Gaming PC Build Ideas, Purchasing on Black Friday Deals

Hi All,

I'm about to embark on building my first gaming PC, and I'm looking to see if I can buy the parts on some Black Friday deals (25th Nov if you didn't know, haha!). I've researched it a little & come up with a parts list, my aim is 144Hz/144fps gaming/Gsync, and some future proofing so I just need to upgrade the GPU over a few generations - monitor & mechanical keyboard required. I'm mainly interested in fast fps games so 1080p 144Hz is the way for me to go I think.

Here's the parts list I've come up with so far: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Bsz97h
(essentially based on i7-6700K with closed loop CPU cooling so heat exhausted from case & GTX 1070)

I'm gonna bring over a 480GB SSD from my laptop to combine with the other SSD I chose in the list above.

What do you reckon, do you have some advice or ideas for different parts or does it look good you reckon? Any worthwhile cost savings welcome, I don't really want to spend much more than the total I've chosen in that parts picker link above.

 

Liquid cooling like that isn't always a great decision if your trying to go for value. A Noctua NH-D14 is a bunch less money and will only run a few degrees hotter, and give you tons of OC headroom. You can get cheaper ram without much of an fps, though that'll save like 5 pounds so who cares.

850 Evos are not good value really, you can save money with a Sandisk X400, which is nearly identical in performance for less.

I would also probably recommend trying to reconfigure the whole build to switch to an i5 + a 1080. That'll perform a lot better.

Screw it, this: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/dqmJtJ

Is like 25 pounds more but will give way better gaming performance.
I switched the ssd and cooler like I said, switched to an i5 6600k, and a 1080, plus toned down your psu as it was way way overkill.

Edit: Also just buy smart, start following reddit.com/r/buildapcsalesuk you can often find killer deals on storage, gpus etc...

Black Friday doesn't necessarily have the best deals, I'm usually disappointed with the electronics on sale I find it's best to just pay attention for good deals in general.

 

As counter-point to the above, I highly would not recommend skimping on CPU and RAM when aiming for 144Hz gaming!

 

Not to mention that Noctua coolers are extra quiet.

 

I said leave the ram 3000MHz is fine, I'd also agree it's not worth saving 5 pounds over. However... A 6600k is certainly not skimping when it comes to cpus... It can hit like 4.5GHz without much trouble, and a 1080 will do more towards high fps than a 1070 + 6700k. I'm trying to stick to his budget. A 6700k is only marginally better if they are both clocked at 4.5GHz, most games still don't take advantage of multithreading very heavily yet. And again, it would still perform better than a 1070 + i7. This isn't i7 + 1080 or i5 + 1080, so i5 + 1080 > i7 + 1070 in 99% of cases.



Stuff like this shows the 1080 with an i5 will be a higher performer.

 

@Galm17 that is outdated and wrong! Games are very multi-threaded these days. Overclocked i5 is not enough to sustain 100+ FPS in CPU-heavy 2016 AAA titles like BF1, or even 60 FPS in extreme cases like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. 1070 is almost overkill for 1080p, it is CPU and RAM that will determine whether 144 FPS target will be sustained or not. Please stop perpetuating myth that i7 is not needed for gaming, same like people who still cling to archaic notion that 40-lane HEDT CPU isn't necessary for optimal SLI scaling and frame times when gaming at native 4K with temporal AA!

 

These are some really good points & I can definitely see how I can get better gaming performance NOW in the present day by getting the 6600K as opposed to the i7 (allowing me to stretch to the GTX 1080). My one thought on this is that what about the future, I'd be wanting to keep the system & just upgrade the GPU over a few generations - initially I went with an i7 because more cores could be advantageous in the future? Also, my current laptop has 8 threads, so it feels like a step back settling for 4 simultaneous threads. Do we think a 6600K will be able to drive 144Hz over the next 6 years say when combined with GPU upgrades, or is an i7 6700K gonna make a difference over these coming years?

Noctua NH-D14 could be good advice given the savings & good performance, but will my case get too hot with that heat being expelled in the case, or do you think my choice of case will be able to expell the heat fast enough?

Interesting also, I have to say that I thought a high clocked i5 6600K wouldn't have been a limitation for 144fps in games out today (just the future I was worried about), but now you bring up examples that makes me ponder. Have you got any links to reviews or graphs perhaps, that would be a big help in me making a decision?

