AEon's new PC 2016 (Build images & Win10 Tips)

[AEon]

Cherry G80-3000LSCDE-2 Tastatur USB
Got the keyboard today... the keyboard seems to very classy and the mechanical feel to it also quite neat. Reminds me of the really old (more than 25 years old) IBM PC keyboards. I think I'll keep the "polymer"-keyboard (Cherry G83-6105 LUNDE-2) for the present PC, and safe the new one the LSC (blue keys) for the new PC. So I seem to like the blue keys too. The older LPC keyboard really seems to be the only Cherry keyboard I really dislike.

[AEon]

Dangel,
BTW, when buying your ATi R9 card, did you get it from Mindfactory? I ask since they are running a promotional campaign for gfx card buyers (Nvidia and ATi) , and I was curious how that works out? E.g. if the games can be played in English, or if you are forced/stuck with a German version of the games.

[Dangel]

I bought it from mindfactory, yes, but i didnt get any extras (maybe because the r9 390 was extremely new). My father however got watch dogs with his geforce card and it was just a ubisoft code. So its a free copy of the game and you can use it however you want. No hard copies however.

BTW, i heard that geforce is releasing info for their new pascal line-up in april (and you said you wanted to buy your pc around that date). So you might want to wait until their press release and see if the new GPU-lineup wouldnt be a better fit for you. They might even release it earlier than expected (Q2 2016).

[AEon]

Interesting, so Ubi also has redeemable codes, like Steam. I fear that those codes unlock a German version though... booo .

Luckily, presently I am playing Mass Effect 2 that runs really well on my old hardware and I also have Mass Effect 3 to play after that. So something to do for a few weeks. And I just remembered a free copy of Dragon Age on Origin as well... so I'll probably look into the latter too.

Waiting until the new Nvidia cards come out may well be a good thing to do. I really don't like the thought of paying 600+ EU for a gfx card. The new cards may work in my favour, i.e. the Nvidia drops the price on the GTX 980 Ti significantly... well I can hope. The smaller manufacturing process from Nvidia will be interesting to see, i.e. regarding heat development, power consumption and of course primarily performance.

[AEon]

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€ 355,94  Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz So.1151 WO -> requires to buy a cooler
€ 144,84  Asus Z170-A Intel Z170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 ATX Retail  (just a quick pick)
DDR4-2133  (would run on "faster" memory as well...)

Seems to be somewhat faster using a 14nm Lithography (6 months old, OC to 4.2 GHz) instead of the 22nm of the 4970K (20 months old, OC to 4.4 GHz). The OC would not be important to me though.

Alas the former CPU seems to require a different socket as well, i.e. a 1151 instead of 1150. So a different mainboard would also be required?

If the 6700K runs cooler and more efficiently, would getting that one be recommendable?

Core i7-6700K vs. Core i7-4790K suggests that the upgrade is not really necessary or that significant, i.e. 8% faster. But at a comparable price point, possible running cooler, might be something to look into IMO.

Apparently, according to another article the CPU is supposed to be a "short-lived" interims CPU solution, until something better comes out?

Update: From what I read, not really worth it yet, the older hardware is almost as fast tried and tested and costs a lot less. Oh well, was fun reading up on the "latest" tech .

[AEon]

Interesting to see how prices slightly change in shops, actually on pretty much an hourly basis. Well, and the other thing being that items actually no longer get sold.

• €84,44 - 16GB G.Skill RipJawsX DDR3-2133 DIMM CL11

The DDR3-1866 no longer is being sold, so would the 14% faster above RAM be fine as well?

Was there something critical about the the higher "CL" (clock rate or multiplier I am guessing).

Thanks.

[sst13]

Interesting to see how prices slightly change in shops, actually on pretty much an hourly basis.

If you mean the prices @ mindfactory.de, yes they go up and down like a yoyo. (Up to 25%)
Also the *Sonderpreis-label seems to be generated by random.

