Talk about getting my hopes dashed one day later. Just got the news that I'll get the money somewhen between the end of April and June which will delay buying the rig accordingly. Still, this was good for having a point of reference and in two months there hopefully won't be too many changes (GPU excluded, as this way I might actually get to see the new Radeon Series).

Anyway, barring any GPU changes I got this now for when I can actually buy it:

• Intel Core i5-4460
• MSI H97 GAMING 3, Sockel 1150, ATX
• Be quiet! Dark Rock 3
• 8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series VLP DDR3-1600, CL9 (low profile)
• Be quiet! Straight Power 10 500W CM (according to the pictures, modular)
• One of the R9 290x (maybe the Vapors will become a bit cheaper until I can actually make the purchase)

Thanks for helping me getting this together! I'll post a picture once it's mine.

 

Looks good, but I just noticed that the dark rock pro doesn't fit in the case. 158mm is the maximum that fits in the silencio, but the dark rock pro is 163mm. You'll either have to choose a different CPU cooler, or a different case.

 

http://www.hardwareversand.de/Intel+AMD/150654/be+quiet!+Dark+Rock+3.article

Says there that the diameter is 135 mm (might be because it not a pro, but a normal one). Where'd you get the 163 mm from?

 

The height. On hardwareversand they simply say "16cm", but on the be quiet! website you've got a more precise measurement (click on Technische Daten and then Technische Daten des Kühlkörpers). Since the height is more than the case allows (take note of the "Kühler die eine Höhe von bis zu 158mm haben"), you won't be able to close the sidepanel with the cooler installed (or if you're lucky the cooler will just scrape along it, which also wouldn't be good).

 

If the case doesn't fit the cooler you might want to take a look at cases such as the Fractal Design Deinfe R4:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/frac...w-noise-performance-case-usb-30-with-silent-1


As it seems to suit the aesthetic you are looking for and Fratcal Deisgn are know for making good quality cases that are silence optimised. I actually used the R4 few months ago to build a PC for my sister and I know for a fact the Dark Rock Pro 3 fits in it. Also, sorry for the English website I linked you to, I was to0 lazy to find it on a German website.

 

Mhh, any good suggestions for either? As long as it's not too much more expensive than before, I can change either the case or the cooler. All I want is that at the end of the day everything works.

Edit: Fractal Design seems to be 30 € more, but that's alright as long as the whole package doesn't get much costlier than it is now.

Edit²: Just read on the website that the cooler is so big, they don't want to risk having it rip off or something while the pc is being shipped. Which means that they'll send it separately and I'll have to install that motherfuck myself. I wonder how that will go. My flatmate told me that it was the part he hated the most about building his own. Apparently he always felt as though he would break anything if he used just a bit more force (which seemed necessary to correctly attach the cooler).

 

That sounds about right. Honestly, since you're not overclocking you can go for a far smaller cooler - even a top blow if you want. Or if you want to spend a little more (about 10-15€) on the cooler, you could get the Corsair H55. Of course, that's if you're comfortable with having water in your PC.

 

Time for CPU cooling 101. There are three types of CPU coolers: Water coolers, air coolers and passive coolers.

Water coolers (as the name suggest) work by pumping water into a block that covers the CPU and allowing the heat to transfer to the water as it goes through the block. The water then gets cooled as it passes through a radiator. The radiator on a water cooling loop takes up the space where fans in a case would go. Generally the all in one coolers are easiest to install (just place the block on the CPU and put the radiator in place like you would with a fan) but because of the pump in the water cooling loop they generally make the most noise and cost the most money.

Air coolers work by transfering the heat into a tower/block made out of metal and then having a dedicated fan on the block blowing air through it to cool it down. Air coolers are usually cheaper than a good water cooling loop, are quieter and, depending on the quality of the air cooler, they can also work better than a water cooler.

