Help me with my gaming build

[Samusbresolino]

It's kinda hard to set a budget because the prices are VERY different around here in Brazil, but I'm estimating that it's around $1500~$1700. It must include a monitor and I already have a DVD/CD writer (is this the right term in english? excuse my ignorance haha), 3 HDDs (500GB, 1TB, 2TB), a Gigabyte R9 290 and a HAF XM, so I won't be changing those.

Here it goes:

Cpu: i5 4670k

Water Cooler: Corsair H110 (question: will it fit on my HAF XM, fixing the radiator inside / fans outside? It seems this case can handle water coolers with thickness up to 33 mm, H110 is at 29mm, so I suppose It's fine, or is there anything else to consider? Also, should I set the fans at the top of the water cooler to exhaust or intake?). It breaks my heart to simply uninstall that huge 200mm fan at the top, since my version of the HAF XM is the windowed one and it doesn't have a slot for me to install it at the side panel...

Motherboard: ASUS Z87-PLUS

GPU: Gigabyte R9 290, as I said previously. I know it's hot and loud, but I found it at an excellent price.

RAM: 2x4GB 1600MHz G.Skill / Corsair Vengeance (still looking for the best price! I can't find corsair low profile anywhere around here, I'd take that if I could...). For around the same price I could take a single Corsair clip of 8GB at 1866MHz, but I suppose the dual channel option is superior...?

PSU: Corsair GS 700 (I used Enermax's calculator, it recommended at least 666W... creepy. I probably set the cpu's Vcore too high, I'm a total virgin to overclocking so I set it to 1.4V... I will do a lot of research before trying to overclock, but if anyone can point me to some good guides, I'd be very thankful!)

SSD: 120/128 GB... Can't choose the right model/brand. Kingston's are quite cheaper around here (not the HyperX kind) but I dunno if they are good, Samsung 840 EVO and Sandisk Ultra are about the same midrange price, and a seller was really adamant on selling me a Corsair FORCE but it was 15% more expensive, is it worth it?

Monitor: LG 23EA53... It's IPS and it's cheap around here, will the 14ms really cripple me at gaming? I plan to buy a Dell Ultra Sharp U2713HM next February/March, I just don't have the funds to do it right now. I already have a 1600 x 900 20" 5ms monitor, but using it with my R9 290 would probably make me cry.

Case: HAF XM, as I said before.



... That's it, I suppose. Any help is welcomed, excuse my poor english and thanks in advance!

 

[geofelt]

My thoughts:

I do not much like all in one liquid coolers when a good air cooler can do the job.
A liquid cooler will be expensive, noisy, less reliable, and will not cool any better
in a well ventilated case.
Liquid cooling is really air cooling, it just puts the heat exchange in a different place.
The orientation of the radiator will cause a problem.
If you orient it to take in cool air from the outside, you will cool the cpu better, but the hot air then circulates inside the case heating up the graphics card and motherboard.
If you orient it to exhaust(which I think is better) , then your cpu cooling will be less effective because it uses pre heated case air.
And... I have read too many tales of woe when a liquid cooler leaks.
google "H100 leak"

I would buy a good noctua tower type cooler and spend the savings elsewhere.

Definitely buy a 2 stick kit of ram so you can run dual channel. g.skil is fine as are most any other brand.

This chart would agree with 650w:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

Do not be much swayed by vendor synthetic SSD benchmarks.
They are done with apps that push the SSD to it's maximum using queue lengths of 30 or so.
Most desktop users will do one or two things at a time, so they will see queue lengths of one or two.
What really counts is the response times, particularly for small random I/O. That is what the os does mostly.
For that, the response times of current SSD's are remarkably similar. And quick. They will be 50X faster than a hard drive.
In sequential operations, they will be 2x faster than a hard drive, perhaps 3x if you have a sata3 interface.
Larger SSD's are preferable. They have more nand chips that can be accessed in parallel. Sort of an internal raid-0 if you will.
Also, a SSD will slow down as it approaches full. That is because it will have a harder time finding free nand blocks to do an update without a read/write operation.

I would prefer intel or Samsung because they make their own nand chips and can do a better job of validation

Defer on the interim monitor until you see how you do.

It will put you that much closer to your 27" monitor.

Check out the catleap 27" monitors on ebay. Forums for them show well satisfied users.

