New Computer Build
 

Just got to build myself a new desktop computer for Win. 8 research, and gaming naturally. I had a budget of $2k, and when I bought all the parts, it came out to $1,914. I just got it built up yesterday, with a Windows 8 install disk on a flash drive, the OS installed in 2 minutes, literally. Now, anyone got any good ideas for a game that will push the system?



Link to public wishlist Sharktopus Build on Newegg

Metro 2033
The Witcher 2

Both of these would be great benchmarks.

$2000? **** you.

Only 32GB of RAM?

Yeah I thought 64 would be over the top. :evil:

I have to figure out how, but I think I might try and make a RAM drive just to see how that works.

$2000 is a lot for a build sans monitor


congrats



fyi why 2 different video cards?

Doh, it's only one card the 7970, which might explain why it's over budget on that.

and I have 3 x 24 inch monitors at 1920 x 1200, so I didn't need anymore, same with a case, I have one that I like a lot so I just reused that one.

God damn ****a.

fap

Nice. I'm waiting for the price to come down on those solid state drives, but will probably make the switch at some point.

do you work with After Effects? i'd like to know how well that performs

I don't, but I did get the whole Adobe Creative Suite 6.0 Master Collection.

To be fair, my job gave me the budget for the machine, and all the software I use. I just also get to take it home and play games on it as well.

Damn. That's a nice ****ing rig, man.

/jealous

If you are going to OC you don't want that much ram, its a tiny performance increase (over 16) and will limit your overclock on the top end, I promise. Not to mention

Why windows 8? Are you doing touchscreen stuff? If not, stick with 7. Also, why do you have 2 different graphics cards? Where is your case and cooling solution? Where is your HDD storage? Why that Mobo? Are you planning on using the thunderbolt functionality? because you are paying for it. Why such an expensive power supply? There are great power supplies that can do the job for cheaper. It doesn't seem like a cohesive and well thought build.

edit; See some of my questions answered above - What case are you using?

I just put the 4 components I want to upgrade into my cart on newegg and it's $610. And they charge tax to CA....ugh.

i5 3570k
mobo
8 gb ram
gtx 660 ti

Will try to answer your questions, but first a brief story of why.

I do IT for a private school, and we change out all of our computer hardware (laptops, tablets, desktops) every 3 years. Well the next change will be coming summer 2014. When we do this, we usually have no choice but to use the current OS at the time, which will me Win 8 (we are windows shop). So, generally we get a budget to build a PC so that we can start researching the new OS, new software i.e. Adobe CS 6.0 vs 5.5, Office versions and a whole host of other crap. Unfortunately, my team all has to agree on the hardware that we order for the most part, we are allowed Cases and Video cards of our choice. So hopefully this explains why some of it is not "ideal" and perhaps overkill.

Motherboard was the better of the two choices we had, while none of us are serious OCer's, Gigabyte does have an app called Easy Tune which quickly OC's your system to mild, medium or insane. I just did the mild one, and went from a 3.5Ghz CPU speed to 4.1. No, i didn't look at how it stepped up the RAM, OCing is just not my thing, but I figure as easy as the Easy Tune is, why not. The Thunderbolt is a nice feature, and I will give it a go down the road, but for right now it's just chilling there.

I didn't buy an extra internal drive because we all have the 1 TB Western Digital Black, and I have a 3 TB External USB 3.0 drive, so the 512GB SSD was plenty for me. Plus, other then my movies, I just don't have that much stuff.

As for the amount of RAM, it was more of a "Just because we can" thing. Our last system that we built had 6 Gigs, and I barely used that, 32 is just ridiculous, but again, why not?

Windows 8 is because we have to do research to figure out how we are going to deploy it to our users in a way that will work for them, and meet our guidelines.

Power supply was an experiment, yes there were others, but along with our CPU cooling solution, we thought we would try this just to see.

My case is a Antec Dark Fleet-85 it's huge, but air flow is great, and I have never had any heat issues with it.

CPU cooling solution is the Antec Kuhler H20 620. We wanted to go with a different solution, but they were out, so this was a last minute decision and we thought we would try out the closed liquid cooling system. If it works, great, if not, we will find something else.

Are you a nVidia guy?

Just asking because I am and if I were going to build a computer with the cards that are on the market right now it would definitely be an AMD card.

I'm running a AMD 6970.. Just curious, why would you DEFINITELY go with AMD?

I won't be staying with AMD.

edit: And the OP is correct with the OCing taking place on the motherboard - that board is crazy easy to OC. Also, isn't this thread supposed to be about games that will push this system? I'm the only one that has listed games...

Because as it stands right now you get more bang for your buck from AMD.

You can get a 7950 for the same price as the 660ti. From the factory those 2 cards are neck and neck... and then you start OCing and the 660ti just can't keep pace.

IMO, the 660ti needs to drop about $20-30.

AMD drivers are atrocious - there were at least 4 or 5 games last year that were unplayable for me on launch date because of their shit. Catalyst is an absolutely ****ing disaster. Their OpenGL support is garbage.. I don't guess you have a crossfile setup - waiting for crossfire profiles is always fun.
Aside from a $$ standpoint - Nvidia wins.

With that said, I've grown to like my 6970 but I'd only recommend AMD GPUs to people who are on a tight budget.

Nvidia also rapes the shit out of AMD for video/graphics editing if you're using ANY adobe products.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home_new.html

I can get a 660ti for about $240.

