I'm looking for advice on building my first computer. Here is what I have (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KvK8zM). I am not going to overclock so I think the cooler I chose for the cpu and the one in the case is fine. I am going to scrap my current PC for all the other parts not on here (SSD, HDD, optical drives, power supply). I'd like to not really go any higher price wise.

So questions;

How do people feel about the liquid cooler on the gpu? Is it worth it?

With liquid coolers, how can you tell if the case is compatible?

Is there anything that's nice to have while building the computer besides thermos glue and screw drivers?

Do I need more than 16gb of RAM?

Finally, would you change anything and why?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

Heya! Building a PC for the first time can be daunting but a lot of fun~

Personally, I'd avoid anything liquid cooled on a first time PC -- even if in 2017, all-in-one style coolers are pretty simple, it's not worth the hassle as an inexperienced builder. Any decent non-reference cooling solution for the GPU (usually 2/3 fans) will suffice unless you live in an absurdly hot climate or you build your PC inside an oven. I'd probably suggest something along the lines of this: Gigabyte 1070 or Asus 1070

Either of which saves you a little bit of money, too.

As for RAM, 16GB would be my suggested minimum, but it's comfortably enough for gaming. If you grab a set of 2x8GB, you'll be able to get a second pair of matching sticks to bring you up to 32GB should you ever find yourself needing it. Go with 16 for now.

In terms of "nice to haves" -- there's really not much you need that shouldn't already come with your parts! Cases usually ship with cable ties to clean up your cable routing behind the motherboard tray, along with all the screws and standoffs you'll need. A couple of nice things to have are a magnetic bowl like this magnetic dish tray to keep your screws in and safe while you're working. You could also get an anti-static wriststrap if you're particularly scared of damaging hardware accidentally -- a lot of people don't bother, but it's an extra layer of insurance, I guess. Other than that, a couple of decent screwdrivers and you're mostly good to go. Not sure why you need glue, though...? :D

Overall looking at your build and what you've said, if you're really, really not planning overclocking your CPU, you don't need the K model of Intel CPU and you don't need the Z170 chipset motherboard, nor do you need the beefy Noctua cooler, all of which could save you quite a bit of money. OTOH, you may decide later down the line that you do want to overclock, in which case, you seem set.

Lastly, if you're using your old power supply, make sure it's up to snuff. If it's an old one (~5 years or more), I'd seriously consider getting a new one.

Took a look at your build. It's pretty good. Even if you're not going to overclock, the 6700k has a higher clock speed than the 6700.

That cooler is great. I have my 6700k overclocked to 4.8ghz and I don't hear that cooler at all.

I don't know if I'd do a liquid cooled 1070. I believe its voltage capped and that is going to limit overclocking on it quite a bit. I'm running an air cooled 1070 and I never hear it.

I have 16GB and do hobby grade Photoshop/Lightroom stuff and I've never had an issues.

You don't want thermal glue, you want thermal paste. Just in case you walk into a shop and ask for glue and actually get a thermal epoxy - you don't want that unless you never want to remove your CPU from your heatsink.

If it's your first build, get a wrist strap. They're super cheap.

Whenever I build/upgrade my machine, I do the powersupply too unless it's fairly newish. I've had older power supplies cause my 970 to squeel.

@tfuhrman: If you don't necessarily care to build it yourself, there's always the boutique option. They build from the same retail parts and some are even overclocked, but you still get support and a warrantee.

Noctua stuff is overpriced for what you get in my experience. First time builders always overspend on the glitz and not on the power. When you're building on a budget, engine before exterior, every time. Also, pass on the water cooling. If you don't want to overclock, it's really not worth the hassle.

My advice at this moment would be to wait. AMD will have new cpus soon that might actually be worth using, and both amd and NVidia may newer video cards out soon. If you can't wait 6 months, at least wait 3 for cpu's.

Thanks to everyone so far. My power supply is 3 months old and 750w so I'm good there.

I would much rather have the option of overclock than not so I don't mind paying a bit more even if I don't need it.

