*LOTS* of questions pertaining to PC Build

[VaultTechy]

So I'm putting together a new PC for myself, and I have a lot of stuff I wanted to ask. Came to Tom's because I love you guys to death.

Basically the story is, bought Witcher 3 for PS4, wound up costing me ~88$ (Canada here) once tax and all got involved, got it home and it was a 20-25fps mess that basically ruined the experience I'd been so excited for. In between load times I got an email from GMG saying they had it on sale for $30 and Fallout 4 for $45 (less than I paid for my embarassment of a Witcher port)....only so much BS a guy can handle!

Now I've worked on PCs in the past, worked as a tech in a repair place, so while I've done all the individual processes, (mobo swap, OS installs, diagnosing funky RAM, whatever) but never all in one go, which has left me kind of wondering on a few things. I really don't mean to lump my multiple questions into one post but it just seems like the least spammy way to handle it. So to get to it; my intended build is the following

Rosewill Challenger (Case), Raidmax 630SS (PSU), Windows 8.1 64bit (although I intend to just swap up to Win10) WD Blue 1TB, Kingston SSDNOW 120GB, Ripjaws X 2x8 DDR3 1866, Asus Strix GTX 970, i5 4460. (yet to pick a mobo)

I have *zero* interest in overclocking (no, that's not "gonna change when you look into it"), the idea is occasional video editing, playing Fallout 4/MGSV/etc. on nice settings, being fairly futureproof (hence 16GB RAM over 8GB)

So what I want to know is;

1. PCPartPicker gives me no grief when I fill all this in along with an H97 board - does anyone spy any compatibility issues, however?

2. There's rumblings that Nvidia's about to start handing out MGSV keys with their cards in the near future - when is everyone expecting that to be rolled out? I'm grabbing my card in a week, but I could wait the extra week if it means a freebie like that.

3. What do you guys suggest for a mobo? My gameplan going forward is to roll with the 970 and then in a year's time or so, SLI them. Aside from the three case fans and the obvious stuff, I'm possibly going to want a port for a third drive so I can run a second Blue in RAID.

4. Friend of mine insists the 4460 is going to bottleneck the 970, but he's got weeeird opinions (insists on a minimum 750W PSU, says 970s are just awful and a 960 will last for yeeeeaars, only an i7 is acceptable and everything should be overclocked out-of-box) on the off-chance he's right, what are your opinions?

5. The idea is for this rig to be run on an HDTV with a controller for some titles and a mouse/keyboard for others - the mouse/keyboard should be wireless if at all possible but enthusiast-level responsiveness is not a necessity (I play offline-only games, keyboard is only for XCOM/Civ/Total War/Crusader Kings. Any recommendations?

6. I already have the case, hard drive, power supply, RAM, and operating system, so those are locked in - but if there's any suggestions for the rest I'd love to hear it.

7. Never ever worked with an SSD. Is there any special things to consider - or do I just select it as boot drive and run the install as per usual?

I know posting at 2AM isn't gonna help me much but I'd love any feedback!!

 

[synphul]

If you're planning to sli, you'll need a z series motherboard. The h97 chipset can support crossfire or a single nvidia card, not sli. I would opt for a better quality power supply, not that the wattage isn't enough but raidmax psu's are low quality. I'd look into a seasonic, antec hcg, evga b2/g2, xfx etc.

Here's a psu tier list based on comparable quality.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

The 4460 shouldn't really bottleneck the 970. 970's got a bad bit of publicity over their vram but in reality it's not much of an issue at 1080p. (Listed as 4gb while 3.5gb are one speed and the remaining .5gb is another, there was a class action bit against nvidia for false advertising).

Either of this would be a decent lower cost option for a z series if sli is something you want to consider.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz97xud3h
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z97e

If looking to sli and you want a power supply that is ready to go for sli'd 970's a 630w might be cutting it a bit close even on a quality unit. Something more like a 750w would be more appropriate. Better to have a little headroom so the psu isn't pushed clear to its' limits.

