Please critique my PC build

[strawman]

I need to be able to run a few recent games, and have a computer that can handle a decent amount of CAD, 3D modeling, animation workstation, and rendering duties. It'll be running a 4k monitor, plus maybe one or two 1080p monitors.

I generally don't upgrade my computers, so whatever I choose I'll probably be stuck with for awhile.

Aside from the monitor I wanted to stay under $1k, but it all adds up. I do have an SSD (sandisk ultra II 960gb) which was going into my laptop that will now be used for this new computer, so I don't have to spend money on those items. That said, here's the build I'm considering, and the prices currently at newegg:

Intel Core i5-6600 Skylake 3.3ghz $230
Asus Z170-E LGA 1151 motherboard $135 (not including $20 rebate)
Geil 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400 $62
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB video $440
Corsair CX750M 750W ps $90 (not including $10 rebate)
Microsoft Windows 10 home $100
Repurpose old case $0

$1,057 before rebates, $1,027 after rebates if I get my act together and submit them.

I'd like the i7-6700, but it's an additional $70 for the non K version (3.4GHz), and doesn't come with a fan, and while one should probably toss the included fan and get a good one, I'm trying to make reasonable tradeoffs in cost here. The i5 is still a quad core (helpful for rendering and such), just doesn't have hyperthreading and the caches are much smaller. I suspect the CPU should be able to keep up with the video card. The power supply is probably overkill, I'll have to look closely at the power requirements of the video card and CPU again before I look at downsizing it. I won't go to the trouble of doing SLI or anything like it, so I don't need to plan ahead for a bigger supply.

I'm kinda ambivalent about the motherboard, perhaps there's a better option. Alternately, maybe it would be better to get a super cheap Z170 board and spend that money on the better processor. I'm not sure where to balance that.

The cases that I have lying around unused aren't nearly as well ventilated as the $60 cases I'm seeing on newegg, so I may end up getting a new case anyway just to avoid overheating. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Also, I suppose AMD will be releasing their next gen graphics cards soon, which might affect the video card choice. Since the processor and motherboard have built in graphics, I'm willing to wait a month or two on the nicer video card if it's only going to be a month or two and if it's going to make a big difference (ie, more than 10%) in price for a given level of performance.

The monitor I'm getting supports freesync, not gsync, but again, I'm not playing the latest bleeding edge games so I suspect I'll be happy enough with v-sync.

 

[Ravenpoe]

If there is any wiggle room in the monitor and/or video card, I highly recommend getting compatible adaptive sync technology. I'm only familiar with nvidia, so I don't know if there is currently am AMD card similar to the 1070 at that price point. I've been using g-sync, and the difference in quality is really big, though I'm someone that really favors frame rate over anything else. That said, given that you're going to be using a 4k monitor, I don't know that frame rate will be that high, as you might be struggling to push out 60fps at that point on more intensive games. I'll defer to someone more versed, I only game in 2k for the reasons mentioned above.


Also, if you can wait a few months, you can save money on your GPU when non-standard 1070's start coming out. Nvidia is putting a premium on the "founder edition" cards and the non stock ones should run around $370 once they're released.

Other than that, everything looks good for a gaming build, I'll let someone else talk about other applications

 

[Bubble181]

I'd consider making sure you have place etc to upgrade your RAM...16GB is plenty for gaming, but you might be doing more intensive work, too, if you're rendering and debugging and the like. And/or might consider going faster than 2.400MHz, though the price can go up fast and I haven't built a PC in long enough that I'm not sure anymore about the price breakpoints

Just a quick look suggests something like this would be a possible upgrade for just 4 or 5 dollars more. Or the GeIL Dragon RAM GWB416GB2666C15DC, which I can't find retail in the US because of Google's bad habits, which is the samen brand and type you list, but at a higher core speed, for what amounts to the same price.

 

[Dave]

Looks like a pretty solid build to me.

 

[strawman]

Paging @PatrThom ... Maybe you're already aware and/or replying, but if not, if you have time, I'd appreciate a critique from you as well...

 

[GasBandit]

It looks pretty good to me, though I echo the sentiment of waiting for the floodgates to open on the 3rd party 1070s, then take the money you save there and apply it toward a stronger CPU - if you're doing a lot of rendering and such, it'll make a difference. If I had known I'd be editing so much video, I might have sprung for a beefier CPU myself (I also got an i5).

Also I recommend a conventional platter drive in addition to your SSD, so that you can put stuff that requires a lot of deletion on it instead of the SSD to extend the life of the SSD.

 

[strawman]

Yeah, I'm starting to lean towards getting the system right now without a video card, but moving up to the i7 6700k (cost an additional $200 - $250 since I'll have to get a good heatsink as well), then getting the nice video card maybe in September. Don't know if I want to wait for the black friday sales, but obviously that would be the best time to get the good cards cheap.[DOUBLEPOST=1469632557,1469632283][/DOUBLEPOST]I know the Intel HD 530 graphics will be leaps and bounds beyond what I can currently do with my computers, and it'll run the 4k display and a secondary 1080p display just fine, I just won't be able to get any reasonable framerates on newer games above 720p with it. Apparently the 530 is a step backwards from the broadwell integrated graphics.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252-9.html

 

[Gruebeard]

I was gonna suggest putting your highest stat in Charisma, but wrong sort of PC.

