Computer Build: 4k Build: Version 1.0

lich98 · July 29, 2013, 06:46:18 PM

So a friend of mine is interested in building a computer to use for screen recording, using Game Capture to record his Xbox 360 Games, and for some intense graphic games.

Here is the build I came up with. It includes an SLI graphics card set up, the fastest Intel CPU, which I would overclock, an after market cooling system, and a large power supply. Comments on this build are appreciated. I'm thinking I need to add an Ethernet cable to that cart if he goes with it, just to make sure there's one for us to use in his house :P

Dark18 · July 30, 2013, 06:18:20 AM

I'm @work now so i don't have time to post another setup, but that one has a extremly bad price-performance ratio.....

You shoud realy let that do someone who have more knowledge about computer an hardware.

(Sry, english isn't my first language)

Grauniad · July 30, 2013, 07:30:13 AM

Lich, I'd be really interested to know your thinking behind the components you selected. Think you can share?

lich98 · July 30, 2013, 02:27:40 PM

Quote from: Grauniad on July 30, 2013, 07:30:13 AM
Lich, I'd be really interested to know your thinking behind the components you selected. Think you can share?

I decided the best Intel CPU would be a good choice, I chose this motherboard because it was a combo deal with that CPU.

I supose my thinking behind the graphics card doesn't make sense. I should have just purchased a higher end card for the price... that on review didn't make sense.

My friend liked the look of the case, which i suppose wasn't to big on a problem. Don't see an issue with the Hard Drive/SSD storage.

Went with the power supply to make sure we had enough juice.

MadMag · July 30, 2013, 02:42:17 PM

One thing that you would not regret buying is that PSU. Often a underpowered PSU destroys the puter.

Obsidian is a nice tower with good space.

You do not need SLi, makes more "problems" than "juice". I would recommend to buy one of the top cards from nVidia or Radeon. (my choice is nVidia atm)

I would have bought 2x16 ram. You can never get enough ram when video is in the picture.

G19 is nice, use it myself. Do not understand the MMO mouse..

lich98 · July 30, 2013, 09:34:16 PM

Here we go, adjusted the Graphics card to a GTX Titan, got a normal mouse, now 32GB of RAM not 16GB. Also added a blu-ray drive to play movies off of. Forgot about that to being with.

Graudiad, I think these items make more sense together.

Edit: Helps to remember to PDF

Grauniad · July 30, 2013, 10:22:29 PM

Quote from: lich98 on July 30, 2013, 02:27:40 PM
Quote from: Grauniad on July 30, 2013, 07:30:13 AM
Lich, I'd be really interested to know your thinking behind the components you selected. Think you can share?

I decided the best Intel CPU would be a good choice, I chose this motherboard because it was a combo deal with that CPU.

I supose my thinking behind the graphics card doesn't make sense. I should have just purchased a higher end card for the price... that on review didn't make sense.

My friend liked the look of the case, which i suppose wasn't to big on a problem. Don't see an issue with the Hard Drive/SSD storage.

Went with the power supply to make sure we had enough juice.

MadMag hit on a few of the right notes with his comments. Some components like the PSU can be bought with capacity for expansion later should you wish to add a hard drive or another graphics card. I would however, plan the rest of my build, then size a suitable PSU after I've decided on the other components by adding some amount of over-wattage.

SLI put some very specific requirements on the PCI-e slots - each SLI card needs x8 lanes I believe, if you don't have that, it will fail. There are specific motherboards that you should consider for that - the special chipset adds approximately $80 to the price and they are NOT bundled. :)

Not sure about Crossfire for Radeon. I usually only research things that I intend to utilize for my builds in detail.

I definitely agree with the memory. In my mind there are only two basic sizes pf memory 2x8GB and 4x8GB. In specific cases I'd look at more, but that will add $100s to the build since you have to go with a very different motherboard/CPU configuration. I would have thought that a $4k build would have those components. :) Most high-end rigs would/should come in around $2.5K :) ALso, now is a very bad time to go for those special-purpose, high-end builds. The Intel CPUs that qualify (-E, -EP and Xeons) are about 2 years old and will be refreshed in early September. Unfortunately, even then they would use the older CPU LGA configuration and motherboard chipset which have limitations. And from everything I've read, they IVY Bridge and Haswell processors are not well received by overclocking enthusiasts. it seems they are not getting the over-clock-friendly results they got with the older Sandy-bridge processors.

