My mATX dream PC come to life.

[ingelberts]

Hi all!

 

First real post on the LTT forums so please go easy one me.

 

So I am in the process of putting together and building my very first full on gaming PC.

For the first time in my life I have enough disposable income to build myself a real dope ass system and graduate from console peasantry.

I already have some experience assembling and repairing PCs for family and friends.

The games I would be playing include: Battlefield 1, Overwatch, Civ VI, Cities: Skylines, 7 Days to Die, H1Z1: King of the Kill etc.

So far I have been able to obtain these three components on the cheap on the used market.

• CPU: Intel i7 6700k
• GPU: EVGA nVidia 980ti FTW
• SSD: Samsung 960 Evo M.2 PCIe NVMe 500GB

In my experience the best value is to be had in buying last generations top of the line products used or "nearly new".

To complement these purchases I was thinking of adding the following components:

• Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z270G mATX - all the features you could want in a mobo, in my opinion the best option for an LGA 1151 mATX board, a no-brainer.
• CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X62 - for dat sweet sweet RGB goodness
• Memory: 32GB Gskill Trident Z RGB 3000Mhz CL14 - again glorious RGB, would look sick next to the Kraken
• PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650 P2 - 80+ Platinum, large 140mm semi-passive fan for that ultra quiet operation, 650W I think should be plenty
• Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv mATX TG - absolutely beautiful case, not yet sure which colour I should go for.

PcPartPicker link: https://be.pcpartpicker.com/list/9zVMtJ (I have manually entered the best available prices I can find on the local Belgian market for each component)

I am pretty happy with this parts list. Though because of the memory shortage that RAM is dang expensive and would actually be the most expensive component in the entire build.

So I was considering to maybe for now just buy a single stick of 8 or 16 GB value RAM which I could add into my dads system once prices drop and I can get the Trident Z.

Also I might replace the case and cooler fans with some RGB ones and add a magnetic strip if I decide to bling it out completely.

In my opinion this is a pretty balanced build (though the memory is maybe a little overboard) but if you guys see any glaring omissions or have any other advice I would love to hear it.

Where I am struggling quite a bit is the peripherals...

• Keyboard: I am actually quite partial to Logitechs Romer-G switches and would like a 10 keyless board with full RGB, so basically my only option is the rather pricey G Pro...
• Mouse: I would probably be happy with any old gaming mouse with a half decent sensor but since watching Linus video on the Logitech G Powerplay I am smitten. However I don't think I can justify spending 300 euros on a mouse and pad. I would like something quite understated with some small RGB accents.
• Monitor: in my heart of hearts I would love to splurge on a curved 1440p ultra wide @ min 75Hz, the Samsung C34F791 in particular (though its white plastic construction would probably clash with the rest of my setup), but that would add another 1k to the total cost so I might have to settle for a 16:9 1440p screen, maybe the HP Omen 32 which is less than half the price (anyone have experience with that one? or can recommend something similar?).

If any of you have any recommendations for peripherals that would be greatly appreciated.

I think thats about it...

Thanks for reading, I am looking forward to your feedback.

[LienusLateTips]

Maybe you can get SeaSonic fan less PSU if you really wanted silence?

[ingelberts]

2 minutes ago, JDE said:

Maybe you can get SeaSonic fan less PSU if you really wanted silence?

Actually I originally had a Seasonic Prime Titanium 600W on my list but its a good 50% more expensive than the SuperNOVA and I read some reports online that they are quite susceptible to coil whine so for those reasons I think I'll go with the EVGA. From what I have read the EVGA stays exceptionally quiet under most circumstances.

[seon123]

If you don't mind the ridiculous aesthetics of the Logitech G410, you might be able to get it for less than the G Pro keyboard. 

[LienusLateTips]

2 hours ago, ingelberts said:

Actually I originally had a Seasonic Prime Titanium 600W on my list but its a good 50% more expensive than the SuperNOVA and I read some reports online that they are quite susceptible to coil whine so for those reasons I think I'll go with the EVGA. From what I have read the EVGA stays exceptionally quiet under most circumstances.

What about the Platinum one? It's 520W.

[ingelberts]

14 hours ago, JDE said:

What about the Platinum one? It's 520W.

That would've been a good shout given the price is about on par with the SuperNOVA were it not that Seasonics PSU Calculator recommended a PSU wattage of 568W after OC, so I wouldn't be comfortable going with a 520.

17 hours ago, seon123 said:

If you don't mind the ridiculous aesthetics of the Logitech G410, you might be able to get it for less than the G Pro keyboard. 

Totally agree, that thing is an abomination. I generally dont really like "gamery" looking things (despite my love for RGB) so I would want something that looks quite neutral when the lighting effects are off, which the G410 certainly does not. I think I just might hang on to my current membrane board and wait to maybe pick up the G Pro on special sometime later in the year.

[LienusLateTips]

7 hours ago, ingelberts said:

That would've been a good shout given the price is about on par with the SuperNOVA were it not that Seasonics PSU Calculator recommended a PSU wattage of 568W after OC, so I wouldn't be comfortable going with a 520.

