I've delayed replacing my trusty e8400 system for a long time. It's been a great build, but I'm tired of dialing down game graphics (severely in some cases) for non-stuttery play. So, after a fair bit of tweaking, here's my planned build. Feel free to razz me as needed

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon)
- sweet spot for gaming. I plan to undervolt at std clock. A year or two down the road, I'll overclock @ std voltage (or a tiny bit above) to delay the next build.

CPU Cooler: Scythe SCMG-4000 79.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($47.95 @ NCIX US)
- Yay, Scythe is back in the US. I had considered the TRUE Spirit 120M (possibly with a replacement fan).

Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 Tri-Linear 2.7g Thermal Paste ($4.99 @ Newegg)
- I like non-electrically conductive pastes and have used Ceramique for a lot of builds.

Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($139.99 @ NCIX US)
- There's a lot of things I look for in a motherboard beyond the basic feature set. Some key areas:
- power efficiency: I don't want a board with zillions of VRM phases - it helps for overvolting, but impacts idle/low power efficiency. The g45 isn't the leader here, but it's decent.
- undervolting in UEFI: reading the manual, it looks like the G45 can set the CPU voltage offset to a negative value. Waiting for feedback. This is what moved me away from the Asrock Z87 Extreme4. The Extreme6 has it, the Extreme4 doesn't.
- UEFI fan control: In general, the fewer s/w add-ons I run, the better. So, decent UEFI fan control is key. I really wanted to try the Asrock Z87 Extreme4..
- NIC: I was hoping for Intel...unfortunately, the MSI Gaming boards come with the Killer NIC..which has a checkered past. MSI provides the option to just install the driver and not the netword mgmt s/w. So, if there's an issue, I can abort it.
- audio: Have you noticed Haswell's DPC latency is much worse than IVB? Another reason why I don't want to run extraneous s/w tools in the background. Seems like all of the mid-range and up boards have moved to the Realtek 1150. This board also comes with, yes, a s/w tool from Creative, that I really won't be installing.

Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.98 @ OutletPC)
- I'll either go for the low voltage 1600 or the std voltage 1833. Haven't made up my mind. There's a slight bump in performance at 1833. Might be useful when I OC. Funny that they are the same price. Funny that 1833 1.35V is hard to find, and that awesomely overclockable Samsung 1.35V RAM has become unavailable. I did look at the mobo's memory list and there are some 1.35V sticks listed.

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($159.99 @ Amazon)
- nice performance, decent price, given my typical write loads - will outlive me.

Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($98.95 @ Amazon)
- already bought.

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($249.99 @ NCIX US)
- I've talked about this card a lot. Great for my 1080p monitor. Also, I run two monitors, and AMD is still borked when it comes to clock management, two monitors, and idle/media play back power use.

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
- Hopefully, Newegg will rn their $80 + free shipping sale sooooon.

PSU:: Seasonic X-560
- I'll pull this from my Solo (curse you PSU brace one last time) and pop an older PSU into what will be my back-up/guest PC.

This will be a Win7 build, btw. I may wait for Win8.2

Like the build a lot, most of what you picked is what i would have recommended.

Im intrigued though, i though with the Latency of haswell boards you were going into ivy bridge. I also though you were going into ASUS for FanXpert2, although personally i like the MSI choice you made.

A small warning on MSI, while the bios PWM fan control is great, it will be limited in 12.5% intervals, so the lowest is 12.5%, then 25%, then 37.5%, 50%, 62.5%, 75%, 87.5% 100%, this tweakable both ways, in the lower end like the limit you put as the lowest the fan can idle, and the highest, so you can still restrict a 1500rpm fan to lets say 750rpm at 50% PWM, etc, so its very nice to tweak it to what you like, but you have a 12.5% intervals, thats the only downside i see from MSI, i would prefer a 5% intervals, but as it is im happy with it. Down the road if you feel like it, get some PWM fans for the case fans and a PWM fan splitter, the MSI will have two true PWM fan headers that should allow you to control two sets of fans separated, to me its really nice to ramp up the all my fans as the conditions change and not needing a fan controller nor a switch to adapt to what im doing or the conditions of the PC.

