[Build Help] Planning an Upgrade, Switching to Intel, What CPU, MOBO & Cooler Should I Get?

[wildmitchell]

Thank you for looking at this post, I'll appreciate all the feedback I can get on this one as 100s of these must be posted a day.

-Backstory-
I've upgraded every piece of my computer over the past few years except for my CPU and motherboard and I've decided I need to finally need to bite the bullet and swap them out.

My AMD CPU has been shockingly bad, despite changing out the thermal paste a few months back, it's been running at stupidly high temperatures causing the stock fan to shake the walls during any load more than idle, thermal throttling in games and even overheating and shutting down my PC the other day during BF1. This was the final straw for me so I want to splash out on a cool CPU and an effective cooler to never run into these problems again.
-/Backstory-


I play lots of CPU intensive games like Rust, PUBG, Battlefield 1 and I want to play Assassin's Creed Origins but there's no way I can at the moment. At a bare minimum, I'd like to be able to play BF1 at 1920x1080, 60 fps, no problems. My current bottleneck means that, no matter the graphics options, these games run really poorly (scraping 30fps) which I wish was the other way around. However, I want to continue playing 60fps at 1080 with new games in the near future so a CPU that can smash these games now at a decent price is what I'm after.
*Also note I don't stream or anything like that, with exception to Skype, I run games with no other processes running*

So, my questions are:

1. What is the best value for money Intel CPU I can get? *By value I mean, not necessarily the cheapest but will last a long time and be a capable CPU for years to come* I've had my eyes bulging at the i7 8700K but I'm wondering whether it's overkill especially with a GTX 970, I'm also not sure how much a motherboard would cost alongside it... Which leads me to my next question,

2. Which motherboard would synergise with your CPU? I'm not interested in the slightest in aesthetics, I simply want one that, in the future, could overclock the CPU and will last along with it.

3. What fan cooler should I get? I'm obviously aware of the Coolermaster Hyper 212X but it seems too good to be real, would it be enough for the CPU, will it allow for any overclocking in the future or is there an alternative that may be slightly more expensive but well worth it in the long run? *I already have some Arctic MX 4 thermal paste*

4. What's going to hold my PC back after I upgrade to these parts? I'm looking mainly at my GTX 970 and Ballistix 16GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM... I can accept that my graphics might have to come down on newer titles but as long as I can hit 60 I'm not fussed or financially fussed about upgrading my GPU.

Here is my current build: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/WildMitchell/saved/#view=ty6YrH
*I have windows 10 on the HDD, I have a feeling 7 doesn't work with some of the newer Intel CPUs :/*

I should mention my maximum budget is ~£700 (~$930) for absolutely everything, MOBO, CPU, cooler and case etc. but by no means do I want to spend this much unless it's worth every penny.
Realistically, I expect to spend ~£450 (~$600) on CPU, MOBO and cooler but, again, I'd sooner bite the bullet now and not have to worry about a big upgrade for years to come then to next year find out I can't play the new Assassin's Creed or whatever, it is all about value for money.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please feel free to add in your two pence in and get a discussion going, I can guarantee you know more about the subject than me Cheers!

 

[wildmitchell]

Not that I'm bumping or anything, but whilst we're on the topic, why exactly is an i7 better (or 100s of pounds better) than an i5?

An example I've found is the i7-8700K (£279) and the i5-8600K (£185), the i7 only having a 6% overall performance increase when you'd expect it to be closer to 100% better. The i7 has 12 threads but if I'm not mistaken, not many programs are written to take advantage of this, are they? The i5 has 6 threads but I've been told games are starting to become optimised for 6 threads.

I've also seen on, https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/game-performance-bottleneck-cpu-gpu,review-34265-11.html, the i5 actually performed slightly better than the i7.

Am I right in saying the i7s' performance improvements are only noticeable in certain environments, with possibly more room for overclocking but generally, gaming isn't really one of them?

TLDR: This has skewed my attention to the i5-8600K, what are people's thoughts on this because I'm definitely prepared to pay £185 for a damn good Intel CPU!

 

[jawlesspython04]

You are right with the comparison of the i5 8600k and the i7 8700k. The i7 is mainly for productivity and other multi threaded tasks. The i7 doesn't benefit much in gaming performance over the i5 8600k. Games still favour single core performance more and utilize 6 cores at most these days. Even many old 4 core CPUs can still run games pretty well. If you are not doing any stuff like streaming, video editing, rendering and other multi threaded tasks, the i5 8600k should be good enough for you and should even last quite a while.

