beefy gaming pc

[cederic]

After six years of laptop gaming I'm returning to the world of desktop and my decades old understanding of the hardware options is a little obsolete.

I play MMOs, FPS, space sims, RPGs and RTS with upcoming purchases absolutely including TW:Rome2 and Company of Heroes 2. I want to play at full prettiness on a 2560x1440 monitor so I only need 60fps as the monitor wont go higher.

I want a little futureproofing, but I suspect I've also gone a little overkill:

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor Extreme i7-3970X (3.5GHz) 15MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH X79: SOCKET 2011, R.O.G
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE HYBRID GEN3 SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR
Processor Cooling
INTEL CERTIFIED LIQUID CPU COOLER FOR SOCKET LG2011
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence


So queries that I'm hoping you can all help me with:

1 - I'm not sure given recent console announcements whether 3GB graphics cards are sensible, or if I should wait until I can get 4GB gtx780s

2 - is the CPU cooler a waste of cash?

3 - how noisy is this thing going to be, and what can I do to make it quieter?

4 - linked to the noise, I went for a case with nice big fans. Is there a better case option

5 - I don't intend to overclock. I value stability. Can I switch to a cheaper motherboard without losing connectivity/graphics performance?

6 - if I switch motherboard, will I still need separate wifi? (450Mbps wifi is a strict requirement)

7 - the PC Specialist configurator wont let me pick the Seagate hybrid drives as 2nd/3rd drives, but the intent is a 240GB intel SSD as the boot drive, one Seagate hybrid for my photos and other media and a second Seagate hybrid for games (and media if I fill the first). Is this a sensible balance for performance vs cost? Photo/video editing both benefit from fast disk access, gaming's a given, but I'm not willing to buy two terabytes of SSD

8 - any other suggestions? including ways of cutting cost (other than the rather obvious "don't go SLI gtx780s")

Note that sound is via a gaming headset with an onboard sound chip, so I don't need anything special on the sound front. Could I also please slap whoever it is at PC Specialist that decided to send people a two year reminder of their previous purchase, as I was happily ignoring the fact my laptop is two years old as it is actually trundling along quite adequately.

But it wont handle Rome 2, and sometimes you just have to buy new toys..

 

[moosEh]

My Suggestion is below.

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache (2011 Socket is overkill in my opinion for gaming)
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LK: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT) (Reduced to standard Hyper-X Genesis as in my opinion overkill for gaming)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW) (Changed to your Primary)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) (Unless you absolutely want the extra SSD's or hybrid I suggest WD Drivers as second)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (Upgraded so it can write DVDs)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR (£159)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£59)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD (£35)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
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) (£5) (Always worth it if your based in the UK)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £2,473.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/qzz2yQgv8j/

 

[keynes]

For the games you posted to me it seems overkill.
1- For the resolution you wish to play 3gb will be fine.
2- Are you planning to overclock your cpu? the corsair h100i should perform better if that is the case.
3- The most noisy component is going to be the gpu, you could get a single GTX 780 instead, it should run the games you mentioned at ultra but I am not sure if it is going to be +60fps.
4- If you want to lower the noise then you could consider a silent case.
5- If you are not planning to overclock the cpu and cpu cooler are overkill. You could downgrade the motherboard without a loss in gaming performance.
6- I don't think any motherboard in the configurator for the socket you selected has wifi, you need a separated wireless card.
8- Don't SLI but I think it is mainly the cpu, it just seems too much for what you are planning to do. You could get an i5-3570 or an i7-3770 and lower the cost significantly. Do you need windows professional?

 

[moosEh]

As Keynes says I would have 1x780

 

[cederic]

Thank you for the swift and insightful responses!


For the games I posted, it's clearly excessive. I'm also looking ahead a little; my 9 year old desktop can run Guildwars 2..

It's a fair point on the CPU, the motherboard and the memory for gaming. I have half an eye on the non-gaming media editing I do, but frankly if the ones you've suggested aren't good enough then it's the software at fault

I hadn't even spotted the lack of DVD write on the blu-ray, thanks - although I may still drop back to a DVD drive. I don't own any blu-rays, but if I do buy any I'll want to rip them to my NAS.

Disks are definitely where I want to stick with the hybrids. The performance of spindle disks has been a bottleneck since my first PC and I'm now working on gigabytes of data at a time so this is an area a little extra investment can make a very noticeable difference. Full SSD would be better but the 8GB cache will suffice for most of what I do.

So switching in a 'silent' case, benefiting from lower power needs and putting some of the extra cache into a larger primary SSD rather than having two secondary drives, I end up with (almost):
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/fMkQJr82bB/

I don't want the Kingston SSD, but the 480GB Intel 520 is out of stock. I'm happy to be patient, wasn't planning on buying for a couple of weeks anyway.

I'll use the time in-between to ponder the SLI. There's that trade-off between noise, power, heat, cost all against performance, with the knowledge that now I'm moving to desktop it's really easy to buy a new card in a year or two that'll keep me at a very high performance level anyway.