Another spec check thread.

S

SlimCini

KC and the Sunshine BANNED
Get a nice 4k monitor and then plug this into it:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE (GREEN)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, XFIRE/SLI
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (€180)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (€25)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (€103)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (€185)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price: €3,170.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/UL8h3VaRQf/
 
T

tshayter

Bronze Level Poster
Can do Rakk! You see the spec I was considering (and going back to) was this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM TROOPER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS VII GENE: RoG, PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0
Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P (4 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
480GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (141 €)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (115 €)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (141 €)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
4 - 5 DAY DELIVERY TO FINLAND (50 €)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price: 3 109,00 € including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/uxxPh_z2wm/

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However I've just seen Slim Cini's post with the spec he put together and it's got me thinking again. Those dual 980's look really nice and I'm just trying to work out where the money is being saved in order to get dual 980s and still be very close to the price range.

I've been tampering with that spec and ended up with this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM TROOPER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE - Changed the case (I like this one more I guess + the fan control is a good idea maybe?)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, XFIRE/SLI
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB) - Changed the Memory to 2133Mhz as the price change was almost nothing (this is a better upgrade i think?)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) - By the way is this better/worse than the 1st HD in spec #1?
2nd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM - No Blu Ray player like my old spec but I don't have any blu rays anyway. That was just in case I wanted to buy any so not having one is fine.
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (180 €)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (25 €)
Extra Case Fans
2 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof) (12 €) - 2 Extra case fans for 12 euro. More fans have to be a good thing surely?
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (141 €) - Went to Win 7 Pro. 7 Because I dislike 8 and Pro so I can up the Memory later if I want to.
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (17 €) - Took the warranty down to silver. Bit of a risk I suppose but it let me save a lot of money. Living outside the UK I don't really want to be messing around mailing my pc back to england + it costing like 50 euros on postage. If anything breaks I could probably get it repaired here.
Delivery
4 - 5 DAY DELIVERY TO FINLAND (50 €)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price: 3 177,00 € including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/Jow7myrQFH/

-

Now I do have some questions about this spec though.

The motherboard is considerably cheaper than the Asus Maximus VII Gene and motherboards are my biggest weak spot. I'm unable to tell how good a motherboard really is and I have no idea where to start. I Know price isn't always everything but the Gene is a good 75 euros more than this Gigabyte Z97X. I wonder is there a good reason for that? It seems hard to find good comparison threads about these online. Does the motherboard really matter that much? I am a motherboard novice.

Secondly; the cooling system. I've seen a lot of you guys using that triple copper heat pipe in the builds you suggest for people, is it really that good compared to the other systems on offer? For the price you sure do save a lot of money going with the triple copper but cooling is important so I do wonder if it's really the best thing to use. Again however I'm no expert and I currently use a heatsink which I can't say I've ever had problems with but then again my current system is very long way from the specs I've been looking at. That being said however, I did opt to add 2 additional case fans with this spec so that should count for something?

-----------------------------------------------

The last thing I'm interested to get opinions on is this: If you were to totally ignore the GPU's of both specs (so pretend they both list dual 970s or dual 980s or whatever) which of these 2 specs is the better one overall for the extreme gaming (if you were to also ignore stuff like what monitor I'm using etc). Of course there's also the option that both specs are not that good or the option that my tampering of the second spec in this post actually made it worse or something.

The reason I say to ignore the GPUs is because I will probably be totally fine with either 970s or 980s. 980s are obviously better but if the first spec in this post is somehow vastly superior to the second spec then it probably makes more sense for me to go with that one and the 970's. If the 2nd spec is way better than the first then that's great because I would get the better spec with the better GPUs. I'm just curious to know which of the 2 (if any) you guys think is the better one.

Thanks again!

P.S. I miss working in £'s :(
 
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T

tshayter

Bronze Level Poster
Hey guys. Sorry to keep nagging at this issue but I'm all ready and waiting to pull the trigger on my order now but I'm just interested in getting some final thoughts on my last post there.

I know it's only been a couple days but I guess I'm rather excited to get this new PC finally ordered and want to do it fairly soon as I'll be away from home for a bit next month so don't the mail man trying to deliver it when I'm not home and I don't want to waste too many more days to get some replies here.