My thoughts, from painstakingly researching a recent build:

• Consider bumping the Skylake CPU/motherboard up to Kaby Lake equivalents. (7000 series processors/Z270 boards.) They shouldn't retail for more (or at least, much more) than the Skylake components.
• My understanding is that games still don't tend to benefit at all from hyperthreading, and are rarely CPU-bound (people are pairing the latest GTX cards with 4-year-old i5's and doing fine from what I can tell), so an i7 probably still isn't the way to go for gaming. Get one for sure if you have work-related uses for it, but otherwise be aware that you could be getting the top-of-the-line i5 for considerably less and only giving up some clock cycles.
• The CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (or 212 Evo or whatever, the revisions don't differ much) is pretty popular for value-for-money reasons. The cooler you picked should be better, but might not be worth the money, especially if you're not overclocking anytime soon.
• Seems like you picked expensive memory for no good reason. You can get a 2x8GB kit of G.Skill Ripjaws V for less -- it's what I'm using, and I've heard they have a remarkably low failure rate. Probably stick to 2133MHz unless you see faster memory for very little extra cost -- in which case get the faster memory, because configuring it to run at its specified rate is very quick and easy.
• I don't know why you'd get liquid cooling on a video card that you're not planning to overclock. If you want to stick with EVGA (they have excellent support programs, their 10 series cards had some heat issues at first but I'm pretty sure they've addressed that completely) then I'd get a FTW if you want pretty LED lighting, or else an SC.
• Unless you plan on buying a new case every time you rebuild or something just for a change in look, if you see a more expensive case you like then you should consider buying it. Cases are like power supplies in that you'll be able to bring them over to the next build, and the build after. That said, I struggled to find a case that I really liked when I was building my new machine, so I settled on NZXT's S340.
• It's worth thinking about beefing up the WiFi card you're putting in this thing, at least to something dual-band, and also making sure that the wireless router it's speaking to is pretty beefy too if you can. You can get away with using WiFi instead of a wired connection, but not if the components are struggling. I got a TP-Link Archer T8E wireless PCIe card for my new machine and a Linksys WR1900ACS wireless router (not a modem router) recently and put it between the old modem router (which still does ADSL) and the home network, and went from constant lag and packet loss and having to reset the modem daily, to a near-flawless connection and not having to reset the very same old modem in months.

@tfuhrman: Like a lot of others have already said, this is a pretty rock solid build.

It's quite similar to my current build, and even though it's totally overkill I heartily recommend that Noctua cooler. I'm running the same cooler on a 6700K, and it runs icy cold even at full load. The absolute best part of that cooler is that because of it's large size it hardly spins up over 250RPM at any point, so it's almost perfectly quiet. But that thing is absolutely enormous, so before you pick everything up, make sure your case is wide enough to fit it and your ram modules aren't too tall

I'd personally recommend avoiding the AIO Water-cooled 1070. Water cooling isn't of much use unless you're using enormous custom radiators, and it's often even noisier than pure air because the small fans have to run hard to push through the radiator. Water cooling also comes with a bunch of other problems, like the coolant pumps have a habit of rapidly degrading and producing awful, awful high pitched whine. I've got an EVGA 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Black Edition https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16814487265 (make sure you get the one branded "Black Edition" and "SC", for some reason the black editions of EVGA cards are always cheaper and the "SC" is both clocked higher and cheaper than the standard. It's clocked exactly the same as the EVGA 1070 HYBRID GAMING you've got on your list, but it's got a standard double fan air cooler, and it's currently $50 USD cheaper on Newegg. It runs nice and cool in my case, and at low to moderate loads it's literally silent because it shuts off the fans at low temperatures.

Unless you're just in it for the looks, I'd suggest a cheaper motherboard, graphics card and RAM. The fancy high end versions of them are nice to have, but they rarely make any real difference. If you're not looking to overclock then a B150 or H150 chipset motherboard will do, and even if you go for a lower end Z170 you're not going to notice the difference as long as it's got the right ports. If you still want a fancier motherboard then see if you can find one with WiFi built in so you can dump the PCIe WiFi card, it's not the most important thing in the world, but it's nice to keep your PCIe slots as empty as possible, because cards in those lower slots will annoyingly block the airflow to your GPU.

I just want to drop this in now, my current case is from an old Dell. I need a new one!

