New multi purpose desktop, advice and opinions please

[virtuo]

Hi All. As I warned you in my "hello" post, I'd like some input to steer me on my way to building a mighty desktop. I've always built from scratch but haven't done so for a good 3-4 years and want to make sure the new system is as good as it can be (within a reasonable budget).

I was considering discussing each component individually in the relevant forums, but felt that bundling everything together would give each selection some scope and not look like post spam. So this is likely to be a long post and I may discuss some of the finer points (Overclocking, cooling etc separately).

The machine is going to be used for pretty much everything, and a lot of it is CPU intensive. I've recently been ripping and encoding my bluray collection to NAS to stream through to XBMC, so video encoding is high on the list. I'm also hooked on emulation, wanting to be able to smoothly emulate at least some 2nd gen consoles (gamecube, ps2, wii).

Gaming is also on the list, however time and cash constraints have convinced me to start with a "budget ish" card and look to upgrade to something meatier in future. So just being able to play current games up to 1080p, but not necessarily the absolute best quality will be fine.

My current system is a pretty lame Athlon X2 640 with 8Gb of budget Maplin RAM and a 4650HD (All I had handy after my 6870 blew up). I'd like the system to be quiet, doesn't have to be silent, and I don't want it using huge amounts of power if possible.

I've been picking my bits (oo-er) on PCpartpicker and am happy with the price (floating around £1k). I'm expecting not being able to post proper links, but here is my list: uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1zuX1

I've gone with the best CPU I could think of (i7 4770k). I read that these only work up to DDR3-1600 RAM, so have selected accordingly. Is it possible to run faster RAM on Haswell processors. I noticed the DDR3-2400 equivalent of the sticks I chose are actually cheaper.. (G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600).

GFX is just a 7750 2Gb that I will definietely be upgrading in future (I've always used AMD/ATI cards and would like to give Nvidia a go this time around, but at this price point I don't imagine there's going to be much difference). Is the 7750 capable enough?

I picked a closed loop water cooler (corsair h100i) thinking that if and when I overclock, this'll handle it better than an air cooler. Are these noticeably louder/quieter than an air cooler?

Motherboard I picked purely on reviews (without going mental money-wise), is this a good all-rounder? A decent LAN port and good sound are kind of important, but only after performance and reliability. Plenty of SATA ports would be a bonus.

I wanted a modular power supply, but they seem to have a heavy premium over a semi-modular supply. What's the difference? My list has a 660W supply (as the next lowest was only 400 in that range) but I think a 500-550 should be plenty. I'd be happy to accept any recommendations on an efficient and reliable PSU.

I've never used an SSD, I noticed on a few threads around here that a Samsung 840 pro is the way to go - is that still the case? I've got plenty of normal HDs lying around that I can add further storage with, so the SSD will just be OS and programs.

Case I chose simply because it wasn't that expensive and looked alright. I don't really care about having a window in the side. Just want something sturdy, quiet and spacious. The Corsair Vengeance C70 seems popular and pretty tough looking.

I've already got OS License, BD-R drive etc.

I've not chosen a sound card, it seems like on-board sound is perfectly fine these days - am I correct?

Any input/suggestions would be greatly appreciated

[AETAaAS]

I've no experience with Haswell but my understanding is that you can use higher speed RAM but it eats into your overclocking of the CPU (ie it is more unstable if you try to use faster RAM and overclock at the same time). 1600 is fine but you can buy 2400 if you found it cheaper since it can operate at 1600.

At 1080 on low, the 7750 could do reasonably. I personally balance quality/speed at about 40-50 FPS because that is where the jerkiness begins to bug me. Keeping a solid 60 on my LCD is much better. (Tom's review done with high settings in most tests and still hits very reasonable frame rates http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...mark,3135.html )

Cooler, my tastes lean towards air cooling mainly because of bang/buck reasons. I'd give thought to the Hyper 212 Evo puts up pretty good numbers near the H100 and quite a bit cheaper. The linked fan is the U12S which costs about twice as much but has 'premium design' written all over it and it shows. (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...NH-U12S/6.html)

I agree that 500-550 is a comfortable place to be, even that is a little bit over the top for your config. Modular means ALL cables can be taken out of the PSU. Semi-modular means some cables (typically the motherboard 24 pin and 4/8 pin CPU cable) are permanently affixed.