Totally agree, that thing is an abomination. I generally dont really like "gamery" looking things (despite my love for RGB) so I would want something that looks quite neutral when the lighting effects are off, which the G410 certainly does not. I think I just might hang on to my current membrane board and wait to maybe pick up the G Pro on special sometime later in the year.

Don't go with PSU calculators. Your system won't go above 500 at load. They overestimate.

[ingelberts]

14 hours ago, JDE said:

Don't go with PSU calculators. Your system won't go above 500 at load. They overestimate.

OK I'm gonna trust you on this, did a bit of creeping through your post history and you really seem to know what you're talking about, especially when it comes to PSUs.

Thanks again for the feedback man!

[LienusLateTips]

51 minutes ago, ingelberts said:

OK I'm gonna trust you on this, did a bit of creeping through your post history and you really seem to know what you're talking about, especially when it comes to PSUs.

Thanks again for the feedback man!

Also ask @STRMfrmXMN. He knows a lot more then me. Ask him before you buy

 

[ingelberts]

15 hours ago, JDE said:

Also ask @STRMfrmXMN. He knows a lot more then me. Ask him before you buy

 

So you think if I mention @STRMfrmXMN here he will magically appear and give his 2 cents? (as I said, I'm pretty new here, not sure what the right etiquette would be)

I'm a little apprehensive about going with too low a wattage PSU, especially because I might want to populate the remaining 2 DIMMs & extra M.2 on the mobo in the future, I also have a spare 3TB Seagate Barracuda drive I might drop in there.

All of that on top off the RGB I've got going on (up to 4x RAM, Kraken, mouse, keyboard, possibly up to 4 LED fans and a strip) and my verified OC of at least 4.6 on the 6700k and 1280 core/1800 memory on the 980ti...

It'd be a shame to fully deck this thing out only to then run out of juice, which is why I was more comfortable going with a high efficiency unit in the 600-650 range.

But I'm far from an expert on this stuff so any input from people who are more knowledgeable (which the two of you definitely seem to be) would be massively appreciated.

So if you guys think 520W will be absolutely fine I will definitely go with the passive Seasonic unit if I can get it at a similar price point to the 600W SuperNOVA.

 

[LienusLateTips]

6 hours ago, ingelberts said:

So you think if I mention @STRMfrmXMN here he will magically appear and give his 2 cents? (as I said, I'm pretty new here, not sure what the right etiquette would be)

Yeah, he will get a notification and usually come.

6 hours ago, ingelberts said:

I'm a little apprehensive about going with too low a wattage PSU, especially because I might want to populate the remaining 2 DIMMs & extra M.2 on the mobo in the future, I also have a spare 3TB Seagate Barracuda drive I might drop in there.

Those don't really use much power.

6 hours ago, ingelberts said:

But I'm far from an expert on this stuff so any input from people who are more knowledgeable (which the two of you definitely seem to be) would be massively appreciated.

In addition to that, also ask @Energycore

6 hours ago, ingelberts said:

So if you guys think 520W will be absolutely fine I will definitely go with the passive Seasonic unit if I can get it at a similar price point to the 600W SuperNOVA.

I think it's find, ask @STRMfrmXMN first.

[STRMfrmXMN]

7 hours ago, ingelberts said:

So you think if I mention @STRMfrmXMN here he will magically appear and give his 2 cents? (as I said, I'm pretty new here, not sure what the right etiquette would be)

I'm a little apprehensive about going with too low a wattage PSU, especially because I might want to populate the remaining 2 DIMMs & extra M.2 on the mobo in the future, I also have a spare 3TB Seagate Barracuda drive I might drop in there.

All of that on top off the RGB I've got going on (up to 4x RAM, Kraken, mouse, keyboard, possibly up to 4 LED fans and a strip) and my verified OC of at least 4.6 on the 6700k and 1280 core/1800 memory on the 980ti...

It'd be a shame to fully deck this thing out only to then run out of juice, which is why I was more comfortable going with a high efficiency unit in the 600-650 range.

But I'm far from an expert on this stuff so any input from people who are more knowledgeable (which the two of you definitely seem to be) would be massively appreciated.

So if you guys think 520W will be absolutely fine I will definitely go with the passive Seasonic unit if I can get it at a similar price point to the 600W SuperNOVA.

 

520W is more than fine for any single GPU system. That said, if you're getting that Phanteks case then do NOT buy a fanless PSU. There's no airflow for the PSU on that case due to the PSU shroud. Your system may hit 400W under load.

 

I would get an EVGA 650G2 or Corsair RM650x personally.

[ingelberts]

3 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

520W is more than fine for any single GPU system. That said, if you're getting that Phanteks case then do NOT buy a fanless PSU. There's no airflow for the PSU on that case due to the PSU shroud. Your system may hit 400W under load.

 

I would get an EVGA 650G2 or Corsair RM650x personally.

That hadn't even occurred to me, makes so much sense though.

