I am looking to build a 3D gaming PC. I’d like to replace my entire system (PC, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse).
My question is would I have a more powerful PC if:
I bought less expensive ram/CPU/GPU and overclocked them with a single stage phase change system
OR
I just bought more expensive hardware with stock cooling?
To anyone who suggests the single stage option would you please list any vendors/individuals who sell them or link to a guide on building one if you have a favorite.
Thanks for any and all input. I appreciate it. Cheers!
The phase change opens up a lot of overclocking potential with certain processors and its effectiveness varies from platform to platform but overall you should reap marked performance over water/air systems.
The only concern with 24/7 phase or short game session phase cooling is the amount of humidity in your area and how well you guard against condensation with your motherboard prep work. In some cases its a careful & tedious process. But if you're up to it, its awesome sauce overclocking.
The other side of the coin is that current hardware offerings are, in my opinion, more than capable of handling today's gaming challenges at a modest hardware level. You can get great performance out of mid-range equipment on air. Thoughtful TIM placement, hardware installation and settings can put you in the zone, UNLESS, you live in Mogadeeshu (HOT).
I'm partial to sub-zero but my 24/7 gamer is all air, two generations old, and still pwning.
As far as vendors, I'm sure someone can point you in the right direction but I've not had the pleasure of picking up a new phase system since acquiring my cascade. That builder no longer builds phase systems afik.
Far as "stock" cooling, nope, invest in a good Air cooler and TIM, not those paltry stock coolers.
Those are my thoughts. BTW, I'm waiting on 2 of 3 Rog Swift 1444p 144mhz monitors to arrive along with a 3rd GTX6804gb card to run surround on. If everything performs well, that just goes to show that hardware is ahead of games atm.
__________________
What kind of community do you intend to re-build?
tell me your sins and I'll sharpen my knife...(Take me to church)
Wow. Thanks for the amazing response Kal-EL. Very helpful.
I've been on a week long binge of sorts looking into overclocking and had come to the same conclusion as your first two paragraphs. The rest of your post basically let me know the best bang for my buck (and way less work) is a more stock approach which is exactly what I was wondering. =D
As far as using the term "stock cooling" I half threw that in there because I thought it might be like nails on a chalkboard to OCers and wanted to test my theory lmao. ATM I'm thinking about a closed loop liquid cooler or a nice air cooler (something like this http://www.noctua.at/inc/imageviewer.php?item=68&pnr=2 (erm but not for $100 which is what newegg had that listed at O.o)) or maybe just going for a quiet system with low db fans.
I was not sure what you meant by TIM. 95% sure you meant Thermal Interface Material. http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=71658 should help me pick a decent compound haha. Anyway thanks again ^_^
I think phase is a mistake for a 24/7
As Kal states, moister is a problem, and a lot of planning and procedures must be met as not to put your hardware at risk
If you go phase, do yourself a favor and call Ron, he is one of the best in the game and can built to specific needs, you would probably go with a cased unit with a smaller condenser and compressor for gaming duties . 200 to 250 watt's of dissipation
Please let me know if I overlooked something: will have some kind of bottleneck, really skimped, went way overboard on some aspect, am missing some required obvious part (“er the motherboard?” lol), etc.
The Hero is not worth the money, Look to the z97 OC Fromula
Arguable the best board in the platform
The Reference GPU's will work, but weak nVidia reference power ultimantly
Look at the Classy's, Matrix or AMP cards
The eVGA G2 850 or 1K will work for power , if you plan on really pounding on it go 1K
you can back down to 8GB of RAM for gaming, I also would get off the 3K, look at some 2400 to 2600 two sided stuff, it will out preform the single sided dimm's
3D is cool, but doubt you will get your money's worth out of it, great monitor, but you may consider a 4K screen as well , not 3D, but 100% more pixels ?
the 540 by Corsair and the CM Glacier 240 are both worth a peek
acebook
$4k gaming rig… overclock or not?
. 
Linear Mode