That leaves people in a bad state - either they overclock the older Sandy Bridge processors to about 5.0 GHz, or they overclock Ivy Bridge to 4.8 GHz or they overclock Haswell to 4.2 Ghz (but each generation is perhaps performing 15% better than the preceding generation, so ... confusion and diminishing returns.

Also if you definitely know you want to overclosk, you may want to make sure you get fast, overclock-friendly memory. These things usually doesn't come in bundles. Bundles are for people who want to save money, not for peopele who are looking to be on the (b)leeding edge of performance. :)

I'm thinking of posing a few current builds for sub-$1k PC, about $1.2K pc and maybe a >$2K PC. If I have time, I will also post a extreme PC, but as I said, I'd really not recommend one of those with current components. I'd wait until 2-3 months after the new processors come out in September to hear from overclocking enthusiasts what the state of play is.

Now on to the Game Capture device. That seems to be not particularly taxing. I'd feel comfortable putting it in my current build, but maybe I'd look at a larger hard drive. 2-4TB.

As soon as you start messing with multiple drives, there are a number of questions about how you configure those for space.

You can have JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) and you manage what goes where and it's not much fun when space gets tight (ask Virgil :))

Or you go to RAID. RAID creates a single image of the hard drives, but you can configure it for either capacity, speed or redundancy. if you want all of those, it gets pricey real fast. If you want performance, then you stripe the data over the multiple disks, but then you generally invites failure, since if any one of the disks fail, all your data on all the disks are lost. If you configure for capacity, then effectively the same, if you configure for redundancy, then you need 3 equal-sized hard drives so that if one fails, the other two still have the data and can continue and will rebuild your RAID array. SO basically, if you go with RAID, you start at 3 equal-sized drives and go up from there. :)

Failure rates. As an illustration. Assume you have two devices with a .1 probability of failure. If you rely on both devices, then the total system reliability reduces to .8. If you put the two devices in parallel so one can cover for the other, then the reliability increases to .99. However, since you have to write to both, performance takes a hit.

SSDs. Having recently installed an SSD (and absolutely loving the performance for my system drive) they bring unique configuration issues.

You need to be aware that SSDs don't tolerate writing as well as hard drives. Their life is defined in the number of writes to the blocks of data. Theur controllers hide some of this, and will do a lot of under-the-covers management. But you should over-provision the SSD so there is some space on the drive that you don't allocate and the controller can use to expand the durability of the SSD. There are also two types SLC and MLC - let Google be your friend, since this essay is not starting to be TL;DR. Other than that, if you don't use the SSD as a caching device for the hard drive, you have the same JBOD issues. And putting SSDs into RAID has it's own research requirements.

Once you move away from basic builds, it quickly becomes apparent what value expert system builders add to their PCs.

lich98 · July 30, 2013, 10:31:14 PM

I look forward to seeing your builds that you post, Perhapse we should create a sticky with the good builds in it?

lich98 · August 01, 2013, 02:00:14 PM

Here we go, I took Mad Mag's computer and edited a few items, comments?

MadMag · August 01, 2013, 02:08:34 PM

Remember that the PC I posted is "out dated"
I`ve started on a new one.

I would recommend a PCI Revodrive of some sort on your build. http://ocz.com/consumer/revodrive-3-x2-pcie-ssd
The Asus Maximus series with ROG is awsome. Republic of gamers!

I would have gone for Asus maximus VI Hero, you do not want to go for Ivy Bridge now.. (out dated)

Grauniad · August 01, 2013, 04:53:08 PM

My only advice is that you should really not start at the top.

I can put together (or you can find on Tom's Hardware) a $500-600 budget gaming PC that you can put together. Do that to learn how the components go together and what influences what.

Or start by upgrading a current PC you have.

Let a very knowledgeable performance builder put together a high-end PC like the $k model you're trying to do. The premium on it won't be too much.

I would be uncomfortable trying to put together a >$2,500 PC. I'd be out of options at that price point and I'd be struggling to make some of the components work well together. And be very worried that I won't succeed in making it all work together.

MadMag · August 01, 2013, 05:08:33 PM

QuoteI would be uncomfortable trying to put together a >$2,500 PC. I'd be out of options at that price point and I'd be struggling to make some of the components work well together. And be very worried that I won't succeed in making it all work together.

Yeah, you should know what you are doing if you are bulding a custom made PC. If I have not been a nerd, I would not have gotten my rig up an running.
Had to use the special ROG connection to upgrade the BIOS for the CPU from a USB stick I manually crafted after reading for 2 days.