First time builder [2 builds drafted]

[Meng]

Hi all, I am new to the forums and have only been watching OC3D channel videos and getting build advice previous from Tom's Hardware but the advice there isn't that great at all imo so I decided to join the forums here.

Basically I will be building a PC from scratch, my first time, I will be using this rig to play high end games whilst recording and will also be rendering the videos in Sony Vegas 8.

[Build 1] - Haswell

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail - £275.99
MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard - £157.99
XSPC RayStorm D5 RX360 WaterCooling Kit - £299.99
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (03G-P4-2781-KR) - £569.99
Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - £115.99 [Boot Drive]
Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - £193.99 [SSD recording drive]
NZXT Switch 810 Big Tower Case - White - £139.99
Corsair Professional Series HX+ 850W '80+ Gold' Modular Power Supply - £129.95
Corsair Vengeance RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit) - £147.98
LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM - £17.99
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) - £8.99
Total: £2,076.54

VS

[Build 2] - LGA2011
Intel Core i7-3930K C2 Stepping (SR0KY) 3.20GHz (Sandy Bridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail - £ 379.99
GIGABYTE GA-X79-UP4 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) ATX Motherboard - £ 158.19
XSPC RayStorm D5 RX360 WaterCooling Kit - £ 299.99
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3078MB GDDR5 Graphics Card - £ 457.49
2x 8GB (2x4GB) G.SKILL RipjawsX 2133MHz CL11 DDR3 Dual/Quad Channel Kit - £ 109.98
850W XFX Pro Black Edition 80PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply - £ 106.77
128GB Samsung 840 Pro Series 2.5" SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Solid State Drive - £ 90.21
256GB Samsung 840 Pro Series 2.5" SATA 6GB/s (SATA-III) Solid State Drive - £ 148.99
NZXT Switch 810 White Full Tower Window Gaming Case - £ 116.66
LiteOn 24x Internal SATA DVD RW Drive [IHAS124-04] - £ 10.95
Total - £ 2,212.36

So my questions are:

1. How does the 3930x compare to the 4770k in gaming?
2. How much better will the 3930x be vs the 4770k in video editing?
3. Which build is more suitable for me?
4. What overclock speed will I able to get with the WC kit? (only cooling CPU atm)
5. How will the overclock weigh out due to different clocks/heat/volts etc? which CPU will benefit more from OC?
6. Is the 3930x build worth the £130-£150 difference in price?

Thanks in advance,

Meng

 

[barnsley]

Do not use an SSD for recording, trust me its much better to go with a mechanical drive as you get more space (you'll need it if you want to record in decent quality for a period of time)and the only performance benefit you get with the ssd is the ability to hop around the video more quickly. Also I've heard things about how it will wear the ssd out but I'm not too sure on that.

the 4770k and the 3820 are very equal in gaming performance. I'd go with the haswell.

 

[Meng]

Do not use an SSD for recording, trust me its much better to go with a mechanical drive as you get more space (you'll need it if you want to record in decent quality for a period of time)and the only performance benefit you get with the ssd is the ability to hop around the video more quickly. Also I've heard things about how it will wear the ssd out but I'm not too sure on that.

the 4770k and the 3820 are very equal in gaming performance. I'd go with the haswell.

Hi, thanks for replying. SSD wipes I think will shorten the life of it really quickly so that might be an alternative for me to switch to a 1/2tb mechanical drive but I have struggled to find one with 150-180mb/s write speed.

Did you mean 4770k and 3930k is equal or?

Thanks,

Meng

 

[barnsley]

Hi, thanks for replying. SSD wipes I think will shorten the life of it really quickly so that might be an alternative for me to switch to a 1/2tb mechanical drive but I have struggled to find one with 150-180mb/s write speed.

Did you mean 4770k and 3930k is equal or?
Meng

I'll re-phrase it as I misread it. The 3930k is slightly better in performance but not enough to justify the price in my opinon. As for write speed, I've had no issue with recording to my 2tb drive at all and the write speeds aren't in the 100s.

If you want a fast hard drive for recording and money is no issue, these are good:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-...tor-35-hdd-sata-iii-6gb-s-10000rpm-64mb-cache

 

[yassarikhan786]

Even an i5 would be ample for gaming, but seeing as you have the cash, might as well go for the best. The 4770k vs the 3930k in terms of gaming will be very similar/you will see no noticeable difference.

I agree with Barnsley about not using an SSD for recording as it will drastically reduce the lifespan of the SSD. Just get a fairly hefty SSD (250GB+) for your OS, games and most important programs. For general storage/recording grab a high performance HDD like the Western Digital Caviar Black.

 

[leathart123]

you don't really need the 3930k unless you are doing hardcore 1080p video rendering or something that will utilize all six cores which games don't really do at the moment. Also x79 is so god dam expensive with the cpu motherboard and all the ram you need i would stay socket 1150 and maybe get an msi mpower(max) because it looks as though it will be a beast of an overclocker

 

[Meng]

Even an i5 would be ample for gaming, but seeing as you have the cash, might as well go for the best. The 4770k vs the 3930k in terms of gaming will be very similar/you will see no noticeable difference.

