Buying a new desktop + laptop.

So, I have decided to keep my Alienware laptop and just spend a moderate budget on a new desktop. Here's my build thus far. It's subject to small tweaks before I buy in about a week or 2:

Intel® Core™ i5-4690K 3.5 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150 (All Venom OC Certified)
Asetek 550LC 120mm Liquid Cooling CPU Cooler - Extreme Cooling Performance (All Venom OC Certified)
GIGABYTE Z97X-SLI ATX w/ Intel GbLAN, 2 PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x1, 2 PCI, 1 x M.2, 1 x SATA Express, or 6x SATA 6Gb/s (Extreme OC Certified)
8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/2133MHz Dual Channel Memory
EVGA Superclocked ACX 2.0 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 (Maxwell)
600 Watts - Standard 80 Plus Certified Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready
120GB Kingston SSDNow V300 Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 450MB/s Read and 450MB/s
1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive
GIGABYTE GC-WB867D-I 802.11AC Wi-Fi up to 867 Mbps + Bluetooth 4.0 Combo w/ Dual Antenna PCI-E Adapter
HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
AZZA Delta Gaming Keyboard w/ Anti-Ghosting & red backlight
AZZA Optical 1600dpi Gaming Mouse with Weight Adjustable Cartridge
Windows 8.1

Thoughts/comments/suggestions/poems/sonnets/other things…

My main question would be whether you're going to get into the kind of overclocking that requires water cooling, and if it's really worth it.

I may overclock a little, but the water cooling comes pretty much standard with the desktop, so might as well get it...right?

Why not sell the alienware?
If I had it, I'd sell it.

GPU you're after has 4Gb VRAM. Means no ultra in Shadow of Mordor as it requires 6Gb.
While I couldn't care less for that game generally, and even less than that for it's ultra setting, you sure you can live without it?

For CPU overclocking I have i5 4670K not overclocked in my rig. Believe me when I say this - there is absolutely no need to overclock it at all. I have yet to see a game that will cause it to choke, stutter or freeze. And you're buying better than mine. I did buy it with plans to OC if needed, but so far, it wasn't needed. Maybe will be… When PS6 gets made.

Thanks for the words, joxer!

The overclocking upgrade is free, so like the water cooling, I might as well just get it, right? Also, 4 GB VRAM should be plenty for me right now, and honestly, it's all I can afford! I'd love a 980m but that takes me over budget, so I have to cut back a bit.

Why not sell the Alienware? It's going to be my client laptop. That means, I will stream some games sometimes from the desktop to the Alienware. It also means that I can use the Alienware around the house or whatever and still have a powerhouse gaming rig.

And believe me when I tell you, this Alienware laptop is the nicest electronic device I've ever owned. It's a beast. I can't wait to be seeing that beautiful screen again.

Is this from Cyberpower, The mega special 2 with a 970 and 128 GB SSD, 2TB HHD upgrades.

It looks fine, it doesn't look like they overclock unless you pay for it the just say the parts are venom OC Certified. Which I guess just means it's a k series proc and a MB chipset that supports overclocking?

saki, It is indeed from Cyberpower.

The parts are Venom OC Certified, and not overclocked by Cyberpower. However, they simply support overclocking, at least that's my understanding. So, if I want to overclock in the future, I will have hardware that is capable of supporting it.

As I said, these are free upgrades, so might as well go for it. I'm sure I would tinker a bit with overclocking the 970, too.

Fluent said:

saki, It is indeed from Cyberpower.

The parts are Venom OC Certified, and not overclocked by Cyberpower. However, they simply support overclocking, at least that's my understanding. So, if I want to overclock in the future, I will have hardware that is capable of supporting it.

As I said, these are free upgrades, so might as well go for it. I'm sure I would tinker a bit with overclocking the 970, too.

Click to expand...

There not free upgrade as you would save $20 by getting the non-k i5 and i'm sure you'd save a few bucks getting The H97 MB (doesn't support OC) instead of a Z97 MB.

Venom OC is just marketing speak. Anyone that buys any z97 MB or k-series proc can OC or is "Venom OC certified".

I would not recommend saving the $20 though as if you ever decide to OC, it's nice to have the option, is fairly simply and can net you 15-20% usually on the low end.

