Hi everybody, my boyfriend and I are looking to build our first computer together. Both of us have decided on mini-ITX builds, his will probably look identical to mine except for 16GB instead of 32GB DDR4 ram and he won't need the bluray drive. So far these are the parts we have picked out :
Fractal Design Core 500 Black Mini-ITX Small Form Factor Computer Case
Gigabyte Motherboard GA-H170N-WIFI Core I7/I5/I3 LGA1151 H170 DDR4 mITX
G.SKILL Ripjaws V F4-2133C15D-32GVR DDR4-2133 32GB (2X16GB) CL15 1.2V Memory Kit Red
Corsair SF Series SF600 80 PLUS Gold Certified 600W Small Form Factor PSU
SanDisk X400 512GB M.2 2280 SATA 3 Solid State Drive (SSD)
Intel Core I7-6700 Processor 8M Cache 3.4GHZ Base 4GHZ Turbo FC-LGA14C LGA1151 Retail Box Skylake
LG BH16NS55 16x Blu-Ray Writer BD-R SATA M-DISC Black Retail Box
AMD RX 480 Polaris video card (when released end of the month)
ASUS MG248Q 24" Gaming Monitor 144hz freesync 1ms (already bought this, wishing there was an IPS version of this, I like the 24" size and 1920x1080 resolution)
Questions/notes :
1. The motherboard above I chose because the only Z170 motherboard I could find with good reviews (and no M.2 problems) is the ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Z170 and it's $289.99 CAD at NewEgg.ca (not available on NCIX). Since we are not planning to overclock, I picked the above Gigabyte board which has good reviews and decent price. My question is, from the specs it only supports 2133Mhz DDR4 ram, so how come on pcpartpicker I am seeing other systems running 2400Mhz DDR4 ram with the same motherboard?
2. The Corsair SF600 is I think the largest wattage PSU I can find that fits a small form factor. From the specs it is 0.86kg which is approx 1.9 lb. Does this mean it's really less than a third of the weight of regular size PSU's? (which I am seeing approx 6-8lb?)
3. Is it worth it to get the more power efficient i7-6700T processor? It's about the same price of a i7-6700K and i7-6700. It doesn't seem too popular so I can't find much info on it.
4. Do I need to buy Arctic Silver 5 to mount the stock Intel heatsink that comes with the i7-6700? Or would I only need it for aftermarket CPU coolers?
5. Would it be quieter to go with a water cooling setup or is it around the same as the stock heatsink if I am not overclocking?
6. Do I need additional fans in the system? If so which ones would you recommend for my build? (which are the quietest these days?)
7. The SanDisk X400 seems very inexpensive compared to other brands. Is there a reason why? Is the performance about the same?
We are both very excited and looking forward to building our very first gaming computers together
Fractal Design Core 500 Black Mini-ITX Small Form Factor Computer Case
Gigabyte Motherboard GA-H170N-WIFI Core I7/I5/I3 LGA1151 H170 DDR4 mITX
G.SKILL Ripjaws V F4-2133C15D-32GVR DDR4-2133 32GB (2X16GB) CL15 1.2V Memory Kit Red
Corsair SF Series SF600 80 PLUS Gold Certified 600W Small Form Factor PSU
SanDisk X400 512GB M.2 2280 SATA 3 Solid State Drive (SSD)
Intel Core I7-6700 Processor 8M Cache 3.4GHZ Base 4GHZ Turbo FC-LGA14C LGA1151 Retail Box Skylake
LG BH16NS55 16x Blu-Ray Writer BD-R SATA M-DISC Black Retail Box
AMD RX 480 Polaris video card (when released end of the month)
ASUS MG248Q 24" Gaming Monitor 144hz freesync 1ms (already bought this, wishing there was an IPS version of this, I like the 24" size and 1920x1080 resolution)
Questions/notes :
1. The motherboard above I chose because the only Z170 motherboard I could find with good reviews (and no M.2 problems) is the ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Z170 and it's $289.99 CAD at NewEgg.ca (not available on NCIX). Since we are not planning to overclock, I picked the above Gigabyte board which has good reviews and decent price. My question is, from the specs it only supports 2133Mhz DDR4 ram, so how come on pcpartpicker I am seeing other systems running 2400Mhz DDR4 ram with the same motherboard?
2. The Corsair SF600 is I think the largest wattage PSU I can find that fits a small form factor. From the specs it is 0.86kg which is approx 1.9 lb. Does this mean it's really less than a third of the weight of regular size PSU's? (which I am seeing approx 6-8lb?)
3. Is it worth it to get the more power efficient i7-6700T processor? It's about the same price of a i7-6700K and i7-6700. It doesn't seem too popular so I can't find much info on it.
4. Do I need to buy Arctic Silver 5 to mount the stock Intel heatsink that comes with the i7-6700? Or would I only need it for aftermarket CPU coolers?
5. Would it be quieter to go with a water cooling setup or is it around the same as the stock heatsink if I am not overclocking?
6. Do I need additional fans in the system? If so which ones would you recommend for my build? (which are the quietest these days?)
7. The SanDisk X400 seems very inexpensive compared to other brands. Is there a reason why? Is the performance about the same?
We are both very excited and looking forward to building our very first gaming computers together