New Build - Tips / Suggestions

[volostyle]

I'm about to build a new machine This will be my first over-clocked/water cooled rig as well. I'm looking for any feedback, advice, tips or potential issues when I build this thing. I plan on using the ASUS auto-overclocking feature and XMP to overclock my machine as I am not very accustomed to manually overclocking. Thank you for any help.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts:

ASUS Maximus VIII Hero
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014H4XJSE/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S...

Intel i5 6600K
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B012M8M7TY/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_n...

Corsair Hydro Series H100i GTX
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SV7IEJI/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_n...

G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8) DDR4 3200
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0153XBZKW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_n...

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming GDDR5
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NH5T1MS/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_n...

Samsung 950 PRO -Series 256GB PCIe NVMe - M.2
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01639696U/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_S...

Corsair Obsidian Series 750D Airflow Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YJJBFIO/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_n...

EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 80+ GOLD, 850W
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IKDETOC/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_n...

OS: Windows 10 Pro

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe someday.

Additional Comments: I would like to build a PC as quiet as possible. Currently only playing WoW, but I plan on playing Overwatch and more graphic/cpu intensive games in the new future.

[Chino]

Hello volostyle,

What is your budget?

[volostyle]

Chino wrote:
Hello volostyle,

What is your budget?

Hi Chino, I've actually already purchased all these parts and they are en route. I'm just trying to get an idea of any problems I might run into while building. 🙂

[Korth]

Overkill for playing WoW, but it will serve you well with heavier games.

I would recommend a 1200W+ Gold (or better) PSU if you plan on overclocking or "someday" installing multi-GPU. It will last longer, be more stable, and run more quietly (because the fan won't need to ramp up as much). In fact, a PSU rated for 50C server environments will hardly turn the fan on at all unless drawing a sustained peak power load in a hot room. You won't find better than that 10-year EVGA SuperNova warranty, but you'll also pay a premium to get it - a PSU with a 5-year or 7-year warranty will cost a lot less and still outlast your other components.

The H100i is adequate, but a fatter H110 or NZXT Kraken or Swiftech model will give you more overclocking headroom and tend to run quieter at load (although more fans might run a little louder when idling). A massive air cooler can outperform an H100i and be a lot more quiet, although it would introduce problems of its own.

The 750D is a fine case but that Airflow Edition places fans right where you'll hear them the most (and the "B-stock" fans Corsair includes with it are decidedly unspectacular in terms of airflow and volume). There are Aerocool or BeQuiet cases which run a lot more silent.

Corsair stuff is generally very good (except their PSUs, in my opinion), the brand is hugely popular and overhyped, but it's also the worst bang for the buck so you can often choose non-Corsair equivalents at lower price.

Be aware that the Samsung 950 (and/or Win10) currently has driver issues which won't allow it to use RAPID Magician caching. I expect this will be fixed "soon" but for now it can create problems. You might want to use a pair of Samsung 850 SSDs in RAID0 or just grab a really cheap low-end SSD for now to simplify your build/installation and just get it working.

[volostyle]

Korth wrote:
Overkill for playing WoW, but it will serve you well with heavier games.

I would recommend a 1200W+ Gold (or better) PSU if you plan on overclocking or "someday" installing multi-GPU. It will last longer, be more stable, and run more quietly (because the fan won't need to ramp up as much). In fact, a PSU rated for 50C server environments will hardly turn the fan on at all unless drawing a sustained peak power load in a hot room. You won't find better than that 10-year EVGA SuperNova warranty, but you'll also pay a premium to get it - a PSU with a 5-year or 7-year warranty will cost a lot less and still outlast your other components.

The H100i is adequate, but a fatter H110 or NZXT Kraken or Swiftech model will give you more overclocking headroom and tend to run quieter at load (although more fans might run a little louder when idling). A massive air cooler can outperform an H100i and be a lot more quiet, although it would introduce problems of its own.

The 750D is a fine case but that Airflow Edition places fans right where you'll hear them the most (and the "B-stock" fans Corsair includes with it are decidedly unspectacular in terms of airflow and volume). There are Aerocool or BeQuiet cases which run a lot more silent.

Corsair stuff is generally very good (except their PSUs, in my opinion), the brand is hugely popular and overhyped, but it's also the worst bang for the buck so you can often choose non-Corsair equivalents at lower price.

Be aware that the Samsung 950 (and/or Win10) currently has driver issues which won't allow it to use RAPID Magician caching. I expect this will be fixed "soon" but for now it can create problems. You might want to use a pair of Samsung 850 SSDs in RAID0 or just grab a really cheap low-end SSD for now to simplify your build/installation and just get it working.

