I used some of the components in Rym's build (namely the motherboard, processor, case, and cooler) to replace my old machine after its Northbridge started failing, and I figured I'd share a few observations.
Cooler - NZXT Kraken X61, in concert with the NZXT H440 case
The placement of the radiator's nozzles in the case is tricky; at the back, they're right up next to the exhaust fan, while at the front, they'd run into the drive cabinet. I went with the back, but had to tie the tubes to the motherboard power cable to pull them away from the fan.
The Kraken cooler plugs into the motherboard via the internal USB connector; so after installing the USB hub drivers, I was getting driver load errors on boot from it until I installed NZXT's CAM software (which included a proper driver). I'd recommend not rebooting in between USB drivers and CAM Installation.
Speaking of the CAM software... it wants to do some cloud-based statistics tracking, but only if you do their signup. It's got a guest option, which was sufficient to turn off the LED and assign a cooling profile (which is stored on the cooler); after that, I exited it and haven't loaded it since.
Motherboard - ASUS Z170-A
The rear I/O block has that big white shield over it, which makes it difficult to properly target into the plate. My first attempt wound up with one of the metal tabs covering a USB port.
Here's a photo of the motherboard area, showing the tubes tied to the power cable, and the shield over the I/O ports.
The only things that really jump out is the GFX card and the RAM are on the lower end. It might be worth it to go to a 1060 at the very least. If you can get at least DDR 2400 on sale, that would be worth it.
The only things that really jump out is the GFX card and the RAM are on the lower end. It might be worth it to go to a 1060 at the very least. If you can get at least DDR 2400 on sale, that would be worth it.
For what I do (mainly overwatch and older games). The 1050 seems like it's enough. I'll look at the ram thanks. I was looking at this for a hard drive. I have a couple of terabyte mechanical drives from my old desktop that I will reuse for storage. The SSD is just for OS and scratch space.
Hey people who know more than me. What is wrong with this build (if anything)?
GFX: GTX 1050 CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530 CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan MB: ASUS Z170-E LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard PSU: Rosewill Hive-550, Hive Series 550W Modular Power Supply, 80 PLUS Bronze Certified, Single +12V Rail RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Memory Kit
I made the same mistake with RAM, I would bump to 32gb (especially if using virtual machines). I have the same graphics card, overclock goes to between 4.7ghz - 5.2ghz depends on your luck.
You might find yourself replacing the graphics card far earlier than you expected if you have anything higher than a 1080p screen. Also would recommend upping the power supply for a bit of future proofing, I have a 9 year old 1000w psu which has outlived every other party of my PC (including mouse and keyboard). Also depends on your budget.
Hey people who know more than me. What is wrong with this build (if anything)?
GFX: GTX 1050 CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530 CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan MB: ASUS Z170-E LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard PSU: Rosewill Hive-550, Hive Series 550W Modular Power Supply, 80 PLUS Bronze Certified, Single +12V Rail RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Memory Kit
I made the same mistake with RAM, I would bump to 32gb (especially if using virtual machines). I have the same graphics card, overclock goes to between 4.7ghz - 5.2ghz depends on your luck.
You might find yourself replacing the graphics card far earlier than you expected if you have anything higher than a 1080p screen. Also would recommend upping the power supply for a bit of future proofing, I have a 9 year old 1000w psu which has outlived every other party of my PC (including mouse and keyboard). Also depends on your budget.
Hey people who know more than me. What is wrong with this build (if anything)?
GFX: GTX 1050 CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530 CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan MB: ASUS Z170-E LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard PSU: Rosewill Hive-550, Hive Series 550W Modular Power Supply, 80 PLUS Bronze Certified, Single +12V Rail RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Memory Kit
I made the same mistake with RAM, I would bump to 32gb (especially if using virtual machines). I have the same graphics card, overclock goes to between 4.7ghz - 5.2ghz depends on your luck.
You might find yourself replacing the graphics card far earlier than you expected if you have anything higher than a 1080p screen. Also would recommend upping the power supply for a bit of future proofing, I have a 9 year old 1000w psu which has outlived every other party of my PC (including mouse and keyboard). Also depends on your budget.
Are you running quad-SLI and dedicated PhysX?
No but at one time I was running 2 x2 AMD cards which has the draw of quad crossfire, had overclocked an i7 930 to 4.0 ghz, also bumped ram, replaced every heatsink on my motherboard with a custom one.
In addition to also running a sound card which drew its own power supply and a double TV tuner card.
Upgrading my old box finally from 2x 660Ti cards to a GTX 1080 from Zotec cuz there's some deals going and what-not and my BF1 is not liking SLI at all. I think its too much GPU for my CPU but we'll see how it works until I can afford, essentially, a whole new PC build. (Running an i5 2500k right now but cuz of issues I was having I have disabled any OC.)