I'll update the build this weekend and post the revised specs.

Here are the revised specs

Edit: Added link to the new specs

@tfuhrman: Why are you putting 4x8GB in right away? You need to get your memory in pairs (e.g. 2x8GB) to enable dual-lane mode (if you only have one stick of memory in then it'll run at half the speed in single-lane mode), but unless you have a need for 32GB right away (you could probably even get away with 8GB for gaming for now) then I'd advise saving the money and sticking to 2x8GB for now and just adding more later down the road if you need more. You might even be able to stick in a 2x16GB kit later on to get up to 48GB, though you're super unlikely to need that.

I don't know if I'd go with a micro ATX motherboard, but the board you've chosen is probably fine and looks like it does all the things you could want, despite the size. Motherboards are the absolute fucking worst part of the build to make a good decision on: there are so many things going on on them, you're basically trying to understand how all things in the computer work so you know what ports and features to put on your checklist, and it feels like a lot of the manufacturers are selling you snake oil with the bajillion different premium models they flood the market with. I'll say it's worth getting one that reviewers think is robust and that supports overclocking (so a Z170 or Z270 board, not a B or H), supports SLI and Crossfire, has 4 DIMM (memory) slots, an M.2 port, and at least one USB3 header (and at least one USB2 header as well) so your case USB ports can be used, just basically anything you might possibly want in the future, because it doesn't cost all that much extra to get all of this kind of thing and you don't want to discover a year or so down the track that your motherboard is going to stop you from doing a thing you decided you want/need to do.

I'll reiterate that I think the i7 and the Noctua are probably overkill, but I don't know what you want to do with the i7 and I've never owned the Noctua, so you do you. Definitely don't downgrade the motherboard from what's in your current list if you're sticking with the i7.

Personally, I would advice going with 16GB RAM and go with much much faster RAM than DDR 2133. You really only need 32GB if you are gonna host big open world multiplayer games like ARK: Survival Evolved or massive strategy games like Planetary Annihilation. 16GB of DDR4 3000 RAM only costs around $110 which saves you money, and greatly increases the CPU performance in all games by a significant amount. Digital Foundry have done several pieces on whether or not RAM Speed actually affects real gaming performance, and it does, greatly!

example: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Yb8H99/gskill-memory-f43000c15d16grk

The only other thing I might suggest, is that the AMD Ryzen chips are coming out March 3rd, not that long of a wait which are supposed to rival Intels top $1000 CPU at around the $500 price point (which I know is too much going by the CPU you chose) but AMD is releasing a slew of CPUs that will rival intels other i7 lineups, and will bring intel's pricing down and the very least. So might be worth holding off just a little bit and see what the market actually does.

How does this look?

I go back and forth on RAM. I edit audio so 32 would probably be nice but I have 16gb in my current machine and it seems good enough (though I wouldn't know how much better it could be...so yeah).

The Mobo is definitely the thing I know the least about, so thanks for all the input there. From the reviews, I feel pretty good about the one I have picked now. I don't mind paying a bit extra to get a pretty new board and have the ability to OC later. I also don't mind overkilling things. I'm the type of person that would rather have it and not need it than vice-versa.

I get the whole waiting for AMDs new cpu, but I'll be honest, I want this pc now!

I plan on ordering everything soon (when I get my tax refund back). I'll post picks when I do the build and the final looks of it, along with some benchmarks.

Thanks again to everyone for the input. While I've done almost everything you can do with a computer (change ram, HDDs, GPUs), I've never built a computer from the ground up, so this has been a pretty big adventure so far.

Thanks again Duders.

Edit: fixed the link.

How do people feel about the liquid cooler on the gpu? Is it worth it?

A liquid cooler specifically for the GPU (not the CPU)? That seems generally unnecessary, especially in your case since you aren't doing any overclocking.

With liquid coolers, how can you tell if the case is compatible?

I think the main thing is it depends on the size of your case. For instance, my case has room for three fans at the top, so if I really wanted to, I could have bought this liquid cooler with three fans and just screwed it in there. It would have been well out of the way for everything else and can still reach the motherboard easily. Since it looks like your case only has room for 2 fans on the top, you probably can't fit that specific cooler into your case. So your main considerations are stuff like that. (Can this fit in my case? Where will it go? Is it going to block anything else?)

