Mini-ITX Skylake build in Japan

[honkuimushi]

I'm currently using an old HP workstation with a Core 2 Duo E6850 that I picked up for $250 used about 3 years ago. I put my Radeon HD 4830 from my last system in there an went with that. But it's reaching it's limits and I can't really run any modern games on it.

So I finally have some cash and I plan to build a new system. I will be using this system for a little bit of everything. Gaming is the most important (Mostly RPGs and Turn-Based Strategy, but I may give some FPS's a try. I'll probably start with Dragon Age: Inquisition and Pillars of Eternity and I might try The Witcher 3 if I like 1 and 2. I might give Battlefront a try as I liked the old versions.) I will also be using this for work, so I'll be doing a lot of Word Processing and Power Point along with some light video editing. My computer will also be how I watch most of my U.S. news and baseball games and also where I watch most of my DVDs and Blu-Rays. This will also be where I backup my phone and keep pictures and videos taken on it.

I am currently using a 22 inch 1680 x 1050 monitor and I plan to use it for about another year because I can't afford the computer and a nice monitor right now. Hopefully by that time 120Hz+ IPS or VA monitors will be a little more plentiful.

So given that background I planning a computer that I can use(with a few upgrades) for about 5 years. I chose a Mini-ITX system for space and portability reasons and I live and work in Japan. The yen is currently at about 123 yen to the dollar and prices are usually around 20% higher than the U.S.-- more for enthusiast gear. I will build this in about 2 or 3 weeks. I would appreciate any advice you might have.

Build:
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard:ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Toshiba MD04ACA300 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case
Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit)

Notes: Pretty sure about these.
CPU: I am still considering the i5 6500 but I am leaning towards the i7 for Movie Maker and because I have a bad habit of leaving 100+ tabs open at all times.

Motherboard: I wanted USB 3.1 A and C and an M.2 slot and the ASRock and Gigabyte Gaming 5 were the only ones with both. But the Gigabyte only had 3 USB 3.0 ports. By the time I attach my mouse, keyboard, game controller and printer, I would be running short of ports
.
Storage:The Samsung is probably overkill, but it's easier to install the M.2 at the beginning and it's looks like the most future proof option. I bought the hard drive last Sunday. It was on sale for about $75 and seems to be more reliable than recent Seagates.

Case: I chose this case for its mix of small size and large capacity and the 5.25 drive space. I used it last summer when I built a computer for my dad and I generally liked it. However, I decided after that that I would use a fully modular PSU for any future builds in the case. Also, because of the mediocre cooling, I decided against overclocking and that I would try to keep the power needs low.

Optical Drive: Already have it.

Operating System: Bought it last summer. Have my issues with it, but wanted DX12.

Would like input on these
Power Supply: Most of my first choices from looking at U.S. reviews aren't available. For moderate power. quality, fully modular PSUs, these are my choices:
XFX P1-650B-BEFX 13,480 Yen
Antec EDG550 12,820 Yen
Cyonic AU-550X 15,984 Yen
AU-450X 14,904 Yen
My first choice is the XFX, but I'm open to suggestions.Here is a comparison site(in Japanese) if you want to look for something else. http://kakaku.com/pc/power-supply/

Video Card: With only a 1680 x 1050 and a new die shrink coming up, I was temped to go cheap then buy a new video card and monitor together. But I think I'll wait for HBM2 to come down to the Performance tier. So I'm looking at the GTX 970 because of the lower power consumption and because AMD cards are usually about 3000 yen more than their nearest nVidia competitor here. I will look at the R9 380X, but the report I saw today put the price about even with the 970. I'm open with regards to the model, but I don't really like the Gigabyte cards because they don't vent outside of the case. These are the cheapest:
The Galaxy GF-GTX970-E4GB/OC/SHORT 38,241 Yen
GALAXY　GALAX GF PGTX970-OC/4GD5 MINI 39,980 Yen
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 ZT-90101-10P 40,388 Yen
I liked the Asus Mini-Itx (GTX970-DCMOC-4GD5) for its blower model and it's 43,179 yen
He's a list of available 970s: http://kakaku.com/pc/videocard/itemlist.aspx?pdf_Spec103=404&pdf_so=p1
For comparison, the cheapest R9 390 is 42,292 Yen and the cheapest new 290 is 43,200 Yen.

