Critique This Rig Please
 

For gaming and VR. What say you?



*NZXT H440 STEEL Mid Tower Case. Next Generation 5.25-less Design. Include 4 x 2nd Gen FNv2 Fans, High-End WC support, USB3.0, PWM Fan hub, Matte BLK / Red

*ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

*EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0, 08G-P4-6286-KR, 8GB GDDR5X, RGB LED, 10CM FAN, 10 Power Phases, Double BIOS

*CORSAIR RMx Series RM750X 750W 80 PLUS GOLD Haswell Ready Full Modular ATX12V & EPS12V SLI and Crossfire Ready Power

*Intel Core i5-6600K 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I56600K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530

*PNY CS1311 2.5" 240GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSD7CS1311-240-RB

*G.SKILL Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Desktop

*Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

*Windows 10 Home - 64-bit - OEM

You gonna plug that Intel LGA 1151 into that AMD AM3+ motherboard huh?

Thank god the case isn't one of those fugly pre-teen, sci-fi looking pieces of plastic crap.

Odd....i thought Vail was going with an off-the shelf PC, not a custom build.

Since this is a gift, buying all the components for his son to then build himself seems like a pretty neat idea.

Doh!

ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

That was the old one before I switched to Intel.

I was going to go COTS then a friend's son who is an engineer offered to help me build my own. Actually I'm building two for two of my sons. My first time; I've learned a lot in the last couple of weeks though I'm still real n00by.

We're all going to build them together with, I'm looking forward to it.

:thumb:

They make that model with the AURA lights feature as well, if you wanted that. It's like $20 more. I noticed your previous mobo had that....

Does that case not have any 5.25" drives at all? Sure you don't need a DVD drive?

Are there any key features you look for in a mobo? There are 3 Z170 models that I have on compare in NewEgg, each one has a couple of different features but I can't tell if one is really better than another.
I'm not getting the unclocked K series Intel CPU so the overclocking features don't mean much to me.

I would look into after market heat sink for CPU

One thing i always look at in a MoBo is how much ram it can support. You don't want a MoBo that caps at 16 Gigs of ram if you anticipate wanting to upgrade that later.

Corsair's H110 is a great product. Whisper quiet water cooling. Looks nice behind your acrylic case too. The heat management software it comes with is nice, and you can change the L.E.D color on the heat sink to match the theme of your build.

Another plus is that you don't have some massive radiator putting physical stress on your MoBo, nor does it get in the way. You get a water cooled CPU with out the hassle of leak testing or building your own water cooled set up, and it's cheaper too.

I'm a huge fan of the H110.

Sounds like a huge pile of shit, what did you do... go to Radio Shack and tell them "give me your worst garbage"














I kid I kid... dont know the first thing about it

So its water cooled?

Indeed. The CPU at least. I bought one for a build i did a year or so ago. I built a computer to do multi-media work. It sits right next to my desk so i wanted it to be very quiet while on the phone.

This thing is like a freakin' Prius...you can barely tell it's running. Installation is straight forward and easy, and the cost is minimal. You can find it for $100 or less.

Just have to make sure that your case has the provisions to install a radiator at the top. Most do.

***EDIT***

To clarify, i use the H100i. Just checked.

Overall size. But your case is large, so nothing to worry about there.

RAM capacity, both in number of slots and max RAM. Scour the reviews for user reports about RAM compatibility or issues.

If you have any current PCI cards, check to make sure the mobo will support it.

Chipset types and versions are the important part though. Especially the Northbridge. This has a Z170, which is currently the best you can get. The Z170 is great for overclocking by the way, even though you're not interested. But the jump from say a Z87 Northbridge to Z170 is pretty big. You're getting more PCIe lanes to work with, faster PCIe lanes, more SATA channels, more USB3 ports, etc.

The next generation is just right around the corner though. Releasing next month. The Intel Kaby Lake chips. Those will be 270/250 chipsets. And as of now, it looks to be another big performance boost. If you're interested, take a look here at the comparisons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...psets#LGA_1151

Not sure what the differences are between the ones you're looking at. But usually that's function specific stuff that's mostly meaningless. If you don't know what the feature is, just ask.

Thank you both, this helps.
Dammit Fish, why'd you have to tell me about new chipsets coming from Intel? I am having a hard enough time knowing the AMD ZEN is coming in Q217..
**EDIT**CNET doesn't think KabyLake will be that much of an improvement at all over SkyLake. That makes me feel better.

