Comments about this customized Cyberpower build?

[saihv]

I was looking for a $1000-$1100 PC build mostly for 1080p/60fps gaming, and future Oculus Rift support. After fiddling around this PC Part Picker for a while, I replicated one build in Cyberpower, which because of their fall sales, ended up being cheaper than what it would be building it myself. How good do you think is this build, for that money and my purpose?

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-6600 3.3 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1151 (Skylake)
Case: CyberpowerPC X-Sentinel MID-Tower Gaming Case w/USB 3.1 (looks pretty fancy with blue LEDs)
MB: MSI Z170A Gaming Pro ATX w/ Programmable Lighting
SSD: 256GB SanDisk Z400S SATA III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 546 MB/S Read & 342MB/s Write
HDD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200 RPM HDD
MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR4/2400MHz Dual Channel Memory (GSKILL Ripjaws V)
VIDEO: AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card
PSU: 850 Watts - EVGA SuperNOVA 850 GS 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
CD: LG 14X Internal Blu-ray Burner, 3D Playback DVD+RW Combo Drive (Black Color)
USB Wifi: P-LINK 802.11AC Archer T2U AC600

Free shipping.

Total price: $1,073

I chose the 850 W PSU because I would like to upgrade to a Crossfire setup in the future with dual R9's.

 

[g-unit1111]

That case is made by Apevia, a brand that's pretty synonymous with junk. You definitely want a much better case. Also get the unlocked CPU. The BD-R burner is unnecessary as well.

 

[saihv]

That case is made by Apevia, a brand that's pretty synonymous with junk. You definitely want a much better case. Also get the unlocked CPU. The BD-R burner is unnecessary as well.

Ah, I didn't know that: because they had some cases named Apevia, and some named Cyberpower. How are AZZA or Corsair cases? The (relatively cheaper) options I can pick are from AZZA, Corsair, ThermalTake, ZALMAN and RAIDMAX

 

[rhysiam]

You're right, it's pretty hard to beat that with a pcpartpicker build. You've done well there.

That meets the minimum specs for Oculus, so is as likely to work as anything. VR's all a bit of an unknown really, so we'll have to wait and see, but that's what the devs are targetting so it should all work.

I don't see any issues with that build. It's a pretty poor SSD, might be worth seeing if they offer a BX100 or 850EVO instead, but that's not really a big deal in the scheme of things. It'll still be faster than a HDD.

 

[saihv]

You're right, it's pretty hard to beat that with a pcpartpicker build. You've done well there.

That meets the minimum specs for Oculus, so is as likely to work as anything. VR's all a bit of an unknown really, so we'll have to wait and see, but that's what the devs are targetting so it should all work.

I don't see any issues with that build. It's a pretty poor SSD, might be worth seeing if they offer a BX100 or 850EVO instead, but that's not really a big deal in the scheme of things. It'll still be faster than a HDD.

Thanks. I was pretty impressed about how much it ended up costing. I initially wanted to go for an EVO, but they are offering a free 256GB upgrade to Sandisk SSDs for the price of a 128 GB, and the EVO costs a fair bit of money, so I wasn't too enthusiastic.

 

[rhysiam]

Thanks. I was pretty impressed about how much it ended up costing. I initially wanted to go for an EVO, but they are offering a free 256GB upgrade to Sandisk SSDs for the price of a 128 GB, and the EVO costs a fair bit of money, so I wasn't too enthusiastic.

Fair enough. The difference between SSDs is always far smaller than the difference between a HDD and an SSD, so if a better SSD blows your budget, I think you've made the right call. Having just given up and bought a 250GB SSD after wrestling to keep enough free space on a 120GB drive for a while, I'd probably take a Sandisk 256GB drive over an 120GB EVO myself if the budget was tight.

RE the case, g-unit does make a good point. If you're end goal is Crossfire, 2x390s, that's a HUGE amount of heat being dumped into your case. You need case with good airflow to avoid those cards cooking themselves and having to throttle. Corsair are generally pretty good. It's easy to find reviews for them too, so see which case is in your budget and matches your style and then read up on it.

 

[rhysiam]

The other option, of course, if the budget is tight, is to make do with a cheap crappy case for now. Then when you're looking to add that second video card, include a new case in your budget and do the upgrade then. It's a bit of a hassle swapping cases, but it's not rocket science and then you get the pick of all the cases on the market, rather than just whatever cyperpower offers. If you keep your eye out for specials you might even find it ends up cheaper in the long run. Just a thought really.

RE the 6600 vs overclockable 6600K... that's not a massive deal IMHO. It's nice to have the option to overclock as it can stretch out the life of the PC, but it'll be a while before a 6600 becomes a bottleneck. When you're on a budget you have to make sacrifices, and that's not a huge one IMHO.

 

[saihv]

RE the 6600 vs overclockable 6600K... that's not a massive deal IMHO. It's nice to have the option to overclock as it can stretch out the life of the PC, but it'll be a while before a 6600 becomes a bottleneck. When you're on a budget you have to make sacrifices, and that's not a huge one IMHO.

