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After reading up on various PC components and the Corsair Obsidian 250D case, I'm getting an itch to build another system. Not that I will doing that anytime soon since my system is good enough that I couldn't justify spending the money. But if I got a windfall and have spend some of it, this is what I think I will build:

Corsair Obsidian 250D case
MiniITX board
i7-6700K CPU
Good CPU cooler
32 GB DDR memory
Blu-Ray burner
980 Ti Video card
2 TB Samsung SSD
650W Seasonic PSU
Am I missing anything?
I would keep my current display for now. But replace with a 4K one next year.

Overkill? Well yes, but that is the point. So why not?

whm1974 wrote:

After reading up on various PC components and the Corsair Obsidian 250D case, I'm getting an itch to build another system. Not that I will doing that anytime soon since my system is good enough that I couldn't justify spending the money. But if I got a windfall and have spend some of it, this is what I think I will build:

Corsair Obsidian 250D case
MiniITX board
i7-6700K CPU
Good CPU cooler
32 GB DDR memory
Blu-Ray burner
980 Ti Video card
2 TB Samsung SSD
650W Seasonic PSU
Am I missing anything?
I would keep my current display for now. But replace with a 4K one next year.

Overkill? Well yes, but that is the point. So why not?

Go for it!

A few points though:
1. That'll be 32GB of DDR4 memory there. I haven't been pricing DDR4 recently, but I suspect it won't exactly be cheap. Would 16GB with the option to add another 16GB later be a better idea?
2. The 6700K is still scarce right now. It has popped up on Newegg if the "verified owner" reviews are to be believed, but it sold out pretty quick with no ETAs for more supplies.
3. The 980Ti is about the best GPU available right now, but once again there's always Pascal next year. And Pascal is a bigger deal since we finally get the first node shrink since 2011. If you want to drive 4K, I'd still wait although the GTX-980Ti is at least passable at 4K resolutions.

Corsair's Obsidian 250D is porky compared to some other mini-ITX cases. Have you looked at something like the Silverstone Milo ML07? Otherwise, you can get micro-ATX cases that are no bigger than the mini-ITX Obsidian 250D. Micro-ATX brings 3 more PCIe slots and room for four DIMMs. Note that mini-ITX components are more expensive than similar micro-ATX parts.

Your PC build should probably have a smaller SSD and a larger hard-drive for storage.

Those are good points you brought up. But this was assuming that everything is in stock. And as the memory goes, mITX motherboards only have two slots. IF I did get a big enough windfall to do this, then I would prefer to wait until next year if possible.

Have you looked at something like the Silverstone Milo ML07?

That is neat looking case. Just checked Newegg and they don't have it and the other Milo cases are out of stock. Did this case just came out?

You can find Silverstone cases at other e-tailers
http://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Techn ... 00K8CIZYS/

These need an SFX or SFX-L power supply.
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product_p ... =7&area=en

So I found the link at Newegg. They do sell it it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811163256

Not bad for $70.

So how many builds have you guys done? I did something like five builds in my life, plus whatever systems I upgraded.

whm1974 wrote:

So how many builds have you guys done? I did something like five builds in my life, plus whatever systems I upgraded.

Two builds + upgrades. The charm has... faded somewhat since the heady days of 8800s and Core 2 Duos. I guess I'm getting older

Given that you've gone for a larger Mini ITX case with lots of bays, I'd opt for a smaller SSD and a pair of HDDs in RAID-1 for bulk storage. More bang for the buck.

Do you really think you need the Blu-Ray burner? I put one in my most recent build a couple of years ago (and even bought some media for it), but TBH I have NEVER used the Blu-Ray capability! It mostly gets used for ripping CDs, which is a waste of a drive that cost several x what a basic DVD burner would've cost. If I was building a system in a 250D case today, I'd probably put a SATA hot-swap bay in that 5-1/4" slot instead, and pick up an external USB Blu-Ray drive if I really thought I needed Blu-Ray capability.

whm1974 wrote:

So how many builds have you guys done? I did something like five builds in my life, plus whatever systems I upgraded.