For the motherboard, you should go with a Z370 Chipset to pair with the 8600k so you can overclock. There are loads of Z370 boards, so choose one which has all the features you need (No of SATA ports, WiFi, RGB headers etc etc)

For the cooler, You can go for a Cryorig H7 if you want a cheapish cooler that can overclock a little. For high end coolers, something like a noctua nh-d15 or a be quiet dark rock 4 would be good. It depends on how much you want to overclock. If you hit 5 GHz, you should go for the noctua or the be quiet. If you want to stay at around 4.7, Cryorig H7 is a good choice. As we are on the subject of overclocking and cpu temps, i would like to tell you that by delidding the 8600k and replacing the TIM you can drop as much as 10-20°C giving you more headroom for overclocks. You should consider it.

Yes, the 970 is still a great card and i think it will still suffice at running games on 1080p and 60 fps on about high settings. I would keep the 970 for a little longer and wait to upgrade when Nvidia launches their next lineup of GPUs. As for the RAM, you wont be able to use the DDR3 RAM with the new mobo and cpu and yes thats a bummer. 16 gigs of DDR4 2400MHz can cost you as much as $180 but by selling your old RAM you can probably reuse some of that money.

Ask any more questions you need to ask.

 

[wildmitchell]

You are right with the comparison of the i5 8600k and the i7 8700k. The i7 is mainly for productivity and other multi threaded tasks. The i7 doesn't benefit much in gaming performance over the i5 8600k. Games still favour single core performance more and utilize 6 cores at most these days. Even many old 4 core CPUs can still run games pretty well. If you are not doing any stuff like streaming, video editing, rendering and other multi threaded tasks, the i5 8600k should be good enough for you and should even last quite a while.

For the motherboard, you should go with a Z370 Chipset to pair with the 8600k so you can overclock. There are loads of Z370 boards, so choose one which has all the features you need (No of SATA ports, WiFi, RGB headers etc etc)

For the cooler, You can go for a Cryorig H7 if you want a cheapish cooler that can overclock a little. For high end coolers, something like a noctua nh-d15 or a be quiet dark rock 4 would be good. It depends on how much you want to overclock. If you hit 5 GHz, you should go for the noctua or the be quiet. If you want to stay at around 4.7, Cryorig H7 is a good choice. As we are on the subject of overclocking and cpu temps, i would like to tell you that by delidding the 8600k and replacing the TIM you can drop as much as 10-20°C giving you more headroom for overclocks. You should consider it.

Yes, the 970 is still a great card and i think it will still suffice at running games on 1080p and 60 fps on about high settings. I would keep the 970 for a little longer and wait to upgrade when Nvidia launches their next lineup of GPUs. As for the RAM, you wont be able to use the DDR3 RAM with the new mobo and cpu and yes thats a bummer. 16 gigs of DDR4 2400MHz can cost you as much as $180 but by selling your old RAM you can probably reuse some of that money.

Ask any more questions you need to ask.

That's very helpful, thank you! That's settled me on the i5-8600K.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction for the motherboard, I didn't know where to start. I've come up with the ASRock Z370 Killer SLI/ac which is on sale for £120 on Newegg which is far less than I thought I'd have to pay!

My research on the motherboard says overclocking to around 4.7GHZ on the 8600K should be perfectly fine so I'm favoured towards Cryorig H7. Although, I can't find many sellers of the Cryorig H7 and those who do are about twice as much as the 212 Evo at around £50. I've seen many people saying it's $5 better than the Evo which is how much more it costs in the USA but here in Europe it's the equivalent of about $30 more than the Evo (£20 for a £3 upgrade). Therefore, I'm not sure about this one, am I right to avoid it at this price?

I could push to the Dark Rock Pro 4 which is £70 as it does seem to do quite a bit better than the Evo and H7 but I'm not sure, it's a bit steep for me.

The NH-D15 too expensive for me at £80.
Oh, and how come you haven't mentioned the Evo, is it overrated?


The RAM is a bit of a shame but the only advantage of RAM prices spiking is, what you've just said, I can sell my current RAM for a high price as well. Going for 16GB DDR4, 2400MHz should be plenty, right?

