$4k gaming rig

[JereHawk]

I am looking to build a 3D gaming PC. I

Edited February 22, 2015 by JereHawk

[GabrielT]

Somewhere in between would probably be best, without getting into it. Phase change is definitely not the only way to overclock and is serious overkill for a daily use computer.

What is your experience level? A self contained liquid cooling loop or a high end air cooler is usually

 

When you say "4k" are we talking ultra hd resolution OR $4,000 dollars as an actual budget?

 

If it were my money, I would got with a 5820K processor, a nice motherboard for overclocking and a good set of ram.

[JereHawk]

Thanks for the response GabrielTessin. I have posted this question on a few different forums and the consensus seems to be "don't bother with phase change." I am a novice (did a tiny bit of air cooled OCing years back dinking around). I have spent the past week or so reading up on all things overclocking and it's very interesting/fun/overwhelming sounding. Basically I was willing to try if it would give me more bang for my buck haha.

 

I noticed newegg has several closed loop liquid cooling systems for CPUs but I didn't see any for video cards. Do you have any suggestions for nvidia based cards?

 

As far as $4k that's a pretty soft number (subject to change) and is my total budget for the entire setup (PC, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse). The more I look into building this the more questions I come up with the more I have to research /infinite loop. At this point I have no idea what monitor I want other than a decent 3d monitor. I forgot there's this new ultra hd thing out now huh. I need to research that too haha.

[jasonlylevene]

I'll summarize what I'm reading from hundreds of threads and articles on the subject.

 

The consensus, with a few outliers, is that high end air matches most AIO water. Noctua D15 and Phanteks TCP14PE are very close to Corsair H100 or better, even though the AIO owners do like what they have.

 

Only custom loops offer much more. Personally, I don't want water near my CPU. There are non-conductive fluids, but experiment shows that over time metals from radiators and blocks enter the fluid, making them conductive eventually. There is a small group of full immersion fans, but the problems are similar. The cost doesn't return much benefit.

 

The stock heatsink included with current Intel chips is only enough to keep your CPU from catching fire . Many of us wonder why it's even offered.

 

AMD Vishera can often reach 5 Ghz with high end cooling, but the IPC doesn't return net gains over Intel products at lower speeds, and in gaming the overwhelming requirement is high IPC on 4 or fewer cores. Intel CPU's once could often reach 5Ghz, but lately that's not the case.

 

 

Intel's current transistors aren't really better than previous generations. FinFet transistors are different than the previous epoch. When moving from 90 to 60 to 45 to 32 nm, the transistors were basically the same design. Each drop in node size meant less physical material, fewer electrons involved in the switching performance, lower power drain and higher switching speed. The drop from 32nm to 22nm didn't give that same benefit. The transistors have a smaller footprint, but they're taller (the physics seems to require this). The amount of physical material controlling the electrons is similar to the previous node, the number of electrons involved in each switch of the transistor is similar, the total current demand is similar, but all of that is concentrated into a smaller footprint. This makes extracting heat a little more challenging.

 

I expect the drop to 14nm to be disappointing proprotionally. The 32nm i7's could typically reach 4.6 Ghz easily, 4.8 Ghz with effort, and a good many can reach 5Ghz. The 22nm Haswell's and DC chips struggle to reach 4.6, but commonly do. Getting 22nm to run at 4.8 Ghz is tough, and 5 Ghz is nearly impossible without high end cooling except on the "magic silicon" chips (rare, exceptional examples).

 

If the trend holds, I expect the 14nm chips to have the same issue, but limited to 4.4 Ghz commonly, 4.6 with difficulty, 5 Ghz nearly out of the question. IPC gains will give them overall more compute power, producing a net gain similar to previous releases (as in about 10% overall performance increases from one release to another). Broadwell may be even less over DC/Haswell. The second impediment to high speed operation is circuit complexity. The more complex the circuit, the more limited upper speeds are. Enhanced IPC generally means more complex circuits.

 

From what I read, the drop in node beyond 32nm is not focused on performance. It's focused on decreased cost per transistor.

