End of year PC build

[BWMerlin]

Around this time last year I upgraded my computer as a stop gap before a full replacement but now the time has come for that replacement. I mainly game, watch videos and web browse but I really want to get back into running virtual labs to further my self learning (so need lots of RAM).

With all that in mind this is what I have come up with so far (all prices are in Australian dollars).

What I would like to reuse from my current rig

Antec P280 Black Super Mid Tower, with additional USB3.0 port
Corsair Air Series SP120 Quiet Edition Case Fan Twin Pack
Samsung 256GB SSD 840BW Pro SATA3 2.5
Gigabyte GV-N66TOC-2GD PCI-E 3.0 2GB DDR5

What I am looking at buying

Intel Core i7 4770K LGA1150 CPU 3.5Ghz 8Mb Cache Haswell @$380
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC-FORCE @$530
Corsair 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 CMY32GX3M4A1600C9 1600MHz Dimm, Unbuffered, 9-9-9-24, Vengeance Pro Black @$445
Silverstone 120mm AR01 CPU Cooler @$39
Lite-On Blu-Ray @$82
Seagate ST4000DM000 Desktop HDD 4TB, SATA3, 3.5", 64MB x2 @$196
Corsair AX860 Modular ATX Power Supply, 80 PLUS Platinum Certified @$290
Total $2158

Edit: I have a little revision update taking in feedback from various sites.

Revised
Intel Quad Core Xeon CPU E3-1230v3, LGA1150, 3.3GHz 8MB CACHE @$289
G Skill 32G(4x8G) DDR3 1600MhZ PC12800 (F3-12800CL0Q-32GBZL) @360
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO @$39
Seagate SATA3 3TB 7200RPM Barracuda 64mb Cache x2 @$134
Gigabyte Z87X-D3H @$196 or ASRock Z87-EXTREME3 $146

$1152 to $1102 depending on motherboard.


I am fully open to suggestions but I do prefer Intel and Nvidia over AMD. I would also like this to run as cool and quiet as possible (current one is making a lot of noise [think the CPU fan is on it's way out]) with the possibility of running my current 660TI in SLI with a 800 series when they are released. While I do not have a budget I would prefer to keep it under two thousand dollars as I would also like to buy a new monitor (looking at QNIX 2710).

Thanks

 

[mfenn]

Just say no to $530 motherboards. You can absolutely do what you want without spending nearly that much. Also, what's your current PSU? A Haswell almost certainly uses less power overall than your old CPU, so you may not need an upgrade there.

From PCCaseGear:

i5 4670K $265 - The i7 isn't doing much for you given your stated uses. A VM lab setup will run out of memory and IOPS long before it saturates a quad-core
ASRock Z87 Extreme3 $159 - Good manufacturer, 4 DIMM slots, and x8/x8 PCIe support is all you really need for your build
G.Skill Ares DDR3 1866 32GB kit $365 - Way less expensive than Corsair, 1.5V, and slightly faster
Silverstone AR01 $39 - Perfectly serviceable Hyper 212+ clone
LG BD-R drive $59 - Slightly less expensive
Seagate 7200RPM 3TB x2 $278 - Assuming the drives are for VM storage, you'll be much better off with a 7200RPM model
Antec TP-750C Gold $159 - Possibly reuse PSU?
Total (w/ PSU): $1324

That leaves you plenty of money for an new monitor and GPU upgrade. Performance will be within 10% of what you spec'ed out under your stated workloads.

 

[Ken g6]

with the possibility of running my current 660TI in SLI with a 800 series when they are released

I doubt that will ever be a possibility - though I could be wrong. You should be able to use it as a PhysX card if you have such games, though.

Do you plan to overclock your CPU? I would guess not if you want "cool and quiet". In that case, consider a Xeon E3-1230 V3. (I don't know Australian prices, but it should be less than the i7.) Or a 4770 non-K - both have VT-d (virtualized devices) and TSX (multithreading improvement) that the K processors lack.

Given that you won't overclock your CPU and will only use the 660TI for PhysX once you get an 800-series GPU, you could then consider an H87 or B85 board that has one x16 3.0 slot and one x4 2.0 slot. (Example.)

 

[BWMerlin]

I doubt that will ever be a possibility - though I could be wrong. You should be able to use it as a PhysX card if you have such games, though.

ah heck, oh well maybe I will recycle it into a planned home theatre/server build.