 

It's not outdated and wrong... I've run my own cpu with hyperthreading on and off on modern titles like Titanfall 2, BF1, Black ops 3, CS:GO etc... You seriously think a 1070 with an i7 outperforms and i5 with a 1080? That information is false. I am well aware that the i7 will give real benefits in modern titles, and BF1 is a posterchild for that case, but it's not so large of a difference that dropping to a 1070 is better!





I 100% agree that an i7 is better for gaming. I'm saying an i5 with a 1080 is better than an i7 with a 1070...

It's not outdated, I'm not out of the loop, I've tested this myself and seen it recently... And whoever says that about sli is just plain wrong... My sli setup is HEDT...

 

I would say go with the i5 6600k for now, and then the motherboard can support an i7 7700k down the line. Otherwise it's impossible to predict what cpu requirements are going to be exactly besides they will of course increase over time. If you don't wanna worry about ever upgrading the cpu the 6700k and 1070 will be a bit of a performance hit now but then you mostly have to worry about the gpu only down the line.

 

Yeah, that was my initial thinking about the i7 6700K, that it would be part of a "don't worry about it for the next 2 or 3 GPU generations kinda thing". I know whatever I do I'm gonna be committed to upgrading the GPU at some point, and I have to ask myself what the benefit is of choosing a GTX 1080 over a 1070. Firestrike Graphics of GTX 1080 = 21905, GTX 1070 = 18255. I can expect about 20% more fps with a GTX 1080. That's not a massive difference, although it would be if I wanted to make sure I game on Ultra at 144fps, but to be honest I'm ok with turning down a little bit of the eye candy to regain that 20% difference on titles that need it. I'm thinking I wouldn't have to dial down much to make up the 20%, do you agree? That would give me piece of mind of having a more future proof i7. If we knew an i5 was gonna be OK over the next 5 or 6 yrs for 144Hz gaming then I would definitely get the i5 in a heartbeat I reckon - it's a big IF though I think.

Based on your advice I'm gonna rethink the PSU, and explore the option of using the lower wattage PSU you found. I'm also gonna reconsider whether I need the closed loop CPU cooling. My concerns with the air cooler - do I need to make special consideration with the case in order to ensure enough ventilation to get rid of the heat dumped into the case? My thoughts on closed loop CPU cooling was to dump it outside the case. I don't have direct experience with desktops so can't use my own experience. And if I was to get the i7 is the water cooling more suitable?

 

If your willing to compromise on settings the i7 is definitely a more "futureproof" choice. You'll save a decent chunk of money if you take the build I gave you but sub back in those two parts like so: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/v9vhKZ

 

It seems fine.. I would suggest this motherboard though...

GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard GA-Z170X-Gaming 7-EU

 

I did not say i7+1070 will or will not outperform i5+1080, I said i7 will be better to sustain 144 FPS at 1080p in CPU-heavy AAA games in Anno Domini 2016. The devil is in the details . You have hexa-core CPU, so HT does not make as much difference as on QC i7 vs. i5.

4K 60 FPS = i5+1080
1080p 144 FPS = i7+1070

 

Excellent, it's dropped below the £1600 mark now, thanks! I think you're probably right on the power supply front, saved at least £40 odd quid on that part.

Hi Tom, long time no quote post! Thanks for putting in your ideas. What's your thinking on that motherboard, is it cheaper, better, more expensive, how's it different? EDIT: I can see it's nearly £100 more expensive for one thing :-/

 

I see what you're getting at.

 

Why? I'm a fan of reasons... Any issues on the MSI or why that's better than an Asus Z170-A?

Man I am talking about 1080p 144Hz... Why would I switch to 4k? Then yeah i5 blows it out of the water for value... Both those vids were 1080p... And the GTX 1080 i5 combo was outperforming the i7 1070 combo...


Anyway... Op, btw I would still say save the money from watercooling and go with the Noctua. Watercooling needs a radiator, can have coil whine, and is only gonna give you a few degree lower temps. You'll have plenty of room to overclock. My much higher watt 5820k at 4.5GHz maxes out in the low 60s... And yep, that psu is only needed if you wanted sli.