[AEon]

I noted that ordering @ mindfactory.de in the evening the prices go down. And then there's their midnight shopping.

[Hipshot]

They lower the prices in the evening? How much?

edit: Sorry, ok, 25%? As SS wrote, that's kinda crazy, seems a bit strange.

[Shadowdane]

AEon-

Don't know if you've ordered yet but this setup might be worth it over the Intel Haswell build.

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/FVjQFT

[AEon]

Hipshot,
my experience with that site was more or less 5 or so EU either way. 25% would be really really exceptional.

Shadowdane,
thanks for the suggestions. Checking...

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Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core     vs.  i7 4790K 4x 4.00GHz
Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151                  vs.  MSI Z97 GAMING 5 Intel Z97 So.1150
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB DDR4-2800  vs.  16GB G.Skill RipJawsX DDR3-2133
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB          vs.  6144MB MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6G

So a more powerful CPU (I am falling for higher numbers on first glance here), that is using another socket size (1151 in your case), an ASUS main board for that, and DDR4 memory. And a GTX from Gigabyte instead.

In all, the setup seems to have the same price as what I have been looking into. Even though it does use newer and faster RAM it seems.

The Asus board seems to be popular, and nice quality, with 6x Sata connects. So that is all good. I know that onboard sound from ASUS boards has been really good, whereas I am not quite sure about the MSI one's.

The Gigabyte GTX 980 Ti is slightly slower (clock-wise, 1102MHz (Gigabyte) vs. 1178MHz (MSI)), only has one DVI connection (probably not an issue though). And 54 EU less expensive. Interesting alternative. The 3 fans on the Gigabyte would suggest better cooling vs. the 2 of the MSI... no idea though. And the Gigabyte seems longer, something that might be issue in my HAF tower.

SSDs
Update: Just noted your suggestion with the Samsung 850 EVO 120GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive. These cards are directly slotted onto the main board, and should in theory have a higher throughput than SATA? I wondered about them. Such an "unprotected card" makes me slightly nervous as the Windows main drive though. And IIRC with 6x Sata connects you lose 2 when using such a M.2 drive. Hmmm... actually seems to be slower writing data.

Update: From a bit more reading, one might better get an SSD for the OS that runs off PCIe, e.g. 240GB HyperX Predator Add-In PCIe 2.0 x MLC Toggle... and that would be four times as fast as any of the Samsung ones above. No idea how data-secure these are though.

Timeline for the Build
Buying the PC is probably off some time (probably until the Steam Summer Sale, another 3 months or so)... Presently watching playthroughs of Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 on YT by Gopher (the guy who created iHUD for Skyrim) and loving that. But it does not really make me want to build a new PC for those... both games are such horrendous "time wasters". I played 700h on Skyrim... and that really ended being just too darn long, even though I did love playing Skyrim.

[AEon]

Shadowdane,
liked your suggestions, thanks, updated my build accordingly. Read some bad comments about the CPU cooler you suggested though.

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€ 347,81   Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz So.1151 WOF
€  32,39   Cooler Master Hyper 212X Tower Kühler
€ 144,45   Asus Z170-A Intel Z170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 ATX Retail
€  87,55   16GB G.Skill RipJaws V rot DDR4-3000 DIMM CL15 Dual Kit

€  61,73   120GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (MZ-75E120B/EU)
€  79,87   250GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (MZ-75E250B/EU)
€ 141,96   500GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (MZ-75E500B/EU)
€  66,56   2000GB Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s

€ 639,63   6144MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti Windforce 3x Gaming Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail)

€ 146,79   850 Watt Corsair RMi Series Modular 80+ Gold
€  74,14   LG Electronics BH16NS55 Blu-ray Disc Writer SATA intern schwarz Bulk
€  15,87   LG Electronics GH24NSD1 DVD-Writer SATA intern schwarz Bulk
--------
€1838,75

Socket 1151 & and 14nm process
Clearly, the future seems to be the Skylake architecture using socket 1151. Getting an Asus mainboard for that, and fast DDR4-3000 RAM is much more the way I prefer to go. And price-wise it is almost the same as the older spec. I am aware the a i7 4790K with DDR3 is not that much slower, though, but I am upgrading from an i7 920, so I might as well splurge a bit.

