[Advice Needed] Long Lasting Skylake Build.

[foreign-]

Hello,

 

Here is my current part list:

 

 

Spoiler

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£293.00)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£26.99)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£174.20)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£88.32)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For £124.99)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£64.99)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card  (£599.98)
Case: Fractal Design Define S w/Window ATX Mid Tower Case  (£70.00)
Power Supply: Cooler Master 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£0.00)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter  (£26.38)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Quiet Edition 67.8 CFM 140mm  Fan  (£14.57)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Quiet Edition 67.8 CFM 140mm  Fan  (£14.57)
Monitor: Acer XB271HU bmiprz 165Hz 27.0" Monitor  (£569.12)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K40 Wired Gaming Keyboard  (£59.99)
Mouse: Corsair M65 RGB Wired Laser Mouse  (£39.98)
Headphones: Kingston HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel Headset  (£74.05)
Total: £2241.13
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 03:38 GMT+0000

 

 

I was originally planning to get the following parts instead of the ones listed above:

 

• 6600K but after seeing a video where overclocked 6600K gets up to 100% load while someone was playing GTA V I thought 6700k will be worth a premium.

• GTX 970 but since there are no IPS 1080p panels with GSync on the market I'm leaning towards GTX 980 Ti together with XB271HU monitor.

• Asus Z170-A with RM1000i PSU mainly for the look (black and white) but once I found a Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 board that goes with a FREE CM G750M PSU I've changed my mind since the board itself is better with the same colour scheme and a free PSU will pay for the price difference. Sure, not the best PSU but I can't go past this deal to save a few bucks.

 

So, what do you guys think about my picks for the system? Sure, it's a little too expensive for me but will it pay off in a long run?

 

Thanks in advance for your advices!

[foreign-]

Accidentally posted wrong part list, now updated. 

[foreign-]

Don't you guys like my display name...?

[Streetguru]

1 hour ago, foreign- said:

 

 

same relative performance in everywhere but graphics, way less cost, besides, buying whatever the new GPU is in a few months is going to give you more performance for your money.

 

overclocking isn't going to be worth it, and I'd go for Venturi fans from Fractal as they're 140mm fans that can also function as 120mm fans.

 

also get a desktop mic+headphones over a head set man.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/sm3d4D
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/sm3d4D/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£256.39 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2HP Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£60.42 @ More Computers)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (£52.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra II 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£105.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£40.90 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury 4GB Tri-X Video Card  (£429.95 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Deepcool TESSERACT SW RED ATX Mid Tower Case  (£36.48 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: XFX TS 750W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (£82.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Monitor: Acer XF270HU 144Hz 27.0" Monitor  (£439.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1505.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 04:50 GMT+0000

[foreign-]

Thanks for your input!

 

I forgot to mention that I prefer the black and white theme over any other...

 

I like the fact that you managed to cut the cost down on a GPU and a monitor by 250 pounds for a slight performance decrease but the only thing that scares me the most is being bound to AMD cards in the future if getting this freesync monitor. Since R9 fury is pretty much equal to GTX 980 in terms of performance the cost could also be decreased by 150 pounds if I will get 980 instead of 980 Ti.

 

SSD - I already own 850 Evo 500GB ssd this is why it is there

 

CPU - I don't really agree that 1.2 GHz difference is not worth 40 pounds (btw, I will be getting CPU OCd by retailer prior to shipping it to me, the options are 6600k OCd to 4.4 or 4.6 and 6700k OCd to 4.4 or 4.6). I can pick any available motherboard with this bundle but there are no other choices of RAM I can get along. Here is a link: https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/overclocked-custom-gaming-hardware-bundle-z170oc15

 

Motherboard - as I mentioned earlier I was planning on getting Asus Z170-A mobo since it's pretty good, not really expensive and sort of matches my colour preference but then I found Gaming 7 mobo on offer with a free G750M psu, so I wonder if this PSU is more or less good to be used? I can save a little by getting this mobo and using PSU included, also, this mobo is more feature rich. What do you think?

 

Headset - the best quality mic is not really desired since I'm not streaming as  well as not using VOIP a lot. Also, I have a Logitech webcam with a decent mic built in at my disposal.

 

Do you have any other suggestions or advise based on information provided?

[foreign-]

Too bad not many people are willing to share their opinion, suggestions and help me in this thread...