 

[Dave]

With a high enough charisma, you don't need combat skill.

 

[strawman]

I was gonna suggest putting your highest stat in Charisma, but wrong sort of PC.

This is what happens when you put your money into PC charisma:

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/case-mod-friday-gold-wings/

 

[Dave]

I need one of @GasBandit 's orgasm gifs.

 

[GasBandit]

I need one of @GasBandit 's orgasm gifs.

Psht, I save the good ones for myself. Here, have a samberg.

 

[Gruebeard]

I need one of @GasBandit 's orgasm gifs.

I did not know he records his orgasms. TIL

 

[PatrThom]

Paging @PatrThom ... Maybe you're already aware and/or replying, but if not, if you have time, I'd appreciate a critique from you as well...

You picked grocery shopping day. I saw it, but I have to wait for the family to stop throwing errands at me before I can sit down and look it over.

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

You picked grocery shopping day. I saw it, but I have to wait for the family to stop throwing errands at me before I can sit down and look it over.

--Patrick

I know you're busy, don't put it before more important matters (and, honestly, almost anything is more important than this...)

 

[PatrThom]

I know you're busy, don't put it before more important matters (and, honestly, almost anything is more important than this...)

Hah!
No.
Lately people have decided that my days off do not belong to me, instead this is when they can FINALLY get me to do some thing they want done. These people are about to be taught how a queue works, and they're about to find their priority has been lowered.

--Patrick

 

[PatrThom]

Well, you're not going to like what I've found. Maybe.
Even though the i7-4790k is a little over a year older than the i7-6700k, it turns out the per-thread performance of the 4790 is actually about 8% faster than that of the 6700 (at exactly the same GHz), and for $70 less besides. When multi-core performance is compared, the 4790's lead shrinks to only 2%, but it is still ahead AND for 3W less, besides. My guess is that since the other related components (motherboard, RAM) would be from the same generation, you might realize some savings there as well (I have not yet actually researched this possibility).

I will happily dig a bit deeper...after I put <our son> to bed. Again. Do you know anyone who makes matching pajama/sheets combos out of hook-and-loop?

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

In the 80's when Velcro was a big deal someone thought it would be good to put it on sleeping bags in place of the zipper. My older brother had one, and only used it once - he got so tangled up and stuck to it and frightened because he was dreaming of being consumed by some animal or monster that he didn't use it again.

So while sticking him in bed sounds good on paper, I'm guessing you don't want to foot the therapy bills later.

 

[PatrThom]

So the reasons for going with LGA1151 (new) instead of LGA1150 (old) amount to the following:

source: Z170 vs Z97: What is the Difference?
The short of it: The two CPUs are essentially on par, computationally, except of course for the newer integrated graphics core. Also the newer processor can support twice the amount of RAM as the old one (as well as newer DDR4) ... IF you think you're going to need more than 32GB. The DMI3.0 upgrade also grants a higher number of PCIe lanes and (faster) M.2 slots, if that's your thing.
So: IF you need or foresee yourself really appreciating the newer features at some point OR if you see yourself never needing to run anything earlier than Windows 10, get a Z170-based system, splurge for the i7-6700k instead of the i5-6600, and resign yourself to getting that better graphics card later. Otherwise, build yourself a computationally equivalent 4790k-based system for about $300 or so less, with the attendant limitations in mind (less max RAM, fewer M.2 slots, a few less USB 3 ports, and a potential bottleneck for your non-GPU PCIe cards).

If you want me to comment on the specific components you mention (aside from the CPU, since I've already done that), I would be happy to do so, but that will take some time.

while sticking him in bed sounds good on paper, I'm guessing you don't want to foot the therapy bills later.

It's actually a brilliant idea, but in my case the deal-breaker was the fact that scraping your bare leg(s) up and down the hook side was decidedly uncomfortable.

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

Well it sounds like the 4790k easily beats out the i5-6600 which is what I was tending towards anyway, and the feature differences are minimal for my usage. I'll put together a 4790k system estimate and compare, but it looks like a good direction to go in. I might be able to bump up the other specs a little, possibly going for the GTX 1080, or considering SSD striped raid (which still appears to be cheaper than the new really speedy PCI based storage). Or a second 4k monitor. Or nearly half a vive.

Well, I'll noodle over it more tomorrow. Thanks for the info!

 

[PatrThom]

Well it sounds like the 4790k easily beats out the i5-6600 which is what I was tending towards anyway, and the feature differences are minimal for my usage.

