PROJECT LOG Project Moneybags

I got a raise at work! Hoorah, hurray! Now I have more money left over after the bills to buy some new toys.

SO, I figured I'd start a project log thingy, since all the kids seem to be doing that nowadays. The beast:

Core i7-4790K
EVGA GTX 970 4GB SSC ACX2.0+ (Might buy two, might forego 9xx SLI for Pascal)
PNY XLR8 8GB 1866 RAM that I already have, plus another of the same kit to make 16GB
EVGA SuperNOVA G5 550W 80+ Gold Full Modular
Rosewill Rise GLOW Full Tower Case
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO Air Cooler
SanDisk SSDPlus 240GB (Carried over, will be either buying more or pulling this one to upgrade to a larger on in the future))
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM (Carried over, will DEFINITELY be buying more spinners in the future!)
ASRock Pro3 Z97 LGA 1150 ATX Motherboard (Carried over)
Corsair Scimitar RGB Wired Optical Mouse (Buying this because my old mouse was stolen )
CoolerMaster Storm Quickfire Ultimate Wired Keyboard, Cherry MX Red switches. (Buying this because like the mouse, my old keyboard was stolen )
Acer S220HQLAbd 1080p 5ms 21.5" monitor (Already have one, ordering a second)


It'll be a bit before I get my first paycheck in the new amount, not until the first. But I will definitely be posting pictures of everything to this first post as I order it. Case, cooler, PSU, keyboard, monitor, memory and mouse will all be ordered in May, and then the CPU and GPU will be ordered in June and July. I'll also being posting some before and after pictures for OC'ing and delidding. Feel free to track the thread if you're interested in watching me mess something up....LOL.


---Edit---

Changed the case to the Corsair Carbide Clear 600c.
Changed the PSU to a 550W.

LOL Congrats V! Sub'd for future awesomeness.

Thanks Blay! Yeah, pics are coming. I could take the mobo out and snap a pic of that with the SSD and HDD if that would make it more interesting? Also considering getting water cooling instead of air, and debating whether I should get an AIO and get a custom in the future, stick with air until I get a custom, stick with AIO, or never get water in general. Decisions, decisions....

Awesome and congrats!!! Any reason you didn't go Skylake there baller?

EarthDog said:

Awesome and congrats!!! Any reason you didn't go Skylake there baller?

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Yes! If I had gone Skylake then it would have taken MUCH longer to build this. I got the raise because I begged my boss, due to a necessary change of housing making life a bit more costly. Skylake woulda stripped me of the ability to carry over a few parts, and I do have a minimum requirement for this system (I'm video editing, doing rendering for work, etc.). The i7 is a must, and Skylake SCREAMS DDR4. All around, it'd have added a couple hundred dollars onto the system. The way I need it, at least. I only have, with this new raise, around $500 to play with. And that money also goes toward taking the lady out on dates.....they tend to get angry when you don't throw money at them.

So, you begged your boss for a raise because of housing and legitimate issues................and are buying PC parts.. Nice!

LOL, I was thinking the same.

EarthDog said:

So, you begged your boss for a raise because of housing and legitimate issues................and are buying PC parts.. Nice!

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Totally worded that wrong, I meant to include the tidbit of information that he bumped me up by $5 and 15 hours a week instead of the simple $3 without any extra hours I asked for, and this is coming strictly out of the extra money I don't need. I can see how that sounded a bit stupid without that part But also, I DO need to upgrade my system for work. I do rendering work for an animation business, as well as video editing. And my current system isn't handling that too well.

So what do you guys think about the cooling? Will air do me good or should I go with water? As I said I will be delidding so I guess I'm wondering if water would be necessary as I'm already going to be improving the TIM on the die. Can you make your CPU too cold, is that a thing?

That depends on your OC expectations. Obviously you get better cooling with water. You'll get a minimal OC if any with a 212 EVO. Big air will give you a better OC and big water would be the best. These are all decisions you'll need to decide before purchasing anything. If you are going water you'll want a different case. That one doesn't support radiators (at least I can't find any reviews that states it does). Also with a CPU clearance of 165mm the 212 line will be fine, but big air coolers like the Noctua NH-D14/D15 or Phanteks TC14PE are out.

