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[mrklaw]

Does anyone make a case that physically isolates each of the three main heat generating elements - PSU, CPU, GPU? I guess the GPU would be tricky as it has to be attached to the MB but I've seen risers for some cases.

Not looking to buy, just curious whether they have any advantages with cooling by not having GPU air dumped near the CPU cooler etc.

 

[SpiritSlayer]

Hey guys I'm in the process of building my first PC. I want to be able to play newish games at 1080p 60fps at high settings. Also is this good enough for streaming, emulation, and video editing? How's this look so far for parts?

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Storage: Samsung 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Western Digital Blue 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

 

[Arex]

Downloading windows 10 update right now.., I hope everything goes well and no hickups or files go missing lol, wish me luck XD

Hey guys I'm in the process of building my first PC. I want to be able to play newish games at 1080p 60fps at high settings. Also is this good enough for streaming, emulation, and video editing? How's this look so far for parts?

should be more than sufficient for 1080p60fps gaming. For streaming, emulation, and video editing maybe you can go with the 6 cores broadwell-e cpu, but idk if it's worth it or not for you.

 

[samar11]

It doesn't display over 60fps though. It would look the same at 60 or 999fps (apart from screen tearing).

It doesn't display over 60fps. Your gpu is outputting over 60fps sure, but your monitor cannot display that. You'll be getting screen tearing that looks something like this when your GPU is outputting over your monitors limit.

Turning on vsync will limit your framerate to your monitors limit and eliminate screen tearing at the cost of slight input lag.

No... that's the thing it's literally impossible for it to actually show those extra frames. They are being lost. If you are watching an FPS counter and have Vsync off it doesn't matter if it shows 100fps. You're still only seeing 60fps.

ok fair enough but what I am saying is that i can see the difference between say 60fps and 90fps on my 60hz monitor that''s all.

 

[Cuban Legend]

ok fair enough but what I am saying is that i can see the difference between say 60fps and 90fps on my 60hz monitor that''s all.

I think you mean you can "feel" the difference, because a monitor with a 60hz refresh rate cant "show" you any faster than 60.

only way this would be actually possible is if you have a monitor that can be overclocked to increase the maximum refresh rate. Only then would you "see" the difference.

 

[czk]

Hi,
recently I sold my PS4 and I'm in the market for a new PC.

My current dektop is:
Phenom something,
4gb of DDR2 RAM
MB - GA-MA770-UD3
Power Supply is 500W
Graphics Radeon HD7870
some disks (SSD + HDD)

I think I can leave the radeon, disks and power supply for now, but I need a new motherboard, processor, RAM and the case.

My budget is around 400$ (Poland here), I mainly use my PC for Lightroom and web, but I'd like to play some games on Dolphin, maybe the new DOOM, The Witcher 3 etc. I can upgrade my graphics card later.

I work in 1080p.

I'd love to have a silent pc.

Any suggestions?

 

[Arulan]

I started overclocking my new build.

For the 6900K, I settled at 4.2GHz due to temperature reasons. I'm running on air (PH-TC14PE). I didn't touch the Uncore for the same reason. Cinebench R15 score of 1751.

For the GTX 1080 (EVGA FTW), I ended up with +100 to the core clock, and +500 to the memory clock. That's a boost clock of 1960MHz (reaches ~2070MHz in-use), and 1376MHz for memory. Fire Strike score of 20768 (24348 graphics score).

It has been a while since I've messed around with benchmarks, but looking at comparisons this looks about right.

Has anyone here done much OCing on Broadwell-E or Pascal yet?

 

[Hesemonni]

Jesus at the PSUs of some people. 750W/850W for a single GPU set up is overkill. Also some people gladly pay ~$200 SLI motherboards which never are actually SLI'd.

 

[vector824]

Hey guys I'm in the process of building my first PC. I want to be able to play newish games at 1080p 60fps at high settings. Also is this good enough for streaming, emulation, and video editing? How's this look so far for parts?

