- Where are you located?
Finland. - What is your budget?
1300,00€. - Will you need a monitor, keyboard, and/or mouse included in that budget?
No. - Shall you be requiring an OS?
No. - What will you be using this rig for?
Gaming / Media PC. - If gaming, what resolution will you be playing at?
1440p. - Will you be overclocking?
I would like to do the "easy overclock". I am not interested in spending hours in tweaking settings little by little and performing tests in between - so not going for the "extra mile". - Do you need a full build or will you be reusing some old parts?
For now I will be reusing my case (Antec Three Hundred), my PSU (Enermax MODU82+ 625W), my display (Dell U2515H), and my two WD 1TB Caviar Blacks.
My current rig is beginning to be ancient: AMD Phenom II x4 955 with dual HD5850s on a Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P. I have had this since 2008/2009 and I will likely have the next build 3-5 years, though I am ready to swap GPUs when that becomes necessarily (not likely to happen in a while I'd say).
What I have picked so far: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/crFz7h
I am having serious difficulties in deciding the CPU+Motherboard combo for my rig. Based on my what I have read and googled the question "i5-6600K vs i7-6700K" has been asked thousands or tens of thousands of times, but to be honest I really haven't found a straightforward answer yet. I honestly cannot remember having this same situation ever before when buying a new rig - given it's been a few years. To me it seems that there is no "actual sweet spot" for a gamer to choose from at the moment. Some people would even suggest going lower with the gaming CPU: i5-6600 or even i5-6500. Then again that would probably also completely invalidate my motherboard research until now since I have been looking with the "K" in mind.
So as it might have already occurred to you, I have some questions. I'll just pop them right out:
- Is i7-6700K worth the extra 100€ for the hyper threading? I realize the answer NOW is probably not, but how about given a range of 3 to 5 years?
- I suppose i7-6700K is quite a bit more power hungry when compared to the other choices. Would this affect my choice of cooler given that I will not go "all out" with the overclocking?
- Would a hypothetical M.2 PCIe x4 SSD eat away from the PCIe lanes provided by the CPU? Currenly I will most likely not notice whether the GTX 1070 runs at x8 or x16, but perhaps in 3 to 5 years if I was to upgrade the GPU but keep the CPU and motherboard.
- Any ideas for a sweet spot motherboard? What I would like on a motherboard is decent audio for both gaming and music (isolation and shielding), quality NIC(s) (i.e. Intel over Realtek), easy overclocking, connectors for now and the future (Intel USB 3.1, Thunderbolt?), PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 sockets - preferably two should I wish to RAID these up some time in the future. What I do not require from a motherboard is Killer NICs, Wi-Fi, and fancy lighting. So far I have looked at motherboards such as Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5 and Asus Z170-A and Z170-Pro.
- Are there any sources of information for comparing the different brands and models in the GTX 1070 market? I have found a table that lists all the specs, but not a review that would actually test the real world performance of these different variants against each other. From what I see, the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive GTX 1070 is about 100€. I do not plan to overclock the GPU, but I do want the most bang for buck I can get - a good (silent) cooling solution is a hude plus.
I do not think I can justify the added cost of a X99 and Haswell-E setup either, though from what I understood from the leaked Kaby Lake information it seems that either way I am gonna be screwed upgrade-wise. I read that Kaby Lake will use Socket 1151, but would require Intel 200 series chipset. Thus, the only upgrade during the 3 to 5 year period would probably only be a new GPU. Not really a fan of SLI.
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