Roughly totting that up now:
- £210 i5-8600K
- £120 ASRock Z370 Killer
- £150 Corsair DDR4 2400MHz 2x8GB
- £50 Cryorig H7 **Not sure about this atm**
= £530
- £100 at least from selling old parts brings me back to my expected budget of £400 and considering I didn't factor in RAM, that's actually pretty impressive. Thanks again for your help, I won't be buying any of this till at least tomorrow when my money comes through the bank so please feel free to take your time replying.

 

[jawlesspython04]

If you are getting the H7 for that price then I would just go 212. Yes the H7 outperforms the 212 but it is not justifiable for that price jump. You can get the 212 for really cheap right now and when you find some good deals on the internet you can consider upgrading (or not upgrading. I would upgrade just because I don't like the aesthetics of the 212 xD)

16 GB DDR4 at 2400MHz should be enough for you. No need to go for fast RAM as Intel does not benefit alot in performance from fast RAM like Ryzen.

 

[wildmitchell]

If you are getting the H7 for that price then I would just go 212. Yes the H7 outperforms the 212 but it is not justifiable for that price jump. You can get the 212 for really cheap right now and when you find some good deals on the internet you can consider upgrading (or not upgrading. I would upgrade just because I don't like the aesthetics of the 212 xD)

16 GB DDR4 at 2400MHz should be enough for you. No need to go for fast RAM as Intel does not benefit alot in performance from fast RAM like Ryzen.

Again, I don't care about aesthetics at all, you're mistaking me for someone who looks inside the computer than at the monitor! :lol:

Overnight a new seller for the H7 has entered my Google searches, https://www.candccentral.co.uk/cryorig-h7-single-tower-heatsink-with-120mm-fan-cr-h7a.html, at a reasonable price but I'm not sure how reputable they are... I do really want the H7 because it's such good value but obviously I'm a bit weary about ordering from CandCentral and it's out of stock at any other well priced, decent website... :/

I'll start ordering these parts later today and I'll see how my bank account's looking then decide on a heatsink because I'd love a Noctua fan but they're just that bit too pricey I think. I'll get back to you later on everything I've gone for.

Thanks for all of your help, I'd have surely gotten the wrong socket on the MOBO, forgotten about RAM and probably a massively overpriced i7 if weren't for you!

 

[jawlesspython04]

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phanteks-ph-tc12dx-cpu-cooler-black-hs-012-pt.html

Heres a cooler that performs similarly to a Cryorig H7 and is £42.95. Only one is left in stock so if you can grab it it also is a great cooler.

The website is trusted btw.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cryorig-h5-universal-single-tower-heatsink-with-140mm-fan-white-frame-hs-006-cy.html

This is also a great choice.

I also overlooked something you mentioned in the original post. You said you have Windows 10 on an HDD, not an SSD. Consider spending some money on a 250GB SSD. Its a huge upgrade from a mechanical drive.

 

[madmatt30]

You don't need an i7 or a k series cpu for a 60htz screen.

The i5 8400/8500 or ryzen 1600/2600 will do the job easily.

That said there's no reason your current 8320 wouldn't actually manage 60fps on any of those games apart from a.c.origins.

Your issue is you bought a 51st quality board & it's throttling under load.

That said , it IS time to offload & upgrade from an old fx rig if you have the money.

Assuming you're reusing case , psu, drives , gpu you just need,cpu , board & ram.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor (£143.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - B360 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£80.16 @ More Computers)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£133.56 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £357.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-29 15:46 BST+0100


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£137.94 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£70.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£133.56 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £342.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-29 15:47 BST+0100

They're your cheapest 2 options, they'll both do everything you're looking for.

 

[wildmitchell]

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phanteks-ph-tc12dx-cpu-cooler-black-hs-012-pt.html

Heres a cooler that performs similarly to a Cryorig H7 and is £42.95. Only one is left in stock so if you can grab it it also is a great cooler.

The website is trusted btw.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cryorig-h5-universal-single-tower-heatsink-with-140mm-fan-white-frame-hs-006-cy.html

This is also a great choice.

I also overlooked something you mentioned in the original post. You said you have Windows 10 on an HDD, not an SSD. Consider spending some money on a 250GB SSD. Its a huge upgrade from a mechanical drive.

Good find, that H5 looks like a great middle of the choice, ordering it now!

