You can take a look here (under the graph deselect everything except the HR-02 Macho and the Dark Rock Pro 3 SW 120+135mm). As you can see, the temperature differs only by about 6°C max on an overclocked 2500K, so you shouldn't run into any problems with it. As for if it will fit, it's not as high as the Dark Rock, and the Define R4 supports up to 170mm (if no sidepanel fan is installed), so it'll fit. Though as always with such large tower coolers (both the macho and dark rock), they may cover one of the RAM slots.

The 290 should do a good job then, especially if you overclock it a little more. IIRC, in Witcher 3 you should get about 40-60 FPS (depending on the area) on ultra with it (no Hairworks). Also, I just noticed that the MSI board is quite expensive - you could go for something cheaper (like the Asrock H97 Pro4) unless the MSI board has some features you really want, like the Crossfire support or the M.2 Slot (although that seems to be a SATA M.2 slot, so it's not as good as a PCIE M.2). In the end, the mainboard doesn't affect performance, so if you don't need the features the MSI board has go for something cheaper and save some money.

 

To be perfectly honest, you don't need such a heavy heatsink. Something as simple as a Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO/Hyper 212X should be in the good enough range to handle even heatwaves, albeit with more noise than the Thermalright Macho (which is designed to run slow for low noise).

As Sacro said before, that motherboard is on the expensive side. Some other alternatives: the Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H or the MSI H97M-G43. You lose a bit of the nicer features on the MSI H97 Gaming 3 such as the Killer E2200 LAN chip (lowers ping), Creative Sound + headphone amplifiers (good onboard sound), and maybe an M.2 slot.

That money can then be put towards upgrading the R4 to the R5, which is much easier to maintain (front filters don't require as much effort to take out for example). I used to use the Fractal Design Define XL, so I know how much of an annoyance getting the filter out was.

Other than that, it looks good.

 

With him getting a case that has sound dampening material built in, I figured that he wants his PC to be as silent as possible - therefore the bigger cooler where the fan can run at a lower rpm. If silence isn't the priority however, then saving some money and going for one of those smaller coolers is an option.

 

I want silence. My current setup is quite loud, and if there's one thing I'm anticipating most beside playing games on ultra detail level, it's that I hopefully won't be able to hear much from the computer while doing so.

The upgrade from R4 to R5 seems viable though if it helps. I could use the money I'll save with Sacro's tips (the Thermaltake Macho and the Asrock H97 Pro4) for the new casing; it should even out, maybe even cost a bit less than before actually.

Are there other advantages to the R5 aside from the maintenance thing? I'm a beginner at all things computer-related and have never taken out the fans of my old machine.

 

According to Silent PC Review, the fans are a little quieter.

 

The Define R5 isn't too different from the R4 and the differences don't do too much towards giving you a quieter system. The differences are mainly for maintenance and from the reviews I've seen the R5 is only a few decibels quieter than an R4 and I'm not sure that it is worth the extra money that you have to pay.

@Eilyfe how much are you paying for the 290X?

 

The cheapest 290x Vapors (4GB) I can get online in Germany (according to Geizhals.de) is for 412€.

 

http://geizhals.de/msi-gtx-970-gaming-4g-v316-001r-a1167950.html?hloc=at&hloc=de
http://geizhals.de/asus-strix-gtx970-dc2oc-4gd5-90yv07f0-m0na00-a1167954.html?hloc=at&hloc=de

Take a look at those two cards. They are both GTX 970s and cost around 50€ less than than the GPU you are currently getting. The Asus one is slighlty better than the MSI one and If it is possible I would suggest getting one of those two cards instead of the 290X for five reasons.

1) Both of the cards have something called 0db fan technology which means that when the card is running at 60 degrees or lower the fans turn off completely and the GPU makes no noise at all. This would give you a much quieter system when you are just browsing the internet or doing light gaming.

2) Both of the cards also draw much less power than the 290X when under full load which means you would save money on the running of your pc. IIRC the 970 draws half as much power as the 290X does when under full load.

3) Both of the cards also output less heat the the 290X.

4) Both of the cards also perform better than the 290X. Usually the 970 has a frame rate that is ten (or more) frames higher than the 290X

5) They are both cheaper than the 290X.

With either a 290X or a 970 any game you play will run smoothly at 1080p. The 290X gets 95 FPS on Bioshock Infinite and the 970 gets 105 FPS. The PSU will be more than enough to sustain your system.