 

[Cem Goker]

1. H97 board is perfectly compatible with your other components

2. I am super excited for this game too! It's best to wait and see if the game will be bundled with NVIDIA's cards. The news did confirm that it may be bundled with the game, but lets be patient and see an official statement from NVIDIA. In my opinion, its always best to leave the GPU as the last component to buy.

3. Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3

4. The i5 4460 won't bottleneck the GTX 970. 750 W PSU is alright if you plan to SLI. You already have Raidmax 630SS, but I would recommend changing it. Look at this link to get http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html
The i5 is perfect for gaming and multi-tasking. Get the i7 if you are going to do video editing, streaming, modeling aside from gaming and have the budget to do so.

5. I'm not really sure about this so you need to confirm with others.

6. Change the PSU? Look at 4.

7. There aren't any special things to consider if you just want to install your OS into the SSD. Just do the usual installation like you would do with your HDD. Take note, however, that it is recommended to install the software it comes with (if ever) for firmware updates to improve your SSD's performance. I assume you know the rest of the drill already: Put your games, downloads, and other bulky files on your HDD and keep the programs and the OS at SSD.

 

[VaultTechy]

I
Either of this would be a decent lower cost option for a z series if sli is something you want to consider.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz97xud3h
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z97e

Thank you! Going to go with the ASUS board here, I appreciate the help.

 

[VaultTechy]

6. Change the PSU? Look at 4.

So, (guess I should've replied all in one message) do you think I'll be alright on the Raidmax PSU until about a year from now, and then buy maybe an Antec 750 and a second 970? Or is the Raidmax actually just so awful I should try to return it immediately and find something else? It had a solid 4-5 rating after 2,600 reviews which I took to be good news but, the consensus seems to be that it's really awful.

 

[synphul]

It's up to you, each psu can be different but in general raidmax doesn't use quality units. Having clean stable power is pretty important, it powers everything from the motherboard to cpu, gpu etc. Given it wouldn't really cost any more to get a better quality unit I personally wouldn't risk it. Just the cpu and gpu alone you're talking over $500 worth of hardware. A power supply may just stop working, it may have safety features built in to try and protect the rest of the system if it fails or on low quality units it may go 'poof' and take the motherboard, gpu or other components with it. It's listed as a tier 4 which isn't really suitable for gaming which is a higher power draw scenario with a cpu and gpu both under heavy load for extended periods of time. Being it's no cheaper than better alternatives there really isn't anything going for it in favor of choosing it vs something more reliable. The fact it's not even 80+ rated (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) is kind of concerning. You can have a low quality 600w psu and a high quality 600w psu, but under stress when they have to deliver power to the system, the low quality unit may only be capable of supplying 425w while the better quality unit can supply 580w clean and stable. Having a 'watt rating' doesn't say much about its true capabilities. You could in essence have a 520w quality unit capable of easily supplying more power under load than a 650w poor quality unit.

I can't say for sure it will absolutely explode and take all the other components with it, personally I wouldn't use it. Quality psu's don't mean a person has to spend $120 on a unit. As far as I know andyson makes the guts used in that psu and they haven't had the best track record compared to other actual manufacturers like seasonic or superflower which use better circuit protection, higher quality capacitors etc.

 

[Cem Goker]

6. Change the PSU? Look at 4.

So, (guess I should've replied all in one message) do you think I'll be alright on the Raidmax PSU until about a year from now, and then buy maybe an Antec 750 and a second 970? Or is the Raidmax actually just so awful I should try to return it immediately and find something else? It had a solid 4-5 rating after 2,600 reviews which I took to be good news but, the consensus seems to be that it's really awful.

You should replace your Raidmax PSU right away if you don't want the rest of your components to malfunction forever. You should definitely return it and get one of the Tier One or Two PSU's from the link.