 

@Galm17 , do you have to make any special considerations to vent heat from the case using your Noctua? Good to know you've got practical experience using that cooler & have achieved excellent results on your pretty high wattage CPU.

I can see where @Carrot Top is coming from though: if I compromise on GPU heavy settings than I may be able to get better frame rates in some games with an i7 and GTX 1070 vs an i5 with a GTX 1080.

 

You're comparing 24-player Rush vs. 64-player Conquest. Obviously there will be major differences in CPU and GPU boundedness.

 

... Sorry I was having trouble getting an exact comparison. My point still stands, and the Frostbite engine is easily one of the best at utilizing hyperthreading, TF2 and Infinite warfare don't do it nearly as well.

Here:

They report hyperthreading off drops performance by 4%... GPU still more important... This is a stupid argument considering for the most part I agree with you, I'm just saying the 1080 matters more.

I have a bunch of case fans? Doesn't need much else.

 

Do you reckon I'll need more case fans for that Phantek case? It looks like it has one exhaust fan at top of rear panel, and one intake fan on front panel just below mid point.

Got to be up early tomorrow, gonna hit the sack now, got some good food for thought from the replies so far, thanks everyone for going the trouble of replying. I'll see what if any posts have materialised come tommorrow morning.

 

http://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/battlefield-1-pc-performance-analysis/

"In order to find out how the game scales on various CPUs, we simulated a dual-core and a quad-core CPU. And the results were quite interesting. Without Hyper Threading enabled, our simulated dual-core CPU was unable to offer an acceptable performance, while our simulated quad-core was unable to offer a constant 60fps experience.

As soon as we enabled Hyper Threading, however, we noticed significant performance gains, even on our hexa-core system. With Hyper Threading enabled, our simulated dual-core was able to push 40-50fps (with noticeable stutters, though they were not as annoying as the ones we experienced when Hyper Threading was disabled), while our simulated quad-core was able to offer a constant 60fps experience.



It’s pretty obvious that Frostbite 3’s multi-threading capabilities are among the best we’ve seen so far. It’s also obvious that our hexa-core bottlecked our GPU, even though we were able to maintain a constant 60fps experience. This basically means that PC gamers will need a really powerful CPU in order to avoid possible frame drops."

(Emphasis mine)

Even a Hyper-Threaded hexa-core bottlenecked the tester's 980 Ti at 1080p as you can see from the 88% GPU usage in the 3rd screenshot.

 

But... Those clockspeeds are so low... There was a huge performance boost from a stock 6600k to a 4.5GHz 6600k. A 3.8GHz one would not be good enough...

Anyway... I'm done debating this... We are both right to a degree. Your source there isn't perfect, neither were mine. Neither one was a perfect comparison for an i5 6600k 1080 vs i7 6700k 1070.

 

In my opinion, you should purchase 6700K, a GTX 1070, and a Corsair RMi 650/750 PSU. The 6700K is a great CPU and it's about $300 now. The 7700K will be clocked a little bit higher, which is pointless with an already unlocked CPU, right? You may be able to overclock it a little further, but we're talking negligible gains here. You won't benefit, in gaming, from more than four hyper-threaded cores. Not yet.

Good luck! I look forward to seeing your build.

 

Look literally 2 posts above you...

 

That is most likely related to the game itself (how it was developed), not gaming in general.

 

Then it's not exactly correct to say gaming won't benefit from more cores.

 

OK, I've slept on it (didn't sleep much though!), and I've come to some conclusions:

1) Gonna get i7 6700K rather than the 6600K: better future proofing, twice the number of threads, HT has been shown to improve i3 performance in loads of games & i7 in some games, so HT is gonna have it's values both now & in the future.

2) Gonna stick with the GTX 1070, better value than GTX 1080, and will be upgrading GPU with further generations in future so not stuck with it.

3) Gonna go with a smaller PSU than the initial 850W model I chose, prompted by @Galm17 's advice.

4) That Phanteck case got some good reviews & seems to have good cooling potential, gonna go with that.

5) That 144Hz monitor I chose I'm happy with.

