with newer generation hardware.

 

And you mean it can handle most games of today and not todays PC'S becouse it can't hehe.

 

But thats only importend if you realy want top notch and OC performance.

 

Your MB also dont support dual DDR3 (only triple which prolly not sold anymore)and higher GHZ frequency of today.

 

Again its not an attack on your system its realy nice and great you still use it and upgrade.

 

 

 

No problem, I know it's an aging system, but I have it OC'ed nicely for being an air cooled rig.  My CPU is OC'ed to 4 GHZ because I prefer it running cooler when it won't make much of a difference having it at 4.5 GHZ.  I did OC it to 5 GHZ one time, but it was very unstable and nearly overheated when running a few benchmarks, for that speed, it's going to need water cooling, but that is only for showing how big your PC's dick is, no need for it for gaming lol.  My CPU still holds it's own against the good ones today when OC'ed, but is easily outclassed when the new ones are OC'ed.  I have Hyper Threading turned off when I game on Skyrim and turn it on when I do some video and 3D editing, that's where it still shines today. 

 

My RAM is still pretty solid for the gaming I do today and I do have spare Triple Channel RAM in case a set of mine takes a dump. 

 

 

My Mobo is still good for gaming when PCI-E 3.0 hardware is not much faster than the PCI-E 2.1 in my mobo.  I'm not going to lose sleep when I'm losing 1-3 FPS because of this, lol. 

 

 

I do plan on upgrading during tax return season.  I'm thinking about getting the new Intel Haswell-E EE 8 core CPU's, Intel based x99 chipset mobo and off course DDR4 2667+ RAM if they come out then and looked into either getting discounted GTX Titan or whatever new generation GTX 8XX series will be unless I buy the GTX 760 and just buy another to SLI them.  Then I will keep it for about 4-5 years before my next upgrade cycle besides GPU's and SSD's.  It's going to hurt my wallet but sure as hell going to give me a bigger smile than the Joker can ever muster, lol.

 

 

Ok its bit confusing here i thought it was the MSI X58 E MB  released in jan-2009 which is USB 2 and only genration 1 PCE 16X

 

Then later they release a USB3 version gen2 same name  with USB3.

 

There are 3 versions which overtime off course later ones improved to more modern tech.

 

Yes that MB with gen2 is still ok but believe when you want fully bandwith of modern graphics card(290 or 780 ti) GEN 3 is must plus it have more improvements over a 3 year old motherboard. It offcorse all come down what your doing with it, if its games your system is still very good.

 

All tho running a CPU OC like yours for many years is not realy in for long lifespan.

 

But this later gen2 mother board is 3 years old not 5 years.

 

Next real big upgrade comes in 2 years time 2015 with maybe then DRR4 and UBS4. And titan already for games not realy interesting anymore with 780 ti and soon the limited version 780 ti OC kingpin with 6gb vram released(price $999)

 

But we also have to concider how market for PC is developing(going not well at moment) maybe its in few years time all gone and we game with a box cloud games no hardware needed?

 

[DaemonGrin]

Looks like I'm going to have more then I thought to drop on a custom PC and was wondering if I should go with a 1TB SSD Samsung and max out ram to 32gb (4x 8gb)? Or if there would be something wiser to go with?

 

Thanks!

[Spartan 363]

Looks like I'm going to have more then I thought to drop on a custom PC and was wondering if I should go with a 1TB SSD Samsung and max out ram to 32gb (4x 8gb)? Or if there would be something wiser to go with?

 

Thanks!

 

A 256 GB SSD is good for Windows and also, 8 GB of RAM is still good these days for gaming.  What you are trying to do is overkill if you simply plan on gaming and browsing the web.

[DaemonGrin]

Well if I have the money and nothing else to get and it being the first time getting/building/having a "big kid" PC I kinda wanted to go all out on it lol. And now that I am actually ending up with more than I originally thought figured why not. 

 

EDIT: Another idea is a liquid cooled system? Thoughts and remember overkill isn't an issue (I don't think anyway lol) only over budget XD

 

EDIT 2: This is currently what I have in mind http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/2fMso

[Spartan 363]

I would only get water cooling if you actually know how to properly overclock, otherwise it's not needed in an air cooled system running factory clocks and would be a waste of money and potentially short out your PC if you don't install the kit and maintain it properly as well.

Also big boy gaming PC's will cost you well over $4000 with using Intel Extreme CPU's, GTX Titans/780's in SLI and having Surround 3D triple monitors and such.  I would save your money and focus on getting quality parts instead of cheap parts and such.

[...0...]

Well if I have the money and nothing else to get and it being the first time getting/building/having a "big kid" PC I kinda wanted to go all out on it lol. And now that I am actually ending up with more than I originally thought figured why not. 

