Windows Resource Monitor labeling the CPU and literally everything else as “poor” seems pretty nutty.
I’m looking at getting new system soon and I would really love to get some comments from the knowledgeable folks here on the system I’ve specced out below.
I’ve been holding off on getting a replacement for my 6.5 year old Win 7 system. I like Win 7 more than Win 10 and I was also hoping that I could wait until Intel could get the hardware fix for Spectre in their CPUs out. However, my Windows Update stopped working and after a solid week of trying to fix it I’ve decided to go ahead and get a new pre-built Win 10 system as a replacement. Here’s what I have specced so far. Please note that I like to have my OS on a separate drive from my apps. For this one I plan for the M2 drive to hold the OS and the 1GB SSD is for the apps. The 2GB HDD is for storage and backups.
Does this look okay? Anyone see any issues or concerns?
As Configured $2310
Tower Case: Fractal Design Define R6 USB-C Black – TG Tempered Glass, No PSU, E-ATX, Mid Tower Case
Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX B360-F GAMING, Intel B360 Chipset, LGA 1151, HDMI, ATX Motherboard
Processor: INTEL Core™ i5-8600 6-Core 3.1 - 4.3GHz Turbo, LGA 1151, 65W TDP, Retail Processor
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti GAMING, 1607 - 1683MHz, 8GB GDDR5, Graphics Card
Memory: KINGSTON 16GB Kit (2 x 8GB) HyperX Fury DDR4 2666MHz, CL16, Black, DIMM Memory
Power Supply: EVGA 750 G3, 80 PLUS Gold 750W, ECO Mode, Fully Modular, ATX Power Supply
CPU Cooler: Be Quiet! Pure Rock, 155mm Height, 150W TDP, Copper/Aluminum CPU Cooler
Thermal Compound: ARCTIC SILVER AS5-3.5G, 3.5g, High-Density Polysynthetic Silver, Thermal Compound
RGB Fan Kit: CORSAIR HD120 RGB 120mm, w/ Controller, 1725 RPM, 54.4 CFM, 30 dBA, Cooling Fan
Additional Fan: CORSAIR HD120 RGB 120mm, 1725 RPM, 54.4 CFM, 30 dBA, Cooling Fan
M.2 Storage: SAMSUNG 500GB 970 EVO 2280, 3400 / 2300 MB/s, V-NAND 3-bit MLC, PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe, M.2 SSD
SSD Storage: SAMSUNG 1TB 860 EVO 7mm, 550 / 520 MB/s, V-NAND MLC, SATA 6Gb/s, 2.5-Inch SSD
HDD Storage: TOSHIBA 2TB P300 HDWD120XZSTA, 7200 RPM, SATA 6Gb/s, 64MB cache, 3.5-Inch HDD
Optical Drive: ASUS DRW-24B1ST, DVD 24x / CD 48x, DVD-Writer, 5.25-Inch, Optical Drive
Keyboard: Corsair K55, RGB LED, Wired USB, Black, Gaming Keyboard500 GB on the M.2 drive seems excessive if you’re only going to use it for the OS. Maybe you could save some money there with a smaller drive?
I don’t like arctic silver. I’ve gotten it on motherboards more than once. It causes issues for a 0.00004% temperature differential.
Second bit, the 30 dba fans may be a tad loud. I hope you have a fan controller. Your CPU is 65 tdp which is chilly. The video card seems to peak at 180 tdp thought, which is warm.
$2310 seems really pricey for that configuration. The configuration itself seems reasonable, if you could get it at a better price. Power supply is a bit overkill for that config, but I suspect it won’t save you all that much to to dial that back a bit.
Well, by default the OS sticks your My Documents folders on the OS drive. I have a lot of stuff in those folders and though I’ve moved it to another drive on my current PC (I’ve a 128GB SDD for the OS currently), I’d like a bit more wiggle room there on the new box. Plus, the price isn’t much higher.
Should I just go with the normal default thermal paste then? Or is there something else that’s better you’d recommend?
I don’t know much about fans. Below are the choices they offer for the RGB fan kit. Which one should I choose that’s quiet? Do I also need an additional fan beyond that? The GPU is my main concern for heat.
