High end Skylake build - have I missed anything?

auroxi · 20 Feb 2016 at 21:57

As I am waiting for nVidia Pascal (I will use a spare card in the mean time), I have not listed a gfx card or monitor in this build. I have read for hours about what should work together and I've looked at the motherboard manufacturers website to ensure memory compatibility etc so hopefully I'm all good with this going forward.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1

The reason I picked this was because of the dual m.2 ports and it's one of the few boards with a PLX PCIe chip and should be compatible with 7th gen i7 chips (thus why I am not going down the X99 route)

Memory: G.SKILL TridentZ Series F4-3866C18Q-16GTZ 16GB DDR4 3866 MHz

Fastest RAM that I know is compatible with the motherboard.

CPU: i7 6700K
This is a gaming PC mainly, pretty standard.

CPU cooler: Corsair H110i GT
I'll likely overclock the processor very slightly using the built in motherboard options - nothing crazy (water cooling would be overkill)

HDD: 2 * Samsung 950 Pro
Super quick, two for RAID (I presume you can RAID the M2's on this motherboard? Does anyone know?)

PSU: Corsair AX1200i
Highly rated PSU with enough juice to power whatever SLI config I throw at it (I probably won't go more than dual at this stage).

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower
More than enough room, will support huge graphics cards (once a certain panel is removed), great reviews and fits under the office desk (Cosmos 2 Ultra won't fit).

I'm ready to buy all of this stuff but just wanting to make sure I haven't missed anything before I throw a lot of money at the wall.

Cheers.

Padraig · 21 Feb 2016 at 00:36

One does not simply raid 1 a m.2 ssd like wow man might aswell just put your os on a RAM disk lol the main thing i would say is why skylake is it just becuase i can build or i want power build if its a i want power build x99 is your best bet right now and x99 i believe is getting new chips btw in the future i believe. Also that psu is insane overkill unless you plan on using 3 390x's or 4 titans i dont see the need for it. ALSO high mhz ram will make no difference at all so if you wanna spend dough on ram get 32gb of it, it would make a much bigger difference than expensive magic snake oil ram.

ExRayTed · 21 Feb 2016 at 00:53

There's no real world benefit in faster DDR4 - just go for a 2400 kit and save some cash.

As already mentioned, if you're intent on going for i7 then Haswell-E would be a better option, especially as you plan to SLI - more PCI lanes. The only thing the 6700K has going for it is raw clock speed. If that's what's important to you and you plan on sticking with one GPU then save some more and go for i5.

A high wattage PSU for future GPU upgrades is a good idea, but you can get better for your money than a Flextronic unit. Go Superflower or EVGA (made by Superflower).

auroxi · 21 Feb 2016 at 14:16

Thanks both, I'll have a look at the suggestions and get that PSU changed.

b0rn2sk8 · 21 Feb 2016 at 15:01

That board is crazy money, get an X99 and a 5930k for the same money which would be faster.

David Bisset · 21 Feb 2016 at 17:54

auroxi said:
...

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1

The reason I picked this was because of the dual m.2 ports and it's one of the few boards with a PLX PCIe chip and should be compatible with 7th gen i7 chips (thus why I am not going down the X99 route)
...

Only reason you need a plx mobo is cause you're not X99 which has enough lanes without plx to be fine (native lanes are better than plx in any case, as plx adds latency and doesn't increase the to-CPU bandwidth, though the difference is pretty small!)

Kaby lake isn't a full architecture, just an incrementation, so little point buying a socket just for that (broadwell-e sounds like it's got more potential tbh) and atm it's claimed that Kaby will require Union Point anyway (200 series chipset) - personalyl I think this is very unlikely given the incremental nature of the tweaks, but still worth mentioning.

auroxi · 22 Feb 2016 at 19:21

Ok you guys know best so here's what I'm going to buy:

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage V Extreme
CPU: 5930K
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i GT Extreme
Case: Corsair 750D Airflow
Memory: 32GB Corsair DDR4 Dominator Platinum PC4 24000 (3000)
HDD: 512GB Samsung 950 Pro
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1200w 80 Plus Platinum

Hopefully I've got it right this time guys!

