Corsair 350D Gaming PC

[TheOuterOne]

Hello peeps! Just have to save up a little more money, but I will be able to build a new gaming pc soon. I have already selected some parts I think will do very well. My budget is limited to ~2000 euro's. I will be using this pc for gaming as well as for intensive rendering such as 3D animations.

CPU: 4770K

Cooler: H100i

Mobo: ROG Maximus VI Gene

RAM: Vengeance Pro 1600MHz 2x8GB to start off with. Might upgrade to 32GB when there's too much money ^_^Also, ordering in different colors for the theme. 2x8gb red and 2x8gb silver.

GFX:Temporarily, EVGA GTX 660. Will upgrade to 770 or 780 later.

PSU: Corsair AX760i - Might get red breaded cables for that

Case: Corsair 350D (Windowed, of course)

HDD: 2x WD Red 3TB. Once again, the 2nd HDD will be added later.

SSD: Corsair Force LS 256gb

Casefans: 3 AF120's, 2 SP120's for the H100i.

I look forward to building this, especially because it's my first proper-looking build (at least, I think it's going to look nice if I set it up correctly). Please give me some advice and your thoughts on these parts! I couldn't find a lot of reviews on the Maximus VI Gene, unfortunately Tom hasn't done one on it (yet).

 

[JR23]

Did you mean to say 4670k or 4770k?

My only main criticism is that you would be much better off with a single better graphics card instead of having two 660's. Not only because you lose out on the scaling but because they will be directly ontop of each other up against the PSU it just won't look nice, sound nice or be where you would want it temps wise.

Perhaps you could just tweak everything else and find enough room in your budget for a bigger better SSD?

Also if it were me I would decide if 32GB was ever truly necessary, i'm guessing possibly not, and get 2x8GB 1866MHz of red vengeance pro. Personally I don't like the unmatched colour scheme, it worked when Tom did it on the board with silver accents.

Love the 350D, MVIG, Vengeance Pro, Air Series Fans and Red Braided Cables though it should look good. Perhaps just get a regular AX760 just to get a little more room in the budget and in my opinion it's better than the AXi but I know what Corsair Link can really be like! And really would you be better with an RM650, are you just paying for the red sticker and justifying that with power overheads and a massive warranty... I did so I can't talk but I wasn't trying to hone the last £ out of my budget.

JR

 

[TheOuterOne]

Did you mean to say 4670k or 4770k?

My only main criticism is that you would be much better off with a single better graphics card instead of having two 660's. Not only because you lose out on the scaling but because they will be directly ontop of each other up against the PSU it just won't look nice, sound nice or be where you would want it temps wise.

Perhaps you could just tweak everything else and find enough room in your budget for a bigger better SSD?

Also if it were me I would decide if 32GB was ever truly necessary, i'm guessing possibly not, and get 2x8GB 1866MHz of red vengeance pro. Personally I don't like the unmatched colour scheme, it worked when Tom did it on the board with silver accents.

Love the 350D, MVIG, Vengeance Pro, Air Series Fans and Red Braided Cables though it should look good. Perhaps just get a regular AX760 just to get a little more room in the budget and in my opinion it's better than the AXi but I know what Corsair Link can really be like! And really would you be better with an RM650, are you just paying for the red sticker and justifying that with power overheads and a massive warranty... I did so I can't talk but I wasn't trying to hone the last £ out of my budget.

JR

Thanks for the feedback! I'll check out how one card works out. An added 660 does make quite a difference though, dual sli 660 would perform better than one 770 and is cheaper as well..
I could upgrade to an 780TI or something later on, and put the 660 in my old rig. I think you're right about the spacing for dual SLI in the 350D. I forgot about the psu placed fairly close to the mb.

Oh and yea, I ment the 4770K. That was a typo, fixed it.

What SSD did you have in mind? Performance-wise I'd say the LS would be outstanding, looking at writing speeds.

Would the ram speed make a very big difference? I kinda like being able to do any kind of rendering for as long as I could possibly need. Something inbetween 16 and 32gb isn't really an option I don't think, 24gb of ram just sounds really weird to me, not sure if it matters performance-wise.

About the AX760 - although it's just a sticker, it would look much better, I would pay some extra money for the looks. But then, the AX760i is just 10 euro's more here, difficult not to go straight for that one.

 

[JR23]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll check out how one card works out. An added 660 does make quite a difference though, dual sli 660 would perform better than one 770 and is cheaper as well..
I could upgrade to an 780TI or something later on, and put the 660 in my old rig. I think you're right about the spacing for dual SLI in the 350D. I forgot about the psu placed fairly close to the mb.

Oh and yea, I ment the 4770K. That was a typo, fixed it.

What SSD did you have in mind? Performance-wise I'd say the LS would be outstanding, looking at writing speeds.

Would the ram speed make a very big difference? I kinda like being able to do any kind of rendering for as long as I could possibly need. Something inbetween 16 and 32gb isn't really an option I don't think, 24gb of ram just sounds really weird to me, not sure if it matters performance-wise.

About the AX760 - although it's just a sticker, it would look much better, I would pay some extra money for the looks. But then, the AX760i is just 10 euro's more here, difficult not to go straight for that one.

Yeah your going to be really stacking those 660's to fit them in, the top one is going to be running significantly hotter or louder breathing in the air straight off the back of the bottom one. So although you won't get any more power out of a 770 you will at least get it quietly, you would probably sneak a fair bit of boost out of it most of the time too. Plus you'll get all the power in applications that don't appreciate SLI. Have the recent nVidia price cuts passed on to you yet? At least you've put some serious thought into it now before you've opened the 660.