4790 beats 6600, yes. The 4790 beats the 6700 by a margin only just slim enough to make it worth considering (going with the older CPU) for the price, but not a guarantee (RAM accesses will be faster, for instance). That's why I'm suggesting you look long and hard at your intended usage pattern. If you're going to have need for all those extra PCIe lanes (e.g., for Dual-GPU or PCIe flash storage) or larger data sets, then Future You will appreciate going with the Z170. The only compelling reason to go with the Z97/4790k system in its place is the cost savings, and the main reason I make the case for that above is because you seem to enjoy having more dollars around the house.

I will also remind you that the NVIDIA 10x0 cards will probably come down in price $50 (or more) before the end of the year as the other vendors start making their own customized versions of the card.

I will also point out that Intel's 7000-series CPUs (Codename "Kaby Lake") are supposed to start shipping later this year. They have already started shipping to OEM Mfrs (Apple, Dell, Sony, etc.), so it shouldn't be long before we start hearing reviews about what they can do. So far all we know is they're better about decoding video streams, have built-in USB 3.1/Thunderbolt, and that they will require Windows 10 as a minimum. No more Win7/Win8.x, there is only Win10.

Also striped SSD raid is absolutely AMAZING (and scary!), so long as you have your stripe size set to match your particular SSD's block size (for efficiency).

--Patrick

 

[PatrThom]

Oh, and if you buy the retail box version of a processor, the stock cooler you get with it should be "good enough" for quite a while until you manage to pick up something more exotic. Intel's stock coolers these days actually aren't awful.

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

build yourself a computationally equivalent 4790k-based system for about $300 or so less

So I see the benchmarks show the 4790k marginally beats the 6700k in almost every metric, but on newegg the 4790k is $339 vs the 6700k at $349, or the 6600 at $249. The motherboards aren't much cheaper at the low end I'm hitting (ie, cheap motherboards cost $80-$150 for all chipsets).

So where do you find the ~$300 savings? Am I looking in the wrong place, or did Intel mark down the skylake processors recently?

 

[PatrThom]

The quick check I did yesterday showed the 4790k on sale at 249, now the lowest price I see is 300. Could be a lot of other folks had the same idea (or else some vendor somewhere was having a sale). Looks like Skylake prices had their last big drop in March (they actually went back up about $30 at the beginning of July).
My quick check of boards (via NewEgg) showed a rough variance in price of about $60-120, though I was not looking at the low end, only at the more feature-rich Z-level (Z97/Z170) boards with at least one x4 M.2 slot (you'll want that later).
Difference in DDR3 v. DDR4 RAM is about $20.
Huh, that's still only a little over $200, not $300. Maybe I carried too many ones to the tens' place? Yesterday wasn't nice to my brain.

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

Well I ended up making a scatter plot of CPU price vs performance, then chopped out all the power hungry CPUs (There's an 8 core AMD processor for $200 that's on par with the 6700 - but it eats 220W vs 84W).

I continued to look at the 4790, but found that there were only two motherboards that would be able to drive the 4k display at 60Hz, and those just barely (plus they'd be using up the slower DDR3 memory). Since I'm putting off buying a video card until the fall, I decided the price difference, at this time, wasn't great enough to give up the faster memory, the better video capability, and, probably the bigger issue once I discovered it - the M.2 slot was last generation and wouldn't support SSDs like the new Samsung 950 M.2 which can use four PCIe lanes and attain read speeds of 2.5GB/s (about 5 times faster than current SSDs).

I really wanted to splurge on the SSD, but I've already got one. However, that's something I would be interested in and willing to upgrade later, so getting the more capable MB seemed worthwhile.

Further, the 6700k was cheaper on Amazon that newegg, and I wouldn't be paying shipping on amazon since I have prime, so I ordered everything on there so I'd get it all Monday without having to pay for shipping.

In the end I did buy a new case and 32GB of memory as well. All told, after taxes and everything, I spent $918. Compared to my original build list this is a better processor, better MB, twice the memory, but no video card. I'll see how the integrated graphics does for now, but the benchmarks suggest the games will be playable on low settings, and in the meantime the 3D modeling, animation, and rendering will benefit from the emphasis on processing power.

Perhaps by the time I'm ready to buy a graphics card AMD will have stepped up to the plate with something that will compare favorably to the GTX 1080 but use the freesync that the monitor is capable of.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and comments!

 

[PatrThom]

The Intel 530 integrated graphics are right about on par with discrete graphics from early 2009. This would be cards like the Radeon 47xx or GeForce 8800/9800.
So basically comparable to the cards that were out for Assassin's Creed II, Borderlands, Dragon Age: Origins, Prototype, Sims 3.

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

Well, if I can find my radeon 7850 that I used to have in my previous system (which was flaky, I believe due to the very old motherboard) then it sounds like it'll be worth throwing that in there in the interim. I got that new to play bioshock and it did an acceptable job, when it wasn't crashing the system.

 

[PatrThom]

I'm using a 7970 right now, and it's the last card I'm going to put in this system (because it's the newest/most capable card that still natively supports XP).
The 7850 should be fine for a start.

--Patrick