Looking for advice

Yuzuha · September 25, 2018

So my i7 960 rig is finally dying after 10 years of service so I am looking at upgrading. I mostly play games like ESO, Fallout Series, State of Decay 2, Elite Dangerous and anything from Blizzard to name a few.

I have done some research online and a lot of different review sites talk about the i5 8400 as a good processor for bang for buck so I was interested in trying this out.

Just looking for any advice before I spend some cash on this.

To be purchased.

Intel Core i5 8400 Six Core LGA 1151 2.8 GHz CPU Processor

MSI B360M Mortar Titanium LGA 1151 mATX Motherboard

Corsair 16GB (2 x8GB) CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 DDR4 3000MHz Vengeance LPX Black

Thermaltake Black Versa N26 Mid Tower Chassis & 600w 80Plus PSU

Thermaltake Riing 12 Blue High Static Pressure LED Radiator 120mm Fan (3 Fans Pack)

Owned

Gigabyte GTX1080 OC 8GB GDDR5X 1x DVI-D 1x HDMI2.0b 3xDP1.4

Seagate Barracuda 2TB ST2000DM006 SATA3 64mb Cache

Crucial MX500 250G 3D NAND SATA 6Gbps 2.5" SSD 560MB/s 510MB/s

plus an old DVD Burner that I will look at replacing at Christmas with a BlueRay ODD

Just wondering if I was on the right track with this build or if theres anything I need to change. I don't overclock (never have and don't know how tbh) so that was one reason of the i5 8400 and I didn't want to blow the bank either at this point as I just had a major service done on my car ($1k ouch).

Happy to hear thoughts and comments. I am wondering if I need to drop the RAM down to something that runs at 2666 MHz (potentially saving cash?) as thats the high end the mobo supports but a lot of the review sites use the 3000 MHz RAM so thats my reasoning there (happy to be proved wrong).

Thanking you all in advance.

NelizMastr · September 25, 2018

Yeah, the 8400 will give you a very nice performance boost for sure. And like you mentioned, you can drop down to DDR4-2666 as that's the fastest your CPU will support.

Otherwise, it's looking good to me.

Herman Mcpootis · September 25, 2018

don't use the 600w psu that comes with the N26, get a corsair CX instead.

Phentos · September 25, 2018

The B360 chipset only supports a max of DDR4-2666 on the RAM, so you can save a bit of cash by getting 2400Mhz RAM. The difference between 2400 and 2666 is miniscule on an Intel platform.

Spotty · September 25, 2018

The motherboard, CPU ~~and RAM~~ (Swap to the cheaper 2666Mhz since that's all the system will support) all look fine. Should be a good match with the GTX1080 you already have.

Do you have any plans to stream to services like Twitch while you play games? If so, you might want to consider a Ryzen system due to its better multitasking performance. If you don't intend to stream while playing, stick with what you have.

6 minutes ago, Yuzuha said:

Thermaltake Black Versa N26 Mid Tower Chassis & 600w 80Plus PSU

Are you planning on using the PSU that comes with that tower? The PSU that is included (Thermaltake TR2 600W) is a very bad unit, and I would not recommend it, especially not if you're planning on running a GTX 1080 on it. You might be able to find the case by itself for cheaper, or another similar case. Then purchase a good quality PSU separately.

Yuzuha · September 25, 2018

I don't stream or plan to I do watch the odd twitch streamer now and again especially when there doing an ESO stream event. Originally I was planning on the PSU with the Case but if that one sucks I might have to look at something else. I kinda figured my Thermaltake 1000w PSU that I currently have in the system should not be reused as it's had a hard life so if the recommendations are a corsair CX instead I will have to look into this. Should I still go with a 600w PSU?

