A new year, a new PC build?!

[Lillyth]

So, with the upcoming hardware, I was thinking of upgrading

Motherboard - Asus Z170-Deluxe Mainboard, Socket 1151
Cost: 308,35 EUR

CPU - Intel BX80662I76700 Core i7-6700 Prozessor (3,4GHz)
Cost: 344,89 EUR

CPU Cooler - EKL Alpenföhn Brocken 2 PCGH - processor cooler
Cost: 49,90 EUR

GPU - GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 980TI GAMING 6GB DDR5 DVI-I / (Maybe Pascal? I am really looking forward to the new tech. But I dont know if I should wait x.x)
Cost: 729,99 EUR

RAM - HyperX FURY HX421C14FBK2/1​6 16GB RAM kit (2 x 8GB) 2133MHz DDR4 Non-ECC CL14 UDIMM KIT (Skylake compatible)
Cost: 87,89 EUR

HDD - Western Digital 3 TB 3,5'' form factor retail kit SATA 64MB- WDBH2D0030HNC-​ERSN
Cost: 114,99 EUR

SSD - SanDisk Ultra II SSD 480GB Sata III 2,5'' Internal SSD
Cost: 139,00 EUR

Power supply - be quiet! DARK POWER PRO 11 - Power Supply (750 W, 850 W, 100 - 240 V, 13,5 cm, 1800 RPM, Aktive)
Cost: 184,90 EUR

PC Case - Corsair CC-9011063-WW Graphite Series 780T Full-Tower ATX Performance LED Gaming Case
Cost: 192,89 EUR

Budget: 2200 EUR

Total Cost: 2152,80 EUR

So, I am wondering if I should buy a new PC now. Is now the time or should one wait for the new pascal cards? Any and all help is appreciated :3 A friend just told me MSI boards are bad. Apparently my friend has problems because of Windows 10, too.

[Kagthul]

Why are you bothering with a Z170 motherboard if you're not going to get an unlocked CPU?

[Lillyth]

Why are you bothering with a Z170 motherboard if you're not going to get an unlocked CPU?

Mainly because it has the ports that I would like. Would an unlocked CPU cost much more?

[Kagthul]

Mainly because it has the ports that I would like. Would an unlocked CPU cost much more?

Which ports are of concern to you? That thing is 300+$ US, which seems like absurdity to me.

The unlocked 6700K will cost more, but i dont know how much more without knowing where you're ordering from.

Its substantially faster even if dont overclock it, though. (Base clock 4Ghz)

As for waiting for Pascal - you could, if you have a GPU you can re-use for now that is good enough.

If i were building right-this-second i might do that, get a cheap GPU that will be "good enough" for a few months, and then replace it with a new high end GPU when they launch, and sell the cheapie (or just keep it as a backup).

[Sorshen]

Asus Z170 Deluxe is an exceptional motherboard, and the price reflects that. Anyway, by not getting an unlocked cpu, you are wasting your money and it's potential. Here's a more balanced build:

PCPartPicker part list: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/ttq7zy
Price breakdown by merchant: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/ttq7zy/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (€369.55 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (€91.95 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VIII HERO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€208.95 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (€99.77 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€149.87 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€100.85 @ Mindfactory)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (€684.80 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Corsair 780T ATX Full Tower Case (€186.84 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€189.83 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €2082.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-01 01:00 CET+0100

You can probably cut even more from the motherboard (Z170-A and other €120-€160 boards are still great), the PSU and the case (unless you really want this one).
As for the GPU, opinions are mixed. 980Ti doesn't have hardware level async shaders, and we don't know when Pascal will hit the market at the moment. You could get Fury X for "future proofing". Or, as Kagthul said, something decent for a few months.


There's also the 2011-3 variant, for an extra ~€32 over the above.

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (€393.19 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI PLUS ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (€216.41 @ Mindfactory)

[Kagthul]

Well that's why i asked what ports were of concern. I'm sure its a nice motherboard, but the actual function of the thing is not, IMO 200$ better.

However, if there is a specific port configuration that is appealing, it might still be worth it, that's why i asked.

[Lillyth]

Thanks for the suggestions! I will come back tomorrow :3 That partpicker website really is something and mindfactory looks great too! Thanks a lot for that.