Memory: This is my biggest concern. The memory support list for the Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac seems rather short on 2 x 8GB kits, especially for newer RAM. Also, higher speed kits are not very plentiful here in Japan.At the same time, I have seen several articles showing significant improvements for Skylake with higher clocked RAM

The available kits on the supported memory list are these 3:
DDR4 2400 Kingston HX424C15FBK2/16 14,980 Yen
DDR4 2400 G.Skill F4-2400C15D-16GVR 14,380 Yen
DDR4 2400 G.Skill F4-2400C15D-16GRR 17,112 Yen

Nothing faster on the list was available. Still, I'm tempted to try the G.Skill 2800 F4-2800C15D-16GVRB, which is the Rip Jaws V 2800 DDR4 and costs 17,780 Yen. But I'm not sure it will work. If anyone has the same motherboard. I would love to hear what type of RAM you're using.

I welcome feedback about the build and especially help with the specific models of the memory, PSU and video card.

TL;DR Looking for feedback on the listed parts for a build in Japan. Alternatives welcomed if they are available.

 

[thor220]

The 6700k is really overpriced right now in the states and looking at japanese pricing, probably a bit more so over there. If you can get the 5820k at around the same price, I would. It's a six core processor.

 

[Bossyfins]

The palit, MSI and Gigabyte 970s are the best 970s in the list. Anyone one of those would be strong.

 

[samcow2]

5820k is probably a bit too much heat/power for a mini-itx build ( I know of the 'shoebox build.') I considered going that route and getting a Silverstone RVZ01 case, but decided that cooling it would be a concern. Also, I kind of just want the RVZ02, and I can't at all imagine a cpu cooler under 58mm could handle a 5820k at full steam.

I'd love to hear if the above is incorrect however, as then I'd switch!

 

[Bossyfins]

Not many coolers are 58 mm :lol:
Did you mean 158mm?

Official height for the Hyper 212 is 158.8mm or something like that. It handles my 5820k at 4ghc with temps under 75c under a 6 hour test period with P95 26.6

But, You might consider moving to Z97, and getting a xeon 1231v3. Its an i7 47xx without a IGPU and can not be OCed.

 

[thor220]

Not many coolers are 58 mm :lol:
Did you mean 158mm?

Official height for the Hyper 212 is 158.8mm or something like that. It handles my 5820k at 4ghc with temps under 75c under a 6 hour test period with P95 26.6

But, You might consider moving to Z97, and getting a xeon 1231v3. Its an i7 47xx without a IGPU and can not be OCed.

I like that suggestion. I think he's trying to get the most efficient processor possible. Electricity is very expensive in Japan.

 

[samcow2]

58mm I believe
http://www.silverstonetek.com/raven/products/index.php?model=RVZ02

I basically want a PC as small as possible, and after initially disliking this case, I now am pretty into it. I was first looking at squatter mini-itx cases which were substantially thicker (though shorter)

 

[Bossyfins]

Try the silverstone AR06. Listed as compatible with that case.

 

[honkuimushi]

Thanks for the replies. I actually had the non K 6700 listed there because of the cooling issues and lower TDP of the locked processors. It's also about 6000 yen cheaper than the K version. I should have listed the prices of the CPUs. Here they are including tax(8%).
i7 5820K 49,790 yen or about $404. Newegg lists it at 390
i7 6700K 45,850 yen or about $373. Newegg lists it at $400, so actually something of a bargain.
i7 6700 40,670 yen or about $331. I can't find it on Newegg. The Intel Box Price is $312, so it doesn't seem too high.
I5 6500 25,618 yen or about $208 Newegg lists it at $205 so not much difference.