Around a couple dozen, not counting upgrades. So not nearly as many as people who have done it for a living, but a decent number. These builds have been spread out over quite a few decades though.

My first build actually required use of a soldering iron, and writing of some custom device drivers in 8080 assembly language to make the keyboard, display, and floppy controller work decently! (Just to be clear, we're talking circa 1978 here...)

Atradeimos wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

So how many builds have you guys done? I did something like five builds in my life, plus whatever systems I upgraded.

Two builds + upgrades. The charm has... faded somewhat since the heady days of 8800s and Core 2 Duos. I guess I'm getting older

You're probably not nearly as old as me. (See above post.)

just brew it! wrote:

You're probably not nearly as old as me. (See above post.)

Hehe, always good to know that the malaise isn't a general condition.

What was the driving factor behind most of your upgrades? Moar cores and powar? Stuff stopped working? The delight of putting stuff together?

Two builds + upgrades. The charm has... faded somewhat since the heady days of 8800s and Core 2 Duos. I guess I'm getting older

It happens I suppose.

Do you really think you need the Blu-Ray burner? I put one in my most recent build a couple of years ago (and even bought some media for it), but TBH I have NEVER used the Blu-Ray capability! It mostly gets used for ripping CDs, which is a waste of a drive that cost several x what a basic DVD burner would've cost. If I was building a system in a 250D case today, I'd probably put a SATA hot-swap bay in that 5-1/4" slot instead, and pick up an external USB Blu-Ray drive if I really thought I needed Blu-Ray capability.

Most likely not. Come to think of it, I really don't don't use my DVD burner that much these days. Mostly for burning Linux distro ISO files. Hell thanks to Netflix and Hulu I don't even watch DVDs that much anymore.

What was the driving factor behind most of your upgrades? Moar cores and powar? Stuff stopped working? The delight of putting stuff together?

I would say mostly the delight of putting stuff together. Although I also delight in having a better system then those around me....

whm1974 wrote:

Come to think of it, I really don't don't use my DVD burner that much these days. Mostly for burning Linux distro ISO files.

Linux ISOs can be copied to a thumbdrive instead; most are "hybrid" ISOs which support booting from either USB or optical:

dd if=name-of-iso-file of=/dev/sdx

(execute with root privilege, and substitute the device name of the thumbdrive for sdx)

Voila, you have a bootable Linux installation thumbdrive. This, and the wide availability of stable virtualization solutions (why install to real hardware when virtual hardware is sufficient to try out most of the features of a new distro), has easily cut my use of optical drives by an order of magnitude.

Atradeimos wrote:

What was the driving factor behind most of your upgrades? Moar cores and powar? Stuff stopped working? The delight of putting stuff together?

All of the above. Less so the middle one; I generally build a new one before the previous one stops working. And I generally don't aim for bleeding edge; my goal is typically mid-range "power user" performance on a budget. (Used to game a fair bit, but don't any more, so gaming performance has ceased to be a consideration.)

just brew it! wrote:

(Used to game a fair bit, but don't any more, so gaming performance has ceased to be a consideration.)

Same here. That's reduced the upgrade motivation quite a bit. I think the GPU performance curve has been significantly steeper than the CPU curve over the past 5 or so years, even though the GPUs are currently a couple of process nodes behind. Embarrassingly parallel workloads etc., so no surprises there.

Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 have been intriguing enough for me to buy a 970. Let's see if it leads to more upgrades down the line.

Funny thing is, lately I've basically been on a 2-year upgrade cycle driven by Ubuntu LTS releases. I build a new rig, install the latest LTS on it, and run that in parallel with the old rig until I'm convinced that the new rig is stable, and happy with how I've got it tweaked. So it's really driven more by how I handle my OS upgrades than by any sort of desire for a performance bump.

