Critique my next build

[kevineugenius]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BGxggs

I've already purchased the case ($60 shipped, very pleased) and I am waiting for Pascal for the graphics card. I have a GTX 670 I'll use until then.

The goals for this build are:
1. Low heat - also read 'low power consumption'
2. Low noise
3. Longevity - finding items with long warranties has been my strategy so far
4. Durability - no overclocking, no extra features that I won't use, just things that I can set up once and hopefully run it for 3+ years
5. Favorable speed:cost ratio - the GPU might hurt me later, but I am running a 2k monitor and would like to play things like Fallout 4 and Star Citizen and be able to see all of their beauty. However, I'm not going to build a $3000 behemoth so I have to make the most of my dollars.

My thoughts on the components (please politely correct me if you disagree):
CPU: 6th gen i7 is a must for the kind of speed and lifespan I'm looking at. The 6700 has a lower TDP and price point and I won't be overclocking anyway. I do believe the k variants of CPUs perform better even at stock clocks, but the increased TDP makes this choice for me.
Core i7 6700

Cooler: My last build used a Hyper N Cooler Master and it was very nice, but a bit noisy and a bit expensive. If cost is an issue, why not just use the stock cooler? I hate the way they mount. The spring-style mounts bend the motherboard and it just makes me uneasy. I have no facts to back up that uneasiness. Anyway, I'm quite open to suggestions here as I've not really found something I'm confident in. I do like the Zalman all-copper units as well.
Tentative winner Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Motherboard: This is another component that I don't have strong feelings about. I've never had an ASRock board but I've heard good things. To my knowledge there aren't any motherboards with super long warranties or I would lean that route but this one comes with a 3 year and I feel like that's the best I will find. I've had (or been responsible for) so many PCs and used so many different brand of motherboard that I've seen failures in every maker (although I don't know I've ever bought an EVGA mobo), I'm really not married to any brand name. Asus is the preference when it's manageable. However, this board seems like it's a good feature set with a fair price. I do want to go DDR4 and have M.2 slots available for the future. The audio doesn't seem exciting on this board but you really can't tell until you hear it.
ASRock Z170 Pro4

Memory: I have to admit, I barely even shopped around for this... Memory to people who don't overclock is just so simple. It either plugs in and works or it doesn't. I opted for a 2x8GB set for the decent cost:benefit ratio. G.Skill has never given me even a hiccup in the past. I tried to match the speed and voltage suggested by the motherboard documentation and fell onto this memory set.
G.Skill Ripjaws 4 Series 2x8GB DDR4-2133

Storage: For the applications drive I go back and forth between Sandisk Extreme and Samsung 850 Pro. Both have very high speeds and the 10 year warranty that I'm after without actually costing as much extra as I thought it would. At the time I put this list together, the Sandisk was a better deal. For storage of lame files, I really wanted an intellipower style drive but couldn't find anything with a decent warranty or good reviews. I'm going to store things long term, I need this drive to not break. Yes, I do have space for backups but that's not the point. At any rate, I settled on a Western Digital Black for its warranty and track record.
Sandisk Extreme Pro 480GB SSD
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 7200RPM HD

Case: I spent quite a bit of time looking for the exact case I had envisioned and it doesn't exist under $350. So, I started looking for quality cases with zero bling and that had sound damping in them. When newegg put it on shell shocker and sent a $10 gift card to my mailbox the same day, I had to buy it. Done deal.
Fractal Design Refine R4 Blackout

Power Supply: Finally, the last component on the list! I'm pretty confident with this selection. The price is a wee bit higher than I would like but how did someone make power supplies with 10 year warranties and I didn't even know about it? Once I found that, I checked for some competition and really couldn't find anyone else matching that warranty. I calculated the wattage I would need, went overkill on the PSU as it is my understanding that having a higher-than-needed rating reduces the heat / noise output due to not having to stress the components and therefore heat them. It's 80+ gold and modular and I think it's a good pick, especially when on sale.
EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

I'm not sure anyone will read all that but... what do you think?

 

[cbliss1000]

With regards to the PSU: you might consider jumping on this deal if it's still alive. It's an excellent model that's known to be extremely quiet and efficient. The wattage will be fine for your needs (and in fact, for almost all single GPU build needs).

 

[Dangman]

The Hyper 212 Evo is a good HSF and is generally quieter than other HSF out there. However, it's still not the best choice if you want low noise as a main goal. Spend the extra money for this significantly quieter HSF:
$50 - Scythe SCKTT-1000 HSF

The unfortunate problem is that because the Skylake platform is a relatively new release, nobody really knows how reliable long term certain Skylake motherboards will be. For all intents and purposes, you're have a high chance of gambling no matter what with whatever motherboard you choose. With that said, I've worked with that AsRock mobo and it seems like a decent motherboard to me.

