New rig, any suggestions?

neviditelny

neviditelny

neviditelny

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I'm going to get a new rig in the near future and would like some input from you people about my choices.

I'm looking at two different setups, one with a Skylake CPU and one with a Devil's Canyon CPU.

The Skylake would be the i7-6700K with a Z170 mobo, most likely a MSI at the moment.
The Devil's Canyon would be the i7-4790K with a MSI Z97 Gaming 5 mobo.

I've posted a topic about the CPU's in the CPU threads.

This is the stuff I have decided to put into the rest of the rig.

Case: Bitfenix Shinobi XL
PSU: EVGA Supernova G2 1000W (or 750/850W depending on your advice)
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
CPU Cooler: Alpenfohn Matterhorn Black (as I understand it it will fit both Socket 1150 and 1151).
120mm fans: Bitfenix Spectre Black
Memory: depending on mobo it will be either Corsair DDR4 2x16GB or Corsair DDR3 4x8GB (I've always used Corsair memories and not had any issues with them so I most likely will stick with them).

I still haven't decided if I will upgrade my Nvidia GTX 760 GPU (EVGA) to a EVGA 960 GPU, I might wait towards Christmas to do that.
And I possibly will put in a Seagate Archive 8TB HDD as a storage drive in the rig as well.

Any suggestions or ideas about this? Anything will be welcome
 
With all the stuff I have put up now it will be around £1350-1400. But that is if I upgrade my GPU and get the extra storage HDD (I have a smaller HDD now that I could use for the time being and get a new HDD later to put the initial cost down a bit).

If I get the GPU and HDD later the cost would be around £1000 which isnt too bad.
 
For the graphics cards that you have suggested a quality 450-550w psu is more than enough and even with overclocking will still leave loads of headroom.

A 6700k setup with a GTX960 will only draw around 200-220w at the wall.
 
neviditelny said:
So a EVGA Supernova G2 750W PSU would be more than enough then? If using only 1 GTX 960 GPU and 2-3 HDD's?
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yes that would be more than fine. I have a GTX970 1 ssd 1 harddrive plus overclocked my i5 4690k to 4.4Ghz and im running with a 750W PSU with no worries.
 
With the budget you have in mind I'd have a look at Broadwell E.
I'd look at the i7 6850k, once the prices have settled and they're stable.
6 cores, 12 threads and more efficient than Haswell-e.
A good 750w PSU would be more than ample - if you're not upgrading the gfx card then a 550w should be fine. They just did the super flower leadex gold 750 for £80 on week only deals , so worth keeping an eye on (same psu as the evga g2)
I'd certainly be tempted to look at the 1070's when they're out and the price has settled.
(If you're waiting till christmas then keep an eye on the black friday deals here in november)
I'd get the samsung sm951 M2 nvme as a boot drive instead of the 850 evo.
They're getting cheaper as there's a new model (sm961) coming out.
You could save a bit by getting the 256GB version - they often seem to do offers on them here - that would give you the option of getting another one at some point and running them in raid 0, which would be blisteringly fast (which they already are)
 
neviditelny said:
So a EVGA Supernova G2 750W PSU would be more than enough then? If using only 1 GTX 960 GPU and 2-3 HDD's?
Click to expand...

It's massive overkill. A good 550w is more than enough. Like I said earlier, you will only be pulling around 200-220w at the wall so the psu will be delivering even less to your components.

It's a very imbalanced system though. A GTX960 is not normally what would be paired with a 6700k. Is this a gaming pc?
 
stuartharrison said:
With the budget you have in mind I'd have a look at Broadwell E.
I'd look at the i7 6850k, once the prices have settled and they're stable.
6 cores, 12 threads and more efficient than Haswell-e.
A good 750w PSU would be more than ample - if you're not upgrading the gfx card then a 550w should be fine. They just did the super flower leadex gold 750 for £80 on week only deals , so worth keeping an eye on (same psu as the evga g2)
I'd certainly be tempted to look at the 1070's when they're out and the price has settled.
(If you're waiting till christmas then keep an eye on the black friday deals here in november)
I'd get the samsung sm951 M2 nvme as a boot drive instead of the 850 evo.
They're getting cheaper as there's a new model (sm961) coming out.
You could save a bit by getting the 256GB version - they often seem to do offers on them here - that would give you the option of getting another one at some point and running them in raid 0, which would be blisteringly fast (which they already are)
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The i7 6850K is almost £200 more than the i7 5820K. If this is just a gaming pc then he doesn't need to spend £500 on a cpu. The i5 6600K would be good enough.

Same goes for the M.2 drive. Yes they are fast on paper, but in real world situations for gaming and boot/load times etc it won't make much of a difference.
 
Wouldn't you say though that the 6850k is more future proof? Not everyone can afford to upgrade every couple of years and that extra money spent now could mean he's happier with his system for longer.

I remember people telling me the 3930k was overkill, 4 and a bit years on its still a solid chip that I have no reason to upgrade from other than the itch!
 
Vidar said:
Wouldn't you say though that the 6850k is more future proof? Not everyone can afford to upgrade every couple of years and that extra money spent now could mean he's happier with his system for longer.

I remember people telling me the 3930k was overkill, 4 and a bit years on its still a solid chip that I have no reason to upgrade from other than the itch!
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No such thing as future proofing though. Technology moves way too fast. By the time that a 6 core cpu is the min requirement for gaming then the i7 6850K will be outdated anyway. In my opinion buy what you need today and not what you might need 3 or 4 years down the line.