One thing watching the SPCR review on the Mugen 4,



The MSI will control the Scythe Glidestream as the lowest as 25% or 37.5% (can go lower but the fan goes green and cant be lower below that), the 25% should be close to 407rpm (interpolating from that chart), and the 37.5% would be around 611rpm. In here i would like the 25%, but the green is at 20% and white at 30%, so its in between, the fan should never stop as Scythe design it so i dont think you will have an issue on 25%, what does happen sometimes is that it reports as 0rpm for brief second as you are running it lower than what its the controllable range, still speculation on my part and i don't own the fan to say for sure, but i think either pwm % should work fine, up to you to test internally and see whats better for your setup.

MSI Z87-GD45 has great value and nice hardware, the user reviews on amazon/newegg place it imo as one of the best Z87 for value/performance, some warning though, Killer nics have been great for some and a nightmare for others, i was on nightmare side for a year with my laptops MSI G70 One, drivers were not stable, i lost connection a lot of times on different routers, and completely steady on others, until july 2013 (one year after my purchase) Qualcomm release very solid drivers for windows 7, and since that date i haven't had a single issue on multiple routers, and i travel a lot, so i tested tons of routers and switches on hotels, work, office and different branches, so i cant complain much, been great for the past 6 months. That said, i seen complains for windows 8 and 8.1, so in case you upgrade your OS down the road, just take that into account. I cant say much about my MSI Z87-GD65 as i never really used it, i placed an intel gigabit ct, and been rock steady, in case you run into issues, this is a great PCIe card to move on, and not that expensive.

I also cant say much about realtek 1150, i do know there were issues at the begging with my Asus Maximus VI GENE, but they released two drivers that got most of the issues fixed to what i know, the rest were issues of Asus. I did like the quality of sound though, not up to par to a dedicated sound card, but very well and no hiss that i could perceive, so overall i think its a pretty good on board as long as you dont get the issues that i had with my ASUS.

Good luck my friend, i really like your choices, really hopping to see it build up and specially your comments on it, more so into MSI N760 since we don't have SPCR review, you will be the closest we will get.

If I were a DAW builder, I'd be more concerned with the DPC latency - I just don't want it to pop/click my media audio. As the DAW guys have already figured out some of the tweaks, I'm sure I can do the same, if needed.

If I had built this system 3-4 months ago, I'd have gone with Asus. I like the component selection and they make solid boards and do a good job with driver updates. But, I'm intrigued by having UEFI controlled fans. <shrugs> I may well install MSI's s/w and give it a go, too.

I've considered getting a $50 Asus Xonar card, but want to give the Realtek solution a shot, first before I add another power vampire into my system (says the guy installing the 170W gfx card).

I may start ordering parts soon - to make use of some of the slight price drops. Build it on the bench to make sure stuff works...and then get the damn case when it's on sale. If I could handle a white R4, a local retailer is selling it for $70.

I like the white one, looks very well imo, its more a personal preference, but it never went on sale (only the window version when i bought mine), internally looks better imo as the clash of black and white looks very well, but some like white other dont so up to you, but at $70 seems a good offer.

Personally i also want to test an AsRock motherboard for the 1% increments, and the 5 seperate multiple ramps, also comes with dual intel nics, that to me warrants the price difference. If i were building today, the Extreme 6 is very close to the price of the GD65, so i would probably pic the AsRock, but the GD45 is $20 less, so up to you, but intel nics.... =)

I looked at the Extreme6...and while the Intel NIC and UEFI fan controls are great, it comes with 12 phase VRM and it's idle power is kinda high. It also scored the worst for DPC latency. Granted, there's been a few bios updates.

