I've been wanting to build my own custom PC for a while but boy is it hard to find clear information from informed people regarding the level of gear I’m after. I like to think of myself as someone who can figure things out without needing to ask for help, most of the time but Information is so contradictory out there i’m finding it challenging to sort the relevant from the irrelevant.
The only thing I absolutely want from that parts list is the Fractal Define S, Love that case. The rest is open for negotiation.
My needs
Gaming, I don't game as much as I want to but still definitely more than the average guy on the street and fyi 100% of my previous gaming has been done on consoles. So even though I don't game as much as I like I want to be able to run games on fairly high settings whenever I do.
I do a decent amount of productivity work, as well as a fair amount of photoshop/indesign work. I also mess around in sketchup from time to time.
I enjoy building and tinkering with things, to learn and expand my knowledge base.
I don’t think i’ll be overclocking anything, at least not for a while.
Few questions,
Do I need to invest in a K series CPU since I don’t plan on overclocking it? Is that even the main reason for going K series?
Since I won’t be overclocking do I need to bother with a 3rd party CPU cooling solution or will the stock cooler be fine initially?
Motherboard? what the hell am I even looking for here? Somebody school me on motherboards, but remember I’m no computer scientist.
I don’t really want to spend any more than $1600AUD-$1700AUD (theres no motherboard price in that list btw) but if I can save some money that would be good.
Only reason for K is overclocking. That's it, I think. There may be some weird thing with visualization, but sounds like that's a non issue for you.
Stock is fine initially. Some hate the noise of it, some really don't mind (like me). Its designed to cool your chip's TPD, so there wont be an issue with temperatures with it. I would try it out, then grab one if its annoying you.
Yes, motherboard hunting it is daunting to begin with. I just have an idea in my mind with what I need, go to pccasegear (Australian site), and make a wishlist of the ones I like with what I need. Things like chipset, # of USB ports, whether its SLI compliant or not, etc. are decisions you probably need to think about. If you need some more things to look for, just ask. Then I like to make a decision about the price after.
@Zavar Keep in mind that its discontinued, and you may need to go hunting for that. The cooler is a good suggestion.
Yes. It's not the quietest thing in the world, though.
If you're not going to overclock and you're going with a socket 1150 mobo, just get a H97 board and you'll be fine.
I'd go with the xeon Zavar mentioned, go with a cheaper aftermarket cooler (just have it for the sake of silence), get a cheap H97 mobo, a case with better soundproofing and a sapphire nitro 390 instead of that 970.
Although you can always swap out the case for the define S. I'd swap some parts about to make it a touch more aesthetically pleasing though if so, considering the huge side panel, get a 212 EVO given the additional max cooler height, (scratch that it's like $65 wtf might as well get a 120mm aio), match up the RAM and mobo accent colours and get an ATX form factor mobo (or it might look a bit empty) and you'd be fine.
Might want to get a slightly larger SSD too, btw. 120GB'll fill up fast if you're gonna be getting some larger games on it like GTA V and the like. 240GB'd do.
Definitely Xeon if not overclocking; Unless you're a cool n' quiet fanatic, in which case for the same price as the K part you can grab a 4970S (which is 65W vs the 4970K's 88W.
Depends... You can go stock, but personally I'd go for a aftermarket with a slow 120mm fan - same temps but a whole lot quieter (especially during the summer).
Since you're not overclocking, I'd hazard a guess you'd probably wouldn't go after SLI/Crossfire either; Just get something with lots of USB ports, a decent network chip, a good audio chip (if you're not using a DAC), and maybe a m.2 slot so you have a speedy OS drive that won't occupy a traditional HDD bay.
Luck would have it, PC Case Gear have a upgrade kit based around the Xeon 1231 V3:
That upgrade kit with the mobo, cpu and RAM, is 550 eur. In my partpicker, there's a 16GB kit with the same CPU and mobo and it's 582 eur in total... erhm. It's Aus, he's already ripped off enough. pmsl
UM NO do not go with the xeon 1220 its just basically a really expensive with a few features turned on for enterprise users i5 4460. here is something that I whipped up http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/DyB73C
Again, match up the RAM and mobo colours if you want to stick it in the define S. It's still under budget ($1585ish), mind you. Could get a bigger SSD if you'd like, it's already got a 250GB one and that, really, should do you fine for a while in combination with a 1TB HDD .
So I've built a system... Happened really quickly, once I purchased the first components I could'nt stop! Needless to say i'll be living off of bread and water for the foreseeable future :p
Specs are; Xeon V3 1231 (with stock cooler for the moment) 8Gb Kingston Hyper X MSI H97 Gaming 3 Mobo MSI R9 390 Samsung Evo 250Gb M.2 SSD 1Tb WD Caviar Green HDD Corsair CX600M PSU Fractal Define R5 (I know I wanted the Define S but I picked up the R5 for a price I couldn't say no to)
As this was my first system build it took longer than it probably should have and if I'm honest was a lot more daunting than I thought it would be. Installing Windows 10 from a USB took 4hrs longer than it probably should have, seeing as the first 2 USB's I tried could successfully be created into a bootable media but wouldn't actually work to boot from for some reason! but now that everything's sorted, it runs like a dream.
I don't know how much of this is the system and how much of it is Windows 10 but this thing boots INCREDIBLY fast... like, around 20 seconds from dead cold to on the desktop ready to use. Will probably slow down once I start filling the SSD up but still, I was impressed.
Future things i'd like to do to it is get a nice air cooler for the CPU, Get a few more HDD's in there grab a window'd side panel for the R5, paint the white metal accents of the case red and stain the case fans red as well.
Anyway thanks again for the help and here's some pictures of the new rig.
Very nice. Might get a custom 24-pin extension myself (get rid of dem ketchup+mustard colours), remove a/both the (if you can mount that 3.5" drive elsewhere) drive cage(s). A cheap aftermarket cooler wouldn't be bad for the sake of ramping the fans down and being quiet. Something from be quiet wouldn't sacrifice aesthetics. Either that or you could always get a cheap 120mm AIO I suppose.
