Hi All,

Wanted to find a Australian Gaming Forum and behold here i am.

Im ready to build a PC to tackle some of the things I like to do but even after weeks of research and racking my brain on PC part picker which doesn't really explain much and watching hours and hours of jaytwocents, Linus Tech and Kyle (BitWit) videos trying to wrap my head around it i could do with a bit of help.

The setup will mainly be for gaming like fortnight, Rust, COD etc. I also intend to do some more streaming on Twitch. Im a Graphic Artist by trade so Photoshop, Illustrator is a must and maybe Indesign and Dreamweaver.

I dont want this to turn into a essay so i'll try keep it short.

I intend to start with a air cooled system, get my foot in the door with around $1500+ budget for starters.
(P.S. No overclocking intended to start with but would like overclocking CPU, MB, GC for if/when i decide to upgrade to water cooling system and be a bit future compatible) please tell me if thats stupid?

1. CPU - INTEL CORE i5-7640X (memory support states DDR4-2666) Does this mean ram sticks need to be 2666 or can be 3000 for OC?
X299 is an odd size chip i know so maybe a Intel Core i5-6500 Unlocked

2. MB - UNSURE This is where im most confused, what features do i look for?

3. GCard - GeForce GTX 1060 EX OC 6GB or GeForce GTX 1060 OC 3GB? noticeable difference? worth the $50 extra?

4. RAM - DDR4 16GB for starters (intent to add another 16GB in future if needed, MB needs to support 32gb)

5. Power Supply - Saving till last once i know output of others.

Thats a good start don't wont to bore anyone.

Cheers
Richard

hey mate
don't forget a decent SSD

Yeah got a 256gb SSD for Windows and a 4tb 3.5 on the list :)

Interested few cases and fans to suit what i want now and for future. Just need to figure out if the CPU and Graphic cards are in the right ballpark or if im over shooting it by a lot or a little?

Im ready to build a PC to tackle some of the things I like to do but even after weeks of research and racking my brain on PC part picker which doesn't really explain much and watching hours and hours of jaytwocents, Linus Tech and Kyle (BitWit) videos trying to wrap my head around it i could do with a bit of help.

You probably aren't going to learn much about the specifics of building a pc from scratch watching those guys, they have long since starting become YouTube Pro's mostly concerned with the very high-end tech out there instead of starter entry to pc building. with the exception of Paul & Kyle imo, those guys are cool and pragmatic

The setup will mainly be for gaming like fortnight, Rust, COD etc. I also intend to do some more streaming on Twitch. Im a Graphic Artist by trade so Photoshop, Illustrator is a must and maybe Indesign and Dreamweaver.

I dont want this to turn into a essay so i'll try keep it short.

I intend to start with a air cooled system, get my foot in the door with around $1500+ budget for starters.
(P.S. No overclocking intended to start with but would like overclocking CPU, MB, GC for if/when i decide to upgrade to water cooling system and be a bit future compatible) please tell me if thats stupid?

Cooling for any of the system's overclocking is going to get expensive. It's not exactly a stupid pursuit: it's technically delicious and where a lot of the fun of system building/design/aesthetics is.

1. CPU - INTEL CORE i5-7640X (memory support states DDR4-2666) Does this mean ram sticks need to be 2666 or can be 3000 for OC?
X299 is an odd size chip i know so maybe a Intel Core i5-6500 Unlocked

As a baseline it supports 2666Mhz, you can buy upto whatever the motherboard supports baseline or overclocked, which you would probably want heatspreaders for if you're going to go that way. X299 is the chipset, the socket type (that's on the motherboard) is LGA2066 for that i5-7640, the i5-6500 is LGA1151 so consider that when matching it to whichever motherboard you pick

2. MB - UNSURE This is where im most confused, what features do i look for?

Go for whatever interests you, anything , but it doesn't need to be overly fancy unless you like it like that. A basic gaming motherboard compatible with the socket type of the CPU you pick will work. other features like wifi, m.2 sata, e-sata if you need to do any storage backups, etc. all depends on what you want or maybe don't even know you'll need/appreciate later

Spook likes asus or asrock: both solid oem's. i've had good times with gigabyte and msi brand's. msi is pretty solid with overclocking but so are the other's really. gigabyte on the last 3 GPU's.

3. GCard - GeForce GTX 1060 EX OC 6GB or GeForce GTX 1060 OC 3GB? noticeable difference? worth the $50 extra?

The difference here is mostly in the capacity for holding high resolution textures and shaders in cache. more practically you might find it will effect draw distance/lod in-game or the difference between 30fps and 60fps at a given resolution. in practice, especially in DX11/12 games more of this type of memory will keep the performance up for those games.

4. RAM - DDR4 16GB for starters (intent to add another 16GB in future if needed, MB needs to support 32gb)

all good

5. Power Supply - Saving till last once i know output of others.

something quiet, worth paying more for especially at greater wattage output where the PSU and case fan's will throttle with temperature variance


Couple of things you might have missed: pick a nice case based on the motherboard form factor. you'll appreciate this choice later while building it and servicing it for any dust crust. monitor: buying something new or bringing one over from a previous build.

If you are going to O/C and add water, then maybe look at a 600w PSU.
Im not up with all the newest bits and pieces these days, so others may correct me on that.
My rig is about 4 yrs old and the only thing that needs an upgrade is the GPU. (running a GTX680 TITAN)

why a wifi mobo?

wifi is for mobile devices only.

not a reliable network solution for anyhting that matters. (certainly not gaming)

mobo seems like overkill to me, but if its fits your budget...

i was against old water cooling solutions, but new all integrated ones are cheap and reliable, so i wouldnt be scared of them.

i got a coolermaster 240 and its quiet, super efficient and clean and safe.

i would think so.

a lot of extra features on mobos are nice to have if you got mad coin, but in the real world give you very limited extra performance, especially when not overclocking.

nothing wrong with having a feature rich and quality mobo if it fits your budget.

if you need to trim on your total cost, those would be the first things to go for me (personally)

as for psu, again, quality and size are super important, you dont want to be calculating hte minimum you need and going for that, you want to make sure your box is covered easily for now and the future.

For regular upgrading and piece of mind I didn't want to be stuffing around with water cooling so I found the best air cooled solution I could get at the time. For me that was the ANTEC 1200 v3 Full about 10 years ago. I was going to suggest getting a bigger case but that P400S will probably suck as much air as mine if you buy another 4-5 fans and fill those empty fan spots.

The only other thing was the stock cooler. I found a $35 cooler master tower cooler that busted reviews of $100+ coolers. You could install another fan on this tower and get this push pull air flow effect.

Buy those extra fans.
"Summer is coming!"

Switch the mobo out for a Gigabyte - H370 HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Struggled to find the GPU i had above so might use the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 6GB G1

Switched out the 128gb SSD for a 500gb WD blue SSD
and
picked the EVGA SuperNOVA 650 (hope this isnt too big :/ )

Update:
CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-D9L 46.4 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte - H370 HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB G1 Gaming Video Card
Case: Phanteks - ECLIPSE P400S TEMPERED GLASS ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

had a quick look at the spec pages of those parts and the noctua cooler and psu are within the case's dimensions modulo

nice build. room to upgrade, good looking case, rgb envy. it's almost like you've done this before

last edited by trillion at 21:36:11 10/Sep/18