Potential New Gaming Build - Looking for Advice

[Daiyus]

So here's what I've decided to do. I've broken down the purchases into seven chunks to spread out the cost. In total the parts I need to buy for the Gaming Rig are these, and for the HTPC, these.

 

The first stage will be to get those slot loading disc drives and the adapter for the gaming rig (these three in one style adapters are getting hard to get!) plus the network adapter for the HTPC as an upgrade to my current system as I've been meaning to do that for ages anyway and will help even before re-casing. P.O.1.

 

The second stage will be the monitor for the Gaming Rig. This will get me set up in the new location with the Xbox One so I can play out of the way with something at least. P.O.2

 

The third stage will be to buy everything left to get the HTPC running at full capacity. I'll be using my current 128GB Samsung 840 Pro as the sole drive to give it a good boot speed as that is important for my family. This will temporarily put my PC gaming out of action but I've got the Xbox One to tie me over and getting the living room sorted for my family is priority one. P.O.3

 

The fourth stage is the big one; getting all the core components for the new Gaming Rig. I've splashed out a bit in some areas that are entirely unnecessary, but they're things I want regardless. I've decided I don't do this often and I'm going to build something I am genuinely happy with, not just OK with. This will re-use the Radeon HD7870 I'm currently using as a stop-gap, as well as a 320GB 2.5" Samsung HDD I recovered from an old laptop as a boot drive, plus my current WD 1TB drive for storage. These will be temporary also. P.O.4

 

The fifth stage will be minor upgrades; quieter fans for the whole system, a new cheap KB/M that will be set up on a board that can be stored out of the way when not in use. This will give me required inputs, but don't need to be high quality as most of my gaming is done with a controller. P.O.5

 

Sixth stage is the GPU upgrade. P.O.6

 

The seventh and last stage is hard-drive upgrades. P.O.7

 

An there we have it. Overall it'll cost just shy of two grand to do everything, but I think it'll be worth it overall.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Daiyus

[obobski]

Curiosity questions:

 

1) Why are you buying four (different) hard-drives?

2) Why are you buying a half dozen fans?

 

Random thoughts:

 

1) That case is poorly designed/laid-out - it won't cool efficiently (and this may be the answer to #2).

2) Everything else looks good.

3) The Xbox One Play'n'Charge is a fine setup, but Nyko makes a version that comes with two batteries and (IME) works better (and I'm not sure the Play'n'Charge's LED indicators will work on Windows; not that they're very important/useful anyways). Either battery pack is perfectly fine, but having owned both, I'd go for the Nyko to save a few bucks and have the spare battery (they also support charging of the batteries external of the controller).

Edited December 22, 2015 by obobski

[Daiyus]

Curiosity questions:

 

1) Why are you buying four (different) hard-drives?

2) Why are you buying a half dozen fans?

 

Random thoughts:

 

1) That case is poorly designed/laid-out - it won't cool efficiently (and this may be the answer to #2).

2) Everything else looks good.

3) The Xbox One Play'n'Charge is a fine setup, but Nyko makes a version that comes with two batteries and (IME) works better (and I'm not sure the Play'n'Charge's LED indicators will work on Windows; not that they're very important/useful anyways). Either battery pack is perfectly fine, but having owned both, I'd go for the Nyko to save a few bucks and have the spare battery (they also support charging of the batteries external of the controller).

Curiosity answers:

 

1) 120GB SSD as a boot drive with all programs except games. 500GB SSD for modern open world games. 1TB HDD for general storage; older games, music, photo's, etc. The 2TB HDD is for backups and mass movement. I always keep unmodded copies of any game I edit so that I can restore a broken game without waiting for days to re-download the whole thing. I've been using a 500GB external HDD but my wife has filled it with her photo's so I need another solution. I also play games at work on breaks, but naturally my management don't want me downloading 20GB of games every other week when I feel like playing something different.

2) Fans are to replace the stock ones. Most reviews state that the stock fans for most AIO coolers and cases are quite loud. The hope was to drop some decibels out of the system as it'll be in a bedroom.