I can do one better, I have a 500GB SSD which has Windows 7. I mentioned the HDD with 10 on because I was certain the new Intel CPUs don't work with 7 which I've just confirmed the 8600K doesn't

Cheers.

 

[wildmitchell]

You don't need an i7 or a k series cpu for a 60htz screen.

The i5 8400/8500 or ryzen 1600/2600 will do the job easily.

That said there's no reason your current 8320 wouldn't actually manage 60fps on any of those games apart from a.c.origins.

Your issue is you bought a 51st quality board & it's throttling under load.

That said , it IS time to offload & upgrade from an old fx rig if you have the money.

Assuming you're reusing case , psu, drives , gpu you just need,cpu , board & ram.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor (£143.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - B360 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£80.16 @ More Computers)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£133.56 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £357.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-29 15:46 BST+0100


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£137.94 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£70.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£133.56 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £342.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-29 15:47 BST+0100

They're your cheapest 2 options, they'll both do everything you're looking for.

I appreciate your feedback but bare in mind I'm after longevity, not just what the cheapest setup now is. I want a slight overkill now but for it to still be 60FPS in at least 3 or 4 years which is why a K series, being able to OC etc., is essential.

I'm not surprised about my motherboard to be honest, I see other benches with FX 8320's and they do a hell of a lot better than mine, but I didn't choose this rig. I ended up with the MOBO, I'm 17 now but, because when I was about 14 I got conned with this setup and the parts I'm upgrading now are the only remaining parts from that con merchant...

I've had a look at those parts and I appreciate it massively but although it's cheaper, I don't think it's that much more cost effective. I could scrimp out now to achieve the 60FPS right now but I'll be hurting myself in the long run when Origins is no longer the most demanding game on the market. See where I'm coming from?

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about the shitty board though!

 

[madmatt30]

The issue with the 8600k is that once you add a cooler you are doubling the cost of the 8400.

The 8400 has a 3.8ghz 6 core booost & a 4ghz 4 core boost.

At stock it's within 10% of the 8600k

Granted once you overclock the 8600k you'll gain some performance but it's never going to be more than 20% more powerful than a cpu that costs 50% less money.

Ipc is never going to be an issue (not for 4 or 5years anyway)

If you really want to spend that much then get a locked i7 8700 & be done.

With a 4.3ghz all core boost single core ipc is going to be within 5% of an overclocked 8600k & you have an extra 6 threads to fall back on.

The 8600k is just astonishingly bad value compared to the rest of intels lineup imo.

 

[wildmitchell]

I agree that the 8400 matches the stock 8600K for £30 less but I've seen the 8600K can be overclocked to 5GHZ, with the cooler I'm getting I'll be able to get it to ~4.7 most likely. That's amazing. Which is why I'd settle for no less than a K series because that is what gives the freedom to use the CPU for years.

Buying an i7 is ridiculous, bare in mind that it'd need a cheapish cooler anyway like an Evo, but I'd never have the chance to fall onto those 6 extra cores because games are only just onto 6. The specs on the i7s aren't going to get used by me which is why some form of 6 core CPU is best for me and one that can be scaled up in the future which is what the 8600K's going to provide me with.

I'm not sure the 8600K's bad value, the specs seem to be right where they need to be and it's got a middle of the road price.

£240 for the 8600K and cooler for 4.7GHz, 6 threads (confirmed I can hit 4.7 without throttling, might be able to go higher)
£190 for the 8400 and Evo for up to 4 GHz turbo, 4 of 6 threads (I'd expect thermal throttling before it got to 4GHz, not sure though)
£50 for nearly a GHz of leeway? I'll take it.

 

[wildmitchell]

In my totting up I forgot to add on VAT, the new total being £565.65 including shipping. This isn't far off what I thought but I'm going to leave this price here to see if there are any final words from anyone or if anyone knows how to get it cheaper.

I'm getting the heatsink from Amazon (£47.37)
The rest I'm getting from Ebuyer which has free shipping (£517.56)

I've scoured the net and I couldn't find any promotional offers or anything like that. If anyone knows or thinks they might know one, please let me know!

*Looks like I just missed out on a bundle that had everything I'm looking for minus the heatsink for £120 less from Newegg: https://www.pcgamer.com/get-a-core-i5-8600k-with-16gb-ddr4-3000-ram-and-z370-motherboard-for-dollar500/ which is making me want to cry.