[Streetguru]

54 minutes ago, foreign- said:

 

Well A forget about aesthetics

 

otherwise the i7 6700 turbos to 4ghz, so at best you're going to beat that by around .5ghz, making all the extra money spent getting that 10% more performance or so not worth it

The Cloud Headset isn't bad, but everyone will be thankful if you spend that money on a decent USB mic, a Samson GO mic is pretty solid for only 36 pounds

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samson-SAGOMIC-Mic-Clip-Microphone/dp/B001R76D42/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458498812&sr=8-1&keywords=Samson+GO+mic

 

 

 

[foreign-]

My biggest concern atm is should I use that free G750M PSU or buy a better one separately?

[foreign-]

This is what I came up with

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£293.00)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£26.99)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£174.20)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£81.98)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For £124.99)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (£581.98)
Case: NZXT H440 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.33)
Power Supply: Corsair 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£129.98)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Full (32/64-bit) (£20.01)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£26.38)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Quiet Edition 67.8 CFM 140mm Fan (£14.57)
Monitor: Acer XB271HU bmiprz 165Hz 27.0" Monitor (£581.12)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K40 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£55.68)
Mouse: Corsair M65 RGB Wired Laser Mouse (£39.98)
Headphones: Kingston HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel Headset (£74.05)
Other: Corsair Gaming CGM200 Matt (£20.64)
Total: £2334.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-22 02:26 GMT+0000

placing my order tomorrow unless there is something you guys really think I should change...

[Streetguru]

3 hours ago, foreign- said:

 

Would have advised against a grey market windows key, otherwise the performance per dollar is sub par

[Rabih.H]

This build isn't too bad. I'd like to ask though, is this build only for gaming? And WD Blacks are overpriced HDDs that offer a very little performance increase over WD Blues/Seagate Barracudas. You can save money by going with a 1TB SB HDD.

 

If this build is only for gaming, an i7 6700K is useless and 16GB of RAM isn't needed. Use the money from that to invest in a better GPU. Even a 980Ti will be put to test with games at 2K. I'd probably try to go for a dual GTX 980 setup or a dual Fury X setup. Either will work fine.

[Rabih.H]

On 20/03/2016 at 2:52 PM, Streetguru said:

 

same relative performance in everywhere but graphics, way less cost, besides, buying whatever the new GPU is in a few months is going to give you more performance for your money.

 

overclocking isn't going to be worth it, and I'd go for Venturi fans from Fractal as they're 140mm fans that can also function as 120mm fans.

 

also get a desktop mic+headphones over a head set man.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/sm3d4D
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/sm3d4D/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£256.39 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2HP Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£60.42 @ More Computers)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (£52.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra II 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£105.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£40.90 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury 4GB Tri-X Video Card  (£429.95 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Deepcool TESSERACT SW RED ATX Mid Tower Case  (£36.48 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: XFX TS 750W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (£82.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Monitor: Acer XF270HU 144Hz 27.0" Monitor  (£439.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1505.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 04:50 GMT+0000

Overclocking is very worth it. You get a generous bump in single core performance, and the increased clock speeds will increase process speeds as well. All of this for just a few more watts and more heat output, which can easily be taken care of with a good AIO. I will say that an i7 is not needed for gaming though, its multiple threads are only useful in graphical production programs. On top of that an R9 Fury is hammered by a 980Ti at gaming, the Fury was meant to compete with the GTX 980, not the Ti. Then on top the topping (heh, see what I did there? :P) there is the fact that that card alone will be touching the edge for 2K gaming. GTA V at max settings will struggle a bit to keep at 60FPS with a single 980Ti, settings will have to be bumped down.

[foreign-]

Initially I was thinking to get 6600k but after seeing someone's benchmark on youtube where OCd 6600k was getting up to 100% loaded while playing GTA V I thought 6700k is worth a little premium over 6600k in a long run. I'm also planning to run a VM in the background while playing or doing something else on my PC.