COOLER MASTER
MasterFan MF120R ARGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 2000 RPM, 59 CFM, 31 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$66)**
MasterFan Pro 120 Air Flow RGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1100 RPM, 48.8 CFM, 20 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$76)**
MasterFan Pro 120 Air Pressure RGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1500 RPM, 35 CFM, 20 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$76)**
MasterFan Pro 140 Air Flow RGB 3 x 140mm, w/ Controller, 800 RPM, 53 CFM, 20 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$89)**
MasterFan Pro 140 Air Pressure RGB 3 x 140mm, w/ Controller, 1550 RPM, 46.2 CFM, 20 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$89)**
CORSAIR
SP120 RGB 120mm, w/ Controller, 1400 RPM, 52 CFM, 26 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$40)**
HD120 RGB 120mm, w/ Controller, 1725 RPM, 54.4 CFM, 30 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$49)**
SP120 RGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1400 RPM, 52 CFM, 26 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$68)**
HD120 RGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1725 RPM, 54.4 CFM, 30 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$89)**
ML140 PRO RGB 2 x 140mm, w/ Controller, 1200 RPM, 55.4 CFM, 20.4 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$97)**
LL140 RGB 2 x 140mm, w/ Lighting Node PRO, 1300 RPM, 51.5 CFM, 25 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$111)**
ML120 PRO RGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1600 RPM, 47.3 CFM, 25 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$123)**
LL120 RGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Lighting Node PRO, 1500 RPM, 43.25 CFM, 24.8 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$133)**
NZXT
Aer RGB 2, 2 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1500 RPM, 52.44 CFM, 33 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$123)**
Aer RGB 2, 2 x 140mm, w/ Controller, 1500 RPM, 91.19 CFM, 33 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$129)**
Aer RGB 2, 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1500 RPM, 52.44 CFM, 33 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$160)**
THERMALTAKE
Riing 12 LED RGB 120mm, w/ Controller, 1500 RPM, 40.6 CFM, 26.4 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$24)**
Riing 12 LED RGB 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1500 RPM, 40.6 CFM, 26.4 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$68)**
Riing Plus 12 RGB TT Premium Edition 3 x 120mm, w/ Controller, 1500 RPM, 48.34 CFM, 24.7 dBA, Cooling Fan **(+$103)**
I agree with @Stepsongrapes, that seems a bit pricey. I put together a Ryzen 2600x system with some of the same hardware you’re picking (1070 Ti, M.2) but I kept my old case and PSU. It ran about $1200.
As far as fans go, I think the R6 comes with 2 140mm fans. Get another 2 and you’ll be fine. From what I gather the R6 is a pretty quiet case, I have an old R4 running 4x140s and you can barely hear it idle, makes a little noise at full tilt, and I never worry about temps.
Something with a controller so you can adjust according to needs (you run full load and adjust fan speed to your taste sorry for missing senses) I don’t know if the case takes 140mm but if it does all other things being equal, a larger blade at lower rpms will push same volume of air at more comfortable noise levels.
For specific paste I personally just got some white paste. I used to be really into cooling back in the day and I’m convinced I was fooled into thinking it makes a real difference. Toothpaste works almost as well in the short term (it dries out thought).
edit: okay for dba 3 more db is roughly twice as loud.
This ML140 seems to have almost unbelievable stats as a 20 dBa is 4 times quieter than the 26 dba fans. 1200 RPM is pretty slow thought (and thus quiet). Took a quick look, seems to be a Noctua NF-P14. Corsair used to sell a lot of rebranded stuff, I assume that’s what this is. Noctua is a good brand for quiet fans. I don’t know this magnetic technology, but if the numbers are correct those are nice fans. Wow those are expensive fans, $28 each on amazon. Looks fancy!
ML140 PRO RGB 2 x 140mm, w/ Controller, 1200 RPM, 55.4 CFM, 20.4 dBA, Cooling Fan (+$97)
@coldsteel - I’m going to do the same thing I did before and recommend you get the same mobo/processor/RAM combo a few of us did further up. You’ll get some of the hardware fixes in, you’ll get high clocks speeds, you’ll have stability, and you will also have headroom.
$2310 for what you have is terrible. Your getting middling last-gen for a premium price point.
Yeah, there’s something wrong with that build price-wise.
Just as comparison, I built my own last week. I did not get the two extra hardrives, but I did get a full 1 TB M.2 NVMe. On top of that, I got an i7-9700k and an RTX 2070 GPU. ASRock Phantom Gaming 6 motherboard (so not extreme, but not bargain basement either). Closed loop liquid cooler. Power supply and RAM were essentially the same (for example, mine was a gold standard 750 W power supply).
My total came to just over $1,700.
Okay, I went up though about 100 posts and didn’t see it. Would you mind saying what that mobo/processor/RAM combo is?