Again, I appreciate it all very much. Just getting a bit excited to finally order it hehe!

Edit:

Hello. After a little bit of playing (those dual 980s do look nice but ah the money is getting rather high for me!) I've come up with this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM TROOPER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS VII GENE: RoG, PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB) - bumped down from 32gb to 16gb as you are right, 32 is way more than anything I would need right now.
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready - bumbed up to a 980
2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready - bumped up to a 980
1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW) - bumped down from 480 to 240, mostly in an attempt to counter part of the price increase from dual 980's. 480gb would be nice but I guess I have a lot of storage already with the two 4TB's
2nd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM - bumped down the x16 blu ray player to the standard dvd writer, pretty easy to drop that one I suppose and try and save some more cash there.
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (180 €) - Had to increase the PSU obviously.
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (116 €)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (141 €) - Keeping windows prof for the future as home edition only supports 16gb of memory.
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
4 - 5 DAY DELIVERY TO FINLAND (50 €)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price: 3 338,00 € including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/nBZZRsrQWr/

---

I really think this might be the one! It's a good €350 or so more than what I'm really wanting to spend (= how much my girlfriend will let me get away with!) so I'm still looking at ways to shave down the price but there's really not much left that I would want to downgrade. The primary drive is smaller than I was hoping for (As it's the same size as my current pc) however as I install all my games on a secondary drive I wont really need that much space on it in the first place. The only things that are really on it are my pictures and music collections but that would only be around 40-50gb max so 240gb is enough I suppose.

Cooling might be overkill I don't know. It's not something I mind though as I really want this PC to have no problems with anything at all so perhaps it's needed. Might be I'll have to do some real sweet talking to get this machine so I'll have to see how it goes.

Definitely excited about this one though and it's the first time I've got the ol' 'this is the one' feeling! hehe

What do ye recon guys?

By the way should this thread be in the check this spec subforum again? I don't know, I guess I've made it rather messy :s
 
Last edited:
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
so I'm still looking at ways to shave down the price but there's really not much left that I would want to downgrade.
Click to expand...
Well I already giving you feedback regarding that but I think you are set on the spec below and no need for further advice. You can check previous comments on this thread regarding downgrading the motherboard, windows home edition, single gtx 980 ......
 
T

tshayter

Bronze Level Poster
Questions left unanswered

I still post because there are still questions that have gone unanswered. I know people don't have to answer my questions but there's little harm and no cost for me to try and find answers for them.

-

I know you suggested getting an i7-4790 (in order to get SLI GTX 980's) instead of an i7-5930k which could be a good idea however I was no longer considering going down that path to get the 5930 and was looking at the i7-4790k build again due to online researching of the CPUs. I'm also aware that running either 970s or 980s in SLI is overkill for my current monitor but again, in the future I would quite like to get a bigger monitor. Perhaps for a birthday gift to myself or something so in regards to that I'm quite happy to be overkilling it for now.

I also know your opinion on getting Windows Professional instead of Home but again, for an extra 40 euros I have the ability to add more memory in the future if I ever would want/need to. Getting Windows Home removes my option to do so thus I don't mind having Professional.

In terms of motherboards, I have been suggested a few but there have been no explanation as to why I should take motherboard X over Y. The ASUS® X99-S suggested by Mantadog (with the i7-5820K or i7-5930K) does net you DDR4 RAM but the majority opinion I've found from searching online is that the i7-4790k is vastly superior to either of those other two when it comes to playing games right now. Even with it only using DDR3. Not to mention you voicing the same opinion as to what I found online.

6 cores just aren't used by games right now and as you said yourself, by the time games start using that many cores one would 'need' an upgrade anyway. Choosing between the i7-4790k and the i7-5930K is like choosing between buying a PS4 now that'll later become a PS3 (compared to current systems at that time) or buying a PS3 now that'll later stay a PS3 (compared to current systems at that time). Makes more sense to get the PS4 in my eyes so the i7-5930k with the applicable motherboard and memory are no longer being considered as they do not quite fit my computing needs. I do still appreciate the suggestion Mantadog!

