X99 build for gaming and virtualisation

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

I created a "planning" thread a few months ago, and we left off at "I should wait for Skylake if only for due diligence". Now that Skylake is out, and isn't (as I thought it might end up) the second coming of Jebus, I'm going to go ahead with my X99 build.

Budget: I'd like to keep it under 2000 euro, but am willing to go to 2500 if I have to.
Country: Germany
Preferred merchants: Amazon, Mindfactory
Intended tasks: Cities Skylines (scales beautifully with extra threads), Diablo 3, virtualisation of operating systems (linux - CentOS)
Parts that can be salvaged: 256GB SSD, 2TB WD black, HD 7950, Sound Card (although this is the part I'm assuming is blocking an update to W10)
Need peripherals? no, I have a mouse, keyboard, headphones, mike and monitor.
Need OS? probably, there are those 35 euro ex-dell Windows 7 licences that just require a phone call to the Microsoft Robot to activate, or I just buy W10.
Special wishes: I want to put the VMs on their own NIC. This means I need more than one. This is so that I can run pcap traces on the VMs without getting my own data mixed up, and so that network traffic generated by the VM doesn't affect my binge-youtube watching and movie streaming over the local network.

I'm not looking for a graphics card right now, because my screen is a 1920*1080, and my 7950 can run every game I play at that resolution at ultra settings (and I can overclock it if I need to, which would make it equivalent to most of the 250-400 euro graphics cards I could buy anyway). I'll take another look at graphics cards when Pascal and Arctic Islands launch next spring; I have a monitor upgrade to a higher resolution pencilled into the budget for early next year too.

For some background, here is the link to the old thread:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...some-work-too)

Where I left off, I was basically just looking at motherboards. That's kind of where I still am (although I now know that I am buying X99 and not Z170).

What I'm looking at as a basic description (i.e. future forum signature) is:

5820K
32GB DDR4
NH-D15 or equivalent
a couple of SSDs (prefer Crucial, Samsung, Intel)
Super Flower Leadex 850 gold (apparently it is pronounced "super flow-er", who'd have thought?) or equivalent
Case is dependent on the motherboard form factor. I don't mind a window, but if I have one it'd need to be on the reverse side, because that's how my desk is oriented (alternatively: buy a new desk - also an option). I quite like the aesthetic of Fractal Design and Silverstone cases. I do want to keep it quiet, so sound dampening would be a positive attribute.


As for motherboards: I'm kind of put off Asus by reports of their OC socket deciding that it wants to give the CPU 1.7+V and thus cooking it (no to mention their RMA department tends to be a bit dickish when it comes to actually acknowledging that the damage was not caused by the customer). So that basically leaves us with Gigabyte, MSI and AsRock. As for colours, anything "garish" is a "no". So no green, orange. Black, Blue are fine, Red if it is accents only, I don't want everything to be Ferrari red).

The big remaining question would be, do I get a motherboard with 2 NICs (only on more expensive boards) or a motherboard with a single NIC and then buy a PCI-E card (which would save me a bit of money, but be a less elegant solution)? Also, I want Intel NICs, because they are better.

I feel a bit like I'm getting lost in the details, so I need somebody with a bit more distance to help me find the right motherboard for this project. Hopefully this is enough information to start with.

[Remilia]

All hail the Ferrari Red, okay no I don't care about that bright red either.

As for the PSU, yeah just go with the Leadex model since it's more prominent in EU. Just be careful that there is a capacitor on the cables and they can bend and crack if you go full derp. It helps with ripple suppression and it should be placed at the component end of the side as opposed to near the PSU. It shouldn't be a problem but it's something to look out for.

Case, get the R5! Cause bias and R5.

This was the MoBo I was thinking of when I was planning out an X99 build.
http://de.pcpartpicker.com/part/giga...board-gax99ud4
That said it does have those yellowish stripes. It's not really prominent throughout the board. I believe some super high end ones have metal reinforcing for the PCI-E slots, it might be on the Z170 boards... I'm not entirely sure. It might be cheaper to get a PCI-E card as opposed to a mobo with 2 NICs.

Also the sound card drive might not be updated to W10, you might need to check.

