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Cuylar · ‎02-13-2014

I've got about $4,000 saved for a gaming PC. (Just the tower, I have a monitor I will use until the Swift PG278Q is released)

I've been using PCPartPicker.com to try to build a machine and I am looking for a few places that I can reduce costs but still retain performance.

I'm fully aware that I can make a gaming rig for less but these are the parts and price range I am looking at.

Some things about me:

When I buy something, I want to make sure it's at the top of it's field. Not always #1 but as close as possible without hitting the exponential jump in price.
I am pretty technically savvy, if I don't know something I won't pretend to, I'll research the hell out of it til my eyes bleed.
I'm motivated to make this purchase by the end of the month.
I'm a bit of an audiophile.
I almost exclusively play FPS games.
I use my Mac to do video and picture work, this rig will be almost exclusive to gaming.
I do not intend to overclock, at least not right away.

So here's the build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2SEAo
UPDATE: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2T9mX

CPU - Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor - Not an extreme model but seems to be very powerful.
Cooler - Corsair H110 94.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler - Every review I found places this as a good balance for price/performance/
Motherboard - I love the look of the Rampage IV Black Ed. but I don't think I want all of the extras on it. I can't believe that the sound card built into the RIVBE is as good as what I will get from the Asus Xonar Essence STX 24-bit 192 KHz Sound Card. Yes, I have 300 ohm headphones and a headphone amp. I will get the benefit of the improvement.
Memory - G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory - I plan to use RAMDisk. I have seen the improvement that adding ram has had on my Mac and I would assume that the games these days (i.e. Titanfall and other new releases) will support more than 16GB. I don't know if the 2400 will matter to me or not... I think that 1866 is the max I can do without overclocking.
Storage - I have 2 Samsung EVO 840s already. (500gb) I will be using those. Everything important I keep on my NAS.
Video Card - I'm not sure how the 3GB from the 780TI compares to the 6GB from the TITAN. I know when video editing and using Photoshop, the video ram is really important. I plan to be gaming @ 1440p with textures and settings maxed out... so is more ram better on 1 card than 2 cards with 3GB each?
Sound Card - I'm impressed with the offering from ASUS on this one... I've used Creative cards in the past and they weren't bad.
Power Supply - I know that the 1200i is WAY more power than I need but I think that I understand it as being more efficient (Cooler running, longer life, etc) when you don't run your PSU at full load.
Operating System - Windows 7 Pro (I have) or Windows 8.1 Pro????

Any suggestions on where I can cut out a $200 or so? (Maybe $300 or more?)

Extra money I save can go toward additional monitors. I'd love to have a 3-way monitor setup.

Thank you in advance for your replies.

Antronman · ‎02-13-2014

Sound cards are pointless. All they do is boost your bass. And I would recommend the i7-4930k, not the i7-3930k. Modern games use 4GBs of RAM at most, and I find RAMdisking pointless as your storage space is super limited. The two cards vs the one card will always be better. However, I recommend waiting for the release of the Black Edition cards.

Say hi to the next generation.

Peace is a lie, there is only Passion
Through passion, I gain strength
Through strength, I gain victory
Through victory, my chains are broken
The Republic of Gamers shall free me

Cuylar · ‎02-13-2014

Antronman wrote:
Sound cards are pointless. All they do is boost your bass. And I would recommend the i7-4930k, not the i7-3930k. Modern games use 4GBs of RAM at most, and I find RAMdisking pointless as your storage space is super limited. The two cards vs the one card will always be better. However, I recommend waiting for the release of the Black Edition cards.

To most people, a sound card is a waste... I can agree with that. For me, I find that I have an appreciation for cleaner audio. (Hence why I stated that I'm a bit of an Audiophile) The dedicated card has to be better than the on-board solution. (RIVBE SupremeFX) Even if solely based on shielding and separation from other components... a dedicated card would be better. I have headphones and monitor speakers capable of presenting the sound at a higher quality so I think that would be a better idea.

With regard to the RAM... I was under the impression that the RAMDisk software did increase performance. Even if I drop from 64GB to 32GB, I don't want to go lower since I plan to not use a paging file. I don't mind having the extra headroom.

I'll do some searching for the black video cards.... thanks

Nate152 · ‎02-13-2014

The 4930k only costs 10 more dollars than the 3930k at newegg. You could save some by dropping your ram to 32 GB and 2133MHz. You can use your windows 7 os to save some too. The 780ti is faster and cheaper than the titan, but for 3 monitors you would probably need at least 2 of them to crank up the visual settings. Did you get you a DVD drive?

ROG Strix 1070 OC Guide - ROG Spatha X Rapid Fire - ROG Falchion Touch Panel - z270 BCLK Overclocking - Xsplit Gamecaster Guide - ROG RX 460 OC Guide

Cuylar · ‎02-13-2014

Nate152 wrote:
The 4930k only costs 10 more dollars than the 3930k at newegg. You could save some by dropping your ram to 32 GB and 2133MHz. You can use your windows 7 os to save some too. The 780ti is faster and cheaper than the titan, but for 3 monitors you would probably need at least 2 of them to crank up the visual settings. Did you get you a DVD drive?

