The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[MisterNoisy]

New build!
I'd have posted it earlier, but I had some issues with a bad motherboard, so I just finished it today.

Intel Core i5 6600K under a be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3
Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5
16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000
MSI GTX970 100ME
Intel 730 240GB
Sandisk Ultra II 480GB
HGST 1TB 7200RPM
TP-Link Archer T8-E
eVGA SuperNova G2 750W
be quiet! Pure Wings 2 fans (5x 140mm, 1x 120mm)
Win10 x64 Home
BitFenix Aegis

I can't recommend the cooler and fans enough - the whole thing is damn near completely silent.  The case is only okay, though - looks cool and lots of features, but only about a half-inch between the motherboard tray and the right-side door.

EDIT:  Late I know, but I felt that I had to spoiler the huge images.

[Chimpy]

Outside the box.Wife hates room heat generated by the computer I have now.

That Velociraptor is going to generate probably 50% more heat (and noise) than a cheaper "green" drive 10 times the capacity.

If you aren't using it as your primary storage there is literally zero reason to run a 10k drive in your PC, and I can't see a reason to ever stick one in a tiny case.

[luckton]

Outside the box.Wife hates room heat generated by the computer I have now.

That Velociraptor is going to generate probably 50% more heat (and noise) than a cheaper "green" drive 10 times the capacity.

If you aren't using it as your primary storage there is literally zero reason to run a 10k drive in your PC, and I can't see a reason to ever stick one in a tiny case.

You're right. I'll probably ditch it with the new build. It was my boot drive for many years prior to SSDs becoming affordable. It's about time to put it out to pasture anyways.

[apocrypha]

SW Florida. Maybe during the three days out of the year it gets cold, but yeah, that's it.

Oh, ugh. Here in the north of England I welcome the heat from my PC with open arms and frozen toes.

Lovely neat cabling Mr Noisy! How much of a PITA was that cooler to fit? I'm currently stuck trying to pick a cooler for my build. I'm looking at this so far:

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£229.98 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI Z170 Krait Gaming ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£114.81 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (£85.27 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung XP941 Series 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£149.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£73.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£138.07 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £792.11

Dropped down to the 6700 rather than the 6700K since I'm not going to overclock, and learned a bit about M.2 SSDs and decided I wanted one. Also chosen that motherboard because it has about a million USB ports and I have a lot of shit to plug in.

Any recommendations for a CPU cooler? Quiet would be good, reasonably easy to fit would be good, not weighing half a ton would be good.

[MisterNoisy]

SW Florida. Maybe during the three days out of the year it gets cold, but yeah, that's it.

Oh, ugh. Here in the north of England I welcome the heat from my PC with open arms and frozen toes.

Lovely neat cabling Mr Noisy! How much of a PITA was that cooler to fit? I'm currently stuck trying to pick a cooler for my build. I'm looking at this so far:

(Snip)

Dropped down to the 6700 rather than the 6700K since I'm not going to overclock, and learned a bit about M.2 SSDs and decided I wanted one. Also chosen that motherboard because it has about a million USB ports and I have a lot of shit to plug in.

Any recommendations for a CPU cooler? Quiet would be good, reasonably easy to fit would be good, not weighing half a ton would be good.

I'll have to qualify my recommendation of the Dark Rock Pro 3.  If silence is your top priority, it's really tough to beat, but it falls flat on its face re: your other items - I pretty much had to flip it on its top and mount the motherboard (after installing the CPU and RAM) to the cooler, rather than the other way around, and it weighs about a kilo all in.  The big Noctuas (NH-D14 and 15) are easier to mount and great choices, but they don't look as nice, IMO - the Aegis is pretty much all window on the left side, so I wanted everything to have a specific look, so no brown fans for me.  

You might want to look at Corsair's Vengeance LPX (low-profile) memory if you're going with a big air cooler to avoid clearance issues.  

