Double-check what I've got picked out, been a few years

[darkewaffle]

Currently running an AMD Phenom II 965 build that I put together almost exactly five years ago but the advent of Skylake and Win10 and Intel's handsome PCIE SSDs has me in the mood. Mostly I play a lot of games (single monitor, 1920x1080) and just like to multi-task (alt-tab) a lot while doing so.

I don't need a case, PSU or GPU. I'll be using my existing Lian Li PC-9F, Seasonic x750 and Sapphire 7950 if it's of any interest. Basically just checking to make sure I haven't missed anything (not so) obvious with regards to what will/won't work/could be a red flag. Budget isn't of particular concern, I'll likely keep these for a long time.

CPU - 6600k
Mobo - ASUS Z170-A
RAM - Mushkin 2x8GB 2133 kit
Cooler - Corsair H60
SSD - Intel 750 PCIE 400GB AIC

The primary reasons for choosing that Mobo are that the QVL device list already indicates support for the 750 SSD and it also has three PCIE x16 slots available which is important to me in the event I'd ever want to use dual GPUs alongside the SSD. Everything else is pretty much "whatever" lol.

RAM I just happen to like Mushkin and the few (early, admittely) reviews I've seen covering DDR4 speed indicate that Skylake performance doesn't seem to change much/at all with RAM clock. Open to suggestions if there's a some good reason to go with an alternative (2x8 preferred) or a particularly good value 32GB kit.

I currently have a Noctua NHsomethingorother but it's huge and heavy and I'd like to try out one of the closed-loop hydro coolers, never had one before. Corsair afaik is a good all around pick for that category. I'm no expert though. Also the rear fan mount on my case is 120mm.

Any overclocking will be limited to a simple multiplier increase. If I can get a few hundred more MHz out of it, great, I'm not diving too deep into it.

Think that about covers it, appreciate any thoughts.

 

[maddogchen]

Did you know that the intel 750 is on sale at Newegg?

http://slickdeals.net/f/8045075-int...nvme-340-fs-at-newegg-lowest-price-so-far?v=1

 

[DigDog]

holy s***, four hundred bucks for 400gb?

you know, you could raid two SATA SSDs for that money.

 

[Termie]

Currently running an AMD Phenom II 965 build that I put together almost exactly five years ago but the advent of Skylake and Win10 and Intel's handsome PCIE SSDs has me in the mood. Mostly I play a lot of games (single monitor, 1920x1080) and just like to multi-task (alt-tab) a lot while doing so.

I don't need a case, PSU or GPU. I'll be using my existing Lian Li PC-9F, Seasonic x750 and Sapphire 7950 if it's of any interest. Basically just checking to make sure I haven't missed anything (not so) obvious with regards to what will/won't work/could be a red flag. Budget isn't of particular concern, I'll likely keep these for a long time.

CPU - 6600k
Mobo - ASUS Z170-A
RAM - Mushkin 2x8GB 2133 kit
Cooler - Corsair H60
SSD - Intel 750 PCIE 400GB AIC

The primary reasons for choosing that Mobo are that the QVL device list already indicates support for the 750 SSD and it also has three PCIE x16 slots available which is important to me in the event I'd ever want to use dual GPUs alongside the SSD. Everything else is pretty much "whatever" lol.

RAM I just happen to like Mushkin and the few (early, admittely) reviews I've seen covering DDR4 speed indicate that Skylake performance doesn't seem to change much/at all with RAM clock. Open to suggestions if there's a some good reason to go with an alternative (2x8 preferred) or a particularly good value 32GB kit.

I currently have a Noctua NHsomethingorother but it's huge and heavy and I'd like to try out one of the closed-loop hydro coolers, never had one before. Corsair afaik is a good all around pick for that category. I'm no expert though. Also the rear fan mount on my case is 120mm.

Any overclocking will be limited to a simple multiplier increase. If I can get a few hundred more MHz out of it, great, I'm not diving too deep into it.

Think that about covers it, appreciate any thoughts.

Actually, RAM speed matters with Skylake, so you should probably consider something faster - 2666MHz is a good price/performance compromise.