I agree with Barnsley about not using an SSD for recording as it will drastically reduce the lifespan of the SSD. Just get a fairly hefty SSD (250GB+) for your OS, games and most important programs. For general storage/recording grab a high performance HDD like the Western Digital Caviar Black.

If that is the case, then the 3930k sounds a lot more appealing. 128GB is enough for me as a boot drive plus a few games. Are 7.2k RPM drives good enough to record to? e.g. Caviar Black? my recordings will be in 1080p.

you don't really need the 3930k unless you are doing hardcore 1080p video rendering or something that will utilize all six cores which games don't really do at the moment. Also x79 is so god dam expensive with the cpu motherboard and all the ram you need i would stay socket 1150 and maybe get an msi mpower(max) because it looks as though it will be a beast of an overclocker

Unfortunately that is what I am doing, 1080p recording and rendering so I thought I would favour the 3930k more but I don't know how the gaming comparison pars so that's why I posted here.

 

[MacLeod]

How about something like this for £1657?

Using a new Haswell i7, a Corsair H100, GTX780, 256GB SSD for your OS and programs, 2TB worth of spinning drive capacity and plenty of RAM.

 

[Meng]

How about something like this for £1657?

Using a new Haswell i7, a Corsair H100, GTX780, 256GB SSD for your OS and programs, 2TB worth of spinning drive capacity and plenty of RAM.

I will be using an XSPC kit. I really really don't need 256gb of SSD room I have a very very few games installed that probably will not even fill the SSD to half way ontop of OS on a 128GB drive.

 

[TonyTBR]

3930k FTW (But im bias), any way now for the meaningful advice, i would go for the 3930k as the more cores plus a decent overclock will mean you can render faster than on the haswell, with a w/c loop just on your cpu you will be able to get at least 4.8 - 4.8mhz, gaming wise both of them would be overkill but you need it for video editing, in my honest opinion i would go with the sandy-e build.

Apart from as stated before no 2nd ssd for recording, a fast 7200rpm drive and decent cache will be fine, something like a seagate barracuda or wd caviar black, i think the seagate is cheaper though so your choice! and also the PSU, i would go for a Corsair AX760 or AX860 (either 'i' or normal) as they are 80 plus platinum not gold, also they look awesome!! Hope that helps

Edit: Also something to think about, the 840 pro is a good drive but the SanDisk 120Gb Extreme is cheaper and faster, Another thing to think about!

 

[MacLeod]

I really really don't need 256gb of SSD room

Yet youve got 2 SSD's listed in your first post totaling 384GB. Just going off what you said you wanted.

I have a very very few games installed that probably will not even fill the SSD to half way ontop of OS on a 128GB drive.

Games will fill up a hard drive faster than you think and with you saying youre doing a lot of video work that youd want the extra storage.

But whatever.

 

[Meng]

3930k FTW (But im bias), any way now for the meaningful advice, i would go for the 3930k as the more cores plus a decent overclock will mean you can render faster than on the haswell, with a w/c loop just on your cpu you will be able to get at least 4.8 - 4.8mhz, gaming wise both of them would be overkill but you need it for video editing, in my honest opinion i would go with the sandy-e build.

Apart from as stated before no 2nd ssd for recording, a fast 7200rpm drive and decent cache will be fine, something like a seagate barracuda or wd caviar black, i think the seagate is cheaper though so your choice! and also the PSU, i would go for a Corsair AX760 or AX860 (either 'i' or normal) as they are 80 plus platinum not gold, also they look awesome!! Hope that helps

Edit: Also something to think about, the 840 pro is a good drive but the SanDisk 120Gb Extreme is cheaper and faster, Another thing to think about!

Hello, thanks for replying. I had the same thoughts about the OC that I'd be able to get a lot more overclocking done on it compared to the 4770k since the new Haswell gets hot really quickly. I might take a look at an alternative PSU and will look for a mechanical internal drive.

The 840 pro seems to have the highest of opinions on it, lots of recommendation and little RMA counts on Newegg so that's the only reason I am going for it.

If the 4770k and 3930k is on par with gaming, then I guess the extra money is for the uses of the other two cores which in my case will be beneficial? providing that I am on budget after removing my second SSD.

I have an old external, would it be able to handle 1080p video file writes do you think? link is below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002JCSG7G/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks,

Meng

Yet youve got 2 SSD's listed in your first post totaling 384GB. Just going off what you said you wanted.



Games will fill up a hard drive faster than you think and with you saying youre doing a lot of video work that youd want the extra storage.

But whatever.

Sorry, forgot to edit to 1 SSD as I am only going to be using an SSD boot drive now and probably will be 128gb. I will manage I think, if not I can get another one later on some time down the line.

