Hello everyone! I am new to the forum as well as building a PC. This will be my first crack at it, as I've always gone Mac, but through the years have begun to realize how much money I've wasted on expensive "paper weights". How foolish I have been. I would just like some advice to see if Im building a decent machine or have no idea what I'm doing. Ha! In any case my primary function for this PC is for music recording/production as well as gaming. Ive read that the 4770K needs a decent cooler and I'm unsure of the route to take (air or water), what brand to buy, or if all of this will even fit inside the case I've selected. Any reply would be an amazing help. Thank you all! Here's what I have so far: Corsair 600T Mid tower case Asus z87 Deluxe Motherboard Corsair 32GB(4x 8GB) DDR3 1600MHZ Intel I7 4770K MSI Geforce GTX 780 (2) OCZ Vector 256 GB Internal SSD Cooler Master Silent Pro 850W PSU
Without knowing what country you live, what your budget is and what you're planning to do with that machine: You're just picking the most expensive parts, that's not really a good idea. -Drop the K, a I7 4770 will do if you're not going to OC (which is by the way silly, if you're building your own) -Get a decent 3th party CPU cooling on that CPU. Maybe This is something for you? -Drop the second SSD, get a massive HDD for it instead. (install OS on SSD) -Why the deluxe mobo, ASUS Z87-A is cheaper, does the same thing? -Get yourself a 780 with a good (less loud) cooler on it, even if more expensive, money well spend. I love that case
You could likely save a bit of cash by going with a non-k version of the 4770 and a less feature rich MB... but if you have the money and want to go with higher end components that still leave the option open for oc’ing in the future, not a bad idea either. Corsair 600T Mid tower case – nice case, I have the 650D myself and really like the Corsair cases, it will also take a 120 or a 240mm rad if you’re looking at closed loop cooling units (such as the H70 or H100). Asus z87 Deluxe Motherboard – I really like this board and would consider using it in my own build… but it is over kill if you’re not going to oc and\or run multi GPU setups… Corsair 32GB (4x 8GB) DDR3 1600MHZ – Higher rated RAM is usually recommend for IB and Haswell systems, may want to look into that and bump up the 1600MHz kit. Intel I7 4770K – should suit you well and by spending a couple of extra dollars now, you still leave the option open if you decide to oc in the future. MSI Geforce GTX 780 – yeah (2) OCZ Vector 256 GB Internal SSD – my recommendation goes to the Samsung 840 Pro. Cooler Master Silent Pro 850W PSU – I’d also check out PSUs from Sea Sonic and Corsair.
If you're not overclocking at all, you don't even need a Z87 board, you could get a good H87 board instead. 32GB of memory would be nice, but is overkill. It would actually be better getting 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR3-2133 or faster RAM instead. The newer Intel CPU's on the newer Intel Chipsets love DDR3-2133 RAM in particular, if it doesn't cost much more I think it is worth it. Just be aware that almost all DDR3 comparisons are done on older hardware though, which didn't benefit from the faster RAM. Someone needs to mention a properly good soundcard, since he is doing music recording/production. EDIT: spent too long writing that out and going out of the room Clawhammer bet me to some of those remarks. In terms of the PSU, there are other choices as well, and different levels of classification. For me, the Enermax Platimax 750W was my preferred choice and is an excellent option.
Wow, you guys are fast! Didn't expect that. Thank you so much!! (@ work now) Right, this PC will be for just gaming and music production. Games will run on 1440 res. song tracks could be about 24 per song plus automation and effects. So I need it to be quick and I get that the K allows me to overclock but I wasn't planning on doing it right away because I'm very new to overclocking and how to perform it/maintain a balanced and cool CPU. I've experienced a 3770 with 32GB ram and its super quick. The 2133 would be faster than that with the 4770k? The MB is a ridiculous choice atm but I did plan on adding an additional GPU down the line. So I do desperately need a cooling system for the GPU? I know I do need one for the CPU and aside from the first link posted above what else is good? Also was there something wrong with the PSU of choice? And finally, I thought the Samsungs read and write speeds were significantly less and almost the same price as the ocz?..
Here is a nice EVGA GTX 780 SC for £570, great cooling. PSU wise, I wouldn't go with that one tbh. Something like this XFX Black 850W 80+ Gold would be my choice. The z87-deluxe is overkill imo, get something like this z87-pro it'll most likely do everything you'll ever need. If you're not overclocking at all, you don't need a 4770K, just get a non K 4770. I highly suggest you get a 4770K and overclock it, even if it's only up to 4ghz or so, which will be piss easy. I'll second the Samsung 840Pro as the SSD to go for atm, price/performance is great, so seems to be reliability so far. For a CPU cooler, I'd go with air personally, some others will surely recommend a Corsair AIO water cooler, but as far as air coolers go, something like this Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E or this Noctua NH-D14 will do a great job at keeping your cpu cool and quiet. Oh, and get a sound card, a SB Z OEM can be had for under £60, 100% worth it. we don't have lives
Gimmick, they give the maximum read/write speed achieved over different file transfer sizes. Their maximum read/write might be higher while they have lesser performance at non optimal file sizes.
Your PC will never use 32GB of ram while gaming or recording music. Even half that much will still be more than you need. 8GB is plenty, even 16GB if the price is OK. Any more than 16 is a waste of cash though. If you plan to keep this rig and not go DDR4, grab the fastest ram you can afford this way it won't instantly become obsolete when Intel ditch DDR3 next year.
