Build Advice for Desktop Builders... Future Proof

[DJ_LFD]

Firstly, let me say i bought build, with less expensive, but replaceable with upgrades, parts. A less expensive motherboard, the ASUS ROG Strix Z370-E... it is a highly competitive motherboard for under $200. :cool:

Specs are in my List. But i will explain in detail.

I bought the Intel Core i3 8100 @3.6Ghz, it is a solid Quad-Core for about $108, and it being a 300 series i can easily upgrade to the i7 8700K that overclock to around 5.0GHz, but the chip lottery is in effect 😕 I am actually planning on getting the i5 8600K instead, it doesn't have Hyper-Threading, but clock speed is the same as 8700K @ 3.6Ghz and Turbo Boost is 4.3Ghz, and it is unlocked, so no need to delid. the i7 8700K is a better choice if you're looking for Extreme Performance, but i am hoping to get the i5 8600K on sale and in a couple years upgrade to the i7 8700K, on sale once again, I'm frugal like that ;).

The case i chose is a very good case for airflow, the Corsair Graphite Series 230T. I chose the Rebel Orange over the black and red, because i had plans to install White and Green Case fans with the top fan slots available to make my PC glow with the Tri-Colors of the Irish Flag.

With the Corsair Graphite 230T there are 2 front 120mm fans, one intake in front up top, recessed from the front panel, and one exhaust in front below it. There is a Dual-120mm/140mm unobstructed perforation section on the top of the case for either dual fans or a AIO radiator fan hook-up. Also has a single 120mm/140mm case fan opening at the bottom-mount PSU , in front of an average 850Wattt PSU, with a removable and washable PSU filter, however since i have the Beast of a PSU, the Antec TPQ 1200, True Power Quattro 1200Watt Fully Modular PSU, it is much too big to fit a fan, but doesn't have problems with wiring or airflow, or install space. The case will also handle 2 GTX1080's in SLI with 4 SSD's and 2 HDD's, also has 2 M.2 installation bays, that will sit under SLI or CrossfireX setups..

I installed a Cooler Master MA620P Twin Tower RGB CPU HeatSinkFan and removed the external fan, after some experimenting with moving the RAM-side fan to the Rear I/O Panel... then i eliminated the External Ram-Side Fan altogether, and still get good cooling from the fan between the Fin-Towers, with the added 120mm top case fans and the rear exhaust fan that comes with the case. I had to move the RAM-side fan to install RAM, slots 2 and 4 are for 2-slot installs, and you will need to install RAM before installing a CM MA620P Twin Tower, and remove the fan.

I then installed 2x 120mm case fans above the CPU Cooler (the Twin Tower CPU HSF almost touches the glass by about 10cm, but looks great because it is in perfect position to shine through the tempered glass panel, no problems installing RGB fans or Addressable fans or RGB Strips, and i have big hands ( I'm 6'1" 176Lbs.)

After installing a 120mm 1300RPM fan of the Dual-120mm/140mm perforations and mounts, top front fan slot, and a 120mm 1600RPM fan in the top rear section, my temperatures have dropped from 32-38 idle, and 45-55 under 98% Load... to 22-24 idle, and 35-37 Under 98% load. I have a PCIe Creative Fatal1ty Champion TruStudio surround card directly beneath the Cooler Master Ma620P CPU Cooler with no problems installing a Chassis Fan 4-pin plug under the CPU cooler and above the PCIe 1x sound card.

Hope this helps anyone looking for a Really High-Performance Build, though i did Sacrifice on the Motherboard (the Z370-E will OC to 5.0+GHz on an i7 8700K, though), Core i3 8100 Quad-Core CPU (it is simply necessary to have a CPU that can handle most games and Music Production Work, and it does pretty well) , the Patriot Viper DDR4 2133 RAM (again, necessary to have 16GB DDR4, and will upgrade in time, speed does count when it's double the MHz, but given that older builds use lower freq. RAM, it seems tro do the trick for a lot less, if that's what you're trying to do.)