My one last sticking point: go with closed loop liquid cooling or the Noctua DH14. Any further advice appreciated. My thoughts have changed on liquid cooling, from reading about it seems that liquid cooling will result in the heat being dumped back into the case anyway, as most advice is based on taking cold air from outside the case & bringing it through the radiator (hence it ending up in the case) - if this is the reality then I may as well go Noctua DH14 because CPU load temperatures are pretty much the same & the hot expelled air ends up in the case either way and it saves some money - any thoughts or advice on this?

Also as a note, that PC Partpicker website is p*ssing me off a bit, because the prices have changed, so once I've answered that last question above I may have to reconfigure to find the best prices again. (I'm not gonna buy an SSD until Black Friday, I can make do with the 480GB SSD I'll transfer from my laptop & then combine it with another 480GB version from a Black Friday deal).

 

OK, I've gone & done it, ordered everything! Decided on the Noctua DH14 instead of the liquid cooling. In fact I ended up ordering everything through Amazon, reason being is that the partspicker website wasn't accurate in it's prices, in some cases it seemed to be prices without VAT included, and in most cases ordering through amazon was only a couple of pounds more expensive and cheaper on some items too, so for piece of mind I got it all from Amazon. I had to go with different RAM and a slightly different PSU because they weren't in stock, ended up with slightly faster RAM for £10 more (unfortunate that the other was out of stock), and the PSU is just the G2 version rather than the G1 (seems to be just a newer model but same specs). I also changed the mechanical keyboard to another model of mechanical.

This is what I ordered:

• i7 6700K (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B010T6DQTQ/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
• Noctua DH-14 CPU cooler (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002VKVZ1A/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
• 16GB Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-3200Mhz (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013J7FLO0/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
• MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING 3X Motherboard (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01CEOOCE4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
  
• Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Edition 8GB (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01GVNNOSY/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
• EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G2 Gold 80+ Power Supply (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0100QRVP0/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
  
• Phanteks Eclipse P400 Midi Tower Gaming Case (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BLHP4RO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
• AOC 24inch 144Hz Gsync Gaming Monitor G2460PG (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LBSZHAI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
• Thermaltake POSEIDON Z Illuminated – Brown Switch Edition Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013P160XG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
  
• Windows 10 64bit Home Edition (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0111YEBY4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

That's £1681 in total. That's more than the Parts Picker website suggested yesterday - because some prices went up anyway & also some of the prices just aren't straight accurate when you click on the buy link and also Windows 10 price wasn't included. The monitor, GPU, and PSU in particular were all significantly more expensive than parts picker suggested. I guess that's overall not a bad price considering I've got a 144Hz Gsync monitor & mechanical keyboard included in the £1681 price. (I didn't forget the SSD, that's coming from my laptop, the 480GB one!)

EDIT: Was just making sure my RAM was gonna fit under the Noctua cooler - good news it fits with 2mm to spare - 42mm height of RAM, 44mm max allowable height for Noctua cooler - tight fit!

 

All that matters is whether or not you're happy! Can't wait to see some pictures. @Robbo99999

 

Yep, I'm pleased with the decisions that I've made, and thanks for everyone for their input, especially @Galm17 who influenced the decisions on the CPU cooler & PSU and @Carrot Top for reinforcing CPU decision! I'll for certain post some pics of the final build, maybe of the components too, and I'll be sure to let you know how it performs & how if feels, especially that 144Hz monitor - can't wait to try some Titanfall at 144fps - crazy smooth & detailed! I'll see what kind of a stable sensible CPU (don't want to pump silly voltages through that CPU) & GPU overclock I can get too. Should have all parts by next Friday, just in time for some weekend building & tinkering!

 

congrats on the build and look forward to seeing it come into fruition.

my main gripe i have is where u said, "an AIO liquid CPU cooler will just be dumping heat back into the system." that's totally wrong because there are different ways to mount your radiator(s).

for example, i have my Hybrid's radiator mounted in the rear where the stock exhaust was and my Kraken x61's radiator mounted at the top of my case. both radiator's fans are exhausting the case's AND radiator's heat out of the system.

i also don't agree with the part that was saying, "an AIO CPU cooler will only be a few degrees lower." there are alot of different AIO liquid coolers and they all have different performance. that Noctua CPU cooler is a great air cooler, but my 6700k @ 4.7Ghz stays in the 30's to 40's during gaming.

