Recent content by frag06

Get a 4690K. It's cheaper and better. The 960x2 is a joke. Get either a 970 or a 290X. Change the PSU. The CX series should be avoided when possible. Look at XFX, Seasonic or EVGA (G2, GS, B2) PSU's. You don't need 16GB of RAM for gaming. 8GB is more than enough. PCPartPicker part list /...

ACU doesn't run well on any GPU. Ubicrap titles are just that - crap. The 970 may have issues after 3.5GB of VRAM is used. Frametimes can spike and cause stuttering. The driver tries it's best to keep VRAM usage to the high priority partition (i.e. the 3.5GB segment), but it isn't foolproof...

If they're the same price and your PSU can handle it, take the 290X. We have yet to see how much of an issue the divided VRAM will be in the future. Right now it's not much of an issue from what we've seen, but when games start exceeding 3.5GB things may change.

I'd go with a 290X. The MSI Lightning is down to $300. Gigabyte generally makes good GPU's, but it comes down to the specific card.

The HD 518's are on-sale at Woot for $55. Best you'll find under $100; their regular price is actually $80. Grab a Zalman clip-on mic if you need one and you are good to go for about $60.

They're fine for office builds, where they aren't being pushed. They aren't burn-your-house-down PSU's and still have some OK uses, though there are of course better alternatives at low prices.

Intel certifies up to 1.65V RAM, which is the max "safe for long term" voltage with Haswell. Their engineers have also been quoted saying it's safe.

At 1600MHz (up to 1866MHz) you want 1.5V RAM. Up to 1.65V is safe but at 1866MHz and below it indicates poor quality chips in most cases. Once you hit 2133MHz you will start to see 1.6V - 1.65V more often. At 2133MHz it's no longer an indicator of poor quality chips as you need the extra voltage.

The M50's are pretty poor for gaming. Soundstage is small. That Fiio amp is for portable use and wouldn't be needed anyway. Look at the Sennheiser HD 558's and grab the mic in the combo for a cheap option; it's a Zalman clip-on mic. You could also go for the Antlion Modmic. For something...

Memory operating over 1600MHz is considered overclocked.

I'd take Vex's build. Those lightnings are great cards (especially for overclocking) and run fairly cool.

The 4790K should be able to handle 2400MHz just fine, not that the higher speed will matter for gaming. Are we talking about SLI 960/970? 650W would be enough and 750W would give you OC headroom; 800W+ is way more than enough.