I’m looking at AVADirect because of their great reputation for customer service and custom part choices. They’re who I used for my current PC and it’s been rock solid for 6+ years. That said, their prices don’t look as great as they used to back in the day. I don’t like CyberPower or IBuyPower because of their bad customer service and spotty QC. Is there another decent builder out there with good pricing that doesn’t ship a lot of DOA systems?
Alienware / Dell. You usually want to wait for a sale, but you should get well below 2300 for a set-up like that, even a better set-up.
This is the thread I think Jeff was referring to. Seems several folks on Qt3 have been going with Z390 motherboards (ASRock & Gigabyte – I went with the latter – but I’d recommend googling Z390 reviews and pick one that looks good to you) and the new generation of Intel CPUs (I went with 9700K).
Oops! Sorry I forgot we had 2 running threads for this kind of thing.
- Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro (2 versions, 1 with wifi, and another without for savings)
- 2x 8 Gig DDR4 sticks of 3200 memory to fit your budget.
- Intel i7-9700k
- Samsung M.2 970
- I used my old AiO Corsair waterblock. But a waterblock with a 120mm x 240mm radiator would be nice.
Then work up from there.
Honestly, that price that was quoted to you is a bit ridiculous when compared to something like this:
Example without great coupon (which do exist infrequently)
Alienware Aurora R7
Aurora R7 Base
Processor
8th Gen Intel® Core™ i5 8600K (6-Core, 9MB Cache, up to 4.3GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology)
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit English
Video Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X
Memory
16GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2666MHz; up to 64GB (additional memory sold separately)
Hard Drive
128GB M.2 SATA SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM SATA HDD (Storage)
Chassis Options
Alienware™ 850 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply with High Performance Liquid Cooling
CD ROM/DVD ROM
Tray Load DVD-RW Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD)
Wireless
Qualcomm DW1810 1x1 802.11ac Wi-Fi Wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2
Keyboard
No Keyboard
Mouse
No Mouse
Cable
US Power Cord
Driver
DW1820 Wireless Driver
Diagnostic CD / Diskette
No Resource DVD
Optical Software
Cyberlink Media Suite Essentials without Media
Label
Regulatory Label
Documentation/Disks
Safety/Environment and Regulatory Guide (English/French Multi-language)
Placemat
Aurora R7 Placemat
Retail Software
Dell.com Order
Retail Packing Label
Dell.com Order
Packaging
Shipping Material
Processor Branding
Intel® Core™ i5 Label
Additional Software
Additional Software
Operating System Recovery Options
Thank you for Choosing Dell
FGA Module
No FGA
Hardware Support Services
1 Year Hardware Warranty with Onsite/In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed)
Microsoft Office 30 Day Trial
McAfee Live Safe
No Anti-virus Requested
$1,899.99
Show savings
- $250.00
Item Total: $1,649.99
Okay thanks, I’ll take a look at that. Like I said, I don’t use CyberPower because of their horrible customer support but I can look for that with another builder and see what the price is.
This is $2,200 for example, just the graphics card is half of that:
This is a pretty good deal as well:
Okay thanks. The new CPUs seem somewhat scarce and the pricing reflects that so that’s why I was looking at the 8600K which is supposed to be a good value for gamers from what I’ve read. I’m not against the newest gen CPUS if I can find any value there.
Yeah, the system I had before my current one was a Dell. It wasn’t horrible but it had 8 lane PCIe slots which was NOT what they advertised and limited what I could do with upgrades. I do like them for monitors though. My current monitor is a Dell.
As for Alienware, we bought some of those for work once and they literally arrived in pieces in the boxes and had to be put back together. The packing was that bad. Their customer service was horrible to non-existent. We used the PCs for years but they had to be repaired over and over. I swore I’d never buy another Alienware. Of course this was back before Dell bought them out so maybe they’re better now. Maybe.
I build my desktops, so I have no experience with them. I didn’t have a great experience with Alienware when I got my refurb laptop but… .it’s still kicking just fine. They’re pretty popular on the deal sites too,especially the refurbs. If you dig deeper, you can usually find out with motherboard, the exact one, they are putting in them. I do recall it took some digging in the support section to find it though.
1600 is a reasonable price. 2300, not a chance. There is nothing in your configuration that should make that system you listed anywhere close to 2k, no matter who is building it. Th eonly real premium thing you have going on in there is that R6 case, great case I have it!, and the 970 but even the 970 is the 500GB not their beast 1TB.