Legit Reviews

Hi

I am planning to build a new Z170 Skylake system for Ultra 1440p Gaming, occasional Streaming, Recording, and Overclocking when necessary and Moderate to heavy Multi-Tasking when needed.

Any feedback and/or opinions really appreciated.

Here is the current plan.


CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X61 106.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Thermal Compound: Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme 3.5g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VIII HERO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Storage: Samsung 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB STRIX Video Card
Case: Corsair 760T White V2 ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer

Total: £1683.52

Thanks in advance.

With the money you are spending why not replace the WD Blue with a SSD and the dvd.cd write with a bluray writer?

Also if you want to expand the water loop to the video card you may want to look at individual parts build or something like this - http://www.legitreviews.com/ekwb-predat ... iew_171968

Really looks like a fun system to build and play with!

KnightRid wrote:With the money you are spending why not replace the WD Blue with a SSD and the dvd.cd write with a bluray writer?

Also if you want to expand the water loop to the video card you may want to look at individual parts build or something like this - http://www.legitreviews.com/ekwb-predat ... iew_171968

Really looks like a fun system to build and play with!

Thanks for your feedback.

I'm not ready to go full water cooling, but when I am, I'll do my own custom loop.

Regarding the storage, 256GB will allow me to have at least few of my favourite games on the SSD so no problem there. On top of this, Loading games from NON-SSD only effects load times, which is 3 to 5 seconds usually, and has no effect on FPS. Occasionally, if you're playing a massive open world game loading from Storage, you might see for a split second a dip in fps because of loading map, but like I said, 256 GB will at least let me have a few of my favourite games on there, at least 170GB dedicated to games, should be plenty. 170GB is probably 8 Triple AAA Games. I do not play 8 games at the moment lol. At £39 for a 1TB 7200 RPM, you can't go wrong, even then, I could spend £10 more and buy a 1TB Hybrid SSHD.

Regarding BlueRay, I hardly use a DVD Drive as I install everything from a thumb drive/USB Stick. But at £8, why not. I think I might not even get a DVD Drive and save myself the hassle.

Thanks again for your feedback kind sir.

Simple comment:
PS is too big, can be smaller if you're not going to SLI. (and save some money). Seasonic makes great PSU as well, and their silent mode ramps up to a higher power %.

Advanced comment:
If you're not eager to wait for new round of HBM (<1 year) then you'll probably end up SLI-ing. Why not going for a 2011-v3 platform given you'll take advantage of 6cores in the near future? This may turn your approach upside down, but its worth to evaluate IMHO.

Also, why not stay in a i5-6600K (given its for gaming) and watercool the graphic card (lets pick up a EVGA --> waterblocking does not voids warranty) up to 1500-1550 MHz. You'll take more fps from that constat OC of the GPU than for the CPU.

It depends on your use of course, if you say you're a premier pro / after effects user (or similar), I like your config. If not, I would look for my recomendation performance comparision in tables from several sites.

Calamar wrote:Simple comment:
PS is too big, can be smaller if you're not going to SLI. (and save some money). Seasonic makes great PSU as well, and their silent mode ramps up to a higher power %.

Advanced comment:
If you're not eager to wait for new round of HBM (<1 year) then you'll probably end up SLI-ing. Why not going for a 2011-v3 platform given you'll take advantage of 6cores in the near future? This may turn your approach upside down, but its worth to evaluate IMHO.

Also, why not stay in a i5-6600K (given its for gaming) and watercool the graphic card (lets pick up a EVGA --> waterblocking does not voids warranty) up to 1500-1550 MHz. You'll take more fps from that constat OC of the GPU than for the CPU.

It depends on your use of course, if you say you're a premier pro / after effects user (or similar), I like your config. If not, I would look for my recomendation performance comparision in tables from several sites.

Thanks for your feedback.

The difference between 850 and 650 is £15 so why not. And this allows room for SLI.

Regarding the HBM, are you saying to buy a placeholder graphics card and see what comes out in the future?

The X99 platform with all the cores is not aimed at gamers and rather Video Editing, Extreme Rendering and even now, the 4790K still pull ahead of X99 for Gaming, even with rendering and editing, the 4790K still gets the job done a few minute later, and there probably will not be any games that require 6 core for a good 3 years to be honest.

i5-6600K is good but given the gaming/recording/streaming/heavy multi-tasking I do, and only £60 difference between the OEM processors, why not.

Watercooling the GPU will mean I'll have to make a custom loop for the CPU as well. I refuse to buy an after market air cooled 980 Ti and then take it apart and install a water block and I'm also not a fan of Hybrid. I'd rather wait for an after market made for water cooling graphics card and get that.

I know the difference between Z97 and Z170 for gaming is about %15 to %25 in favour of Z170 but it's still new and should hopefully only get better.

It looks like you know everything, so why bother asking?

sbohdan wrote:It looks like you know everything, so why bother asking?

