Thoughts on my new toy?

[jazzmatazz2623]

Howdy, ladies and gents!



It's been aaaages (probably 6-7, if not more) since I last put a PC together, so I'd appreciate your thoughts on this set up. I will use this system primarily for gaming, but will not overclock (I think). The idea is that I will put this together at the start of February, when I have a two week window (so waiting for new hardware being released later this year isn't really an option). The only other thing to note is that my flat gets dusty quite quickly.

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Black
PSU: Be-Quiet! Dark Power Pro P11 650W
MoBo: ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4Ghz
CPU cooler: Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev. B
RAM: Corsair DIMM 16 GB DDR4-2800 Quad-Kit
GPU: ASUS 4GB STRIX-GTX970-DC2OC
SSD: Samsung 850 Pro 2,5" 512 GB (for Windows 10.1 installation only)
HDDs: 2x Western Digital WD4003FZEX 4 TB
Optical drive: LG Electronics BH16NS55
Screen: An old Samsung SyncMaster 226BW (for now)

Thanks in advance, folks!

[jazzmatazz2623]

Anyone? Aaaaaaanyone?

*selfserving bump*

[scaryjim]

Eh, not much to say really. We could have a discussion about GTX 970 vs various other GPUs; it looks a bit graphics-light to me considering how much you're spending in other areas. But on the whole it's a solid build.

[kalniel]

Good, but I'd swap the RAM to 2x8 rather than 4x4, to allow easier mem controller speeds/voltage and future expansion. If not overclocking then you can save quite a bit on the CPU going for non-K, and if gaming there's not much gain from hyperthreading so you can save a bit more going for a 6600.

Along with the above, what's your plan for variable refresh rate? You can't ignore if it into gaming quality, and going for the 970 means your monitor upgrade down the line will be several hundred more expensive for the same thing.

[Phage]

8Tb of Disk space ? Are you video encoding or smilar ?

[DanceswithUnix]

Some (random?) thoughts...

Seems to me you are paying a heck of a lot for storage there. Is that a £200 SSD and another £350 on top for spinning rust? WD Black are absolutely top notch rust, but these days I thought people only use them for video storage or NAS boxes.

First up I would swap out the Pro SSD for either an EVO at the same capacity or for the same money get a 1TB SSD. Really, if you are just installing Windows on it it is wasted money.

With 1TB of SSD, that fits a lot of games, so do you really need the extra 8TB of hard drives? OK, perhaps I'm special in only playing a few games but with a 0.5TB SSD I find I can keep enough games installed to keep me happy and others are a Steam download away.

Then you mention you have the old Samsung monitor "For now". That makes me think this might be a good time to consider Freesync vs Gsync if you haven't already. The technology now seems pretty much equivalent, but Gsync gets you fewer monitors to choose from and about a £100 penalty.

Not sure about the wisdom of quad ram sticks. With DDR3 you would be better off getting a pair of sticks both for performance and in leaving a couple of ram slots open for the future, but then I haven't played with DDR4 yet.

Edit to add: lol, that did take a long time to finish typing, others seem to have said the same

[MrJim]

I personally would go for the EVGA G2 650W PSU at about £75, rather than the BeQuiet one.

I happen to have Thermalright Macho cooler myself, & although it's great for the money, you need to be a bit careful about the case you put it in - it's very tall & might not fit a lot of cases.

If you're set on getting a high-end SSD, I'd be inclined to got for a 256Gb 950 Pro in the M.2 form factor, and then an 850 Evo for further storage if necessary.

[outwar6010]

I would go for a better cooler maybe even aio if possible.

[jim]

I agree that I don't understand the storage.

Why do you have a 512GB SSD and say it's 'only for Windows 10.1'? You don't need that much space for the OS. And why the Pro over the Evo? I doubt it will make much difference.

And then why the dual 4TB drives? Is this going to be a server? Will they be in RAID? (I would argue heavily against dual-drive RAID in the vast majority of cases).

On a side note, I know when the new Z170 boards came out, in many cases it was about the same price for a 5820K X99 set-up which was far more powerful, so I would double-check that. It may no longer be true.

[SlayerMatt]

I'd take other peoples ideas on board but overall that's a solid build. If the extra storage isn't all going to be used a 1tb SSD with a single 4tb drive might be a better choice though if you still want a buffer. Off the top of my head the prices can't be much different than what you've currently gone with.

[jazzmatazz2623]

Thank you all for taking the time to take a look and for commenting.

The reason for the 8TB of storage is that I have quite a few movies already (no, not pr0n!), a large DVD library which is in the process of being digitalised, RAW images, loads of games and a sizable music collection. I also want to have some storage space to spare. I was playing with the idea of putting both HDDs into RAID, but would be interested to hear why that's maybe not a good idea (@Jim).

The SSD size might be a little OTT though, so I'll have a think about possibly going down to 256GB or even 128GB (although, again, I'm a fan of having space to spare and I am always astounded by Windows' ability to mushroom in size in no time at all). In addition to the OS, though, a small number of programs will also be installed on the SSD, so it's not strictly speaking just for Windows.

The reason for going for the Pro, rather than the EVO, SSD was simply that I read good reviews of the Pro series. Having read around M.2 SSDs, I have noticed that installing one of them interferes with other ports in Z170 mainboards. Also, I am not sure I need the extra speed to be honest and they are not yet that easy to come by where I'm at.

The 4x4GB DDR4 Ram was partially to do with ease of purchase (2X8GB sticks are oddly difficult to come by in Germany, where I'd put this system together) and partially to take advantage of quad channel. However, keeping 2 RAM slots on the mainboard free does also appeal, so I'll look into that again.