While you probably aren't going to find significantly more speed in an SSD going up to a 240/256GB just adds a bit of practicality unless your seriously good at managing your stuff. I used to have a 120GB Force 3, no complaints performance wise but it was always a big debate of IF I could just manage to fit another game on or if I should put Photoshop on my other drive until in the end it got so full of things I wanted the speed for it was slow lol. I had to put my photoshop scratch disk on my HDD at one point just to handle some hi res stuff. It just depends how you want to and how well you run it but I think it's a good place to divert a little extra money too because you can actually appreciate the performance gains every day.

The RAM speed difference isn't going to have any major effect previously 1600 had been the sweet spot with 1866 being of slight advantage, 2133 being really negligible and quickly getting very expensive past that point so it was a big case of diminishing returns in performance/price. I understand that Haswell has just stepped it up another level and 1866 will bag you a bit more performance for a modest amount more. Funnily enough I was reading this earlier - http://www.corsair.com/us/blog/haswell-sli-and-memory-bandwidth/

Yeah it's a nice sticker I fell for it lol! Put a red AX on it and boy does it sell. I mean purely rationally it's a bit of a waste but i'm 100% with you! As for the AX AXi debate personally I think the AX is a better product. Firstly the AX is Seasonic built and the other Flextronics, if you mention PSU anywhere the first reccomendation is Seasonic or Corsair, and that's because the top end Corsair's are built by Seasonic! So from the start your winning. The efficiency and warranty is identical so no victor there. So it comes down to do you want Corsair Link or not, essentially the only reason to want it is for the fan control and to see what W your drawing. But the fan control is just a bit hairy and Corsair Link software is at best a beta so your not really getting it. Also the fan spins up to 100% every time you turn it on then spins down. Meanwhile the AX has a button you put it in hybrid mode and that's it. It just sits there being efficient producing no heat and the fan doesn't move. I've burn tested it with an overclocked 4820k and two 780's and half an hour later.... it's still sitting there cool as a cucumber not spinning. Essentially there both phenomenally good and they've both got a kick ass Corsair warranty so it doesn't matter either way.

 

[TheOuterOne]

Yeah your going to be really stacking those 660's to fit them in, the top one is going to be running significantly hotter or louder breathing in the air straight off the back of the bottom one. So although you won't get any more power out of a 770 you will at least get it quietly, you would probably sneak a fair bit of boost out of it most of the time too. Plus you'll get all the power in applications that don't appreciate SLI. Have the recent nVidia price cuts passed on to you yet? At least you've put some serious thought into it now before you've opened the 660.

While you probably aren't going to find significantly more speed in an SSD going up to a 240/256GB just adds a bit of practicality unless your seriously good at managing your stuff. I used to have a 120GB Force 3, no complaints performance wise but it was always a big debate of IF I could just manage to fit another game on or if I should put Photoshop on my other drive until in the end it got so full of things I wanted the speed for it was slow lol. I had to put my photoshop scratch disk on my HDD at one point just to handle some hi res stuff. It just depends how you want to and how well you run it but I think it's a good place to divert a little extra money too because you can actually appreciate the performance gains every day.

The RAM speed difference isn't going to have any major effect previously 1600 had been the sweet spot with 1866 being of slight advantage, 2133 being really negligible and quickly getting very expensive past that point so it was a big case of diminishing returns in performance/price. I understand that Haswell has just stepped it up another level and 1866 will bag you a bit more performance for a modest amount more. Funnily enough I was reading this earlier - http://www.corsair.com/us/blog/haswell-sli-and-memory-bandwidth/

Yeah it's a nice sticker I fell for it lol! Put a red AX on it and boy does it sell. I mean purely rationally it's a bit of a waste but i'm 100% with you! As for the AX AXi debate personally I think the AX is a better product. Firstly the AX is Seasonic built and the other Flextronics, if you mention PSU anywhere the first reccomendation is Seasonic or Corsair, and that's because the top end Corsair's are built by Seasonic! So from the start your winning. The efficiency and warranty is identical so no victor there. So it comes down to do you want Corsair Link or not, essentially the only reason to want it is for the fan control and to see what W your drawing. But the fan control is just a bit hairy and Corsair Link software is at best a beta so your not really getting it. Also the fan spins up to 100% every time you turn it on then spins down. Meanwhile the AX has a button you put it in hybrid mode and that's it. It just sits there being efficient producing no heat and the fan doesn't move. I've burn tested it with an overclocked 4820k and two 780's and half an hour later.... it's still sitting there cool as a cucumber not spinning. Essentially there both phenomenally good and they've both got a kick ass Corsair warranty so it doesn't matter either way.

Oh man. Cool as a cucumber, LOL.

I'll go for the AX760 then, and for now the gtx 660 since I can always replace it later on. My old rig needs an upgrade as well, so the 660 would go in there when upgrading it. I don't think I care too much about Corsair LINK since the MVIG has excellent fan control as well.

As for the SSD, I know exactly what you mean. My first rig has a 64gb ssd and it's full already after installing Windows and some basic programs (i.e. Photoshop etc). Considering that, 256gb might be a good idea.

The price cuts for the GTX 780 etc are very noticable here btw, for now anything but my Ati 4770 would be great. Most definately going to love the experience with my 660. Many thanks for the feedback! I'll look into it some more and I'll let you know if I change something or have ordered parts. I will definately be doing a build log on this, I hope it'll look as good as your 550D! Gotta love the looks of that and your man cave^_^

EDIT: Not sure about the RAM speeds yet. One of the things I'll look into. I do probably want to use different colors on the kits though, it probably looks better than all red. Will look into that as well.