[apocrypha]

Well it occurred to me that if I'm not overclocking and I'm buying a retail CPU then I possibly don't need an after-market cooler. Are the stock Intel coolers festering crap or OK? Also changed mind on motherboard again. Here's the list as it looks atm:

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£229.98 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£116.73 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (£85.27 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung XP941 Series 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£149.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£73.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£138.07 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £794.03

[MisterNoisy]

Well it occurred to me that if I'm not overclocking and I'm buying a retail CPU then I possibly don't need an after-market cooler. Are the stock Intel coolers festering crap or OK? Also changed mind on motherboard again. Here's the list as it looks atm:

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£229.98 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£116.73 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (£85.27 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung XP941 Series 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£149.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£73.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£138.07 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £794.03

I'd probably still pick up a cheap aftermarket cooler (Hyper 212 Evo or the like) just for the noise reduction - the stock cooler is still kinda crap.

[apocrypha]

Done, parts ordered. That pcpartpicker.com site is seriously handy. Saved about £50 by using it and ordering from 3 different retailers.

[Trippy]

Well it occurred to me that if I'm not overclocking and I'm buying a retail CPU then I possibly don't need an after-market cooler. Are the stock Intel coolers festering crap or OK?

The stock cooler for 1150 CPUs is pretty pitiful. I can't find any pictures of the stock cooler for the non-K Skylakes but it'll probably be similar. They are making a slightly nicer one for the 1151 socket (still has push pins though) but that one looks to be aftermarket (not the stock one).

[MisterNoisy]

Done, parts ordered. That pcpartpicker.com site is seriously handy. Saved about £50 by using it and ordering from 3 different retailers.

Yeah it is - they've made huge strides since they first started being a 'go to' place for builders and are probably the single best PC building resource out there.

[apocrypha]

The stock cooler for 1150 CPUs is pretty pitiful. I can't find any pictures of the stock cooler for the non-K Skylakes but it'll probably be similar. They are making a slightly nicer one for the 1151 socket (still has push pins though) but that one looks to be aftermarket (not the stock one).

I went with MrNoisy's suggestion and ordered a Hyper 212 Evo too. Only £25 and a lot less of a weighty monster than the Noctua's.

[Hoax]

So after the saga of the broken DVI port I find myself contemplating buying a discrete GPU for say ~$100.

A quick look at that price bracket and I see some of the GDDR5 GT 740's, what card should I be looking at at that price point?

Double bonus: I really don't need that much graphics horsepower, I'd take a much quieter, much cooler card over max power I suppose.

[apocrypha]

Finished my build, ended up adding a £20 Asus Xonar soundcard to it too since my existing one was PCI and there aren't any PCI slots on this motherboard. Oops. I was completely unable to get the onboard sound working in Ubuntu unfortunately.

Little bit disappointed with the Fractal Design case. I was under the impression that they were fairly high-end cases but I'm underwhelmed by the build quality. The front panel dust cover has 2 shitty push-latches holding it in place, one of which was broken out of the box. I didn't notice until I'd built the damn thing though and I couldn't be arsed dismantling the entire build just for one latch. Also the drive trays and the front dust cover both had to be shimmed to stop some seriously annoying vibration noise.

Other than those minor things though I'm loving it. Looks good, runs like shit off a shovel and is practically silent. My server is on the other side of the room and it makes more noise than this machine

[MisterNoisy]

Finished my build, ended up adding a £20 Asus Xonar soundcard to it too since my existing one was PCI and there aren't any PCI slots on this motherboard. Oops. I was completely unable to get the onboard sound working in Ubuntu unfortunately.

Little bit disappointed with the Fractal Design case. I was under the impression that they were fairly high-end cases but I'm underwhelmed by the build quality. The front panel dust cover has 2 shitty push-latches holding it in place, one of which was broken out of the box. I didn't notice until I'd built the damn thing though and I couldn't be arsed dismantling the entire build just for one latch. Also the drive trays and the front dust cover both had to be shimmed to stop some seriously annoying vibration noise.

Other than those minor things though I'm loving it. Looks good, runs like shit off a shovel and is practically silent. My server is on the other side of the room and it makes more noise than this machine

Very cool - post some pics up!  As for the front panel latch, try hitting up FD's support and see if you can get them to do something.  A couple of companies I've dealt with (NZXT, Rosewill/Newegg) have been more than happy to send me replacements for broken case parts.

[Trippy]

So after the saga of the broken DVI port I find myself contemplating buying a discrete GPU for say ~$100.

A quick look at that price bracket and I see some of the GDDR5 GT 740's, what card should I be looking at at that price point?

Double bonus: I really don't need that much graphics horsepower, I'd take a much quieter, much cooler card over max power I suppose.

