My new i7-6700K / AMP! Extreme 980 Ti build

[Hakiroto]

Hi, everyone,

 

This past weekend I built a completely new gaming system. I've been out of PC gaming for a long time and the last gaming PC I had was ~10 years ago. I decided it was time to make things right and build a new system. Here are the parts (lifted straight from my PCPartPicker list):

• CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i GTX 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
• Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VIII HERO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
• Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
• Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP! Extreme Video Card
• Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (White) ATX Mid Tower Case
• Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

The build went smoothly and everything (luckily) just worked when I first turned it on. I've not used Windows for a long time but Windows 10 seemed nice and easy to set up. The only issue was that I don't have an optical drive so once Windows was installed I had to find all the drivers on my MacBook and put them on a USB. 20 minutes later I was done and it was doing some Windows updates.

 

Build decisions

 

As you can see from the pictures, I went for a front-mounted radiator with the two stock Corsair 140mm fans as intake. They're not particularly quiet but they're fine for now. As much as I'd like to buy even better fans I can wait as I've just bought all of this. I'm running a single 500GB SSD on the panel behind the motherboard and have no intention of 3.5" drives so I removed all cages and the optical drive bays. I thought about going with a top-mounted radiator but I figured I'd try it on the front first and try to retain some of that silence that the R5 offers.

 

Overclocking

 

I haven't done anything to the GPU but I've overclocked the CPU to 4.6GHz. I first enabled XMP so that I could run my RAM at its 3000MHz and then I changed the CPU multiplier to 46. The stock voltage was 1.294 and as I was following a LTT 6700K Overclocking video I followed his instructions and increased the voltage to 1.325. Everything booted fine and I ran ROG RealBench for a few hours. During the stress testing the CPU – according to HWMonitor – didn't go higher than 71ºC and it was sitting at around 68ºC most of the time. I figured I'd try to lower the voltage a little and see if I could shave a few degrees off. As the stock was 1.294 I went with 1.300 (which is quite a bit lower than the previous 1.325). Everything booted fine and I did some more testing with ROG RealBench. The maximum CPU (package) temperature shown by HWMonitor this time was 70ºC but it was sitting at around 65ºC most of the time. I decided to stick with that. I guess I could push it further as these seem like good temperatures but I wanted to try some games! Is HWMonitor accurate and something I can trust?

 

Benchmarks

 

I ran 3DMark and got a Fire Strike score of 17323 (link here). As I said, I've been out of PC gaming for a very long time so I had no idea what to expect. The Fire Strike score seems to be really good but I've no idea about Valley. Any feedback?

 

Summary

 

I love this computer and it's great to be back playing games on a PC again. If anyone has any feedback, questions, or suggestions (these are very welcome!) then fire away! I only came across this forum a month or two ago but it's been incredibly helpful when deciding what parts to get, etc.

[Altecice]

Lovely build mate  B)

[ChaseB]

I could FAP to this. Damn son. This is nice.

[Killervolt]

Veeeeery nice!

[MegaDave91]

We need a completed build picture!

[Hakiroto]

We need a completed build picture!

 

Ahh! How did I forget that?! Coming right up...

 

Edit: I had 12 and the uploader only lets you do 10 at once. 2 were forgotten but I've added them. Thanks for telling me!

[MegaDave91]

Ahh! How did I forget that?! Coming right up...

 

Edit: I had 12 and the uploader only lets you do 10 at once. 2 were forgotten but I've added them. Thanks for telling me!

Looks great! Your H110i GTX's rad being installed in the front has me curious of the temperatures of your 980ti.

[Hakiroto]

Looks great! Your H110i GTX's rad being installed in the front has me curious of the temperatures of your 980ti.

 

I've been playing GTA V (maxed out) for the past 30 minutes. I just tabbed out and HWMonitor says the max temp my GPU has hit is 67ºC. I cleared the min/max values before launching. This video from JayZTwoCents is about front-mounted radiators and it's pretty interesting.

[Hakiroto]

Is HWMonitor a good source of temperature information? I imagine it reads from the same places the motherboard software does but I figured I'd ask anyway.