Skylake i7 build

Caeradwyn · September 30, 2015

It's that time again, when the old system is just that... old. About time to replace it with something newer and flasher.

I've looked at going either X99 and 5820K or Z170 and 6700K, and in the end, the more recent tech won out.

Seeing as I've always wanted a custom water cooling setup, but never felt I could justify the costs, I've decided this time around to treat myself.

I'll be building this system with both performance and looks in mind.

The parts I have settled on are:

Intel Core i7 6700K

MSI Z170 Xpower Gaming Titanium Edition

2 x 8GB HyperX Savage DDR4 3000MHz

512GB Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD

I'm going to keep my almost brand new Sapphire Tri-X Radeon R9 Fury, which I've unlocked to 3840 stream processors, but I'll be mounting an EKWB full cover water block and black backplate to it.

The system will be housed in a white Define R5 with windowed side panel. The CPU will also be getting an EKWB block, a Supremacy EVO, and the two water blocks will be kept cool by a front mounted 60mm thick 280mm rad and a top mounted 38mm thick 360mm rad. Hopefully I won't run into any clearance issues.

Most of the hardware I'll be needing has been ordered, but currently the CPU isn't in stick at my usual store, so they'll not ship anything out until that comes back in (should be within a couple of days now).

I'm going to add some mass storage to this system as well, but I haven't decided on the exact setup yet. I'm expecting to land on a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO + 2TB WD Green 2.5" laptop drive, simply for file storage.

This way I won't need any of the drive cages, and I'll have more room for the water cooling. I'm going to do ridig tubing, PETG because of it being easier to work with, and I'm intending to go with Mayhems Pastel coolant. I've not made my mind up as to which colour to get, but I'm leaning towards pink or lilac, although turquoise might be nice as well.

Oh, I should perhaps also mention that I do intend to keep my Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD, rathern than just using the onboard sound. There's nothing wrong with onboard sound per se, but discreet sound devices tend to have higher quality DACs and more options, including better ASIO support for music related software.

I'll update this thread as parts start arriving, and I'll leave you with only two "beauty shots" for now.

$fractal-design-r5.jpg?w=600&h=338$

Caeradwyn · September 30, 2015

Oh, don't mind the old hardware to the right of the case. That's all the parts for my Lakka console PC build. It's just sitting there while I get hold of an old Xbox to put it into.

Caeradwyn · October 1, 2015

Seeing as I don't want the colour of the original power LED that comes with this case, I've bought some replacements.

Colour is a very subjective thing of course, but for my build, I think the new LED will be much more fitting.

Caeradwyn · October 3, 2015

Yay! My water cooling equipment arrived today. This means I can trial mount my radiators and start figuring out how to do some of the tubing. Finally feels like I can make some progress. It's frustrating when parts are in back order, preventing you from doing anything.