Cooler and Case recommendations

[elwood13]

I hadn't built a machine since a PIII 1g until last year, and with the help of this site, built my youngest son a good low budget machine. A lot of great knowledge here. I am currently gathering the parts to build a nice computer for my oldest son (his birthday present and we will build it together) and have been searching for the answer, but still haven't had that aha moment.

What he does now, or attempts to do on the old core duo, is play games like world of war series, COD, Battlefield ?, Arma 2 and 3 etc. While he does this, he is on Skype or teamspeak and still manages to watch youtube or serf the web. He has started to play around with video editing from the gopro and does that on my imac. He's going off to college and I'm trying to build a machine that will keep him going for awhile.

I ended up deciding to go with an i7 4770k on an asus maximus vi hero. Not sure if that was the right choice, but that is what I have. The problem I have is deciding on air cooling or liquid and then pick the case or do you pick a case and go from there?

I budgeted $200 on the case and would like to keep the cooling un $150 as I am trying to squeeze out enough cash to put in a evga gtx 780. The cases I have looked at are by Antec, Corsair and Fractal Design. The cooling I have looked at is the h100i, Noctua nh-d14 and thermalright silver arrow.

I don't remember having all these choices back in 1999. Any good case and cooler recommendations that work well together would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Turb0Yoda]

Fractal r4 and the h100i along with some case fans will do the stick.

 

[elwood13]

Thanks D34TH. I'm still reading on how the fans and watercooler should be placed. I have never used a water cooler before. With the above mentioned recommendation, I'm guessing the radiator goes on top with the fans sucking in? What additional fans would I need and where would they go? Other componets in this build are as follows:

Reuse his existing Samsung ssd (for the OS) and 1 tb wd 7200. This one is 3/4 full, so I will probably put in another one. Maybe 2 or 3 tb.
Purchased a Coolmaster V series 850w power supply
Looking at Corsair Dominator Platinum Series 8GB(2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 MHz C9 Memory Kit 1.5v (on ASUS list and read somewhere here about needing to be 1.5) Or should I go 16g?
EVGA GTX780 (I see they have several different models in 3g, I just don't know what the difference is and which one do I need?)

Thanks again.

 

[Turb0Yoda]

Corsair Dominator Platinum Series 8GB(2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 MHz- Whoah there, that's more than enough for gaming, some of the best RAM you can get. 16 gigs is only if he uses photo shop or complex rendering software or multiple programs at the same time.

The 780 models you'll have to post here. Clock speed, core speed, brand, cooling will make a difference.
Go for a 780ti if possible.

Water cooling- it will tell you what to do in the box. What you said should be correct, but I don't remember the correct config. I think the fans go onto the case and the radiator below it. The fans should be sucking in air.

Please put the links of the GPU's here so I can determine which is better.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125493
here is a 780 ti. I would go with an EVGA card personally, but this has good cooling.

Here is a 780 from EVGA
ACX cooling:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130951
Reference cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130917

The ACX model is better as it has a higher clock speed and better cooling.

 

[Turb0Yoda]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127746

Actually, this one seems to have the best cooling. Also, despite the slightly lower clock speed, it can easily be overclock using MSI's utility. Also, it has a dragon on it. 😛

 

[elwood13]

Thanks again. Here are the cards I was looking at, I just don't know what the real differences are.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%2050001402%20600440544&IsNodeId=1&name=EVGA

I would like the 780ti, but it is out of the price range right now. I thought about adding a second 780 down the road, but don't know if he would benefit with two cards in gaming. I want to build him a good machine because he never complains about the one he has and he is a really good kid. Had to take my mac in for a hard drive replacement and asked him if I could play world of tanks on his. I got a whopping 11 fps on it and graphics were not good. I ask him how he plays other games and he replied that he sets them very low and just deals with it.

On a side note, I've never overclocked and when I went to buy the motherboard, the sales guy said I should get the sabertooth because it was better built and could still oc. After looking on the web, it looks like the hero has auto oc settings and might be better for gaming. Being new to this, you think the hero is the better way to go? Price is only $30 difference.

 

[Turb0Yoda]

I,linked a card from that page in the la at post. anyway, here si the one with the highest clock speed.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130943
It also has the better cooling.
After looking around, the hero is the better way to go.
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VI_HERO/
I believe this is the one you are talking about.

 

[Turb0Yoda]

Actually Don't go with that. There have been lots of bad reviews concerning the memory. Go with this card instead.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127746

 

[elwood13]

Thank you very much. I'll give that one a look. Let you know what I end up with. His birthday isn't till the end of next month, but I am buying a few parts at a time in between paychecks until then.

 

[elwood13]

Thanks Storage. I was actually looking at d-14. If I have a ram stick go bad, do you have to remove the d-14 first? If so, is that very hard? I still have reservations about putting water inside, but have gotten over my fear of being totally against liquid cooling. Is one model better than the other on the noctua"s? From both you guy's experience, is one more reliable than the other? I've read so many stats, I think I fried what's left of my brain

I swapped out my mother board today and picked up the hero. While I was there, I went ahead and got 8g (2-4g) Corsair Dominator Platinum 2133 9-11-11-31. I thought they were 1.5v, but when I got home and looked at them, they said 1.65v. I thought I read that you are supposed to use 1.5v on the 4770k. Then I found a pdf dated 7-11-13 from intel on 1 thru 4 gen i7's compatible memory. Though this particular ram was not on the list, I saw several that were 1.65v. Do you think this ram will be okay and is this particular set I have any good?

I got to look in person at several cases. I do like the r4, but also liked the corsair 600t white one. Not sure if I really like the white, but I did like the case. I think I will narrow the case down once I decide on the cooling.

Thanks again guys.