Passive coolers work by just connecting the same block an air cooler uses to the CPU but doesn't have a dedicated fan on it. In general passive coolers are the worst for cooling your CPU but they make no noise and take up less space than an air cooler but more than a water cooler.

If you have the money and don't mind the potential noise problems I would suggest buying a decent water cooling loop like an NZXT Kraken x41 or a Corsair H55/H75/H80. If you want a quieter PC and have enough space in your case and are not afraid to install the cooler yourself I'd suggest getting an air cooler. In no situation would I suggest getting a passive cooler.

tldr: If you have the money and don't mind the noise get a water cooler. If you you have less money and want a quiet PC get an air cooler.

 

Not really true. There are good quality pumps that will produce almost no noise, and that you won't be able to hear outside the case (especially if the case has sound dampening). An aircooler without low RPM fans however? Now that's something that can get noisy pretty quickly.

 

I'm not really comfortable with water cooling, so I guess air it is. If the dark rock is too much though, any good suggestions on what else I could take? I'd like it to be quiet if possible. Not ultra silent, but at an acceptable level even when I'm playing a game.

 

The Alpenföhn Brocken Eco, the Scythe Mugen 4, the Themalright Macho 120 Rev.A and a bunch of others. Personally I probably would go with the Thermalright.

Edit: For be quiet! there's basically just the Pure Rock. But if you want, you could of course alsways strap a silent wings 2 (or silent wings 3 when they're released sometimes this fall or so) onto one of the other coolers, and basically get the same quiteness and performance. Thermalright is also a very good brand for coolers, as is Noctua (the Noctua NH-U12S might barely fit in the case - it's height is 158mm, so the same as the max height for the case)

 

Actually, if you get an enclosed system, there's nothing different between it and an air as far as installation is concerned, except that you'll pop off the exhaust fan and put the radiator/fan unit there instead (or on the front if it'll reach). Not having a fan makes for a nice aesthetic as well if you have a window on your pc, but that's neither here nor there.

The only problem with watercooling is that if you get a leak, and if it is in the right spot, it could do damage. But again, they ship as enclosed systems, so it's not like your making connections yourself.

Oh, and Jpzh2d, you forgot co2 and ln2 cooling. Let's really screw with his head.

---------- Post automerged at 03:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 PM ----------

Had, not have. I'm still using it, but it's not as necessary since the I7s are more energy friendly now.

Old rig:

I7 940 2.95 OC to 3.6
Asus Rampage III Formula board
14 gig of ram on 5 sticks (3 sticks from previous board, thank god for MemOK so I could do that.)
Nvidia GTX 280 GPU (two screens)
Nvidia 9600 GPU (two screens)
BD drive (read only)
DVD writable
2 SSD in Raid 0 config for C drive
3 disk drives, two in Raid 0 config for library
External RAID 5 (e-Sata) + 4 hard drives (externally powered) (Media)
3 Tb external backup drive
Coolermaster push/pull setup PCU heatsink/fan
5 case fans

I had a 800 watt unit and it fried, so I decided to say screw it and go for the 1200 watt. I dont' really need it now, however.

Current rig:
MOBO Asus Maximus VII Hero
Chip I7 4790K oc'd to 4.6 (working on 4.7, but still have heating issues)
16 Gig Ram, 2 sticks (Ripjaw)
Same GPUs (next upgrade)
1 Evo 840 SSD
4 1TB HDs in Raid 5.
1 external HD backup.
1 BD writable
1 DVD writable.
Water (H55? Can't remember exactly. 1 fan and radiator)

Like I said, I don't need it anymore, but I'd still rather have it in case I decide to jump back up into the 2011 sockets and match 'em with a couple high end vid cards.

 

What do you do that you need that much computing power?

Seems a bit extreme just for games.

 

I don't game—note the ancient GPU.

I dabble with transcoding media (I rip all my BDs and use my computer as a media server for the house, and am about to help my wife master some music she's writing. But originally, I built it because I have a massive library program (database, basically) that will literally search through six thousand library items, or do contextual, morphological, grammatical, or other types of searches in any language that I have material for. A lot of my academic work is done with it. I have the same program on a laptop with an older I 7, and it takes forever for searches to respond.

