Time to Upgrayedd! - Gaming PC

[topmounter]

1) Gaming
2) $600’ish
3) USA
4) n/a
5) Intel CPU (currently AMD)
6) Reuse Rosewill Blackbone ATX mid-tower case, Corsair 650W p/s, Asus Radeon R9 270, storage HDDs, optical drive
7) No immediate plan to overclock, but I want the option in the future
8) 1920x1080
9) Now
10) No new s/w

It is time to upgrade the CPU in my gaming PC (currently a Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition). I’ll upgrade the video card at a later date. I’ve already done some legwork on what direction I want to go and the parts are listed here:

Mobo: Asus z170-A ATX DDR4
Memory; Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2x8) DDR
Proc: i5-6600K Proc 3.5 GHz LGA 1151
Boot Drive: Plextor M6e Series 128GB M.2 PCIe iSSD
CPU Cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO


I do have some questions:

a) It seems like there were issues early on with M.2 drive and Mobo compatibility. Should I be concerned with the M.2 iSSD setup and installation or has that all been sorted out?

b) I currently own a copy of Windows 7, are there any issues with this new hardware (M.2 boot drive and Sky Lake CPU) and installing Windows 7?

c) I remember reading about some issues with CPU coolers and SkyLake CPU getting damaged during installation. The Coolermaster site lists LGA 1151 compatibility for the Hyper 212 EVO, but should I be looking at a different CPU air cooler?

d) Are there any other mobos that I should be considering in the $150’ish price range? I've always had good luck w/ Asus and don't need care about aesthetics (there are no see-thru panels in my mid-tower case).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ken g6]

b) I currently own a copy of Windows 7, are there any issues with this new hardware (M.2 boot drive and Sky Lake CPU) and installing Windows 7?

You can't use USB for the installation. You should probably upgrade to Win10 too.

c) I remember reading about some issues with CPU coolers and SkyLake CPU getting damaged during installation. The Coolermaster site lists LGA 1151 compatibility for the Hyper 212 EVO, but should I be looking at a different CPU air cooler?

It's probably fine. Just don't tighten it down too hard, and don't bounce it around alot with the cooler attached. I wouldn't go with a much bigger cooler than a Scythe Kotetsu, though. The kind of coolers they're warning you about are things like the Noctua NH-D14.

Another thing you could do is go with an i5 6500, and stick with the stock cooler until you want to BCLK overclock. If you want to do serious overclocking, water cooling would be a good idea at that point.

 

[cyclohexane]

With your budget, no reason for the k-version cpu, or the z170 board. Also, stick with SATA SSDs for now and not m.2 for the same reasons.

 

[topmounter]

Thanks... I'll do a 512GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD instead. I do plan on upgrading to Win10, but I need to figure out whether to do it before or after the upgrade. The EVO 212 air cooler will suffice for now and I'll plan on going to a water cooler and overclocking when I upgrade my video card. $704.30 shipped is close enough to $600 ... especially considering I've gotten more than 5 years out of my current CPU / Mobo / Memory.

 

[Ken g6]

With your budget, no reason for the k-version cpu, or the z170 board.

He wants to overclock, someday. So keep the Z170 board. But with that overshot an i5 6500 and its stock cooler (included) seem like a better idea.

 

[topmounter]

He wants to overclock, someday. So keep the Z170 board. But with that overshot an i5 6500 and its stock cooler (included) seem like a better idea.

Wow, thanks... that saves some real money without giving up much, both on the proc and not having to buy the air cooler ($64 + $30). And I can swap in a water cooler and get up to a 4.5GHz overclock on the 6500 when the time comes.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Beware of the Crucial kit. The tRFC timings on a kit I bought are super high, defaulted at 208, lowest I can get them is 174. My gaming 3x2GB kit can do 2000MHz @ CL8.8.8.21 tRFC 60. That's a HUGE difference. The Crucial kit can do the same but it's noticeably slower in gaming because of the tRFC timing. Here is the kit I bought Crucial DDR3 1600

 

[topmounter]

Beware of the Crucial kit. The tRFC timings on a kit I bought are super high, defaulted at 208, lowest I can get them is 174. My gaming 3x2GB kit can do 2000MHz @ CL8.8.8.21 tRFC 60. That's a HUGE difference. The Crucial kit can do the same but it's noticeably slower in gaming because of the tRFC timing. Here is the kit I bought Crucial DDR3 1600

Thanks, I did read about this Asus mobo being picky about memory so I went with memory that had been successfully used with it for reviews: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR-24000 (3000MHz) DDR4 RAM (2x8).

I also put the Win10 installer on a USB stick and found my Win7 key, so I'm ready to put everything together and do a clean install of Win10.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Thanks, I did read about this Asus mobo being picky about memory so I went with memory that had been successfully used with it for reviews: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR-24000 (3000MHz) DDR4 RAM (2x8).

I also put the Win10 installer on a USB stick and found my Win7 key, so I'm ready to put everything together and do a clean install of Win10 when everything arrives.

Great! Let us know how it goes

 

[topmounter]

Everything went well... to make a short story shorter, I ended up with the 6600K and the CM cooler. I always forget about the pre first post tension, but everything came up just fine. I did a clean install of Win10 and was able to get a stable 4.6GHz overclock using the Asus software, despite forgetting to update the BIOS (it had a very early version on it). Things got a little wonky when I messed with the memory clock, but I haven't had a chance to retest since updating the BIOS.

Regardless, the stock settings work great and everything is VERY quiet and cool... even running at 4.6 GHz. The next step is the video card will be a new video, but that can wait until this summer maybe.

Thanks everyone for you help!