My first build

[mattw1013]

Hello, This is my first real build and I have a couple questions about everything. First I am curious about the preferable GTX 980 Ti card, I narrowed it down to my top choice being the Zotac AMP Extreme and my other 2 choices were the MSI 980ti or possibly the Asus Strix (currently not in stock) The benchmarks I have seen show the Zotac and Strix being neck in neck in FPS and the MSI a few FPS below. I do not plan on OC at this time just want to run games at ultra 1080p like the Division. the rest of the stuff I was planing on looks like this:

Case: Phanteks Enthoo pro series (PH-ES614P_WT) ATX Full

CPU: i7 6700k

Motherboard: MSI Z170A SLI Plus

Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws V series 16gb

CPU Fan: Coolr Master Hyper 212 EVO

GPU: Zotac GTX 980 Ti Extreme

I have a 650W power supply which from PC part picker I was told would be more than enough. My second question is I want to use the 1TB HDD I have Windows 7 on and read if I reformat it that I can use it, is this true? Thanks again any feedback would be great.

 

[Kaisa_Sosa]

If you reformat your hard drive, you can most definitely use it in your new computer with no problems, and with the 980ti it would be down to your personal choice and which is probably cheapest. As we all know gotta save the monies

 

[BadActor]

Good looking build. I don't think you can go wrong with any of the 3 980Ti's you listed. A few frames per second either way isn't going to be a noticeable difference. You might have a look at the Cryorig H7 if it's available where your buying from. Superior cooling and designed for case and RAM clearance. It's usually only priced a little higher than the EVO. You can install Windows to the HDD, just delete the existing partitions and reformat the disk during the install process. Installing Windows 7 to a Skylake build is a little more problematic. Depending on how you intend to install it, you may be affected. My suggestion would be to make the switch to Windows 10 and install it on an SSD. This will give you multiple benefits, the least of which is the easier install. Besides, mainstream support for Windows 7 has ended.

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/Win7Install/

 

[mattw1013]

Good looking build. I don't think you can go wrong with any of the 3 980Ti's you listed. A few frames per second either way isn't going to be a noticeable difference. You might have a look at the Cryorig H7 if it's available where your buying from. Superior cooling and designed for case and RAM clearance. It's usually only priced a little higher than the EVO. You can install Windows to the HDD, just delete the existing partitions and reformat the disk during the install process. Installing Windows 7 to a Skylake build is a little more problematic. Depending on how you intend to install it, you may be affected. My suggestion would be to make the switch to Windows 10 and install it on an SSD. This will give you multiple benefits, the least of which is the easier install. Besides, mainstream support for Windows 7 has ended.

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/Win7Install/

I don't have an SSD, I was trying to save money. What if I upgrade to windows 10 on my current HDD would that be better?

 

[BadActor]

You'll have to do a clean install no matter what OS you go with. Windows is more or less tied to the motherboard during installation, so it generally doesn't work or work well when simply swapping the HDD into a new system.

 

[mattw1013]

You'll have to do a clean install no matter what OS you go with. Windows is more or less tied to the motherboard during installation, so it generally doesn't work or work well when simply swapping the HDD into a new system.

Will this work if I dont have a disk. It is like reformatted from the HDD?

 

[BadActor]

No, you'll have to have some type of Windows media installation, either a DVD or USB.