1500$ build - Looking for a critique on my build.

[inneruniverse]

Hello. I have made a list of parts that I am looking to purchase. I will say what I want my computer to be able to do, and then I ask for a critique on my build to see if the parts I chose line up with what I want out of my machine, and if there are places I picked parts that were over or under performing for what I want them to do.

Also I should mention I'm in the United States, Fl. That may be relevant to selecting merchants.

Here is my list of parts: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wzr3NN

I want to be able to game at 1080p 144hz or 1480p 60hz.

I want my system to be as quiet as it can be without sacrifice performance. (no loud fans or coil whine)

I want to be able to overclock my system. This includes CPU, GPU, and potentially RAM. I'd like to be able to OC my i7 to 4.6 or 4.7. I chose those numbers because when I searched "i7 6700 overclock" that seemed to be a common number that was attainable. I've never done any research on OCing a GPU or RAM so I'd have to research those further.

For the CPU overclock I'd like to keep the base speed the same and only overclock the Turbo setting. i.e. I'd like to keep the power saving features on so it underclocks idling and overclocks when under load.


Please take a look at my part list and let me know if any of the parts I've chosen are underperforming and therefore need a replacement, or overperforming and thus a cheaper component can take its place, saving money while attaining the same result.


Also I seem to have a compatibility issue with my case and my optical drive. I don't really know anything about cases so could use some advice on what case to pick.

 

[R_1]

the list link is a blank list. you posted the wrong link. the proper link will end with something looking like this: /GjjsFFdh
a random assortment of jumbled text, that is the link to the unique list you chose

 

[Multipack]

You havent put a proper link in. Copy n paste the Permalink at the top of your build, not the Url at the top of the page.

 

[inneruniverse]

Whoops. I fixed it, thanks.

 

[Multipack]

Can;'t see anything wrong with that build at all. Great choice of motherboard and SSD, good quality PSU and RAM.

You could probably get away with a cheaper cooler, but that is one of the best on the market and will keep you safe when overclocking.

You have clearly done your research. No need to change anything in my opinion, although 550w is bare minimum as far as wattage goes.

One thing, that case doesnt have a 5.25" bay for a DVD drive so you'll have to change it or get a USB drive instead.

 

[Corwin65]

For starters -
Potential Issues / Incompatibilities

1 additional external 5.25" drive bay is needed.
Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer and Cooler Master MasterBox 5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case are not compatible.

 

[inneruniverse]

Can;'t see anything wrong with that build at all. Great choice of motherboard and SSD, good quality PSU and RAM.

You could probably get away with a cheaper cooler, but that is one of the best on the market and will keep you safe when overclocking.

You have clearly done your research. No need to change anything in my opinion, although 550w is bare minimum as far as wattage goes.

One thing, that case doesnt have a 5.25" bay for a DVD drive so you'll have to change it or get a USB drive instead.

Are there any cheaper coolers you would recommend that would both be relatively quiet but also keep my temperatures stable for an OC in the 4.6 - 4.7 range? I looked into water cooling but I found those still made noise and seemed to be for higher OC targets rather than sound reduction. Correct me if I am wrong there. Also I am happy to stay with this cooler if going for a cheaper cooler would result in a big sacrifice towards either noise or performance.

Is there a different model I should be getting for the GTX 1070? There was ~20 models or so I looked at, I made that choice because reviews said it was both quiet and powerful. However, I feel more inclined that I should be getting an EVGA card since an overwhelming amount of reviews claimed they have the best customer service and since I want to try OCing my GPU this time around I might need that customer support just in case. Overall choosing a card is very difficult because every company seems to have highly praised 1070s so it's difficult to make a selection.

