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Hi all,

I'm going to be building a Skylake system soon. These are going to be my parts. Any advice?

Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard
Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Broadcom BCM94356Z M.2 Card
EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card

Thanks for any help in advance!!
 
Hi all,

I'm going to be building a Skylake system soon. These are going to be my parts. Any advice?

Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard
Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Broadcom BCM94356Z M.2 Card
EVGA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Video Card

Thanks for any help in advance!!

looks like spending a small amount extra and getting the 6700k chip isn't going to bother you. then overclock the **** out of it. these chips run over 4.0ghz with even the most awful cooling setups (although i'd recommend good cooling of course, so it's not noisy and hot :D. noctua dh-15 is overclocker's favourite fan)

otherwise a very nice build.
 
looks like spending a small amount extra and getting the 6700k chip isn't going to bother you. then overclock the **** out of it. these chips run over 4.0ghz with even the most awful cooling setups (although i'd recommend good cooling of course, so it's not noisy and hot :D. noctua dh-15 is overclocker's favourite fan)

otherwise a very nice build.

Thanks dreamalittle, thats a good point. I'll change it up to include that.


One thing I do have a question about is regarding my wireless card.
I'm looking for something that is 'native' and is an M.2 card since the MOBO I've chosen is the GA-Z170N-Gaming 5. Is the Broadcom BCM94356Z the correct choice?

Also, I've seen that there is also the Broadcom BCM94356ZAE (key A+E). I'm not really sure what the differences are, which one I should go with and where I should get that from (right now I'm thinking eBay). I think this is the last part that I'm hung up on so any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks again!!!
 
Thanks dreamalittle, thats a good point. I'll change it up to include that.


One thing I do have a question about is regarding my wireless card.
I'm looking for something that is 'native' and is an M.2 card since the MOBO I've chosen is the GA-Z170N-Gaming 5. Is the Broadcom BCM94356Z the correct choice?

Also, I've seen that there is also the Broadcom BCM94356ZAE (key A+E). I'm not really sure what the differences are, which one I should go with and where I should get that from (right now I'm thinking eBay). I think this is the last part that I'm hung up on so any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks again!!!

i'm actually not sure about the best handoff enabled broadcom card. i was under the impression that the ebay ones were pcie.

anyone else know a good answer to op's question?
 
UPDATE: I found out that the GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 motherboard has a mini-PCI Express slot for it's wifi card similar to the GA-Z97N-WIFI. I have some experience with that board/mini-PCI wireless cards because I used to own it. The best one to get for it is the Broadcom BCM94360CD wireless card and a mini-PCI adaptor for it (I got mine on eBay, took awhile to physically get the product as they shipped it from China)
 
UPDATE: I found out that the GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 motherboard has a mini-PCI Express slot for it's wifi card similar to the GA-Z97N-WIFI. I have some experience with that board/mini-PCI wireless cards because I used to own it. The best one to get for it is the Broadcom BCM94360CD wireless card and a mini-PCI adaptor for it (I got mine on eBay, took awhile to physically get the product as they shipped it from China)

nice one, got it up and running? handoff/continuity features working?
 
nice one, got it up and running? handoff/continuity features working?
I do in my Hector system. See my signature block for more information.
 
Not sure if my answers are correct but been seeing mixed reviews on m.2 wrk on hackintosh.
Also your mobo is over clockable but with K on CPU your wasting money on mobo and should go for a H170 instead.
 
nice one, got it up and running? handoff/continuity features working?

Update to the update... :crazy:

Regrettably I found out that the people/place I got my information from regarding the existence of a mini-PCI Express slot for the wifi card on the Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 mobo is not true. I also tried calling Gigabyte and they refused to tell me what type of wifi slot/card is in it. So after getting my Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 mobo yesterday, I saw that wifi card/slot on it is roughly 15-20% smaller than the mini-PCI Express slot on Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WIFI mobo. And I saw an Intel 8260NGW wifi/bt card in that slot.

So I spent some time Googling that card and found out that it is an M.2 wifi card but the slot was totally different from the M.2 slots I've seen and even compared to the M.2 slot that is on the reverse side of this mobo. So I went back to Google to try to understand the various types of M.2 cards/slots to find out what type of slot/card is in there; I found out that this Intel wifi card model is actually a M.2 A & E keyed wifi card... so the slot is a M.2 A & E keyed wifi card slot.

This morning, I also just went to Gigabyte spec page today for the
A-Z170N-Gaming 5 mobo and saw that Gigabyte has now updated their specs to list the wifi card as a M.2 socket 1 wifi card which after a simple Google search means the exact same thing I had found out: M.2 A & E keyed :banghead: .

TL;DR T
he Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 doesn't have a mini-PCI Express slot for the wifi/bt card slot but instead a M.2 socket 1 which is also a M.2 A & E keyed slot.
 
Also your mobo is over clockable but with K on CPU your wasting money on mobo and should go for a H170 instead.

Yeah! I definitely agree. The main reason I choose to go with the Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 mobo was because the red aesthetics fit my red themed build much better and it was only marginally more expensive than the H170 due to a rebate being offered on Amazon :thumbup:

Not sure if my answers are correct but been seeing mixed reviews on m.2 wrk on hackintosh.

Yeah, I definitely agree. M.2 wireless cards are seemingly newer so there seem to be much more mixed reviews on them right now. Based on some other hackintosh forums I've seen, the Broadcom BCM94352Z is supposed to work OOB with El Capitan (not sure of course because I haven't tried it). I think that's the one I'm going to purchase.

What I'm probably most curious about is whether the Broadcom BCM94356Z is compatible (difference is that it has bluetooth 4.1 as opposed to 4.0) or if there is a compatible Broadcom wifi card that has bluetooth 4.2 (perhaps I'm a bit greedy on this front?).
 
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