Latest build

[Nick R]

The 2500k system was getting a bit long in the tooth, so I decided to sell it to a friend of mine to replace her old Athlon64 X2 system, and purchased a new i5-6600K, and MSI Z170A Krait Gaming, along with 16GB of DDR4-2400.

Total build
Intel Core i5-6600K w/CM Hyper 212+
MSI Z170A Krait Gaming Mobo
16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400
EVGA GTX 970 SSC
XFX XTR 550W PSU
256GB Crucial m500, 240GB Crucial m4, 1TB WD Black, 1TB WD Green, 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar
Fractal Design Define S
Windows 10 x64

http://i.imgur.com/4w1e2ay.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/b0WnPJg.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VMMhjfX.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/EkRHZtp.jpg

 

[Falken]

Wow Nick that looks amazing!

I still have my old Windows 7 system, but upgraded to 8GB Ram and a Crucial BX100 SSD.

Antec Sonata II
Thermaltake PSU (cheapie)
Asus motherboard
AMD Phenom II x4 965 OC to 3.8Ghz
Crucial BX100 500GB SSD
Nvidia GeForce 650Ti 2GB
Old WD 250Gb storage drive.

My computer is really old at this point but I still love it as it is Windows 7 and runs Metal Gear Phantom Pain awesomely well.

I am even thinking about getting back into World of Warcraft as their 19.99 game discs have a ton of expansion packs included, I had a lot of fun with that game.

Enjoy your rig!!!

 

[Kira]

It's so cool you can "component build" a system. I wouldn't know what to order much past the box itself and the cooling fan. So let's go through this.

1) Intel Core i5-6600K w/CM Hyper 212+. These are the IC's you installed on some mother board, yes? You simply order the newest and largest?

2) MSI Z170A Krait Gaming Mobo. This is an additional card (sister board?) built specifically for gaming, i.e. superior graphics capabilities-tailored to game console inputs?

3) 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400. Analogous to #2-a super graphics/sound card?

4) EVGA GTX 970 SSC. No idea. This part number provides no clue

5) XFX XTR 550W PSU No idea.

6) 256GB Crucial m500, 240GB Crucial m4, 1TB WD Black, 1TB WD Green, 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar
Fractal Design Define S. This is some kind of hard drive storage?

7) Windows 10 x64. Windows 10 is an installed operating system. Is x64 its revision level?

Honestly, Explaining these parts and IDing them on the pictures would be HUGELY INFORMATIVE. Kira

 

[xxch4osxx]

"16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400" This is RAM

"EVGA GTX 970 SSC" This is the video card.

 

[MrHorspwer]

I made the jump from Sandy Bridge to Skylake about a month ago: 2600K to 6700K.

I was a little apprehensive because my 2600K overclocked so well, I didn't think I'd be gaining much. I took the 6700K to the same overclock as my 2600K with no trouble whatsoever.

Will you be playing Fallout 4 next week?

 

[MrHorspwer]

Originally Posted By: Kira
It's so cool you can "component build" a system. I wouldn't know what to order much past the box itself and the cooling fan. So let's go through this.

1) Intel Core i5-6600K w/CM Hyper 212+. These are the IC's you installed on some mother board, yes? You simply order the newest and largest?

2) MSI Z170A Krait Gaming Mobo. This is an additional card (sister board?) built specifically for gaming, i.e. superior graphics capabilities-tailored to game console inputs?

3) 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400. Analogous to #2-a super graphics/sound card?

4) EVGA GTX 970 SSC. No idea. This part number provides no clue

5) XFX XTR 550W PSU No idea.

6) 256GB Crucial m500, 240GB Crucial m4, 1TB WD Black, 1TB WD Green, 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar
Fractal Design Define S. This is some kind of hard drive storage?

7) Windows 10 x64. Windows 10 is an installed operating system. Is x64 its revision level?

Honestly, Explaining these parts and IDing them on the pictures would be HUGELY INFORMATIVE. Kira


1) Intel Core i5-6600K w/CM Hyper 212+ - 6600K is the processor. CM (Cooler Master) Hyper 212+ is a large heatsink and cooling fan to cool the processor.

Processor choice is largely based on price and performance needs. Intel and AMD are the options for PC processors. Intel wins in performance. AMD is often seen as a budget option. Your processor choice will dictate your motherboard options, as each processor "family" fit in a specific socket and is designed to work with a particular chipset on the motherboard.

Nick's 6600K is a 6th generation Core i5 architecture (referred to as Skylake). The K at the end means it has an unlocked multiplier for easier and safer overclocking. It is an enthusiast processor.

2) MSI Z170A Krait Gaming Mobo. - This is the motherboard (Mobo = motherboard).

MSI is the manufacturer. Z170 is the chipset. Krait Gaming is an MSI's product line.