Since I have to uprade basically everything that touches the mobo, anyone else thing I'm crazy to go ahead and get a more efficient PSU and a fresh windowed case and go liquid cooling and whole-hog fresh beginning? The only carry over from my current build being whatever storage drives, my sound card, and, well, probably my still new fans and fan controller.
Upgrading my old box finally from 2x 660Ti cards to a GTX 1080 from Zotec cuz there's some deals going and what-not and my BF1 is not liking SLI at all. I think its too much GPU for my CPU but we'll see how it works until I can afford, essentially, a whole new PC build. (Running an i5 2500k right now but cuz of issues I was having I have disabled any OC.)
Since I have to uprade basically everything that touches the mobo, anyone else thing I'm crazy to go ahead and get a more efficient PSU and a fresh windowed case and go liquid cooling and whole-hog fresh beginning? The only carry over from my current build being whatever storage drives, my sound card, and, well, probably my still new fans and fan controller.
I think the cooling is completely your choice, you can have an air cooled setup which makes less noise than a water cooled setup. Can't see why (assuming you have the money) it would be a bad idea, the 1000 series card is great to upgrade to and I also had to personally change my RAM and motherboard when I needed to get rid of my old CPU to allow the GPU to work well. Again PSU is up to you but if you aren't running a good one currently, I would switch.
Case I'm not sure about, I'm personally hoping for cases to clean up their act and get all USB C or at least 2 USB C (proper specification) rather than USB 3.0 but if your current case is not something you want, go ahead.
Rym why the 6700 vs 6800? I don't see the price difference between the two is all that significant, maybe $100-200, and most of that in mobo, and you're getting 6 cores vs 4. Unless this isn't going to be used for production of media content I don't get it. And you're the type to produce media content... Now if there's some compatability issue I get it but, otherwise wouldn't it be better to get 2 more cores and newer architecture?
Also I too am eyeing a NZXT case mostly because A: they look baller as fuck with windows and clean lines and B: 2 of the usb connectors on the front my case are broken from people bumping into something that was plugged in. This further means that 1) my case needs to be repaired or replaced and 2) my case is huge and thus stuck on the floor in a dangerous spot while a smaller case could go on a shelf or on my desk.
Rym why the 6700 vs 6800? I don't see the price difference between the two is all that significant, maybe $100-200, and most of that in mobo, and you're getting 6 cores vs 4. Unless this isn't going to be used for production of media content I don't get it. And you're the type to produce media content... Now if there's some compatability issue I get it but, otherwise wouldn't it be better to get 2 more cores and newer architecture?
The 6800k only clocks at 3.4 GHz. The 6700k's default is 4.0 GHz.
Also, the 6700 is the newer Skylake arch, a tock, while the 6800 is Broadwell, a tick. The 6700 uses the newer 1151 socket, while the 6800 is on 2011-v3 (wtf is that even?) and consumes a lot more power.
For almost all uses, the 6800k is inferior to the 6700k.
Ah so I was confused in my research and just had in my head that Broadwell was the more recent than Skylake. Which now doesn't make sense cuz I remember Haswell from forever ago now. I'll say the numbering between them doesn't help to dissuade my suppositions. So I'll have to dig into it more I guess and get straightened out.
Either way from what I've been seeing, I still would likely benefit from 6800 simply because of the pro-level CAD/CAM I do really likes cores for crunching complex surfaces and 3D toolpaths. It can take like 10 minutes to compose a toolpath on my current chip, and often I have to iterate on one toolpath a half dozen times or more to get it how I want! And so really I'd like that to be down a lot. Also 4K video editing seems to render quicker with the 6800k's 6 cores, and so that's where it also shines. Both seem like something beyond 'consumer' level use cases.
Ah Seems Broadwell E which is what the 6800k falls into, is in fact more recent than Skylake so I wasn't totally mistaken, but Broadwell itself is still older. Hmm.
Is there a site or a tool that can accurately tell bottlenecks given a specific CPU/GPU/MOBO/RAM configuration? An earlier post in this thread got me to thinking that replacing my GPU might be like putting a 350 small block in a go cart.
This thread has reminded me of something I want to play with. I want to get as many NIC ports on my desktop as I can so I can make a little VM farm to play with my cisco stuff.
Is there a site or a tool that can accurately tell bottlenecks given a specific CPU/GPU/MOBO/RAM configuration? An earlier post in this thread got me to thinking that replacing my GPU might be like putting a 350 small block in a go cart.
It's going to vary depending on the task/game. Some tasks are more CPU throttled than others. You can kinda see what's happening with even basic tools like CPU-Z/GPU-Z, but at the end of the day I think most people just ballpark it. I saw some benchmarks for low end CPUs with GTX 950s/960s vs high end CPUs and some games did bench worse than others but it was still hard to figure out how much CPU throttling was going on.
Was the computer built in the last four years? You can probably buy a GTX 1050 or Radeon 460 and not be too CPU bound. I wouldn't go throwing a GTX 1080 into my own simple rig though.
