Freefaller

You can always get 2 more 4GB sticks later. It will help now, and RAM prices probably won’t go down for a while. Newegg does have occasional deals though. Not sure if it exists in Europe, but it’s great in California.

Then get 2 4GB sticks, it will double effective speed.

Use Der8auer’s Delid Die mate kit. It is safe, simple, easy, and effective. It’s a great tool. It is often out of stock though, so be alert.

You use liquid metal, not thermal paste under the lid, so I would recommend Coollabratory Liquid Ultra. Conductonaut has liquid metal too. It costs more than many thermal pastes (*Cough* IC Diamond *Cough*) but offers much better thermal conductivity. It can squirt out though, so be careful and take precautions when delidding. Make sure it stays on the die, and doesn’t get on the transistors around the CPU because t is electrically conductive. Also, apply a very small amount and spread it around so it is even, don’t just plop the lid back on. A little goes a long way! It should be a very thin layer than doesn’t have big globules in it. Later, once the lid is back on and you have put it in your motherboard, still apply thermal paste to increase thermal transfer between the lid and the cooling solution you will use. Hope it helps!

Also, lower CL is better, but still not very noticeable. Go with a slightly cheaper model that is maybe CL16 instead of CL14 or CL15, and spend the money elsewhere in the system.

There are many misconceptions here, first of which being that 3000MHz RAM cannot run on a motherboard/CPU that only supports 2666MHz. This is the official supported max for consumer Coffee Lake chips, but many people run all the way up to 4133MHz RAM on combinations somewhat similar to this. It technically isn’t supported, but a few clicks in your BIOS will bring it up to speed in an instant. However, the speed of memory also isn’t important when it comes to gaming and many everyday tasks. Only minor gains are noticed when using very heavy workloads (e.g. CAD software). I had 2x8GB sticks at 3000MHz on my previous SkyLake build, but 2400MHz will work just as well for you. Finally, get 2 sticks to add up to your total, 2x4GB or 2x8GB, because your CPU can take advantage of dual-channel memory which effective doubles your speed. I recommend G.Skill Ripjaws V at 2400MHz, get 16GBs if you can for improvements of other things in your system in the future. 16GB is also recommended for many intensive AAA titles, especially these new games announced at E3. Hope it helps!

Get the GTX 1070 Ti. It costs slightly more than the 1070, but has far better specs and is the best value in the Pascal lineup. The 1080 costs more than the 1070 Ti, but doesn’t offer the same amount of performance gain for money spent. Get the 1070 Ti and use remaining money on better peripherals or RAM or whatever you need. Hope it helps!

@Yok, the Asus Ac-68 is the best overall wireless WiFi adapter, and I have loved mine. It can receive over 1.3Gbps, leaving room for higher speeds if you ever upgrade, and has 3 antenna on a magnetic base that can be moved around and attached to metal objects (eg PC Case). It utilises beamforming technology to better recieve the signal and has quite low latency. It costs around $80, but is very adaptable, fast, and clean looking. It takes up one PCIe slot, and has a sleek red heatsink on it.

I have recently been looking at the maxed out Dell 15 Touch as a laptop to get, and I have been really impressed by an i9 six-core CPU, 4K Touch display, and 1050 Ti (not for gaming), not to mention it’s only 4lbs. I also noticed it comes with 32GBs of DDR4 2666MHz RAM, and I’m not sure what exactly that is for, in any system that isn’t an extreme enthusiast PC. Side Note: I would use the laptop for school (architecture, physics, and upper level maths courses), as well as for compiling code, rendering some 3D models and objects, and photo/video editing and rendering. Microsoft Suite applications will be commonly used, but they hardly require anything. Would this laptop be a good choice for me?

Also, hybrid coolers built into GPUs are often quite inadequate for cooling a whole graphics card, and often use 1 120mm or 140mm fan/rad. They are also quite overpriced, and certainly don’t yield much better temps than a good cooler, namely Asus Strix models and some EVGA 3-fan models. Go for air cooling, it will work fine.

Razer Ornata Chroma is perfect, having great receptive keys, good lighting, good price, and overall responsiveness. It’s the best keyboard for midrange, although the the higher end keyboards from Razer can be great too. Also, Deathadder Elite mouse is the best ever, definitely go for that.

A 1060 6GB offers great budget value, later you should upgrade to a 1070 Ti if you can. It may be overkill, depending on settings and resolution, but will be a great card for you. 1060 would be perfect in the meantime, and you can score deals quite often on Newegg.

I recently got my be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 and successfully inverted it, although I’m not sure what layout of fans and rad will be best. I have a total of 6 140mm Silent Wings 3 fans and an NZXT Kraken X62 280mm AIO for my CPU. I also have 3 fans built in to my Strix 1080 Ti that will blow air down (since it is inverted) on the GPU, and my PSU has a fan that blows down on it, at the bottom of course. Only one HDD bay is occupied, and I need to know what is an optimal layout. The front, top, back, bottom, and side can support fans, and you can always check the official product page to get more specs if necessary. Please give me some advice on what will work best in my layout, as there is not a lot of info on this particular setup.

Go with an i5 that has at least 4 cores, and overclockablility is only if you need a quicker CPU later in the lifecycle. The GPU will take up most of the money, and a decent CPU will handle any of those tasks fine. I recommend an Intel i5-8500, which is $200 on Newegg, although the i5-8400 is slightly slower while being $20 cheaper. It has 6 cores, which is plenty for your applications. An i5-8600K would be the highest I’d recommend, with higher clock speeds and OC potential. $180-200 leaves ample room for a GPU that can be paired fine with it. If you really need a strong GPU, an i3-8300 costs only $120 and runs at 3.6GHz Base (single core speed) on its 4 cores, and officially supports DDR4 RAM, which is also crucial for your applications. It depends on how good of a GPU you want.

That would be a good idea. 4K monitors are really all we need, and we aren’t able to maximise the in game graphics of those monitors. We also can’t hit 1440p at 240hz or 4K at 144hz despite monitors existing for them, albeit expensive and rare. The best thing we can do right now is bring new GPU architectures and technologies such as RTX (Real time raytracing) and more realistic movement and whatnot. The resolutions don’t need to move quicker than the graphics hardware, as that does no good.