The motherboard houses the processor socket, all the IC, and the chipset (sometimes called a Southbridge). The chipset controls pretty much all the I/O between the processor and everything else... PCI Express, SATA, USB, etc. There is also a chipset specifically for audio and often some other peripheral chipsets.

3) 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 - Onboard system RAM

Crucial is the manufacturer. Ballistic in the model. DDR4 is the interface and 2400 is the speed in MHz.

4) EVGA GTX 970 SSC - Video card

EVGA is the manufacturer. GTX 970 is the processor (supplied by Nvidia). SSC is an EVGA model. SSC models are factory overclocked.

5) XFX XTR 550W PSU - Power supply

XFX is the manufacturer. XTR is a model. 550W = 550 watt... the maximum wattage the power supply can provide.

6) 256GB Crucial m500, 240GB Crucial m4, 1TB WD Black, 1TB WD Green, 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar

Various solid state drives and hard drives.

Fractal Design Define S.

Case

7) Windows 10 x64 - Operating system. x64 means it is a 64-bit OS.

 

[Rand]

Whats the actual model of the evga 970?

example 04G-P4-2977-KR

I'm on the edge of a similar upgrade.

I have a [email protected](now)

could you run passmark 8.0 on your new system and post the results.
specifically the CPU, Gaming, and Memory results.

 

[panther427]

Nice clean work. I want to build a new rig. But not needed yet.

Why so many hard drives? One bigger ssd rather than two small ones specifically. Or is it a raid setup

How do you like the 970

I currently have a i5 3570k with two msi 660oc cards that I would like to swap for a 970 or 980

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: Kira
It's so cool you can "component build" a system. I wouldn't know what to order much past the box itself and the cooling fan. So let's go through this.

1) Intel Core i5-6600K w/CM Hyper 212+. These are the IC's you installed on some mother board, yes? You simply order the newest and largest?

2) MSI Z170A Krait Gaming Mobo. This is an additional card (sister board?) built specifically for gaming, i.e. superior graphics capabilities-tailored to game console inputs?

3) 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400. Analogous to #2-a super graphics/sound card?

4) EVGA GTX 970 SSC. No idea. This part number provides no clue

5) XFX XTR 550W PSU No idea.

6) 256GB Crucial m500, 240GB Crucial m4, 1TB WD Black, 1TB WD Green, 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar
Fractal Design Define S. This is some kind of hard drive storage?

7) Windows 10 x64. Windows 10 is an installed operating system. Is x64 its revision level?

Honestly, Explaining these parts and IDing them on the pictures would be HUGELY INFORMATIVE. Kira


MrHrsepower did as good of a job explaining this as I would have.

Originally Posted By: Rand
Whats the actual model of the evga 970?

example 04G-P4-2977-KR

I'm on the edge of a similar upgrade.

I have a [email protected](now)

could you run passmark 8.0 on your new system and post the results.
specifically the CPU, Gaming, and Memory results.


The motherboard actually had a PCIe bus related problem, so I'm in the middle of getting it replaced through MSI. I'll do this as soon as I get the replacement and put it back together.

also
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R3NK...ailpage_o08_s00




Originally Posted By: panther427
Nice clean work. I want to build a new rig. But not needed yet.

Why so many hard drives? One bigger ssd rather than two small ones specifically. Or is it a raid setup

How do you like the 970

I currently have a i5 3570k with two msi 660oc cards that I would like to swap for a 970 or 980

Yeah no real point going from ivy bridge to skylake at this point.

The reason for the mismatched storage is the m4 is the original SSD I purchased a few years ago, and I get the m500 more recently. They are seperate. The m500 is my OS/boot/application drive. the M4 and the 1TB black (and the Hitachi to a degree) are my game drives. The Hitachi mainly serves as storage for games, and virtual machines. The WD green is random storage for stuff, it doesn't get used much since I have a file server that serves most of my storage duties. The only actual new parts in this build at this point are the CPU, motherboard, RAM, and case. I'ave had the PSU and GPU since spring, and the rest have collected over the past couple years

The 970 is a great card, I am quite pleased with it. It's the perfect card for 1080/1200p gaming. It's taken 100 mods of skyrim with lots of super hi-res textures, enb, and other stuff to even put a dent in it.
Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer
I made the jump from Sandy Bridge to Skylake about a month ago: 2600K to 6700K.

I was a little apprehensive because my 2600K overclocked so well, I didn't think I'd be gaining much. I took the 6700K to the same overclock as my 2600K with no trouble whatsoever.

Will you be playing Fallout 4 next week?


Lol no fallout 4. I'm more of a Elder scrolls fan than I am a Fallout fan. I just started a heavily modded run of skyrim again right now.

 

[AKhan87]

whats the 0-60 now, compared to before, what about the quarter mile?

 

[Rand]

That's the good video model. the earlier ones were 4 phase power and had massive throttling issues with bad bios.
I had a first gen evga 970 FTW and it was terrible with microstudder on farcry 4.

