cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Profeus ROG Gaming Rig - Please help new to WC/OC

Profeus
Level 9
FOLLOW/SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEW ROG 900D BUILD LOG HERE


Hi guys,

I have been building computers for a few years now but have never delved into the world of high end performance computers or over clocking. I am now building a new gaming system to play BF3 etc on for myself and have decided that I want to learn about overclocking for this build as it is something I have always wanted to know but never really knew how to go about it. Since hearing about how the new boards now are becoming increasingly easier to OC on I really want to give it a go.

I am not sure about which power supply, motherboard, cpu, memory or graphics card to use for it, I have researched a bit and have some ideas but after reading through many forums here I am unsure of my choices and the right ones to make. I have only ever used gigabyte/asus/nvidia/intel/corsair gear (personal preference), but I am open to suggestions. Until now have never been able to afford ROG gear but am really excited about utilizing one of the Rampage IV boards for this build.

So far what I have for the build:

- Corsair 600T White Ed. case
- Corsair H100 CPU Cooler
- 4 x Corsair SP120 fans to replace the ones that come with the H100 for a push/pull setup
- OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD
- 3 x 2TB WB Caviar Black in RAID 0
- 3 x 24" Asus LED monitors (5760x1080 res)


What I was thinking for the remaining (more important) parts:

- ROG Rampage IV Formula Motherboard
- i7 3930K Processor
- 2x EVGA GTX 680 4GB FTW+ Graphics Cards
- Corsair AX850 Gold Power Supply

- Corsair Dominator Platinum CMD32GX3M4A1600C9 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 RAM
OR
- Corsair Vengeance CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 RAM
OR any better suggestions anyone can give me here to use instead?



I chose the motherboard because from what I have read it is aimed at high end gamers with its high end sound card.

The 3930K seemed to get better overall results compared to my first choice the i7 3820.

With the graphics card, I have always used asus/gigabyte graphics cards but I'm told EVGA cards are pretty good and figured since it has double the RAM of any other GTX 680 it would help with running the 3 monitors with decent FPS.

I figured the power supply would be enough being that I was only looking at using 1 graphics card not SLI? or i could step it up to a Corsair HX-1050 V2 PSU? (100% Modular for that nice clean inside case)

Honestly with the RAM I'm not sure if I should go with higher frequency or better clock rate being that I am going to OC it anyways. I've read that the 1600 MHz RAM is better suited with the RIVF boards?

I read in a few forums that the X79 boards PCIE 3.0 arent being supported by Nvidia anymore on their 600 series cards? Does this mean that I should not buy the graphics card I was looking at and go for an ATi card instead? Or do you guys think that Nvidia is still a good option to use? What does the reduction to PCIE 2.0 on X79 boards mean if I was to use this card on this setup?

Now the serious questions that I really need help on... how should I actually go about overclocking it?
- I read that for the processor it is better to increase the multiplier instead of the base clock to stop it from increasing unwanted frequencies etc of other things and from what I found across a few threads is that 4.4 to 4.5 GHz is a safe level using my processor choice/cooler setup but what voltage should I be using for that frequency level?
- How much should I increase the RAM? What is a safe frequency/voltage for this?
- What programs should I use to do stability testing on the machine? Was looking to do about 2-3 hours of testing, is this enough?

What settings do you think I would be able to run BF3 on with this system? Just High or could I push Ultra? :cool:

Any help would be much appreciated, thank you guys.