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Storage: Samsung 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Western Digital Blue 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

Looks good. You'll be WAY over 60fps on that set up, especially at 1080. You have a budget limit? I have a i5 6600k with a RX480 and it runs DOOM around 90fps on ultra settings most of the time. Any game I've played is crazy smooth. I also use it for Adobe Premier and it's really quick. For editing the i7 is going to get you just a few more seconds on rendering times, it'll be most useful for live streaming probably. You might want to think about dropping to an i5 if you aren't doing any super heavy CPU tasks. Cooler, mobo and memory are good. Might want to consider the WD Black 7200 RPM if you're going to be transferring large video files back and forth from your SSD.

 

[Atraveller]

I adjusted clock rate multiplier and core voltage and got my 6700K to 4.5GHz, but now it idles at 4 GHz, how to I get my CPU to not do that?

 

[knitoe]

Jesus at the PSUs of some people. 750W/850W for a single GPU set up is overkill. Also some people gladly pay ~$200 SLI motherboards which never are actually SLI'd.

If you want to run the PSU at its most efficient (~50-60% load) and quietest, a 750/850W is not "overkill" on a single GPU. As for people paying for SLI MBs, maybe, they just want the possible option later one. Why complain. It's their money.

 

[Aztechnology]

I adjusted clock rate multiplier and core voltage and got my 6700K to 4.5GHz, but now it idles at 4 GHz, how to I get my CPU to not do that?

By turning off Intel speed step and dynamic mode on your CPU multiplier. intel speed step is EIST in the Bios. But why wouldn't you want the voltage and frequency to drop when you' don't need it? I'd suggest keeping/turning on adaptive voltage, EIST and dynamic mode. What's weird is your CPU is running at 4ghz when idle and not much lower. Generally for just browsing or idling a CPU will go down into the 1ghz range.

Edit: I completely misunderstood you didn't I? You want it to not Idle so high right? Just check those settings I mentioned and get back to us.

 

[petran79]

If you want to run the PSU at its most efficient (~50-60% load) and quietest, a 750/850W is not "overkill" on a single GPU. As for people paying for SLI MBs, maybe, they just want the possible option later one. Why complain. It's their money.

Add also the various USB devices, hard disk drives, dvd, bd needing even more watts

 

[jonno394]

Installed my first SSD yesterday, already noticing the difference in boot up and app loading sppeds, as well as game load times (Wolfenstein New ORder).

Decided to test my SSD though to make sure everything is working ok and ran AS SSD Benchmark, here are my results:

however, the 4K read and write speed looks well off what this reviewer is stating

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/samsung_750_evo_500gb_ssd_review,14.html

I've checked partition alignment, and updated my intel drivers (just generic ones from their driver checking utility) anyone know why it would be slower?

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

Installed my first SSD yesterday, already noticing the difference in boot up and app loading sppeds, as well as game load times (Wolfenstein New ORder).

Decided to test my SSD though to make sure everything is working ok and ran AS SSD Benchmark, here are my results:

however, the 4K read and write speed looks well off what this reviewer is stating

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/samsung_750_evo_500gb_ssd_review,14.html

I've checked partition alignment, and updated my intel drivers (just generic ones from their driver checking utility) anyone know why it would be slower?

Download this, install and try again.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...echnology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver?product=55005

storahci indicates that you are using the generic windows driver.

 

[e90Mark]

Check to see if your RAM speed and XMP profile is affecting what's called your CPU blck speed. I believe it does at those speeds, but I'm not familiar with the new Skylake. Basically it just changes how you multiply to get your CPU ratio. So if it's 125mhz instead and you want a 4.5ghz your CPU multiplier would be 36 instead 36*125=4.5 (I think you probably get it.)

It depends on the XMP profile of the RAM. The profile may or may not have raised the strap.

Good idea to check either way.