 

EDIT: Another idea is a liquid cooled system? Thoughts and remember overkill isn't an issue (I don't think anyway lol) only over budget XD

 

EDIT 2: This is currently what I have in mind http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/2fMso

 

If money isn't a issue why go not go i7 3770k(4770k not recconmended cpu)

 

Why not go custom made ASUS AMD290x DCII(4gb vram 512mbit) $500(superior in everway for les moeny) or even nvidia 780ti(low on bandwith and vram 3gb) $700?

 

Those TITANS and 780ti btw won't come near xfire 290x performance also for alot less money.

 

32gb is just waste of money 16gb is enough for next 3years.

[DaemonGrin]

 

Well if I have the money and nothing else to get and it being the first time getting/building/having a "big kid" PC I kinda wanted to go all out on it lol. And now that I am actually ending up with more than I originally thought figured why not. 

 

EDIT: Another idea is a liquid cooled system? Thoughts and remember overkill isn't an issue (I don't think anyway lol) only over budget XD

 

EDIT 2: This is currently what I have in mind http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/2fMso

 

If money isn't a issue why go not go i7 3770k(4770k not recconmended cpu)

 

Why not go custom made ASUS AMD290x DCII(4gb vram 512mbit) $500(superior in everway for les moeny) or even nvidia 780ti(low on bandwith and vram 3gb) $700?

 

Those TITANS and 780ti btw won't come near xfire 290x performance also for alot less money.

 

32gb is just waste of money 16gb is enough for next 3years.

 

 

Just curious doesn't the Asus 290x use directx 11.2? if so isn't that a windows 8.1 thing? Kinda refusing to go win 8 for compatibility. If not that is a very sexy GFX card. Not getting a Titan to costly. I am leaning towards going with just the 16gb to start. I am curious though what the differences are with the memory so many to choose from and large price variances even though they are quad packs. Like the Corsair Dominators vs the corsair vengeance like a $100 difference for the quad pack but no clue why.

 

Thanks!

[...0...]

 

 

Well if I have the money and nothing else to get and it being the first time getting/building/having a "big kid" PC I kinda wanted to go all out on it lol. And now that I am actually ending up with more than I originally thought figured why not. 

 

EDIT: Another idea is a liquid cooled system? Thoughts and remember overkill isn't an issue (I don't think anyway lol) only over budget XD

 

EDIT 2: This is currently what I have in mind http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/2fMso

 

If money isn't a issue why go not go i7 3770k(4770k not recconmended cpu)

 

Why not go custom made ASUS AMD290x DCII(4gb vram 512mbit) $500(superior in everway for les moeny) or even nvidia 780ti(low on bandwith and vram 3gb) $700?

 

Those TITANS and 780ti btw won't come near xfire 290x performance also for alot less money.

 

32gb is just waste of money 16gb is enough for next 3years.

 

 

Just curious doesn't the Asus 290x use directx 11.2? if so isn't that a windows 8.1 thing? Kinda refusing to go win 8 for compatibility. If not that is a very sexy GFX card. Not getting a Titan to costly. I am leaning towards going with just the 16gb to start. I am curious though what the differences are with the memory so many to choose from and large price variances even though they are quad packs. Like the Corsair Dominators vs the corsair vengeance like a $100 difference for the quad pack but no clue why.

 

Thanks!

 

DX11.2 have only any use if games are made in DX11.2 and at moment NONE. It will prolly take while before first games are that take full advantage of dx11.

 

Also 290x will have mantle for games like battfield 4(more and more developers will also have options for mantle) then you dont even need DX11 at all you switch over to mantle.

 

But you can still use 290x it will still improve enormous.

 

[DaemonGrin]

Welp I have my baby built and running so happy.

 

 

 

Corsair Obsidian 650D case

32gb (got a deal) 4 x 8gb Corsair Dominator Platinum

Intel i5 4670k haswell cpu

Cooler Master Hyper N520 cpu cooler

Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP mobo

Replaced the 200mm fans in the case with blue LED 200m Cooler Master Megaflow's x2
Samsung evo 840 1tb SSD

Corsair ATX AX860i power supply

ASUS R9 290x gpu

 

various odds and ends Kb, mouse, etc..

 

Many thanks to everyone!

 

[wayra]

damn I am super jelly. How much did it costs in the end?

[DaemonGrin]

damn I am super jelly. How much did it costs in the end?

 

Rounded off $3500 with all the extra goodies. Lovin' my ASUS VG248QE monitor might get another for the second monitor using a Samsung Syncmaster I had in the closet currently (the one on the left in the pic is a Lenovo I was using, the samsung is the far right monitor that's not on).