First and foremost I want  to thank all the contributors to the forum, including to the recent threads I initiated, it's an awfully usefull reading  . After some considerations, this is the way I intent to go, mostly high end but I hate changing my stuff every so often :wink: .

 

i7-4770K

ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 : I understand now that beyond a certain price level, all MB are good enough . I'll go Asus because I found  some good sources of infos  to set  them up and o/c and the Sabertooth looks like mainstream.

G.Skill Trident X Series 8 Go (2 x 4 Go) DDR3 2400 MHz CL9

ASUS GTX780-DC2OC-3GD5 - GeForce GTX 780 3 Go

Archon SB-E X2

WD VelociRaptor Desktop 1 To 64 Mo SATA 6Gb/s for Windows 7 and "other" programs (wargames, RPGs,  DCS sim etc.) 

Corsair Force Series GS 180 Go dedicated toFSW and addons (mostly aircraft, OPUS and OrbX sceneries)

Seasonic P-860 Platinum 80PLUS Platinum

Logitech Wireless Desktop MK330 mouse and keyboard wireless combo

 

Anything blatantly  wrong ? Should I go liquid for instance ?

I would suggest you increase your ram to 16 gig. I will get go into the debate about FSX and ram use. However, there is some data to support the benefits of more than 8 gig of ram due to reduced access to the harddrive/SSD. Besides the cost difference between 8 and 16 relative to the total cost of your planned system is minor.

 

As for going to a liquid cooler process, I use liquid and prefer it over air. I believe I have more overhead with a liquid cooler.

 

Regards,

 

Danny

Thanks Danny

 

About the 16 Gb, that's my inclination too but and I heard that 4 sticks are more difficult to overclock than 2 and I could not find 2*8 Gb with good timings. Have to think over that though.

 

About liquid cooling, I heard that it could be noisier than air and I am not relishing the prospect of a noisy rig (except for the aircraft  engines, that is :smile: )

Understand the overclocking issue with 4 vs 2 sticks on the memory. I don't overclock my memory, I haven't seen that much "actual" benefit in the sim from overclocked memory. Significant benefit from overclocked CPU (at least 4.5 ghz).

 

The only source of noise you will have over the air cooler is the liquid pump. Honestly, my experience has been the liquid cooler is just as quite as the air cooler if not more so because of the lower temperatures thus lower fan speeds. The cooling fans are the major source of noise. At least that has been my experience.

 

Good Luck on your build.

 

Regards,

 

Danny

Regarding cooling, I've built rigs with both liquid and air cooling and I'm currently on air. There are many performance comparisons out there so you need not take my word for it. Air coolers like the Noctua and CM Hyper 212 EVO ($30 by the way) are on par with budget closed loop water coolers like the Corsair Hydro H60/80 series, for example. Custom built open loop and high end closed loop water coolers that cool not just the CPU, but GPU as well are best. However, Such configurations can run into the hundreds of $$$ and are usually total overkill for a moderate overclock. 2 RAM sticks with the highest Mhz and lowest CL value available will aid in overclocking. Many MOBO's have a default value of 1600 Mhz and, in the case of an ASUS MOBO requires an onboard XMP to be set correctly to run at a higher Frequency. Good luck and regards.