 

Yeah, good points, I'm a newbie to desktop building so I suppose I took the simple approach of using an air cooler - with regards to liquid cooling with my limited knowledge & research it seemed like the most efficient option was unfortunately having the radiator as an intake, but I might have been wrong about that as you say. It doesn't matter though, I actually bought a load more 120mm case fans as an after thought to improve air flow within the case to negate the fact that the air cooler is dumping CPU heat into the case (albeit it will be lined up with the exhaust fan so hopefully a good proportion just flowing straight out). I bought x4 extra 120mm Arctic F12 fans as an add-on item, only less than £4 each ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002KTVFTE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). I'll test with different case fan configurations to see which offers lowest GPU temperatures (I think that will be the factor). Probably 2 or 3 intake fans in the front of the case, one exhaust fan on rear (can't fit more on rear panel), and the option to put the other 2 remaining fans in the top panel as exhaust fans (that would be 3 intake & 3 exhaust fans total). Maybe I could experiment with 3 intake & 2 exhaust or 2 intake 1 exhaust, to see the best combination - case comes with 1 intake fan & 1 exhaust fan as standard. Although I'm a bit hesitant about putting exhaust fans in the top panel as I can imagine it disrupting air flow to the CPU cooler, I can see them competing for air against the CPU cooler fans. Or maybe even the configuration of 3 intake fans on front panel & the one exhaust fan on the rear. Anyone have thoughts on optimum number of fans and their placement in the Phantek P400 case I've bought, I'll have 6 fans to play with (max fan loadout is 3 front, 1 rear, 2 top): http://www.phanteks.com/Eclipse-p400.html ??

 

Good choice! I recommended the Gigabyte board since my clan mates looked into it and 2-3 of them are getting that...

I personally am an Asus ROG fan so I would have got one of their ROG boards... Have a Maximus Impact VIII....

 

Thanks for the congrats. Re motherboard, IIRC it was nearly £100 more than the motherboard I chose. Motherboard I chose should do everything I want it to in terms of overclocking, it has good voltage regulation with very little ripple, the network chips on there are good too apparently, sound processing is ok too apparently, I couldn't see any negatives for that board I chose from the reviews I looked at, it's even sli capable (although that's not my plan in the future, but nice to have for eventualities).

 

remember that hot air always rises up. u want more intake than exhaust because positive pressure is always preferred. your case will pull in more dust if there is more exhaust than intake (negative pressure).

most builds usually go with a smaller, or mid sized tower, so there are fewer options when it comes to mounting 240/280mm and 360/420mm radiators. that's why u see alot of ppl online mounting their big radiators at the front as intake. that's not really optimal because your intake fans have to push or pull air through a radiator compared to free flowing intake fans that aren't obstructed by anything. air flow was really important when i planned my build. that's why i went with a full sized tower.

for your case, i would definitely mount 3 fans running intake and turn those up as high as u're comfortable with. then utilize all 3 exhaust fans and run those a little lower than the intake fans to ensure u are keeping positive pressure in your case. a good way to test if u have positive or negative pressure is to do the incense test:

 

Thanks for the videos there, I watched three of his videos on case air flow just now: the basic overview of case flow, the incense smoke video, and the static pressure vs airflow fan video. They were useful, I learned a few things.

In terms of case fan layout for my new build I'm undecided on the configuration & it will take some testing. My initial thoughts now are that I'll probably have more intake fans than exhaust fans because I don't know if I'll be able to independantly control the RPM on those fans & I want to make sure that I'll have positive pressure in the case. When visualising the potential flow of air in my case I'm thinking 3 intake fans on the front & then just keeping the one rear exhaust fan. That exhaust fan is located on the rear panel at the top anyway, so that will work together with the force of hot air rising (it won't compete negatively with that force). That configuration should also ensure positive pressure in the case if I can't control individual case fan RPM. I can also envisage the air flow being quite smooth front to back by having that configuration. The problem with putting exhaust fans on the top panel is that I can imagine it upsetting & 'confusing' the front to back air flow in the case. Not only will the top panel exhaust fans steal air flow from the CPU cooler fans due to their close proximity, I can also see a good portion of air just coming in at the front and then just getting immediately sucked up & out of case by the closest top panel fan - thereby not allowing that air to pass over components in the case, so that would be wasted air flow. By keeping the air flow focussed from front panel to rear panel I can see the air flow being used to it's maximum effect by passing over the maximum number of compenents in the case. That's my thinking so far before I start testing. Any thoughts on this idea?