Also, the H60 probably won't outperform your Noctua, and will be louder. Noctua is providing free s1151 brackets if your cooler didn't come with a s115x bracket, so it wouldn't cost anything to reuse it. Here's some info on that: http://noctua.at/main.php?show=news_list&news_id=102&lng=en

holy s***, four hundred bucks for 400gb?

you know, you could raid two SATA SSDs for that money.

And it would still be much, much slower than the PCIe drive.

 

[darkewaffle]

So far the reviews that I've seen showing a difference in RAM speed are mostly in synthetic situations. I certainly haven't read them all but the only somewhat real world use I've seen indicates virtually no change at all. Though the Jagat review did make a cursory mention of noticeable differences in Watch Dogs. Have you seen anything else worth reading?

Point taken though, the difference between a 2133 kit and a higher clocked kit in terms of price is pretty trivial in most instances. Probably no reason not to.

I did some digging and seems like you may be right. I've got a NH-D14 which appears to be a pretty good cooler to this day. Guess I was expecting it to have 'aged' a bit more. I'll check on what mounting hardware I have - seems like I should have what I need from the sounds of it though.

And yeah it's expensive, but at the same time 400GB for $400 ($340! thanks for the heads up on the promo code) is a hell of a lot better value than the 300$+ for 160GB I paid a few years back Plus this is more of a "what I want" than "what I need" upgrade.

Appreciate the input.

 

[Termie]

The D14 is still one of the best coolers on the market. Because circuits aren't involved, it's the kind of hardware that never ages. Be glad you invested wisely the first time!

As for DDR4 speed, here's the review you should read: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015...76700k_ipc_overclocking_review/6#.Vc9wdrJViko

 

[DigDog]

are you trying to tell me that an SSD still bottlenecks a modern system?

 

[MongGrel]

That PCIE SSD looks pretty sweet to me.

Never used one, bit the transfer rates look pretty crazy.

Have a NH D14 myself on the main, personally if I were you I'd stick with it also like a few have mentioned.

Still good and low maintenance for what it is.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Currently running an AMD Phenom II 965 build that I put together almost exactly five years ago but the advent of Skylake and Win10 and Intel's handsome PCIE SSDs has me in the mood. Mostly I play a lot of games (single monitor, 1920x1080) and just like to multi-task (alt-tab) a lot while doing so.

I don't need a case, PSU or GPU. I'll be using my existing Lian Li PC-9F, Seasonic x750 and Sapphire 7950 if it's of any interest. Basically just checking to make sure I haven't missed anything (not so) obvious with regards to what will/won't work/could be a red flag. Budget isn't of particular concern, I'll likely keep these for a long time.

CPU - 6600k
Mobo - ASUS Z170-A
RAM - Mushkin 2x8GB 2133 kit
Cooler - Corsair H60
SSD - Intel 750 PCIE 400GB AIC

The primary reasons for choosing that Mobo are that the QVL device list already indicates support for the 750 SSD and it also has three PCIE x16 slots available which is important to me in the event I'd ever want to use dual GPUs alongside the SSD. Everything else is pretty much "whatever" lol.

RAM I just happen to like Mushkin and the few (early, admittely) reviews I've seen covering DDR4 speed indicate that Skylake performance doesn't seem to change much/at all with RAM clock. Open to suggestions if there's a some good reason to go with an alternative (2x8 preferred) or a particularly good value 32GB kit.

I currently have a Noctua NHsomethingorother but it's huge and heavy and I'd like to try out one of the closed-loop hydro coolers, never had one before. Corsair afaik is a good all around pick for that category. I'm no expert though. Also the rear fan mount on my case is 120mm.

Any overclocking will be limited to a simple multiplier increase. If I can get a few hundred more MHz out of it, great, I'm not diving too deep into it.

Think that about covers it, appreciate any thoughts.

The RAM you have listed is out of stock. But this G.Skill kit looks even better for just $2.00 more.

 

[Valantar]

I still have trouble understanding why people are willing to spend hundred of dollars on PCIe SSDs that will gain them pretty much nothing in real-world usage. Baffles me.

(Yeah, sure, it's 3-4x faster than a SATA SSD under extreme workloads. But gaming or regular desktop usage is not an extreme workload. Not even close. And do you really notice the difference between a latency of ~100µs and ~300µs?)