The case is large enough to house the Macho Rev B (unless the manufacturer's spec sheet is lying). @outwar6010: what cooler do you suggest? What's "aio"?

Lastly, the GTX970 isn't going to last forever, I'm aware of that. Initially, the plan was to get that one now and then upgrade the GPU in the near future (the hope being that the rest of the computer will be good for quite a few years and that no components will need replacing too soon). However, if I save a few quid on the SSD and other bits, I might try looking into a GTX980. On the FreeSync v. GSync debate, I am hoping that GSync screens will come down in price eventually and, until they do, my current screen will suffice.

[MrJim]

The 4x4GB DDR4 Ram was partially to do with ease of purchase (2X8GB sticks are oddly difficult to come by in Germany, where I'd put this system together) and partially to take advantage of quad channel. However, keeping 2 RAM slots on the mainboard free does also appeal, so I'll look into that again.

The case is large enough to house the Macho Rev B (unless the manufacturer's spec sheet is lying). @outwar6010: what cooler do you suggest? What's "aio"?

If you do go with the Macho, fitting 4 memory modules will probably be a problem because of the size of the cooler; it tends to foul the first two ram slots on most motherboards.

An AIO is an 'All In One' water cooler, which is a sealed water cooling system. They tend to be a bit better performing than air coolers & easier to fit, but cost a bit more, eg: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CW-9...ds=corsair+h60

[MrRockliffe]

Thank you all for taking the time to take a look and for commenting.

The reason for the 8TB of storage is that I have quite a few movies already (no, not pr0n!), a large DVD library which is in the process of being digitalised, RAW images, loads of games and a sizable music collection. I also want to have some storage space to spare. I was playing with the idea of putting both HDDs into RAID, but would be interested to hear why that's maybe not a good idea (@Jim).

The SSD size might be a little OTT though, so I'll have a think about possibly going down to 256GB or even 128GB (although, again, I'm a fan of having space to spare and I am always astounded by Windows' ability to mushroom in size in no time at all). In addition to the OS, though, a small number of programs will also be installed on the SSD, so it's not strictly speaking just for Windows.

The reason for going for the Pro, rather than the EVO, SSD was simply that I read good reviews of the Pro series. Having read around M.2 SSDs, I have noticed that installing one of them interferes with other ports in Z170 mainboards. Also, I am not sure I need the extra speed to be honest and they are not yet that easy to come by where I'm at.

The 4x4GB DDR4 Ram was partially to do with ease of purchase (2X8GB sticks are oddly difficult to come by in Germany, where I'd put this system together) and partially to take advantage of quad channel. However, keeping 2 RAM slots on the mainboard free does also appeal, so I'll look into that again.

The case is large enough to house the Macho Rev B (unless the manufacturer's spec sheet is lying). @outwar6010: what cooler do you suggest? What's "aio"?

Lastly, the GTX970 isn't going to last forever, I'm aware of that. Initially, the plan was to get that one now and then upgrade the GPU in the near future (the hope being that the rest of the computer will be good for quite a few years and that no components will need replacing too soon). However, if I save a few quid on the SSD and other bits, I might try looking into a GTX980. On the FreeSync v. GSync debate, I am hoping that GSync screens will come down in price eventually and, until they do, my current screen will suffice.

I would not risk putting that amount of data on a single spinning drive. If it dies, it's ALL gone. Way too risky.

Go for an 850 Evo (I have one - it's great). It'll save you money, which you could put towards a 980 for better gaming performance.

[kalniel]

Thank you all for taking the time to take a look and for commenting.

The reason for the 8TB of storage is that I have quite a few movies already (no, not pr0n!), a large DVD library which is in the process of being digitalised, RAW images, loads of games and a sizable music collection. I also want to have some storage space to spare. I was playing with the idea of putting both HDDs into RAID, but would be interested to hear why that's maybe not a good idea (@Jim).

RAID is almost always worse for home-users than non-RAID. It's added complexity, boot time, for no noticeable increase in gaming performance or backup availability. RAID is basically for servers or where you need an always on service that can survive a hard drive dying while you replace it. For everything else use backups, not RAID.

The 4x4GB DDR4 Ram was partially to do with ease of purchase (2X8GB sticks are oddly difficult to come by in Germany, where I'd put this system together) and partially to take advantage of quad channel.

You only have dual channel anyway on the 6700k, regardless of how many DIMMS, so 4 sticks is always going to be a bit slower than 2.

[jazzmatazz2623]

Thanks again, guys.

I have been convinced of the error(s) of my ways on the SSD, RAM and, probably, RAID and will revise the build a little.

On the cooler front, I may go for a different Thermalright model (either Archon IB-E X2 or True Spirit 140 Power) or a Noctua NH-U14S. Those seem to be a little better at cooling and should hopefully also leave the RAM slots free. Any thoughts on those?

I may investigate AIO watercoolers, but I'm inherently nervous about putting anything liquid near (let alone in) my PC.

[k-c]

If it helps, I have Windows 10 on my 256GB SSD at the moment along with all the drivers I need for everything and it only takes up 55.8GB for the time being so can't see it going *too* high even with big updates.

Also I second the EVGA Supernova G2 650W power supply - someone on these forums recommended it to me and it is great - fairly small, gold rated, fully modular. I've only had it for a few months but no problems so far and it has a 7 year warranty.

On a non-technical note, I like the brushed metal effect on the case!