 

[DurielBlack]

Just got a new job which I should be starting here in a couple weeks. Time to consider new PC builds of course!

Gaming PC is OK for now. Really needs a RAM upgrade but that is cheap and easy, only has 8gb and I run into memory shortages when playing Overwatch and alt+tabbing to browse the net. I have dual 980TI's, which will last me a good while.

Mainly I want to put together a sort of pseudo HTPC / Storage box. We've got some family videos from a digital camcorder and I have a bunch of photos, PDFs, and other data I would like to have a convenient backup and storage location for.

One big thing to note: I have a data cap because the USA infrastructure sucks balls and I can only get cellular Internet where I live. This means cloud storage stuff isn't really much of an option, and any system I build will need to go long periods with no or limited connectivity after setup. I already burn important videos to disc for another backup option.

So with that big parameter, I figure I need/want;
Micro-ATX
Can support at least 4 drives.
Can do RAID 1
I figure I can start with 2tb of storage at least for the first drives, and expand from there. I'll take more reliable smaller storage drives over less reliable higher capacity ones, although I haven't researched 4tb drives in a while, so the newer ones have probably improved.
Output to HDMI to a TV.
Can be accessed on the wireless network through the shitty Verizon router I have to use for internet, although I have a spare d-link router of some sort buried somewhere I could probably use just for the purpose of accessing the storage from my desktop and laptop PCs. Being able to do some Internet browsing on the TV would be a plus, but not a big deal.
Be interfaced with a wireless mouse/keyboard from the couch.
Use Linux, because I want to learn it and don't mind tinkering. Also it's free. I'd probably try Ubuntu just because its the only distro I have ever used, but only as a virtual machine.

Other thoughts:

This is kind of a multi-purpose box, so I don't really need any of the HTPC-specific OS/Software options out there I have seen. As long as I can store/access files on it and output video to the TV it will be serving its main purpose.

Not concerned with streaming to other devices over the network, and definitely not concerned with Internet streaming.

All the other machines in the house are Windows 7/8 and eventually probably a windows 10 device. Being able to send files to and from a Linux storage system isn't something I have considered. Probably not too hard.

tl;dr I am thinking of building some stuff. These are just my current thoughts before I do any actual research on my own. If anyone cares to read and throw in suggestions I'm open to hearing them.

 

[Gorechylde]

Hey guys. Got a quick question on RAM.

I got my MSI Gaming X 1070 yesterday and need to upgrade RAM before I throw it in. I've got an ASUS P8Z68-V/Gen 3 Mb.

The mem configs listed in the manual state "you may install 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB unbuffered and non-ECC DDR3 DIMMs into the DIMM sockets." Is that saying I can use sticks up to 8GB in size or my max mem config is 8GB total?

The QVL only lists 2GB sticks and no configuration higher than 8GB at 2133MHz. (So 4 2GB sticks=8GB total)

I looked around for an updated QVL, but couldn't find anything.

Would I be ok to grab a 16GB 2133MHz kit as long as the voltage doesn't exceed 1.65v per the manual or do I need to bump the speed down to 1866MHz?

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Anybody have Zotac Nvidia GFX card?

Only 1070s available in India right now are from Zotac.

 

[Atraveller]

By turning off Intel speed step and dynamic mode on your CPU multiplier. intel speed step is EIST in the Bios. But why wouldn't you want the voltage and frequency to drop when you' don't need it? I'd suggest keeping/turning on adaptive voltage, EIST and dynamic mode. What's weird is your CPU is running at 4ghz when idle and not much lower. Generally for just browsing or idling a CPU will go down into the 1ghz range.

Edit: I completely misunderstood you didn't I? You want it to not Idle so high right? Just check those settings I mentioned and get back to us.

Found the problem, EIST was working as intended, it's just Windows' task manager wasn't reporting the current clock speed correctly, it all looks fine from HWmonitor.