 

Random answers:

 

1) It's the only case I could find for less than £100 that would take the 280mm radiator on top with space for a 120mm radiator at the top back. Out of interest, why is the layout bad? It's not so different from most other cases; PSU at the bottom, HDD mounts coming up from the bottom. The 2.5" bays can be removed to give better airflow (something I planned doing).

2) Thanks!

3) Thanks for the tips regarding the Nyko. I've read many reviews for loads of third party kits but they always seem to fall short. I'll certainly do some more research.

 

Notes: I've consolidated the lists into the first six purchase orders and deleted the seventh.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Daiyus

[obobski]

 

Curiosity answers:

 

1) 120GB SSD as a boot drive with all programs except games. 500GB SSD for modern open world games. 1TB HDD for general storage; older games, music, photo's, etc. The 2TB HDD is for backups and mass movement. I always keep unmodded copies of any game I edit so that I can restore a broken game without waiting for days to re-download the whole thing. I've been using a 500GB external HDD but my wife has filled it with her photo's so I need another solution. I also play games at work on breaks, but naturally my management don't want me downloading 20GB of games every other week when I feel like playing something different.

2) Fans are to replace the stock ones. Most reviews state that the stock fans for most AIO coolers and cases are quite loud. The hope was to drop some decibels out of the system as it'll be in a bedroom.

 

Random answers:

 

1) It's the only case I could find for less than £100 that would take the 280mm radiator on top with space for a 120mm radiator at the top back. Out of interest, why is the layout bad? It's not so different from most other cases; PSU at the bottom, HDD mounts coming up from the bottom. The 2.5" bays can be removed to give better airflow (something I planned doing).

2) Thanks!

3) Thanks for the tips regarding the Nyko. I've read many reviews for loads of third party kits but they always seem to fall short. I'll certainly do some more research.

 

Notes: I've consolidated the lists into the first six purchase orders and deleted the seventh.

 

 

1) The whole "boot SSD" fad is not worth the money imho - so what that Windows can "start up" slightly faster? It has no impact on performance. Putting your games on an SSD, however, may improve level load times (nothing here will impact frame-rates, let you run more mods/higher IQ settings, let you run more textures, etc - because none of this impacts computationally constrained tasks). An internal back-up is also a potential problem - even though you may only mean to access that disk periodically, it will be powered-on constantly, and if something were to damage the machine (e.g. fire, power surge, water leak, whatever) that hard-drive is right there on the front line too. My revision would be to dump the small SSD and move the 2TB archive into an external enclosure that is only connected and powered when you're refreshing backups, and otherwise keep it somewhere away from the machine. That isn't ofc fool-proof but its more proactive wrt the backup, and saves you money on the machine's storage.

 

2) Basically every reason you listed describing the case is what's wrong with it - bottom PSU with a bottom-fan PSU means the PSU is sucking on the floor/carpet/desk/etc to try and get ventilation, which will increase dust thru the PSU and increase its temps (and if it has some sort of filter that A) isn't going to catch 100% of dust and B) will further restrict airflow -> higher temps), the "solid metal wall in the front of the case" where the hard-drives go is also going to make the front fans worthless (or more or less worthless). Adding a dozen fans will increase noise (no matter how fancy they are) and cooling may still not be great. I'm not meaning to sound doom-and-gloom, this is just based on years of experience and experimentation here; Intel did a good thing with the original ATX spec and it still works well today. So basically that means a case that has a low-mounted front intake, a standard rear exhaust, a top-mounted PSU (especially if your PSU is a bottom-fan), and clear internal airflow. This may still have hard-drives in front of the intake fan, but they should be rotated 90* so there isn't a solid plate wall behind that fan, but instead the wide-open HDD bays. The Lian-Li PC-7 and Antec Titan and Solo II are examples of what this should look like internally, but there are plenty of other cases that offer a similar layout. The AIO water cooler you've selected is massive overkill for the 4690 (the TDP just isn't there to justify massive cooling); I would personally go with air cooling, but there should not be a problem going with a less bulky AIO cooler if you're set on the liquid cooler. You might also look at Silverstone and Cooler Master (they share a common lineage) - they have some more exotic designs that have improved on the ATX concept and are more accommodating of liquid cooling, like Silverstone's Stack Flow concept, or Cooler Master's HAF designs.

