Guild Wars 2

Hi all.

I am looking to replace my existing PC.
Using the New Egg public Wish List you can review the current components here:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=28811366

• The system will run Windows 7 64bit. Maybe will try Windows 10 sometime
• A 1TB HDD and a 24x C/DVD RW will be migrated from the old PC
• All peripherals (monitor, mouse, keyboard, gamepad, camera) will be migrated from the existing system. Or maybe upgraded separately.

Problem:
I am not sure about the mid-tower case and motherboard.

Any suggestions for equivalent/better components at cheaper price would be appreciated.

Random thoughts, you asked.

PSU (750W) is totally over-the-top for a single GPU system.

Why an old 4th-gen Intel Core CPU? (well to bo honest, doesn’t probably matter very much, but shiny new should be shiny!)
Why an nvidia 960 instead 970? Almost twice as fast.

Unless it’s for budget reaons.

You selected K-CPU and Z97 chipsets, so you plan to overclock? If not, non-K and cheaper boards are identical in speed.

Your set up is almost the same as mine. All of that will run GW2 with no problems. Only thing I will say is 16gb ram is overkill with a 960. Case wise, I’ve never hear of it. I have a corsair spec 03 case.

That ram is expensive for what it is, you should be able to get 16 GB of CL9 1600MHz ram for like $65-70 and 16 GB is overkill anyways. Besides that it looks fine

Motherboard is overkill for non overclocking (you could save 50-100 on that)
750W is too much, look if you can save a few bucks on it (500w is enough)

When gaming my RAM never goes over 8GB usage, so get a nice cheaper set of 8GB

Save money, put that money into a 970

Thanks for the input, guys. You are all so helpful.
So I am likely going overkill for the short term.
I may overclock and like having that capability.

Still looking at the GPU and may upgrade it.
And am still thinking about the PSU (I like extra power).

I made some changes to the Wish list (again thanks for input).
Much appreciated.

FYI, this is the last PC I may ever buy. Would like it to be nice.
(wish that Corsair had blue LEDs )

Slalom.3174:

FYI, this is the last PC I may ever buy. Would like it to be nice.
(wish that Corsair had blue LEDs )

Are you dying or something?
Otherwise you’ll probably end upgrading your PC in around 4 years for sure.

If you’re looking at upgrading the GPU look at a 290x/390, they’ll generally give better price to performance then a 970.

Slalom.3174:

Thanks for the input, guys. You are all so helpful.
So I am likely going overkill for the short term.
I may overclock and like having that capability.

Still looking at the GPU and may upgrade it.
And am still thinking about the PSU (I like extra power).

I made some changes to the Wish list (again thanks for input).
Much appreciated.

FYI, this is the last PC I may ever buy. Would like it to be nice.
(wish that Corsair had blue LEDs )

If you are talking about the spec 03 case, you should be able to get it with blue LEDs. I got mine from Amazon, and had the choice of red, blue and white. I went with red as it matched my keyboard and mouse.

I got this case and its great. Plenty of room and 4 quiet fans, also looks awesome. A little bigger than what you have, just a recommendation from personal experience.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147240

I’d get a 980 ti if you can budget it.
Downgrade the 2400 to 2133. Motherboard might not be happy with 2400 and cause problems.
Get a dual fan CPU cooler.
I’d get a C70 or a 760t case.
I7 4790k is a good choice because they are only slightly worse than the sky lake CPUs.

If you didn’t buy this yet, feel free to give a minimum and maximum budget and I could see what I could do for ya if I have the time.
For tech related subjects you’re better off going to tom’s hardware, for future reference.

Thanks again for all the advice. It is really helpful and appreciated.
Lots to think about.

Now, I currently have a Cooler Master tower case and the Thermaltake CPU cooler.
The cooler dimensions are nearly the same as the CPU cooler I am planning get.
The depth of the new cooler is 159 mm (6.3 in).
I wonder whether the cooler will extend too far so the case’s side panel cannot be attached. So that side bump-out on the Corsair S3 case is appealing.

Don’t tell NewEgg, but I am just using their site/tool to collect items. I will likely shop around to find better prices. So, BrotherBelial.3094, I will head over to Amazon to see what they want for the blue LED case. Thanks for that lead.

Thanks again.

Riku.4821:

I’d get a 980 ti if you can budget it.
Downgrade the 2400 to 2133. Motherboard might not be happy with 2400 and cause problems.
Get a dual fan CPU cooler.
I’d get a C70 or a 760t case.
I7 4790k is a good choice because they are only slightly worse than the sky lake CPUs.