Are you buying your monitor or do you already have one?

 

The Sapphire Vapor-X cards disable two fans when idle, making it for all intents and purposes unhearable.

Half is just plain wrong. You're looking at about 280-290W (depending on overclock(for the whole system)) with a 970, and about 360-390W (depending on overclock) with a 290/290X. In the end you maybe have, what 5-10€ more per year for power cost at most.

True, though that doesn't really matter much.

Plain wrong. It always depends on the game - in some games the 970 is faster, and in others the 290 and 290X.

Until now I thought that Eilyfe was getting a 290, not 290X. I just saw that I was wrong there. Personally, I'd get the 290 instead of the 290X - you can get the 290 Vapor-X OC for 318€, which is a far better price than over 400€ for a 290X, while having marginal less performance (depending on the game, it's 2-5 FPS difference).

Let's also not forget the VRAM issue of the 970, where only 3.5GB run at full speed with the last 500mb running far far slower. I pesonally wouldn't get it out of principle, since Nvidia lied about that when the GPU came out, and only admitted it when people had evidence of it. Of course, if Eilyfe wants to, he can get one regardless.

 

From the benchmarks I've seen the Vapor-X only gets a higher FPS on two games (Crysis 3 and Rome: Total War).

Whilst the Vapor-X does turn off two fans there is still one fan running which means it will be louder than the Strix.

For some reason I thought the 970 used 150W. The 970 actually uses 225W and the 290X uses 300W so whilst the difference isn't as great as I thought it would be it is still there.

I did a few calculations to work out how much that would cost for each GPU. I'm assuming the pc is used for 2 hours at full load for the GPU four times a week with one kWh costing 0.19 USD.

0.3 * 2 = 0.6 kWh
0.6 * 4 = 2.4 kWh
2.4 * 52 = 124.8 kWh
124.8 * 0.19 = 23.71 USD
23.71 USD = 21.25€

0.225 * 2 = 0.45 kWh
0.45 * 4 = 1.8 kWh
1.8 * 51 = 93.6 kWh
93.6 * 0.19 = 17.78 USD
17.78 USD = 15.94€

So by getting a 970 he saves 5€ which isn't much but every little helps. You do still have to take into account the power draw of the rest of the system though.

Not in terms of performance maybe, but a hot pc can still be annoying

The main reason I suggested the 970 is because it is cheaper than the 290X and with the money saved Eilyfe can either get the R5 if he wants or he can just keep the money. Theer may be the fact the nVidia lied about the VRAM but Eilyfe has said he is nearing the edge of his budget so I think principles can be put aside if he wants to save some money.

 

Add Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4 and Ryse: Son of Rome to that. Like I said, it always depends on the game, and in the end you can just say that they're both equally good.

Which isn't really important - inaudible stays inaudible whether it's 0 or not.

Firstly, you're using TDP, which isn't equal to the real power draw. Secondly, yes there's a difference, but if he buys a 290 for 318€, which is on par with the 970, instead of the MSI or Asus 970 which are 354€ and 364€ respectively, according to your calculations the 970 would only be worth it after 6-8 years.

It won't really get hot though, because both the macho and the Vapor-X cooler are quite good.

I agree, the 970 would be a better choice than the 290X, but the 290 would be a better choice than the 970, which is why I recommend getting the 290.

 

Is the 290 that much better than the 290x? I'm asking from a performance point of view.

I am skirting the budget limit, yes, but I'm still not over the edge. It's roughly where I expected it to be, so if I get more performance for the 290x then I'll still take it. I chose the 290x vapors after looking at this comparison of the different 290xs Sacro posted a link to on page 1. In that benchmark it had the best performance.

Basically, I have ~415-20 € saved for a GPU. I want the best I can get for that money, so that my computer can carry me for a while without a noticable drop in performance when gaming.

Also, where I currently live (and will continue to live for the next three years) energy costs are fixed, no matter how much I use.

 

No, the 290 is the little brother of the 290X. It's basically a 290X that has some shaders deactivated and stuff, so if you want the best performance the 290X is better. The 290 is only better from a price/performance standpoint.

Edit: I just had a look around, and for 399€ you could get the PowerColor 290X 8GB PCS+. Now, the card isn't....optimal you could say, since you'd have to change some settings (like the fan-curve, which is far too agressive and makes the card too loud, and the power target +10% so that it can keep it's boost clock). If you don't want to, you can of course stay with the 4GB Vapor-X.