 

[TonyTBR]

Hello, thanks for replying. I had the same thoughts about the OC that I'd be able to get a lot more overclocking done on it compared to the 4770k since the new Haswell gets hot really quickly. I might take a look at an alternative PSU and will look for a mechanical internal drive.

The 840 pro seems to have the highest of opinions on it, lots of recommendation and little RMA counts on Newegg so that's the only reason I am going for it.

If the 4770k and 3930k is on par with gaming, then I guess the extra money is for the uses of the other two cores which in my case will be beneficial? providing that I am on budget after removing my second SSD.

I have an old external, would it be able to handle 1080p video file writes do you think? link is below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002JCSG7G/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks,

Meng

That's fair enough go for the 840 pro, for gaming the 3930k will be better than 4770k simply because it has more cores, the reason that people tend to advise i5's for gaming is that gaming isn't very could intensive but more gpu intensive, plus most games don't use hyperthreding! Any way I'm getting off subject, the video rendering will use all 6 cores and the other 6 hyperthreds and will be faster than the 4770k and it's 4 cores and additional 4 hyperthreds! In short yes the 3930k's extra cores would be beneficial!

As for you external drive it would be able to handle the video game writers but it will be significantly slower because it will be transferring over USB 2.0, not SATA 6Gb/s, so best just to go for a new hdd and use that as a backup for everything!

 

[Meng]

That's fair enough go for the 840 pro, for gaming the 3930k will be better than 4770k simply because it has more cores, the reason that people tend to advise i5's for gaming is that gaming isn't very could intensive but more gpu intensive, plus most games don't use hyperthreding! Any way I'm getting off subject, the video rendering will use all 6 cores and the other 6 hyperthreds and will be faster than the 4770k and it's 4 cores and additional 4 hyperthreds! In short yes the 3930k's extra cores would be beneficial!

As for you external drive it would be able to handle the video game writers but it will be significantly slower because it will be transferring over USB 2.0, not SATA 6Gb/s, so best just to go for a new hdd and use that as a backup for everything!

Thanks, in regards to graphics cards since we are on the topic, does SLI systems help video encoding? presuming that I get something like a two way or even three way SLI GTX 660 TI? also do you have any clue what the best way is to cool those as I'd imagine there will be a lot more heat.

Thanks,

Meng

 

[NeverBackDown]

SLI will only help FPS dude. Only cards that help recording are the 700 series as they have a built in a hardware recorder(can't remember correctly from toms review). 700 series is a no brainer for you.

3930k(because you have the money) and a 780 are my recommendations. Mine as well watercool the 780 as well!

 

[Meng]

SLI will only help FPS dude. Only cards that help recording are the 700 series as they have a built in a hardware recorder(can't remember correctly from toms review). 700 series is a no brainer for you.

3930k(because you have the money) and a 780 are my recommendations. Mine as well watercool the 780 as well!

Hello, yeh I think I will stick to the 780 and SLI up if I need to in the future and expand my loop but I don't think I will WC them unless if I get SLI.

 

[iBeInspire]

LOL Why hasn't anyone told you to get an avermedia capture card yet..?

Get one of these and you won't see any framerate drop while recording since the card does your encoding, not your CPU. And make sure you're recording to a Mach drive, recording to a SSD (Even with TRIM) will basically brick it in about 2 months. Trust me, I have some youtube commentator mates and they tried recording to an SSD, don't make that mistake.

Moving along, if you have the money go for the 3930k since it will drop rendering time pretty dramatically (4C/8T vs 6C/12T make a difference.)

Apart from that your basically spot on

 

[TonyTBR]

Thanks, in regards to graphics cards since we are on the topic, does SLI systems help video encoding? presuming that I get something like a two way or even three way SLI GTX 660 TI? also do you have any clue what the best way is to cool those as I'd imagine there will be a lot more heat.

Thanks,

Meng

What NBD said!! , that's what i would of said in responce!

SLI will only help FPS dude. Only cards that help recording are the 700 series as they have a built in a hardware recorder(can't remember correctly from toms review). 700 series is a no brainer for you.

3930k(because you have the money) and a 780 are my recommendations. Mine as well watercool the 780 as well!

 

[theDTP]

Intel i7 4770k - £260
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H LGA1150 - £165
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 2400MHz - £141
Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD - £107
WD VelociRaptor 1TB 10,000RPM - £171
EVGA GTX 780 - £540
EVGA SuperNOVA 750W Gold Certified PSU - £94
NZXT Switch 810 White - £140
XSPC RayStorm D5 RX360 WaterCooling Kit - £300
LiteOn 24x Internal SATA DVD RW Drive [IHAS124-04] - £11

£1929


With:
Intel i7-3930K (SR0KY) - £ 380
GIGABYTE GA-X79-UP4 Intel X79 - £158

£2042

 

[NeverBackDown]

Seems like a awful lot of money to spend with a hdd included.. the 10Krpm models won't help very much in recording. Stick with a 64mb cache 7.2krpm hdd.

I would say Seasonic for the psus. EVGA may be a great gpu vendor but I wouldn't trust them powering 2000pounds of hardware.