I am trying to decide on new parts for my PC upgrade and thought I would come here to get some expert advise.
INFO: I am currently using a Q9550 CPU 2.8ghz which is very old and it is starting to hit the wall. Surprisingly enough I am able to run most VR games paired with my GTX970 but this is not going to last much longer. I am most interested in using this PC for gaming(VR/non-vr), 3d rendering, game development, digital editing and programming. I know I will need a new CPU/RAM/MOBO combo, and I know my GPU is a bit lower end but I will wait for another generation before upgrading to a 1080 or whatever comes out this year.
MOBO/CPU: I am thinking of going with a KabyLake 7700K (OD'd to 5.0Ghz) for the CPU but am not sure which MOBO to get. I would like to get an Z270 series (so far MSI/ASUS seem to be the best choices) to best future proof my build. Any ideas which Z270 would be best for this build?
RAM: I would like to get 32gb of fast ram but am not certain which is most stable worth the $, etc. Any ideas?
CASE: Also I am using a Silverstone TJ06 case which is quite old but uses a nice wind tunnel air flow design (at least it was nice back in the day). I am concerned this might not be a wise choice for using water cooling and for space/modern parts/thermal demands etc.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. There are just so many options/variables these days and I want to make sure I am not buying products that are either not worth it or are somehow incompatible.
You may be able to get skylake for cheaper however so consider that. Also Ryzen is coming out soon so that should shake up the market prices, and potentially provide a viable alternative to Intel so I'd personally wait for that to unfold.
RAM speed doesn't matter for 90% of real world tasks, what does matter is the amount of which 32GB should be plenty.
What type of water cooling? Custom loop? It'll work great, singularity computers did a few builds in this with water cooling iirc. AIO? eh... I'm not a fan of the whole AIO thing... you get just as good performance out of high end air coolers and those last much longer than an AIO ever could.
What types of modern parts? ssd can be stuck wherever your heart desires with some form of adhesive technology, m.2 goes on the mobo, it has hdd cages and you can get 5.25 to 3.5 adapters if you need more.
That being said, there may be some case features you want that aren't available on this so you could get a new one, but a case is a very personal choice so I'll leave that to you.
Also... What's the budget for this? That bit of info could help us out a lot to potentially recommend exact parts.
What form factor would you like? Do you want to stick with ATX, or go for something smaller? Do you have any other cards besides your GPU you'd like to keep using? Air or water cooling? (Air for reliability, water for performance IMO) Budget? Also, what storage do you currently have?
For motherboards I've been a fan of ASRock for their price to performance, but Gigabyte also appears to have some Z270 boards with strong power delivery designs. The higher end MSI boards are feature rich too.
Case depends on the form factor. If you want to stay ATX the Fractal Design R5 is a fan favourite, or something like the NZXT S340 is good if you want ATX, but as small as possible. The Fractal Nano S is a newer ITX case that gets great reviews, as is the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX.
I have taken a look at some of Wendell's Z270 videos and its a tough choice. They are all slightly different and also slightly the same. I know I need a good amount of USB power/ports to support VR and I don't like to skimp on MOBO quality as its important for future proofing.
I would like to keep as up to date with this CPU buy as possible so I feel the KabyLake is best but I will most likely wait for Ryzen to see what AMD has to offer.
Ill just stick with the most stable 32gb ram for the motherboard and also a reputable brand.
I was thinking AIO for water cooling for ease of installation/performance gains. I don't have the expertise to setup a custom loop at this point though it would be sweet. But, if you think air cooling is better in the long run I already have a pretty great upgraded CPU cooler which maybe compatible with KabyLake, I will have to check (maybe not).
I currently have 2 SSD's and 1 HDD. SSD: 250gb(Samsung EVO), and 480gb Corsair Force3.
As for budget I would say max $1500 (CAD) with 7700k+mobo+ram (and possibly case). I would like to get my computer back to a reliable state and then possibly upgrade the GPU down the line when the time is right.
I'm somewhat disappointed by Kaby Lake. Same IPC as Sky Lake, but with some H.265 codec instructions.
I'd definitely wait a couple weeks for RyZen to drop so you can at least make a qualified comparison. You've waited this long, another month won't hurt. It could shake up prices too.