 

[madmatt30]

The h5 is £47 on amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CRYORIG-H5-Universal-CPU-Cooler-140/dp/B00MBTOY2S/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1527621135&sr=1-6&keywords=cryorig


If your'e Uk newegg has to have tax ,import duty & delivery fees added - which makes anything you look at around 40% more expensive than on site.

If you dont have prime ,sign up for the free month then cancel once you have the cooler.

You really should grab the ballistix from amazon too,that is a good deal considering ram prices at the minute.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013SMKEHK/?tag=pcp0f-21

 

[wildmitchell]

The h5 is £47 on amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CRYORIG-H5-Universal-CPU-Cooler-140/dp/B00MBTOY2S/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1527621135&sr=1-6&keywords=cryorig


If your'e Uk newegg has to have tax ,import duty & delivery fees added - which makes anything you look at around 40% more expensive than on site.

If you dont have prime ,sign up for the free month then cancel once you have the cooler.

Overclockers price includes shipping so same price but I'll go through Amazon because it's quicker, cheers.

Interesting, so maybe that deal wouldn't have been so good then after all. That's alright then, thanks Matt.

 

[madmatt30]

the 8600k is cheaper from aria

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Intel+Core+i5+8600K+3.60GHz+Hex+Core+%28Coffee+Lake%29+Processor+Unlocked+?productId=68439

Also the auros k3 (with farcry 5 free too ) for a very good price.

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Intel+Socket/Socket+1151+-+Z370+Coffee+Lake/GIGABYTE+Z370+AORUS+Gaming+K3+-+Intel+Coffee+Lake+DDR4+ATX+Motherboard+?productId=68614

 

[wildmitchell]

the 8600k is cheaper from aria

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Intel+Core+i5+8600K+3.60GHz+Hex+Core+%28Coffee+Lake%29+Processor+Unlocked+?productId=68439

Also the auros k3 (with farcry 5 free too ) for a very good price.

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Intel+Socket/Socket+1151+-+Z370+Coffee+Lake/GIGABYTE+Z370+AORUS+Gaming+K3+-+Intel+Coffee+Lake+DDR4+ATX+Motherboard+?productId=68614

Good find, after shipping it's £205. You bought from Aria before? I've never heard of it, the website looks a bit Dreamweaver CS3...

About the MOBO, I'm not gonna get any use out of Far Cry 5. Considering it's the same price as the Z370 Killer whilst it's on offer, which one's better, taking out Far Cry 5 out of the mix? Also it has a lot of RGB, take away that as well.

 

[madmatt30]

If it's just the killer then nothing , if it's the killer sli/ac then obviously youre losing Wi-Fi & bluetooth.

Aria ?? I'd use them any day of the week over ebuyer.

While ebuyer have huge stock,good prices & decent free delivery their rma procedures (should you have anything doa or failing after a month or 2) are pretty rank.

Used to be great , not so much nowadays.

 

[wildmitchell]

If it's just the killer then nothing , if it's the killer sli/ac then obviously youre losing Wi-Fi & bluetooth.

Aria ?? I'd use them any day of the week over ebuyer.

While ebuyer have huge stock,good prices & decent free delivery their rma procedures (should you have anything doa or failing after a month or 2) are pretty rank.

Used to be great , not so much nowadays.

Yeah, it's the ASRock - Z370 Killer SLI/ac that I've got chosen atm, I've got a network card and I use LAN so, not a problem, right? Is the Killer better than the one you mentioned then?

I thought Ebuyer was pretty reputable, in that case I'll go through Aria and save a couple of quid.

 

[wildmitchell]

Aria's amazing. Got a better heatsink and it's still cheaper than getting them all elsewhere.
i5 8600K
16GB Corsair 2666MHz RAM
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3
Gigabyte Z370 AUROS Gaming K3 (Matt's choice)
= £555.49 inc. shipping

The MOBO I had picked out before isn't on Aria so if there's no concerns with the one Matt recommended me which I'm going to look further into now, I'll get it all from there. Plus the mediocre bonus of Far Cry 5!

 

[madmatt30]

You know I never ever had an issue with ebuyer, & I had a trade account & spent maybe £3k a month at one time.

That was over 3 years ago though.

