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Building a Gaming PC

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Some advice..

Add 8GB of RAM. (2 more DIMMs assuming you have two more slots)

Don't buy the Toshiba HDD. Buy a 2xWestern Digital Blacks @ 1TB a piece. When you get your machine, boot into the BIOS and turn RAID on. Go into your RAID option ROM and configure the two disks as into a RAID-0 stripped array with 16k blocks. You'll get nearly 2x performance on R/W from the volume for only $35 more? If the Mobo doesn't support RAID out of the box, buy a cheap SoftRAID card for $30 bucks.. It's worth it, believe it.

Seriously get a better PSU. Not enough watts there (430W for oc'd i5 + GTX 970 sli?). The brand is good, just up the wattage.

If you didnt' buy aftermarket cooling, I'd recommend now is the time. Noctua makes some of the best aftermarket heatsink, fan combos there are.
 
Some advice..

Add 8GB of RAM. (2 more DIMMs assuming you have two more slots)

Don't buy the Toshiba HDD. Buy a 2xWestern Digital Blacks @ 1TB a piece. When you get your machine, boot into the BIOS and turn RAID on. Go into your RAID option ROM and configure the two disks as into a RAID-0 stripped array with 16k blocks. You'll get nearly 2x performance on R/W from the volume for only $35 more? If the Mobo doesn't support RAID out of the box, buy a cheap SoftRAID card for $30 bucks.. It's worth it, believe it.

Seriously get a better PSU. Not enough watts there (430W for oc'd i5 + GTX 970 sli?). The brand is good, just up the wattage.

If you didnt' buy aftermarket cooling, I'd recommend now is the time. Noctua makes some of the best aftermarket heatsink, fan combos there are.

thanks for the advice, but i already have the 2TB hdd :/ and the psu is just for now until i get the 970, gonna use my 7850 for a bit longer and maybe sell my old build to my buddy but yeah PSU and GPU and probably a cpu cooler like you suggested are next on my list for sure

watching review videos of the 970, this dude got 155fps average on BF4 1080p ultra... damn!
 
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Is your CPU overclockable? I doubt you're cpu-bound in most instances given your chip. What is your CPU utilization in-game? Log it and report back. If it's over 50% with HT off that's an issue. If it's over 30% with HT on, then that's an issue as well.



Fuck DirectX.
I think it really depends on the game. Some games are more threaded, so they tend to have higher cpu usage. A lot of games run on only 2-3 threads, so your cpu usage tends t not be very high. Anyway, I jumped on a 64 player, pistol only, operation locker map on bf4. The cpu usage varied, but on that map it was 43-55 ish cpu usage; Hyperthreading is on by the way. The gpu usage was pretty dang high, 95-99 % pretty much constantly. According to what I have read online, that would actually indicate a gpu bottle neck on a game as highly threaded as bf4 is. I'll try some other maps, and other games as well. Guild wars 2 is only like 33-40 % cpu usage, and fairly low gpu usage at around 70 ish. That game apparently only runs on three threads though and is a dx 9 title.
 
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Parts get here tomorrow, will post pics, cannot wait!

Not really looking forward to yet another windows reinstall but cést la vie
 
vhIYH1Js.jpg


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S/O to moondog in the background

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may GabeN bless this build
 
Gabe Newell memes are the best.

Good luck with the build. Always a lot of fun putting together a new comp and booting that shit up for the first time.
 
ran in to some issues last night so i put off finishing the build for tonights project.

the hard drive bays are oriented sideways so the SATA plugs face the side case pannel, which is a bitch because my PSU plugs are too fat for the case to close properly. What really sucks is the PSU and case are both Corsair so you'd think it would play nicely.

I was also struggling to get the usb 3 header plugged in, figured id walk away before i got too frustrated and do something stupid lol.
 
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I'm almost finished with my new build. I just have to wait a few days until I have the money for my video card.

I7 4771 Quad Core 3.5 GHz
ATI Radeon R9 280x
8GB RAM
250GB Samsung SSD
Windows 8
 
just realized my front fans look like Swastikas but w/e
 
I remember when I use to deck out my PC with LEDs.. Now whenever I get a fan with lights it's the first thing I rip out.

I want ZERO NOISE and ZERO LIGHT. I don't want to see or hear my computer.
 
my rig is pretty quiet, the power color gpu fan is shitty and makes sound and the stock intel cooler is a tiny bit noisy but its pretty negligible. we'll see how long it takes me to unplug the led wire to the fans lol, hard to keep the pc running over night since its in my bedroom
 
Hmm, so I'm probably going to have file bankruptcy anyway.... That's a good enough reason to max out my best buy and amazon cards on parts for a new build right?
 

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