For ~$100 you want a low-end Maxell GPU -- i.e. the GTX 750. The 740 is a Kepler GPU and it'll draw more power and run hotter (64W TDP vs 55W TDP) with less performance than the 750.

[apocrypha]

Very cool - post some pics up!  As for the front panel latch, try hitting up FD's support and see if you can get them to do something.  A couple of companies I've dealt with (NZXT, Rosewill/Newegg) have been more than happy to send me replacements for broken case parts.

Here you go, nothing fancy. I've got some spiral-wrap on order to tidy up some of the cables a bit some time. I'll see if I can be bothered with talking to FD, probably won't, it's not like I ever open the case door anyway, and I've stopped the vibrations with gaffer tape 

[Trippy]

Your power supply is the wrong direction

[apocrypha]

Well... shit.    That's an hour of my life I'll never get back. Thank you for pointing it out. Took the opportunity to neatify cables a bit.

Even tried to tidy the back up too.

Edit: *ahem* 

[Trippy]

gg

[MisterNoisy]

Well... shit.    That's an hour of my life I'll never get back. Thank you for pointing it out. Took the opportunity to neatify cables a bit.

Even tried to tidy the back up too.

Edit: *ahem*  

Very nice!  I envy the cable management space in that case - I would post a pic of the back side of the motherboard tray on my new machine, but it's a complete horrorshow because there's only 1/2" of space back there.

[apocrypha]

The extra clearance behind the motherboard tray was one of the reasons I decided to go with this case. It's a big fucker but it was really nice to build with that much space.

[Jimbo]

Very great looking computers you all built! That makes me want to try another build.

Big note, make sure you have a decent surge protector! My garage got hit by lighting, and it fried the garage door opener. The rest of the house seems fine, have an electrician coming to inspect, cost me $460 for new door opener, and I bought a nice surge protector for that outlet for it now (like $20). APC and Belkin both make some decent protectors for the money. I should have taken a picture of the fried electronics...

Oh Newegg has Celebration of Blizzcon it is $1,962.36 for premier member. The CPU is a little underwhelming but the rest sound great!

[MisterNoisy]

Very great looking computers you all built! That makes me want to try another build.

Big note, make sure you have a decent surge protector! My garage got hit by lighting, and it fried the garage door opener. The rest of the house seems fine, have an electrician coming to inspect, cost me $460 for new door opener, and I bought a nice surge protector for that outlet for it now (like $20). APC and Belkin both make some decent protectors for the money. I should have taken a picture of the fried electronics...

Oh Newegg has Celebration of Blizzcon it is $1,962.36 for premier member. The CPU is a little underwhelming but the rest sound great!

Heh - I dunno if I'd call the 5820K underwhelming, but that's a pretty solid machine for sure - I'd have gone with a quad-channel RAM kit since the proc and mobo support it, though.  As for surge protection, I went a step further and put everything on surge-protected UPS devices because power can be a bit dodgy here, particularly during the summer.

[luckton]

Tweaked my upgrade build a bit. I still want to do an ITX build; I just have zero interest in overcloking or dual/triple video cards.

- Added some aftermarket case fans to replace stock crap.
- Added a nvidia 970. Makes the build Oculus Rift-ready.
- Fully-modular power supply to deal with cable management in a tight box.
- Swapped memory out with heat-sinked modules.
- Swapped water cooler out with, at least what I've researched to be, a good low-profile CPU fan.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($182.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 57.5 CFM CPU Cooler  ($42.49 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($115.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($103.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($84.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($45.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card  ($309.99 @ Micro Center)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 55.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  ($19.89 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A8 PWM 32.7 CFM 80mm  Fan  ($18.45 @ OutletPC)
Other: Elite 130 Case Dust Filters ($31.78)
Total: $1070.33
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-24 05:34 EDT-0400

[Chimpy]

I would not buy an 850 EVO. They have controller issues that can lead to permanent data loss. Sure, it has only been seen in Linux but I wouldn't trust it to not have some issues with Windows as well.

Go with something like a Crucial MX200 instead.

[luckton]

That part in particular is being carried over from my current rig (upgraded from an Agility 3 that ran for a good six years until it started tossing errors and reached the end of it's SMART life). I've had the EVO since May and it's worked like a champ so far. Looking forward to the gains using it in a SATA3 connector instead of the current SATA2 it's on.