Btw Steve, wouldnt the i5 4760K + MSI Z87-GD45 would be cheaper combo going to microcenter? a side bonus you can check that its a C2, given that i doubt there is much C1 left... you never know.

My closest Microcenter is a 6-7 hour drive away. It's in the pcpartpicker list as a placeholder. Their e-purchase return policy is vague.

However, I'm going to brave Fry's on Monday and see what they'll price match. I expect I'll need a beer afterward.

Hi CA_Steve,

I have never been interested in over/under clocking and I cannot advise you properly unfortunately but if I rememeber correctly I think I saw a few terms like "negative voltage offset" in the UEFI after updating my Asrock B85m Pro4 with latest BIOS. Since they are earnestly updating their BIOS of recent motherboards, I recommend you contact Asrock for details, some of which might not be shown in their manuals.

Personally, I vote for Asrock, as I have always been!

*EDIT* I just rechecked UEFI and found a menu item "CPU Input Voltage" where there is a sub-menu "Offset Mode" among three of them, under which various offset voltages are listed, including negative values. If this means their far less popular model, B85m Pro4, has undervolting capability, I believe most of their Haswell motherboards are equipped with this function.

Thanks for the feedback. However,
- Asrock has failed to respond to me after a week.
- I came across some threads in other forums that lead me to believe this particular mobo needs a bios update b4 it can undervolt.
- I just returned from Fry's with an MSI mobo. (I buried the lead, there).

Fry's price matched what they had in stock - cpu, mobo, SSD. Time to order the rest.

Let the games begin..... now the craving time of waiting for all to arrive.

Good luck, hope nothing arrives doa.

Everything's ordered and fingers are crossed.

While paring down to a final mobo, I asked MSI support the following question:

Just got a response:


Heh. Doesn't answer the question.

The case showed up yesterday, so I put this thing together with the stock cooler to be sure all the stuff works. Yes, the stock cooler is noisy. There's a lot of empty space in this R4, but man, was it easy to work with. I need to do a bit of cable-fu and then run some stress tests for a baseline. My Mugen 4 is taking it's sweet time traveling from WA to CA. Between slow fulfillment time and UPS taking it on a tour of the midwest, it'll be 5 business days for this 2 day delivery. Not that impressed with NCIX (US).

As long as everything boots and no issues, the 5 days wait is a just the icing on the cake, glad you got some stuff to work with on this time, im also going to be rebuilding my download station soon, i just got disspointed into not being able to mount the nofan95, but for me its couple of weeks of waiting.

Just plugged in the ol' Kill-a-Watt. 40-41W idling vs 80W on my signature rig...and no 2nd monitor power hit like I had with the ATI card (100W idle). Time to play some games.

I'll start some tests tomorrow. Need to calibrate a temp monitor or two.

Signature change time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Btw glad all work out fine.

~200W playing Rift with high end of 1080p textures, etc. CPU wasn't taxed much at all.

How quiet is the MSI N760?

The Intel box cooler overwhelms everything else. Stay tuned.

Time for BBQ!

Besides being pretty loud, the box cooler also causes the CPU to go into thermal limiting with Prime95.

Seeing 95 to 100C on the cores and clock throttling to 3.1GHz. (This is after calibrating CoreTemp, RealTemp, and Speedfan and making sure the cooler has a good thermal interface with the IHS.) Idle temps of 5 to 8C over case ambient. Temps of 40 to 64C depending on the game.

Ran a temperature/power profile with Prime95, Furmark, Hulu, Netflix, and some games and then replaced the box cooler with the Mugen 4. Now, the case fans are the primary source of noise. Lowest setting in UEFI is 50% (800-860rpm). More on that later.

Will run the temp/power profile with the Mugen in place later today after a bit of curing.

BTW, this wireless meat thermometer has come in handy for measuring room, case ambient, and exhaust temps.