 

If you're considering an i7 or i5 gaming rig, whether that's 1150 & z97, or 2011 & X99, or waiting for Skylake and the new Z170, or whatever might following X99, consider searching threads for the IHS problem associated with heat (cooling). The IHS mount is suspect on these devices. We all hope Intel returns to soldered IHS mounting with Skylake, but there's no news giving facts on this point. The glue can push the IHS upwards, limiting (or eliminating) thermal contact. Some are ok, some are outright awful (and may qualify for RMA), but all of the chips with non-soldered IHS benefit from removing the IHS, cleaning off the glue, and remounting with thermal paste. You should enter the purchase decision with open eyes on this subject.

 

Overclocking certainly returns benefits, but with high end air or AIO you can expect at most a 20% boost, with 12.5 and 17% being more common. The cost of high performance cooling vs the result is really not worth the expense. 5Ghz is difficult to achieve, and it appears mostly dependent on the luck of the silicon. The overall compute power difference between 4.6 Ghz and 5 Ghz is less than the difference from 4.0 to 4.6 (which are the common jump points of comparison). Yet, the expense of reaching close to 5Ghz outpaces the return.

 

Intel is only competing with itself at this point, so they're releases are small increments in performance. Current owners of 32nm parts, like 2500K and 2600K, aren't strongly motivated to spend cash on new 4690K or 4790K parts (with new motherboards), because the result is not much of a gain. Skylake may grab their attention, but even then they will gain only about 20% overall maximum, if my estimates are close.

 

It's different if you're not gaming. I'm a developer, not a gamer, so higher core count returns dividends, whereas gamers need fast cores. This is where X99 is attractive. The 6 and 8 core chips on X99 would be of interest, but the cost is beyond reason without strong motivation. Some of the 8 core chips are $1,000. The one thing X99 gives us over Z97 is a larger PCIe lane inventory. You won't see dual 16x PCIe on Z97, but it's possible on X99. Reviews show, however, that current GPU offerings dont really benefit much from that. Similarly X99 supports DDR4, at a price premium. Higher RAM speeds are possible, but we see in reviews it returns very little if any recognizable gaming performance.

 

The upcoming Z170 for Skylake will offer both increased PCIe lanes and DDR4, if the press releases are accurate. That should be 2016.

 

So, you could spend the budget on X99, DDR4, twin GPU's, SSD...and it will be marginally better than a Z97 gaming rig that's less expensive. Getting a Z97 now leaves you looking toward Z170 next year, which requires a complete abandonment of your Z97 gear.

 

That's Intel's plan. It's exactly where current 1155 owners are with respect to 1150 & 2011 today.

 

Most Z97 owners are satisfied with their rigs, and so too are a number of the X99 owners. You'll find more interesting options in GPU choices, which I avoid discussing because others may be more familiar, and there's a fair amount of personal preference.

 

SSD's, on the other hand, are about to experience a price war. Up to this point all products have been 2D NAND of various types. Every thing done to increase density has decreased long term write durability. Arguments about as to whether this matters (factually, it does - practicably it depends on usage). However, Samsung has the only products on the shelf with newer 3D NAND. These have orders of magnitude higher durability, and are "naturally" parallel, meaning even smaller drives have good performance. Intel hasn't yet entered with their 3D NAND products, but they've announced what they called "price disruptive" technology in 3D NAND. Expect prices to drop, capacities to soar. By 2016 we should see a completely different SSD landscape, with drives commonly at 2, 4..up to 10 TBytes. In other words, invest lightly and expect to upgrade in the next 12 to 18 months.

 

On a new build, never skimp on the PSU. $80 on a good 750 is possible, with some favored Seasonic builds much higher.

 

Don't forget backup and boot options. When you overclock you plan to crash your machine. That can corrupt OS installations. Be prepared to restore an OS. Better still, have boot options so you have a standalone overclock OS you can safely trash, and restore.

Edited February 22, 2015 by jasonlylevene

[El_Capitan]

What's your system now? All you probably need is a 3D monitor and upgraded graphics card. Maybe a new motherboard and CPU, but not really likely.