Also can that motherboard do an OC while retaining the power saving features? I did a search "Asus Z170-A Turbo Overclock i7 6700k" and was unable to get any results. This was another area where there was around 10 or more good choices in the same price bracket. I was also looking at these:

MSI Arsenal Gaming Intel Z170A Tomahawk: https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Z170A-Motherboard-Tomahawk-AC/dp/B017NIDUBC
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII RANGER: https://www.amazon.com/MAXIMUS-VIII-RANGER-Intel-Motherboard/dp/B0126R35ME

For starters -
Potential Issues / Incompatibilities

1 additional external 5.25" drive bay is needed.
Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer and Cooler Master MasterBox 5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case are not compatible.

Do you have a case recommendation? I'm not sure what I should be looking for in a case other than making sure everything fits inside of it.

 

[Multipack]

Can;'t see anything wrong with that build at all. Great choice of motherboard and SSD, good quality PSU and RAM.

You could probably get away with a cheaper cooler, but that is one of the best on the market and will keep you safe when overclocking.

You have clearly done your research. No need to change anything in my opinion, although 550w is bare minimum as far as wattage goes.

One thing, that case doesnt have a 5.25" bay for a DVD drive so you'll have to change it or get a USB drive instead.

Are there any cheaper coolers you would recommend that would both be relatively quiet but also keep my temperatures stable for an OC in the 4.6 - 4.7 range? I looked into water cooling but I found those still made noise and seemed to be for higher OC targets rather than sound reduction. Correct me if I am wrong there.

Is there a different model I should be getting for the GTX 1070? There was ~20 models or so I looked at, I made that choice because reviews said it was both quiet and powerful. However, I feel more inclined that I should be getting an EVGA card since an overwhelming amount of reviews claimed they have the best customer service and since I want to try OCing my GPU this time around I might need that customer support just in case. Overall choosing a card is very difficult because every company seems to have highly praised 1070s so it's difficult to make a selection.

Also can that motherboard do an OC while retaining the power saving features? This was another area where there was around 10 or more good choices in the same price bracket. I was also looking at these:

MSI Arsenal Gaming Intel Z170A Tomahawk: https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Z170A-Motherboard-Tomahawk-AC/dp/B017NIDUBC
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII RANGER: https://www.amazon.com/MAXIMUS-VIII-RANGER-Intel-Motherboard/dp/B0126R35ME

Water coolers are as quiet as air coolers, but they are equally effective and you take less risk of leaks/bursts with an air cooler. Also, they will both be running with fan curves so will only run at full RPM when your system is under heavy load. The decibels are all listed on part picker, but it's not magic really, the higher the RPM/CFM, the louder it gets. I can recommend a lower CFM cooler that would be adequate but naturally it wont be quite as effective. Part of the reason your cooler costs more is the DBA to CFM ratio. Its a very quiet cooler for the CFM. The much cheaper 212 Evo is similar CFM but twice as loud.

Your clockspeed is adaptive, and will only hit full speed at load unless you put it on Performance Mode in Windows, but that doesnt make any difference and will still stay quiet and cool when idle. Clockspeed is not related to load or temp. Overclocking and power saving are not really related, it just doesnt clock down when not needed. All motherboards support power saving features. The z170a is a premium board, and the z170e or p models would be just as effective but very similar. The difference in price is more related to things like m2 slots, uSB/SATA ports and outputs etc. All will have similar BIOS features.

That card is a good balance between performance and cost, and the fans have a zero RPM mode so apart from when very heavily stressed it'll be silent. Yes EVGA are the best because they are an American company, whereas the other main three are Taiwanese, so after care support is easier, but you will get service from any if hardware fails. Overclocking the GPU will not damage it unless you do insensible things like use custom VBIOS. The voltage and power draw will only go as high as they consider safe, and the overclocking limits are still set by the manufacturers despite them not officially saying so.

You are probably a little too worried about these things, and overthinking it, which is natural when spending a lot of money, but you will soon see there wasnt any need to be so worried and it will all be a-ok.

 

[inneruniverse]

Can;'t see anything wrong with that build at all. Great choice of motherboard and SSD, good quality PSU and RAM.

You could probably get away with a cheaper cooler, but that is one of the best on the market and will keep you safe when overclocking.