Damn, i wonder how would haswell do on the stock cooling (i never tried it), im already close to 80C with the HR22 under prime95 for an hour or so, so the temps you were getting seems with in what i expected. Im still considering the deliding the 4770K but at the same time under gaming i never even pass 60C, but im starting to do some encoding and rendering that its loading more the cpu.... decisions.

Interested on seeing how much the mugen lowers the temps for you, under prime95 but wait at least for the 800k test, thats like 35min in, this is the one that takes me high.

Why 50%? the Glidestream should be able to use the 37.5% or maybe even the 25%. Unless you are referring about the case fans overwhelming the noise to the point that the 800 on the mugen is still quieter than the case fans? Btw what voltage you running the Fractals 140s?

Going to start the temp testing in the next few min. In the meantime...

- Prime95: typically it's the small FFTs that load the heck out of the CPU. Early result is 55-60C from what I recall(did an hour of stress this am).

- ah, you misread...I was talking about the system fans being controlled in UEFI. The min is 50%.

The CPU fans can go to 12.5%. (currently set at 25% min. When I drain the swamp a little more, maybe I'll hear the Glidestream).

I usually only run blend test, kinda wanted to see the stability of the memory also at 1.35V, but at 800k is where the CPU really get high in this test, inside the hour, but my case fans are runnign extremly low, around 250rpm on idle and once the test starts they ramp to 400rpm and reaching the 800k the case fans ramp up to 650rpm, i have tested around 950rpm as the top limit, and work better, like 5C better straight on all cores, but i can notice the fans at those rpms, i find 650rpm to be a decent, its not dead silent, but very quiet still.

I find this interesting, as i never tested 3pin on CHA_FAN headers, all my fans are 4pin PWM fans running from the CPU_FAN1 and CPU_FAN2. Personally i didn't know it would undervolt them on bios on those headers, i did ran the Fractal 140 R2 case on my FanXpert2 setup to see, and in here 50% = 630rpms.



What RPMS you get on idle on 12.5%, 25% and 37.5% on the glidestream on CPU_FAN header?

Setting the Glidestream to less than 30% should make very little difference to fan speed or noise. Scythe have opted for a 'built-in' Silent PWM profile for this particular fan (or as it has been called a 'deadzone') as the numbers from the SPCR review show. Some users who were not expecting this complain that the fan does not spin up. A small number of PWM fan manufacturers do publish PWM fan profiles so that at least you can check in advance.

Speedfan says 456rpm @ 25% UEFI setting for the Glidestream. It's currently set for 25% @ 40C ramping to 100% @ 70C. I'll mess around with that more in a bit.

I see 58C on the hottest core (25C over case ambient) after 5Min with 12k FFTs. When I add Furmark, this goes to 66C after 15 min soak. WoW only raises it to 38C, Rift to 45C.

I'll re-run Prime95 with 800k FFT and see what I get.

After a 5 minute run:

800k FFT -> 25C over case ambient
8k FFT -> 33C over case ambient

I unplugged the case fans for you, Abula. The MSI GTX 760's fan has a minimum of 1000rpm. Doesn't matter what profile I set in Afterburner. So, it's quiet but not silent. (The Mugen's fan is idling at 460rpm).

As mentioned, the BIOS chassis fan control is 50% min. The R4's stock fans are the primary sound in the case at idle. Tried plugging the rear fan into CPU fan 2. No joy - max rpm. The mobo doesn't want to control a 2 pin fan. So, I plugged them into the fan controller. Loud at 12V. Audible at 7V. Quiet, but still the loudest component at 5V.

I may pull a Fan Mate out of my Solo and see what happens.

Eventually, I will have 2 front fans and one rear to promote positive pressure. I might go for a 140 PWM fan for the rear and tie it to the CPU and either come up a way to quiet these Fractal fans down or buy two Antec True Quiets.

Also, the WD Red 2TB is damn quiet. Can't hear it seek at all.

Glad your mechanical is very quiet, im really waiting for some 5tb reds for the server.