 

[Samusbresolino]

Thanks for your answer Geofelt, would a Hyper 212 EVO be enough? This Noctua brand simply doesn't exist around here, I can't find it anywhere.

By dumping the H110 and the monitor I could buy a Maximus VI HERO and a 250GB SSD ( the price really skyrockets for 500GB+), and keep some savings for the U2713HM... If I REALLY push it I could get a 4770K, but since my main use for this pc is gaming I suppose it would be better to stay with the 4670K and save for the monitor, right?

I fell in love at first sight with the Maximus VI FORMULA, but unfortunately there is no way I can fit it in my budget... It looks so damn awesome... Too bad.

Thanks again dude, you really helped me. If I could bother you again with the questions above, I'd be really indebted to you.

 

[geofelt]

The hyper212 is an excellent value cooler.
It will allow you a decent overclock for a 4670K.
I might wonder if an additional 1-2 multipliers would be worth spending any more for a top end cooler.

With a budget, I might bypass the higher priced Z87 based motherboards also. Only if you were a competitive overclocker might they perform any better.

For gaming, I would also pass on a 4770K. Few games can make use of more than 2-3 cores. The hyperthreads will add little to the gamer.

240gb seems to be about right for a ssd today. You can put a fair number of games on it. If you ever need more room, or for bulk storage such as backups or video files, then add a hard drive.

Sounds to me like you are very close to your 27" monitor.

I bought a nixeus vue 30" 2560 x 1600 monitor and am very pleased with it.
You can find a similar 27" unit for less than the dell:
http://www.amazon.com/Nixeus-27-Inch-Resolution-2560x1440-NX-VUE27/dp/B008M08SN6/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1387568627&sr=1-1&keywords=2560+x+1440+27%22

Check the forums, but users of the Korean units like catleap monitors seem very satisfied.
You can order them vie ebay, shipped directly from Korea, and they are cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/CROSSOVER-27QW-HDMI-IPS-LED/dp/B00EZMDOOI/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1387568627&sr=1-7&keywords=2560+x+1440+27%22

 

[Samusbresolino]

The hyper212 is an excellent value cooler.
It will allow you a decent overclock for a 4670K.
I might wonder if an additional 1-2 multipliers would be worth spending any more for a top end cooler.

With a budget, I might bypass the higher priced Z87 based motherboards also. Only if you were a competitive overclocker might they perform any better.

For gaming, I would also pass on a 4770K. Few games can make use of more than 2-3 cores. The hyperthreads will add little to the gamer.

240gb seems to be about right for a ssd today. You can put a fair number of games on it. If you ever need more room, or for bulk storage such as backups or video files, then add a hard drive.

Sounds to me like you are very close to your 27" monitor.

I bought a nixeus vue 30" 2560 x 1600 monitor and am very pleased with it.
You can find a similar 27" unit for less than the dell:
http://www.amazon.com/Nixeus-27-Inch-Resolution-2560x1440-NX-VUE27/dp/B008M08SN6/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1387568627&sr=1-1&keywords=2560+x+1440+27%22

Check the forums, but users of the Korean units like catleap monitors seem very satisfied.
You can order them vie ebay, shipped directly from Korea, and they are cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/CROSSOVER-27QW-HDMI-IPS-LED/dp/B00EZMDOOI/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1387568627&sr=1-7&keywords=2560+x+1440+27%22

Unfortunately, I must avoid importing any items from international sellers. The taxing for those kind of items here in Brazil is absurd, there is a bit of a luck factor included since your order could simply pass by unnoticed, but if they get you... The taxes will raise the price by more than 100%... And then you add the shipping fees... Yup. I will have to settle with the U2713HM (priced at $840 around here). All kinds of electronics are heavily overpriced around here because of such taxes, since they usually aren't built here. You might've heard that the PS4 is at $1684 here in Brazil, so you get the idea.

There aren't many options of high quality cpu coolers around here, I suppose it's between the 212 EVO, Tx3 EVO and Thermaltake Frio...The rest are a bunch of cheap Zalman and Casemall fans, dunno about their quality. Since I'm an overclocking beginner, I won't be going too far, maybe I will try to reach 4,0~4.2GHz, hopefully the 212 EVO will hold up to that. I'm more worried about my R9 290's temperature, because of the lack of a fan in the side panel, dunno what can I do about that...


Thanks again again man, I'd buy you a beer if we weren't quite a few kilometers away 😀