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[taksdd]

Hi,
I am planning a new build and wanted to ask for opinions. (I will be waiting until Feb,2015 with hope that GTX 980 Ti will be released)
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: *Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Storage:Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card
Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G2 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Monitor: Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0" Monitor[/url]
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter
Case Fan:Corsair Air Series AF120 Performance Edition (2-Pack) 63.5 CFM 120mm Fans
Case Fan: Corsair CO-9050014-WW 62.7 CFM 120mm Fan
Other: Corsair Gaming CGK70 Red LED Backlight Keyboard Cherry MX Brown Switches - Black
Other: Silverstone LED Light Strips - Red
Other: Silverstone LED Light Strips - Red
Other: Asus Strix 7.1

Thanks

[Nate152]

Hello taksdd

This all looks good to me, you could go with 2400MHz ram. I would choose this kit, not only is it one of the best kits on the market it will match your color scheme.


http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-2400c10d-16gtx


http://www.amazon.com/G-Skill-PC3-19200-TridentX-10-12-12-31-F3-2400C10D-16GTX/dp/B0080FFZ8E/ref=sr_...

[taksdd]

Hi,
Out of curiosity some people said that I should go into DDR4 (swap cpu for 5820k or something and go with X99 mb).. but again opinions are mixed. What do you think about it?

Damian

[Nate152]

If you're just gaming I would stick with what you have. Price to performance you won't notice much of a difference if any at all. The only reason to go with x99 is if you use your pc for work and have programs that can use more than 32GB of RAM.

Granted the x99 platform supports 6 and 8 core cpu's so you will get a little more life out of it before it's time to upgrade.

[Skunk]

Intel pretty much guarantees enterprise customers the sockets are good for 3 generations of processors. This way they know they can upgrade the CPUs in the future without needing to change out the motherboard. The X99 boards came out with the new 2011-3 sockets, so the should be good for Broadwell-E and Skylake-E. However, the I/O from the chipset will probably be getting rather stale by that point and if the rumors of PCI-e 4.0 on Skylake-E are true, even though the differential pairs (electrical connectivity) are the same, I would have concerns about the signal integrity (PCI-SIG pretty much only has the option to double up signaling frequency to 16GHz to get double the speed of PCI-e 3.0) of the current motherboards to be able to support it.

Edit: Correct fat finger

[taksdd]

I will stick to DDR3 ...

A follow up question. So im still confused with 2400mhz ram and i7 4790k CPU.
Apparently I only need to go to bios and set XMP and it will all work?

Some people state that this is unstable/safe(?)
Some people say it will significantly increase CPU temps (?)
It will decrease CPU lifespan (?)
It will void CPU warranty (?)

Sorry, thanks

[Nate152]

X.M.P. profile is perfectly safe to use and sets your ram speed, timings and voltage automatically by just changing the ai overclock tuner to X.M.P. The only reason it would be unstable is if the imc on your cpu is weak but should have no trouble running 2400MHz. You can set your ram manually too which is what I prefer.

What increases the cpu temp a little is raising the system agent voltage which you may need to do to achieve stability if you have a weak imc.

Using X.M.P. profile will not void your cpu warranty.

[taksdd]

Thank you, Could you tell me what is this IMC and what does it mean that it can be weak? Is there a way to check that as well?

[Skunk]

Integrated Memory Controller

There can also be issues if the traces on the motherboard cannot handle the signaling rate going between the memory and processor. This is why ASUS developed T-topology for when multiple memory DIMMs are used in a memory channel; so if you use 4 DIMMs on your 4790K, it has two memory channels from the integrated memory controller on the processor and the arrangement (topology) on the motherboard is with two per channel. Signal integrity issues between the processor and memory were more of an issue back with X58 and earlier generations for DDR3, but there seems to be a little bit of an issue for DDR4, too, with the lower voltages and higher speeds.

[taksdd]

Do you know if its common to get weak IMC for 4790k + 2400mhz ram? 🙂 I am a bit scared now.