Thanks for the test, well im glad its very queit, hopping they continue the trend into next gen.

Interesting, personally i didnt find the included bad but not good either, just average, that said noctua fans above 650rpm that im using become noticeble, so at the end only gaining on very low rpms and idle situations, on load is still very quiet, but not silent.

As i posted the graph in the previous the case fans lowest is around 400rpms, where they are very quiet, but they wont drop from there, im guessing this is very close to 5V, idk if you going to gain much with the fanmate.

If you find a way to make it work with 3pins, meaning if you were to live fine with 50% restriction on CHA_FAN headers, i would go with Antec True Quiet, i can agree with lawarance review on the Noctuas in terms of not bieng the best tonally, that said they are very versitle fans because of its range, i run mine at 225rpm on idle and restrict them to 650rpms on load, higher than that to me its not worth the noise. That said, thinking on Antec True Quiet 140 that top at 700rpms (fractal is like 1000rpms), so in essence from what i saw on your post the 50% on the MSI mobo reflect 630rpms, interpolating, should be around 400rpm on the Antec using the same 50% on the bios (this is just theorycrafting... idk for sure but its my guess), this should be pretty decent specially since their sonic signature was the best of all fans tested, i think its a good range to work with form 400-700rpms, you could probably use the built in on the fan switches to lower them even more, so overall i think its a good bet (personally i didnt knew that MSI could undervolt on bios 3pin fans on CHA_FAN headers).

Now on PWM fans, Noctua NF-A14 PWM are imo very good but out of the range not the sonic signature, i feel they are kinda loud, still they are very good fans imo, no ticking no motor noise i could hear even at very low rpms, that said there are other contenders out there that might be better.

1) Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentPro PK-PS 140mm x 25mm Ultra Quiet PWM Fan - 400-1500 RPM - 4.2 ~ 29 dBA
For a long time i wanted to try this out, as i had very good experience with the Noiseblocker PK-1 700rpm 140mm fan, even before NF-A14 PWM were released. Noiseblocker design their PWM fans very weird though, at least 120mm PLPS can reach its minimum rated RPMS on exactly 0% pwm signal, there is no dead zone. Now the MSI on this gen you cant put 0% pwm (on ivy bridge MSI mobos you could), the minimum is 12.5%, so the least i would be able to idle them is around 488rpms, which isnt bad but i got lured into noctuas super low sub 300rpms, that said im probably going to buy one soon to test how it really works out.

2) Phanteks 140mm x 25mm UFB Bearing PWM Fan w/ Speed Adapter - Black Frame / White Blade (PH-F140XP-BK)
This fan intregues me, specially into how SPCR valued so well the first Phantek 140, this is not the same model though, but i think its the first true PWM fan from them, i believe the others were 3pin that used a voltage converter (don't take my word for it). On paper seems a little high for my liking, 600 - 1200rpms, but it comes like Noctua with an adapter, 300-900 rpm, this range seems pretty good for me, and besides black n white fan would look great on white 540, so this has my hopes up into building something that looks great, performs well and specially that its quiet, but to much unknown on this fan still, so im going to bring one to test as well to decide which fan will be on the next build.

Its up to you to what would be better, but i do think Antec True Quiet 140 seem like a good bet, already reviewed by SPCR and got really good comments, has a very good range of operation for someone seeking a quiet setup, they undervolt great according to the SPCR review, the question is weather you can live with the diminish cooling they will provide. And thinking that Amazon sometimes have them at $9.99 free shipping, you can buy all 3 fans for what a single noiseblcoker/noctua will cost, and in theory will sound better.

Btw where are the naked pics.... i want to see your build.

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm more likely to spend less when it comes to fans. Hence my interest in the True Quiets. I'll ponder on it a bit.

Pics: What? The wireless meat thermometer pic didn't satisfy your PC voyuerism?

I was waiting for the build to settle down b4 taking any pictures. I hate re-doing cable-fu.