Regards,

Mike AKA Profeus. 🙂



Final Build components: (Updated)
Corsair Graphite 600T White Edition case
Repulic of Gamers Rampage IV Formula motherboard
3rd gen i7 3930K - Overclocked at 4.7GHz stable @ 1.385v
16GB Corsair Dominator GT RAM - CL 9,11,10,27,T2 at 2133MHz @ 1.510v
Dual Republic of Gamers Matrix 7970 Platinum graphics cards in Crossfire configuration - Core GPU clock 1130MHz @ 1237v - Memory clock 6600MHz @ 1605v running 13.1 drivers
Dual OCZ 256GB Vertex 4 SSD hard drives - Configured in RAID 1 array
Dual 2TB WD Caviar Black hard drives - Configured in RAID 0 array
Corsair AX1200i Digital ATX Modular Power Supply
Corsair Link Commander including cooling and lighting nodes (System Monitoring)
4x 120mm Bitfenix Spectre Pro Red LED fans
2x 200mm Bitfenix Spectre Pro Red LED fans
XSPC D5 Vario adjustable water pump
XSPC EX360 Radiator (top mounted)
Phobya Xtreme 200mm radiator (front mounted)
XSPC RayStorm CPU Waterblock for Intel
EK-FC7970 Matrix X2 Full Cover Waterblocks for GPU's
EK-MOSFET ASUS RF4 CSQ Waterblock for MOSFET
EK-RAM Dominator X2 Waterblocks for Corsair Dominator GT Memory
EK-PSC 45° Adapters G1/4
EK-PSC 90° Adapters G1/4
XSPC G1/4 1/2" Compression Fittings
Bitfenix Water Tank Z-Multi 150 ICE Red Reservoir
All Bitfenix Alchemy Red sleeved extension cables
Bitspower Temperature Sensors
Bitspower Flow Sensor
ASUS BW-12B1ST High Speed Bluray Burner
Windows 8 Professional 64-bit
3x 24" ASUS VE248H 2ms at 6036x1080 resolution
PrimoChill PromoFlex Pro LRT Tubing UV Red 1/2" Inner Diameter + 3/4" Outer Diameter
BitFenix Alchemy Connect 60cm Red LED Strip (mounted in front grill of case)
Bitspower Dual 30cm Cold Cathode Kit - UV
Bitspower Dual 30cm Cold Cathode Kit - Red
Asus Republic of Gamers metal logo (9cm x 7.5cm CNC plotter cut ultra-thin metal using 3M 467 adhesive tape)
Chassis Corsair 900D|MB Rampage IV Formula|CPU i7 3930K @ 4.8GHz
RAM Corsair DominatorGT 16GB 2133MHz C9|GPU 2x ROG Matrix 7970-P in X-Fire @ 1180MHz
PSU Corsair AX1200i|SSD 2x Samsung 840 Pro 256GB|HDD 2x 4TB WD Caviar BLACK
Monitoring Corsair Link|Cooling Custom Loop EKWB/AlphaCool/XSPC/Bitspower
Monitors 3x ASUS 24" VE248H (6036x1080)
132,387 Views
310 REPLIES 310

Menthol
Level 14
To over clock you should start with the guides in this section, they will get you to where you want to go real easy. On my RIVE I run 24/7 at 4.6 with 1.336 volts using the off set method the processor idles at 1200 mhz at less than .9 volts. Ram it is proven that higher frequency gives you more gain than lower clks. Corsair Dominators or GSkill Ripjaww Z series. Purchase the highest clocks you want, don't expect to overclock your ram easily, buy either brand above at the rated speed you want. 16GB is more than enough for any gaming. I would suggest raid 5 for your 2tb drives to keep your data safe. And I would suggest a high quality 1000 to 1200 watt P/S, (never scrimp on your power supply) I have never gamed with 3 monitors but I have a feeling you may be adding a second graphics card later. If you have any problems after your build is complete come back here and you will find the support you need. Come back and share you experience this is the best community on the net.

danjw
Level 10
Not really sure about BF3 particularly because it is very CPU bound for its limitations, but with most games you are probably better off with a Z77 motherboard then X79. Also, until Ivy Bridge-E you won't be able to take advantage of the PCIe 3.0 on the board and that isn't due until 2nd half of next year. As far as PSUs I would suggest going with a well known brand: Antec, Seasonic, Enermax or Corsair.

Personally, I won't use anything but Nvidia graphics cards, but that is from my experience working with AMD at a small gaming company. Nvidia wanted to work with us, getting help from AMD was like pulling teeth. To get them to help, the CEO needed to call an executive he knew at AMD.

What is the resolution of your monitors? I would suggest an SLI or Crossfire for 3 monitors. If you go SLI or Crossfire, you will want at least 1000W and better off with 1200W.

As far as overclocking, like Menthol said there are number of good guides out there.

The basics of OCing:

Before you do anything, make sure you give your thermal interface material has properly cured. Then burn the system in at stock settings for 72 hours. You want to run both Prime95 and furmark (or another CPU and GPU loading programs), at the same time, and make sure it is all stable.