My old 80GB Intel X25-M G2 SSD
Just checked the speed of my already nicely quick old Intel SSD: 250 read / 70 write MB/s. And any one of the new Samsung SSDs (540 MB/s read, 520 MB/s write) will be 2.16 and 7.4 times faster. Wow... that should really be noticeable.

MSI GTX 980 Ti
I liked the MSI mainboard and 980 Ti colour-wise, but since when do you buy them for looks if you keep your PC shut all the time? ... the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti Windforce is not only more cost efficient (though slightly slower), but should also run cooler with 3 fans... I hope.

Blu-ray
On the list for now, but might be dropped. I don't actually own a single Blu-ray disk presently. But getting Blade Runner on Blu-ray and watching that in full HD might be nice.

HAF Tower

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Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Midi Tower ohne Netzteil schwarz

Already got the tower, letting me double-check a few things now.

Huge CPU cooler
This is what still really makes me nervous. Primitive screws really should not be placed anywhere near a hi-tech mainboard IMO (other than to lock it into a tower). But to have a heavy cooler hanging onto just 4 screws that may damage the mainboard pathing really does not bode well. The cooler for my out of the box i7 920 was just "clipped" onto the mainboard, and the CPU has been cool enough almost all the time. Hmm...

Anyone have a suggestion for a really good, high quality Socket 1151 cooler? The manual for the "Cooler Master Hyper 212X" I picked so far, was disturbingly primitive and lacking in detail, not even explicitly mentioning the 1151. If it was quiet and better quality that would help.

[AndyW]

Huge CPU cooler
This is what still really makes me nervous. Primitive screws really should not be placed anywhere near a hi-tech mainboard IMO (other than to lock it into a tower). But to have a heavy cooler hanging onto just 4 screws that may damage the mainboard pathing really does not bode well. The cooler for my out of the box i7 920 was just "clipped" onto the mainboard, and the CPU has been cool enough almost all the time. Hmm...

ATM im running a Thermalright-MACHO-rev.b / 880 g. Its mounted with a heavy backplate and i had no problems with that so far!
So if youre going skylake you have to watch for the mounting-pressure...maybe you need some washers to get a bit more distance.
Just wanted to put that in, i didnt followed youre whole thread-sorry bout that

[AEon]

Are "washers" something like "spacers" (preferably made of something non-conductive)? If so I read about, the screws on the far side of the mainboard dragging into the pathing there, if one is not careful.

[AndyW]

Yap, washers/spacers.
They will give you some extra space.
It depends on your cooling solution, maybe you dont need it.
But watch for this. I read alot about deformed skylakes caused by to much mounting-pressure.
[spoiler]http://www.pcgamer.com/intel-skylake-cpus-are-bending-under-the-pressure-of-some-coolers/[/spoiler]

If you want a real killer go 2011-3 and i7-5930K, it has 40 lanes! So no problem with full-speed sli.

[AEon]

So I actually did order the PC now, from Mindfactory.de:

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€ 359,85	Intel Core i7 6700K 4x 4.00GHz So.1151 WOF
€  32,39	Cooler Master Hyper 212X Tower Kühler
€ 144,45	Asus Z170-A Intel Z170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 ATX Retail
€  87,15	16GB G.Skill RipJaws V rot DDR4-3000 DIMM CL15 Dual Kit
€ 648,70	6144MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti Windforce 3x Gaming Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail)
€ 146,67	850 Watt Corsair RMi Series Modular 80+ Gold

€  64,87	120GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (MZ-75E120B/EU)
€  83,92	250GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (MZ-75E250B/EU)
€  67,73	2000GB Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s
€ 146,92	500GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (MZ-75E500B/EU)

€  13,16	LG Electronics GH24NSD1 DVD-Writer SATA intern schwarz Bulk
€ 140,72	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit Englisch DSP/SB
---------
€1946,33 (with delivery costs)

Hope I did not make some stupid mistake and that all the above will work out. Alas some of the items will only be in around the 16.3.2016... so I do have some time to prepare for all that stuff to come in. E.g. read some manuals and such...

