Skylake i7 980Ti m.2 nvme 34" build

[Telov]

Hi

I'm looking to build a new desktop system, I've only build servers for the last few years so all comments welcome.

Build:
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 330R Blackout Edition (£95)
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.40GHz 6th Gen Skylake CPU S1151 8MB (£265)
CPU cooler: ?
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz DIMM 288-pin (£80)
PSU: Corsair RM850i SERIES 850w 80+ Gold Modular PSU (£120)
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980Ti OC 6GB GDDR5 PCIe3.0 WINDFORCE 3X (£500)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 Intel Z170 LGA1151 ATX DDR4 USB3.1 M.2 (£115)
SSD: Samsung 512GB 950 PRO Series M.2 NVME PCIE SSD (£260)
Monitor: Acer Predator X34 34" Curved G-Sync IPS Monitor (£990)

Total: £2,425

Requirements:
General use plus occasional gaming. I will not be overclocking and quiet operation and reliability are more important than maximum performance. The parts are high performance so I don't have to replace the box for 4-5 years. Gaming will be things like GTA and Fallout, not FPS titles.

Thanks

[SkyScape]

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.40GHz 6th Gen Skylake CPU S1151 8MB (£265)

If you're not in a rush you can get the 6700 for £209 from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis.../?tag=ho01f-21

It's temporarily out of stock.... but hopefully won't be too long - I've been waiting for it for 2 weeks.

[vincent.m]

for the cooler i would recommend the Thermaltake 120 Extreme (just looked in scan.co.uk and looks discontinued??) but you should get something that has thick metal as it takes in more heat!

[watercooled]

Depending what you're doing, that's a lot of money to spend on something for occasional gaming - a lot of the parts could be swapped for much cheaper ones with little impact on real-world performance.

E.g. i5 instead of i7, SATA SSD instead of an expensive PCIe one, a different GPU depending on what games you'll actually play, maybe a smaller PSU depending on the former points. Spending more money is no guarantee of future-proofing and often turns out a poor investment because of the rapidly decreasing performance/price ratio as you move towards more expensive parts. Also unless you're after specific features on that motherboard, it's another area to save money as they have next to no impact on performance, and more expensive boards are aimed more at overclocking, which you say you're not interested in.

Monitor is another one but it's more of a subjective thing. Also, if you're not already aware, read up on 21:9 use as a lot of games (especially less recent ones) may not scale properly so you'll end up with letterboxing or a stretched interface. Also a lot of movies, even 21:9 ones won't map correctly to 21:9 monitors because of the letterboxing which is a part of the video frame - you have to zoom/crop to get fullscreen or you end up with a black border all the way around the image.

However if that's the sort of build you're after then I don't see any issue with it, nothing stands out as being a poor choice. One thing I will say is Skylake processors are currently massively overpriced. The non-k ones seem less affected but are still above what they should be selling at. See this: http://anandtech.com/show/9879/price...k-short-supply

[herooftime796]

The build itself seems like a great selection of components, but if you're only going to be gaming occasionally i don't think it's really necessary.

Going with the skylake platform definitely seems like a great long-term idea (greater no. of pcie lanes, etc.) so no problems there.

However, could I recommend the 6600 over the i7 considering the difference is not too great considering your usage (the only huge difference is hyper-threading which, unless you are doing extreme photo/video editing or rendering will not do a whole lot).

Also, the 980ti is overkill and until prices come down i'd recommend a 970 (you can always upgrade later). Even in my "high-end" gaming rig i have to go for the TwinFrozr V MSI 970 4G because i simple can't afford a 980/Ti.

also a pcie card, while blazing fast is unnecessarily expensive when compared the 850evo sata drive of similar size.
finally, the monitor costs £1000. if you are prepared to spend this much on the monitor (and other components) you will have a fantastic build (maybe go for a dif mobo - gigabyte z170x gaming 5/7 perhaps). However, really think about what you're using your pc for before you go out and buy such high-end and pricey components.

[Kebab]

Are there any real world, noticeable, differences between the 950 M.2 and SATA 850?

[kalniel]

Are there any real world, noticeable, differences between the 950 M.2 and SATA 850?

Depends what you do in the real world. For most, I expect not.

[watercooled]

Yeah, PCIe offers a lot more transfer bandwidth, but the difference it makes in many real applications is negligible. A few websites do tests like game load time/boot time - it seems the bottleneck just isn't the storage drive a lot of the time: http://techreport.com/review/29221/s...ssd-reviewed/4

[jigger]

That seems like a lot to spend on a quad core system for casual gaming with longevity in mind.

[OniDooM]

I agree that if your not looking for ultimate performance on everything upto 1440p then you would be better going lower and saving a good £250 and going for a R9 390. Some people will recommend a 970 as its £10 cheaper on pcpartpicker but if your truly planning for future proofing then the 390 is overall the better performer and has 8GB vs the 970's debatable 3.5-4GB (it doesn't affect games yet that I know of but who knows in 2 years or so as games require more and more memory).

[wazzickle]

All looks pretty sweet, would echo what others have said about cost and the GPU being more expensive than it's worth in terms of the comparison to the 970.

What I've been reading suggests a 950 PRO on M.2 on that board and NVMe will be superquick across the board and will feel snappy af.

[TechZilla]

the PC is sexy but a CPU cooler is always recommended. have you looked at the hyper 212. also scan is doing a wicked deal on a refurbished corsair h105 for £50

[MrHornsby]

Has anyone noticed a considerable benefit for going over the 3000mhz mark with DDR4?