I have the ASUS blu ray drive on the list... or I should have it.

Am I able to use the 4930k on an x79 motherboard??

Thanks for the reply!

Nate152 · ‎02-13-2014

Cuylar wrote:
I have the ASUS blu ray drive on the list... or I should have it.

Am I able to use the 4930k on an x79 motherboard??

Thanks for the reply!

The 4930k is compatible with any rampage iv board.

With a 4k budget you could think about going the haswell route, You could get 3 monitors too, depending on size and price.

ROG Strix 1070 OC Guide - ROG Spatha X Rapid Fire - ROG Falchion Touch Panel - z270 BCLK Overclocking - Xsplit Gamecaster Guide - ROG RX 460 OC Guide

Chino · ‎02-13-2014

Welcome to the ROG forums, Cuylar.

Will you be using more than one monitor in the future?

Cuylar · ‎02-13-2014

Chino wrote:
Welcome to the ROG forums, Cuylar.

Will you be using more than one monitor in the future?

My ultimate goal is to use 3 monitors.

I took over one of our bonus rooms in the house that I used to use for video editing. (I used to have a small business)

The room already has a desk set up for a multi-monitor system using the mounts on the back.

Cuylar · ‎02-13-2014

Chino wrote:
Welcome to the ROG forums, Cuylar.

Will you be using more than one monitor in the future?

My ultimate goal is to use 3 monitors.

I took over one of our bonus rooms in the house that I used to use for video editing. (I used to have a small business)

The room already has a desk set up for a multi-monitor system using the mounts on the back.

PowerOver9K · ‎02-13-2014

Cuylar wrote:
I've got about $4,000 saved for a gaming PC. (Just the tower, I have a monitor I will use until the Swift PG278Q is released)

I've been using PCPartPicker.com to try to build a machine and I am looking for a few places that I can reduce costs but still retain performance.

I'm fully aware that I can make a gaming rig for less but these are the parts and price range I am looking at.

Some things about me:

When I buy something, I want to make sure it's at the top of it's field. Not always #1 but as close as possible without hitting the exponential jump in price.
I am pretty technically savvy, if I don't know something I won't pretend to, I'll research the hell out of it til my eyes bleed.
I'm motivated to make this purchase by the end of the month.
I'm a bit of an audiophile.
I almost exclusively play FPS games.
I use my Mac to do video and picture work, this rig will be almost exclusive to gaming.
I do not intend to overclock, at least not right away.

So here's the build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2SEAo

CPU - Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor - Not an extreme model but seems to be very powerful.
Cooler - Corsair H110 94.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler - Every review I found places this as a good balance for price/performance/
Motherboard - I love the look of the Rampage IV Black Ed. but I don't think I want all of the extras on it. I can't believe that the sound card built into the RIVBE is as good as what I will get from the Asus Xonar Essence STX 24-bit 192 KHz Sound Card. Yes, I have 300 ohm headphones and a headphone amp. I will get the benefit of the improvement.
Memory - G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory - I plan to use RAMDisk. I have seen the improvement that adding ram has had on my Mac and I would assume that the games these days (i.e. Titanfall and other new releases) will support more than 16GB. I don't know if the 2400 will matter to me or not... I think that 1866 is the max I can do without overclocking.
Storage - I have 2 Samsung EVO 840s already. (500gb) I will be using those. Everything important I keep on my NAS.
Video Card - I'm not sure how the 3GB from the 780TI compares to the 6GB from the TITAN. I know when video editing and using Photoshop, the video ram is really important. I plan to be gaming @ 1440p with textures and settings maxed out... so is more ram better on 1 card than 2 cards with 3GB each?
Sound Card - I'm impressed with the offering from ASUS on this one... I've used Creative cards in the past and they weren't bad.
Power Supply - I know that the 1200i is WAY more power than I need but I think that I understand it as being more efficient (Cooler running, longer life, etc) when you don't run your PSU at full load.
Operating System - Windows 7 Pro (I have) or Windows 8.1 Pro????

Any suggestions on where I can cut out a $200 or so? (Maybe $300 or more?)

Extra money I save can go toward additional monitors. I'd love to have a 3-way monitor setup.

Thank you in advance for your replies.

I have a $4000 system though it's going to head towards 5-6 as I just put two more 27 monitors (2560x1440) and am adding a 3rd video card.

Want my advice? Dump the sound card. Waste of money unless you have some fancy sauce speakers on your desk. Get one of these instead http://www.amazon.com/Fiio-E10-USB-Headphone-Amplifier/dp/B005VO7LG6
Crazy headphoneaphile here with Grados, Senn HD650s and a bunch of other crap.

Change to a cheaper BD-R ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136250)

Any specific reason for that keyboard and TWO mice? Look at my build. I have the steelseries mouses + keyboard. Remove one of the mice. I have an apex though the cherry mechanicals are sweet and a sensei mouse...

You're also violating the Microsoft License Agreement. DUN DUN DUN!!!!! You cannot buy the OEM license for yourself. You're only allowed to use that license if selling the PC to others with the hologram sticker attached to the chassis. You absolutely need to change to retail media.

Expensive Build - Looking for some savings