Thanks for all your help

Padraig · 22 Feb 2016 at 22:03

Yh thats a sick build although my personal preference for psu are superflower as they are the best ive come across although i would put evega second but thats just me the high models are made by the same people i think. also other than that you need a hdd for more storage i'd say get wd black 1tb or 2tb.

Dave2150 · 23 Feb 2016 at 07:01

My My, lots of incorrect information being spouted in this thread.

Padraig said:
x99 is your best bet right now and x99 i believe is getting new chips btw in the future i believe. .

Wrong. Skylake is faster for gaming, as it has higher IPC (6th generation architecture vs 4th generation for X99). Skylake is better for gaming as games do not use more than 2-4 cores.

The only time X99 is faster is with extreme overclocking, on a very expensive custom watercooling loop, where you'd get a 5960X to 4.7Ghz+.

Z170 (Skylake motherboards) are also getting new 7th generation processors later this year.

Padraig said:
ALSO high mhz ram will make no difference at all so if you wanna spend dough on ram get 32gb of it, it would make a much bigger difference than expensive magic snake oil ram.

Wrong again, Skylake shows decent performance improvements going from bog standard DDR4 to 3000+ Mhz.

Purgatory · 23 Feb 2016 at 08:07

Dave2150 said:
My My, lots of incorrect information being spouted in this thread.

Wrong. Skylake is faster for gaming, as it has higher IPC (6th generation architecture vs 4th generation for X99). Skylake is better for gaming as games do not use more than 2-4 cores.

The only time X99 is faster is with extreme overclocking, on a very expensive custom watercooling loop, where you'd get a 5960X to 4.7Ghz+.

Z170 (Skylake motherboards) are also getting new 7th generation processors later this year.

Wrong again, Skylake shows decent performance improvements going from bog standard DDR4 to 3000+ Mhz.

Ignore Dave... He is Intel's spoke person for Skylake...

Check this thread and his rubbish... https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18714014

Purgatory · 23 Feb 2016 at 08:12

auroxi said:
Ok you guys know best so here's what I'm going to buy:

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage V Extreme
CPU: 5930K
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i GT Extreme
Case: Corsair 750D Airflow
Memory: 32GB Corsair DDR4 Dominator Platinum PC4 24000 (3000)
HDD: 512GB Samsung 950 Pro
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1200w 80 Plus Platinum

Hopefully I've got it right this time guys!

Thanks for all your help

That's a nice build there, you could save a bit of money on a cheaper motherboard though, Have you seen the Asus x99 Sabertooth ? It's a great motherboard at a good price for the high-end boards. I have one and it's great and a lot of review sites have had better overclocks on it compared to the ASUS Rampage V Extreme. Not really much in it but worth the saving I think unless you like the look of the ASUS Rampage V Extreme more of course. Also cheaper RAM too, DDR4 high speed RAM past 2400mhz makes very little difference... I have 2800mhz DDR4 and to be honest from 2133 JEDEC to 2800mhz XMP is nothing in it... So save some money again there and get 2400mhz RAM.

The money saved can go into a nice 2.5" SSD to store your games on for example, instead of the 950 Pro for games. So two SSDs then .

Also what graphics card are you getting and are you going SLI/CFX ?

I went to Skylake from a 2600k and sent it back as was a terrible upgrade and then went to a 5930k and was a nice upgrade, read this link https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18714014 , my adventures there.

Purgatory · 23 Feb 2016 at 08:16

Dave2150 said:
Z170 (Skylake motherboards) are also getting new 7th generation processors later this year.

X99 is getting 10 core 20 thread Broadwell-E CPU's too... so your point is ?

Z170 7th generation processors later this year are 4 core again.....and.... Just a die shrink ...

ExRayTed · 23 Feb 2016 at 10:51

Dave2150 said:
My My, lots of incorrect information being spouted in this thread....
Wrong again, Skylake shows decent performance improvements going from bog standard DDR4 to 3000+ Mhz.

How about backing your view up with evidence? It is true that when using the i-GPU faster RAM improves things. But when using a dedicated GPU the benefits are minuscule - small enough that it makes no real world difference.

Evidence