Once burned-in, you start bumping the CPU clock speed, one notch at a time, until it won't post. Then set that the CPU back at stock, and do the same with the memory. Now you have a window into the clock speed potential for the CPU and memory. Then, in very small voltage increments you attempt a stable boot at your target clock. Once you get a stable boot, you run tests/burn-in for another 72 hours. If stable, adjust memory timings to tighten em up. Once you get to something that is stable, burn-in again for 72 hours, to ensure stability.

This whole process can take weeks, it is not something you want to rush through. Take it slow and make sure you do your burn-ins.

N00b1nat0r
Level 7
Hi there, i have the 3920 and the RIVF, i use this set of RAM from Gskill at the 2133 speeds = F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH
Is there any reason for the 32GB of RAM? BF3 is a 32bit game so you wont benifit from having huge ammounts of RAM unless your doing other stuff???

I run BF3 on my system quite well, no idea as to what settings though.

Second to 1000W or more PSU and branded.
Antec 1200, Asus Rampage IV Formula, EVGA 1300w PSU, Intel i7 4930K, ASUS Strix LC 120 Cooler, Asus 1070 OC 8gb X2, 32GB (4 x 8GB) Corsair Dominator 2133Mhz DDR3 Quad Channel RAM, Samsung Evo SSD 500gb x2, Samsung Evo SSD 250gb , 2 x WD Velociraptor, Windows 10 Pro

kkn
Level 14
well if its just gaming and things like that you dont need more the 16 gig's, unless you do video editting and rendering or heavy programing as autocad and programs like that.

Hey guys,

Basically the main reason I got 3 screens is because I work as a network/systems admin and have to log into multiple servers fairly regularly from home. So I figured trying to run 2 servers remotely plus a game at the same time would chew up quite alot of system memory, hence I figured go with the 32GB RAM.

I am thinking that I should probably look into the 1200W PSU and SLI setup the more I think about it (Corsair of course). 🙂

What would you guys reccomend in terms of graphics card that would work best for an SLI setup for me. Should I go 2 or 3 way sli/xfire? Keeping in mind that the more cards I get, the lower budget I would have to use on them unfortunately.

I have only ever used Nvidia cards and so I am not too sure about using ATi.

Nvidia
3x ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCu II 2GB
2x Asus nVidia GTX 670 DCII 4GB
OR
2x EVGA GeForce GTX 680 4GB FTW+


ATi
3x ASUS Radeon HD7950 DirectCu II TOP 3GB
2x ASUS Radeon HD7970 DirectCU II TOP 3GB


I'm thinking now I might look at getting Corsair Dominator Platinum CMD32GX3M4A2133C9 1.5V 32GB RAM, what you guys think of this one instead of my earlier choice?
If I used the RIVE board I would probably only use 4GB sticks at a better frequency/clock, but since RIVF only has 4 slots I am stuck to only a few selections for it to get the amount I want and I cant just buy 4 sticks and have 4 slots free incase it isnt enough for what I need to do with it.

Also I want to clock the cpu (still thinking the 3930K) at 4.4 to 4.5 GHz as I have read in many posts here this seems to be a safe level to start off with being im not using serious water cooling etc, is the H100 going to be strong enough to cool it at that setting? and would the H100 have to be running 100% capacity all the time to keep the cpu cool enough?

Thanks again for the help, much appreciated! 🙂

Regards,

Mike AKA Profeus.
Chassis Corsair 900D|MB Rampage IV Formula|CPU i7 3930K @ 4.8GHz
RAM Corsair DominatorGT 16GB 2133MHz C9|GPU 2x ROG Matrix 7970-P in X-Fire @ 1180MHz
PSU Corsair AX1200i|SSD 2x Samsung 840 Pro 256GB|HDD 2x 4TB WD Caviar BLACK
Monitoring Corsair Link|Cooling Custom Loop EKWB/AlphaCool/XSPC/Bitspower
Monitors 3x ASUS 24" VE248H (6036x1080)

Profeus wrote:
Hey guys,

Basically the main reason I got 3 screens is because I work as a network/systems admin and have to log into multiple servers fairly regularly from home. So I figured trying to run 2 servers remotely plus a game at the same time would chew up quite alot of system memory, hence I figured go with the 32GB RAM.

I am thinking that I should probably look into the 1200W PSU and SLI setup the more I think about it (Corsair of course). 🙂

What would you guys reccomend in terms of graphics card that would work best for an SLI setup for me. Should I go 2 or 3 way sli/xfire? Keeping in mind that the more cards I get, the lower budget I would have to use on them unfortunately.