Do you plan to overclock your CPU? I would guess not if you want "cool and quiet". In that case, consider a Xeon E3-1230 V3. (I don't know Australian prices, but it should be less than the i7.) Or a 4770 non-K - both have VT-d (virtualized devices) and TSX (multithreading improvement) that the K processors lack.

I did not know that, the Intel Quad Core Xeon CPU E3-1230v3, LGA1150, 3.3GHz 8MB CACHE is $289 while the Intel Core i7 4770 LGA1150 CPU 3.4Ghz 8Mb Cache Haswell is $350 so I will look into both as the VT-d and TSX are more important than overclocking. Does the motherboard also have to support these are as long as the CPU does you are all good?

Given that you won't overclock your CPU and will only use the 660TI for PhysX once you get an 800-series GPU, you could then consider an H87 or B85 board that has one x16 3.0 slot and one x4 2.0 slot. (Example.)

Maybe, I have in the past had the mainstream chipsets and boards and have run into limitation so would rather stay with the "pro-sumer" stuff to try and avoid it.

 

[BWMerlin]

G.Skill Ares DDR3 1866 32GB kit $365 - Way less expensive than Corsair, 1.5V, and slightly faster

I didn't notice the G.Skill when specing this build, will look into it as it is indeed cheaper.

Silverstone AR01 $39 - Perfectly serviceable Hyper 212+ clone

Already have it listed but I have seen recommendations for the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO which costs the same, is the 212+/EVO "better" and just worth getting over the AR01 for the same price?

Seagate 7200RPM 3TB x2 $278 - Assuming the drives are for VM storage, you'll be much better off with a 7200RPM model

Good idea, I forgot that the 4TB drives were less then 7200RPM.

Antec TP-750C Gold $159 - Possibly reuse PSU?

Current PSU is from my original build so it is around eight years old so time for an upgrade (also not sure it supports Haswell with that new lower power state it has).

 

[BWMerlin]

I have a little revision update taking in feedback from various sites.

Revised
Intel Quad Core Xeon CPU E3-1230v3, LGA1150, 3.3GHz 8MB CACHE @$289
G Skill 32G(4x8G) DDR3 1600MhZ PC12800 (F3-12800CL0Q-32GBZL) @360
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO @$39
Seagate SATA3 3TB 7200RPM Barracuda 64mb Cache x2 @$134
Gigabyte Z87X-D3H @$196 or ASRock Z87-EXTREME3 $146

$1152 to $1102 depending on motherboard.

 

[DigDog]

has anyone here tried pushing a xeon on a 1150??

 

[mfenn]

Already have it listed but I have seen recommendations for the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO which costs the same, is the 212+/EVO "better" and just worth getting over the AR01 for the same price?

They are all extremely similar. The EVO is ever so slightly better becasue the heatpipes are more flush with the base.

has anyone here tried pushing a xeon on a 1150??

If by "pushing" you mean overclocking, probably not. Xeons are multiplier locked so you'd only be able to OC a ~100 Mhz via BCLK.

 

[Ken g6]

has anyone here tried pushing a xeon on a 1150??

If you're asking if it's supported, the answer is yes, it's supported on the Extreme3. Note that the onboard GPU is disabled, so you will need a discrete GPU like the 660TI.

 

[BWMerlin]

Okay this looks like it will be by final build out before I order (would like to order this weekend to have it read for assembly over the holidays) and would like everyone's final thoughts and suggestions.

Intel Quad Core Xeon CPU E3-1230v3, LGA1150, 3.3GHz 8MB CACHE @$289
G Skill 32G(4x8G) DDR3 1600MhZ PC12800 (F3-12800CL0Q-32GBZL) @360
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO @$39
Seagate SATA3 3TB 7200RPM Barracuda 64mb Cache x2 @$134
ASRock Z87-EXTREME6 @$206
Lite-On Blu-Ray @82
Corsair AX860 Modular ATX Power Supply, 80 PLUS Platinum Certified @290
Prolimatech PK-1 or Prolimatech PK-3 ~$24
$1558

G.Skill Ares DDR3 1866 32GB kit $365 - Way less expensive than Corsair, 1.5V, and slightly faster

I didn't ignore this but my local store does not stock it so I would have to buy and ship from pc case gear but for convenience sake I just listed products available at my local store. I will see if I can get the rest of the stuff from pc case gear cheap and then consider ordering the whole lot if possible from them.