You have clearly done your research. No need to change anything in my opinion, although 550w is bare minimum as far as wattage goes.

One thing, that case doesnt have a 5.25" bay for a DVD drive so you'll have to change it or get a USB drive instead.

Are there any cheaper coolers you would recommend that would both be relatively quiet but also keep my temperatures stable for an OC in the 4.6 - 4.7 range? I looked into water cooling but I found those still made noise and seemed to be for higher OC targets rather than sound reduction. Correct me if I am wrong there.

Is there a different model I should be getting for the GTX 1070? There was ~20 models or so I looked at, I made that choice because reviews said it was both quiet and powerful. However, I feel more inclined that I should be getting an EVGA card since an overwhelming amount of reviews claimed they have the best customer service and since I want to try OCing my GPU this time around I might need that customer support just in case. Overall choosing a card is very difficult because every company seems to have highly praised 1070s so it's difficult to make a selection.

Also can that motherboard do an OC while retaining the power saving features? This was another area where there was around 10 or more good choices in the same price bracket. I was also looking at these:

MSI Arsenal Gaming Intel Z170A Tomahawk: https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Z170A-Motherboard-Tomahawk-AC/dp/B017NIDUBC
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII RANGER: https://www.amazon.com/MAXIMUS-VIII-RANGER-Intel-Motherboard/dp/B0126R35ME

Water coolers are as quiet as air coolers, but they are equally effective and you take less risk of leaks/bursts with an air cooler. Also, they will both be running with fan curves so will only run at full RPM when your system is under heavy load. The decibels are all listed on part picker, but it's not magic really, the higher the RPM/CFM, the louder it gets. I can recommend a lower CFM cooler that would be adequate but naturally it wont be quite as effective. Part of the reason your cooler costs more is the DBA to CFM ratio. Its a very quiet cooler for the CFM. The much cheaper 212 Evo is similar CFM but twice as loud.

Your clockspeed is adaptive, and will only hit full speed at load unless you put it on Performance Mode in Windows, but that doesnt make any difference and will still stay quiet and cool when idle. Clockspeed is not related to load or temp. Overclocking and power saving are not really related, it just doesnt clock down when not needed. All motherboards support power saving features. The z170a is a premium board, and the z170e or p models would be just as effective but very similar. The difference in price is more related to things like m2 slots, uSB/SATA ports and outputs etc. All will have similar BIOS features.

That card is a good balance between performance and cost, and the fans have a zero RPM mode so apart from when very heavily stressed it'll be silent. Yes EVGA are the best because they are an American company, whereas the other main three are Taiwanese, so after care support is easier, but you will get service from aanything if hardware fails. Overclocking the GPU will not damage it unless you do insensible things like use custom VBIOS. The voltage and power draw will only go as high as they consider safe, and the overclocking limits are still set by the manufacturers despite them not officially saying so.

You are probably a little too worried about these things, and overthinking it, which is natural when spending a lot of money, but you will soon see there wasnt any need to be so worried and it will all be a-ok.

I see. Yes the worry does stem primarily from the dollar value attached to the machine. I need to ask many questions to feel safe knowing I didn't get ripped off or buy something poor quality or over-quality with features I'd never use. I'm almost done asking questions I promise.

So when I enter bios as long as I leave the base speed as is and only overclock the turbo multipliers it will retain the power saving features? I looked at many guides and they all seem to overclock the base speed and turn off the turbo settings and power saving features, which is why I was concerned about this topic. When I begin OCing my machine I'll make a thread in the proper forum and to ask for more specifics. The main concern was just making sure this was possible with the board. This concern is because my previous board was a gigabyte and only had a dynamic Vcore setting and no ability to change the default Vcore. With this board I'll only need to adjust my default Vcore and the dynamic aspect of decreasing voltage and clock speed when not under load will be handled by the performance saving features without requiring me to tweak any Vcore setting? If I'm going too off-topic for this section and thread let me know and I'll poke into the overclocking forum.

