Gaming PC build

[meaty-btz]

That is a very misleading statement. While GPU's do handle a great deal of the workload they are still highly constrained by the CPU. All those draw calls and such are still sent thought to the OS and drivers and as such are routed via the CPU. And as the current gen of DirectX stills sends the lions share of calls though only one thread on one core, it comes down to raw horsepower at that point. Check you system diag while gaming and you will see that one core is doing most of the work. That is all those OS level system calls.

True some games are less constrained by this then other still saying that it's not cpu intensive is hardly true.

And I'm not just talking out my *** on this. I'm the C.O.O. for video game dev house. AND I just walked over and talked to my CTO to make sure I was not putting my foot in my mouth :-)

He did mention that DirectX 12 will fix a good deal of those issues BUT we will believe it when we sees it.

Also we upgraded our dev systems in '13. Here is what we built.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VzWj23

We raided the SSD's and then loaded Chameleon boot loader for a Hackintosh load out. You can boot the system into OSX or Win. From OSX you can load Parallels and get into Win or Linux. Great for side by side testing.

However these cases are a major pain and I hate them. Also the OCZ SSD's are MAJOR crap. We have had almost half of them die! They have caused me a world of pain! I replaced them with Samsung and have not had one issue.

It isn't just Direct X that is the problem. GL offers similar issues both under Microsoft OS platforms and Mac and Linux Platforms. The single thread methodology that is.

As for SSDs I agree with you, OCZ is crap. We use SSDs for SANS and the like. Samsung and Intel were the best performing and longest life. They also cost a pretty penny. I will expand your SSD commentary by saying, not all SSDs are equal, even within a brand. There are good chips and there are cheap chips. There are good fast chips and there are cheap fast chips. Finding a GOOD drive can be a challenge as both intel and samsung use cheap fast chips on cheap fast consumer drives. As with all things there are tiers to products. You want the GOOD Fast Chips, and that will cost you, but it will have the highest reliability and lifespan.

[redrex]

As for SSDs I agree with you, OCZ is crap. We use SSDs for SANS and the like. Samsung and Intel were the best performing and longest life. They also cost a pretty penny.

[meaty-btz]

Nope. The SSDs were for Tier 1 storage on the SAN, somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 Tb in the Raid Array, the Tier 2 storage were high end SAS drives.

However, on average we would lose about 2 SSDs a year. Chip failure rather then really hitting the R/W wall. Before we switched to better quality SSDs we would lose about 6-8 a year. Tier 1 Storage gets used.. A LOT. In your lifetime you are unlikely to hit the R/W limit of an SSD. More than likely you will suffer a chip failure due to a defect rather than wear them out using one disk for your entire lifetime.

[The Geologist]

Zalman's a great choice for a case... Lots of features...
The Swappable HDD slots are great.

Also Good choices in your component mix.


Noble

Thanks

[yellowsulphur]

I just learned the the Nvidia GTX 970 is quite a bit larger than the GTX 670 was and won't fit my current case. Just a heads up to make sure the video card you choose will fit in your case. This is what I'm running now. Excellent cooling

[blazeaglory]

Check this one out? What you guys think? Super budget but its got the good AMD 8 core CPU and a good GPU

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rJ3kzy

Since your saving with the mail in rebates, get a better MOBO

[Wallabing]

i5 4670k
R9 290

All you need to play any pc game at max.