I have a 3770k 3.5 Ghz that I OC to 5Ghz on a custom water loop. I had to delid it, replace the TIM and supply it with some hefty voltage but it's rock solid 24/7 for years. OC'ing is a hobby of mine and you shouldn't expect these kinds of results. It can be fun to tinker with and can actually become quite the obsession running benchmark after benchmark. If you do plan on doing it though do your research and do it safely or at least know the consequences if you don't.

TBH though OC'ing is starting to become a thing of the past, sadly. It's just not needed these days.

sakichop said:

. It can be fun to tinker with and can actually become quite the obsession running benchmark after benchmark. If you do plan on doing it though do your research and do it safely or at least know the consequences if you don't.

TBH though OC'ing is starting to become a thing of the past, sadly. It's just not needed these days.

Click to expand...

So, so true. I can remember years ago me and 3 buddy's were completely obsessed by this.

I went through a hard core OC phase many years ago also. It was a lot of fun.

I don't think I would be that heavy into OC'ing. My only thoughts on the matter are possibly using a software program to OC the 970 a bit. I've had some moderate success overclocking the 7970m in my Alienware, and I have noticed a bit of improvement in framerate for some games. Should be fun.

Slight tweak I made. I'm thinking about getting this CPU instead, in order to have a few dollars to spend on a better soundcard. Why? I need a soundcard for music making that I do, so it would be nice to have something at least a little better than onboard audio.

CPU - Intel® Core™ i5-4590 3.30 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150
Soundcard - ASUS Xonar DGX 5.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCIe Sound Card

Also will possibly improve the sound quality as I use the soundcard with my surround sound stereo system.

If your going to a receiver as I do, why not just run optical out from the MB or Hdmi from the video card and let the receiver do the work?

Unless you want to run analog 5.1 to your receiver. I run analog 7.1 to my reciever as I think it sounds best in games and give the best positional audio. That's why I still have my creative card.

I could run optical out, which is what I'm doing now with my laptop, but wouldn't a 'better' soundcard be, well, better? More features, etc.?

The Soundblaster card I have on my laptop is quite nice. Has some good features and a software program I actually use.

Would you say optical out from an onboard card would be just as good as the card I posted? If so, I will reconsider.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, saki. Helps me figure things out before I take the plunge.

It depends on how good your reciever is and how you have it set up.

If you have your sound card doing the decoding and then sending it to your reciever direct ( having the reciever send the signal to the speakers with out it decoding at all) then your soundcard matters.

If however you just send the signal to your reciever then it will decode it and send it to the speaker then your soundcard doesn't matter.

This is how I understand it anyway, I'm not a sound guru, just going by my experience. if anyone else is more knowledgeable please chime in but as far as I know it works as I stated above.

Why are you not going with the first process you were looking at? I think there is only a $250.00 difference.

If you are looking to save some money look into buying a system here in Canada as the exchange rate is insane right now. You would be making between 0.25 to 0.30 cents on the dollar.

There are lots of places up here you can price one out online have shipped there.

$250 difference is too much. I'm on a strict budget, and I have to stay within it. Since I'm not selling my Alienware now, it's tight.

I checked out some Canadian sites. Cyberpower actually beats all their prices from what I've seen. I will keep looking, though.

Not sure if this company ships to the US or not...

http://www.gamingpc.ca/

But if a system is 3000.00 Canadian it would cost you about $2200.00 US.

Fluent said:

I may overclock a little, but the water cooling comes pretty much standard with the desktop, so might as well get it…right?

Click to expand...

Oh, right. When when you listed all the components like that, I thought you were building your own, in which case I wouldn't bother with water cooling.

With regards to the sound card, there's a couple of things. The sound chips, along with the network interfaces that are integrated in motherboards are usually quite poor and low-performance. But, I know that many audio pros don't like dedicated internal sound cards at all, because they are subject to electrical interference inside the case. They prefer to pass the audio data to their external DAC, or to a USB soundcard if they want more sound processing options.

Just for the record - I ordered a tower from CyberPower once. I had to rebuild it. They shipped it with all the "extras" in the case loose which dislodged my vid card and broke a few things. They literally threw in the LED's and didn't bother hooking them up. They have zero integrity really and forget customer services post sales. I did get a cheap laptop bag I used for a 6 months so it wasn't all bad LOL.

Hmm. I will keep that in mind. For my budget, Cyberpower has the best prices and bang for the buck, so that's why I'd like to go with them. Of course, I don't want all my components thrown into the case, LOL. So we'll see. Maybe that was a freak experience and they mostly do good things there.