Which EVGA card would you recommend if I went that route?

Do you have any case recommendations?

What was the cheaper cooler you'd recommend? I'll likely be sticking with the one I chose after reading what you've stated in this thread but out of curiosity I'd still like to look it up.

what is the purpose of water cooling exactly? It seems like more expensive air coolers can do the same thing. I tried looking at reviews and performance charts and everything seems similar when you look at higher price air coolers. Is it just the cool factor?

 

[Multipack]

Can;'t see anything wrong with that build at all. Great choice of motherboard and SSD, good quality PSU and RAM.

You could probably get away with a cheaper cooler, but that is one of the best on the market and will keep you safe when overclocking.

You have clearly done your research. No need to change anything in my opinion, although 550w is bare minimum as far as wattage goes.

One thing, that case doesnt have a 5.25" bay for a DVD drive so you'll have to change it or get a USB drive instead.

Are there any cheaper coolers you would recommend that would both be relatively quiet but also keep my temperatures stable for an OC in the 4.6 - 4.7 range? I looked into water cooling but I found those still made noise and seemed to be for higher OC targets rather than sound reduction. Correct me if I am wrong there.

Is there a different model I should be getting for the GTX 1070? There was ~20 models or so I looked at, I made that choice because reviews said it was both quiet and powerful. However, I feel more inclined that I should be getting an EVGA card since an overwhelming amount of reviews claimed they have the best customer service and since I want to try OCing my GPU this time around I might need that customer support just in case. Overall choosing a card is very difficult because every company seems to have highly praised 1070s so it's difficult to make a selection.

Also can that motherboard do an OC while retaining the power saving features? This was another area where there was around 10 or more good choices in the same price bracket. I was also looking at these:

MSI Arsenal Gaming Intel Z170A Tomahawk: https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Z170A-Motherboard-Tomahawk-AC/dp/B017NIDUBC
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII RANGER: https://www.amazon.com/MAXIMUS-VIII-RANGER-Intel-Motherboard/dp/B0126R35ME

Water coolers are as quiet as air coolers, but they are equally effective and you take less risk of leaks/bursts with an air cooler. Also, they will both be running with fan curves so will only run at full RPM when your system is under heavy load. The decibels are all listed on part picker, but it's not magic really, the higher the RPM/CFM, the louder it gets. I can recommend a lower CFM cooler that would be adequate but naturally it wont be quite as effective. Part of the reason your cooler costs more is the DBA to CFM ratio. Its a very quiet cooler for the CFM. The much cheaper 212 Evo is similar CFM but twice as loud.

Your clockspeed is adaptive, and will only hit full speed at load unless you put it on Performance Mode in Windows, but that doesnt make any difference and will still stay quiet and cool when idle. Clockspeed is not related to load or temp. Overclocking and power saving are not really related, it just doesnt clock down when not needed. All motherboards support power saving features. The z170a is a premium board, and the z170e or p models would be just as effective but very similar. The difference in price is more related to things like m2 slots, uSB/SATA ports and outputs etc. All will have similar BIOS features.

That card is a good balance between performance and cost, and the fans have a zero RPM mode so apart from when very heavily stressed it'll be silent. Yes EVGA are the best because they are an American company, whereas the other main three are Taiwanese, so after care support is easier, but you will get service from aanything if hardware fails. Overclocking the GPU will not damage it unless you do insensible things like use custom VBIOS. The voltage and power draw will only go as high as they consider safe, and the overclocking limits are still set by the manufacturers despite them not officially saying so.

You are probably a little too worried about these things, and overthinking it, which is natural when spending a lot of money, but you will soon see there wasnt any need to be so worried and it will all be a-ok.

I see. Yes the worry does stem primarily from the dollar value attached to the machine. I need to ask many questions to feel safe knowing I didn't get ripped off or buy something poor quality or over-quality with features I'd never use.