[AEon]

Started build on March 14th with the hardware I had, to then complete the build on Wednesday 16th. The latter, integrating all hardware and cabling took just four hours (plus the hours on Monday). Windows 10 install was pretty quick, and it took me another few days (until the 18th) to get "all" (the most important ones) the files copied and installed on the new PC.

Thanks for all the feedback, the suggestions where appreciated and this is the result:

• AEon's PC 2016 - Overview image

a) The traditional hardware still in their boxes shot. The memory seems to be in eloxated aluminium, neat.

b) An early ambience shot. The winter sun, through orange curtains hits the PC. CPU is in there, PU, DVD, SSDs, cables... missing CPU cooler, RAM, GPU. On the right side you can see the small SSD/HDD metal boxes. From top to bottom: C:\ 120GB SSD, D:\ 500GB SSD, F:\ 2 TB HDD, E:\ 250GB SSD... originally there was a large metal box in there where the upper SSDs are, but that was blocking the High Air Flow too much. Now ca. 50% of the large front fan air (right side) enters the tower unobstructed to cool the GPU, mainboard and CPU. Note how cleanly cables can be laid out due the Corsair's modular cable PU.

c) I always try to place the cables as cleanly as possible, and out of the main tower area's air flow. The CoolMaster HAF 912 Adv lets you place all the power cables etc behind the main board, really cleaning up things. The red cables are SATA III. As you can see the CPU cooler metal "plate" has already been screwed to the board's back side.

d) Towards the end of the hardware build, added the CPU cooler, RAM, and GPU. Alas due to the location of the power supply connectors on the GPU, the power cable has to be placed in front of the GPU and PU... but even that cable is mostly not blocking the main airflow in the tower.

e) Fun detail shot: HAF 912 Adv comes with one adapter tray for SSDs. Was used for the E:\ drive (see b)). These Samsung SSDs are uncannily fast and look very nice as well.

f) Closing up the tower, there is not really much to see. The main 20cm front fan is red-lit... alas the light cannot be turned off. Just below the usual front USB, eSATA etc connectors, there are two UBS 3.0 front connections, should I ever need them. I should mention that the PC is extremely quiet: Running the "Tom Clancy's The Division" (got it with the GTX 980 Ti for free), all set to max. gfx settings (60-70 FPS), the tower is quieter than my Win7 PC in idle... uncanny.


Running Reflex
I did a quick run with Reflex in my map AEpyraR2: I used to get 50-70 FPS (with gfx pretty much set to max @1680x), and the light compile time was 23 minutes. Now with the new PC with max gfx @ 1920x I see 330-360 FPS, and the light compile only takes about 2 minutes. This PC is really really fast... whee

Win10 and the GTX 980 Ti
Well, getting used to Win10... after I installed the gadgets I have come to love under Win7 (if you'd like to try that as well, check out 8gadgetpack.net, works wonderfully). The GTX 980 Ti seems to work well enough, even though I just cannot open the Nvidia GeForce Experience (black windows) and Nvidia Control Panel at all... WTF?

So, again, thanks for the tips and feedback. I am especially glad I went with the Socket 1151 build.

[AndyW]

Congrats! I think you will have alot of fun with that machine.
Im searching for the HAF-Stacker case atm

[AEon]

For those still thinking about upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10, as I did a few days ago, the following tips might make it less painful, of sorts.

Want your preferred Win7 Gadgets back in Win10?
I have been using System Montitor II (CPU usage, temperature, memory usage, CPU clock), Network Meter (up/download speeds and totals), GPU Meter (usage, mem, temperature), the desktop clock (analog) and the calendar for many years. The former three I really want to let me see what is going on with the PC.