Is there anything that's nice to have while building the computer besides thermos glue and screw drivers?

I built my computer from scratch so I had to get everything: CPU, GPU, RAM, power supply, hard drives, Blu-Ray drive, etc. I was shocked to find that the hard drives and Blu-Ray drive didn't come with any SATA connectors. That said, my case and power supply did come with a lot of the random cables and screws I needed, but I was still surprised to find myself with a 95% completed computer with one SATA connector short. Since you are recycling some of those miscellaneous parts, you should have all of those parts anyways.

It may also be a good idea to have an electrostatic wrist strap. Not that you absolutely need it, but it's cheap and it's part of those better be safe than sorry precautions.

Do I need more than 16gb of RAM?

Do you "need" more than 16 gbs of RAM? Probably not. That said, RAM isn't that expensive. Comparing your build with mine, I have 64 gbs and it cost me three times more (as opposed to four or more times, or something crazy like that). It might be worth looking into how much 32 gbs of RAM costs and see if that's an expense you want to pay. Just doing a search on Amazon, you could double your RAM for about $70, which doesn't seem to bad to me.

Finally, would you change anything and why?

Not really.

Just a FYI, that CPU cooler is pretty damn big. It's one of those things where you read how big something is, but don't necessarily process it as something you need to work with. Just eye balling the measurements, that cooler should fit in your case, but it may be tight. It might be worth looking on PC Part Picker for other builds featuring that case and see what people were able to fit inside. If that CPU cooler or one really similar to it can fit in someone else's build, you're good to go. (Note: This is coming from somebody who bought a big ass case on purpose solely so he didn't run out of space, so take that with a grain a salt)

@tfuhrman said:

You know your needs and your finances better than we do. I would get 16 and go back for more if I needed it, but I don't know what the demands of audio editing are going to be like in the near future. I will say that if you go for 32 you should probably get 2x16, not 4x8. (But definitely 2x8 if you go for 16.)

Anyway, your current list looks fine.

I recommend watching a Youtube video or two on building a PC just so you don't mess up some little thing like how much thermal paste to use or which slots to put your memory in, but mostly you're just looking at diagrams in a manual and slotting/bolting things into the right places.

Pretty sure the compatibility filters on PCPartPicker should bring that up if it's an issue.

@clagnaught: liquid cooler for the gpu alone is a big performanceboost. Modern graphics cards work with dynamic speeds and very often they get throttled back with normal gpucoolers and standard computer case ventilation.

When i bought my gpu it was constantly running at 90degrees and throtteling back/increasing the fan to hold it there. With my new liquid gpucooler its stable at around 50degrees and my gpu runs 100-200mhz faster without any manual overclock.

Looks good to me, thats quite the powerhouse of a machine really... The Motherboard you choose is plenty good, MSI are one of the better brands for sure. RAM and GPU are fantastic, think you made the better choice going with 16GB you can always upgrade to 32 later when/if you need too.

Hey everyone,

Quick update for those curious.

I got the majority of my parts in on Friday and installed (no gpu or RAM). The Noctrua is HUGE. That said, it fits in my case nicely and keeps my CPU at an idoling 24C and at about 43C under load.

I tested everything I could (I had 4gb of ddr4 laying around) and it's all good.

For kicks I loaded up No Man's Sky to see how it runs now. Before, with everything set to medium I was getting about 28fps. Now I am getting 49-50fps. So a solid jump there and it's only going to go up.

Again, thanks to everyone for the advice, you all made this very easy. I'll post pics once I've got cable management taken care of and the gpu/RAM comes in.

If this is your first build, I would recommend watching some PC build videos so you are familiar with the process. I like Tested.com videos, they answer alot of the little questions you might not think about. Also Loyd and Norm have build a lot of PCs.

The mid size case is good for a first computer. I'm glad my first PC was a mid-size because I didn't know what hardware i'd want in the future. But that case above is SO SMALL WOW. If you are just using this for gaming and don't need a bunch of hard drives slots, I would look at some of the mini cases.

Just my 2 cents for anyone else that's looking to build a PC.