Building new PC - need help!!

[Deleted]

It is safe to assume that I am a complete idiot when it comes to computers, for the past decade i've just been buying alienware laptops and refreshing every now and then. I want to at least attempt to build my PC for the first time ever, I'm not entirely comfortable with the lingo and what piece does what, however i have scrounged up a list and was thinking what i could:

a) improve on (with other components that are roughly the same price and are just far better)
b) stuff that I am missing
c) replace items that are unnecessarily expensive or need to spend more on certain things

my dream goal is at the end of this process to build something that I learn to understand (eventually) and to under (potentially hypothetically) utopic circumstances create a very modular pc whereby i can just switch out parts and upgrade individually instead of buying an entirely new rig for cheaper long term costs.

i7-6700k (300)
asus z170 maximus VIII ranger (150),
gtx 1080 (650)8GB GDDR5X
16 GB Ram DDR4 Fury X (70)
500 GB SSD Samsung (150)
Fractal design define S case (90)
Corsair H110i gtx (120)

the numbers in brackets are the price estimates that I quickly got from a quick search, totaling 1500 USD atm.
I am prepared to spend 2,500 USD, however it doesnt mean I want to hit that, I only want necessary upgrades that are significant and not marginal ones.
thank you for your time fellas

I am based in England, and I already own all my wanted peripherals
the goal is to play most games at very high - highest setting (primarily WoW)
I own a spare copy of windows 10 and will be running that

this PC has yet to be built, the list given is currently just a wishlist that has yet to be bought.

[Denpepe]

If you want a liquid cooler I would go for Arctic Cooling Liquid Freezer 240, but a good noctua air cooler will be almost as good and quiter.

You need a powersupply still, Seasonic, superflower or XFX are good brands, something in the 550-650W area, make sure your ram is 3000Mhz.

An i5 6600K is enough for gaming but if the i7 fits the budget it can't hurt, might get a 2nd life once dx 12 games start to come out and make use of the hyperthreading

[Deleted]

Is that it? no other upgrades needed for a significant change?
jeepers ok.

[Lathais]

No need for an i7, and i5 will perform the same in gaming. Most games, and WoW especially, do not make use of the Hyperthreading or larger cache and that's the only difference between the i5 and the i7, so you could save a little cash there.

The motherboard, while not a bad choice, is a bit over the top IMO. You could get a less expensive board and still be fine, no effect on performance.

For WoW, and in fact 1080p in general, the GTX 1080 is also really overkill. If you have the budget for it though, go for it. It will last you quite some time. You'd be just as well off with a GTX 1070 though.

On the RAM, again, 16GB is overkill, but not a bad idea either.

On the Cooler, I'd go with air myself. You'll get similar performance with air, for less money and less noise.

[Thunderball]

Is there any particular reason you're going to liquid cooling? Noise? Extreme overclocking?

[Aurimas]

It looks good to me. It will be plenty powerful.

I'd take a second to try and talk you out of water cooling on your first build... assuming you can get by with a big case wherever you are putting it.

A nice big case with good airflow will rival water cooling with all but the most extreme overclocks. My HAF case with CoolerMaster 212 never breaks 50c.

Only reason I suggest it is because cable management is probably the hardest thing to get good at. Add to that needing to route water lines. Not to mention the extra hassle and build time. Also, the bigger the case the easier it is to route through and work in.

If you're set on water cooling, then your build looks nice. People have said it is overkill, and it may very well be, but since almost every part is top of the line, I assume it is what you were going for.

[Deleted]

Can you give us the budget in pounds? Also what resolution you want to play- whats the monitor's res you are playing at. Besides gaming what else is the pc going to be used for? Are you going tobe streaming and recording at the same time, video rendering etc?

[Deleted]

Great thank you for your help here guys,
yes I understand that it is overkill, but I quite like that as I won't be replacing this rig for a while I hope.
The reason why I went with water cooling was because i dont like a noisy computer and with each rig I've ever owned, I've always had heating issues.

Can you give us the budget in pounds? Also what resolution you want to play- whats the monitor's res you are playing at. Besides gaming what else is the pc going to be used for? Are you going tobe streaming and recording at the same time, video rendering etc?

I guess the budget would be 2000 pounds, resolution - normal HD, not 4K, 24 inch, I sometimes dabble in graphic design and 3D modeling, but I normally do that on my surface book which does that job fine so... Yeah, mainly gaming.

Some of you mentioned spacing issues with water cooling and cable management issues for newbies, will the fractal design define S case be ok for me to handle or can you recommend something of that quality but maybe easier for a newb to handle?

[Deleted]

Watercooling isn't going to be quieter and AIO units don't necessarily beat air coolers. The cooler that would suit your noise and heat problems would most likely be the Noctua NH-D15. You can see comparisons of noise level and temps between the NH-D15 and the H110i GTX at http://www.relaxedtech.com/reviews/n...quid-coolers/2.

Brilliant.
I guess with that, I have my rig. I'll be checking this post for the next 3 days if there are any more suggestions,
otherwise, cheers lads.

[Thunderball]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£212.99 @ Novatech)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£67.98 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£136.19 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£79.99 @ Novatech)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£118.33 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card (£609.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case (£119.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£74.99 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£71.98 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Asus MG279Q 27.0" 144Hz Monitor (£453.92 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1985.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-12 05:01 BST+0100

Add an optical drive if needed. You dont need 6700K for your needs, also as if you're in the EU definetely get Noctua D15. Ask questions if you have them.