The 840 Pro is a very good SSD and if you have long upgrade cycles, would be the one I'm inclined to go for.

Motherboard/Case, what are you planning to put in it in terms of drives, expansion cards, etc? I prefer mATX/miniITX builds since they are enough for a large majority of users and I like compact systems.

[kompukare]

That 7750 is DDR3, better to buy 1GB GDDR5 version.
For a quiet case I'd recommend Define R4 or Deep Silence 2. The R4 having a larger gap behind the motherboard to hide the cables and has removable dust filters (Deep Silence 1 did too but Nanoxia seem to have removed the front ones).
I wouldn't spend £11 for thermal paste as the stuff supplied with most heatsink/fans is fine.
The AIO watercoolers are mainly about look as even an air cooler half that price probably performs better.
The Samsung EVO got good reviews too. In many way it's technically a cleverer product than the Pro (in theory the cheaper higher density flash in the EVO should have less endurance but the technical clever bit of the EVO is that it last long enough).

[virtuo]

Thanks kompukare, that's exactly the kind of steering I need.

I've swapped out the GDDR3 7750 for a GDDR5 650Ti - seems comparable (although power consumption is a concern), and dumped the thermal paste.

I'll admit that I was probably swayed by the impressive looks of the water cooling, however for the sake of not needing two massive fans in the top of the case and saving some money, I'll have a look at some standard cooling setups. Similarly I'll check out the cases you suggested tonight when I have some time.

[virtuo]

Sorry AETAaAS, your reply seems to have appeared after kompukares..!

I don't think I'll be overclocking immediately, but it'd be nice to have the option in future. I'll probably go for the faster RAM now as I can always sell it on and 'downgrade' if the OC itch gets to me.

The only things I'll be hooking up to the machine in terms of expansion and devices are Hard Drives, but I'm going to try and offload more of those to the NAS (another build coming up). So I'd say at least 6 3.5" SATA drives and a SATA BDR. I'm used to having a full ATX case, it sits on the floor by my desk so a window isn't going to be much use for me and I don't ever need to move it around.

Thanks for confirming my thoughts on the modular PSUs, I guess a fully modular one is only going to be a concern for space limited cases, or tidy cable nutters. I think I'll go the semi-modular route and get something a little more efficient.

The Noctua U12S was actually already on my shortlist of non-water coolers, The Hyper does seem to get a lot of positive reviews and a good price - I'll compare the two

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What motherboard do you have ATM??

[Noxvayl]

For CPU coolers I always recommend Arctic Cooling, have nothing but good experience with their products and they are practically silent as well. AC Freezer 13 is a great cooler.

For a PSU I like the 550W Enermax Revolution 87+.

I am a fan of Gigabyte motherboards so I would choose this one: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC

As for the case my preferred option in the sub £100 price bracket is the Coolermaster CM 690 III, I had the original CM 690 and loved it. The new ones have refined the design some more so it is a lot better now.

Everything else I don't have a particular preference I would choose over the choices you have made.

[kompukare]

I'm used to having a full ATX case, it sits on the floor by my desk so a window isn't going to be much use for me and I don't ever need to move it around.

Ah, good to know since I forgot to mention that both the Define R4 and the Deep Silence are fairly big (more wide and deep since Fractal Design make a taller full size Define too).

If you don't intend to play many games before you buy a faster card maybe the onboard Intel will do.

Oh, my comments about AIO watercoolers was more aimed at the H40 and H60. The H100 should be far more capable. Just a pity these things don't cool GPUs; that's the main reason I consider them cosmetic since they only cool the CPU leaving the top of the motherboard nice and clear but they don't do anything for GPU overclocking or noise. Not that I would personally ever use watercooling and certainly not custom loops: aside from the cost I always imagine they'd spring a leak or something.

[virtuo]

Thanks again everyone for the input, after reading some articles and watching some videos, I've decided that I'll be overclocking from the start - there's a lot of free performance to be had. Here's the changes I've made so far:

Swapped the Asus Maximus VI out for an MSI Z87 MPOWER Max. I watched an interesting review of the Asus Maximus Extreme and decided the poor BIOS and unimpressive stats for normal/light OC use aren't very good. Any thoughts on the MSI board? It looks good with plenty of SATA ports.

