Finally time to upgrade from Q6600... help?

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Endari1127

n00b
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Sep 20, 2015
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Hi guys, i'm looking to replace my ancient Q6600, the first system I've ever built, with [H]ardforum's help back in 2007. Looking for your expert advice, once again. Many thanks in advance for your help!!


1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
1500 to 2000, tax included (newegg is tax free no?)
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Rockville, MD (20852 zipcode)
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, RAM, Gfx card, Liquid cooling, power supply, case
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Will be reusing Samsung SSD (840 Pro Series 256 GB SATA 6GB/s Solid State Drive MZ-7PD256BW)
6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes, at least a little bit
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Currently 19inch, looking for recommendation too
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next few weeks
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Crossfire support, SATA 6gb/sec,...
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes 64bit windows 8.1


This is the build i came up with on pc hound....

https://pchound.com/fvv15u/

I'll be mostly gaming on this, plan on doing some overclock - i'm currently running an old ass 19 inch samsung monitor (also from 2007 ;) )....so I figured I'd like to spend at most 2000

Is liquid cooling worth it? also the mobo I've chosen seems kinda pricy (ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO $228.99) ...same goes for the memory G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) Ripjaws V Series $205)....

Should i just buy the cheaper mobo/memory and go with fan cooling?

Thanks for any advice on the build.

Cheers,
Dave
 
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There's interesting choices between the Haswell-DT quad-core i7-4790K, the Haswell-E hex-core i7-5820K and the Skylake-S quad-core i7-6700K. (The recently and quietly released Broadwell-H quad-core i7-5775C has already been cancelled/discontinued because it was released way too close to the i7-6700K.)

With the i7-4790K, you get mature LGA 1150 Z-97 motherboards that have had the bugs worked out and you can find out what's good, because it's been out for over a year. It has 16 PCI-E lanes and the Z97 chipset uses DDR3 RAM. It is the cheapest of the three.

With the i7-5820K, you get LGA 2011-3 X99 motherboards, 28 PCI-E lanes and DDR4 RAM. While you get two more cores, you get a slower stock clock speed of 3.3GHz vs 4.0GHz for the quad-cores. If you are doing heavily multi-threaded work that actually uses more than 4 cores, the i7-5820K wins; if you are doing heavily single-threaded stuff, it doesn't. In the current state of the gaming world, the 4790K/6700K mostly do better due to the higher clocks; this might eventually change with DX12/Mantle/Vulkan - or it might not.

With the i7-6700K, you get LGA 1151 Z170 motherboards that have either just hit the market or haven't quite come out yet, 36 PCI-E lanes (16 on the CPU and 20 on the chipset) and DDR4 RAM. The performance improvement over the i7-4790K is relatively modest but the features like DDR4 and many more PCI-E lanes may be significant. It is the most expensive of the three, because supply has been an issue.
 
Sorry, should've formatted my question properly as per the sticky - post reformmated. Please see first post.
 
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Yeah that PC Partpicker setup isn't all that good. Let's start with the biggest issue: The PSU. Corsair's CX PSU lines are pretty crappy with the exception of the CX430:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/21/corsair_cx750_750w_power_supply_review/#.Vf9iMRFViko

At a minimum, you need this PSU:
$66 - XFX TS Series 550W PSU

But if you want to ensure a long life for the PSU and want a higher quality PSU for a good price, I recommend this PSU:
$117 - eVGA SuperNOVA 750G2 750W Modular PSU

That G.Skill RAM is ridiculously overpriced since you can twice as much RAM for no real world performance loss from the lower frequency:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104539&ignorebbr=1

If you don't think you really need 32GB of RAM or plan to upgrade to 32GB of RAM later on, you'll be fine with this cheaper 2 x 8GB set:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104573&ignorebbr=1

Either way, don't get that G.Skill DDR4 3000 RAM.

As for the motherboard, you'll be fine with this cheaper motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130873
 
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I'd consider upgrading to a 1440p monitor and going with a GTX 980 GPU. It will still be within' your $2k budget by a good bit, but you'll get an overall better gaming experience with the higher resolution of your monitor + the GPU to back it up.

Personally I'd stick with the i5, but you've got the budget for an i7 so I guess it wont hurt.
 
IMHO, that CPU cooler isn't worth it for "little bit" of overclocking. Even a good "hard" overclock would be fine with something like the;

Cooler Master Seidon 120V for $50

I doubt you'll be able to achieve "better" overclocks with the h100i over that 120v.

I would also go with the slightly cheaper EVGA 980 GTX for $500. While MSI isn't bad per say, but EVGA is just really great especially with the after purchase customer support and satisfaction.

Just do realize that unless you're going with a monitor that has a higher resolution than 1080P you shouldn't bother with a 980 GTX. They're expensive and a 970 GTX will handle 1080P just fine.
 
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Given Creative's recent track record over the years I'd say stay the f*ck away from the hardware as drivers are horrible.

ASUS Z170-A will do fine if you're going hardcore
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132566

MSI Z170A GAMING PRO
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130867

Depending on which band you prefer, both are solid products but I personally prefer MSI over Asus although they're usually a bit more expensive for the same performance except in this case.

What Dangman mentioned makes sense btw.
//Danne
 
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