Thanks for the info Korth! I've already purchased all my parts so at this point I guess I'm just trying to plan for any issues. I have my older Kingston HyperX SSD from my other computer I could use to build, but I was hoping to keep my old machine intact. Are you saying I won't be able to boot into Windows 10 with the Samsung 950 or that the peformance will just be hindered until they fix the issue you stated?

I was also thinking of buying some better after-market fans to replace the stock fans in the 750D. I've seen many people talking about quiet fans you can buy (forgot the names).

I'm surprised you are recommending such a beefy PSU. Most of the research I've done has stated that an 850w PSU is adequate for pretty much anything as long as you aren't going crazy with 3x SLI or something bigger. I'm definitely considering going multiple GPU's down the road but that's a little out of my budget right now. I guess I can always get a bigger PSU when that happens.

[volostyle]

Korth wrote:


Be aware that the Samsung 950 (and/or Win10) currently has driver issues which won't allow it to use RAPID Magician caching. I expect this will be fixed "soon" but for now it can create problems. You might want to use a pair of Samsung 850 SSDs in RAID0 or just grab a really cheap low-end SSD for now to simplify your build/installation and just get it working.

So I just checked Samsung's site and saw that they released a version of RAPID Magician yesterday:

Magician Software (Software) ver.4.9 - Win XP/2003/2008/Vista/Win 7/Win 8/Win 8.1/Win 10(32bit,64bit) (MULTI LANGUAGE, 17.34 MB)

Is this the update you are speaking of or is this the buggy version?

Thanks.

[Nate152]

Hello volostyle

I'm curious of the monitor you will be using. The gtx 970 is a decent 1080p gaming gpu, if you will be gaming at a higher resolution, then you'd want a stronger gpu or two 970's in sli for good frame rates and smooth gameplay, other than that it looks good to me.

The supernova 850w can handle two 970's + overclocking. If in the future you'd be running two stronger gpu's then a 1000w would be a better choice or as Korth suggests with a 1200w unit, the more headroom you give your psu the cooler and quieter it will run and the longer it will last. 30% headroom is good, if your pc is drawing 500w under load then an 800w unit would be fine.

The corsair H100i GTX is an upgraded version of the regular H100i so it should be a good performer.

[volostyle]

Nate152 wrote:
Hello volostyle

I'm curious of the monitor you will be using. The gtx 970 is a decent 1080p gaming gpu, if you will be gaming at a higher resolution, then you'd want a stronger gpu or two 970's in sli for good frame rates and smooth gameplay, other than that it looks good to me.

The supernova 850w can handle two 970's + overclocking. If in the future you'd be running two stronger gpu's then a 1000w would be a better choice or as Korth suggests with a 1200w unit, the more headroom you give your psu the cooler and quieter it will run and the longer it will last. 30% headroom is good, if your pc is drawing 500w under load then an 800w unit would be fine.

The corsair H100i GTX is an upgraded version of the regular H100i so it should be a good performer.

Thanks for the info Nate! My current monitor isn't anything great. I'm currently playing games at 60Mhz and 1920x1080. I'm using this now:

ASUS VS248H-P 24" Full HD 1920x1080 2ms HDMI DVI-D VGA Back-lit LED Monitor
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058UUR6E?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00

I'm trying to figure out what I can do to really get the most out of my new system with the GTX 970. Can this card push games at higher resolutions and Mhz and be stable? Will I be required to get 2 x 970's to accomplish this? Any recommendations on good monitors that will significantly upgrade my quality/performance?

Thanks.

[Nate152]

Here are some benchmarks with the GTX 970 at 1080p, the only benchmark that gives the GTX 970 any trouble or drops below 60 Frames Per Second is Metro last Light. While the gtx 970 has 4GB of ram, it will run out of processing power before the 4GB is used up.

If you go with the ROG swift or something similar with 2560 x 1440 resolution 144Hz then you will need at least two 970's or a 980ti. Even two 980ti's would be good with this monitor. If you want to go 4k 3840 x 2160 resolution then you will want three 980ti's or three titan x's.

You want to keep pegged at 60FPS at all times, when you dip below 60FPS with v-sync enabled you start noticing choppiness and stutter. If your monitor supports G-sync this helps smooth out gameplay at lower FPS.

So the GTX 970 is good for your 1080p monitor but if you will be upgrading to one with a higher resolution, you will need another 970. Screen resolution and Antialiasing are the two settings that have the biggest impact on performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5aPkZFnVYU

Samsung has Live Chat if you want to ask them about the 950 pro.

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/live-chat.html