Gaming PC: The semi-final build.

[Storm Crow]

CPU-Intel i7 4790K Devils Canyon

CPU Cooler-stock for now. I might get the PH-TC14PE later on but I was looking at the H100i because I was going to overclock later on and wanted a liquid cooler for that since this build is capable/optimized for it.

Thermal compound- Arctic Cooling MX4

Motherboard-Asus Maximus VII Formula

Memory- Corsair Vengeance Pro 16 gig (2x8) DDR3 1866

Storage-Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB SSD

Mass storage-Seagate Barracuda 1B 7200 RPM IHD

GPU-Asus GeForce GTX 970 4g strix

Case-Corsair 750 ATX Full Tower Case

Power Supply- Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

Optical Drive-Asus DRW 24F1ST DVD/CD Writer

Operating System-Microsoft Windows 8.1 64 bit

Monitor-Asus VG248QE 144hz 24”

Keyboard-Razer BlackWidow Chroma

Mouse-Razer DeathAdder Chroma

Headphones-Astro A40 + MixAmp Pro - Black 7.1 Channel

Total:$2324.65 w/shipping and after Rebate. Pretty expensive but I am trying to buy components to last. I was thinking of doing "bill me later" or neweggs "preferred account" to finance the computer, I could save up for 2-3 months but if I could I would like to get it asap.

I picked the A40s because my friend has had his for over 4 years now with no major incident so they seemed durable and high quality. And other than price I couldn’t find any reason why not to get it in reference to the performance but if you guys have a better headset I’m all ears because Id rather not spend $250 on a headset lol.

Also, I have word documents that I regularly use, is there a built in trial version of microsoft office that comes with on it as stock or do you have to download the trial/buy the full version?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

[TofuLion]

i personally would stay away from corsair at all for psu's. there are mixed reviews, and i would rather not take any chance at all. get seasonic they are one of the best, or xfx. also, the 16 GB is a bit overkill, 6GB used is the most i've seen at one time during regular use, and that was when multi-tasking and gaming at the same time. the i7 is also overkill, but the fact that it comes 4.4 GHz Turbo at stock is reason enough to get it. might also consider a bigger SSD, i have a 250 and it's almost full already and i'm ready for an upgrade. sorry, can't advise on the headset, i use my tv speakers right now. STRIX is a good model, runs very cool and silent, but gigabyte overclocks better. i have mine 1529 MHz on the core with +500 on the memory and it's stable with +30mV, and mine is the cheaper version of the card.

 

[Storm Crow]

The corsair I havent seen a whole lot of bad reviews about it but I will look into, and yeah the 16 gig 1866 ram might be over kill but I might be getting into stream, video editing, programming, etc. So I wanted to get something that would cover all those bases.

And the 120GB SSD I felt was a little too high because I only wanted something to put my OS on and maybe a few key programs like Google Chrome, Steam, and whatever select games I play regularly. And then put everything on my 1 TB HD.

The strix gpu i wanted because it was cool and quiet, higher overclock doesnt bother me too much but thanks for the heads up.

 

[Karadjgne]

Noctua NT-1 is better all around than the MX4 as far as paste goes, I'd stay away from the RM series psus, Corsair has better models like HX, AX, AXi, Seasonic, Antec HCG-, XFX, Rosewill Capstone, EVGA G2, SuperFlower are better choices, for your build you should be looking at a minimum of tier2b, 2a would be better, tier1 being top quality.

Unless you plan on using the SSD mainly as a boot drive with few apps, I'd spend the extra and move up to 250/258 Gb. It'll make a difference. The Samsung EVO or Crucial M series are good.

 

[Storm Crow]

Yeah I have a Rosewill 600w right now. But you meantued tier 2b 2a, are you talking about the 80+ rating system? So I'll look into a rosewill psu as a back up if I find more evidence for the corsair psu being unsatisfactory. Corsair is a good brand but its just that their PSU's arent that good? And the total watts I need is like 350w but Im shooting for a 600w-650w is that advised?

And any comment on the head set? Because I was originally going to get the Razer Kraken Chroma, any thoughts on them?

 

[TofuLion]

referring to the tier listing in this list
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1804779/power-supply-unit-tier-list.html

corsair makes great products, except of course their low end PSU as they are made cheap to keep the price down. 650 would be advisable, yes not only for the overclocking headroom and future upgrades, but also PSU's generally run most efficient while at 50% of their capacity

EDIT: the RM 650 is actually listed as tier 2a, but i wouldn't take the chance

 

[Storm Crow]

Does this look good (Rosewill CAPSTONE-650 650W Continuous @ 50°C, Intel Haswell Ready, 80 PLUS GOLD)?

 

[TofuLion]

that's perfect

 

[Storm Crow]

I might get the 750w since its the only one close on newegg but I'll check availability so I can get what I want instead of getting more than I need.

 

[TofuLion]

well there's no such thing as too much, it's about the price difference. the 750 is only $5 more

 

[Karadjgne]

Corsair doesn't 'make' anything. They buy or have other companies build their stuff for them. Seasonic, Channel Well, Chicony, Great Wall and Flextronics make Corsair psus. So of these you can tell you will get variances in quality, and price is not always a good judge.

The Rosewill Capstone 650w is an excellent psu, and for a gtx970 you honestly don't need more than 550w, even with an OC cpu, so the 650w will be just fine. The 750w for $5 more works too, but you don't need it unless you plan on sli in the future, and then it would be perfect.

 

[Storm Crow]

Is that like how nvidia gtx 970 are built by different companies? They don't build the parts they just make the designs an other companies build it?

 

[Karadjgne]

Just like AMD, nvidia makes a 'reference' board. This is the original design. After a short time period, they'll sell off or give to their 'partners' the specs for the board and some of the components like the processor with the expectation that it will still be an nvidia board but built and modified by a partner. Some companies take the stock boards and do nothing more than up the stock clocks a little, change the fan and shroud and slap their names on a OC or Superclocked version. Some go further and actually start from scratch, take the specs and make their own boards and really put out a quality product. Sapphire and Evga being notable for this.

As far as Corsair psu's go, the RM750/850 built by Chicony are pretty much up to Chicony's high standards, quality wise, but where those 2 psus fail miserably is Chicony used the specs set by Corsair, and that includes the use of really bad capacitors and a crappy thermal design. Not really Chicony's fault, but if they had done more to modify the design, it would have been a much better unit.

 

[Storm Crow]

Oh, gotcha. I was going to go with the Corsair AX760i 80+ platinum. I wanted to get a higher quality PSU for peace of mind.

 

[Karadjgne]

Very, very nice unit, comes with Corsair link I believe that will monitor outputs, fan speeds etc.