I just modified my build a little bit. i5-6600K, Corsair Hydro Series H60 120mm Liquid CPU Cooling System, and a Corsair Carbide Spec-01 case (seems to have good reviews and is overclock friendly in terms of ventilation), removed the BD drive and switched to a EVGA Bronze 600W PSU and the cost is 1093. Is this build substantially better?

Also, looks like they add the max. possible number of fans in the case, so cooling shouldn't be an issue.

"They add 120mm fans to every empty fan slot in the case (so if your case supports 8x 120mm fans and it comes stock with 5, they will add 3x 120mm fans), and each fan has LEDs for whatever color that you chose."

 

[rhysiam]

I just modified my build a little bit. i5-6600K, Corsair Hydro Series H60 120mm Liquid CPU Cooling System, and a Corsair Carbide Spec-01 case (seems to have good reviews and is overclock friendly in terms of ventilation), switched to a EVGA Bronze 600W PSU and the cost is 1093. Is this build substantially better?

Also, looks like they add the max. possible number of fans in the case, so cooling shouldn't be an issue.

"They add 120mm fans to every empty fan slot in the case (so if your case supports 8x 120mm fans and it comes stock with 5, they will add 3x 120mm fans), and each fan has LEDs for whatever color that you chose."

Well the H60 is an average cooler at best, and the EVGA 600W is a tier 3 PSU from the Tier 1 you had before. That's some sizable compromises you're making for an overclockable processor - particularly the PSU is a bit of an issue. Can you swap to a 212 EVO or similar cheap air cooler and go back to a better PSU? You don't need 850W necessarily (you will for CFX though), it's just that those 600W B1 models aren't very good. Can you get an EVGA B2, GS, or G2 model in budget? Those are all great.

And RE the fans, I'm not at all convinced that slapping a whole load of fans into a poorly designed case is a good way of dissipating 600W+ of heat from 2x390s + other components, but that's perhaps a problem for another day. It might be fine, but if it's not, worst-comes-to-worst you can always take the side cover off and blow a table fan at your cards until you can afford a better case.

 

[saihv]

I just modified my build a little bit. i5-6600K, Corsair Hydro Series H60 120mm Liquid CPU Cooling System, and a Corsair Carbide Spec-01 case (seems to have good reviews and is overclock friendly in terms of ventilation), switched to a EVGA Bronze 600W PSU and the cost is 1093. Is this build substantially better?

Also, looks like they add the max. possible number of fans in the case, so cooling shouldn't be an issue.

"They add 120mm fans to every empty fan slot in the case (so if your case supports 8x 120mm fans and it comes stock with 5, they will add 3x 120mm fans), and each fan has LEDs for whatever color that you chose."

Well the H60 is an average cooler at best, and the EVGA 600W is a tier 3 PSU from the Tier 1 you had before. That's some sizable compromises you're making for an overclockable processor - particularly the PSU is a bit of an issue. Can you swap to a 212 EVO or similar cheap air cooler and go back to a better PSU? You don't need 850W necessarily (you will for CFX though), it's just that those 600W B1 models aren't very good. Can you get an EVGA B2, GS, or G2 model in budget? Those are all great.

And RE the fans, I'm not at all convinced that slapping a whole load of fans into a poorly designed case is a good way of dissipating 600W+ of heat from 2x390s + other components, but that's perhaps a problem for another day. It might be fine, but if it's not, worst-comes-to-worst you can always take the side cover off and blow a table fan at your cards until you can afford a better case.

Well, to be honest, I am not even super enthusiastic about over-clocking. My only motivation would be to squeeze a few extra months/years from the processor at some point.. but if that means compromising on important things like the PSU, I would rather not go for a K processor. Cyberpower's deals are a little weird though: for instance, the EVGA GS 1080W gold PSU is 5 dollars cheaper than the 850 W one. Also, if Crossfiring or SLIing years from now is not a concern, there's a cheaper 550W Enermax Revolution87+ gold PSU.

The "branded" cases I have that fit within my budget are:

Cooler Master N600
Corsair Carbide 300R
Corsair Carbide Series Spec-01
NZXT Source 340
Phanteks Enthoo Pro M ATX Mid-Tower Gaming Case

I am checking on reviews etc. about which one could be the best in terms of airflow etc., a lot of people seem to like the NZXT.

 

[saihv]

Just an update, I finally ordered this configuration:

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-6600K 3.5 GHz
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro M
MB: MSI Z170A Gaming Pro ATX w/ Programmable Lighting
SSD: 256GB SanDisk Z400S SATA III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 546 MB/S Read & 342MB/s Write
HDD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200 RPM HDD
MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR4/2400MHz Dual Channel Memory (GSKILL Ripjaws V)
VIDEO: AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card
PSU: 850 Watts - EVGA SuperNOVA 850 GS 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
USB Wifi: P-LINK 802.11AC Archer T2U AC600

Ended up being around 1130. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[rhysiam]

Nice purchase. Have fun!