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Well that's why i asked what ports were of concern. I'm sure its a nice motherboard, but the actual function of the thing is not, IMO 200$ better.

However, if there is a specific port configuration that is appealing, it might still be worth it, that's why i asked.

Actually, I just wanted to make sure I dont have outdated / Already old ports on my motherboard. The old Monitor ports (Before HDMI) are a concern for me for example. And I personally would mainly rather have USB 3.0 / 3.1 and maybe a thunderbolt usb 3.0 or two.

[Kagthul]

Well, Thunderbolt reauires a Thunderbolt controller. Any USB-C port can be Thunderbolt 3, if the MoBo has TB3.

Ill see what else is out there that might meet your needs and not cost an arm and a leg. Highly likely that a good MoBo + a PCIe card with USB 3.1 would be cheaper and just as functional.

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Actually doing research, found that im incorrect about the USB-C port being compatible with Thunderbolt if you have an onboard Thunderbolt controller - they have to be wired into the Thunderbolt controller chipset....

the ASUS Z170 Deluxe does have an Thunderbolt controller and header on the motherboard, but does NOT have the USB 3.1 Type-C port wired into it (as best i can tell - aproximately ZERO of the reviews even touched on Thunderbolt at all), so it cannot act as a Thunderbolt port. In addition, the board itself has no built in Thunderbolt ports.

You'd have to get a device that plugs into a PCIe slot and the motherboard header to get Thunderbolt support, and so far ASUS only appears to sell one that provides Thunderbolt 2 compatibility... not TB3.

Weird.

Supposedly the upcoming Z170 Premium (not released yet, even more expensive) has native thunderbolt ports.

I found a decent Gigabyte Motherboard that hits all your port needs/wants, actually two, with different port configurations -

The Z170X Gaming 7 and the Z170X-UD5 TH. Both are right around ~200$ US, significantly cheaper than the ASUS Z170 Deluxe.

The Z170X Gaming 7 has only a single USB 3.1/TB3 Type C compatible port, but has a Type-A USB 3.1 port as well - to use actual Thunderbolt devices you'd have to find an adapter to USB Type C > Thunderbolt (or use newer devices that use the Type C connector, im not even sure if any Thunderbolt devices exist with Type-C support yet). No idea how expensive that would be.

The UD5 TH has 2 full-up Thunderbolt ports AND two USB 3.1 Type C ports that can also can be used for Thunderbolt, but does not have an additional (traditional) Type-A USB 3.1 port.

Both support lots of USB 3.0 ports, (4 or 5 on the back panel, another 4 through internal headers) and lots of USB 2.0 ports (UD5 TH has some on the back panel and both have internal headers for more).

One thing the ASUS has over either is that most of the USB ports on it are Type-A (traditional) USB 3.1 ports... but if you need native USB 2.0 or 1.1 support you actually have to turn one of the USB 3.1 ports into one by disabling it in the EFI.

But really, you can get a powered 10+ port USB 3.1 hub for about 40-50$ USD if you ever end up using that many 3.1 ports (there are very, very few devices that take advantage of 3.1 right now, and not really a lot of call for them coming up)

That was just a quick examination. Unfortunately its harder than it should be to simply sort all motherboards by features (mostly because not all sites have all the boards by every manufacturer and PCPartpicker doesn't have a lot of advanced filters for things like Thunderbolt, etc) so it may take me some more combing to see what other manufacturers have going on.

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And with regular Thunderbolt support you can also get all sorts of docks/hubs/port multipliers - for my daily driver Mac Mini (that i use for work/browsing/etc), i simplified my port issues by grabbing a Thunderbolt dock/station that sits under the Mini and has USB 3.0 support, Thunderbolt in and out (for daisy chaining), and HDMI out on it.

So all of my stuff is just connected to the Thunderbolt Dock, and if i need to i can just grab the Mini and go, or swap all of my inputs easily to another computer with Thunderbolt (i work on Macs as a sideline, so its useful to just be able to plug in one cable and be good to go).

[Lillyth]

Oh neat! Thanks for all that info :3 I'll put together a build in the partpicker with one of those motherboards. I really thought those thunderbolt ports would be functional since they seem to advertise them like that. But this is great to know, thanks!