Personally, I trust Samsung over Sandisk. As for hard drives, this is where your long warranty plan does not work out. If you want actual data safety, you're better off with multiple drives in another PC or external drive in some form of RAID rather than the high price for that Black drive. If you want to avoid the hassle of dealing with a dead drive and don't care too much about the data, you're still better off with a HGST drive rather than a WD Black drive. Yes shorter warranty but HGST drives have been shown to have better longevity (yes the data gathering method may be flawed but it's better than blind guessing):
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/

In other words, there's zero reason to get the WD Black drives besides as a status symbol to show off to uninformed people.

The CPU and PSU are fine.

 

[kevineugenius]

I'll keep an eye on that PSU in case that deal is one of those that recurs now and again but I'm not able to pull the trigger today.

I do also prefer Samsung and am hopeful that at the time of purchase the Samsung will be at least within 10% of the Sandisk price-wise.

As for the spinner, I do plan to have an external RAID system at some point but that might be a few years down the road. From a short session of reading, I think you might be right and I should change to http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultrastar-3-5-Inch-Enterprise-0F14685/dp/B007VL8WS8

 

[defaultluser]

I think it looks good, I don't see any downside to going with Sandisk over Samsung. They both tend to make decent flash chips, and both have highly rated SSDs.

I will second Dangman's cooler recommendation though.

Also, if noise is a concern you might consider as 5400 rpm data drive. I mean, if you're the type of person bothered by loud spinning media.

 

[kevineugenius]

On the HD, my original build had Samsung Spinpoint M8 drives (smaller capacity so I needed more than one; planned to do RAID 5 with 3 drives or something) to reduce noise and power consumption. Having three drives, though, seemed to make that a worse option. I'm not finding any 5400rpm desktop drives that make me feel confident in their reliability. The HGST 'coolspin' sounds like a marketing term for exactly what I want, but the reviews on them are very mediocre. I could go with a single M9 2tb without changing the pricepoint much, if any, but Samsung appears to have sold off that line to Seagate. I don't really know how much got changed between the M8 and the M9 but I really don't trust Seagate.

 

[defaultluser]

On the HD, my original build had Samsung Spinpoint M8 drives (smaller capacity so I needed more than one; planned to do RAID 5 with 3 drives or something) to reduce noise and power consumption. Having three drives, though, seemed to make that a worse option. I'm not finding any 5400rpm desktop drives that make me feel confident in their reliability. The HGST 'coolspin' sounds like a marketing term for exactly what I want, but the reviews on them are very mediocre. I could go with a single M9 2tb without changing the pricepoint much, if any, but Samsung appears to have sold off that line to Seagate. I don't really know how much got changed between the M8 and the M9 but I really don't trust Seagate.

WD Red?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236343

Totally different product for the Hitachi drive. Has 64MB cache to make the slow speed a little less painful

These are typically fairly highly rated, as long as you stay at 2TB and below. Since you (probably) won't ever have to install games on your hard drive, the slower speed won't be much of a bother.

 

[Dangman]

I think it looks good, I don't see any downside to going with Sandisk over Samsung. They both tend to make decent flash chips, and both have highly rated SSDs.

My experience with cheap Sandisk SSDs at work have soured my opinion of Sandisk SSDs. With that said, I still buy their SDHC cards whenever they're on sale.

On the HD, my original build had Samsung Spinpoint M8 drives (smaller capacity so I needed more than one; planned to do RAID 5 with 3 drives or something) to reduce noise and power consumption. Having three drives, though, seemed to make that a worse option. I'm not finding any 5400rpm desktop drives that make me feel confident in their reliability. The HGST 'coolspin' sounds like a marketing term for exactly what I want, but the reviews on them are very mediocre. I could go with a single M9 2tb without changing the pricepoint much, if any, but Samsung appears to have sold off that line to Seagate. I don't really know how much got changed between the M8 and the M9 but I really don't trust Seagate.

Honestly, considering that you have a Fractal Design case, I really wouldn't worry too much about HDD noise. As such, having 5900RPM doesn't quite matter that much as you would be just fine with a 7200RPM drive from a noise standpoint

Yes I would avoid Seagate HDDs as well. As for WD Red drives, they're still kinda of a risky option based on the Backblaze info. Far less riskier than a Seagate but still kinda risky especially considering the higher premium you're paying for them. Before anyone says anything after reading my sig, yes I do have 9 WD 3TB Red drives. But I got them when A) they were on sale and B) before Backblaze's data on Toshiba and WD Red drives were fully out. No issues whatsoever but my luck isn't the same as others.

As for the spinner, I do plan to have an external RAID system at some point but that might be a few years down the road. From a short session of reading, I think you might be right and I should change to http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultrastar-3-5-Inch-Enterprise-0F14685/dp/B007VL8WS8

Not the HGST drive I'd get. If you have to have a HGST drive, I'd recommend this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145912&ignorebbr=1

With that said, IMO, you're needlessly complicating as well ultra simplifying things at the same time by looking for a single ultra reliable HDD because you don't want to deal with a dead drive. You're better off from a financial and data safety standpoint by getting two of these Toshiba 3TB drives and putting them into a RAID 1 array:
$75 - Toshiba PH3200U-1I72 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Hell, even from a time standpoint, the RAID 1 option is still better on account of the fact that you don't have to spend a lot of time trying to recover any data assuming that only one drive died.