So when I enter bios as long as I leave the base speed as is and only overclock the turbo multipliers it will retain the power saving features? I looked at many guides and they all seem to overclock the base speed and turn off the turbo settings and power saving features, which is why I was concerned about this topic. When I begin OCing my machine I'll make a thread in the proper forum and to ask for more specifics. The main concern was just making sure this was possible with the board. This concern is because my previous board was a gigabyte and only had a dynamic Vcore setting and no ability to change the default Vcore. With this board I'll only need to adjust my default Vcore and the dynamic aspect of decreasing voltage and clock speed when not under load will be handled by the performance saving features without requiring me to tweak any Vcore setting? If I'm going too off-topic for this section and thread let me know and I'll poke into the overclocking forum.

Which EVGA card would you recommend if I went that route?

Do you have any case recommendations?

What was the cheaper cooler you'd recommend? I'll likely be sticking with the one I chose after reading what you've stated in this thread but out of curiosity I'd still like to look it up.

what is the purpose of water cooling exactly? It seems like more expensive air coolers can do the same thing. I tried looking at reviews and performance charts and everything seems similar when you look at higher price air coolers. Is it just the cool factor?

I do understand, but it wont be as complicated as you think, and many of these things are for advanced overclocking and you wont need to go into that much detail. All you really need to do is change the voltage and multipliers (not baseclock, never change that).

You can overclock with turbo boost and power saving features enabled due to adaptive voltage if you wish, but there is no need for the power saving features to be enabled, simply because Windows has its own power saving options, but its best to ignore them all as it makes no difference to a machine. You are confusing Windows and UEFI power saving, but you'll find none of this will ever enter into the equation. Even when power saving features are off and the CPU is overclocked the baseclock will still run at 800MHz instead of 4.2GHz when idle. The multipliers determine clockspeed. You'll find z170 boards are much easier to OC than previous generations and should perhaps wait until you see it in action before thinking about it too much.

All you will need to change when overclocking are the multipliers and possibly set a constant voltage. This wont have any bearing on the lifespan of your system.

The cheaper cooler was the Cooler Master Evo 212, or the Cooler Master 212X if you'd rather, but they will be louder at full throttle. Water cooling is for looks more than anything, as it makes very little difference and costs a lot more. I wouldnt bother if you are looking for an economical route.

The two EVGA cards that would be good for OCing are the FTW and the FTW hybrid versions (absolutely top of the range), but the main reason they are better is they have an 8 pin not 6 pin power connector for better power draw. If a card has 8 pin power and two fans, you know its designed for extreme overclocking basically. The more you pay, the better they get, but you are talking margins and a lot of people would say they arent worth the extra cost.

Cases are cases. I cant really recommend one, as all of this is dependent on budget,but anything from Cooler Master, Corsair, NZXT and the like are fine. Again, the more you pay the more features you get, but it wont make any real difference. The form factor (atx full, mid, micro etc) and USB 3.0 front ports will be all that really matters, as cases with 8 or 10 fan monuts are a waste of time. You usually wont need more fans than the case comes with unless in extreme conditions.

If you want to save money, then there are ways, but the more you pay the more you get. With this kind of hardware you are going to be satisfied no matter which you choose honesly. I think the build you had originally is awesome. If you want to cut corners then get a cheaper board with less features or a cheaper, slightly slower SSD, but only you can decide how much you'd like to spend.

 

[inneruniverse]

Thanks a lot for all your help. I feel more confident in this build than I did with my last one I made 5 years ago.

I just realized I have one last question. Your first post you mentioned the 550w PSU I selected was the bare minimum for powering the rig. Since I plan to overclock the CPU, GPU, and the RAM should I be going for a higher wattage? I selected that one because it was a Tier 1 power supply according to the Tom's Hardware PSU Tier list. It also had a very good price despite being a Tier 1 PSU. I could potentially drop to a Tier 2 PSU that has a higher wattage.

 

[Multipack]

Tier 2 650w would be fine. I'd go for that. Obviously Tier 1 is better, but I'd go for a 650w PSU with a setup like that.

Keep us posted on your progress!