Herman Mcpootis · September 25, 2018

1 minute ago, Yuzuha said:

I don't stream or plan to I do watch the odd twitch streamer now and again especially when there doing an ESO stream event. Originally I was planning on the PSU with the Case but if that one sucks I might have to look at something else. I kinda figured my Thermaltake 1000w PSU that I currently have in the system should not be reused as it's had a hard life so if the recommendations are a corsair CX instead I will have to look into this. Should I still go with a 600w PSU?

not needed, even a 450w unit will work just fine with a 1080.

i_build_nanosuits · September 25, 2018

29 minutes ago, Yuzuha said:

I don't stream or plan to I do watch the odd twitch streamer now and again especially when there doing an ESO stream event. Originally I was planning on the PSU with the Case but if that one sucks I might have to look at something else. I kinda figured my Thermaltake 1000w PSU that I currently have in the system should not be reused as it's had a hard life so if the recommendations are a corsair CX instead I will have to look into this. Should I still go with a 600w PSU?

i would go with at least 600W for future proofing reasons, you never know what GPU you will get in the future and if you go too low you might need to upgrade PSU which would be dumb...especially considering a higher wattage unit usually ain't that more expensive to begin with.

This is a good unit for the price if you're on a budget:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/y88H99/evga-supernova-g3-650w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-220-g3-0650

54 amps on the 12v rail is good enough for any single GPU at the moment.

September 25, 2018

Looks fine but I'd recommend getting slower RAM. 3000mhz is a waste. Get 2666mhz max.

Yuzuha · September 25, 2018

Looking at my suppliers webstore the CX-600 is discontinued so would a Corsair CX550M Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply be a good option?

Actually I will look at a 650w option as stated for future proofing.

i_build_nanosuits · September 25, 2018

3 minutes ago, Yuzuha said:

Looking at my suppliers webstore the CX-600 is discontinued so would a Corsair CX550M Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply be a good option?

i would spend the extra 8$

https://www.umart.com.au/Corsair-CX650M-650W-ATX-Power-Supply-80-PLUS-Bronze_43241G.html

Yuzuha · September 25, 2018

Yeah I am thinking the same now that I look at it. Thanks for the spot on this.

i_build_nanosuits · September 25, 2018

Just now, Yuzuha said:

Yeah I am thinking the same now that I look at it. Thanks for the spot on this.

i used to have a very good 550W PSU it was a XFX XTR gold built by seasonic and all was fine until i got a 980ti which is a bigger GPU that was pulling a fair bit of power and i had to sell it to buy something more powerful because the PSU would overheat and the fan on it would go nuts after 15 minutes of playing battlefield 1...so even though technically it WAS enough, it was still not enough...i go by experience, people will tell you ''ohhh but 450W would be enough for your system'' technically it would, but would it really?

Yuzuha · September 25, 2018

Had a look at pricing for 2666 MHz RAM and the 3000 MHz option is cheaper so I guess I'll get that and have it run at 2666 speeds.

i_build_nanosuits · September 25, 2018

Just now, Yuzuha said:

Had a look at pricing for 266 MHz RAM and the 3000 MHz option is cheaper so I guess I'll get that and have it run at 2666 speeds.

yes that's perfectly fine, go with whatever is the cheapest and you can tolerate the look of.

Yuzuha · September 25, 2018

just on another thought do people aligh top case fans to pull heat out of the case (what I am thinking of doing) or push outside air into the case. My way of thinking is Front fans pull outside air in then top/rear pull out.

Am I correct in this line of thinking?

i_build_nanosuits · September 25, 2018

1 minute ago, Yuzuha said:

just on another thought do people aligh top case fans to pull heat out of the case (what I am thinking of doing) or push outside air into the case. My way of thinking is Front fans pull outside air in then top/rear pull out.

Am I correct in this line of thinking?

yes that's usually how its recommended to do it...pull air from the front and exaust it from the top/rear-top

Yuzuha · September 25, 2018

Thinking about this build a bit more I am wondering if I should drop the case/psu bundle for something like Thermaltake Core X31 w Transparent Window Mid Tower Chassis (USB3) Bonus is it comes with 3 case fans. Originally I was looking at the Thermaltake Versa H26 Tempered Glass Mid Tower Case - Black or Thermaltake Versa C21 RGB but the lack of fans meant I had to spend more.

Yuzuha · September 26, 2018

Thank you all for your wonderful insight and assistance with this. It is people like you that help make this forum group a great place.

I have made my final decisions based on all the suggestions supplied to me (and also due to the fact that a lot of my casing options were out of stock or discontinued at 3 different suppliers, my luck sucks).

This is the build I will have.