I thought about making the jump from the 1336 socket to the 2011 socket, but after doing some research, I realized most if not all the software I have is limited to a four-core system. So I went ahead and bought a 1550 socket board and chip.

 

CanYouRunIt says my system is sufficient for running Witcher 3.
I run a FX8350 and 16GB RAM along with R9280X.

The minimum requirement for Witcher 3 seems to be HD7870 and recommended being R9290.
Since R9 280 is re-branded and slightly upgraded HD7950, and R9 280X is the same for HD7970...
It seems safe to assume the R9 280x will be able to handle Witcher 3 at high settings if not the highest.

 

Okay, so the money has finally arrived and I will order my new pc in the next few days. These are the specs I currently have in mind:

• Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl
• be quiet! Straight Power 10 500W CM
• MSI H97 Gaming 3, Sockel 1150, ATX
• Intel Core i5-4460
• be quiet!Dark Rock Pro 3
• 2x8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport Series VLP DDR3-1600, CL9
• 4096MB Sapphire Radeon R9 290x Vapor-X Tri-X

That I've got no idea about pcs in general hasn't changed, so (in the name of Fishtulu) I once more beseech this awesome community to aid me in my quest. Will this thing run smoothly? Is the PSU good enough to sustain the rest? (upgrades in the future are unlikely)

Any and all help is appreciated!

(With ~1,15k € I'm skirting the price limit, so I really hope this works. I could, if necessary, spend more for a PSU, but upgrading on the R9 390x or something like that probably isn't in the stars for me)

 

Yes, though it's always going to perform better or worse on a game to game basis (I'm also going to assume that you will be gaming at 1080p, right?).

Yeah, for non SLI/Crossfire builds 500W is generally enough.

One thing though, is that you could exchange the CPU cooler with the Thermalright Macho. It's much cheaper and since you won't be overclocking (you don't have a K-CPU after all) it should easily suffice.

The R9 300 series is basically a rebrand, so the 390X is just a 290X with minor improvements and doulbe the VRAM. What you probably could do is get a 390 instead of the 290, but they're currently far too expensive imo. There also currently isn't a vapor-x version for the 300 series, so you'd have to chose a model with basically a worse cooler (although not by that much if you get, for example, the Sapphire 390 Nito). If you want to read a little more about the differences, here's a test (in german).

 

If Eilyfe isn't overclocking then there is no need for anything besides the stock heat-sink.

Also, if you can last to later this year, Intel is releasing new CPU's this fall that will be noticeably better than what is out right now.

 

I'd normally agree, but we recently had quite the heat-wave here in germany, and during it my 4430 with stock cooler was running at about 1.7-1.8k rpm (2k is the max) with 20% CPU usage. It normally doesn't get that hot here, but it taught me that getting an aftermarket cooler can't hurt if you can fit it in the budget.

As far as I know, there's currently zero indication that skylake will be anything more than the usual 5-15% more performance (which won't matter much in the long run, especially if DX12 will really reduce CPU overhead as much as promised). We also don't know anything about release dates (especially for the direct successor of the 4460 - high-end models typically come first), and there's the change that the 4460 successor could be more expensive (especially if the euro gets even lower because of the situation in greece).

 

Okay, that everything will work sounds pretty good to me.

@Sacro Is there much of a difference between the Thermalright Macho and the Dark Rock Pro 3? The lower price is certainly enticing, but I'm somewhat wary because I don't want to be too cheap now and then have problems later down the line. Also, will that thing fit in the case?

And yes, I want to play games at 1080p with this (if possible at high quality even in the next 1-2 years), though I know that I'll have to regulate the details in relation to the age of the pc vs. the age of the game. So far I've only set my eyes on Witcher 3, ME: Andromeda, and the new NFS.