How do I stress test my CPU, I've heard people advise against Prime95 because it was too much.

 

[jonno394]

Download this, install and try again.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...echnology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver?product=55005

storahci indicates that you are using the generic windows driver.

Cheers for the reply. I've have done this, and no difference to 4k speeds really

 

[UncleSporky]

Hi GAF, I'm looking to upgrade my video card for the sake of VR, and I was wondering if I could get a little help/advice to make sure I get the right card that's compatible with everything I've already got. I know PC Part Picker is pretty good about recommendations but I'd like to hear it from a human if I can.

It's just that, I go to the nowinstock page and there are all these different manufacturers and models and ID numbers, and I don't know what any of them mean, I just want a good upgrade.

Here is my current computer, a couple years old now.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston XMP Blu Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card
Case: NZXT H230 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply


I'm interested in a 1070. Someone else recommended EVGA as a brand for that due to having good cooling on the card. So what I am leaning toward most right now is:

EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Graphic Card 08G-P4-6173-KR

What do you think? Should it fit in my case and be compatible with the mobo? Any reason it wouldn't work well with my build, or other recommendations?

I'm pretty sure it's all good but when you're spending so much money you want to be sure it's the right decision.

 

[mochi~]

Like I said mine is 60hz and it displays over 60fps and it looks amazing weather its fake or not.

thats because 60fps is still considered decent. once u get 165hz gaming, no turning back...if ur pc can do spit 165fps

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Download this, install and try again.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...echnology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver?product=55005

storahci indicates that you are using the generic windows driver.

How do I check if I have the generic driver or not?

 

[Aztechnology]

Found the problem, EIST was working as intended, it's just Windows' task manager wasn't reporting the current clock speed correctly, it all looks fine from HWmonitor.

How do I stress test my CPU, I've heard people advise against Prime95 because it was too much.

I'd recommend 30-1hr on ROG realbench. It's a great stability tester.

 

[ISee]

Anybody have Zotac Nvidia GFX card?

Only 1070s available in India right now are from Zotac.

The high end Zotac cards (AMP extreme) are getting better and better with every new iteration. If you are able to find one of them for cheap you can go for it. The rest of zotacy line up... well it's still way better than a FE card but normally worse than other custom designs (louder, cooling is worse) but they are also cheaper.

 

[knitoe]

Hey guys. Got a quick question on RAM.

I got my MSI Gaming X 1070 yesterday and need to upgrade RAM before I throw it in. I've got an ASUS P8Z68-V/Gen 3 Mb.

The mem configs listed in the manual state "you may install 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB unbuffered and non-ECC DDR3 DIMMs into the DIMM sockets." Is that saying I can use sticks up to 8GB in size or my max mem config is 8GB total?

The QVL only lists 2GB sticks and no configuration higher than 8GB at 2133MHz. (So 4 2GB sticks=8GB total)

I looked around for an updated QVL, but couldn't find anything.

Would I be ok to grab a 16GB 2133MHz kit as long as the voltage doesn't exceed 1.65v per the manual or do I need to bump the speed down to 1866MHz?

It means you can use ram sticks of 1, 2, 4 and/or 8GB per slot. Using all the ram slots, you can have max 4 X 8GB = 32GB.

2133mhz is the Intel official fastest speed. Anything ram speeds over that is "OC," but they run fine. As always, faster rams can run at lower speeds.

 

[ISee]

Hi GAF, I'm looking to upgrade my video card for the sake of VR, and I was wondering if I could get a little help/advice to make sure I get the right card that's compatible with everything I've already got. I know PC Part Picker is pretty good about recommendations but I'd like to hear it from a human if I can.

It's just that, I go to the nowinstock page and there are all these different manufacturers and models and ID numbers, and I don't know what any of them mean, I just want a good upgrade.