 

As far as fans go, I'm not familiar with that specific brand, but would highly suggest Silverstone's "Air Penetrator" line of fans as they offer low noise and good static pressure (it isn't just about CFMs), as well as the old standby suggestion: Vantec. Overall, you aren't proposing a build with massive TDP or massive heat output, and it is entirely possible to build it as a quiet and cool running machine with only a handful of fans in the right case and a simple layout.

[Daiyus]

Having slept on it I've decided to not buy fans at the outset. I'll run the stock fans and see what they're like. If I need to add or change fans I'll do them all at once once the build is complete. Your recommendations here are definitely hitting home. It's so easy to focus on CFM's and while I know static pressure is needed on radiators and air flow for unrestricted inflow it's a more complicated beast than I first imagined. Still so much to learn...

 

Regarding hard drives I've also decided to pare the selection back. I'll re-use my current 3.5" 1TB drive for mass transfer and unmodded game backups; I think you're right with going for an external caddy (my current external hasn't been bad in any way except size and shared usage). I was planning on buying a 2TB mirror RAID solution from a colleague for general storage that's accessible from anywhere in the house. I can store any music, photos or videos I want on that. The only thing stored locally will be games. Now I'll just have the 120GB SSD boot drive, the 500GB SSD for modern games and a 750GB WD Black Series for legacy games. I've always seen it advised to have two separate SSD's for this kind of use to reduce wear on each drive. Having recently tested Fallout 4 on both my HDD and SSD the load times are worth it even if the actual performance doesn't change. Given that you're very sure that the thing is a fad though I may drop the small one and just buy the 500GB. After all, a Windows 10 installation is pretty small. Boot speed does mean a lot to me. I don't get much time to play (young father) so when I do every second counts.

 

I've also opted to swap the case for a Phanteks Enthoo Pro. The reviews on it are glowing and it's understated design suits me to the ground. I know it has a bottom mounted PSU but I can't ignore the near 100% flawless reviews it's getting. It's also completely modular so I can remove as much as possible; probably completely removing the stock HDD cages and using the 5.25" bay that was going to be for a hot-swap bay for the two hard drives I'm proposing. Maybe a different power supply could alleviate the dust flow problems; the air flow should be good with the case so are there any decent fanless PSU's at that level?

 

By the way, I just want to say a huge "Thank You" for all this help. I'm learning a lot and the system is looking better and better thanks to you.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Daiyus

[obobski]

I'll never argue with RAID. :geek:

 

That case is somewhat better, but still largely has the airflow/layout problems of the AeroCool (it just looks like its "less bad"). Looks pretty from the outside, certainly.

 

I've spoken my piece on the rest.

[Daiyus]

I'll never argue with RAID. :geek:

 

That case is somewhat better, but still largely has the airflow/layout problems of the AeroCool (it just looks like its "less bad"). Looks pretty from the outside, certainly.

 

I've spoken my piece on the rest.

You certainly have. Your guidance has been invaluable. I know I've made some decisions you wouldn't necessarily go with yourself but with your help we've come up with a system I'm extremely happy with. You've definitely pushed me to change a lot for the better. I'm definitely going to drop the small SSD and go with an external backup drive solution.

 

Many thanks.

[obobski]

 

You certainly have. Your guidance has been invaluable. I know I've made some decisions you wouldn't necessarily go with yourself but with your help we've come up with a system I'm extremely happy with. You've definitely pushed me to change a lot for the better. I'm definitely going to drop the small SSD and go with an external backup drive solution.

 

Many thanks.

 

 

You're welcome. And just to clarify, I wasn't saying "I've spoken my piece" as some sort of passive aggressive jab - I completely respect your right to choose/buy whatever you want (after all, its your computer), and didn't want to beat something to death by repeating it over and over again. Best wishes with building the new machine (e.g. hopefully you don't receive anything DOA or missing parts, and it all goes together quick and painless).