Vishera said:

Totally worded that wrong, I meant to include the tidbit of information that he bumped me up by $5 and 15 hours a week instead of the simple $3 without any extra hours I asked for, and this is coming strictly out of the extra money I don't need. I can see how that sounded a bit stupid without that part But also, I DO need to upgrade my system for work. I do rendering work for an animation business, as well as video editing. And my current system isn't handling that too well.

So what do you guys think about the cooling? Will air do me good or should I go with water? As I said I will be delidding so I guess I'm wondering if water would be necessary as I'm already going to be improving the TIM on the die. Can you make your CPU too cold, is that a thing?

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haha, no worries...

As far as the cooling. The Hyper 212 Evo should allow you to reach 4.5Ghz or so depending on the quality of your CPU. If you plan on replacing the TIM in between die/IHS it may get your farther... it depends. That said, I really wouldn't worry about delidding personally. At least, see the quality of your chip first. If you are voltage limited, there isn't a point to delid. The CPU is going to last just as long at 90C peak load as it will at 70C. Its MADE to run that hot. It doens't start to throttle itself until around 100C.

I was thinking, given that the i7 is already at 4GHz, of overclocking it to 4.3 or higher. Just something to give it even more oomph, but nothing insanely crazy. However, regardless of that I think I am going to change the case to the Rosewill Rise Glow full tower, because I've seen many reviews on newegg saying that the material of the DIYPC case is weak, and the fans don't seem to hold up too well. Probably gonna go water cooling just for the experience. Never had a water cooler before!

I dont see a point in water for that overclock...you can do that on a stock intel cooler (remember it boosts to 4.2Ghz. ).

Forgot the turbo entirely. In that case I might not overclock at all, meaning I could bump down to the non-k version of 4790. I did some thinking on this build and even still, it's having holes poked in it left and right. Good thing I've got some extra eyes, thanks EarthDog!

Non-k?!? This is an Overclockers site sir!

Lol in all seriousness I would still get the k version. You may need the overclocked in a few years. Plus with encoding you'll want every mhz available. JMO

You know I wish there was more to be known about Pascal.....with rumors of a June release, I'm wondering if a wait and see is best. Though, that also begs the question of whether or not Pascal would necessarily be enough of an increase to warrant upgrading right away anyhow. A 970 seems, from what I've read, to do most games and rendering justice, especially 2 of them in SLI, and then of course there's the 980 and 980 ti. I'm just worried about, being that we're constantly getting requests dealing with the latest and greatest animation tricks and qualities, buying something that ends up not being able to help me get things done at home in an efficient manner. That's the point of this, 90% helping me increase my production speed for work and 10% leisure. Not that I'd most likely be able to afford it, but I do like to dream.

Vishera said:

You know I wish there was more to be known about Pascal.....with rumors of a June release, I'm wondering if a wait and see is best. Though, that also begs the question of whether or not Pascal would necessarily be enough of an increase to warrant upgrading right away anyhow. A 970 seems, from what I've read, to do most games and rendering justice, especially 2 of them in SLI, and then of course there's the 980 and 980 ti. I'm just worried about, being that we're constantly getting requests dealing with the latest and greatest animation tricks and qualities, buying something that ends up not being able to help me get things done at home in an efficient manner. That's the point of this, 90% helping me increase my production speed for work and 10% leisure. Not that I'd most likely be able to afford it, but I do like to dream.

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You can always skip the second card, and upgrade when Pascal does release. At 1080p/60Hz, a single 970 runs most games maxed anyway, so that would be saved money.

Dlaw, might I ask you how you got your i7 up by almost an entire GHz?

Vishera said:

Dlaw, might I ask you how you got your i7 up by almost an entire GHz?

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Sure, but the answer isn't likely what you're going to want to see. I'm simply lucky, and got a good chip. I'm sure the custom water helped, but I've seen them still only get to 4.6GHz on what I have.

Just for a point of reference Vishera I have mine at 4.7Ghz @1.45v on a large custom loop. I need sub ambient temps to be stable above that. Most everyone I've heard of can hit 4.5Ghz with little effort and decent cooling.

So I'm thinking. I have an IDEA.....

What if I put my computer on a nifty metal server rack that I happened to stumble upon at a relative's garage sale, and wrapped some window screen material around the rack to make it harder for dust to get into the case...then left the side panel off? Dude's just giving it away. The rails are even removable so I could simply remove the bottom three rails and drill a piece of wood into place as a sort of shelf. This way I can get a bigger cooler without the concern of all that dust getting into my system.