Yes, get 16GB. You can't upgrade to DDR4 unless you build a completely new computer (new motherboard, CPU), so that is really a non-issue. I agree that you should overclock, especially since you mentioned SLI. Although it is not necessary for SLI, it seems kind of pointless to go to that extreme and not overclock it! I think eclap missed your following line: so I would recommend a really good sound card. Spend the money you saved from going 32GB of RAM on one of these
All right so faster ram only up to about 16GB. Got it. Sound card ill look for, any good ideas? The samsung 840 pro is looking better than I had though so I'll probably still get two of them. I want this PC to be all solid state, I dont want to have to worry about a HD. Looking for the EVGA super clocked 780 but if I can't find that will I really need another system to cool the GPU as well as the CPU? If I need to cool the regular gtx 780 what do you all recommend? So far its looking good, ill send you guys the link to my "wish list" once i have everything in order from TigerDirect. Im just using them as a way to get everything in one place at the moment. Thank you all for being so kind!
You really only need a SSD for the OS and installed programs. Maybe few games too. HDD's are more practical for reg data storage, stuff like movies, music or photo's don't need a super fast expensive SSD. You won't notice the difference anyway so you can save money there if you like.
You don't need a cooler for gtx 780, their cookers are ok. The EVGA SC has a custom coolerI which does a better job than the reference cooler. linked to the EVGA SC in my previous post.
Yeah, I was planning on the EVGA SC 780. It'll totally be worth it. I'm actually having trouble finding the right type of ram for this build :-/ You guys said go with faster ram but less GB, but I'm not sure what to get. I thought I did but I don't want to get something mediocre. I can't afford 700$+ ram sets. Though my budget is right around 3,500$(2304 £)
You could cook at Gskill Rip Jaws RAM or look at other people's specs to the left to get ideas on what RAM to get.
for video/audio recording, encoding, processing (i know it's audio only for you) you will benefit from OC, especially with 4 cores with HT. If it was gaming only then non-K 4770 version or the 4650K would be enough. As far as Overclocking goes, since sandybridge CPU's (2xxx series) it is easier than easy, but if you wanna be sure everything is fine you can use MB's overclocking function (most if not all have BIOS controlled overclock function). But of course you don't want to use a stock cooler for that so silver arrow/Noctua NH-14 and similar coolers would be awesome. You can find sandy/ivy/haswell OC guides on guru3d forums, by the way. For ram, as most people say, go with 16 GB as 32 will be overkill, unless you run ridiculous amounts of programs. I've just bought 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 1866 Mhz for like 100 quid, which was a real bargain, on ebay. To tell the truth, there's not that much difference between the brands, with corsair, G-Skill, Kingston, patriot being most popular. Most, if not all, give lifetime warranty for ram, so even if they break you can get a replacement. I'm personally a corsair person as i never had any problems with them. Get the 780 ACX, that Eclap linked, it's a monster of a card. Can't go wrong with that, especially for that price. And definitely get a proper PCI/PCI-E soundcard. Something like Asus Xonar series card (D2x, Phoebus, Xense, etc....) or a Creative SoundBlaster Z,Zx(maybe X-Fi Titanium) as it will not only give WAY better sound quality, but also give extra 5-15 FPS (as you said you want to game on this machine) over the onboard sound. Hope this helps a bit
dude honestly i think you should cost effective get a good cpu fan. like a Cooler Master Geminii S get a sickleflow fan u looking at like 25 dollars i think around there. where ever u are u can choose on the sickleflow fan what colour u want between green,blue and red also it has copper very good heat conductor use it on mine or u can go more expensive liquid cooling i don't recommend it cause if it leaks then what can i say...
Okay so finally here is what I have chosen at the moment: (2)SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 256GB ASUS Xonar DX 7.1 Channels PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card Corsair Graphite Series 600T Case ASUS Z87-PRO Motherboard EVGA SuperClocked GTX 780 3GB COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 850W PSU i7-4770K 3.5GHz G.SKILL Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 2666 Dell UltraSharp U2713HM 27" LG 24X DVD Burner for main optical drive Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Noctua NH-U14S Now, as I've stated before I am brand new to the PC side of things and kind of a beginner when it comes to technical terms, but from what ive read online sometimes RAM isnt always plug and play and most of the time you have to set up your RAM configurations in the BIOS to get the full specs. I have no idea how to do that haha. Even the term BIOS was confusing at first and I understand what it is, but navigating my way around it will be hell at first im assuming... So what do you guys think? Should I go with anything different? I do want to keep it al SSD i might not know much about PC but Id rather spend the extra money on a fast and powerful SSD than buy an HDD and have 2 point of failure then suddenly lose all my music files (which Im sure could happen even with SSD but it seems less likely, also most of what i know is just from reading online) Anyway! You have all been so helpful and quick to reply, you are absolutely an amazing group of people. Thank you so much!!
Complete waste of money buying a "fast and powerful" SSD just to put music files on it, you are not going to see any benefit over a reg HDD. As for drives suddenly dieing this is almost unheard of, HDD's last for many years and if they do fail you'll see the warning signs well in advance. I have 8 drives the oldest was bought in 2007. The only thing I have ever seen kill a HDD instantly is a power surge. That being said it's not my money being spent so why should I care?..... Good luck.:thumbup:
