New to PC building, how does my build look?

[EnsisTheSlayer]

Here's a link to my PC; http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DTjDD3 I'm new to building, but I've been researching parts and such for over 6 months. This is the reward for my hard work. Please tell me your opinions on it and please include recommendations and things I could do better. Thank you!

Moved to GH - AT MOD DAPUNISHER

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Well, it's certainly top of the line everything. I don't see anything that's likely to be incompatible with anything else.

The sound card is kind of unnecessary though. And there are other parts where I question if you're too far from the center of the elbow curve.*

I have a little bit of a moral problem with spending $3500 on a system that only has a single 500GB SSD, a 1TB data drive, and a measly 16GB of RAM. That's a sin on par with pairing red wine and fish or eating beef on a Friday during Lent.

* There are plenty of more generic fans that would be just as good for $5-10 less each, there are a lot of excellent gaming keyboards under $100. I'd probably go with the M30x headphones instead of the M50x's. No need for a fan controller - there's at least three PWM-capable SYS_FAN ports on the motherboard, and the fourth system fan can be locked to a middling speed by crossing a couple wires to feed it 7v instead of 12v. You can get a perfectly good ~600w 80+ Bronze for half that price and it'll work fine. Etc. Hey, what can I say, I'm cheap.

 

[giantpandaman2]

I wouldn't get closed headphones for gaming. You'll hear things better with open earphones unless you, for some reason, are worried about a lot of sound bleed. Open earphones allow for better directionality which is helpful for situational awareness.

Not sure about getting an Freesync TN monitor to use with a nVidia graphics card. Freesync doesn't work the nVidia AFAIK. So you're paying extra but not getting anything in return. Not to mention, a TN monitor in this day and age is sorta bleh, especially at that price. TN just sucks when you're playing dark game levels. I'd rather get a slower system and use the money for a better IPS monitor. Something like this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2F834N4239

What's your use case? I'm not sure there's a point in paying so much for fast ram unless you're doing a lot of memory heavy tasks. Edit-On second thought, given how much you're spending, an extra $30 on RAM doesn't matter.

I don't really think you need that sound card if you're going to use those speakers. The speakers aren't good enough for you to hear the difference between the onboard sound and a nicer card. There's also no reason to get a headphone amp and a nicer sound card. Given those headphones...again, amp isn't probably needed. If you still get a sound card, the mod mic isn't needed since that sound card comes with a beam mike. Beam mike is generally more convenient though slightly lesser in quality. The higher quality is really only necessary if you want to do streaming.

In the end, I'm just not sure if it's worth spending 3.5k for a system with HBM2 and a long overdue node change coming for GPU's. The next batch of video cards will likely smoke the 980-Ti.

I'd also switch thermal pastes to the NT-H1.

 

[futurefields]

Looks really nice. Only thing I would change is a bigger HDD, you have the 512gb SDD and then a 1TB HDD, if your gonna run a HDD why not go 2 or 3tb? Cost difference should be negligable. I find a 1TB HDD to be pretty small.

 

[Ken g6]

That sure adds up to a lot of money!

Are you sure you need a discrete sound card? I'd try the motherboard's.

Also I tend to suggest NT-H1 thermal compound.

 

[Yuriman]

My thoughts:

-The Kraken is a good cooler, but $130 for a CPU cooler is pretty steep. If you're going to spend that much, might as well go for a 6-core CPU instead, as the return-on-investment isn't very good. There are a lot of $30-50 coolers that are 95-99% as good. I also don't generally like AIO watercoolers, as pumps don't last forever and tend to be noisier than fans + heatpipes. I'd only recommend one if you're planning to delid.

-Arctic Silver 5 is not among the best thermal compounds today. If you end up going with something like a Noctua cooler instead, the NT-H1 compound included is better than Arctic Silver 5.

-I would consider going with a lower-end video card, considering how we're kinda close to a new generation. I suppose you could sell the 980Ti and upgrade when the new cards come out, though.

-I, personally, haven't used a CD/DVD drive in close to 7 years. I've stopped including them in my builds.

-I don't generally use full-tower cases anymore as I have a personal thing against cases that are unnecessarily large. Your full-tower case will be mostly empty space, and because it has such a large internal volume, you'll need more fans (and thus will have more noise, more cost) to have the same internal air velocity. You can probably fit everything you want in a good midtower, and have the same cooling with fewer fans.

-Ditto the above commends on sound cards. Just a heads up, but the motherboard you've selected has the same op-amp as Creative's Zx soundcard, a headphone amp, and uses Creative's software, making the soundcard largely pointless.

I'd probably shave some of the costs, then probably upgrade the speakers and/or headphones, depending on which you use more.

 

[Ranulf]

Others have mentioned similar things I would have except why two optical drives? Just get the Blu-ray burner if you want blu-ray reads/writes. You don't need both it and a dvd burner unless say doing direct disc to disc copying or something.

 

[EnsisTheSlayer]

This PC would be mainly to play Skyrim, but obviously I will play about ~30 other games. Skyrim is my main priority to play with a high end ENB and 2k/4k textures. If newer games need a better GPU, I'll slap in another 980 TI. That's why I got a full tower case and a higher wattage PSU. This is made to last. Here's my updated build, thanks for the recommendations. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/trNVhM

 

[topmounter]

For the same price I'd get the Acer Predator XB271HU instead.

 

[nsafreak]

Thoughts on updated build:

GPU: The 980 Ti is a great GPU but as has been stated the new GPUs from nVidia and AMD aren't too terribly far away and both are likely to offer substantial performance increases. I'm typically not one to recommend SLi/CrossFire unless you get it from the beginning as not all games utilize it well and even the ones that do rarely have it upon launch. I would suggest you consider a 970 for the time being

HDD: There's really not much point in getting a WD Black when your programs are going to reside on the SSD. I would go to a WD Blue/Green and up the size to 3TB instead.

OS: Why 8.1? Most folks have upgraded to 10 at this point and have found it to be an improvement.

 

[EnsisTheSlayer]

Thoughts on updated build:

GPU: The 980 Ti is a great GPU but as has been stated the new GPUs from nVidia and AMD aren't too terribly far away and both are likely to offer substantial performance increases. I'm typically not one to recommend SLi/CrossFire unless you get it from the beginning as not all games utilize it well and even the ones that do rarely have it upon launch. I would suggest you consider a 970 for the time being

HDD: There's really not much point in getting a WD Black when your programs are going to reside on the SSD. I would go to a WD Blue/Green and up the size to 3TB instead.

OS: Why 8.1? Most folks have upgraded to 10 at this point and have found it to be an improvement.

WD Black has higher ratings and is known to last longer. Also, I don't need 3TB. 2TB is excessive for me, but I'm deciding to get it so that if I ever seriously want to record and edit videos I have plenty of space to do so on.

I'm using the 980 TI because my build revolves around maxed out Skyrim with an ENB and a 4k texture pack mod. Skyrim is my main priority (as I stated before). You probably don't get into excessive modding, and if I wasn't either I would absolutely go for the 970. Also I'm not planning on building my PC for at least another ~6 months, maybe even a year. If the GPUs are as good as the hype and perform good for their cost, I can always change it then.

I'm choosing Windows 8.1 for three reasons. First reason, Morrowind has issues playing in fullscreen mode in Windows 10 (I know I currently have a laptop running it). Second reason, ever since I upgraded to Windows 10 my laptop has been having issues with the internet and the switch actually corrupted the OS so I had to get it reset. Third reason, it's cheaper than Windows 7 and 10.

Most people find it to be an improvement because it looks shinier and has an Xbox app to control your Xbox One. The only thing useful about the Xbox feature that I couldn't do without it, is I could log in to my Microsoft Account and message people on Xbox Live a bit quicker with my keyboard. This will be fixed when I order a mini-keypad for my controller.

 

[DigDog]

what yuriman said, plus

you have two cd/dvd/blueray drives, you need zero, but if you really want to do the install via DVD, then get the bluray writer only.
i prefer W7 to W8.1 and W10.
you will not need a card reader either, unless you have an old camera.
you will not need a fan controller either, you can control them from the motherboard.

the 980ti should last you 3 years, so it's not a bad buy. if you want to wait for the next gen, sure, why not.

me, i'd rather go with a no-window Fractal Designs Define R5 instead of teh corsair, but they are both top class cases anyway.
i don't think you will need cable management over what you get with your case.

if you play FPS games (from your mousemat, it looks like it), you might want to consider a tenkeyless keyboard; they are smaller thus giving you more space to move the mouse, while keeping both arms straight.

 

[EnsisTheSlayer]

what yuriman said, plus

you have two cd/dvd/blueray drives, you need zero, but if you really want to do the install via DVD, then get the bluray writer only.
i prefer W7 to W8.1 and W10.
you will not need a card reader either, unless you have an old camera.
you will not need a fan controller either, you can control them from the motherboard.

the 980ti should last you 3 years, so it's not a bad buy. if you want to wait for the next gen, sure, why not.

me, i'd rather go with a no-window Fractal Designs Define R5 instead of teh corsair, but they are both top class cases anyway.
i don't think you will need cable management over what you get with your case.

if you play FPS games (from your mousemat, it looks like it), you might want to consider a tenkeyless keyboard; they are smaller thus giving you more space to move the mouse, while keeping both arms straight.

Yeah, I deleted the other ODD. I prefer Windows 7 to Windows 8 too (it's what I grew up with), but it's more expensive. I have an SD card, but I guess I don't really need a reader for my PC.

The SD card is for my DSi XL, but I don't think I need to transfer pictures to my PC. I don't use an old camera either. I also fixed the fan controller. The cable management is for the cords outside of the case for a cleaner look, which is why I got LED strips too.

I'm going for a full tower case instead of a mid tower case so it will last me much longer. I'm not a HUGE FPS gamer, and with the Corsair STRAFE RGB I can reprogram the numb keys to act as macros to launch websites or applications.

I also got that keyboard because it's currently the only one to have Cherry MX Silent switches, it's got as good RGB lighting as the Razer Blackwidow Chroma, it's got a USB port, and it's cheaper and of higher quality than the Razer Blackwidow Chroma. I know you just said tenkeyless, but I'm the type of person that likes to rant.

 

[DigDog]

yeah, me too, Quake Live mostly, but the occasional CS and UT4 too, and Reflex ofc.

 

[EnsisTheSlayer]

I would get more into FPS games, but my laptop cant run 90% of them at the lowest settings and resolution. That's why I want a gaming PC so badly.

 

[DigDog]

i've noticed the EVGA 850w platinum is actually cheaper ($109) then the gold one.

also, it seems your benQ is a freesync monitor, while you have an Nvidia card.

 

[stockwiz]

I would go with Broadwell-E and get a 6 core, 12 threaded part if you want a system really "made to last" .. it's only a couple months away. You're already spending $3500, what's another $500? If you wait until the next generation of Nvidia cards arrives, you'll really be able to build a system that can better stand the test of time. The performance increase will be substantial from the old 28nm process.

I know that 4 months seems like a long time to some people, especially if they are under 25... but really 4 months goes by in 4 days as you get older.

 

[EnsisTheSlayer]

Sorry! I just realized that I didn't show my UPDATED updated build! Here it is; http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wrDLhM I'm not building this for QUITE a while, so in ~6 months or so I'll see how the Pascal and Broadwell-E's ratings are and see the graphs and comparisons. I'll change it at my leisure then. Yeah, I obviously am younger than 25 and I am quite impatient, but I definitely will wait for the new GPU and CPU to come out.

 

[DigDog]

the modmic, are you getting the omnidirectional, or the unidirectional?

omni has slightly better sound quality,but picks up external sounds. uni only picks up your voice. i have the omni and it's fantastic.

 

[EnsisTheSlayer]

I'm getting the unidirectional version because video and written reviews state that it has better quality and doesn't pick up as much excess noise as the omnidirectional mic does. Since it's gonna be attached to my M50x headphones, it will be always facing in the same direction. I also am getting mine with a mute for when I REALLY get into FPS games on PC. I can also use this on my Xbox One with an adapter, so that's also a plus.

Also I was looking at some more reviews of my peripherals, and topmounter really made a good choice recommending me the Acer monitor. Thanks.