That is odd that you say that, because I have had no issues running my 6970 the last two years. Not only have I had no issues, but there hasn't been a game yet that I couldn't max out on that card, at least one that I haven't tried. I also like the AMD cards for the Eyefinity, which is awesome with my 3 monitors. That is why I stayed AMD and went with the 7970. If you notice though, that is GHZ version of the XFX card, top of the line.

I like nVidia, always have, so definitely not slamming their cards.

And I don't know what Metro 2003 is, I will have to look that up, but I will for sure give Witcher 2 a go, the first game was a lot of fun.

You didn't notice that AMD had to push updates to Catalyst out every week for quite some time last year?
Metro 2033 is fantastic. I know I talked a few people on here into buying it when it was on the Indie Humble Bundle.

Yeah, didn't nVidia partner with Adobe?

Not really. But I also don't go crazy over installing every driver update released. As long as everything is running smoothly, I wait a few updates then do it.

Something I don't like, is when installing Win 8, it put the windows drivers for the vcard in, I have never had any sort of success with Windows drivers.

Currently I have a 6850 and Skyrim was completely unplayable for weeks because of a ****ed up update. That's when I decided to switch to Nvidia.

Haven't used an ATI/AMD GPU for years.

Ironically, I haven't used anything BUT AMD CPUs for a similar amount of time.

I owe you a game. Have you played Legend of Grimrock? I may pick it up for you if you haven't -- whether you want to play it or not -- awesome oldschool RPG.

Huh. I played skyrim maxed out with no issues what so ever. Infact Im thinking of reloading it on the new system just to check it out.

As a thank you for all the good feedback and continued suggestions of games.

NSFW

I haven't had any issues with ATI video cards either. I've preferred ATI over NVIDIA for quite a while.

Do you use Omega drivers? I find them much more stable and customizable then the Catalyst drivers.

I have been using the Catalyst drivers, but am willing to try something new. However, a look at their site shows no support for Win 8 yet.

Who are you buying from?

Newegg. 5 star reviews.

You gonna read my post? Asshole..

Haven't played, but if you're gonna gift me something back if at least like some input.

What did I gift you?

The game is fantastic.. youtube a review for it - Legend of Grimrock. Fantastic indie game.
You gave me Terraria (which i played for maybe an hour -- i prefer minecraft). Figured a indie game for a indie game was a good trade.

Are you factoring in MIR into your price or something?

Yes, why wouldn't I?

I don't know. I don't count any rebates unless they are instant. I still send in the MIR's but its not til like 4 months later until you see your $20.

Honestly, I figured you just threw some shit against the wall with a nice graphics card and CPU and called it a day. That's about as good as an explanation for my questions is I could have gotten. One thing I do envy is the the 3770ks ability to use the new virtumvp software. With that though, you have to stick with the z77 platform when x79 is the new hotness and will be going forward for the next generation of ivy core processors.

I have a system that's a bit beefier than yours, (3930k@4.8ghz, ftw 670 gtx, corsair ssd etc etc) and I haven't had any game even hiccup it yet. Obviously, I haven't tried all games though, and i'm sure there is something out there to give me a run. I'm still running a single GPU so I think trying something like the new Crysis might tax both of these systems pretty well.

I'm Also using a MONSTER Coolermaster case that is literally a piece of furniture in my house, and a Corsair h100 closed loop liquid cooler.

I really like the cooling performance of the pair, even with all 6 cores unparked and running at 4.8ghz I only max out at about 72c at the most intense usage, runs in the 50s for most games. I did get a stable OC at 5ghz on all 6 cores but bumping it up just another .2ghz gained me little actual performance increase, and about 8 degrees in temps, so I decided to back it down for longevity purposes.

ohhhh.. another good idea.. get a monitor that runs 2440x1440 (I think that's right) as it actually takes exponentially more power to run at such a high res.

In fact, get 3 of em, fire up Guildwars 2 and let that baby sing~

We started out with the z79 processor, but it just didn't fit the budget, and really tbh, other than photoshop and high end video editing, what is going to use that many cores. Games aren't doing it yet, not in any way that really matters.

We started off looking at the H60, the smaller version of your H100, but then went to some phamtecks or some shit. The antec cooler came because I was at frys and we needed something and that was it.

As for the monitors, the resolutions sounds awesome, but last time I checked, the human eye can't tell the difference after 1080p, and even 720p on anything smaller than a 36inch screen, so the higher resolution is really bragging rights more than anything.

In any event, i will be putting the system through it's paces soon. Im a big Civ 5 fan, and I know that once you get a huge map really going it slows the system down, so I plan on doing that soon just to see what I can push it too, I will also be giving the withcher 2 a go per quicksurfer's recommendation.


I =/= eye.....drunk posting FTW

Yea, with the monitors, i'm more talking hypothetically about stressing the system. As for my choice to go with the six cores, I wanted to be future proofed for several years, and decided to take the calculated gamble that games will start heavily utilizing all available cores and threads in the near future. And in your case its definitely fine that you went your route as well. If you have budget, the z77 and ivy core is still a powerful combination.

I play huge map, 22 civ, modded games in Civ5. On my q6600/6950 system it got laggy after getting late in the game, now, absolutely none. That is where the extra processing power of the current CPU's shine, your ivy/ssd/ram heavy combo will do nicely. I doubt it taxes your system.

Here's the 670 for $279.99 after MIR (sale tax in CA) if anyone is interested.

http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/333708

I would have done this except for the tax makes it $304.49 for me.