Making my boyfriend a Gaming Desktop? v2?

Question

Making my boyfriend a Gaming Desktop? v2?

Answer 1

That is definitely a top notch gaming pc. You should expect epic fps and max settings with this computer. I cant recommend anything else.

Answer 2

OFFTOPIC: You're probably the best girlfriend a gamer could have, but your relationship might not last long if you make skyrim graphics look better than you.

Answer 3

Honestly I don't know quite where to start on what's wrong with this build but there is quite a lot so let's start from the top.



1.1000w PSU - You haven't specificed a name or model number but I can garuntee you that SLI'd 680's will be fine on a 750w PSU - They won't even break 650w draw. I recomend getting a Silverstone Gold Evolution 750w PSU, a Corsair AX760 or a Seasonic X series PSU.



2. Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe motherboard; It's a bloody good board however I garuntee you you won't notice the difference between it and a P8Z77-V Pro.



3. 3570K - Equal best choice for gaming - well done, have a cookie :)



4. 680's SLI'd: Wouldn't bother. 670's SLI'd will perform about the same and put out well above 90 frames on most AAA titles. Keep in mind that if you're using a 60Hz monitor, you can't physically see anything above 60FPS because the monitor doesn't refresh quickly enough. 670's will also cost you about $100-$300 ea cheaper. If you're only playing on a single monitor, a single 2GB 670 will put out well over 60 FPS - save the money.



5. Storage - Firstly I don't quite know how you plan to run RAID 5 as you can't. I would just get a 2TB Seagate Barracuda and a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro, Plextor M5 or OCZ Vector.



6. H80 - Why this cooler? It's honestly not that great; the Noctua D14 outperforms it so have a look at that. If you're intent on going with water cooling then go with a H100i, Thermaltake Water 2.0 or Swiftech H220.



7.32GB of RAM? Why the hell do you need 32GB of RAM? No game I have ever played has gotten above 6GB and that includes Skyrim running 18 different graphics mods. Also don't bother going with 2133Mhz RAM - you can't noticed the difference at all unless you're either benchmarking or running some seriously high end stuff which gaming is not.



8. Wifi adaptor? Why bother - the P8Z77-V Pro and V-Deluxe both have on board WiFi rated at the same speeds.



Sorry if this has come off incredibly harshly but all I see is problems when I look at this build. Problems and a waste of money. Have a read of this thread here and you may learn something; http://linustechtips.com/main/forum/community-portal/general-discussion-offtopic/138138-read-before-posting-getting-a-new-pc-faq

Answer 4

Looks like it'll be fine, First off good choice on the 1000w system. Make sure that you have plenty of cooling implements since it will be overclocked, but I see that shouldn't be an issue. I would invest in an aftermarket CPU cooling fan since the standard one that comes with the CPU may have trouble keeping up with the overclocking. Really it looks like an incredible set-up. I just built my PC and it cost me about 700 bucks. Not half as capable as this should be and I still play most current games on their highest settings. I do have another suggestion. As unpopular as it might be I would just move on to Windows 8. For one its not as bad as most people say, and you will be able to avoid future compatibility issues as Windows 7 starts to phase out. For now Windows 7 is fine, but in probably less than 2 years it will be virtually unused so you could save the future expense of having to buy Windows 8 or whatever new form of Windows inevitably comes out by then.

Answer 5

Yeah the System RAM is WAY overkill. But yeah, that's top-notch hardware you've picked.



Now assuming you're buying from CyberpowerPC or Ibuypower (it looks like their selection screens?) here are my suggestions.



1) No reason for 32GB of RAM on any gaming rig. No games currently utilize 8GB (not even BF3 and FC3), so with 16GB you've got memory to spare for multi-tasking and keeping his machine future-proof for the next 3 years.



Even 16GB of RAM is overkill unless you're running really memory-intensive applications like HD video editing software or professional rendering/design programs like Maya or Blender, or doing heavy-duty work in Photoshop or AutoCad with multiple big files open. Those types of workstations really need 16-32GB of RAM, not gaming rigs.



2) If you want the ability to use 32GB of RAM for the types of non-gaming tasks described above, you'll need Windows 7 Professional. Home Premium maxes out at 16GB.



3) A pair of 120GB SSDs in RAID isn't really cost-effective (and RAID 5 requires 3 drives- I think they'll flag that later because their automated configuration screens allowed it)



SSDs greatly speed up Windows startup and the initial launch time of programs, but that's all. They don't improve performance once you're past the splash screen and into the game. So it's great to have a SSD for the system drive and the HDD for installing programs and storing data, but the benefits of RAID for SSDs are negligible compared to the cost. And the write cycle limit of SSDs means you'll probably have to replace it after 2-3 years anyway.



4) A pair of GTX 680's in SLI is Galactus level overkill for Skyrim (though appropriate for Crysis 3). Even a single GTX 680 is effortlessly capable of maxing out Skyrim. Which brings me to the whole SLI vs single-card discussion. In general, a single higher-end card is preferable to an SLI or Crossfire combo of lesser cards. SLI/CF sometimes provide a great performance boost, sometimes not. There are tradeoffs to multi-card configurations.



First off, dual cards greatly increase heat, noise and power consumption. Your 1000W Certified PSU can handle the latter, but even that isn't the ideal choice. With really high-end components like these, don't take anything less than a top-notch branded PSU from Corsair, XFX, Seasonic, Antec, Lepa etc. A higher total wattage rating is no substitute for PSU quality. An 850W Corsair beats a 1000W generic unit.



http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx



Now back to SLI. Performance doesn't scale equally in all games. In some games you'll see 100 percent improvement over a single card but in others the gain is only 60-80 percent, in others only 30-40 percent and in some SLI isn't supported at all, so dual cards don't perform any better than one. In particular, Skyrim isn't a dual-card friendly title. Gains are modest compared to titles like Battlefield 3 and STALKER.



http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-TITAN-Performance-Review-and-Frame-Rating-Update/Elder-S-0

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7750_7770_CrossFire/18.html



Next, SLI does *NOT* double your VRAM. Because each card maintains a copy of the same data, SLI and Crossfire pairs only have the effective VRAM of a single card. So a pair of 4GB cards function as a faster 4GB card, not an 8GB card.



Also, dual-card configurations run afoul of weird sporadic driver issues/bugs more frequently. Things like monitors not waking up properly after the screen is blanked or the system goes to standby, textures or colors occasioanlly not displaying properly, the occasional freeze/crash etc. Finally, any dual-card configurations might experience micro-stuttering:



http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,review-32256.html



I suggest at least considering a single GTX 690 (which is a dual-GPU card) as an alternative. If money is no object, a pair of GTX Titans is the most beastly SLI option under the sun, although still potentially subject to the glitches mentioned above.



http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-titan-gk110-review,3438-7.html



So.. food for thought! I'm thinking with 16GB of RAM and a single SSD you might free up enough $$$ to give yourself some flexibility in the GPU arena.