 

Fair enough...

The main thing I personally wanted to ask was about the air cooler.. Why did you go for the DH14? The 15 is newer and better lol

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

The D15 is more expensive than the D14, about £10, and the cooling performance isn't any better than the D14, in fact it's slightly worse than the D14 ( http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/noctua-nh-d15-review,10.html), while noise levels are the same. The plus points on the D15 is that fans are PWM controllable and the RAM clearance is greater, but it turns out I have enough RAM clearance in my build (just).

EDIT: and in truth I also didn't research the D15 before buying the D14. I was recommended the D14 in this thread, and then I checked reviews & performance of the D14 against other coolers (using Guru3d charts & reviews) & this drove me to buy it, I didn't even know about the D15 before buying the D14, but as it turns out the D14 performs just as well (if not better).

 

i think u're overthinking things a little too much.

it's called case flow because u want the air to be flowing through your case without any restrictions. just imagine how a car sucks in air from it's intake and breathes it out through it's exhaust system. if u have aftermarket intake(s) and headers will a little stock exhaust, your exhaust system will be bottlenecking the airflow.

when u have an air cooler for your CPU, ample exhaust is just as important as lots of intake. putting fans on the top as exhaust will not disrupt any air flow. there are plenty of tests, that i've seen, where more exhaust fans were making bigger temp drops compared to adding more intake fans. u have to remember that your air cooler will be dumping out alot of heat back into your case and u want the ability to pull out all of that heat. they have free programs out there like SpeedFan that can help u with controlling your fans or just grab a cheap fan controller.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll try different fan configurations to see which works best. Parts delivered during this coming week so looking forward to putting it together! I might be limited to 3 case fans to start with as only have 3 sys fan connections on the motherboard. If I need more fans connected then I'll order either splitters or molex to 3 pin connectors - which would you recommend? If I use splitters then wouldn't that reduce the total power going to each fan & how would the motherboard connector read the fan rpm accurately if 2 fans are connected to the same sys fan pin?

EDIT: I've just answered my own question with some Googling. The fan splitters only convey the fan RPM signal back to the motherboard sysfan header from one of the connected fans, so it doesn't get confused. The case fans I bought Arctic F12 are only 0.24A at 12V, so connecting 2 fans using these splitters to one sysfan motherboard header will not burn it out. I've just bought 3 of these splitters just now, which will give me the ability to attach 6 fans in total, with them being RPM controlled in groups of two. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002DY7M1G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

EDIT #2: Upon looking closer at those splitters the yellow wire is the RPM signal, and both branches of the wire are connected, I might just need to cut one of the yellow wires to prevent the confusion of 2 rpm signals going to the motherboard. Although if I connect two of the same model of fans together & they both receive the same voltage then they should spin at pretty much the same RPM, so RPM reporting wouldn't be wildly off. I think I'll install them first without cutting the yellow wire to see how RPM reporting is handled.

EDIT#3: Rather than cutting the yellow RPM reporting wire of one of the Y branches (if it turns out to be necessary), it would probably just be neater to clip the pin connected to yellow wire, that would be neater.

 

i would just get a cheap fan controller and have total control of my fans.

u don't have to go all out and get the best of the best, but i'm 100% against cheaping out/cutting corners.

 

I've ordered those splitters now already. Anyway, it cuts down on having to have a seperate piece of kit (fan controller) installed, it's all controlled through the motherboard. Controllable in groups of two is ok anyway. I can envisage front intake fans being a max of 3 fans, so I'd service those with 2 seperate headers - giving me some seperate speed control of most of the intake fans, except one being tied to one other. I'd then have a maximum of 2 exhaust fans which I could run at the same speed from one header (these would be the 2 case fans that came included with the case, so that they're the same model of fan sharing the same header). My bought Arctic F12 fans would be the intake fans.

The other benefit of the splitters is that it provides an extension to the length - I can't be certain that the F12 fan cables are long enough at stock in comparison to my case size (I've compared size of my case to length of case fan cable and can't be certain they'd reach headers on motherboard).

 

I Agree more CPU bound at 1080p. 6700K was a good choice.

