Very High End Gaming PC (£2000)

[9of9]

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE R4 BLACK PEARL QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4820K (3.7GHz) 10MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P9X79 PRO: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
SSD CACHE DRIVE
20GB INTEL® SSD 313 SERIES - SLC CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD
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
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Extra Case Fans
2 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 8 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Headsets
Creative HS-800 Fatal1ty Gaming Headset

Hi all! I'm looking over this for any last minute changes. I'm putting this rig together as a reasonably future-proofed gaming machine, aimed at sharply rising PC game specs, running high resolutions at 60 (I am separately getting a 1440p monitor with this rig and keeping my options open for 3K screens further down the line) and powering Oculus Rift apps in the near future, as well as doing 3D work and rendering.

My two main concerns really are the noise and the cooling and balancing those out. I've tried to stick to silent components as much as I could, but I wonder how the SLI 770s will weather this kind of setup.

 

[vanthus]

Arguably a bit overkill for gaming,8GB RAM is more than enough for gaming for a few years yet I would reckon,also no need for the "K" version of CPU unless planning on overclocking,in which case best select a Hydro CPU cooler.
As you selected an SSD drive,an SSD cache drive wont really improve things any.
An SSD cache drive Is mainly used along with an HDD as a cache for frequently accessed data on the OS drive.

 

[keynes]

A quiet case is not ideal for a SLI set up, I would suggest a full tower case instead. It is going to be noise when gaming.

 

[9of9]

Arguably a bit overkill for gaming,8GB RAM is more than enough for gaming for a few years yet I would reckon,also no need for the "K" version of CPU unless planning on overclocking,in which case best select a Hydro CPU cooler.
As you selected an SSD drive,an SSD cache drive wont really improve things any.
An SSD cache drive Is mainly used along with an HDD as a cache for frequently accessed data on the OS drive.

With CoD and Watchdogs already touting 6GB as minimum, I feel like 8GB might not hold up for that long... though in any case, I have 3D software that will be making good use of it. The lack of advantage in an SSD cache drive when coupled with an SSD hard drive, however, I had not thought about - that's a very good point.

A quiet case is not ideal for a SLI set up, I would suggest a full tower case instead. It is going to be noise when gaming.

Oh, this thing doesn't have the amendment I added. I ended up swapping the case out for a Fractal Define R4 Black Pearl Quiet Mid-Tower Case with two extra fans rather than one. This guy had a similar set up to mine: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?27035-Fractal-R4-SLI So it seems like it should be alright in terms of temperature, I'm just trying to minimise the noise as much as I can!

 

[keynes]

Oh, this thing doesn't have the amendment I added. I ended up swapping the case out for a Fractal Define R4 Black Pearl Quiet Mid-Tower Case with two extra fans rather than one. This guy had a similar set up to mine: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?27035-Fractal-R4-SLI So it seems like it should be alright in terms of temperature, I'm just trying to minimise the noise as much as I can!

I remember that thread, on a previous one he was reporting high temperatures on his case as well. The decrease in noise is not going to be significant, the GPU is going to be slightly noisy when gaming. I would prefer to get better cooling rather than a slight decrease in noise to increase the longevity of components.

 

[9of9]

Ah, thanks for that - I had a search and turned up the original thread, I hadn't realised it was such a struggle to get the SLI cards running under temperature in the first place. That's a shame, but if running it with a silent case means turning the fans all the way up and cancelling out any of the silencing benefit... I can see the advantage of going with a full tower! Are there any cases you could particularly recommend for keeping a good airflow (and keeping noise down) with heavy-duty SLI cards?

 

[keynes]

Ah, thanks for that - I had a search and turned up the original thread, I hadn't realised it was such a struggle to get the SLI cards running under temperature in the first place. That's a shame, but if running it with a silent case means turning the fans all the way up and cancelling out any of the silencing benefit... I can see the advantage of going with a full tower! Are there any cases you could particularly recommend for keeping a good airflow (and keeping noise down) with heavy-duty SLI cards?

Noise down and good airflow? No that I am aware of. For full towers storm trooper or half-x

 

[9of9]

I suppose I'll give the Storm Trooper a try More ostentatious than I was going for, but having good air-flow and fan speed control should hopefully make it easy enough to tweak things around in terms of noise vs temperature.