Elysian Shadows

Building my first computer, what do you guys think of this build?

1 x ($219.99) Intel Core i5-4670 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54670 $219.99
1 x ($179.99) EVGA 02G-P4-3658-KR GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST SuperClocked 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card $179.99
1 x ($109.99) ASRock Z77 Extreme3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $109.99
1 x ($99.99) EVGA SuperNOVA NEX750G 750W GOLD ATX12V/EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular PSU New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready $99.99
1 x ($86.99) CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory Model CMY8GX3M2A1866C9 (Silver) $86.99
1 x ($69.99) Western Digital WD Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

What do you guys think? Is this a good build to go with? or does something need to be changed?

I'm not really aware of the current situation on the hardware market but I can give you some general advices:
1.) Your CPU has a built in GPU. If you don't need it, you should take one without it and save money. Or is it already common to have CPU/GPU hybrids?
2.) You should not save money on the hard drive. Especially if you're programming, that is your key to fast compilation.
3.) 8GB of RAM is not that much depending on what you're doing and what might come in the future.

Hope it helps

K-Bal wrote:I'm not really aware of the current situation on the hardware market but I can give you some general advices:
1.) Your CPU has a built in GPU. If you don't need it, you should take one without it and save money. Or is it already common to have CPU/GPU hybrids?

I agree. I have an unlocked Core i5 and it's a great processor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115072 (Sold out at this link, but model for reference).

K-Bal wrote:2.) You should not save money on the hard drive. Especially if you're programming, that is your key to fast compilation.

I bought a WD Blue 1 TB drive when I built my desktop last year. I've never had a problem with it being too slow. I highly doubt he'll be compiling anything large enough for his HDD speed to be the limiting factor. That said, I really wish I installed my OS on an SSD and would definitely not recommend doing anything but that if you can afford one.

K-Bal wrote:3.) 8GB of RAM is not that much depending on what you're doing and what might come in the future.

LOL, seriously? What the hell are you rendering or computing that you need more than 8 gigs of RAM? I have 8 gigs of the Corsair Vengeance and can easily hit 60 FPS any video game I've ever cared to play on max settings. The only video lag I've ever seen is during a stress test, and well.. that's kind of the point of a stress test.

The EVGA GTX 650 Ti is a great graphics cards for the price. Sure a 690 will kick it's ass but I'm not interested in spending that on a home desktop.

My only regret is not making sure my motherboard supports full SLI dual graphics cards. It has two slots, but one of them only supports 8x (rather than 16x). This makes me sad, but in reality I don't need dual graphics cards anyway. Like I said, the one is more than enough to destroy anything I feed to it.

K-Bal wrote:I'm not really aware of the current situation on the hardware market but I can give you some general advices:
1.) Your CPU has a built in GPU. If you don't need it, you should take one without it and save money. Or is it already common to have CPU/GPU hybrids?
2.) You should not save money on the hard drive. Especially if you're programming, that is your key to fast compilation.
3.) 8GB of RAM is not that much depending on what you're doing and what might come in the future.

Hope it helps

• This has been common in Intel CPUs since the introduction of the Sandy Bridge architecture in 2011. With the exception of performance models (X, P, some K), virtually all Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and Haswell chips have included integrated Intel HD graphics processors. If you're going Intel, you'd actually be paying more to opt out of integrated graphics, as only the high-end models come without them.
• The hard drive he selected is fine (I use a very similar one, though it's filling up). The real improvement here would be to get an additional solid state drive for the operating system and programs (and some data; I personally keep my programming projects on my SSD). I've found 128GB to be an acceptable size, though I would recommend going for 256GB if it fits the budget. My 128GB is starting to feel a bit cramped... If only they were a bit cheaper when I'd bought it!
• 8GB is fine. I had 6GB when I first built this computer, and that was more than adequate for all gaming purposes. I added another 6GB last year because I was rendering a lot of videos, and I occasionally run some massive databases on my desktop machine.

My main suggestion is to get a 4670K for just $20 more. The 'K' means unlocked, so you can overclock it down the road. Intel CPUs have been godly for overclocking since Sandy Bridge. With some decent cooling you could get a lot more value out of it. On air cooling, a 4670K could probably get close to, if not above, 4 GHz. You could get a closed loop water cooler like the H100i and get up to around 5 GHz later, with very little effort. That extra $20 could save you a few hundred in upgrades.

If you spring for the 4670K and plan to overclock in the future you might also want faster memory.

dandymcgee wrote:I highly doubt he'll be compiling anything large enough for his HDD speed to be the limiting factor.

I assume Blue Dream is doing something in game development, otherwise he probably wouldn't be writing in these forums, and certain types of computer games tend to have a large code base. Some of my "simple" games already have more than 100 classes. Also take a look at this article: http://buffered.io/posts/the-magic-of-unity-builds/

dandymcgee wrote: LOL, seriously? What the hell are you rendering or computing that you need more than 8 gigs of RAM?