Here is my current computer, a couple years old now.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston XMP Blu Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card
Case: NZXT H230 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply


I'm interested in a 1070. Someone else recommended EVGA as a brand for that due to having good cooling on the card. So what I am leaning toward most right now is:

EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Graphic Card 08G-P4-6173-KR

What do you think? Should it fit in my case and be compatible with the mobo? Any reason it wouldn't work well with my build, or other recommendations?

I'm pretty sure it's all good but when you're spending so much money you want to be sure it's the right decision.

If your mobo is able to run a 750Ti it will be able to run a 1070, don't worry about that.

Maximum Video card lengths for your case:
11.42" (290mm) With Drive Cages
15.75" (400mm) Without Drive Cages

The evga sc gaming acx 3.0 should fit (10.5" long). Performance wise the evga is good, but msi and asus offer similar performance and better cooling solutions. But they are also longer so they aren't an option for you anyway.
Long story short, if you really want to, go for it.

 

[Jyrii]

Check to see if your RAM speed and XMP profile is affecting what's called your CPU blck speed. I believe it does at those speeds, but I'm not familiar with the new Skylake. Basically it just changes how you multiply to get your CPU ratio. So if it's 125mhz instead and you want a 4.5ghz your CPU multiplier would be 36 instead 36*125=4.5 (I think you probably get it.)

ok, so I don't think XMP isn't affecting blck (unless starting point isn't 100)
These are the settings it changes:

So if I have understood correctly, I need to set a value to "1-Core Ratio Limit" (As Sync all Cores is selected). Then set voltage to manual and set a value to "CPU Core Voltage Override"

So my questions are:
- Should I do that while XMP profile is on?
- What multiplayer and core voltage I should start with? (I don't need any crazy overclock, maybe 4.4GHz or something)

My CPU is 6600K, Cooler is Hyper 212 EVO and PSU is EVGA Supernova 550W

 

[UncleSporky]

If your mobo is able to run a 750Ti it will be able to run a 1070, don't worry about that.

Maximum Video card lengths for your case:
11.42" (290mm) With Drive Cages
15.75" (400mm) Without Drive Cages

The evga sc gaming acx 3.0 should fit (10.5" long). Performance wise the evga is good, but msi and asus offer similar performance and better cooling solutions. But they are also longer so they aren't an option for you anyway.
Long story short, if you really want to, go for it.

Thanks for the help! I might just go for it.

 

[Gorechylde]

It means you can use ram sticks of 1, 2, 4 and/or 8GB per slot. Using all the ram slots, you can have max 4 X 8GB = 32GB.

2133mhz is the Intel official fastest speed. Anything ram speeds over that is "OC," but they run fine. As always, faster rams can run at lower speeds.

Excellent. Thanks for your response.

 

[Yeoman]

It's my first time doing a PC build and I'm looking for a bit of advice. I don't have a huge budget, and I'll likely be gaming on a 1080p monitor. This is what I've put together:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/YGDKBP

CPU - Intel Core i5-6500 - £178.61
Motherboard - MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING 3X - £113.48
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB - £28.90
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB - £39.00
GPU - Zotac GeForce GTX 960 2GB - £143.99
Case - NZXT S340 - £55.98
PSU - EVGA 500W - £49.99

Total plus shipping is: £609.95

I'll likely add an SSD at a later date. Is this decent?

 

[Pooya]

It's my first time doing a PC build and I'm looking for a bit of advice. I don't have a huge budget, and I'll likely be gaming on a 1080p monitor. This is what I've put together:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/YGDKBP

CPU - Intel Core i5-6500 - £178.61
Motherboard - MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING 3X - £113.48
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB - £28.90
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB - £39.00
GPU - Zotac GeForce GTX 960 2GB - £143.99
Case - NZXT S340 - £55.98
PSU - EVGA 500W - £49.99

Total plus shipping is: £609.95

I'll likely add an SSD at a later date. Is this decent?

don't buy a 2GB card, it's money down the drain. Don't buy 960, it's ooold, get 480 RX if you can, it's probably the best budget card this year and even the 8GB version isn't too expensive. I see RX 480 4GB is like £180 or something, totally worth it.