 

It is a little too late to change something in my build since the order has been placed already, can't wait until it ships to my door  This is what I'm getting:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£293.00)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£26.99)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£174.20)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (£81.98)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For £124.99)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card  (£581.98)
Case: NZXT H440 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£89.33)
Power Supply: Corsair 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£129.98)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Full (32/64-bit)  (£20.01)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter  (£26.38)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Quiet Edition 67.8 CFM 140mm  Fan  (£14.57)
Monitor: Acer XB271HU bmiprz 165Hz 27.0" Monitor  (£581.12)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K40 Wired Gaming Keyboard  (£55.68)
Mouse: Corsair M65 RGB Wired Laser Mouse  (£39.98)
Headphones: Kingston HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel Headset  (£74.05)
Other: Corsair Gaming CGM200 Matt
Total: $0.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-22 12:29 EDT-0400

 

Hope none of my part pick will disappoint me when I put them together...

[foreign-]

10 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Would have advised against a grey market windows key, otherwise the performance per dollar is sub par

It's not a grey market, it is a full OEM licence which is the same as a retail version. The only difference that OEM is bound to the motherboard, once you change it you will have to obtain a new licence.

[Streetguru]

4 hours ago, Rabih.H said:

 

How is it worth it to spend $100+ on getting 10% more CPU performance?

Aside from that the point is performance per dollar, not pure performance, as new GPUs are coming out soon.

[Streetguru]

22 minutes ago, foreign- said:

It's not a grey market, it is a full OEM licence which is the same as a retail version. The only difference that OEM is bound to the motherboard, once you change it you will have to obtain a new licence.

If you paid 20 dollars for it, I'm pretty sure it's a grey market key, but ya, that's why you don't buy OEM keys lol

[foreign-]

7 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

If you paid 20 dollars for it, I'm pretty sure it's a grey market key, but ya, that's why you don't buy OEM keys lol

You should probably google it  If you are buying any pre-built PC or a laptop in the shop it comes with a pre-installed windows, guess what key manufacturers and retailers use? OEM!  When you buy an OEM key you even download the windows from official Microsoft website, I don't see why you call it a grey market, apart from it being bound to the motherboard once installed it is the same as a full retail version but 5 times cheaper... 

 

Regarding the CPU please see my comment above. It seems 6600K already struggles to drive some games, I mean you don't get a FPS drop but CPU is at 100% load while playing games. This doesn't seem like a good sign if I want to keep my CPU for as long as possible.

[foreign-]

Quote

Please regard this email as an active notification of a delay in your order, due to a temporary shortage in stock of the following item:
 

1.	LN68430 - Gigabyte NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti XTREME GAMING Graphics Card 6GB

Nnnnooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

[Streetguru]

15 minutes ago, foreign- said:

 

a Windows 10 OEM licence normally costs a lot more than $20

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Windows+10

 

The grey market part comes from how you got your windows 10 key for $20, usually people buy keys from other countries where it's less expensive due to exchange rates, more rarely buying keys with stolen credit info for money laundering or potentially stealing keys from their workplace.

 

in any case microsoft can revoke your grey market key at any time, which is why I'd advise against them, and if you're trying to save money on your windows key, why spend any money on it at all?


Also ya totally shoulda saved a bunch of cash on your build man.

[foreign-]

If you paid attention on amazon both OEM versions come with a CD or USB stick which adds up the price, also overpriced, some of OEM there are costing nearly as much as a retail version, this is clearly a sign that they are overpriced.

 

I'm going to buy a key from a well trusted seller with thousands of positive reviews from buyers, so I don't think those keys are stolen or bought with stolen credit info. The reason why they are so cheap is that they buy OEM keys as a retailer or manufacturer directly from Microsoft in BULK and usually being in a different country with less taxes.

 

Regarding build itself I created threads on 2 forums but unfortunately haven't received many suggestion on how I can save some money on my build not compromising on quality or performance too much. I've spent a week researching and asking for advises and since there was just a few suggestions, that I taken into account btw, I just had to go with what I felt is a good choice...  

[Rabih.H]

3 hours ago, Streetguru said:

How is it worth it to spend $100+ on getting 10% more CPU performance?

Aside from that the point is performance per dollar, not pure performance, as new GPUs are coming out soon.

Yes, because 10% more CPU performance puts it in line with more expensive CPUs, such as Xeons. Considering that a 6 core Xeon is more expensive than a 6700K by more than $100, you are actually raising the CPUs performance per dollar. As for the new GPUs, your option was plain stupid (sorry for the rudeness). Buying a Fury would add $430 to he budget. Then when he goes to buy a new GPU, he would be adding another $600+, meaning in total he is spending over $1000. The newer GPUs will not have a huge performance increase over the current ones, so it is not worth spending so much on a GPU that will only perform maybe 6 or 7% better.