The 2x GTX 960's in SLI were accumulated over time, i bought the first one for around $460, and the second one for $240. I am looking to upgrade in the future to an i7 8700K, 64GB G.Skill TridentZ FGB RAM, a GTX 1080 to handle Ultra in Ghost Recon Wildalnds, whose Graphics are so life-like and amazing. I played every Tom Clancy's game there is besides The Division.

And a 1TB SSD would be nice to supplement the TEAM Elite 128GB OS and App SSD i have, though it does make my secondary Caviar Black 7200RPM SATA III HDD work faster.


So my Recommendation:


ASUS ROG MAXIMUS X HERO Z370 or ASUS ROG Strix Z370 Variant
Intel i7 8700K (or i5 8600K), your choice, you can upgrade later)
Cooler Master MA620P Twin Tower RGB CPU HeatSinkFan (it is really easy to remove the RAM-Side fan and install top fans)
G.Skill TridentZ (PC4 32000). At least 16GB
GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5 model, or the GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 GAMING 11GB GDDR5X iCX
Corsair Graphite Series 230T (in black paint with red fans, or Rebel Orange with orange paint and orange fans, bulkier than some mid-towers)
2x 120mm/ 140mm case fans in top perforated mounts {(supports dual 120mm or 140mm Radiator fans for AIO Liquid Coolers)
1x 120mm or 140mm bottom case fan in front of Bottom Mount PSU
CORSAIR RMx Series RM850x
Team Elite 120GB Sold State Drive For OS and Apps (Go larger capacity if desired)
Samsung 860 EVO Series 1TB Solid State Drive SATA III

This will be a Beast PC for Gaming, Video Editing, Games Development, Music Production, You Name It.

[kkn]

new GPU's coming in the next upcoming few months ( from mid/end august and forward ).
for OS, i always recomend drives OVER 120gb hence win and win updates always take up loads of space, and adding programs to it does not help mutch to keep free space down.
with me as of now, with limited programs instaled on OS drive its at 70gig.
a SSD will act like a HDD when it starts to fill up, the less space you have on it, the slower it will be and the faster it will/may end its life ( THIS IS IF YOU ARE UNLUCKY )
ALWAYS have good airflow in a cse, this to help cool down components and change out hot air in the case, it does NOT have to be high speed high noice fans, it can be fans with high static preshure with low rpm ( high H2OMM2 rated can be used too for example ) witch is made for WC.
always remember to dust off your fan filders ( if there are on your case ) to prevent clogging up and restricting air flow in the case.
the fans that normaly comes with the cases are low tier and cheap at most, and are "made" to be "silent", i switch them out 90% of the time with bether fans and fans that can be controlled by either mobo or a fan controller or just have them running at full speed. (for those who have silent fans running full speed will undestand what i mean ).

[DJ_LFD]

kkn wrote:
new GPU's coming in the next upcoming few months ( from mid/end august and forward ).
for OS, i always recomend drives OVER 120gb hence win and win updates always take up loads of space, and adding programs to it does not help mutch to keep free space down.
with me as of now, with limited programs instaled on OS drive its at 70gig.
a SSD will act like a HDD when it starts to fill up, the less space you have on it, the slower it will be and the faster it will/may end its life ( THIS IS IF YOU ARE UNLUCKY )
ALWAYS have good airflow in a cse, this to help cool down components and change out hot air in the case, it does NOT have to be high speed high noice fans, it can be fans with high static preshure with low rpm ( high H2OMM2 rated can be used too for example ) witch is made for WC.
always remember to dust off your fan filders ( if there are on your case ) to prevent clogging up and restricting air flow in the case.
the fans that normaly comes with the cases are low tier and cheap at most, and are "made" to be "silent", i switch them out 90% of the time with bether fans and fans that can be controlled by either mobo or a fan controller or just have them running at full speed. (for those who have silent fans running full speed will undestand what i mean ).

Good points, but the PWM fans on case are fully controllable through AI Suite Fan Xpert... Though i do have plans to switch them out for Green and White 1600 RPM HSP Fans, probably Corsair, or ThermalTake.

