- Joined
- Mar 14, 2016
- Messages
- 8
- Motherboard
- GA-Z170N-Gaming 5
- CPU
- Intel Core i7-6700K
- Graphics
- Asus GTX 1070 Turbo
I've been lurking and researching for awhile now, and I'm finally ready to put myself (and my wallet) to the test with this build. I hope you fine folks can give me some feedback about my buying list - please let me know if you see any incompatibilities or potential issues - and hopefully I can follow up this post with a [Success] repost so others can benefit from my build!
This build is intended to be the centerpiece of my home office; I’ll be doing dev work in Unity3D on El Capitan, and hopefully Windows 10 in a dual boot so I can try Visual Studios, plus doing my normal day-to-day computing stuff on El Capitan and playing games that don’t usually push the graphics envelope (Dwarf Fortress, League of Legends, lots of indie steam games), also on El Capitan. I’ll have dual monitors plugged in for the dev work, and hardwired ethernet (so no need for a wifi adapter).
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
I haven’t built a desktop since I switched to OS X back around ~2002, so I’m going for the higher end with a Skylake CPU to maximize my futureproofing. My dev work is sometimes CPU-intensive, and I play a couple of games like Dwarf Fortress that put more strain on the CPU than GPU, so I feel like its worth the price tag.
I'm also getting an aftermarket CPU cooler (Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO) and some Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Thermal Paste.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Besides requiring compatibility with the CPU, I was looking for three important features. First, I wanted a USB 3.1 slot so I could be ready to upgrade the external drive I take with me. Second, I wanted 4x slots for RAM so I could start with 16GB and leave myself room to grow to 32GB in the future. Third, I was hoping to get something smaller than ATX so I didn’t have to worry about a behemoth case. This mobo looks to fit the bill, and reviews say it also has solid onboard audio, which is nice since I’ve been eyeballing an external DAC but probably won’t get one for another year or so.
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
I’m only using 2 of the 4 slots in the motherboard, but this gives me room to upgrade in the future.
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card
I don’t really play that many games with cutting edge graphics, but I do work in 3D and enjoy a AAA game from time to time, so I went with a high-mid tier graphics card.
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
This is what was recommended in this site's buyer’s guide, so made sense to me as the main storage for the OS and my applications.
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Also recommended in this site’s buyer guide; the storage for my data/files (which are mostly in the cloud anyway).
Power: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Also recommended in this site’s buyer guide. I'm just assuming 550W is enough power because I forgot how to account for these sorts of things in the ~15 years since I built a PC
This build is intended to be the centerpiece of my home office; I’ll be doing dev work in Unity3D on El Capitan, and hopefully Windows 10 in a dual boot so I can try Visual Studios, plus doing my normal day-to-day computing stuff on El Capitan and playing games that don’t usually push the graphics envelope (Dwarf Fortress, League of Legends, lots of indie steam games), also on El Capitan. I’ll have dual monitors plugged in for the dev work, and hardwired ethernet (so no need for a wifi adapter).
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
I haven’t built a desktop since I switched to OS X back around ~2002, so I’m going for the higher end with a Skylake CPU to maximize my futureproofing. My dev work is sometimes CPU-intensive, and I play a couple of games like Dwarf Fortress that put more strain on the CPU than GPU, so I feel like its worth the price tag.
I'm also getting an aftermarket CPU cooler (Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO) and some Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Thermal Paste.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Besides requiring compatibility with the CPU, I was looking for three important features. First, I wanted a USB 3.1 slot so I could be ready to upgrade the external drive I take with me. Second, I wanted 4x slots for RAM so I could start with 16GB and leave myself room to grow to 32GB in the future. Third, I was hoping to get something smaller than ATX so I didn’t have to worry about a behemoth case. This mobo looks to fit the bill, and reviews say it also has solid onboard audio, which is nice since I’ve been eyeballing an external DAC but probably won’t get one for another year or so.
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
I’m only using 2 of the 4 slots in the motherboard, but this gives me room to upgrade in the future.
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card
I don’t really play that many games with cutting edge graphics, but I do work in 3D and enjoy a AAA game from time to time, so I went with a high-mid tier graphics card.
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
This is what was recommended in this site's buyer’s guide, so made sense to me as the main storage for the OS and my applications.
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Also recommended in this site’s buyer guide; the storage for my data/files (which are mostly in the cloud anyway).
Power: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Also recommended in this site’s buyer guide. I'm just assuming 550W is enough power because I forgot how to account for these sorts of things in the ~15 years since I built a PC