I "upgraded" to that exact card you have and saved 50$. It also has better bios, fan, 6-phase power design etc.

note: all other manufacturer's of 970's all started with 6 phase power to begin with.


Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer
I made the jump from Sandy Bridge to Skylake about a month ago: 2600K to 6700K.

I was a little apprehensive because my 2600K overclocked so well, I didn't think I'd be gaining much. I took the 6700K to the same overclock as my 2600K with no trouble whatsoever.

Will you be playing Fallout 4 next week?


I don't suppose you have an i7-2600k laying around you wanted to sell for cheap?

or trade for an i5-2500k + cash?

I'm not convinced skylake is that much faster at the same ghz.

For example passmark 8.0 scores..

i7-6700k@4ghz = 11000
i7-2600k@4ghz=10050

now if you arent overclocking then of course the stock speed of the i7-2600k is quite abit slower down around 8500


Or if both the i7-2600k and i7-6700k were overclocked to 4.5

the numbers look like this (estimated
i7-2600k 11300
i7-6700k 12375

Naturally that is one benchmark and doesn't reflect real world use 100%.

 

[MrHorspwer]

Originally Posted By: Rand

I don't suppose you have an i7-2600k laying around you wanted to sell for cheap?

or trade for an i5-2500k + cash?


Sorry, it went into another build and now resides at my parents house, replacing their E6600.

I'm seeing about a 45% gain in Handbrake performance going from 2600K to 6700K, clock-for-clock @4.4 GHz. This is the whole reason that I upgraded.

I also wasn't aware of the 4 phase on the EVGA GTX 970 cards. I typically buy EVGA, but my local Micro Center was out of stock and I ended up with a Gigabyte G1 GTX 970. Maybe I dodged a bullet there. No issues with the Gigabyte card.

 

[Colt45ws]

I was gonna replace mine right about now in time for Fallout 4, but, then I got laid off and well, have more important things.
But, Im still gonna play it! Just on my old i7-980X system still that I built 01/10. I recently had to derate it from 4GHz to 3.85GHz as I couldn't get it stable at 4GHz any more.
It recently crossed 50k hours too. On 10/31 was when it happened. Im hoping I can replace it next year.
Click to reveal..

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
I was gonna replace mine right about now in time for Fallout 4, but, then I got laid off and well, have more important things.
But, Im still gonna play it! Just on my old i7-980X system still that I built 01/10. I recently had to derate it from 4GHz to 3.85GHz as I couldn't get it stable at 4GHz any more.
It recently crossed 50k hours too. On 10/31 was when it happened. Im hoping I can replace it next year.
Click to reveal..


You are one of those guys that actually replaces the caps and opamps on his sound card eh? :3

 

[Colt45ws]

It was an experiment. I had only just gotten into messing with electronics like replacing blown caps. I did that on a couple K7 boards at about that time.
Like ohlawd I would never show the soldering on the sound card. Atrocious, espically the opamps. Im honestly surprised that it worked when I was done with it.

 

[BigD1]

Super nice build!

I love the Fractal Define cases. I have a Define R4 black pearl case, and it is the quietest case that I have ever owned period. I wanted the white, but for some reason they were never on sale, and cost a lot more than the black. There is a Define R5 now with some changes, but nothing that matters to me except for the bottom air filter on the R5 removes from the front, and the R4 has to be removed from the rear.

Great choice on the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ cooler, and they are a very good bargain when you can get them on sale plus a rebate too. Never had a problem with numerous Cooler Master rebates. Right now I am just using a stock Intel cooler on my core i5 4690k. I have no plans to overclock it because I see a used core i7 4790 or K variety in the future to be installed on my current system, and a K processor never overclocked might bring in more cash.

Get rid of that Antec lower fan on the front, and install one of those pretty white Fractal fans!

 

[JHZR2]

Nice! But why not go i7 Skylake vs. the i5?

Also, whats a gaming drive and why not reduce the number of HDDs?

 

[Rand]

A gaming drive(ssd) is where you load the current games you are playing so the load times are super fast. Ie Fallout 4
The other gaming(hdd) is for the rest of the games library.
usually for more occasional games.
most people wont pay for a 1tb ssd for a gaming library.

He is reusing some parts.

The i5 vs i7 is about 100$

 

[Rand]

also for gaming use the i7 does not gain much over the i5 if both are clocked the same
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-skylake-core-i7-6700k-review

 

[Nick R]

Rand basically said everything I would have. I keep a moderate amount of local storage for games and Virtual machines. Most of my storage is on my server though, where I'm just adding another 3TB, for a total of 11TB usable, and 14TB total if you factor in the 3TB drive used for parity only with flexraid. The m4 SSD is mostly used for like, heavily modded skyrim (load times would be unbearably long if it was on a HDD), and other games that tend to have long loading times.

The price/performance benefit for me of the i7 vs i5 was not significant enough. If I exclusively did video or photo editing, or lots of number crunching that would benefit from the additional multithreading, I'd have probably gone that route.