Those people were probably right. How many games actually make use of 6 cores ? A 4 core cpu is good enough for gaming.

That is just my opinion of course.
 
Yeah perhaps but all I know is I'm still more than happy with my 3930k and I haven't even clocked it yet, my system still runs fast and stable.
 
Vidar said:
Wouldn't you say though that the 6850k is more future proof? Not everyone can afford to upgrade every couple of years and that extra money spent now could mean he's happier with his system for longer.

I remember people telling me the 3930k was overkill, 4 and a bit years on its still a solid chip that I have no reason to upgrade from other than the itch!
Click to expand...

Unless money is no object, why spend £520 on a 6850k when a £190 6600k or £290 6700k will do just as well for most uses for the forseeable future. Then there's the extra cost of an X99 mobo, which is likely to be another £100+.

Rather than overspec massively and hope it outlasts the warranty, just spec a balanced system for today and get the most out of it before upgrading. Anything bought today of reasonable spec (6600k and upwards) won't need upgrading "in a couple of years" anyway and should give plenty of service.

Given how slow CPU technology is moving forward now, in terms of performance gains from one generation to the next, pretty much any mid range system will be fine for most peoples uses. Extra cash is better invested into the GPU (if a gamer), larger SSDs, nicer monitors and so on.

Obviously if you're at the bleeding edge, either professionally or want to run a multi SLI 1080 4k gaming monster then a hex core or better is a good investment (and money is likely no object either). But for the average user, much as we'd all love to own this sort of kit, it's overkill.
 
I've looked into the Broadwell-E CPU's and I'm not sure those ones will be really worth the money for me as I'm not that hardcore gaming.

About the SSD, what is the difference between the EVP 850 and the SM951?

And about a very unbalanced rig, is that mainly in regards of CPU/mobo in comparisson to the GPU? What GPU would you suggest me to get if I wait closer towards Christmas to get one?

I never get any wise with the PSU, some people say you usually only need 550-650W where others say it is better to get as much as you can as it will make the PSU work less hard etc.

I'm thinking about upgrading the monitor as well later in the year but the rig is the main thing as the one I have now is going towards the end I believe. So it is more important to get a new CPU/mobo and that stuff and upgrade GPU later as I think the 760 should be ok for the time being.
 
Unless you're a LONG way behind the times with your GPU (which you aren't) then what GPU you need very much depends on what monitor / resolution you use. For 1080p your 760 will handle pretty much anything anyway. If you get a new monitor and want to game at a larger resolution or higher refresh, then the 1070 looks the best fit for 1440p / 144Hz and the 1080 for that and beyond (4k etc). By Christmas we might see a 1060 which will likely be good enough for 1440p (it won't make much sense if it's not as the 960 already is a perfect fit for 1080p).

The EVO 850 is SATA 6 Gbps, the SM951 uses the M.2 slot on the motherboard it and is 8 Gbps with faster read and write times. Real world differences are essentially minimal though. For the money I'd get a larger capacity EVO 850 than a smaller capacity SM951.

A bit of headroom with the PSU is no bad thing. But given what you're planning on building I wouldn't go above 750W and 650W should give you more than enough headroom. Bear in mind that the trend for CPUs and GPUs is lower power consumption.
 
The difference between the sm951 and the EVP 850 is that the 951 is tiny and fits onto the M2 slot of your mobo. It takes up no space in your rig, no cabling. It's much faster though in real world use how much you'll notice is a moot point.
That said, my SM951 nvme is my favourite bit of kit - it makes everything else seem old tech.
The prices of the sm951's are coming down, so keep an eye on the 'this week only deals' as they're getting closer to the prices of the SSD's.
As for broadwell-e - they're overpriced at the moment as they've just came out but they'll come down in price towards hasswell-e prices.
At 5820k prices, they'll be a good buy, depending on what you use your pc for (as the mobo will still cost more than a Z170 mobo)
If you're not doing anything that benefits from multiple cores (such as video editing, audio production) then the i7 6700k is a better bet.
 
So technically with a sm951 ssd I would have more space for ordinary hdd's or other SATA connections?

About the Skylake CPU's, is there any "child diseases" to be aware of? For example not working well with certain OS or software issues?
 
neviditelny said:
So technically with a sm951 ssd I would have more space for ordinary hdd's or other SATA connections?

About the Skylake CPU's, is there any "child diseases" to be aware of? For example not working well with certain OS or software issues?
Click to expand...
You would have more space but it's unlikely you'd run out of it anyway.
The beauty of them is their size and speed - I still haven't bothered adding my SSD to my rig as I like the cleanness of just the M2 SM951
Skylake seems to be a very stable platform compared to X99.

My bad on the 6850k btw - meant i7 6800k, which will be the base processor.
Looks like being more expensive than the 5820k for now
 
So if I go for a SM951, I should go with win10, and if I decide to use win7 for a bit longer a "standard" SSD will be better?

As it looks now I think I will definatly go for the Skylake. I checked today and with everything except a new GPU and storage HDD (got plenty of music and movies and stuf like that) the price would be around £975 (which I think is pretty good).

If I would like to get a GPU for the rig, in the price range of say £250-300, which one should I choose?
 
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