Upcoming Custom Build

[Bahawolf1]

Hey there!

It's been quite a while since I've done a custom build and I'd like to jump right into one! Due to upcoming career opportunities and the desire to occasionally do some light gaming (WoW for me, and Sims 3 for my wife), I wanted to put together a nice machine that has plenty of room for upgrades. In the past I'd deck the machine out spending thousands upon thousands of dollars up-front and have it as a trophy for bragging rights. A bit older and wiser, I realize that I can have a beautiful machine and upgrade it as desired. This also keeps me invested into the machine, and will cause for me to be more conscious about cable management improvement, cooling improvement, and further maintenance as time goes by.

Anyhow, I put together what I believe to be a pretty solid build for what I want, but I wanted opinions on this. I'm not concerned so much with lowering / raising the price, so as long as it isn't an unnecessary and extreme increase (eg: from 1600 to 3500). All in all, I'd like some feedback and hopefully I can get this build spec finalized so that I can start the process as soon as possible!

My build can be seen here: Intel Core i7-3770K, EVGA GeForce GTX 770, Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) - My Custom Build - bahawolf's Saved Part List - PCPartPicker

 

[dude_56013]

Why aren't you going with a 1150 design? it's the newer standard.

I'd swap your CPU for a i7-4770K or 4790K and matching 1150 M/B.

 

[Bahawolf1]

That is precisely why I love this community, haha! I have updated my list to have the newer specs suggested there. How does it look now?

 

[dude_56013]

I'm not an overclocker, so I'll wait for someone to confirm, but I believe you'll want to go with a Z97 setup for that, not the Z87.

You'd want this: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Z97-A) - PCPartPicker
or this: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (MAXIMUS VII HERO) - PCPartPicker

Also, have you thought about an SSD boot drive? I'd highly recommend it. I'd go for a Samsung Evo 250GB (seems to be great bang-for-your-buck right now!).

Otherwise, this build looks great to me. I love Fractal's minimalist design. I have the full tower.

 

[BikerEcho]

Your chosen motherboard is using the Z87 chipset. It's all great and stuff, but you might need to update the bios before it will take the "Devil's Canyon" CPU's (the 4690K and 4790K cpu's) which might be a problem sense you have no CPU to boot up the system and flash the board.
Check this short article out.
List of 8 Series Motherboards Compatible with Intel Devil's Canyon (Intel Core i7-4790K and Core i5-4690K)

I will suggest another motherboard. If you want a somewhat high end motherboard like the one you have chosen, you should look at the Asus maximus 7 Hero.
It has the newest Z97 Chipset, (so you are guaranteed that it will work out of the box with the 4790K), all the features your chosen board has AND you save 60 bucks.
Here it is: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (MAXIMUS VII HERO) - PCPartPicker


Also: isn't the 770 a bit overkill for "games" D) like sims and world of warcraft?

---------- Post added at 10:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 PM ----------

Looks like me and dude agree on the 7Hero.
I was writing my post when he added his. i had the tap open for a while due to a phone call

---------- Post added at 10:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 PM ----------

yeah. i can recommend that SSD too. I have it my self and it works wonders.

 

[jarlmaster]

I am going to recommend an SSD always. No excuse not to have one unless you like long boot and load times. In addition I would wait for another month or two. Nvidia is set to release the GTX 800 series and I would wait to see how those perform than get one in that series.

 

[Celery]

Whether the 770 is overkill will depend on what his overall usage is, games being one. Should be fantastic graphics for other things like watching movies or streaming.

It's better to have too much than not enough and on top of that it's future-proof.

 

[Bahawolf1]

Thanks to everyone for helping thus far! I've added the SSD drive (thanks for the suggestion), adjusted the motherboard, and changed the case to an ATX full case (I prefer full cases, and thought I had picked one originally).

As for the 770, I may be gaming more in the future on the PC (BF4, etc) as I do on my consoles. I wanted to leave room to grow here, and would be open to adding one or two more of them in the future (money for upgrades is not a problem).

Are there any other recommendations? Even recommendations for the case is welcome, since I may miss the red / blue LEDs a bit.

Thanks!

 

[BK_123]

Nice solid build there.

 

[Bahawolf1]

Thanks BK!