If you didn’t buy this yet, feel free to give a minimum and maximum budget and I could see what I could do for ya if I have the time.
For tech related subjects you’re better off going to tom’s hardware, for future reference.

Seriously? that’s the advice? get an 980ti combined with i7 4790k? xD

Guild Wars 2 is really badly optimised, you’ll rarely see an improvement from 970 vs 980ti – so unless you want to play other games at max resolution, just ignore the 980.

The i7 isn’t worth it either as GW2 doesn’t use HyperThreading. + the 0,1Ghz improvement is neither worth it.

Haswell isn’t worse than Skylake… They’re nearly identical, it’s only stronger at single core performance.

As for Dual FAN CPU, don’t know where you’re coming from but even a Noctua NH-U14S (60 euro’s) with really great cooling comes stock with 1 fan…

The only part I agree on is the RAM, 1600Mhz is fast enough – anything higher isn’t necessary for gaming.

Seriously, I would ignore his post – unless you’re willing to buy a high end system and money is no problem for you.

Slalom.3174:

Thanks again for all the advice. It is really helpful and appreciated.
Lots to think about.

Now, I currently have a Cooler Master tower case and the Thermaltake CPU cooler.
The cooler dimensions are nearly the same as the CPU cooler I am planning get.
The depth of the new cooler is 159 mm (6.3 in).
I wonder whether the cooler will extend too far so the case’s side panel cannot be attached. So that side bump-out on the Corsair S3 case is appealing.

Don’t tell NewEgg, but I am just using their site/tool to collect items. I will likely shop around to find better prices. So, BrotherBelial.3094, I will head over to Amazon to see what they want for the blue LED case. Thanks for that lead.

Thanks again.

No problem, and for clarity, I’m in the United Kingdom. So I don’t know if you’ll get the same offers where you are, as I’m guessing you are in the U.S.

I disagree with the ram. Speed ram helps with minimum fps (specially in intensive cpu games like gw2), which translates in a smoother experience.
Also, that 212 evo will be short if you plan to do any overclock.

Ansau.7326:

I disagree with the ram. Speed ram helps with minimum fps (specially in intensive cpu games like gw2), which translates in a smoother experience.
Also, that 212 evo will be short if you plan to do any overclock.

Unless you over clock the ram, all ram runs as fast as the MoBo/CPU will allow by default. For most its 1600mhz.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Ansau.7326:

I disagree with the ram. Speed ram helps with minimum fps (specially in intensive cpu games like gw2), which translates in a smoother experience.
Also, that 212 evo will be short if you plan to do any overclock.

Unless you over clock the ram, all ram runs as fast as the MoBo/CPU will allow by default. For most its 1600mhz.

In that case it isn’t overclock, you are just setting the BIOS correctly or using a new RAM in a older MoBo.
Overclock would be if you make a 1333mhz RAM run at 1600 for example.

Belzebu.3912:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Ansau.7326:

I disagree with the ram. Speed ram helps with minimum fps (specially in intensive cpu games like gw2), which translates in a smoother experience.
Also, that 212 evo will be short if you plan to do any overclock.

Unless you over clock the ram, all ram runs as fast as the MoBo/CPU will allow by default. For most its 1600mhz.

In that case it isn’t overclock, you are just setting the BIOS correctly or using a new RAM in a older MoBo.
Overclock would be if you make a 1333mhz RAM run at 1600 for example.

Ram can only be over clocked if it has a higher frequencies than the motherboards faster default. So if the ram you have is 1666mhz, but your motherboard fastest is 1600. That is as fast as it will run. Now if say the max speed of your ram was (just pulling a number out of the air) 2666mhz. Then you can over clock it to that number maximum. But with overclocking comes the risk of instability and damaging parts as well as shortening the life of the parts.

You can not make ram with a low base frequency run faster.

Higher clocked ram only helps to a point. You’ll see maybe 1-2 FPS more going from 1600 MHz to 2400. Not really worth the price increase imo

RAM speed aka memory bandwidth, doesn’t buy you a lot in performance, and like most things related to speed, it buys less and less for each incremental upgrade. 1333 to 1600 to 1866 is great, price differential is very little and you can measure the performance difference in games. Once you get past 1866 the price really starts to climb quickly.

For DDR3 they have to start overvolting to achieve those higher speeds, CAS timing rise faster percentage wise than clock speed which starts to negate the actual time savings from transmitting the data. That’s why super high performance RAM is the least cost effective thing to put money into.

And RAM performance only matters if the system isn’t being bound by some other part of the system. For instance when a game is GPU bound, CPU and RAM performance doesn’t show up significantly.

http://techbuyersguru.com/does-ram-speed-matter-ddr3-1600-vs-1866-2133-and-2400-games