Vail, I'd go with the 6600K over the 6600. Sounds like you're going to push the limits with VR, might as well overclock your CPU. You can only overclock with the K versions.

Also, nobody can really know how much more powerful the KabyLake will be until they actually test them out. Everything else is hearsay. I think we should know in January. Hopefully.

100% this. Get the 6600K. Your son will easily be able to significantly increase the performance with a little bit of research and a little bit of effort. It's not difficult by any means but, at the same time, feels very satisfying.

That GTX 1080 is going to go a long way, man. This is going to be a beast comp regardless. :)

List modified:Intel Core i5-6600K 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I56600K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530

I was avoiding the K as I didn't want my son to frazzle the cpu in an overclocking gone wrong but I made this post to ask for advice and I'm going to take yours. Might as well have the capability for down the road.

Thank you for the advice.

Just a tip, the K series doesn't come with a stock fan/heatsink. So you'll need to get one. Get a Cyrorig H7. It costs like 30 bucks. Don't do watercooling. Way overkill for a first time builder.

That case rocks. I have it, and it is really quiet.

I prefer the eVGA G2 power supplies over that Corsair power supply but both are good.

Yeah dammit, thanks for reminding me.
Good feedback on the case, glad to hear it.

The watercooling i suggested is modular and very easy to install. You don't even have to fill it with liquid as it comes prefilled. You literally take it out of the box, mount the radiator to the top of the case, and attach the unit over the processor. Add power to it.

Kablaam! 15 Minute water cooling.

It looks cooler than some massive heatsink on your MoBo and saves a ton of space.

Overclocking nowadays is as easy as a push of the button. Pretty sure the motherboard listed has the option in BIOS to turn on Overclock.

That's definitely a normal thing to worry about. It's going to be very difficult for him to do any damage, though, as going too high in clock speeds will simply cause annoying stability issues.

He'll do 10 minutes worth of reading/youtube watching (if needed) and be good to go.

Well we got both builds done this weekend. It was pretty cool. There were a couple of instances where if we wouldn't have had the engineers there to help us we wouldn't have known what to do. Thanks to you who gave suggestions and input.

Done

Love those cases. I have the black and red one. What was your hardware for those two builds?

For the older son's:

*NZXT H440 STEEL Mid Tower Case. Next Generation 5.25-less Design. Include 4 x 2nd Gen FNv2 Fans, High-End WC support, USB3.0, PWM Fan hub, Matte BLK / Blue

*ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

*EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0, 08G-P4-6286-KR, 8GB GDDR5X, RGB LED, 10CM FAN, 10 Power Phases, Double BIOS

*CORSAIR RMx Series RM850X 850W 80 PLUS GOLD Haswell Ready Full Modular ATX12V & EPS12V SLI and Crossfire Ready Power

*Intel Core i5-6600K 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I56600K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530

*PNY CS1311 2.5" 240GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSD7CS1311-240-RB

*G.SKILL Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Desktop

*Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

ASUS PCE-AC56 802.11ac Dual-band Wireless-AC1300 PCI-E Adapter
Model #:PCE-AC56

CRYORIG H7 Tower Cooler For AMD/Intel CPU
Color: Black

For the younger boy:
NEW NZXT H440 STEEL Mid Tower Case. Next Generation 5.25-less Design. Include 4 x 2nd Gen FN V2 Fans, High-End WC ...

ASUS H170 PRO GAMING LGA 1151 Intel H170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Model #:H170 PRO GAMING

MSI Radeon RX 480 DirectX 12 RX 480 GAMING X 8G 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support ATX ...

CORSAIR RMx Series RM750X 750W 80 PLUS GOLD Haswell Ready Full Modular ATX12V & EPS12V SLI and Crossfire Ready Power .
..
Intel Core i5-6600 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.3 GHz LGA 1151 65W BX80662I56600 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530

Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDRE256GB


G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 ...

Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

ASUS PCE-AC56 802.11ac Dual-band Wireless-AC1300 PCI-E Adapter

Anyone have any recommendations on a case that is liquid-cooler friendly?
I'm planning another build for my son.

The Cooler Master HAF 932 is the one I used. It is a full tower but they have a mid tower design as well if that is what you are wanting. I don't know how well the mid tower supports the liquid cooling but the HAF 932 was very easy to install.