[Deleted]

I am using this for my board;

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...=5&subcat=2875

It fulfils everything I need really, only 1 nic and it is intel, its keeping my I7 5820k 4.3 GHz at 1.15 volts granted that's more silicon lottery, I can push for more but im pretty happy that I can get 4.3 on that chip at 1.15 volts so not budging.

That board also has adaptive mode on the overclocking for the volts which allows the volts to ramp up to 1.15 volts and down when load and speeds are low so saves power in that sense.

This also has 2 x usb 3.1 ports at the back I/O, other then that its amongst the cheapest X99 boards you can get, I haven't seen anywhere it accepting thunderbolt if that ever came a need.

One warning of this board if its not apparent, if you plug into the SATA 5 which is the express port or something, it disables the normal sata ports I think 2 and 4 so despite it saying it has 10 ports, think only 8 are usuable or I am useless to figure that one out.

Case wise, I like the fractal define R5 personally because of the added sound dampening provided.

p.s there is an MSI X99s model which from what I have seen is a older revision and lacks usb 3.1, I linked the X99A.

- - - Updated - - -

http://www.amazon.de/MSI-7885-023R-Mainboard-S2011-3-X99A/dp/B00V4V4SFC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442166041&sr=8-1&keywords=MSI+X99A+SLI+Plus+Intel+X99

If you wanted an amazon link.

[Deleted]

This should work:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (€395.19 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (€58.89 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X99-UD5 WIFI EATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (€249.34 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€199.71 @ Mindfactory)
Case: NZXT H630 (Black) ATX Full Tower Case (€149.90 @ Caseking)
Total: €1053.03
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-14 09:17 CEST+0200

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll have a look at them later

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

After being really busy starting this new college course, I've spent some time perusing part lists, and put this together:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (€396.70 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (€90.24 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (€203.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung SM951 128GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€103.84 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€350.84 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Blackout Edition w/ Window ATX Mid Tower Case (€100.00)
Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Gold 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€149.90 @ Caseking)
Wired Network Adapter: Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/100/1000 Mbps PCI-Express x1 Network Adapter (€36.90 @ Home of Hardware DE)
Total: €1432.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-22 23:23 CEST+0200

Now, I could say "fuck it, it's only 500 euro and it isn't like I build a PC every year" and get a 5960X. If I'm honest, it is tempting (and I'd stay within budget - well, sort of ).

The motherboard has an amp, so the sound card isn't needed in the new build.

[Deleted]

Whats with the crucial m550 128gb? you already got that?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

That way I can let my brother use this PC without futzing around with me having to spend time installing Windows on it. I think that one is a PCI-E m.2, so it doesn't fuck with SATA ports.

[Deleted]

looks ok, except i would never buy an msi board they have been the worst last few years and i avoid as much as i can

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

looks ok, except i would never buy an msi board they have been the worst last few years and i avoid as much as i can

Thing is, everybody says that about every brand :/

"Asus's OC Socket sometimes puts 2V across the VCCIN, and their RMA department is well known to refuse RMA because of the smallest bit of dust you forgot to clean off"
"MSI has bad build quality and their RMA is sometimes good, sometimes not"
"AsRock has bad build quality"
"Gigabyte same as AsRock"

The only people you don't hear anything about is Supermicro, because they are exclusively enterprise server board manufacturers and 99% of people have never even heard of them :/

Every board manufacturer is boasting about "military class components" (whatever that means, probably means "overpriced and we don't need it" given that's how military spending works these days), how they validate boards, and use high rated caps and mosfets. Other than researching the individual components (and doing a degree in electrical micro-engineering so you understand the documentation) it's kind of hard to figure out what's the best.

[Deleted]

Well no, Asrock has come a long way i would say it as good or better than msi. Yes asus mobo's put a little more v than needed. But thats done if you do a dirty auto-overclock, which ain't your case. Gigabyte is top dog, never heard someone say it hasn't got quality, the other way around.
Look at it like this, huge overclocks with nitro are usually on giga or asus. But yeah not that it matter in our case but hey go with what you want, just told you my opinion

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

I'll take a look at Gigabyte boards. Their 7950 has been a champ these last four years, and it isn't even overclocked (I got it to 1250/1500 with minimal voltage increases, but turned it back down because I only played WoW and GPU is kinda irrelevant for that game).