[Chimpy]

I said the same thing about the IBM Deathstar that was in my Powemac G4 until it straight up failed catastrophically with years worth of data on it that I had not backed up in a while.

I will never make the same mistake again.

[luckton]

Personal data, game saves, and the other important stuff is what the Barracuda is for. SSDs may be larger and faster these days, but as you've attested to, they have yet to earn my trust for long-term data storage. If the EVO dies tomorrow, all I'll have lost is my OS and game installs.

[MisterNoisy]

Took my portable gaming/LAN party PC (3570K/Z77/16GB, etc.) and repurposed it into a comfy couch gaming box with a new case since I don't do LAN party stuff so much now, but I do play a lot of same-screen multi with friends.  Also bought a fan controller, a bunch of be quiet! fans and replaced the aging 7950 that was in there with a 4GB R9 380.  Gave the 7950 to a random guy on the internet.


Fan controller makes living with a AiO radiator solution okay - once you push-pull them and dial the speeds to 50%, you can barely hear it and there's no real drop in cooling performance.

[Rendakor]

Looking for a decent laptop in the $500 range. Doesn't need to play high end games, but Minecraft, Hex and PoE would be nice. Havent't looked at laptops in a decade so I don't know what's what in terms of hardware.

[schild]

Opted for blowing out my budget and getting a Samsung 950 pro m2.

I am excited. Shame I can't use the computer till I get to RI.

[Trippy]

Looking for a decent laptop in the $500 range. Doesn't need to play high end games, but Minecraft, Hex and PoE would be nice. Havent't looked at laptops in a decade so I don't know what's what in terms of hardware.

It's difficult finding a laptop at that price range with a semi-decent dedicated GPU. This one qualifies, though:

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E5-573G-52G3-15-6-inch-Notebook/dp/B012IBOCRU

[Rendakor]

That's one I was looking at; it seems like a legit machine with a RAM upgrade and swapping to an SSD.

[Jimbo]

What do you guys think of running 2 SSD's in Raid 0? I really don't think I need more space on the SSD, but it would be cheaper later on to add another 850 Pro than to get the next biggest. I already have Samsung 850 Pro 512GB and I dropped all of my older WD drives and got a 4 TB WD 7200 Black drive. So storage shouldn't be a problem. I was only thinking of going Raid 0 later on, since having the SSD is like amazing!

Oh what do you guys think on the coolers for hard drives? I got a mount that came with a fan for my SSD, it seems pretty sturdy. I know they make the fans/mounts for the hard drives too, but is that over kill? My case is pretty big from Antec, so it isn't like cramped or restricted air flow. Rosewill SSD metal mount with fan it was fairly priced and fits great. Then again the Antec is the 1200 that I bought back in 2008 and it is still rocking, had to add a front plate for USB 3.0, but all the fans (knock on wood) still work.

I might be selling the house and taking up travel nursing, so I may build an RV and have to come up with portable gaming...I'm kicking the idea around, would be nice to have a house on wheels and travel and work. Then again I could live in a decent tent with a decent cot and I'd be happy as long as my internet was great.

[MisterNoisy]

What do you guys think of running 2 SSD's in Raid 0? I really don't think I need more space on the SSD, but it would be cheaper later on to add another 850 Pro than to get the next biggest. I already have Samsung 850 Pro 512GB and I dropped all of my older WD drives and got a 4 TB WD 7200 Black drive. So storage shouldn't be a problem. I was only thinking of going Raid 0 later on, since having the SSD is like amazing!

Oh what do you guys think on the coolers for hard drives? I got a mount that came with a fan for my SSD, it seems pretty sturdy. I know they make the fans/mounts for the hard drives too, but is that over kill? My case is pretty big from Antec, so it isn't like cramped or restricted air flow.

I might be selling the house and taking up travel nursing, so I may build an RV and have to come up with portable gaming...I'm kicking the idea around, would be nice to have a house on wheels and travel and work. Then again I could live in a decent tent with a decent cot and I'd be happy as long as my internet was great.

Never bothered with either - a decent SSD is fast enough for me and most modern cases have good airflow over the drive cages, so I wouldn't bother adding another fan unless my drives were actually running hot.