# Custom Gaming PC Build



## ZucchiniWarrior (May 21, 2014)

Hi guys! I'm trying to build a gaming desktop with a budget of 3 - 3.5k (I've also selected a monitor and keyboard) and I think I've basically summed up what I want with this build here:










However, as I'm new to this, I was wondering if you guys could have a look over it, tell me if some of the stuff doesn't match/isn't compatible and if I've made mistakes or could get a better component for cheaper or around the same price etc.

Thankyou for any help, I really appreciate it!


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## helios19 (Nov 25, 2008)

Hi there,

Those parts are compatible and good quality overall; however much of it is overkill to be honest and you don't need to pay anywhere near 3k for a decent gaming machine. I would first advise you to have a look here:

TSF Hardware Team's Recommended Builds - 2014

What games, settings and resolutions are you planning on playing on?


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## ZucchiniWarrior (May 21, 2014)

I'm going to be playing on a resolution of 1920x1080 and I'll be playing newish games with high graphics such as battlefield 4 and I want to be able to run all the games that are coming out soon.


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## jimscreechy (Jan 7, 2005)

I think your SSD and HDD drives are too small and I would go for a constellation rather than Barracuda if your going for good performance and reliability.


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

Nothing wrong with the size of the hard drives, and with that setup you could run a 4K screen


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## helios19 (Nov 25, 2008)

ZucchiniWarrior said:


> I'm going to be playing on a resolution of 1920x1080 and I'll be playing newish games with high graphics such as battlefield 4 and I want to be able to run all the games that are coming out soon.


The Intel $1200 build in the 2014 build list would be more the capable of achieving what you're after. Add a an SSD to it:

SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com

...and you're good to go. Upgrading the video card further will most likely show minimal advantages unless you start to push the resolution beyond 1920x1080.


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## ZucchiniWarrior (May 21, 2014)

Okay so I've tweaked the setup and now I'm ready to go.. I was just wondering do all the cables/wires required come with the components? because I have no idea what to get if they don't...


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## ZucchiniWarrior (May 21, 2014)

Okay so apparently I need these cords but I dont know how many or where to get them ...


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

The chords you pictured come on the power supply.
You will need Sata cables for optical drives and your hard drives, one for each, minimum of three.
You will also need a cable to connect the graphics card to the monitor, depending on its connections.
Most have DVI, HDMI may be better but I find they can come loose.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

If you use steam and want your games and OS on the SSD then the ssd is too small.

I have a 120GB ssd and have my OS and steam on it and I am always having to delete stuff and reinstall stuff on it.

16GB RAM for gaming is not needed, no game uses anywhere near 8 yet.


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## ZucchiniWarrior (May 21, 2014)

I have two SSDs, one solely for the OS and the other for swap files..
And for the ram.. I do a lot of photo/video editing and I also develop games which can be pretty hard on the memory


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

oh ok then.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

I would stay away from a water cooler. Water cooling offers no extra cooling over standard air cooling. Something like a Noctua NH-D14 will be a much better option.

The rest looks fine and is compatible, however, as stated in post #2 you are overspending like no tomorrow. Following the build guide in post #2 is the best option.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> I would stay away from a water cooler. Water cooling offers no extra cooling over standard air cooling. Something like a Noctua NH-D14 will be a much better option.
> 
> The rest looks fine and is compatible, however, as stated in post #2 you are overspending like no tomorrow. Following the build guide in post #2 is the best option.


Ditto ^

650W minimum. with a good quality PSU, is fine for a 780ti.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

I have the NH-D14 it's the best cooler I have ever used.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

greenbrucelee said:


> I have the NH-D14 it's the best cooler I have ever used.


Stay tune for my NH-D15 review I will be posting today then. :wink:


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

greenbrucelee said:


> 16GB RAM for gaming is not needed, no game uses anywhere near 8 yet.


A review of Watchdogs on Overclockers Club says differently.

"Watch Dogs' system requirements list 6GB RAM as the minimum, with 8GB recommended. Using MSI Afterburner's RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) to display in-game RAM usage, I surpassed the 8GB mark soon after loading the game (out of my 16GB total), using a mix of Ultra and High settings"


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## jimscreechy (Jan 7, 2005)

Allow me to rephrase. For the money you have at your disposal it would be prudent to buy a larger SSD drive (particularly) and HDD, rather that subsequently find that you should have allocated more disk space. PPPPPP


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Minimum requirements for Battlefield is listed at 4GB and "recommended" is 8GB.
Watchdog is listed as minimum 6 GB and "recommended at 8GB.


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## Rhys- (Dec 30, 2011)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> I would stay away from a water cooler. Water cooling offers no extra cooling over standard air cooling. Something like a Noctua NH-D14 will be a much better option.


Of course water-cooling offers extra cooling over air-cooling. If it didn't they probably wouldn't of even tried to invent or sell water-cooling.

CPU Cooler Benchmarks
Testing and Results | bit-tech.net


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> Stay tune for my NH-D15 review I will be posting today then. :wink:


cool


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Rhys- said:


> Of course water-cooling offers extra cooling over air-cooling. If it didn't they probably wouldn't of even tried to invent or sell water-cooling.
> 
> CPU Cooler Benchmarks
> Testing and Results | bit-tech.net


Liquid cooling, and especially the all-in-one units offers no real advantage over air for normal use and there is always a concern with leakage with liquid.
Benchmarks are commonly ran under controlled conditions/environments and are often funded.