[GabrielT]

My biggest concern for phase change systems condensation, you really don't want water dripping inside your computer. I'm not saying it cant be done but it is not something I would attempt on your first build.

 

Closed loop systems are pretty good for CPU cooling, their aren't many closed loop coolers out there. Unless you want to do a custom loop air cooling on graphics cards is the way to go.

[IVIYTH0S]

Just wanted to post to say thanks for such an informative thread haha. I even learned something!

 

But yeah, what are you running now?

 

My advice would be to wait for skylake if you can afford to (if it won't hurt your work productivity), or maybe go with an AMD system while you wait for that, you won't get the same performance but you could satisfy your need for a more traditional overclock if you like. Intels only really like overclocking with their multipliers you won't get much as a result of bclock tweaking.

 

As for cooling I'm all about air, so a Phanteks, D15, D14 whatever would be great. I'm not sure what all the best is these days, I usually recommend Coolermaster 212s to people because how far it will take them for the value but with a system with this budget you shouldn't compromise.

 

For graphics, would a work station card like a Quadro or FireGL be beneficial or maybe just a strong gaming card? (like GTX980 or maybe a 390X if you want to wait)

Edited February 22, 2015 by IVIYTH0S

[Cespenar]

I want to thank all for a rather informative thread!

 

Now, the cooling part of the thread. I have the Thermaltake P500 pump, a 360mm radiator and an EK double bay reservoir.

Thermaltake is not recommended, but I have been lucky. The pump has been running since 2006. Turned off when I'm away or asleep.

The Temperatures are about 45 degrees centigrage (Why do we say celcius now?) down from about 65 to 85 degrees celcius.

What I'm saying is that a custom loop that cools a top end video card and a medium AMD CPU is the best way to go. (IMO)

[JereHawk]

Wow thanks a ton for the huge wall of text jasonlylevene. Was insanely helpful. You should be able to see your influence in the parts I picked haha. ^___^

 

As far as holding off for the newest and greatest hardware...gah I feel like I've been doing that for years (mostly cuz I was too broke to buy anything).

Here's my current system:

• MB: P5K3 Deluxe
• Proc: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.4ghz
• Memory: 2x ddr3-1600 2gb 9-9-9-24 and 2x ddr3-1333 1gb 9-9-9-24 Windows says ram is running at 1066mhz, I guess that's the compatible speed of the 2 types of chips and the MB?
• Video: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 4gb
• Monitor: Some very old flat panel (4" thick?) 40" Samsung 1080p
• OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit (DirectX 11)

 

I read your response a bit late Cespenar. Already "built" my rig (picked out parts on newegg) and decided against water cooling. WC just seems like a lot of work vs air and not really worth it. At least it did till I read your post. I was so into phase cooling (sub-ambient) that I decided either phase or uber easy I guess (so closed loop wc or just air).

 

This is what I came up with

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=27361266

Please let me know if I overlooked something: will have some kind of bottleneck, really skimped, went way overboard on some aspect, am missing some required obvious part (

Edited February 23, 2015 by JereHawk

[GabrielT]

Jason nailed it, I agree with Jason. However I would not wait for a new processor line. Something better always comes out, and will always be outdated very quickly.

 

Bear in mind this too, the high end of the price spectrum is normally the worst value.

If you want to overclock and have a really nice gaming machine I would suggest something similar to this.

 

 

i5 4690K-                              $240

Processor Colling                 $100

Mid Range z97 motherboard $250

16GB of DDR3 Ram              $200

A nice case                          $150

250GB SSD Harddrive          $120

4tb HDD Storage Drive          $150

295X2 8gb                             $680

1200w+ Quality PSU             $220

OS                                         $100

Monitor and Accessories     ?

 

Total: $2210 before monitor and keyboard.

 

I priced these out high, but I don't see why you would need a higher end computer. What is your intention for daily use anyways?

Edited February 23, 2015 by GabrielTessin

[Cespenar]

Looking it the prices, I see that you are going SLI. It is very awkward to watercool SLI. So go good air!

Is why I don't SLI.