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    The PC (Personal Computer) is a highly configurable and upgradable gaming platform that, among home systems, sports the widest variety of control methods, largest library of games, and cutting edge graphics and sound capabilities.

    Please critique my PC build plan

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    SwedishPhish

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    #1  Edited By SwedishPhish

    Hey duders,

    First time PC builder here. After looking around the forums and seeing the build Jeff did on UPF a couple of months ago, I decided to dive in and build my first PC. I had a gaming PC once, but it was extremely cheap and I'm looking to build something that will last me a while. Mainly I'll use it for gaming, but I've flirted with the idea of streaming/editing. My budget is $1,500 max. Either way, how does this build look? (Not including a monitor since I already have one. Ben-Q 27" LED 1080p HD for those interested) Thank you very much for any help.

    https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Mh77sJ

    List for other purposes:

    PartPhotoDescriptionPrice
    CPUIntel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor$229.99
    CPU CoolerNoctua NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler$57.99
    MotherboardAsus Z170 PRO GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard$134.99
    MemoryG.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory$79.99
    StorageSandisk SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive$68.75
    Western Digital Blue 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive$71.88
    Video CardGigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Windforce OC Video Card$379.99
    CaseNZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition (White) ATX Full Tower Case$145.99
    Power SupplyEVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply$99.99
    Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit$98.58
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    hmoney001

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    Power supply is over kill for your system, unless you plan on SLI.

    Everything else looks great.

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    SwedishPhish

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    Thanks, man. I was totally wondering about that. Do you think I'd be fine with 500W or even something lower?

    Power supply is over kill for your system, unless you plan on SLI.

    Everything else looks great.

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    sadsadsad

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    #4  Edited By sadsadsad

    I'd go for a smaller 7200RPM HDD.

    @swedishphish said:

    Thanks, man. I was totally wondering about that. Do you think I'd be fine with 500W or even something lower?

    @hmoney001 said:

    Power supply is over kill for your system, unless you plan on SLI.

    Everything else looks great.

    googled "evga psu calculator"

    http://www.evga.com/power-meter/

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    frytup

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    #6  Edited By frytup

    Unless you plan to overclock the CPU (rarely worth the trouble in my opinion - especially for a gaming PC), go with the i5-6600 and use the stock CPU cooler.

    Then use that money to either upgrade to a 7200 RPM spinny drive or a larger SSD.

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    GundamGuru

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    #7  Edited By GundamGuru

    @swedishphish: It's a good start, but you've fallen into some common first-time traps. (We've all been there) The cooler is not necessary, and even if you want an aftermarket one, Noctua is an overpriced brand. It's not bad stuff, per se, just expensive for the performance. The trusty Coolermaster Hyper 212+ fits the 1151 socket (same holes for all 115x) for half the price and 95% of the performance. If you're not going to overclock, and the PC isn't in your bedroom, the stock cooler is fine, and free!

    It's a similar deal with the case, get it if you like the look, but a cheaper one will do the job just fine. Even my Fractal Design Define R4 isn't what I'd call quiet, and if you're not overclocking, the temperatures really won't be an issue.

    A 500-600W PSU is fine, you can get a reputable brand without really caring about the efficiency for pretty cheap. Anything 80+ is honestly fine. Modular doesn't really matter. Your cables will always be a mess and it won't affect your temperatures.

    And if you're not going to overclock, there's no point in a -k processor, and as someone who has one, the (usually) slight FPS gain is honestly not worth the constant fiddling with instability and crashes. Games can be really finicky. I would bump up to the i7, though, Hyperthreading and the extra cache can be worth having in some games.

    Invest the spare dough in a 1080 if you can, and if not get a bigger/faster SSD/HDD and some nice peripherals. I used a Samsung 850 EVO last time, they're pretty good.

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    kcin

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    If I were you, I'd look for a case that is a.) significantly cheaper, and b.) offers sound dampening. Otherwise, if you don't care, just save $100 and get a different case. I've rarely met someone who is happy down the line that they bought an ostentatious case.

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    SwedishPhish

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    This all really helps, so I really appreciate the feedback!

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    hmoney001

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    #11  Edited By hmoney001

    I'd get a 550watt powersupply for some overhead. EVGA 550 watt G2

    As for the cooler. From personal experience the CM 212 is OK. It's annoying to install and I've had better temps in general with Noctua coolers.

    Just for a little more you can get a very good water cooling kit. This is the one I have in my system. ARCTIC Liquid Freezer 120

    I'm running my 6700k at 4.7ghz and hit around 68C MAX after stress testing.

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    WynnDuffy

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    #13  Edited By WynnDuffy

    @swedishphish said:

    Thanks, man. I was totally wondering about that. Do you think I'd be fine with 500W or even something lower?

    @hmoney001 said:

    Power supply is over kill for your system, unless you plan on SLI.

    Everything else looks great.

    A 500W is more than enough for your PC. Mine with a heavily overclocked i7 and GTX 1080 doesn't pull more than 400W.

