Silent (ish) gaming HTPC. Any thoughts on my build?

[koocha]

Hi all

I've been playing with this build for a while now and I've come up with this:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/koocha/saved/3OIp

It's to sit behind the telly so I've picked a big, silent case. I'll be gaming at 1920 x 1080 but would like no slow down and Max quality settings.

Any thoughts?

Edit: I'm coming from a Q6600, 4GB RAM and an ATI 4890

[scaryjim]

I'd rather spend £300 on graphics going for a single high performance card than two 270Xes - more reliable performance and with 2 GPUs you'll get the top one heating up more and therefore having to run its fans faster, increasing noise.

If £300 is a hard limit you're probably looking at a GTX 770, if it's a bit flexible then a GTX 780 or a non-reference R9 290 might be manageable. It might not be quite as fast as 2x 270X but you won't have any frame-pacing issues or scaling problems (crossfire is *still* very much title dependent for proper support) and, as I say, you won't run into the issue of one card getting hotter and trashing your targeted silence.

[koocha]

I'd rather spend £300 on graphics going for a single high performance card than two 270Xes - more reliable performance and with 2 GPUs you'll get the top one heating up more and therefore having to run its fans faster, increasing noise.

If £300 is a hard limit you're probably looking at a GTX 770, if it's a bit flexible then a GTX 780 or a non-reference R9 290 might be manageable. It might not be quite as fast as 2x 270X but you won't have any frame-pacing issues or scaling problems (crossfire is *still* very much title dependent for proper support) and, as I say, you won't run into the issue of one card getting hotter and trashing your targeted silence.

Thanks for the reply. I've updated the build and the link to have a single 290.

I'm not sure whether to go NVIDIA or AMD. I'd like to do 3D if I can - the telly I run it through is 3D, but I don't know if you need specific hardware to do it.

CPU and everything else seem OK?

[MrJim]

Thanks for the reply. I've updated the build and the link to have a single 290.

I'm not sure whether to go NVIDIA or AMD. I'd like to do 3D if I can - the telly I run it through is 3D, but I don't know if you need specific hardware to do it.

CPU and everything else seem OK?

As far as I know, only Nvidia support 3D gaming, & you need a compatible monitor to use it (together with an Nvidia card & glasses).

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/3d-vi...ements-uk.html

It's unlikely that this would work on your TV, even though it's 3D.

One thing that occurs to me from your parts list is that you've chosen LGA1155 CPU and motherboard, both of which are EOL (end of line). So you won't be able to add any of the most recent CPUs in future upgrades (which will be LGA1150). Also, on May 10th the new Haswell refresh CPUs will be released, which will add a small bump in performance, & shouldn't cost much more than your specified parts.

[koocha]

As far as I know, only Nvidia support 3D gaming, & you need a compatible monitor to use it (together with an Nvidia card & glasses).

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/3d-vi...ements-uk.html

It's unlikely that this would work on your TV, even though it's 3D.

One thing that occurs to me from your parts list is that you've chosen LGA1155 CPU and motherboard, both of which are EOL (end of line). So you won't be able to add any of the most recent CPUs in future upgrades (which will be LGA1150). Also, on May 10th the new Haswell refresh CPUs will be released, which will add a small bump in performance, & shouldn't cost much more than your specified parts.

Ah right. I'll look into that then. I was told a Xeon was the better option to go for, so I'll investigate. I do tend to do a complete overhaul every 5 years or so anyway.

[MrJim]

Ah right. I'll look into that then. I was told a Xeon was the better option to go for, so I'll investigate. I do tend to do a complete overhaul every 5 years or so anyway.

This is the LGA1150 equivalent of the CPU you specified, but you'd need an LGA1150 motherboard to go with it:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...che-80w-retail

Thinking about it, it might be a while before the refresh Xeons are released, as the initial SKUs are listed here:

http://www.pcper.com/image/view/3972...n=node%2F60032

[koocha]

OK, so it's changed once more.

Got a Xeon has well in there and it took me a while to find the right mobo. Wanted one with at least 6 usb on the back I/O and at least 8 SATA ports. Think I've got one that'll do it.

I've also upped the speed of the RAM. Don't know if I needed to though. If I don't need to I'll put it back down.

[MrJim]

It's unlikely that you'll notice much of a difference going for faster RAM, especially if the extra bandwidth is at the expense of increased latency. For a gaming PC, there's not really any advantage going for 16Gb over 8Gb either; if it were me, I'd save a bit on the RAM and put it towards a better SSD or graphics card. You could always add another 8Gb at a later date if you needed to, of course.

Edit!
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You might want to wait for motherboards with the Z97 chipset, which is also released next month, and is backwards compatible with the original Haswell CPUs. It adds a few new features like M.2 compatibility.

[koocha]

It's unlikely that you'll notice much of a difference going for faster RAM, especially if the extra bandwidth is at the expense of increased latency. For a gaming PC, there's not really any advantage going for 16Gb over 8Gb either; if it were me, I'd save a bit on the RAM and put it towards a better SSD or graphics card. You could always add another 8Gb at a later date if you needed to, of course.

Edit!
----

You might want to wait for motherboards with the Z97 chipset, which is also released next month, and is backwards compatible with the original Haswell CPUs. It adds a few new features like M.2 compatibility.

Ah, thanks for the info. I'll hang on a bit anyway. I keep changing my mind! That way I can maybe get an m.2 ssd.

The computer does a lot of things: file server, Minecraft server (I can only run one at a time at the moment, so loads of RAM would allow me to do that), media server, games, etc. I can't even run CoD: Ghosts because that needs 6 GB RAM!