Everything else looks ok.

 

[Aztechnology]

don't buy a 2GB card, it's money down the drain. Actually don't buy 960, get 480 RX.

Definitely. The 960 from Nvidia will quickly reach legacy support level. In addition it's just not a good buy anymore. The 4 or better yet 8GB 480 is the best choice currently.

In like 5 days the 1060 gets officially announced too.

 

[Yeoman]

don't buy a 2GB card, it's money down the drain. Don't buy 960, it's ooold, get 480 RX if you can, it's probably the best budget card this year and even the 8GB version isn't too expensive.

Definitely. The 960 from Nvidia will quickly reach legacy support level. In addition it's just not a good buy anymore. The 4 or better yet 8GB 480 is the best choice currently.
In like 5 days the 1060 gets officially announced too.

Thanks for the advice.
That would be ideal, but I'm sort of locked into Nvidia as I need it for CUDA (I should have mentioned in the OP).
Just how bad of a hit would the 2GB of VRAM be for modern games? Obviously my main issue is my budget.

 

[Cyros]

Any recommendations for solid case fans in the $20 or cheaper price range?

 

[Jyrii]

It's my first time doing a PC build and I'm looking for a bit of advice. I don't have a huge budget, and I'll likely be gaming on a 1080p monitor. This is what I've put together:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/YGDKBP

CPU - Intel Core i5-6500 - £178.61
Motherboard - MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING 3X - £113.48
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB - £28.90
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB - £39.00
GPU - Zotac GeForce GTX 960 2GB - £143.99
Case - NZXT S340 - £55.98
PSU - EVGA 500W - £49.99

Total plus shipping is: £609.95

I'll likely add an SSD at a later date. Is this decent?

Others can confirm this, but I think you can get a cheaper motherboard if you aren't going to overlock (as your picked processor isn't the K model)

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

Cheers for the reply. I've have done this, and no difference to 4k speeds really

Ok, so have you check if you have any firmware update from Samsung?

How do I check if I have the generic driver or not?

You can go to Device Manager, find the IDE ATA controllers, look for SATA AHCI controllers, look at its properties and driver details.

 

[Jyrii]

Edit. Double post

 

[Levyne]

Well, it's official; my computer is finally dead. I was hoping to squeeze out another year, but there is still a silver lining to this. Since my GTX 980TI is still working great, I'm going to use that in my next computer, which saves me can use the 500 bucks for other parts.

I want to get an Intel Core i7-6850K 15M Broadwell-E 6-Core 3.6 GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Processor and a Samsung 950 PRO M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive.

My question is, what is the best motherboard for those two? For me, it seems like the motherboard is the first component to die on me, so I want to get a good one this time.

I recently got a Asus Maximus VIII Hero Alpha for the same samsung drive, but its skylake and not broadwell. Moving my OS to boot from the drive was absolutely painless using the Samsung data migration utility. I dunno if that helps much since its for the different cpu set.

 

[Pooya]

Thanks for the advice.
That would be ideal, but I'm sort of locked into Nvidia as I need it for CUDA (I should have mentioned in the OP).
Just how bad of a hit would the 2GB of VRAM be for modern games? Obviously my main issue is my budget.

Very, you're locked into lowest textures in newer games now and they look awful, game like latest Assassin's Creed or Quantum Break, they look really bad, like illegible signs and similarly bad in spots, devs don't care about 2GB card, they might not even run games in a year. Even 4GB is hitting the limits in some games, resolution doesn't matter too much, if you hit vram limit, you get horrible performance no matter what.

If you need CUDA, just wait for 1060 and see how it is priced, it's supposed to compete with RX 480.