Not everybody needs that much RAM, I agree I just said he should be aware of what he wants to do with his machine. I wrote my master thesis about simulation of tumors and the PC i used for that has 96 GB of RAM and a GeForce Titan. The µCT scanners we have and my simulation can generate images of up to 1024³ voxels. Take double as your voxel type and your 8 GBs are already full.

Nokurn wrote: If you're going Intel, you'd actually be paying more to opt out of integrated graphics, as only the high-end models come without them.

Good to know.

K-Bal wrote:

dandymcgee wrote: LOL, seriously? What the hell are you rendering or computing that you need more than 8 gigs of RAM?

Not everybody needs that much RAM, I agree I just said he should be aware of what he wants to do with his machine. I wrote my master thesis about simulation of tumors and the PC i used for that has 96 GB of RAM and a GeForce Titan. The µCT scanners we have and my simulation can generate images of up to 1024³ voxels. Take double as your voxel type and your 8 GBs are already full.

Oh, trust me, I'm well aware there are many perfectly legitimate reasons to have much more than a few gigs of RAM in the 21st century.

If you plan on rendering raycasted scenes in Blender, splat models with billions of vertices, or editing high resolution videos then you'll definitely want a high-end CPU, GPU and plenty of RAM. For every day use (including modern gaming), more than 16 GB is unnecessary IMHO.

That said, DDR3 RAM is dirt cheap. It's also extremely easy to upgrade later. Buy what you think you'll need, and if it's not enough buy more.

I was really impatient and already bought what I listed there after a friend of mine looked it over. From what you guys are saying it should all work together for what I do. I think 1Tb of HD space should be plenty for me.

Blue Dream wrote:I was really impatient and already bought what I listed there after a friend of mine looked it over. From what you guys are saying it should all work together for what I do. I think 1Tb of HD space should be plenty for me.

I've still only partitioned 250 GB of my 1 TB drive. I have 14 GB free.. which means I should probably clean shit up soon. I don't want to use the full terabyte because there's no way in hell I'd end up with 1TB of useful data and I'd have nowhere to back it up when I reformat.

Just a little update on the situation.

TLDR; fuck yeah

Basically went through hell and back to get this computer.

be me
buy all computer parts
parts get to house before case does
look at parts to make sure everything was right
learn that the z77 chipset doesn't work with 4th gen i5
pissed off. buy new motherboard, still haven't sent old one back
try to play old computer for entertainment while i wait for new one. MOTHERBOARD FRIED ON OLD COMPUTER, NO LONGER USABLE
get case the next day, case has a big dent in the front panel, panel won't fit properly on case due to dent
(also where the box was in front of the dent , there is a hole. clearly the item that caused the dent while being shipped
call Corsair customer service getting new front panel for free, still waiting on that
new motherboard finally get here 6 DAYS after i order (Labor day fucked up shipping)
put everything together, getting ready to rumble....
old disk drive taken out of old computer isnlt compatible with motherboard
drive 15 miles away to nearest Best Buy
buy new Disk Drive
go home put disk drive in, installed Windows and games.

PRESENT:
computer is running more than great, really quiet, runs all games perfectly max settings, best investment of my life finally glad I bought one

Blue Dream wrote: PRESENT:
computer is running more than great, really quiet, runs all games perfectly max settings, best investment of my life finally glad I bought one

Haha, love it. The trials and tribulations of getting shit to work. That's literally the only complaint I have about Newegg is they treat their shipments like shit. When I got my graphics card the box has a huge slice on the front because some idiot didn't know how to respect a box cutter. The contents were fine so I never complained, but it did kind of annoy me.

Congratulations on your new machine! The hassle will just make it feel more valuable

My suggestions would have been:

1) Absolutely get the 4670K. The SandyBridge and Haswell's overclock amazingly even on air. They're not that much more expensive and yes, clock speed still matters.

2) I would have saved some cash on memory and the PSU and gone with the GTX660. The GTX650Ti is very underpowered. The primary thing that you're going to regret there are the amount of compute cores and the memory bandwidth. Modern games are limited by fill rate and most of this is a bottleneck on memory bandwidth (we read and write to tons and tons and tons of memory per frame). The GTX660 has close to twice the memory bandwidth. The GTX660 is not much more expensive.

3) Absolutely DO NOT skimp on your motherboard. I would not recommend an ASRock to my mother. The Z77 is a fine chipset, but you'd have been much better off with Gigabyte or an ASUS. Shoddy southbridges and wonky link interfaces account for most of the problems with cramming high performance components into a sub-par mainboard.

4) You have WAYYYYYYYY more PSU than you need. You can get away with a 550W or 600W easily. The price jump into anything above 600W is substantial. It's good that you got a name brand though. NEVER buy a cheap off-brand PSU.....ever.

5) When shopping memory, stick to the typical speeds. Right now for DDR3, 1600MHz is the typical frequency. You gain much better latency which is the more critical number there. High frequency/low-latency performance memory is extremely expensive.

6) Killer deal on the HDD. I never saw any appreciable difference between a high performance magnetic disk to a SSD on the whole. There are a few special cases where you can see the difference.

Congrats and enjoy gaming on high :D