    If you think you will ever be interested in SLI, I would get a 650 to be safe (though SLI 1070 is possible on 500 as well).

    By the way you can buy a Windows 10 OEM key here instead and save like $70: https://www.kinguin.net/category/19429/windows-10-professional-oem-key/

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    Cheetoman

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    Looks totally fine to me. If this is within your budget it looks like a good build to me.

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    Blackout62

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    #15  Edited By Blackout62

    Man, I built pretty much this exact same setup for my first build two years ago. At least you've been smart enough to not get the supreme of Noctua coolers.

    I see you're going for a full tower. You definitely don't need something that big. I almost made that same mistake but someone talked me out of it. I also wanted a NZXT case for my build. Luckily someone also talked me out of that. Unluckily I bought a flimsy cheap Corsair case instead. Luckily I found a $100 Fractal Design Define R4 on sale for $60 (Thank you Danny O'Dwyer for recommending it at the perfect time). Unluckily I still had to move all my components from one case to another. What I'm getting at is that you shouldn't skimp on the case for a number of reasons first being that your build is going to be a lot harder in a cheap case. At the same time you should put in the effort to find a good case at a good price. You want good cable management, noise insulation, good filters, and you can usually save $10 by not getting a case with a window. And oh look, the mid-tower version of the case you picked is on sale. I was going to say just get a Fractal Design Define R5 but if an NZXT is cheaper I say go get yourself a proper gaudy PC case.

    Also when I built my PC I got Windows for about $40 less using a student discount that I was able to setup even though I graduated a while ago. If that's an option for you I say look into it.

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    dafdiego777

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    @frytup:No way. OC'ing my 3570k has extended the useful years of it by 2-3, maybe even more with the way improvements in processors are slowing down.

    @swedishphish: I'd grab a 7200 rpm hard drive instead of 5400 rpm. Everything else looked solid. If you're looking for psu wattage I have more or less the same setup and I'm fine with a 650 watt power supply.

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    fnrslvr

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    I would double the size of that SSD. 240GB just isn't a lot these days. I have 512GB (477GiB in reality), a 60GB OS partition, and just with KI (43GB), DOOM (76GB), and a bunch of smaller games installed I'm down to 243GB left. You'd be out of space in this scenario, which means you'd very quickly be storing most of your games on the HDD and not really benefiting from the SSD unless you're willing to constantly shift games between drives (which'll take something on the order of 10mins per game for larger games) or only play one game at a time (good luck if you have a few go-to games that you want to leave on the SSD). Games will probably get bigger from here on out, too, since 4K is happening and the industry places a premium on pushing high-detail content. Others may encourage you to go for a more premium model, but I think you need to make space a priority regardless.

    Other than that, I think you're probably fine. Other thoughts from not being an expert on hardware by any means, but having recently built a PC and having researched the shit out of every part:

    The 6600K seems like the sweet spot. You probably won't overclock now (I haven't yet), but it should add an extra year or so to the life of the CPU before you have to go out and replace the CPU+board+memory. (This whole modularity thing has turned out to be slightly underwhelming.) If you don't want to overclock then the 6500 is probably the most sensible choice, but don't plan on getting a 6500 now and then getting a 6600K later when it goes down in price to prolong the life of your board+memory -- the 6600K won't come down in price. They stop manufacturing them and the demand for the unlocked chip goes up because plenty of people want that performance boost without having to upgrade their motherboards, so if anything it looks like the K chips sometimes go up in price.. I think there's all of one VR game going around that cares about an i7 at this point (and that turned into a witch hunt over accusations of Intel moneyhatting), nothing I saw in researching which processor to get gave me any indication that any game made noteworthy use of hyperthreading or would anytime soon. An i7 may be useful for video editing (I know nothing about it other than that other people say that it is), but otherwise you probably don't want to put $100 of your constrained budget into something that seems to make just about no difference for games.

    You can probably move down to a cheaper cooler like the Hyper 212X (or 212 Evo or 212+ or whatever iteration of that cooler you can get). I'm no expert on thermals by any means, but the 212X seems like the sweet spot based on reviews and whatnot.

    The motherboard is the most infuriating part of the build to make a decision on, but the one you chose seems fine -- at least insofar as ASUS is concerned, it's hard to justify moving up to a ROG board or a Sabertooth, and there are features on your board that you might end up using that aren't present on more budget boards.

    Any GTX 1070 is probably fine. I got an EVGA GTX 1070 FTW because of EVGA's superb build quality and customer service, but there's been some stuff around the thermals around parts of the card making the cards catch on fire in rare cases, which they addressed with a BIOS update and also sent out these optional thermal pads that I'm thinking about installing, so go figure. It's all good and well to say you should put more money in and get a 1080, except that you'd probably have to radically expand your budget or gut the rest of your build to fit it in, and with a 1070 you're going to comfortably max out games at 1080p on your monitor with headroom to spare anyway, so you probably shouldn't unless you're considering 4K in the next year or so. Hell, apparently you can get a really good overclock out of a 1070 anyway.