The reason I went with the Z170 over the X99 or Z97 was the features. The Fatal1ty has USB 3.1 A and C ports along with an M.2 and I figured those features would be very useful if I kept this computer for the next 5 years. The one ITX X99 board has 3.1 A and the M.2, but no Type C. I don't know of any Z97 ITX boards with those features. The max CPU cooler height of the Elite 130 is 65mm. The included cooler on the X-99 is 67 mm. So I'd have to change cases and the motherboard is about $100 more. But still, there isn't going to be room for a big cooler in any mini-ITX case, and that may be a problem for any of the 2011-3 processors. And while electricity cost is a factor(since 2011 it's been about double what I was paying in San Diego in 2000 and that was with Enron jiggering the market), my main concern is keeping the system cool during the summer, without AC, with the temperatures getting into the low 30s in my apartment. It seems with mini-ITX cases you can have portability and compactness, you can have overclockability and you can have an ODD Drive, you just have to pick 1.5 of them.

I did consider the E3-1231, and it was my first choice before my build got pushed back until after the Skylake launch. It runs about 32,811 yen or about $267. The extra $65 buys 200MHz of boost and a TDP lower by 15 W, which doesn't seem that bad, plus I'm interested in seeing how multiadapter works. I was actually really interested in the v5 Xeons, but it looks like Intel locked them out of consumer boards.

Thanks for the information about the video cards, too. Unfortunately, it looks like the Palit is a triple slot card, which is one more slot than most mini-ITX cases have.

@samcow2 Interesting case. Did you find a good SFX PSU to go with it?

Again, thanks for the suggestions and making me think over my decisions again. Does anyone have any insights or opinions on the RAM or PSU?

 

[samcow2]

Yea I pulled the trigger on the case, its sold out on Amazon presently, and actually was listed as the #1 new case when I bought it. The Silverstone RVZ01 is only slightly thicker apparently, but allows for fans on the case itself if you're into that, I kind of dig the passive cooling of the RVZ02.

As for a power supply, Silverstone makes a good 500W power supply as listed here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-psus,4229.html

They also make higher or lower wattage PSU that will fit in the case, personally for my 6700k build with a 970 Im going with a 500W I think.

As for a CPU cooler, people seem to like Scythe BIG Shuriken 2 Rev. B 45.5 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler, or the classic Zalman cooler.

 

[honkuimushi]

A quick update-- I purchased the Cooler Master Elite 130 today-- One of the stores had it on sale this weekend. The R9 380X still isn't up on the comparison site here in Japan, but I looked for a few today. A stock clocked Power Color was all I could find and that was around 33,000 yen before tax. The cheaper 970s are only about 3,000 yen more. When I asked a representative from Asus Japan, he said that their version wouldn't be available until the end of December or beginning of January. So it looks like I'll be getting a 970 of some sort. It's too bad. The power numbers and thermals have looked pretty good in the reviews I've seen. The performance was a little closer to the 380 than I had hoped, but it still would have been enough to last me 2 years or so. If they had been available for 28,000 yen or so, I very likely would have picked one up.

I also saw an announcement that the 950 Pro would go on sale at the end of the month for about 25,750 yen. So I'll probably buy most of the expensive parts this weekend after payday. Once store is running a 2000 yen combo discount on ASRock motherboards and Skylake CPUs until the 29th. I plan to start building on the 7th or December, so I might wait until the 6th to see if there's a sale on the Edge or the XFX or if someone starts selling one of the Leadex based models or the Corsair RM X. I'll probably wait until the last minute for the Graphics card as well, hoping that the 380X can at least put some price pressure on the 970.

So, if anyone has any more suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

 

[thor220]

I've got nothing to add. Your build looks pretty good at this point.