I'm not particularly excited about OC'ing the GFX, so have reinstated the Corsair H100i. That Zalman Resorater 3 looked interesting, but haven't seen any decent comparisons with the H100i yet. I do like the idea of having a nice compact 'heat sink' as my current Asus Silent Knight II is huge and in the way.

RAM I have swapped the G skill for Corsair Vengeance Pro as it's got a lower Voltage (1.5v against 1.65v) which seems more compatible with the Haswell spec. Speed is still 2400, but I am considering still dropping this down to 1600 or 1833 as it seems to be the standard recommendation (and I presume is likely to return the best OC improvements?). Realistically, how much of a bottleneck would the 1.5v 2400 be increasing to 4.2+ghz on the i7?

Case is currently the CM Storm Trooper. I like the size and appearance of it and it's big enough for lots of HDs, cooling and a big GFX board when the time comes. I'm still in 2 minds whether to go for this or a quiet case like the Define. I expect it'll be a coin flip on the day. I will most likely build my NAS in a Define as that has no reason to make any noise.

PSU is now a 550w semi-modular Seasonic (Gold Certified). I might go for a bit more juice depending on what gfx card I finally settle on. I'm currently on a Zotac GTX 650Ti, but if I can budget it I'll go bigger

@CAT_THE_FIFTH I'm not sure exactly of the motherboard, did write it down but my note is at home and I'm at work.. I do know it's a very bog standard (read: cheap) Gigabyte board with an Athlon X2 640 on it.


Have intel got any new top end i7 Ks coming out soon? I don't intend to have to upgrade the mb/cpu for a long time after this build, so I can wait if there's something amazing around the corner. If not I'll be ordering all this shortly and booking a day off work to build it and have a play

[Noxvayl]

The only new processor launch that could be around the corner, although not likely this year, is a new revision of AMD FX processors. You are good to go if you are getting an i7, doubt another will surface for another 12 months.

550W will still be good enough if you got a top of the range GPU and overclocked your CPU. At standard settings full system draw for top of the range components is around 350W as you can see in this page of a Haswell review: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...w,3521-18.html. They tested with a GTX Titan graphics card so you are safe to assume, even with overclocking, that a single GPU setup is not going to surpass 400W power draw.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you check your motherboard OP you might be able to plonk in a Phenom II X6 or one of the newer AMD CPUs.

Moreover,the build the OP is suggesting seems OTT. For encoding videos an FX8320 can be had for under £120 at times and would be much faster than their old CPU. Even an FX6300 or FX6350 would be Core i5 level for video encoding.

Anyway look on YouTube for videos of the FX8320(when mildly overclocked) running PCSX2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcU0H5XPwGQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QL1pZRPN5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqbI4SILSg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEAvw-o2qZw

Even on the Intel side,is really anything more than a Core i5 required as you are overclocking?? A £200 motherboard is not really that important anymore too,when a one not more than £100 would do the job.

TBH,I think the OP should re-think how much they need to spend as any more modern quad core CPU over £50 is faster than a Athlon II X4 640,especially for video encoding.

[virtuo]

Thanks CAT-THE-FIFTH, sensible suggestions and all appreciated.

Video encoding is important but not the only CPU intensive thing I'll be doing. For work I regularly have a couple of Virtual Machines running (slowly) in VMware for development/testing and also in my free time will do quite a bit of modelling/animation/rendering in Maya. I do think the top-end i7 is justified, although having said that, I will investigate using an i5 instead of i7 if the performance is comparable.

I did look at just upgrading the CPU and RAM in the existing system, but the increases didn't really seem worth it, particularly with the higher power draw and the fact that I want something hugely future-proof (as mentioned I really don't want to have to upgrade/rebuild for a good few years, so patching up a bottom range system that's already 3-4 years old isn't something I really want to do.

I do agree with the motherboard comments, I won't ever be running SLI/crossfire and considering I'm getting a case with no window it doesn't have to look good. I'll certainly be scaling back the board to something less frilly.