This thread has reminded me of something I want to play with. I want to get as many NIC ports on my desktop as I can so I can make a little VM farm to play with my cisco stuff.
This thread has reminded me of something I want to play with. I want to get as many NIC ports on my desktop as I can so I can make a little VM farm to play with my cisco stuff.
This thread has reminded me of something I want to play with. I want to get as many NIC ports on my desktop as I can so I can make a little VM farm to play with my cisco stuff.
This thread has reminded me of something I want to play with. I want to get as many NIC ports on my desktop as I can so I can make a little VM farm to play with my cisco stuff.
It's a bulk pack. That's not the price for just one.
In the Newegg Q&A
Why does this entry say "bulk pack" are there multiple adapters in the pack or just one? Paul P on Oct 31, 2013
BEST ANSWER: Not sure why it shows as a bulk pack, but when I ordered this it was a single adapter as shown in the main picture. Reply Inaccurate Jack S on Oct 31, 2013
Comments
I used some of the components in Rym's build (namely the motherboard, processor, case, and cooler) to replace my old machine after its Northbridge started failing, and I figured I'd share a few observations.
Cooler - NZXT Kraken X61, in concert with the NZXT H440 case
Motherboard - ASUS Z170-A
Here's a photo of the motherboard area, showing the tubes tied to the power cable, and the shield over the I/O ports.
GFX: GTX 1050
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530
CPU Cooler:
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan
MB: ASUS Z170-E LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
PSU: Rosewill Hive-550, Hive Series 550W Modular Power Supply, 80 PLUS Bronze Certified, Single +12V Rail
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Memory Kit
The only things that really jump out is the GFX card and the RAM are on the lower end. It might be worth it to go to a 1060 at the very least. If you can get at least DDR 2400 on sale, that would be worth it.
I have the same graphics card, overclock goes to between 4.7ghz - 5.2ghz depends on your luck.
You might find yourself replacing the graphics card far earlier than you expected if you have anything higher than a 1080p screen.
Also would recommend upping the power supply for a bit of future proofing, I have a 9 year old 1000w psu which has outlived every other party of my PC (including mouse and keyboard).
Also depends on your budget.
In addition to also running a sound card which drew its own power supply and a double TV tuner card.
Why do you ask?
Since I have to uprade basically everything that touches the mobo, anyone else thing I'm crazy to go ahead and get a more efficient PSU and a fresh windowed case and go liquid cooling and whole-hog fresh beginning? The only carry over from my current build being whatever storage drives, my sound card, and, well, probably my still new fans and fan controller.
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=22757689
Thinking about pulling the trigger.
Can't see why (assuming you have the money) it would be a bad idea, the 1000 series card is great to upgrade to and I also had to personally change my RAM and motherboard when I needed to get rid of my old CPU to allow the GPU to work well.
Again PSU is up to you but if you aren't running a good one currently, I would switch.
Case I'm not sure about, I'm personally hoping for cases to clean up their act and get all USB C or at least 2 USB C (proper specification) rather than USB 3.0 but if your current case is not something you want, go ahead. Seems legit, I already have variants of or the exact same parts in my current rig bar the firewire, cooling choice, case and HDD.
Also I too am eyeing a NZXT case mostly because A: they look baller as fuck with windows and clean lines and B: 2 of the usb connectors on the front my case are broken from people bumping into something that was plugged in. This further means that 1) my case needs to be repaired or replaced and 2) my case is huge and thus stuck on the floor in a dangerous spot while a smaller case could go on a shelf or on my desk.
Also, the 6700 is the newer Skylake arch, a tock, while the 6800 is Broadwell, a tick. The 6700 uses the newer 1151 socket, while the 6800 is on 2011-v3 (wtf is that even?) and consumes a lot more power.
For almost all uses, the 6800k is inferior to the 6700k.
Either way from what I've been seeing, I still would likely benefit from 6800 simply because of the pro-level CAD/CAM I do really likes cores for crunching complex surfaces and 3D toolpaths. It can take like 10 minutes to compose a toolpath on my current chip, and often I have to iterate on one toolpath a half dozen times or more to get it how I want! And so really I'd like that to be down a lot. Also 4K video editing seems to render quicker with the 6800k's 6 cores, and so that's where it also shines. Both seem like something beyond 'consumer' level use cases.
Have to switch mobo and PSU, but otherwise it's looking good.
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=22757689
Was the computer built in the last four years? You can probably buy a GTX 1050 or Radeon 460 and not be too CPU bound. I wouldn't go throwing a GTX 1080 into my own simple rig though.
Get as many of those as you can fit.
Why does this entry say "bulk pack" are there multiple adapters in the pack or just one?
Paul P on Oct 31, 2013
BEST ANSWER: Not sure why it shows as a bulk pack, but when I ordered this it was a single adapter as shown in the main picture.
Reply Inaccurate Jack S on Oct 31, 2013