Could you explain why you would opt for the EVGA G2 over the P2?

Is there a difference between the two except for the 80+ rating?

[Zando_]

Awesome CPU and GPU! I've got a poor old i5, but a nice MSI Gaming 980 Ti. Solid card, you should be happy with it. I got about 40fps in the Unigine Superposition game, with 4K on medium (Looked terrible since I've only got a 1680x1050 screen, so the motion blur and stuff was really bad). SO tweak the settings, and 4K should be fine (the guy I got it from gamed at 4K with it). 

[STRMfrmXMN]

6 minutes ago, ingelberts said:

That hadn't even occurred to me, makes so much sense though.

Could you explain why you would opt for the EVGA G2 over the P2?

Is there a difference between the two except for the 80+ rating?

Efficiency is really the only consideration over the other

[Not_Sean]

On 7/30/2017 at 8:22 AM, ingelberts said:

Totally agree, that thing is an abomination. I generally dont really like "gamery" looking things (despite my love for RGB) so I would want something that looks quite neutral when the lighting effects are off, which the G410 certainly does not. I think I just might hang on to my current membrane board and wait to maybe pick up the G Pro on special sometime later in the year.

I've never been a fan of the feel of the Romer switches but agree here. I ended up going with the Razer Deathstakler TE chroma and really have been loving it, as its pretty plain looking with dim lights and TKL is life   know people on here fling hate at razer all day but I've been loving my one. 

 

Post some pics once you built it, going to be a pretty epic system. I'm thinking of upgrading from i5-4690K to i7-4790K and 980 to 980Ti as agree with you, previous gen top line products for half the price. happy days 

[ingelberts]

18 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Awesome CPU and GPU! I've got a poor old i5, but a nice MSI Gaming 980 Ti. Solid card, you should be happy with it. I got about 40fps in the Unigine Superposition game, with 4K on medium (Looked terrible since I've only got a 1680x1050 screen, so the motion blur and stuff was really bad). SO tweak the settings, and 4K should be fine (the guy I got it from gamed at 4K with it). 

Thanks man! I'm actually aiming for 1440p ultra wide -once I can afford one- which I think this setup should be able to push at a decent frame rate.

 

20 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Efficiency is really the only consideration over the other

In that case I do agree the slight bump in efficiency doesn't really justify the 30% price difference. And the Corsair RM650x you recommended is 10% cheaper still so I guess thats where its at for the PSU.

Thanks so much for your help, really appreciate it.

18 minutes ago, Not_Sean said:

I've never been a fan of the feel of the Romer switches but agree here. I ended up going with the Razer Deathstakler TE chroma and really have been loving it, as its pretty plain looking with dim lights and TKL is life   know people on here fling hate at razer all day but I've been loving my one. 

 

Post some pics once you built it, going to be a pretty epic system. I'm thinking of upgrading from i5-4690K to i7-4790K and 980 to 980Ti as agree with you, previous gen top line products for half the price. happy days 

Yeah I'm all about the TKL boards, which actually seems a little ironic given I'm an accountant by profession. There's just something weirdly sexy about those short little boards. 

I'll definitely show off the final product! Might be a while though, I take quite a long time deciding on things if you hadn't noticed.

[ingelberts]

So I put this build together on the weekend (I'll make sure to post a few pics soon) and everything went pretty smoothly, safe for two remaining weird little issues.

Firstly, the system doesn't seem to fully turn off when I shut it down. All fans keep spinning and the memory rgb stays on. The system does seem to successfully shut down when doing a system reboot. I did read somewhere online that some Asus motherboards have this feature called "fan overdrive" or something which keeps the fans running for a minute after shutdown to cool components more quickly, so maybe my board has that? Seems like a weird feature to have on by default because I'm sure it would confuse a lot of users. Some other forum mentioned it might be a bug in Intel's Management Engine. I've not really had time to troubleshoot much so I'd have to investigate further. Hopefully not a faulty motherboard.

And secondly, the rgb lights for the power button and the little bar on the front of my Enthoo Evolv mATX TG don't seem to work, I have checked and double checked and everything seems to be plugged in correctly (I think these lights are powered through the SATA-power connection coming off the front panel), the HDD activity light does work but this ones connected directly to the mobo front panel connectors as usual. I might try to hook it up to a dedicated SATA-power cable, the one its connected to now also powers the Kraken. Maybe someone here has the same case and can provide some insight on this, there might be something really obvious I am missing here. It'd be a real pain if I'd have to return the case for something so trivial after finishing and cable managing the build.

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[ingelberts]

Also, of anyone was wondering I decided to go with the Samsung C34H890 for my monitor.

This is a 1440p ultrawide @ 100hz with freesync (might come in handy one day).

Basically its the same as the C34F791 without the Q-dots (so only 8-bit colour, no big deal for now though) and with an imo more appealing dark gray aesthetic which should complement the rest of my setup nicely.

Its also about €150 cheaper.

For some strange reason this is marketed by Samsung as a "business" monitor, whatever that means.