 

[MTDEW]

The only comment I can think to make is if you're going to use your Noctua NH-D14 , then its best to look for lower profile memory to ensure clearance.

I'm also not sure if the ASUS Z170-A heat-sinks around the cpu socket will have clearance problems with the Noctua NH-D14 either.

I have a Noctua NH-D14 also.
And if I do decide to do a Skylake build and use my NH-D14, I'm going to have to wait until I can see others who have used the Noctua and with what mobo/memory to 100% confirm that the NH-D14 will work without clearance issues.

I'm no longer a fan of water cooling, not because of possible leaks that most people say they fear, I've never actually had a leak on my many watercooled efforts over the years.
But because of pump failure.
I've had pumps fail on me before and it sucks.
Your setup is basically down until you order and receive a new pump and drain / bleed everything installing a new pump.
And some pumps are just plain noisy, and the noise can vary even when using the same brand of pump / AIO, so you're never 100% sure of how noisy it will be until it's installed.

As opposed to with a Heatsink, a simple fan failure is a whole lot less hassle and less expensive to replace.
Just slap any old fan on there to avoid any downtime until the good one you ordered to replace the dead one shows up.

Not to mention Noctua offering free mounting brackets if needed is definitely a plus.

 

[MongGrel]

The RAM you have listed is out of stock. But this G.Skill kit looks even better for just $2.00 more.

I'm a G Skill fan myself.

I second that.

 

[MongGrel]

I still have trouble understanding why people are willing to spend hundred of dollars on PCIe SSDs that will gain them pretty much nothing in real-world usage. Baffles me.

(Yeah, sure, it's 3-4x faster than a SATA SSD under extreme workloads. But gaming or regular desktop usage is not an extreme workload. Not even close. And do you really notice the difference between a latency of ~100µs and ~300µs?)

Because they can and want to I guess.

It's the same reason people shop for different features on cars and pay for them I suppose.

I'm weird and have my D14 running vertically out the top to the big fan on the Antec 1200, so I guess it doesn't really mess with the RAM much, but the P6T7 is a big board.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I still have trouble understanding why people are willing to spend hundred of dollars on PCIe SSDs that will gain them pretty much nothing in real-world usage. Baffles me.

(Yeah, sure, it's 3-4x faster than a SATA SSD under extreme workloads. But gaming or regular desktop usage is not an extreme workload. Not even close. And do you really notice the difference between a latency of ~100µs and ~300µs?)

I guess, given my workloads (no VMs on my client machine), that I would want a 1TB 850 EVO for $300-400, than a 400GB PCI-E 3.0 x4 SSD. But for a VM server, I might want the opposite.

 

[darkewaffle]

The GSkill is fine and all but I'd rather sticks rated at higher clocks for 1.2v instead of 1.25v, I found some suitable ones on Amazon - seems like a lot of kits are out of stock at the Egg. Also I believe the RAM clearance will be ok, my existing memory is something like this and while it is quite snug there is no contact.

I'm basically "eyeballing" it but compared to my current mobo I don't think the onboard heatsink is any taller than the Gigabyte one, though it might be a hair closer to the socket. I expect it will be fine provided I orient the D14 horizontally. Only one way to find out though lol.

 

[darkewaffle]

Just for reference if it's of use to anyone the NH-D14 fits quite comfortably on the Z170-A with the Mushkin ram mentioned above (there's something like 1/3 - 1/2 inch of clearance with the stock D14 fans). I think it would take some seriously high profile RAM to cause an issue.

Additionally the Z170-A is able to boot successfully to the PCIE Intel 750 SSD with both W7 and W10 installed. The only change I made in the BIOS related to it, iirc, was changing the boot mode for PCIE devices from "Legacy" (or something like that) to "UEFI First". However when I run CrystalDiskMark I'm still seeing read/writes somewhat-to-significantly below what I believe it should be at so I'm thinking I may need to still try a few different configurations (mostly related to driver installation and CSM). That said it still is running great even if I don't have it quite right yet.

 

[maddogchen]

good to hear it working out. Not sure about your Intel 750 thing.

Did you try overclocking? what you get with the Noctua cooler?