The i7 4770 is $61 more expensive and while that is not much in the scheme of things I am not sure if gaining the on-board graphics is worth it (it might be has I have read that KVM can pass off host graphics adapters completely to guest OS's but that is another thing all together).

 

[Ken g6]

ASRock Z87-EXTREME6 @$206

That's a significantly more expensive mobo than we recommended. What does it have that you think you need?

Corsair AX860 Modular ATX Power Supply, 80 PLUS Platinum Certified @290

We've probably left this PSU on your list too long. Unless you are planning on filling all the slots in that new mobo with video cards, you shouldn't need that much power. A single new video card should not draw more power than a Titan, which did not exceed 450W in tests. Two cards in SLI shouldn't exceed about 700W.

I assume electricity is really expensive in Australia; otherwise I'd suggest stepping down from platinum to gold or bronze.

 

[lehtv]

A single new video card should not draw more power than a Titan, which did not exceed 450W in tests. Two cards in SLI shouldn't exceed about 700W

To be clear, these are not card power consumption numbers, these are numbers for the whole system in full video card load, measured at the wall (AC not DC watts; efficiency is not adjusted for)

 

[mfenn]

We've probably left this PSU on your list too long.

Antec TP-750C Gold $159 - Possibly reuse PSU?

I agree. Paying double for a way overkill in wattage Platinum-rated PSU doesn't make sense to me.

 

[BWMerlin]

We've probably left this PSU on your list too long. Unless you are planning on filling all the slots in that new mobo with video cards, you shouldn't need that much power.

I can get a SeaSonic SS-660XPII 660W 80Plus Platinum PSU Version II for $200 or the SeaSonic SS-760XPII 760W 80Plus Platinum PSU Version II for $221 so I drop the max power and still keep the platinum rating so seems win win.

 

[mfenn]

I can get a SeaSonic SS-660XPII 660W 80Plus Platinum PSU Version II for $200 or the SeaSonic SS-760XPII 760W 80Plus Platinum PSU Version II for $221 so I drop the max power and still keep the platinum rating so seems win win.

But how long is it going to take you to make up the ~$50 difference in terms of power savings? 2% of 100W (reasonable daily average) is 1.44 kW-h per month.

 

[lehtv]

But how long is it going to take you to make up the ~$50 difference in terms of power savings? 2% of 100W (reasonable daily average) is 1.44 kW-h per month.

Going by that calculation, he'll be able to get back the difference in $ during the 7 year warranty, provided his electricity costs $0.08 per kWh. That's a reasonable cost of electricity, but it still doesn't justify purchasin the platinum unit... not only does $50 now have more purchasing power than $50 in 7 years, but why would you want to wait 7 years before starting to make profit?

Ideally, you'd want the extra efficiency to pay itself back in just a couple of years, which, compared to the above, requires one or more of:

(a) a much higher cost of electricity
(b) a much bigger daily wattage
(c) a much smaller price gap between the PSUs

 

[BWMerlin]

provided his electricity costs $0.08 per kWh

It is $0.26 a kWh

a much higher cost of electricity

3 times higher

 

[lehtv]

Ah well, Australia. Figures

At 2400W per day, the Platinum unit should start generating a profit in about 2.5 years, compared to Gold.

 

[BWMerlin]

At 2400W per day, the Platinum unit should start generating a profit in about 2.5 years, compared to Gold.

My current computer is about 6+ years old (Intel Core 2 Duo) so I tend to keep them for a while so that time frame for repayment is defiantly feasible for me.

 

[mfenn]

Ah well, Australia. Figures

At 2400W per day, the Platinum unit should start generating a profit in about 2.5 years, compared to Gold.

2400W per day? I don't think that's quite right. Here's the calculation:

2% efficiency difference at 100W average daily power consumption = 2W power difference

A system which draws 2W more power will use 2W-h more energy per hour.

2 W-h / 1000 = 0.002 kW-h per hour.

0.002 kW-h x 24 hours x 365 days = 17.52 kW-h per year.

$0.26/kW-h x 17.52 kW-h/year = $4.56 more per year.

Thus, it will take about 10 years before you turn a profit.

 

[lehtv]

2400W DC is the total power consumption of the PC per day, your calculations agree with this. But it does look like I should've done it more thoroughly