New System Build

[collinsp141]

Hi, I am newbe with the computer building (I use to build a decade ago).

My questions are what would you build for a new system around 1200-1500 dollars. I plan to go piece by piece in this forum.

Power supply: I want a very descent supply that is going to cover anything that I build

Tower- Would you go with a midsize tower or just a large tower just for the purpose of heat control.

Hard drive: Here is my biggest questions. Could I go with a m.2 slot using a nvme for the operating system and also have a sata 3 SSD for back up storage?

Mother board: I am up for interpretation on what to get.

CPU: I am thinking the intel i7 8700, Would you upgrade to a heat sink to over clock or would you even overclock?

Ram- 16gb pretty standard

Graphics card: I am up for interpretation on this as well.

Cooling: How many fans, heat skink or liquid cool?

Overclocking yes or no? I want longevity for this computer as well.

 

[vMax]

Based on your remit on going with the 8700, which will provide great gaming performance, here are some thoughts from me.

CPU, the 8700 is more than fine though for overclocking the 8600K or 8700K...Overclocking done sensibly will not cause any longevity problems and a 8700K should give you a solid 4.9GHz all core overclock fairly easily...

In terms of power supply, you cannot go wrong with Seasonic Focus Gold - 650 or 750w will be more than fine. With regards to cooling, even though the 8700 is not overclockable, I would still spend money on better cooling, even a Hyper 212 or Be Quiet Pure Rock Slim would be better and they are cost effective.

As to motherboards, any good Z390 low to mid range board like the Asus TUF Z390, MSI Z390 Pro A, MSI Z390 Mag Tomahawk or ASRock 390 Phantom Gaming 4, all of which are fairly cost effective. More importantly they will allow for a future upgrade to the 9th gen Intel CPU's like the 9600, 9700K and 9900K in the future.

DDR4 3000 or 3200 at the lowest price for 2 x 8GB sticks and good news as the prices for RAM are dropping fast.

As to the HD, yes I would go NVMe as the prices are dropping here as well. Something like the ADATA SX8200 at 240GB which is just $78.45 on Amazon and provides read speeds of 3200 MB/s and write speeds of 1700 MB/s which is simply phenomenal for the price. The 480GB version is $140.67. You can use that as your operating system drive and then standard SSD's for anything else.

A mid sized tower is more than enough and there is huge choice in this space...In terms of cooling, a couple of 120mm fans blowing in from the front, 1 fan exhausting in the rear and maybe one in the top exhausting out is more than enough..

GPU, now hear is where the most money will go and you have good choices in the GTX 1080ti or even better a second hand GTX 1080 or 1080ti which can be found very cheap right now and will save you money on the costs below..

The system below includes a 1080ti, 8700, 16gb RAM, NVMe SSD and Seasonic Power Supply all at $1596.00 and hopefully others can fine tune it more or provide better choices than me:

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FQF4w6
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FQF4w6/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($309.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Pure Rock Slim 35.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($27.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - Z390-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX8200 240GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($67.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GAMING Video Card ($744.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair - Carbide SPEC-04 (Black/Gray) ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1596.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-27 12:54 EDT-0400

 

[collinsp141]

Based on your remit on going with the 8700, which will provide great gaming performance, here are some thoughts from me.

CPU, the 8700 is more than fine though for overclocking the 8600K or 8700K...Overclocking done sensibly will not cause any longevity problems and a 8700K should give you a solid 4.9GHz all core overclock fairly easily...

In terms of power supply, you cannot go wrong with Seasonic Focus Gold - 650 or 750w will be more than fine. With regards to cooling, even though the 8700 is not overclockable, I would still spend money on better cooling, even a Hyper 212 or Be Quiet Pure Rock Slim would be better and they are cost effective.

As to motherboards, any good Z390 low to mid range board like the Asus TUF Z390, MSI Z390 Pro A, MSI Z390 Mag Tomahawk or ASRock 390 Phantom Gaming 4, all of which are fairly cost effective. More importantly they will allow for a future upgrade to the 9th gen Intel CPU's like the 9600, 9700K and 9900K in the future.

DDR4 3000 or 3200 at the lowest price for 2 x 8GB sticks and good news as the prices for RAM are dropping fast.

As to the HD, yes I would go NVMe as the prices are dropping here as well. Something like the ADATA SX8200 at 240GB which is just $78.45 on Amazon and provides read speeds of 3200 MB/s and write speeds of 1700 MB/s which is simply phenomenal for the price. The 480GB version is $140.67. You can use that as your operating system drive and then standard SSD's for anything else.

A mid sized tower is more than enough and there is huge choice in this space...In terms of cooling, a couple of 120mm fans blowing in from the front, 1 fan exhausting in the rear and maybe one in the top exhausting out is more than enough..

GPU, now hear is where the most money will go and you have good choices in the GTX 1080ti or even better a second hand GTX 1080 or 1080ti which can be found very cheap right now and will save you money on the costs below..

The system below includes a 1080ti, 8700, 16gb RAM, NVMe SSD and Seasonic Power Supply all at $1596.00 and hopefully others can fine tune it more or provide better choices than me:

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FQF4w6
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FQF4w6/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($309.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Pure Rock Slim 35.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($27.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - Z390-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX8200 240GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($67.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GAMING Video Card ($744.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair - Carbide SPEC-04 (Black/Gray) ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1596.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-27 12:54 EDT-0400

Can you over clock the processor I picked?

 

[vMax]

Sadly no, the standard 8700 is a locked CPU so no overclocking. To get overclocking, the 8600K and the 8700K are unlocked and ready for overclocking. Both will hit 5GHz fairly easily but will require better cooling than what the 8700 needs, so factor in a top Air Cooler like the Dark Rock Pro 4, Noctua etc or 240mm or 280mm AIO.

The 8600K is one of the best gaming CPU's out there and fractions in difference between the 8700K. The 8700K has more power on productivity tasks where the extra threads come into play. Just comes down to pricing and what suits your budget...The 8700 will still do a great job on the gaming side...