[Deleted]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£212.99 @ Novatech)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£67.98 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£136.19 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£79.99 @ Novatech)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£118.33 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card (£609.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case (£119.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£74.99 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£71.98 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Asus MG279Q 27.0" 144Hz Monitor (£453.92 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1985.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-12 05:01 BST+0100

Add an optical drive if needed. You dont need 6700K for your needs, also as if you're in the EU definetely get Noctua D15. Ask questions if you have them.

I want to get the i7 6700k
sorry i know its not necessary but I want it :P
Will the CPU cooler still be good enough to deal with it?

[Thunderball]

I want to get the i7 6700k
sorry i know its not necessary but I want it :P
Will the CPU cooler still be good enough to deal with it?

D15 is the best one out there. There is literally no benefit in getting an i7 unless you do specific things that utilize the benefits of HT like streaming or video editing.

[Poodles]

Already been said, but the i7 is overkill for most everything. Now you are future proofing yourself with the higher end CPU though.

Things to note though:
1) Obviously you'll need some storage drives, though normal HDDs are cheap.

2) Obviously you need a PSU, I recommend fully modular ones simply because it makes cable management all that much easier. (also go for overkill as then the components aren't as stressed)

3) Skylake CPU's are quite a bit thinner and can be broken by heavy cooling solutions. Water cooling gets around that. As that case has the massive room for it, use a larger radiator and run the fans slower and it's going to be as quiet as the best air coolers. Hell, if you simply change the fans to noctua, it'll be just as quiet. (Near silent Deepcool Genome user here). The downside is you are adding another failure mode to the computer, and leaking coolant could be an issue. Also, sound ultimately doesn't matter because the video card is the hottest and loudest part of the system.

4) Motherboard isn't overkill, it's quite nice. I went with the Z170 Sabertooth Mark 1 because it's complete overkill and the Sabertooth line has a stellar track record. Keep in mind if you're going to use HDMI and HDMI audio, the audio chipset is don't nothing as the video card is handling audio.

5) GTX 1080 is a beast... but it's crazy overpriced right now. You could pick up a GTX 970 and play EVERYTHING at max settings at 1080p and 60FPS. Doom, Fallout 4, whatever. You name it and it'll scream. The issue is the GTX 900 series is getting scarce and now they're going back up in price (which is idiotic, but whatever). Let things settle and you could probably pick up the 1080 or 1070 for a reasonable price. Also, they're nothing wrong with the founder's edition, so don't be scared of it, especially when the "normal" editions coming out which were supposed to be cheaper, aren't.

6) That much RAM is overkill, but RAM is cheap these days. You can also use the excess to run a RAM disk for crazy fast load times.

[Fascinate]

Water coolers do have a slight edge in cooling performance, but you give up reliability (long term) and noise for only slightly better temps. Best AIO water cooler is ~3c cooler than the best air cooler.

[Thunderball]

Water coolers do have a slight edge in cooling performance, but you give up reliability (long term) and noise for only slightly better temps. Best AIO water cooler is ~3c cooler than the best air cooler.

Worth noting that it's true for AIC coolers. Custom watercooling systems are much more effective.

[Fascinate]

Worth noting that it's true for AIC coolers. Custom watercooling systems are much more effective.

Well of course lol, thats hundreds of dollars more.

[Thunderball]

Well of course lol, thats hundreds of dollars more.

You never know, the OP has that kind of vibe in him.

[Deleted]

Brilliant.
I guess with that, I have my rig. I'll be checking this post for the next 3 days if there are any more suggestions,
otherwise, cheers lads.

I feel like the rest the i7 is not needed although if you do some 3d modelling it will be handy during some rendering, but i guess its more of a "i want it" rather than "i need it". The gtx1080 tho is complete overkill for 1080p. Even gtx1070 is overkill atm for 1080p. If you are going to jump to 1440p then i can understand a gtx1080 for longetivity. Anyway i will give you another option with an M2 super fast ssd.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£293.34 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG R1 Universal 76.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£49.98 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus Z170 PRO GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£120.57 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston Savage 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£68.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Samsung SM951 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£195.25 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card (£429.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT Noctis 450 ATX Mid Tower Case (£102.50 @ Kustom PCs)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£74.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1373.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-12 13:56 BST+0100

[Deleted]

You never know, the OP has that kind of vibe in him.

OP has no idea what's what, OP is just going by everyones opinion.
Like I said I'm not entirely keen to spend hundreds more on a marginal increase (bar the i7 because I've heard nothing but good things and I want to futureproof myself on a processor). Custom water cooling system sounds complicated, and the whole leakage thing sounds out of my skill level.
I basically expect this to be like lego, with cable management being the only fiddle.

What exactly is PSU overkill, is that like 700W or is 650W more than enough?

[Thunderball]

OP has no idea what's what, OP is just going by everyones opinion.
Like I said I'm not entirely keen to spend hundreds more on a marginal increase (bar the i7 because I've heard nothing but good things and I want to futureproof myself on a processor). Custom water cooling system sounds complicated, and the whole leakage thing sounds out of my skill level.
I basically expect this to be like lego, with cable management being the only fiddle.

What exactly is PSU overkill, is that like 700W or is 650W more than enough?

You should stick with basic setup, leave a small room for possible overclocking and get to know your hardware. If you do next time you build a rig you will know exactly what you need.

That's right about the PSU.