SSD is always used as an O/S Drive, i updated my System to have a Secondary SDD and NOT a HDD, and a Third 1TB HDD for storage for older apps that run well without SSD speeds. Using System Cleanup is a good tool, deleting your unused Windows Updates' Installers so you can have free space, but i do recommend going higher than 120GB ( I did state that you can go higher if that's your choice, but if you're on a budget, the 128GB Team Elite does fine for me, so it's solid advice if you're on a Budget.)

Case cooling is not problem, though the DEEPCOOL WIND BLADE 120mm White LED Fan i have is not nice enough, so i am getting a corsair White LED Fan... the LEDs are simply on the four corners and do not light the fan blades themselves very much... so i am replacing it with a Corsair White LED 120mm Fan.

As far as Graphics Cards go, i am particular to nVidia, but any good graphics card will do, For a Republic Of Gamers Build, you want the fastest possible Gfx Card for the Right Price. 😉

Hopefully we see Black Friday Deals on both the i5 8600K and the i7 8700K, as i want either one i can afford at the time, my i3 8100 is good, but Mafia III is the only software that won't run with it, and i would very much like to play that game, and future Mafia and other games, but since i have a (300 Series) Motherboard, upgrading is a snap!

[Vlada011]

Yesterday I saw ASUS MAXIMUS X CODE for 279$ on Newegg, ASUS MAXIMUS X FORMULA for 359$.
Few days before prices were higher, much higher, Code cost as Formula.
Really interesting if i9-9900K work in full power on Z370.

I would really like Maximus X Code and i9-9900K.
I can't recommend other boards if she cost up to 300$.

I really like her color scheme and silver part, color scheme and shroud, my favorite board for Coffee Lake.

[Nozadoim]

You can never really future proof. I do like speculations none the less.

In the future i guess it will be more usb-c which is gonna be a real problem on most motherboards today, making possible none of them future proof :P. If this happens it would suck to spend 400$ on a motherboard today in my opinion.

I want to share some of my experience from 2008 to give you a perspective of futureproofing. In 2008 i built with enthusiast board Asus P6T Deluxe, a LGA 1366 x58 motherboard which i had i7 920 which overclocked incredible well and demolished all tasks i gave it for many years. In 2014-2015 i upgraded the CPU to Xeon x5680 (100$ on ebay) which is a server cpu its currently running as a hyperthread hexacore on 4,5ghz air cooled.

This is in my opinion a long lasting pc path. it has it limitations with usb 2.0 which i dont notice. Sata 2.0 (this one sucks a little) and PCie 2.0 and DDR3 Ram which is kinda insignificant in performance from what ive seen on benchmarks for gaming. Kinda prefer DDR3 to be honest, was cheap to get used RAM to upgrade aswell with 1600mhz CL7 giving incredible timings compared to mainstream DDR4 Ram.

Upgraded this summer to z370 (rog strix ofc..), gtx 1070 (rog strix ofc), 32gb ram 3200mhz cl16, i7 8700k, m.2 3500m/s. I do notice that booting is faster by about 10 sec which is a lot. filebrowsing is alot faster and websurfing feels slightly snappier. Gaming not so much thou. i do see 10% increase fps in some games (those that matters, the other games are 300-400 fps+ anyway, capped hard by the monitor). Honestly this is not bad for a 10 year old system with new gpu vs the high end gaming system of today.

I assume this path will be valid today too, if you find a good enthusiast motherboard that could be compatible with todays server cpu's. I see some of these cpu's go for over 10k$ these cpu's will probably dive hard in price on the used market in about 3-6 years when enterprises upgrade their servers again and sell their old equipment. Giving you a cheap possibility to upgrade ram and cpu. I havent really done my research but i assume i cant upgrade my i7 8700k as its already the best..

Again this might run in to trouble with usb-c later, might require adapter or something.

If you believe im wrong i love to be corrected, i might be a bit biased with this build that i love so much 🙂