48 replies to this topic

[Sgt. Rho]

Hmm, That would put me at about 4400€ or so. And it's for 2 CPUs. Too much fancy

Edited by Sgt. Rho, 07 January 2012 - 17:35.

[Camille]

how in facks name did you raise the budget to... 5000??

[Sgt. Rho]

A friend inherited...a lot.

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

I'll post a more sensitive build later after dinner.

Still, sensitive overkill.

[Alias]

It's not worthwhile spending 5000 Euro on something that will become obsolete in 18 months, when you could spend 1500 Euro for something 90% as powerful.

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

I totally agree, a modest Sandy Bridge-E rig will be extremely powerful while not breaking the bank. The money can be spent else well, like improving monitor, keyboard and the crappy headsets. Your build is actually OK, but I will do away with watercooling unless you have experience with it. Bleeding the loop from air and maintenance is not something you need to do with air coolers. Switching to a better power supply, like a Seasonic 1000W Platinum is good too, and maybe a better case, but that is a choice difference. I would totally add in an external sound card like an Asus Essence STX and a nice VA/IPS monitor to it. The last thing... two 580 is nearly cheaper than one 590, considering the performance gain from 580 to 590 is not massive, you might want to go dual 580 to retain the performance or just go one 580.

Edited by ΓΛPTΘΓ, 08 January 2012 - 00:27.

[GuardianTempest]

...I hold the record for the worst 'gaming' rig ever.



...paru paru paru paru paru paru paru...

[Sgt. Rho]

Die PC itself is 2400€. The Peripherals add another 1400 to that, and the Watercooling adds another 400.

Also I'm now waiting on the Kepler series before buying a GPU now, it supposedly gives up to 75% better FPS rates. Die 590 is also 40-50% more powerful than the 580, according to hwcompare. The Watercooling is because I intend to overclock, it looks cool, and the only way to gain experience with it is by using it, right? I love working on PCs, so the maintenance isn't an issue either. And lastly: Because I can.

PS: I don't care if it's obsolete in 18 months. My current rig has served me well for 5 years *insert trollface here*


Edit: I think I will take the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme instead of the Maximus IV Extreme-Z, since it has a faned cooling already installed for the chipset, and more options (that is, 8 DDR3 slots) to expand later-on. And it's about 20€ cheaper. As for the monitor: I'm getting a 3d screen, also a graphics tablet. You have to remember I don't only game, I also make mods.

So:
Cooler Master HAF-X,
be quiet! Dark Power Po P8 1200W,
Intel Core i7-3930K,
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme,
EVGA GeForce GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2, <--- I'm waiting for Kepler before getting anything really fancy.
G.Skill DIMM 16 GB DDR3-1866 Quad-Kit,
Kingston HyperX SSD 120GB,
3x Cooler Master MegaFlow 200 Red LED Silent Fan,
And 2 red kathodes.

ASUS VG278H
Razer Orochi
Razer Nostromo Gaming Keypad
Razor BlackWidow
Logitech Z506
Corsair Vengeance 1500 7.1 USB
Wacom Intuos4 L Tablett

= 2200€ + 1350€ peripheric stuff + 450€ water-cooling brings me to just about 4000€

Any suggestions on the sound stuff?

Edited by Sgt. Rho, 08 January 2012 - 14:09.

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

On the screen Asus PA246Q would be a good idea if you not thinking of going 3D, awesome 8bit IPS screen without costing the world. The PSU should be swapped for a Seasonic 1000W Platinum, plain because it is better than anything else on the market. Coolermaster fans with LEDs are not the best you can get, but if you like LEDs then keep them.

On the sound stuff, it really depends now much you care about it and how much you are willing to spend. But dropping all the gaming headsets and computer speakers to proper headphones and active nearfield monitors are a good start. I would suggest an Asus Essence STX for the DAC before adding anything, unless you wanna start spending a lot on DACs.

[Sgt. Rho]

I'm going for the 1.2kW PSU because I intend to water-cool it, and overclock, and perhaps even have 2 GPUs at some point.

As for the sound: I don't care that much about sound quality, up until now a 5€ headset from a random store did well enough, so I don't want to spend a whole lot on it.

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

Sgt. Rho, on 08 January 2012 - 15:58, said:

I'm going for the 1.2kW PSU because I intend to water-cool it, and overclock, and perhaps even have 2 GPUs at some point.

As for the sound: I don't care that much about sound quality, up until now a 5€ headset from a random store did well enough, so I don't want to spend a whole lot on it.

Then get a Seasonic X-1250, but really topping 1kW is rather impossible already, even with 2 GPU. Only way to even get close to it is use dual CPUs and quad GPU.

As you said you don't care much about the sound, just get Asus Essence STX + a pair of Audio Technica AD700 and be happy with it.