    Cases are a pretty subjective thing, but I think the Phantom cases are fugly. I kinda liked the look of the H440, but it seems dated and flawed in various ways, so I went with the cheaper S340. It's worth looking at video reviews of various cases to see what you'll be dealing with, internally the Phantom is almost identical to the H440. The case is a component you could be using 10 years from now on a totally different build so it's probably worth spending up here, but I didn't because I think case makers need to lift their game.

    As others have said, your PSU is overkill -- but it's only, what, $20 of overkill? I think getting an 80Plus Gold-rated supply is probably worth the outlay, because it'll be more power-efficient, is less likely to explode or cause any harm to your system (a Bronze-rated shouldn't either I guess), and will come with a better warranty, which is good because you're putting this thing in the next build you make, and probably the one after that. You'll probably never need 750W, but you might find a use for 650W one day? I don't know. It's also good to have headroom, both because you might add something else that draws power later, and because PSUs operate at peak efficiency at something like half load. The PSU you picked has a 10-year warranty attached, which I believe requires registering the product with EVGA online, but it's probably the best warranty you're going to get.

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    jerkchicken

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    Seems like a lot of money to spend to game at 1080p. With the suggestions above, you could probably get a better monitor as well. There have been some crazy deal recently on 1440p and even 4k screens.

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    frytup

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    #19  Edited By frytup

    @dafdiego777 said:

    @frytup:No way. OC'ing my 3570k has extended the useful years of it by 2-3, maybe even more with the way improvements in processors are slowing down.

    How? Few games require much in the way of CPU power. And unless you managing an incredibly aggressive overclock, the difference is is going to be marginal.

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    forteexe21

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    WD Blue is weird. I bought a 1tb 5400 rpm drive but some software said its 7200 rpm. For those suggesting to use the stock cooler, 6600K doesnt include one. I tihnk 6500 (non-K) is the last one that did. Also, are faster RAMs a waste of money?

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    OurSin_360

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    Looks good man, after market cooler is 100% necessary for that cpu as the k series do not come with a stock one. I would go with cooler Master hyper 212 though. 750w is overkill but it leaves you good head room for future updates.

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    SwedishPhish

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    #22  Edited By SwedishPhish

    Hey everyone,

    Update from my part. After looking at all the recommendations, I've decided on this list.

    https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JBvyHN

    Major changes:

    1) Switched the Noctua cooler to the ARCTIC. Good to know that the CPU doesn't come with a stock!

    2) Did some more reading on SSD/HDD and decided to just go with a single, albeit upgraded, SSD for now. I have other places to store documents, and I'm sure I can always buy another drive later if need be.

    3) Went with the Fractal Design R5 case. I didn't even notice the difference between Full/Mid towers and such, so that was a good learning experience.

    4) Changed to a 500w Power Supply and saved some cash there.

    Overall, I shaved about a solid $120 from the original plan. I had some other friends debate over buying a i7 instead of an i5, but I think I'm settling for the i5 for now. From now I'm going to be doing some real sale hunting, but I think I'm pretty satisfied with the parts I've picked. Thank you all again for your help!

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    kcin

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    Your latest list is exactly what I would build a friend if they asked me to. Stick with it.

    Enjoy the card, too! I have that one, and it shreds.

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    Eurobum

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    @swedishphish: So the specs for the next gen of Intel and AMD cpus is known already, Intel is significantly bumping clocks by 300 MHz while AMD said they can hit 3.4 GHz on a new arch 8 core/16 thread CPU! PC parts are about to get interesting next month, first time in about half a decade. Buying now would be a mistake, because the stuff you buy basically instantly loses value.

    Saving on the power supply and cooling is unwise, because an efficient power supply amortizes its additional cost and reduces risk of failure/coil whine. I've got a Platimax and makes a satisfying clack when the PC powers down... The middle road for cooling is a 30-40 bucks air cooler, not a budget all-in-one piece of crap, although I have no knowledge of the particular cooler you picked, but the radiator and fan look small/loud.

    Also you need faster RAM, still.

    It's no effort at all to backup/resore steam games to and from an SSD. Having a ton of games installed at all times, is a bad lifestyle choice in the fist place. Like having an all-you-can-eat buffet for every meal. You can and should save money here, especially since SATA SSDs are basically outdated and replaced by slot NVMe or m.2 or whatever. But 24 cent per Gigabyte is reasonable and perhaps a good compromise over all.

    Finally while the 1070 is the "best Value" in the Nvidia lineup, the whole offering is still a bit of a rip-off. However it might take a while until things change here.

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    hmoney001

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    #25  Edited By hmoney001

    @swedishphish: My only nitpick is that bronze tier power supply.

    I tend to go Gold or higher since you are using high performance parts. They want that clean power.

    As for the RAM speed. Get the fastest you can afford. You really are only gaining a few frames here and there with faster RAM. (I got lucky and got a 16 gig 3200mhz kit on sale)

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