They're massive now , I think when firms get that big they lose any kind of personal touch,they've also been investigated by watchdog in the past & been warned numerous times by the ASA about false advertising.

So while they have millions of happy customers have no doubt there are plenty of unhappy ones.

I know 6 people personally who in the last 12 months have had massive issues rma'ing components - mainly gpu's.

Its enough to bother me though personally.

Overclockers, aria , amazon.
Only placesIll use now even if things are a little more expensive, those 3 have the best customer support by a million miles.

 

[wildmitchell]

You know I never ever had an issue with ebuyer, & I had a trade account & spent maybe £3k a month at one time.

That was over 3 years ago though.

They're massive now , I think when firms get that big they lose any kind of personal touch,they've also been investigated by watchdog in the past & been warned numerous times by the ASA about false advertising.

So while they have millions of happy customers have no doubt there are plenty of unhappy ones.

I know 6 people personally who in the last 12 months have had massive issues rma'ing components - mainly gpu's.

Its enough to bother me though personally.

Overclockers, aria , amazon.
Only placesIll use now even if things are a little more expensive, those 3 have the best customer support by a million miles.

Well, thanks for telling me, I don't want to take the risk either. Besides, Aria's seems to be giving me better prices anyway!

So, about this Auros K3, am I going for it? I'm out of my depth looking at motherboards but it seems to be fine for overclocking the 8600K. I want your opinion though, Matt, since you had a go at my current one lol.

 

[madmatt30]

It's a good board , £20 cheaper than its rrp.

That's pretty much all there is to say about it really.

Most people base their board choices on aesthetics nowadays as much as anything else , so where one would pick the asrock killer , another would pick the k3.

They're honestly as good as each other

 

[wildmitchell]

It's a good board , £20 cheaper than its rrp.

That's pretty much all there is to say about it really.

Most people base their board choices on aesthetics nowadays as much as anything else , so where one would pick the asrock killer , another would pick the k3.

They're honestly as good as each other

What I wanted to hear, thanks a lot. I'm gonna get ordering all this from Aria now. I appreciate all your fast and helpful replies.

 

[wildmitchell]

** UPDATE from my old laptop! Which should tell you alot about how all this went **

So I've been tinkering and putting all this in over the weekend and first thing's first, I wouldn't wish the Dark Rock Pro 3 on anybody, it has been the source of every problem so far. Not only is it a pain to get in and fastened to the backplate, it weighs as much as a brick and is maybe a bit bigger than one. Because of this, I decided to flip the motherboard round and place that ontop of the cooler outside the case.

However, the case I have doesn't have enough standoffs and because of the cooler's size, one of the standoffs is actually impossible to get to making this Rik Waller of a cooler standing on only 5 out of a 9 possible standoffs which crippled my PC to living on its side to protect the board from bending and warping.

However, this shouldn't be a problem as after getting everything in the case, the PC powers on, all the fans come on and light up, hard drive churns and it's looking good for about 3 seconds then it goes into a boot loop. On the MOBO there are some lights which I think indicate 'phases' (nowhere is this mentioned in the manual, I had to look at some more forums) and only 1 light comes on which is the CPU light. So, everything turns on, CPU light comes on and then it restarts.

Looking this up online it's obviously some kind of hardware issue which could be as severe as a dud board or CPU or as simple as a reseating of the RAM. However, because the RAM is so neatly tucked away under the cooler, it's impossible to get to them without ripping the cooler off, wasting the paste and removing the motherboard again to reseat the thing.

*This didn't work, used some pryers to get to the plug into the socket, still the same loop so not only does the board not work but it also doesn't want to protect my CPU...*
Is it possible that this would happen if the heatsink isn't plugged into the CPU FAN header on the motherboard? I put in a SYTEM FAN header because I simply can't get to the CPU FAN header due to, yet again, the Dark Rock Pro 3. It still turns on but I'm wondering if it's possibly a safety feature of the board. I tried looking this up but most people said it worked for them but nothing on this particular board and people who said it didn't work for them were still able to get to BIOS. Is anyone aware of this type of thing and could confirm this?
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Although it's been a bit of a messy install because it's my first build, I took all of the precautions like, ESD wrist strap, mat etc. took my time, consulted the manual and the internet for every step but of course, it's not working and have wasted my time doing so and it's going to have to go off to someone to fix it for me. More money, more time.

Lesson learned: Nice and small water cooler next time.