Well, all that was dropped with Win10, no gadgets there any longer. Luckily there is a simple, very "classy" tool that fixes all that: 8gadgetpack.net.

The pack contains all the above and some nice other Gadgets, and they all just work fine under Win10. Highly recommended.

Inactive window title bars are "whitish" ugly, not coloured?
The slimmer Win10 desktop style, has significantly reduced the width of the window frames, that does "save" a few pixels here and there. But for some reason the title bar is the same colour as the window frames when the window is inactive, and to me that looks really bad.

To fix this, you will need to add an extra field in the registry, but fear not, it's not a big deal. Follow this description: Change color of inactive title bars in Windows 10.

I used a lighter brown tone for active window titles and a darker brown for those inactive, fits my Directory Opus / Winamp amber theme quite nicely.

Nvidia Control Panel & Geforce Experience not launching at all?
Even with my completely new install, having downloaded the latest Nvidia driver for my GTX 980 Ti, and installing that on the "clean" Win10, I still could not get the Nvidia Control Panel to launch, it would simply not work. There seem to be many suggestions how to fix this, but I found them all to be more luck than anything.

What worked for me was to download and run DDU though: Display Driver Uninstaller (Download version 15.7.5.2). Run it by chosing Windows Safe Mode (you reboot into that mode from the launched tool), to then deinstall *all* Nvidia drivers (apparently the junk Win10 comes with in particular). After deinstalling, run Win10 again, and install the latest drivers from Nvidia... and things should now work properly.

Tip: Nvidia seems to be able to install drivers on the fly, and work with them. Well partially, since I noted games fail to load. So be sure to reboot after installing new Nvidia drivers to avoid issues.

How to Completely Uninstall OneDrive in Windows 10?
I only started to look into all the "junk" Win10 now comes with that I really do not need and will not use, and OneDrive is one of those things.

To get rid of Win10 running it and the icons thereof I did this: How to Completely Uninstall OneDrive in Windows 10

Scheduling a scan in Windows Defender
I have been using the MS Security Essentials for the last six years, and that has been working well enough AFAICT. The virus scanner was running all the time and doing a daily quickscan. Alas, the tool that replaces it, the Windows Defender, comes with a lot fewer options. Among other things scheduling a daily scan is no longer possible with it.

Solution: Use Win10's Task Scheduler to perform a e.g. daily scan. See this short description for that: Scheduling a scan in Windows Defender

Interestingly this actually performs a quickscan.

“Input Indicator” Icon Comes Back in Taskbar Notification Area After Restarting Windows
There seems to be a bug in Win10 that will show you the language / keyboard language settings in your taskbar again and again, even when you have turned off that irrelevant information.

Luckily [Fix] “Input Indicator” Icon Comes Back in Taskbar Notification Area After Restarting Windows fixes that issue.


There you are... not sure anyone will have use for the above, but these things annoyed me, and I could verify the suggested solutions worked.

[roughrider]

my question is, why is this in here and not in tech forum?

[AEon]

Because "my croud" is here... though it could now be moved. Even as mod I still don't know how to do it... never did.

[AmIdYfReAk]

This thread... is a thread that I've always wanted here, informed, well drawn out and a OP that knows what he'd like out of a new build.

Thanks bud...

[AEon]

What does "OP" mean though?

The hardware has thankfully been working really well. And I have become used to Win10 too, sorta... though I am pretty sure I am not nearly using many of the OS' new features...

[Whiskey 7]

What does "OP" mean though?

The hardware has thankfully been working really well. And I have become used to Win10 too, sorta... though I am pretty sure I am not nearly using many of the OS' new features...

Like I said in my PM, nice rig. W10 was a jump for me too but at the end of the day once it is up an running you hardly notice it hopefully.

Re OP?
http://www.internetslang.com/OP-meaning-definition.asp
OP means "Original Poster"

[AEon]

Ah... I am not hip enough to know such things .