-

After that I reposted my original spec again due to Rakk's request however I noticed that after posting, Slim Cini had kindly pitched in with his/her ideas. After looking into that spec I was still left with a few questions about the quality of some of the parts used (due to them being considerably cheaper than the ones in 'my' spec) in order to get dual 980's and I'm still curious about those answers.

-

Perhaps it would be easier now if I just compile all my unanswered questions here to make it easier for anyone to answer?

1) The motherboard 'Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, XFIRE/SLI' is considerably cheaper than the 'ASUS® MAXIMUS VII GENE: RoG, PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0'. Price isn't always everything but considerable price difference suggests that one might be better than the other. Am I right? How much would the difference between these motherboards even matter?

2) 16GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB) is not as good as 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB), correct?

3) Is this hard drive: 480GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 450MB/sW) better than a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) if you ignore how much space it has for storage or is the Samsung a better quality/performing drive?

4) Is the Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (25 €) that I see suggested for so many builds actually that good? Wouldn't it be better to grab some Corsair Liquid Cooling if money wasn't a consideration? Or is it so that the Heatpipe performs just as well on it's own/by having those 2 additional case fans therefore being a smart money saver?

5) Out of the two specs in post #22, which one do you think is better? Would either spec still be 'better' if you ignored what type of GPU they listed? For a bonus point, if one spec is better, why?

6) Is the spec outlined in post #23 the best one so far? The definition of 'best' here is the spec you would rate the highest if you ignore factors like the monitor size they're for and things like what is better value for money and look at them solely from a standalone point of view.

All these questions are of course aimed from the point of view of a system intended for maximizing performance with games. Nothing else is as important.

These are just the questions I'm still interested in getting thoughts on. As I've said before I do really appreciate anyone who takes the time to try and help. It's not every day I drop over 3k on a computer (in fact it's about 1 day in 2372.5!) so I'm trying to be as careful and well minded as I can be about it.

If anyone could answer the questions I have left to resolve I would be very thankful and it would go a long way towards putting my mind at ease and enabling me to know that I'm making the right choices. Ultimately I know that any of the specs that have been suggested or specs that I've thought about will be pretty darn great but there's still no harm in trying to be clever about things!

Thanks :)
 
T

tshayter

Bronze Level Poster
It's just for gaming. Not at 4k right now but that doesn't matter as 4k is something lined up for the future.
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
1) any motherboard will offer similar performance, getting the maximus entails additional features that the average users won't benefit from.
2) no noticeable difference between them for gaming
3) for gaming and general use you wouldn't notice the difference unless benchmarking.
4) only if overclocking

My comment about windows professional is my understanding that it is mainly for gaming and by the time you need 32gb ram you should be looking at a completely different system since those requirements (32gb ram) wouldn't take place in the next few years and by them your cpu and gpu are likely to be the ones holding you back rather than the ram. Same with dual GTX 980s if gaming in one monitor. New GPUs that are more powerful and efficient are going to be release why not upgrade to those instead of spending a lot for features you won't benefit from immediately or in some cases no noticeable improvements?
 
T

tshayter

Bronze Level Poster
Thanks Keynes, that helps a lot.

I will probably keep the liquid cooling over the triple copper in that case then. Although I wont be overclocking the i7-4790k straight out the box, it is unlocked from what I've been able to find out which means I will be about to overclock it to a nice 4.4GHz later on if I need some extra juice.

You are right really about the memory though. I could bang the OS down to Windows Home I suppose as 16gb is an awful lot of RAM and what you said is true, by the time I would really need more than that, the rest of my system would probably need replacing. I did have another quick look at using SLI 970's instead of 980's which would totally work more than well enough for my current system (As even a single 970 I've read could be considered 'overkill' for a single 1080p monitor). My thoughts on this however is that if I were to get 970s or 980s, although overkill for now, I would definitely work on getting a monitor that benefits more from the GPUs in the future.

Monitor prices will go down over time and I think it's a smarter call now to buy something like dual 980's and then a new monitor in the future compared to buying something that is less overkill, and then buying an upgrade for that and a new monitor later on. At least I think that's the smarter call. Of course if another 970 type card is released (super good + super cheap) then it renders this kinda moot but I suppose it's still more cost effective to buy X and then a monitor rather than buying Y, upgrading it to the new Z and then a new monitor.

Good food for thought though.
 
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