New PC Advice.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Right, for a few years now my current PC has struggled with some games, it's pretty much past the upgrade components stage so I've taken the leap to build my own (ish). I thought about building over time but am now getting impatient so looking to get on finance now I've got a steady income (but not massive, or even big, and the household income has just been slashed with my wife standing down as head of faculty in her school.)

I've got the case (Corsair Carbide Air 540) and PSU (EVGA 650 G1) sitting in the garage out of the view of the wife, and a GTX 580 hiding in the wardrobe in need of a good home. (That I'm looking to get a twin for.)

I'm just after advice with the usual AMD v Intel fight. More specifically, an 8350 v 4690k but open to suggestions. Which to choose, and by association, which motherboard too?

I'd want 2-way SLI, and would look at lightly overclocking it at some point.

I've done a lot of reading various forum on this battle, I think the consensus is the i5 wins on most points, chief in my mind is power and heat. But how do they both fare in real world gaming? Obviously better than my current E7500.

So, help, advise away.

Edit - X99 and latest i7 is very much not on the cards.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Thanks for all your personal opinions on this matter, you've all been a fantastic help.

[Catfish]

Well it has been only four days, subsim members are prone for staying submerged as long as possible

And i am not a specialist, i am struggling myself every 4 years, when a new PC is 'needed' (for whatever reason), to find out the latest news and improvements.. i think the one-generation-backwards cpu to be the better choice (financially, and from the bug-free pov), but then get the fastest one, with the most 2nd level cache. Also, four cores should be present. The machine feels much more relaxed, while running Adobe InDesign and Silent Hunter, at the same time

650 watts PSU sound reasonable, though i do not know about the needs of a SLI configuration running two vid cards.

Regarding mainboards http://www.tomshardware.com/t/motherboards/ is always a good address. Personally, i prefer Asus or Gigabyte mainboards, had some good experience with those. Asrock, not so much..

Everything else, i'd say with a 64bit operating system i would straight go for 16 Gb of Ram, and the mainboard should be able to maybe expand to more later, via free slots (e.g. four slots, insert two 8Gb ram chips, so you have space to expand).
Also dual channel configuration (pairing identical ram chips) is usually a good idea, for further boosting the fsb (front side bus) internal data exchange speed.

No more ideas, especially when it comes to mainboard internal techniques

[Harvs]

Look into liquid cooling your CPU, i never have issues with heat and have never had a problem with my system.

[james_nix]

Originally Posted by Harvs

Look into liquid cooling your CPU, i never have issues with heat and have never had a problem with my system.

Corsair and Coolermaster have water cooling that never needs to be changed. Like anti-freeze. Makes things easier.

[antikristuseke]

CPU wise, get the 4690k, I have a 8320 overclocked to 4.75 and it falls behind Intels offering when it comes to gaming. When it comes to power draw and heat dissipation the AMD loses hands down.
for them otherboard Asus Z97-A is a good mix of features and price.
For CPU cooling if a custom water loop is out of the question I can reccomend Noctua products for air cooling, very happy with their NH-D14, but there are other good options out there.

[HunterICX]

+1 On the Noctua products when going for a air cooled set up.
using the one which I believe is the U12P for 3 years on my i5 2500k, I haven't cleaned the dust nor changed the thermal paste during that time and when I do my temperature check now and then I'm happy with the results

Will certainly looking into another Noctua for my next build later this year.

[Task Force]

My advice for a build

I5 4690k, if your not overclocking your cpu, you could just get a non K sku CPU , depending on if you want to overclock your cpu... If so, get a Z 97 chipset, they tend to be pretty good in features (also IIRC Z series chips are the only chip that supports SLI, the other ones only have 1 x16 PCI 3 lanes) . But don't go crazy, Remember if your not overclocking a motherboards generally a motherboard, and you'll not see much of a difference.

For brands, so far I've had no real issues with my current gigabyte board, though be warned for some reason the RAM slots are backwards (atleast on my z87) so instead of them being 1234 they're 4321. I had a issue where I put my memory into what where actually the 4 2 slots and the computer had issues, put them in the 3 1 slots. all was fine.

Im not really sure you can get 580s (id have to look) so depending on how much you want to spend (and how well two 580s actually perform remember not all games support SLI) I'd get a set of 7 or 9 series GPUs if you want to do SLI, I've been running 770s in SLI for over a year now and had no issues. Im currently running the witcher 3 on ultra/high on 1440p with no issues.

For memory I always advice a nice 1600 cas 8-9 kit, for gaming you only really need 8 gigs of memory.

For cooling, despite the fact i'm using a H100i, there is no real need for water cooling unless you plan on doing major overclocking, hell if your not going to overclock you probably could get something in the 40 USD range thats decent and it'll do the job. Though as said before you could get a D-14 which for average overclocking should be everything you need and is a good cooler.

As for your PSU I do not believe you will be able to run SLI on 650 watts, and once you factor in overclock I'm almost sure you wont. I would advice you something in the modular in the 750 area.

As for storage if you need it. After putting a SSD in my current build I personally recommend them (also since the price for them has dropped) for system drives, and use normal HDDs for storage.



So to sum it up from my point of view

Devils Canyon I5 4690K

Z97 motherboard

580 x2 if you find another 580 and decide that's what you do, though You would get more performance out of two 960s if your budget allows it, as if I remember correctly (and its 6 am and I've not slept.) they out perform the 580, and use less power.

750 watt psu should hold you over with this build, I know there's some... calculator on the Internets that will try to figure out what wattage your going to use but I font remember where I've seen it.

8 gigs of some low CAS ram, High frequency ram is really pointless for gaming in every benchmark I've seen and person I've talked to who got high Mhz/CAS Memory.

Storage is all what you want, as I said a SSD is nice but not necessary, in the end HDDs are still perfectly fine.

Regards, and good luck with your PC
TF

PS: If you've got any questions just message me on steam.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Final parts ordered today, should be here Friday ready to be hidden away until I've got the guts to annoy the wife.

Like one of those new-build or converted house programmes on the telly, I've gone over my original budget, the whole thing is coming in around a grand (GBP) give or take. For that I could have bought a nice pre-built system for a hassle free life.

Just thinking of the final build, and how much more playable DCS stuff will be.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Forgot to say thank you for the input you guys gave.

[antikristuseke]

What will the build be like?

[Herr-Berbunch]

Case - Corsair Carbide 540 Air (twin chambers separating mobo, cards and components from PSU and HDDs - plus it's lower than my current Xigmatek case which has feet and top radiator cover removed to fit under desk)

Mobo - Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z97 (hate my current GB mobo so this better be all I expect,and more)

CPU - i5-4690K

Cooler - Corsair H100i water cooler

RAM - Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (2x8)

PSU - EVGA 650w G1

GPU - Asus R9 290X

Storage - 1x 256 GB SSD for OS, 1x 256 GB SSD for select games, 1x 2TB Seagate HDD for everyday storage (plus my current SSD/Sata drives will move across.

OS - I'll risk 10, but prepared to go back to 7 depending on experiences with 10

I plan on overclocking and just the single card for now but will up the power when I decide to crossfire. One step at a time.

[Task Force]

Just a warning about water cooling, If you though your room was hot before. It will be like a sauna now, since the heats being dumped out of the case more efficiently.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Delay with GPU, all due Monday.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

Delay with GPU, all due Monday.

May as well postpone for another month and set everything up using W11