Others can confirm this, but I think you can get a cheaper (read non Z170) motherboard if you aren't going to overlock (as your picked processor isn't the K model)

This is right too, if you don't intend to overclock, you can get a cheaper motherboard.

 

[Mareg]

Hi GAF,

So I've been out of the PC building game for a while. I have been rocking a i5 2500k for what feels like ages.
Lately, my system has had stability issues (I think it is the memory modules failing) and the sound chip on my current board is not that great. I think it might be the time to build something fresh. I was looking at going full SkyLake. However, I'm having a crisis as to which processor I should go for.

My choice is between I3-6100 AND I7-6700k. Quite the gap right ?

Thing is, this build will be primarily for gaming and to get my computer back on the stable side. I've heard two completely different takes on why I should not bother with an I7 for gaming all the way to "It should be my #1 priority for gaming". Something about FrameTime vs FPS. Supposedly, the i3 would net me horrendously bad FrameTime and make games stutter while still displaying stellar FPS. But the end result would be abysmal.

So what is that FrameTime mombo jumbo and why should I pay 4x the price to step up to the I7 ?

 

[cartoon_soldier]

You can go to Device Manager, find the IDE ATA controllers, look for SATA AHCI controllers, look at its properties and driver details.

So, I also have Windows default right?

 

[th3dude]

Hi GAF,

So I've been out of the PC building game for a while. I have been rocking a i5 2500k for what feels like ages.
Lately, my system has had stability issues (I think it is the memory modules failing) and the sound chip on my current board is not that great. I think it might be the time to build something fresh. I was looking at going full SkyLake. However, I'm having a crisis as to which processor I should go for.

My choice is between I3-6100 AND I7-6700k. Quite the gap right ?

Thing is, this build will be primarily for gaming and to get my computer back on the stable side. I've heard two completely different takes on why I should not bother with an I7 for gaming all the way to "It should be my #1 priority for gaming". Something about FrameTime vs FPS. Supposedly, the i3 would net me horrendously bad FrameTime and make games stutter while still displaying stellar FPS. But the end result would be abysmal.

So what is that FrameTime mombo jumbo and why should I pay 4x the price to step up to the I7 ?

Are you really limited to those two CPUs?

Seems like the 6500/6600/6600K would be the best fit.

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

So, I also have Windows default right?

Yeah.

 

[super-famicom]

The audio port on the front panel of my NZXT S340 case didn't work. I have the Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI and plugged the case's HD Audio cable into the audio port. Any suggestions?

I have an external headphone amp and DAC unit so it's not a problem if it doesn't work. But still was wondering what I did wrong.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Yeah.

The Intel Driver would be fine or do I need to find something specific?

 

[Mareg]

Are you really limited to those two CPUs?

Seems like the 6500/6600/6600K would be the best fit.

From what I've read, the FrameTime problem is only really resolved by the most powerful processor. If I'm going to resolve an issue of game stuttering, I'll make sure I stomp said problem.

 

[Azulsky]

From what I've read, the FrameTime problem is only really resolved by the most powerful processor. If I'm going to resolve an issue of game stuttering, I'll make sure I stomp said problem.

Where are you reading this?

 

[vector824]

The audio port on the front panel of my NZXT S340 case didn't work. I have the Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI and plugged the case's HD Audio cable into the audio port. Any suggestions?

I have an external headphone amp and DAC unit so it's not a problem if it doesn't work. But still was wondering what I did wrong.

Make sure the little case cables are plugged in correctly (could be backwards etc), I have that case too and mine worked fine. Also check the Gigabyte audio program, every time I plug in my headphones it pops up and asks me what I plugged in.

From what I've read, the FrameTime problem is only really resolved by the most powerful processor. If I'm going to resolve an issue of game stuttering, I'll make sure I stomp said problem.

Yeah, go with the i5 6600k, z170 chip mobo and 3000mhz ram, RX480, 1060 or 1070 depending on budget and you'll be more than happy.