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## T_Rex (Oct 21, 2012)

Rhys- said:


> Of course water-cooling offers extra cooling over air-cooling. If it didn't they probably wouldn't of even tried to invent or sell water-cooling.
> 
> CPU Cooler Benchmarks
> Testing and Results | bit-tech.net


Only in extreme overclocks or direct CPU cooling. Remember the mosfets and VRM's also need cooling and that is the advantage of spread-air cooling. Water will get you the best OC's yes, but no real gamer cares about that crap they care mostly about stability and quality and no reboots or BSOD's during gaming or otherwise.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

ChronoGeek said:


> Only in extreme overclocks or direct CPU cooling. Remember the mosfets and VRM's also need cooling and that is the advantage of spread-air cooling. Water will get you the best OC's yes, but no real gamer cares about that crap they care mostly about stability and quality and no reboots or BSOD's during gaming or otherwise.


+1

I have been overclocking for years, I would never use water.

When I overclock I am more interested in stability. My i2500k runs at 4.5GHz I have had it at 4.8 but I didn't like the temps during the winter because of the heating being on in the house.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Air cooling will suffice for most any use and the Intel OEM coolers are fine if no OC is applied.


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## chefrob (Nov 17, 2010)

Wouldn't the wisest decision with the latest Intel CPU's be _not_ to overclock and just use the stock fan... but also to replace the fan on a regular annual or biannual basis (when it gets old & dusty, or optimal cooling dies down) with something affordable like the Cooler Master EVO?

This process is simple and affordable. All you would need to do is remove the old thermal compound with 99% alcohol, then reapply new thermal compound and mount the new cooler.


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## Sweak22 (Nov 7, 2011)

My 2 cents... Go with a 4770k and an ASUS Sabertooth Z87 (or Z97) mobo and save yourself some money while not sacrificing any performance. I would never recommend the stock cooler on that processor speaking from experience from my 4770k and my 3770k both running close to 80c on stock cooling with no overclock. Like others have said the Coolermaster EVO would work great for that processor. I have the H100i on my 4770k and a Cooler Master TPC 812 on my 3770k. They both perform very closely to one another. I also agree with other posts that a 256gb SSD would be a much better investment. I have a 180gb SSD right now and it can get cramped if you want to run multiple games on it with the OS. With my current setup I can run BF4 on max settings with no problem at 1920x1080 and I have the GTX770 so a 780ti would be more than enough to do what you want.


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

Rhys- said:


> Of course water-cooling offers extra cooling over air-cooling. If it didn't they probably wouldn't of even tried to invent or sell water-cooling.
> CPU Cooler Benchmarks
> Testing and Results | bit-tech.net


Oh please, every *real* OC knows that mineral oil cooling is where it's at!



:hide:


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

I don't know why they still refer to it as "water cooling" when it is made up of Ethylene Glycol. :hide:


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

chefrob said:


> Wouldn't the wisest decision with the latest Intel CPU's be _not_ to overclock and just use the stock fan... but also to replace the fan on a regular annual or biannual basis (when it gets old & dusty, or optimal cooling dies down) with something affordable like the Cooler Master EVO?
> 
> This process is simple and affordable. All you would need to do is remove the old thermal compound with 99% alcohol, then reapply new thermal compound and mount the new cooler.


OC'ing is basically pointless with newer CPU's but some just ant to do it anyway.
No reason to replace the heatsink/fan if it is working properly. Regular cleaning with compressed/canned air is all that is normally required to keep it clean.
Thermal compound rarely requires replacing but doing so annually/bi-annually won't hurt.



Panther063 said:


> I don't know why they still refer to it as "water cooling"


The more relative term, and what is most commonly used by manufacturer's, is liquid cooling.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

I would never use a stock cooler even if I didnt overclock just because they do not do as good a job as the aftermarket ones and they create more of a noise.


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## gcavan (Aug 13, 2009)

It iis for this very reason (noise) that I replace the stock coolers on my own systems and on all but the very lowest budget systems I sell.

@Panther: Commercial coolant liquid is actually a mixture of distilled water and glycol along with colourant and certain additives to impede algae growth. The specific percentage mixture is often a closely guarded trade secret, though a 50-50 mix of water/glycol is generally considered to have the best heat conductance properties.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

I use nothing but OEM cooling and I have yet to see/hear a noisy OEM Intel heatsink/fan. :smile:


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

Tyree said:


> I use nothing but OEM cooling and I have yet to see/hear a noisy OEM Intel heatsink/fan. :smile:


there's a big difference sometimes as much as 20db


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## T_Rex (Oct 21, 2012)

I would say use a Hyper 212 for a stable system with a moderate overclock and a quiet system with great temps. I would say use a H20 setup for a higher overclock and if you want to see all your parts nicely in a windowed system (and many do) that is both quiet and great direct CPU cooling. I would say use the stock fan (on an Intel) if there will be no OC. For what it's worth I use the stock fan so far and I have never seen anywhere close to 80c - even after 2-3 hours of BF4, but then again I did use a bios fan curve for higher RPM's once 62c was reached. It's a tad louder yes but doesn't mean anything to me since i'm wearing headphones, and it never go above 70-71c.

Alas, I did order the Enermax Liqmax 120S last night. I will be using a side case fan to blow directly on the motherboard for spread-air cooling. I plan to dial in a nice little 4.3 to 4.4 OC.


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

Nice choice, I was just recently reading a review of that model.
I'd be tempted if I wasn't already using an AIO in my system.


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