I've got the luxury of having a half decent budget set aside especially for this build. I don't mind going a little OTT on some parts of it. Plus, I'll have another full working system that'll do fine as an office/internet/small server machine that I can either use or sell on.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The problem with the power draw arguments is that it really does not make as much difference in reality. You have to be very careful about the spending of pounds to save pennies kind of argument. Many of your other items in your home or your car will be far more important in terms of energy costs and of course usage habits are even more important. The latter is the most important by far. You need to consider what most power draw tests are - they are things like Prime95,etc which are not relevant in any way for most usage.

Moreover,high end motherboards are not efficient as they are optimised for overclocking,high wattage PSUs might be not that efficient in reality if power draw is not high enough,and even your monitor choice needs to be considered carefully. Your graphics card also consumes a large part of the system power budget too.

How many reviews bother though?? They don't and create artificial scenarios to make differences look bigger in reality(its to be expected of course). Look at the audio encoding benchmarks where many fail to mention they are not ripping CDs from an optical drive,which is where the actual bottleneck is in reality.

Also,if you are really interested in Maya work,you might need to consider a better graphics card. For many 3D packages,the graphics card is very important for the actual rendering and acceleration of the viewpoint. The problem is that you need to make a choice between a consumer card and a professional card. The professional cards have far better drivers,which give much better viewpoint acceleration and less potential rendering errors. OTH,the consumer cards have massively faster hardware for the same price which means for rendering they will be usually faster.

With VM stuff,you need to consider the K series CPUs lack support for IOMMU,and TBH something like an FX6300 or FX8320 is great for such usage especially with more budget AMD motherboards supporting it. For video encoding again the AMD CPUs have a very complete instruction set for such uses and they can hit Core i5 or Core i7 level performance for a much lower price.

Now regarding the Haswell K series Intel CPUs,they lack even the new TSX extenstion support,although it is unknown how much market penetration it will make.

The thing is are you going to overclock?? Consider all the extra costs,involved in it too,in both hardware and energy costs.

How about a Xeon E3 1230 V3:

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=56168

You cannot overclock but is a Core i7 for far less money with no IGP.

Want to spend less money,there is the Xeon E3 1230 V2:

http://www.ebuyer.com/370252-core-e3...FUHHtAodylEAag

Get a cheaper motherboard with all the relevant support for extensions,and invest the money saved into a better graphics card and/or more RAM.

[virtuo]

Thanks again CAT-THE-FIFTH. I've done some reading on power draw and can see your points about the realistic difference in cost. Now I understand it, the 30-40+w differences I see between some cpus don't seem that bad, just a few £s a year in reality.

My Maya work isn't professional, or particularly resource heavy. I might do a couple of product visualizations a year as favours, or some shiny modelling when I'm bored. I've always been fine using low-mid range consumer cards here as the poly counts aren't Pixar-insane. Speeding up the final render times is really the only thing I want to gain there. Having said that, I've always used AMD and Maya 2011 apparently doesn't play nice with Hyper Threading anyway.

Again my usage of VM isn't anything more than developing/testing software across different distributions of linux and maybe running other OSes occasionally. I'm not running anything important or "for production servers", so IOMMU isn't a big loss for my use case.

I'm glad you brought the Xeon options to my attention - I didn't really see the point of an IGP if I'll be using discrete graphics (unless it's easy to switch them so the discrete card wasn't whirring away for general desktop work). The e3-12xx series do seem like a reasonable alternative. I do think I'd like to try overclocking though.

I'm going to go back to the start and re-spec this machine, cut back on some more of the real enthusiast stuff and put the savings towards a new NAS or HTPC build.

[AETAaAS]

Why did you go for the 8320, Cat? My understanding was that the 8350s were selected by binning and would be better overclockers. It does cost a little more but you get a little more kick out of the box and potentially even more after you overclock it.

If virtuo wants to do a lot of encoding, x264 really plays nice with the 8 core AMD and benchmarks put it within spitting distance of the i7s. (Tom's chart)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Why did you go for the 8320, Cat? My understanding was that the 8350s were selected by binning and would be better overclockers. It does cost a little more but you get a little more kick out of the box and potentially even more after you overclock it.

If virtuo wants to do a lot of encoding, x264 really plays nice with the 8 core AMD and benchmarks put it within spitting distance of the i7s. (Tom's chart)

Well,the FX8320 can be had for under £120 at times,that is why!! Amazon were selling them for £105 for a short time.