[Sgt. Rho]

1-2 water pumps, fancy gadgets, 4x4GB DDR3-1866 RAM, i7-3930, and 1-2 GPUs, also a SSD and a 2tb HDD. Sure that doesn't get over 1kw?

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

Rough estimate is about 700W.

[Sgt. Rho]

Ok, the PC is pretty much ordered now. I did pick the Asus Xonar Essence STX, but couldn't find the headphones you mentioned, so I stood with the headphones and also the speakers I chose. I decided to pick 2 GTX580s and ofc. Water-cooling for GPU and CPU. I also decided to stay with the PSU, a friend told me the be quiet! PSU is slightly more slient than the Seasonic.

[Amdrial]

Put some more effort into finding the AD-700's. They're not that hard to find on the Internet (arguably one of Audio Technica's most popular products to date due to the great price you get for the package).
Trust me, they're worth every penny.

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

Hopefully the ripple and voltage control won't affect you much. The Seasonic runs passive idle or just normal computer usage anyway, any pump will be more noisy than it. If you cared about noise, you shouldn't pick the HAF in the first place, along with the stock fans you couldn't do a lot worse. Shame that you didn't tell me silent is a requirement.

If you really did order the gaming headset, the Essence STX will be bypassed and the speaker aren't even two channel as the Essence is a two channel only card. Sorry sounding all negative here, but do your best to cancel either the sound card or the headset before wasting money.

Edited by ΓΛPTΘΓ, 10 January 2012 - 02:02.

[Sgt. Rho]

Silence isn't required, But prefered, also the be quiet! PSU is 50€ cheaper

Then I'll scrap the Essence STX again.

[Alias]

Sgt. Rho, on 10 January 2012 - 06:03, said:

Silence isn't required, But prefered, also the be quiet! PSU is 50€ cheaper

Then I'll scrap the Essence STX again.

So you're willing to spend 500 euro more on the parts that will be obsolete in six months, but not an extra 50 euro for a PSU that will last 5 years or a sound card that will last 10.

Edited by Alias, 10 January 2012 - 08:43.

[Sgt. Rho]

I'm going to sell the 580s and get 770s or 780s in about a year anyway, but my 9800GT just doesn't quite cut it anymore. Also with the dual GTX580s I can run...quite a few EVE Online clients at once, while being able to work in 3ds max and photoshop. At the same time. Also play BF3 at highest settings, perhaps even with 3d on.

If the PSU is crap, I'll get a new one, but I've not heard anything bad about the PSU I picked so far. I'm scrapping the sound card since it's not what I need, according to Raptor, anyway.

And think of the show-off potential!

€: Upon further reading of reviews I decided to pick the seasonic.

Edited by Sgt. Rho, 10 January 2012 - 09:57.

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

If you plan on wanting some good quailty sound, I would recommend you to drop the crappy gaming headsets and computer speakers for something better instead of dropping the sound card. But it seems that you don't care much about the sound nor wanting to spend much on it, so it doesn't really matter anyway. As Alias said, the sound card is not going to be overtaken by anything any time soon, this source is good enough for from entry level to top end equipment only limited by the 2 channel output (fixed by Essence ST and having a improved clock control as well).

I am not quite sure what you meant by show off potential. If crappy gaming headset and computer speakers provides better show off potential than proper gear that are less known to the general pubic, so be it. Its like buying Monster Beats and showing them off, only to get laughed at by other that knows better. Please, don't go buying stuff for show off, it simply won't do you any good.

[Sgt. Rho]

By show-off potential I mean the PC itself, specifically the GPUs, not the whole system. But yeah, I don't really care much for sound quality, and need it mostly for gaming and VOIP, not for sound design or anything that requires the precision of a laser occilloscope .

But, any suggestions for a good 5.1 system? I can't play with headset during the day, since I'm being called to do something every 5 minutes.

Ok, scratch the 5.1, I just got one from my stepdad. I read some reviews on the headset, all of them pretty postive.

Edited by Sgt. Rho, 10 January 2012 - 17:24.

[ΓΛPTΘΓ]

Well, of course they are positive... Not like most the reviewer have heard anything better nor is their paid article is for anything but fake review praises.

[Sgt. Rho]

Two of my friends have them too now, and both agree with the reviews.

[Alias]

What other headphones have they tried?

Gaming headsets widely regarded as having horrible sound quality. AD700 + a clip on microphone gets you or a small increase in price price and much improved sound quality.

If you have 5000 euro to spend, it's not like spending 200-300 euro on audio gear that will last you three times as long as any of the other hardware in your build is an issue. If you were still on a 800 euro budget we wouldn't suggest these things, but they really do make a difference - especially if you have a good source (like the Essence ST/STX)