I honestly still have no idea where I want to go with the case. I'll have to think about that one a bit more. I have a few questions though.
-Is there any reason to go one brand over another for the 390? I was only looking at the MSI version because I saw a lot of people in this thread were choosing that for their build. I definitely don't want to spend $60 more on it if it's no more trustworthy than the PowerColor.
-Would you see any real necessity to go with a higher clocked/unlocked CPU with a 390? I went through numerous threads on tomshardware of people asking if various CPUs would bottleneck it, and it seemed to be consensus that 3.2 GHz CPUs would not hold them back. I do however see a lot of people in here grabbing K's with their 390 and wondered if there would be any measurable benefit for gaming in particular. It's currently only $20 to get from the i5-6500 to the i5-6600K, plus cost of a cooler (I would be fine with the stock cooler for the i5-6500 because it's not being OCed, right?)
-The price you found for the 750W PSU is awesome, but I doubt I'll be buying from that store and will probably just grab one from MicroCenter since they seem to be decently priced. Was the choosing of that PSU simply because of it being a bargain, or do you think I would need 750W for this build? Everything I've come across has indicated that 650W should be sufficient for a standard R9 390 build, and I was looking at getting the 650W EVGA G2 or GS (it seems you can't really go wrong by picking one over the other).
http://www.microcenter.com/product/457337/SuperNOVA_G2_650_Watt_80_Gold_Modular_ATX_12V_Power_Supply
-Is it preferable to have DDR4-2133 memory over DDR4-2400 because of timings? I see that you changed out the 2400 memory I selected in favor of 2133 memory. In the description for the mobo you chose it says it only supports 2133, so perhaps that had something to do with it.
-How would you go about choosing a motherboard? The one you selected looks fine to me but I honestly get a HEADACHE when trying to peruse through motherboards. Even when I go through the highest rated ones there are plenty of complaints about various issues, though I suppose many are just bad luck with getting DOAs. I however really have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking for with a motherboard (other than proper socket and size). If I see one for $60 I feel like it's probably not something I want due to the low price, if I see one for $150 I don't know if I need the extra features that cause the price to be that high. Motherboard selection is the one part that keeps giving me pause in all of this.
Thanks again for taking the time to help out.
1. Not particularly, as far as I know. Some don't like Powercolor's support, but there are those who don't like MSI's customer service either. If you want to step up to a better known and more popular brand,
there are still Gigabyte, Asus, Sapphire, and XFX models which cost about $300 after rebate.
2. The parts list as we have it now won't be a bottleneck. Hard to say in the future, though. Yes, you'll be fine with the stock cooler of an i5 6500, although some people get an aftermarket cooler anyway because they want less noise and lower maximum temperatures.
3. If you'll be choosing the PSU yourself, then you can
refer here (click on "see full content") for a guideline as to the quality of the power supplies you're looking at. You should also look up professional reviews if possible - I tend to refer to
Jonny Guru and
HardOCP for power supply reviews. You don't need to read and understand all the points they make about electrical power, just see what they're rated as being and if there are any major flaws. I tend to look at EVGA and XFX power supplies most often. No, you don't need 750 watts for your build. I just tend to recommend that power supply very often because it's one of the best bang-for-buck models there are. It's
very well built, has nice features like a large fan and modular cabling, and is usually at an excellent price.
Yeah, the EVGA G2 and GS models are very good too. They also have a new GQ line which looks nice as well. The one you linked to is a good model, but that price is very expensive. The
G2 750 watt model is cheaper elsewhere like Amazon, but I guess you're set on purchasing from Microcenter.
4. I picked the 2133MHz RAM because that's what the motherboard supports and it was cheaper. I didn't look closely at the timings, as I just saw it was CAS15 and that's fairly common and acceptable for 2133 and 2400MHz. The 2400MHz RAM from your initial parts list is also rated at CAS15. If both have the same timings but one has a higher speed, the one with higher speed is better (but it won't run at 2400MHz in a motherboard that won't support it anyway).
5. I tend to look at professional and user reviews when it comes to motherboards. I filter the list for motherboards that match the user's needs (in your case non-overclocking
means B150 or H170, then filter for mATX size only). Then I sort by popularity and review score, then choose something based on that. After a couple of months of looking through motherboard lists, I've come to rely on a few that seem to have consistently good overall ratings.
Professional reviews give you insight into a motherboard's features and technical capabilities, but user reviews can tell you if the company making the motherboards are cheaping out on parts or quality control for mass production. As a rule of thumb, I try to recommend stuff that has a lot of user reviews and is rated at least 4/5 stars. The more feedback the better you know about a product, and the less of it that is proportionally negative, the more you can hope/assume you'll be getting a product that won't be a dud. Every product is going to have some negative reviews, as these are pretty complex components. It's not like the factory producing them is going to have a 0% rate of failure, so don't be too worried by negative reviews unless a lot of people are complaining about the same thing, and if there's a lot of negative reviews.