There's also the XFX 290X 8GB for 410€, but it's only a double fan cooler, so it gets quite a bit louder. And lastly there's the 290X 8GB Tri-X. It's basically the Vapor-X, minus the vapor chamber, backplate and I think they don't use quite as high grade components (although that shouldn't matter much unless you want to keep the card for about 4-5 years or want to overclock it heavily).

The added 4GB VRAM those cards have would be...nice. However, if you're just playing at 1080p, it's not exactly necessary. Here are some charts. The "AMD Radeon @ 8-GB-Karte" are basically the 390 and 390X, which are essentially the 290 and 290X. You can see that, while in some games more than 4GB are used, it's not that many so you'll have to think about: either the Vapor-X (which is basically the best 290(x) model) with 4GB, or a "lesser/worse" (although generally not by that much) model and 8GB.

 

I'll stick with the Vapor-X then, I think. Thanks for the information though (that goes to everyone who tried to help!) I think I'm pretty much set with this config:

• be quiet! Straight Power 10 500W CM
• Asrock H97 Pro4
• Intel Core i5-4460
• Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev.B
• 2x8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport Series VLP DDR3-1600, CL9
• 4096MB Sapphire Radeon R9 290x Vapor-X Tri-X

The only point I'm still thinking about is the case and whether to get an R4 or an R5. From what I've read the R5 is a tiny bit quieter, but it also costs quite a lot more. Is the noise difference noticable? If the only advantage of the R5 is maintance otherwise, then I'd probably stay with an R4.

 

Well I can't say anything about either case, but the difference is just 20€ (at least from looking at the minimal price on geizhals). So, it might not hurt to get the newer one.

Also, if you can fit it in the budget, think about getting a second SSD (preferably 256/250GB). You could use it to put your games on, since you won't be able to fit that many on your existing 120GB SSD. Of course, you could always buy a second SSD later as well. Just something to think about, since putting games on an SSD does reduce loading times by quite a bit.

Oh and something else, since you say you don't really know that much about PCs (although I might've mentioned that before in this thread - I'm too lazy to check): Don't use the included driver CDs but download the newest ones from the website of your motherboard manufacturer and AMDs website for GPU drivers. Also, when a new big game comes out, more often than not new drivers will also be available that will boost the performance of said game, since that driver will have optimizations for it, so always check if you've got the newest GPU drivers.

From the Asrock website, don't download the AppCharger, Floppy Image and VGA drivers (nor any of the utilitys further down - unless you want to adjust your fan curves, then you can get A-Tuning for that). You don't need those, and in the case of the VGA drivers (which are for the integrated GPU in your CPU) download them here instead.

By the way, will you be running more than one monitor?

 

No, I'll only be running a single monitor. And thanks for the tip with the drivers. I kept my GPU driver up-to-date, but I never really bothered to use anything but the motherboard driver on the cd that came with it.

So far I used the SSD I have for windows and one or two games (not really space for more). The second one sounds good, but I'll have to see whether I can fit it in.

 

On my way to the police right now to press charges against hardwareversand.de

They declared insolvency two days after I ordered, without a warning beforehand. I didn't even get an email to that effect when they canceled my order. I had to call them on my own because I noticed it. According to them, my money is floating now. Motherfuckers.

Edit: The police registered my charges and they'll look into it. According to the police officer it is a rather clear-cut fraudulent attempt from them. That doesn't mean I'll get my money back immediately though. He told me to sit in tight, this could take a while. Also, it's likely that if I get the money back it'll be a lesser sum. I also wrote a letter to the insolvency consultat (right word?) with a police receipt for my charge, asking to be included in the insolvency mass.

In the meantime, though I don't know how likely it is to succeed (I'm not too hopeful), I opened a conflict ticket with paypal, asking them to get the money back for me.

Edit²: Project back on track with my father's help -- ordered all parts from Alternate, which (I have been assured from 3 different sources now) is a trustworthy shop. I really hope they won't declare insolvency tomorrow.

Anyway, the parts arrive tomorrow morning per express delivery. I'll post pics once the work is done.

 

Well, it's done. Never knew you could mount SSDs at such a place--neat feature. Anyway, I'm happy!

 

I applaud your cable tidying skills.

 

Congrats man, new PC is a great feeling. I built mine almost 3 years ago now, and it's still going strong.