Edit

Also no point in really waiting for 7700k over 6700k on sale...No ipc gain/some integrated graphics changes that literally no one cares about if using a dGPU. Maybe a bit better over clocking at the very top end due to process enhancements.

 

6700K is plenty! its already better than all AMD CPUs lol... The price would have dropped if the 7700K would be released though which is soon but not worth waiting for!

 

Thanks, yeah I'm happy I chose the 6700K - I want it to be able to push in the region of 144fps for many years to come (say 6 yrs) along with GPU upgrades, so a bit more future proof than the i5 6600K.

Yeah, I'm not interested in the 7700K, marginal improvments & more expensive - and I didn't want to wait either, haha!

Well well, the bits of my build are slowly pouring in - my mechanical keyboard has arrived, as well as the copy of Windows 10 (no choking people!)! I hooked up the mechanical keyboard to my laptop just to see how it felt to type on - wow, it's beautiful to use! There's the satisfying click of the keys, and typing is faster & easier & more enjoyable (touch typist) - they're the Brown version of the switch, not original Cherry MX switches, but similar specification, very happy with the keyboard part of my build so far! It might seem a strange thing to get excited about, but you interact with your keyboard almost constantly when using a PC, so getting a good one can really improve the experience in my eyes. (To save people having to trawl back through the thread, this is the keyboard that's arrived: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013P160XG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )
It's the best keyboard I've used since the old mechanical keyboard I had on my 20kg IBM portable computer (suit case style!) that was handed down to me in 1989!

 

I'm obviously gonna try some overclocking on my 6700K once I've got the PC built & after I've verified stock baseline performance, but I'm a bit sketchy on how to overclock the later generations of CPU. I've googled it & I've learned a fair bit, but I do have some questions & require some advice.

I'll break it down into a few questions:
1) Which would be the best way to overclock: BIOS or software, and why?
2) My understanding that there are different ways to overclock: Offset / Adaptive / Manual. I want the CPU to downclock and fluctuate in voltage to allow for power & temperature & longevity savings, so from what I've read I need to use Offset or Adaptive mode. I'm not clear on the difference between the two. Which of the two would you recommend & why, what are the differences?

If anyone's got some practical experience, or maybe just plain knows, then would be great to hear from you. @jaybee83 you were one of the first I thought of from your 6700K experience in your "Batcave", and of course @Papusan ! I have experience with overclocking my Sandybridge 2920XM, but that's just as simple as changing the multipliers (I suppose far less BIOS options in my M17xR3 & less options for overclocking in Sandybridge too).

 

I use the BIOS in my Asus ROG motherboard to overclock the 6700K.. Much more options then XTU...It's just a better option... Many more granular options available too!

 

Thanks Tom (it is Tom right unless you chose your screen name for other reasons!?). I'd be happy to use the BIOS for overclocking, having looked in the manual for my MSI Krait Gaming x3 motherboard (not delivered yet), I can see there are many options in the overclock section. One of them was the Offset / Adaptive / and Auto modes for voltage. From what I've read Auto means that the motherboard chooses the voltage, Offset Mode I think the CPU chooses the voltage based on it's microcode which I think is less aggressive and better - by the way I'm not sure on all of this, it's the impression I've gotten from reading around the topic today. I'm still sketchy between the differences between "Offset" and "Adaptive" modes, if there's anyone that can explain the difference, then that would be cool. At the moment I'm leaning towards Offset. I suppose my goal will be to achieve a 24/7 overclock that is voltage optimised - definitely don't want to be using more voltage than necessary - hell it might turn out that stock voltage + multiplier increase is the sweet spot! Afterall, this is a CPU that I'd like to last 6yrs or so! (At the moment I'm thinking of Offset +0, and then just changing the multipliers. Also thinking I might just have All Core Turbo, rather than stepped frequency ratios for 1/2/3/4 core activity).

EDIT: @TomJGX , what mode do you use for your voltage control on your 6700K overclocks: Offset / Adaptive / Auto / Manual?

 

I use manual...

I have the XMP profile on my memory (3200MHz DDR4)... 6700K voltage is on manual, 1.3V.. Clocks are 4.4GHz on all 4 cores... The cache is on 4.2GHz with max of 255A...