[Streetguru]

1 hour ago, Rabih.H said:

The newer GPUs will not have a huge performance increase over the current ones

GPUs have way more performance gains compared to CPUs, usually the next gen top end  GPU is equal to Dual GPUs from the previous top end, at least 20-30% more performance usually.

 

the 6700K makes no sense to buy most times because the 5820K usually costs as much and gives you more performance, yet another place that money is better spent, as the X99 motherboards add some cost, but then you have a 6 core CPU vs a 4 core, and you can still overclock it should your heart desire, and it makes more sense to OC the 5820K as it only turbos to 3.6ghz. And then you're spending $100 more for probably 20%+ more performance overall.
 

 

 

3 hours ago, foreign- said:

Regarding build itself I created threads on 2 forums but unfortunately haven't received many suggestion on how I can save some money on my build not compromising on quality or performance too much. I've spent a week researching and asking for advises and since there was just a few suggestions, that I taken into account btw, I just had to go with what I felt is a good choice...  

Well of course not, you have the highest performing GPU, though the goal should be performance per dollar in most cases, because new stuff is always coming out, which is why my build gives fairly comparable performance at a much lower cost, as when you buy more expensive products generally your performance per dollar goes down.

and even if it's highly reviewed, a grey market key is still going to be a grey market key that may be revoked at any time, it may be legitimate technically, but it's an a grey area of the law, and it's basically only a step away from software piracy.



X99 version of your build with most of the other, non performance per dollar stuff, though the hard drive situation is different from yours, given it's comparable cost the 5820K makes a lot more sense than the 6700K if you really want to overclock for some reason.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/R6vkCJ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/R6vkCJ/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor  (£328.98 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£26.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Asus X99-A/USB 3.1 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  (£218.60 @ More Computers)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (£56.24 @ More Computers)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£53.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£40.39 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury 4GB Tri-X Video Card  (£429.95 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master N300 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£36.57 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX TS 750W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (£82.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Quiet Edition 67.8 CFM 140mm  Fan  (£15.99 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Acer XF270HU 144Hz 27.0" Monitor  (£439.98 @ Ebuyer)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K40 Wired Gaming Keyboard  (£93.51 @ Amazon UK)
Mouse: Corsair M65 RGB Wired Laser Mouse  (£39.99 @ Ebuyer)
Headphones: Kingston HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel Headset  (£71.88 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1935.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-22 22:09 GMT+0000

Spoiler

 

 

[foreign-]

Yes, 5820k is great, this is what I would prefer but I didn't justify an extra 300 GBP I would have to spend over skylake, CPU is more expensive, the motherboard costs more and AIO is a must since it runs hotter and OC is required. Just check what my motherboard pick has to offer in terms of features, find similar feature rich X99 mobo and see the price difference. (eg Asus Z170-A = Asus X99-A but 100 GBP cheaper)

 

GPU - R9 Fury is only 100 gbp cheaper but in terms of performance is equal to 980 (not Ti). Yes, I could've saved by going AMD route but I don't want to invest into FreeSync IPS monitor and be bound to AMD in the future. It's sort of scary choice for me.

 

BTW, the overall look of the PC matters to me as well, I don't want to spend that much money on an ugly looking X99 with the cheapest RAM, case, SSD and PSU...

[foreign-]

 

 

R9 Fury = GTX 980 - same price and performance, so why everyone is suggesting Fury but not 980 in order to save some money on PC build? Is it because FreeSync monitors are generally cheaper?

[Streetguru]

29 minutes ago, foreign- said:

 

 

R9 Fury = GTX 980 - same price and performance, so why everyone is suggesting Fury but not 980 in order to save some money on PC build? Is it because FreeSync monitors are generally cheaper?

Free-sync monitors are always going to be cheaper, and from the looks of it current gen AMD cards are going to support DX12 better than maxwell cards, in the recent hitman game a 390 was surpassing a 980ti at DX12, though the 980ti was faster using DX11, but that will change with time and optimization for DX12.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/49yruc/r9_390_beats_980ti_hitman_benchmarks_computerbase/