There is always something I don't know. As I don't have experience with these parts or a build like this, It's worth hearing any bad experiences with such hardware, and/or heads up.

Second opinions are always important.

Aside from that, I enjoy a challenge

Only thing I'd say is becareful of the G.Skill memory, maybe it was the kit I just ordered or the 3200MHz side. One two z170 motherboards it registered as 2666mhz and wouldn't go any higher without locking up. One I was able to get it to go up to 3000MHz, but would get BSOD with memory exception as the cause. Switched back to Kingston Fury or Corsair Vengeance and everything went smooth...they're 2666MHz kits, but went to 2900MHz, 2933MHz and 3000MHz on the three boards.

If you're considering SLI down the road, be aware that on most motherboards, the M.2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIe slot, depending on which one it shares with could limit your SLI options. I haven't checked the ASUS Maximum though, I would guess you can go SLI and M.2 without issues (probably shares bandwidth with the third (or fourth) PCIe slot.

Consider a WD Black instead of the Blue? 64MB cache vs 32MB. Not that it should make a huge difference for most things, but multi-tasking it can make a small difference.

I'll echo the comment about the i5-6600K vs the i7-6700k. But I see your point too, little price difference for potential pay off in some things.

Otherwise, if it suits your need, it looks like a pretty nice system.

sgkean wrote:Only thing I'd say is becareful of the G.Skill memory, maybe it was the kit I just ordered or the 3200MHz side. One two z170 motherboards it registered as 2666mhz and wouldn't go any higher without locking up. One I was able to get it to go up to 3000MHz, but would get BSOD with memory exception as the cause. Switched back to Kingston Fury or Corsair Vengeance and everything went smooth...they're 2666MHz kits, but went to 2900MHz, 2933MHz and 3000MHz on the three boards.

If you're considering SLI down the road, be aware that on most motherboards, the M.2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIe slot, depending on which one it shares with could limit your SLI options. I haven't checked the ASUS Maximum though, I would guess you can go SLI and M.2 without issues (probably shares bandwidth with the third (or fourth) PCIe slot.

Consider a WD Black instead of the Blue? 64MB cache vs 32MB. Not that it should make a huge difference for most things, but multi-tasking it can make a small difference.

I'll echo the comment about the i5-6600K vs the i7-6700k. But I see your point too, little price difference for potential pay off in some things.

Otherwise, if it suits your need, it looks like a pretty nice system.

Thanks for your feedback.

I will carefully look into the G.Skill and BSOD overclocking problem. I probably need to talk to someone with a VIII Hero and G.Skill 3000MHz and how the XMP worked for them at 3000MHz. If it's a very common problem, then I'll get the Dominator Platinum or Corsair LPX 3000Mhz.

I thought the M.2 shares bandwidth with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports. When the M.2 slot is populated, two SATA 6Gb/s ports are disabled, no?

That depends on the board and how it's configured. The three Z170 boards I've looked at all used the PCIe bus, due to the higher bandwidth. It actually disabled both in some situations if I remember correctly.

For example the Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 from the manual
The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the M2H_32G connector. The PCIEX4 slot will become unavailable when an SSD is installed in the M2H_32G connector

Then they also have a chart that lists which SATA ports are available depending on the type of M2 installed.

It can get complicated pretty quick...

The ASUS Hero Maximus VIII manual doesn't give much information, just says SATA ports are disabled when M2 is in SATA mode. Then another spot it says the board only allows for PCIe x4 M2 drives. My guess is that with a PCIe M2 dirve installed, the lower PCIe x16 slot is disabled, along with the associated SATA port(s). Just my guess mind you...they all seem to work a little differently.

sgkean wrote:That depends on the board and how it's configured. The three Z170 boards I've looked at all used the PCIe bus, due to the higher bandwidth. It actually disabled both in some situations if I remember correctly.

For example the Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 from the manual
The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the M2H_32G connector. The PCIEX4 slot will become unavailable when an SSD is installed in the M2H_32G connector

Then they also have a chart that lists which SATA ports are available depending on the type of M2 installed.

It can get complicated pretty quick...

The ASUS Hero Maximus VIII manual doesn't give much information, just says SATA ports are disabled when M2 is in SATA mode. Then another spot it says the board only allows for PCIe x4 M2 drives. My guess is that with a PCIe M2 dirve installed, the lower PCIe x16 slot is disabled, along with the associated SATA port(s). Just my guess mind you...they all seem to work a little differently.

That's interesting, because maybe they are talking about different types of M.2 drives. Old models like M.2 Sata will disable 2 Sata 6GB/s slots, and the new PCIe NVMe will disable the two PCIe lanes. Now for the Maximus Hero VIII, I think if I install an M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, it will disable the two lowest PCIe lanes on the board, the Small and the Big one right at the bottom. I think I should be okay SLI'ing with one M.2 PCIe NVMe, but who the hell wants to SLI two Zotac 980 Ti AMP! Extremes, that's 6 spaces....lol