Recommended $6000-7000 4K gaming PC configuration?

I'll be getting a Dell UP3214Q 4K monitor for $2500, so that leaves about $5000 for the actual gaming PC. The Aventum II seems too expensive for that budget.

I've seen several 4K benchmarks with 780 Tis in SLI, just that I can't seem to find a benchmark of the EVGA Superclocked version in SLI, the stock 780 Ti with overclocking, with the most demanding games (Crysis 3) at maximum settings and 4x AA in 4K barely averages 30fps. And I've heard that i7 4770k is more suited for gaming as i7 4930k is more geared towards heavy photo/video editing and rendering, and is overkill.

Originally posted by Death Prodigy I'll be getting a Dell UP3214Q 4K monitor for $2500, so that leaves about $5000 for the actual gaming PC. The Aventum II seems too expensive for that budget.

Why that monitor? It has a fairly slow response time at 8ms. It also has really bad input lag. Here is a review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7906/dell-up3214q-review.

I would suggest you go with something that is more built for gaming. Like a ROG Swift, it is 27", supports G-Sync and has a 1ms response time. Heck for the list price you can buy three for less. ;-)

Here is a very solid ~$4k build: https://www.digitalstormonline.com/configurator.asp?id=955033

Edited by danjw1 - 24 Apr 2014 at 10:40am

Is 3-way SLI GTX 780 Ti EVGA SC worth it above 2-way EVGA SC GTX 780 Ti?

Hey Death Prodigy. There are a couple of things to note, regardless of 4k, 1600p, 1440p, and so on. The GTX 780, GTX Titan,, GTX 780 ti, GTX Titan Black, and the upcoming GTX Titan Z are all capable of running 4k. Next, depending on the game, going @ 30fps will run great. Other games do require more, but you can't put all of that on your graphics.

Sometimes, it's not even more GPU's you need. You need to look at GPU memory. Do you have enough to run those games at 4k without maxing it out. Some games are more CPU dependent than GPU dependent. World of Warcraft for example, will show more benefit from a nicer cpu, than a stronger gpu.

If you want to get truly technical, you start seeing minimal improvement in the majority of games between an i5 and an i7.

Personal recommendation would say save your money and wait for ASUS to release it's 28" 4k monitor for $799. Then use that money you saved on the monitor to buy either a couple of GTX Titan Blacks with their 6gb of memory, or wait for the supposedly EVGA GTX 780ti that will have 6GB of ram. You'll be saving $1800 on the monitor, so you figure upgrade to the titan blacks for another $600 (total for the pair), leaves you with $1200 maybe 2x 256gb Samsung 840 PRO SSD's in raid 0 for your primary and a nice 4TB Western Digital Black.. a little ram and a bigger PSU.

You're losing like maybe 1" of noticeable viewable surface on the monitor, and saving a lot of money while maintaining the same resolution. Plus, the 28" won't be a "dual monitor" set-up like the majority of the 31" monitors are. Which means better performance for you, since you're interested in Anti-aliasing.

Originally posted by bprat22 Just to reinforce what Meller said about vram, here's another bench Nav did that shows the importance of vram. The 3 GB vram does get stretched in 4k screens. http://www.digitalstormonline.com/forums/video-memory-usage-at-4k-uhd-resolutions-tidf21855/ 3gb vram works but in this case, more works better.

I strongly believe that as 4k picks up in popularity, and more and more developers start supporting it, the requirements of vram will in crease. While 3GB may get you by for now, it won't forever.

And don't think just because you have 2x GPUs, each with 3GB you have 6GB. Same goes for dual gpu cards, like the GTX 690, 7990, or the GTX Titan Z. If a dual gpu card said it has say 6GB of vram. Each chip still only has 3GB.

Far too many. Hopefully thanks to places like this forum, among other techie review sites, people now a days won't be surrounded with deep parts, and equally as deep of ignorance.

It's crazy to realize how over the past couple of years, thanks to places like youtube and facebook, how popular tech review sites have become. And how those review sites are doing a great job at informing and teaching people. As corny and cheesy as it sounds, especially given that I'm only 27... We didn't have huge names like Tiny Tim and Linus 10+ years ago to help teach us.

Oh, I'm buying the new Asus 28" 4k monitor as soon as it's released. 4k will be great. I'm extremely excited about it.

For 4K, I would recommend SLI Titan Blacks or the new R9 295X2. Althought you still can't run 4X AA, at 2X you can still enjoy an amazing experience with 60FPS on most games.

Here are my benchmarks for the AMD R9 295X2.

Yeap. In addition, because the 28" is even more dense, AA might not even be necessary.

Originally posted by Counsel Originally posted by Nav Yeap. In addition, because the 28" is even more dense, AA might not even be necessary. I've been very curious about this since Anandtech and Tom's Hardware posted their 4K gaming pieces last year. Given that the goal of anti-aliasing is to mitigate the abrupt transition between pixels, and the goal of 4K is to make the individual pixels too small to see, is there any distinguishable difference between AA on and AA off at "retina" level pixel densities? I haven't seen any articles on the topic, perhaps because it's difficult to develop an objective way to test.

Looks like I need to investigate!

Originally posted by Death Prodigy Is an i7 4820k worth it over an i7 4930k? I will not be doing much graphics or video editing and rendering work, mainly gaming at 4K as stated above.

I'm guessing you mean the 4930K over the 4820K? At the current state of gaming, you won't notice a difference. However, it is hard to tell if in the future more games will support more than 8 threads.

In the current direction AAA titles are heading, I think that by Q4 more games will start to utilize multiple threads. BF4 already takes advantage of multiple threads.

EDIT: I also wanted to point out that DirectX 12 aims to lower the CPU overhead, so that might change things completely. It's hard to really say at this time.

Edited by Nav - 26 Apr 2014 at 1:51am

I figured an i7 4820k using the LGA2011 socket would be better for 3-way SLI setups (changed my mind now)due to 40 PCIe slots for huge amounts of bandwidth so that there won't be any bottlenecks compared to the 16 PCIe slots on LGA1150.

The 4770K definitely does give better FPS over a 4820K and sometimes the 4930K in pure gaming performance. Like you said, if this rig is just for gaming then the 4770K might be a better option for your needs.

They won't get you faster FPS, just different features between boards. If you're spending quite a large sum of money, go with the Black Edition due to it having more features for overclocking for example.

Also, is the Hailstorm II case a re-branded Corsair 900D? And will the i7 4930K run stably with 1.3V+ with cool temps at 4.8GHz with Sabertooth X79 motherboard and HydroLux Stage 1 CPU Only Liquid Cooling System? Rampage IV Black seems overkill in this aspect since it doesn't improve fps, but the ROG features seem real cool.