jdunning wrote:Yeah, I haven't looked at CPU coolers yet. I have a Scythe Ninja in the old Solo, but I don't know if that height cooler is sufficient for the Haswell i7 CPUs.
I can tell you my i7 4770K can reach 75C on prime95 with the HR02 (1000rpm the cpu fan) and the case fans at 650rpm, no overclocking nor overvolting, so it does get hot, personally i dont like to go over 80C. I dont own the Ninja to tell you how it will go, test it first and see how it goes, but the HR02 macho does offer good value for the money, and while the fan is not the quietest, its pretty good in my experience, specially with a motherboard that can take it down to 600rpms on idle. But i also agree with CA_Steve, unless you know you will benefit from hyperthreading, in most cases the i7 4770K is not worth over the i5 4650K, at least on gaming, but if you doing encoding or video editing, depending on the software the 4770K might be worth, up to you, but its $100 saving.
jdunning wrote:I'll have a SSD for the OS and some apps, but probably one mechanical HDD for everything else. Perhaps I could get by with a 2TB 2.5" drive.
Here is up to you, i would probably just go with WD Green since its been the standard on SPCR for quiet drives for a long time, personally i dont need much storage on my gaming pc, for all the massive storage i do it on my server, but i do store localy stuff that i use on the constant basis or even move temporary movies. I havent tested the WD 2tb 2.5, but its really expensive for what it is, around $170, for that you could get a 4tb 3.5, so i woudlnt recommend the 2tb 2.5.
jdunning wrote:Can the R4 drive cage be rotated so the air flow is a bit better? It doesn't seem like it.
Yes, the top one can be rotated 90 degrees for direct airflow to the motherboard/gpu, but i would just remove the top one and keep the bottom one, as you only need 2, one for the ssd, one for the mechanical hdd, the bottom cage has 3 slots, so you still have a slot for expanding more storage in the future =), removing the top cage will give you much better ariflow, as long as you do add an extra fan. What i would do, this is if you want to buy the cpu cooler, is to get it from nanagaming,
Thermalright HR02 Macho $42.99 and click the add a TY147 for $12.00 (dont add the extra fan clip), use the TY147 for you back case fan, and move the included Fractal 140 to the front, depending on the motherboard you chose you might or not need the 4pin PWM splitter to control both fans, or just add an extra Fractal R2 140.
jdunning wrote:Entirely too lazy for that.
I'm hoping to get it right the first time.
Then i would go with R4, overall would make your life easier to work with it, the layout is pretty straight forward, very easy to do the cable management and it goes on sale a lot, check CA_Steve thread,
Fractal R4 @ Newegg for $80 (amazon also price matches once the sales goes on), usually goes at that price once a month, the last one just pass like two weeks ago, but i bet we will see it go down on November as well, been the tread on it for the last 4 months.
jdunning wrote:Thanks, I was leaning towards that based on your recommendation in other threads. I think this is the MSI N780 card at TigerDirect?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 7&csid=_61 It would be nice to grab it at the reduced price with the game bundle.
Yes it seems the same, but check the SKU to be sure, sometimes pictures are just pure marketing. I don't buy much on TigerDirect out of they charge me taxes always no matter the state i send it, i have ordered on the past from them articles that i couldn't get elsewhere like my fanless GTS450 sparkle, and i have no complaints aside from the taxes that were charge to me. But if like the deal that its there go for it.
Btw unless you are playing BF4, the GTX780 is an overkill for most games at 1080p, you could get away with with a GTX770 $330 or GTX760 $260 fine, recommended also the MSI gaming twin frozr versions of them, all were the quietest GPUs i saw reviewed, i leave you the three reviews of the three cards for you to decide whats worth for the games you play and to compare noise levels on each,
TechPowerUp MSI GTX 760 TwinFrozr Gaming 2 GB
TechPowerUp MSI GTX 770 TwinFrozr Gaming 2 GB
TechPowerUp MSI GTX 780 TwinFrozr Gaming 3 GB
What motherboard you had in mind?