I have only ever used Nvidia cards and so I am not too sure about using ATi.

Nvidia
3x ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCu II 2GB
2x Asus nVidia GTX 670 DCII 4GB
OR
2x EVGA GeForce GTX 680 4GB FTW+ with Backplate


ATi
3x ASUS Radeon HD7950 DirectCu II TOP 3GB
2x ASUS Radeon HD7970 DirectCU II TOP 3GB


I'm thinking now I might look at getting Corsair Dominator Platinum CMD32GX3M4A2133C9 1.5V 32GB RAM, what you guys think of this one instead of my earlier choice?
If I used the RIVE board I would probably only use 4GB sticks at a better frequency/clock, but since RIVF only has 4 slots I am stuck to only a few selections for it to get the amount I want and I cant just buy 4 sticks and have 4 slots free incase it isnt enough for what I need to do with it.

Also I want to clock the cpu (still thinking the 3930K) at 4.4 to 4.5 GHz as I have read in many posts here this seems to be a safe level to start off with being im not using serious water cooling etc, is the H100 going to be strong enough to cool it at that setting? and would the H100 have to be running 100% capacity all the time to keep the cpu cool enough?

Thanks again for the help, much appreciated! 🙂

Regards,

Mike AKA Profeus.


If you only intend to game with one screen and just need to have a web browser or something equivalent on the other two then you don't really need the SLI. If the other screens are doing significant graphics then, you should probably go with an SLI.

If the stuff on the secondary screens is just going to be 2d, 2x GTX 670s should be good to get very solid results. The Corsair CMD32GX3M4A2133C9 is very solid memory, I have seen reviews stating that you can get solid overclocks with it.

danjw wrote:
If you only intend to game with one screen and just need to have a web browser or something equivalent on the other two then you don't really need the SLI. If the other screens are doing significant graphics then, you should probably go with an SLI.

If the stuff on the secondary screens is just going to be 2d, 2x GTX 670s should be good to get very solid results.


I'd be using BF3 on all 3 monitors, just other games that dont really need it I would only use the 1 screen for. 🙂

danjw wrote:
The Corsair CMD32GX3M4A2133C9 is very solid memory, I have seen reviews stating that you can get solid overclocks with it.


Yeah I thought this RAM looked good too, my only question bout it is, and this might seem a bit noob, does it matter that this RAM is only dual channel not quad channel?
Chassis Corsair 900D|MB Rampage IV Formula|CPU i7 3930K @ 4.8GHz
RAM Corsair DominatorGT 16GB 2133MHz C9|GPU 2x ROG Matrix 7970-P in X-Fire @ 1180MHz
PSU Corsair AX1200i|SSD 2x Samsung 840 Pro 256GB|HDD 2x 4TB WD Caviar BLACK
Monitoring Corsair Link|Cooling Custom Loop EKWB/AlphaCool/XSPC/Bitspower
Monitors 3x ASUS 24" VE248H (6036x1080)

Menthol
Level 14
You are making very good choices and putting together a rig that should serve you well for a long time.
I just looked on Corsair's site and it is identified as a multi channel, quad channel kit. Which is what you want, mixing kits May cause stability issues so that kit should be good choice. Graphic's cards, 670's or 680's 2 GB versions should be good, 4 GB version possibly needed for 3 screen 3D gaming but that is debatable. ATI 7970 or 7950 also good choice and they are less expensive than Nvidia, Graphic Cards seem to be more a personal choice, I have used both brands without issue and use whichever has the latest technology, fastest FPS etc.

Menthol wrote:
You are making very good choices and putting together a rig that should serve you well for a long time.
I just looked on Corsair's site and it is identified as a multi channel, quad channel kit. Which is what you want, mixing kits May cause stability issues so that kit should be good choice. Graphic's cards, 670's or 680's 2 GB versions should be good, 4 GB version possibly needed for 3 screen 3D gaming but that is debatable. ATI 7970 or 7950 also good choice and they are less expensive than Nvidia, Graphic Cards seem to be more a personal choice, I have used both brands without issue and use whichever has the latest technology, fastest FPS etc.


If you read the original post, he indicated that he would be using two of the monitors for a task that is memory intensive. That only one monitor would be used for gaming.