Building a new PC ($2,600 MAX). Need help finding a good MB for gaming and overclocking

JH1105

Commendable
May 24, 2016
2
0
1,510
I'm building a new computer (haven't bought the parts yet) and I need help finding a good motherboard that is compatible with the rest of the parts below. I want a motherboard that overclocks well and is stable and good for gaming. I was looking at the ASUS Maximus VIII Hero and many people on newegg complained the board was either smoking in the I/O area upon power up or DOA and said it's unstable. So I'm not sure what m/b I should get. Also, if I can build a better PC for the money (all the parts below go for $2,121 on newegg), i'd appreciate help finding better parts.

Here is my build so far:

HDD: WD Black 2TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 TI ACX
PSU: EVGA SuperNova G2 850W
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-3.5G - OEM
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3400 (PC4 27200) Intel Z170
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151
CPU COOLER: Corsair Hydro Series H100i GTX Extreme Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler
SSD: SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive
Corsair Gaming K95 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - RGB Lighting - Cherry MX Brown Switches
LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Internal SATA Model ihas324-07

Is it a good build and can I do better for the price? And what m/b would you guys recommend? This is only my second time building a computer so sorry if some of the parts are not compatible. I think they are though.
 
1) Really high speed ram is very expensive and will provide little benefit in terms of gaming. 2666 is about the sweet spot.
2) water cooling is more expensive and much less reliable. a good air cooler will still be able to give you max overclocks. theres no chance of leaking or pump failures. even if you can get a little higher clocks with water cooling, it won't be worth the hassle finding a very high stable overclock. .2ghz will provide almost no difference gaming.
3) dont get a 980 ti when you are building a new, big build like this. the 1080 is being released on the 27th with ~25% better performance at the same price point.
4) i usually recommend the MSI Z170A GAMING M7 board.
 
I've never found an air cooling system I like for overclocking. Look at it both ways, liquid cooling provides cool, reliable temperatures. The chance of having a pump fail is less than 5%. I have had a liquid cooler from Cooler Master for over 5 years before I replaced it with a cooler from Corsair that brings cooler temperatures than my Cooler Master ever did.

To each his own.
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($349.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG R1 Ultimate 76.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($89.99)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($212.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($67.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($178.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($117.99 @ Micro Center)
Case: Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 ATX Mid Tower Case ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA P2 650W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($94.99 @ Micro Center)
Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS324-07 DVD/CD Writer ($19.25 @ OutletPC)
Other: Nvidia GTX 1080 ($599.99)
Total: $1831.16
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-24 23:23 EDT-0400
 
Solution


Thanks a lot. Nice case too