The build I'm working on now (as I'm moving from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04) is really more of a "sidegrade" than an upgrade, at least CPU-wise. I'm going from a FX-8320 to a FX-8350 (which probably won't be noticeable in real-world applications), but I'm doubling the RAM (from 16GB ECC to 32GB ECC), and moving to RAID-1 SSDs for the system and /home, plus RAID-1 3TB mechanicals for bulk storage.

Yes, I realize Ubuntu 14.04 has been out for over a year; I tend to be pretty conservative with my OS upgrades, and use new releases in a VM for a while before committing to using them as the primary OS on a physical build. And then life gets in the way and delays things; I'd originally intended to have my main rig on 14.04 by spring of this year, i.e. giving Canonical roughly a year to work the kinks out.

Yes, I admit this is kind of a weird way to do things. But given that raw performance has been "good enough" for my use case for several years now (vividly illustrated by the fact that I'm still quite happy with the performance of my FX-8320), it kind of makes sense. These days, the OS upgrades are more interesting to me than the hardware...

(And if you can't tell based on my use of ECC RAM and RAID-1 storage, I value having a stable and reliable system very highly these days. Basically, I'm looking for enterprise-class reliability and stability on a consumer-class budget, and for the past few upgrade cycles I think I've come close to achieving that, mostly by going downscale on the CPU and spending the money on ECC and RAID.)

Sorry about all the edits; if you've viewed this post in one of its earlier versions, I kept thinking of things I wanted to add!

Linux ISOs can be copied to a thumbdrive instead; most are "hybrid" ISOs which support booting from either USB or optical:

Yes I know about thumbdrives. However I do give away Linux DVDs every so often.

whm1974 wrote:

Linux ISOs can be copied to a thumbdrive instead; most are "hybrid" ISOs which support booting from either USB or optical:

Yes I know about thumbdrives. However I do give away Linux DVDs every so often.

Ahh, OK. Given the relative media cost, that makes a lot of sense!

I'm really really feeling the itch. Maybe i can get some of my friends to let me do a build for them....

Found this at Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811112415

That looks like a better setup then the Corsair 250D. Cost more however.

whm1974,
For the 980ti get the EVGA classified version of the card. It is basically a kingpin version that only has 2 8 pin power connectors and dual bios switch "for worry free Bios tinkering" only costs around 50$ more than the regular 980Ti's and with its 14+ power phase design and extra wide circuit board 1.5-2" it is well worth the extra 50$ Also a stock 1280 or 90 boost speed is very good and the fact that most of them boost to around 1350mhz or so stock with Boost 2.0. It is the best 980TI for the money.

I love Cooler Masters Nepton series AIO coolers. They have a great powerful pump and coldplate assembly I cannot hear mine unless I take off side panel and put ear near it. I have the 140XL and it is no slouch and runs very quiet at 50% speed on the push pull fans and cools great at that speed. But for when your wearing headphones and want the most cooling it can provide its Jetflow fans are very very powerful and loud at 100%...watch your fingers almost like a delta fan just not as loud:) Also they are priced lower than the corsair cooler and perform as well or better from what I have read. Also my 140XL's radiator is 38mm thick so it has the cooling of basically a standard thinner 240mm radiator.

whm1974,
For the 980ti get the EVGA classified version of the card. It is basically a kingpin version that only has 2 8 pin power connectors and dual bios switch "for worry free Bios tinkering" only costs around 50$ more than the regular 980Ti's and with its 14+ power phase design and extra wide circuit board 1.5-2" it is well worth the extra 50$ Also a stock 1280 or 90 boost speed is very good and the fact that most of them boost to around 1350mhz or so stock with Boost 2.0. It is the best 980TI for the money.

The only two ways I get the 980 Ti anytime soon is it's on sale for at least $100 off or I win one in a contest. Unless vargis14, you love me enough to buy me one. You do don't you?

Given that this is a glorious for-the-lulz sort of build, and you're going mITX, I suggest swapping the Corsair case for a Lian Li PC-Q10. Big honking GPU in a small case. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be on the public market yet, and I'm sure it'll have a hefty price tag when it does.

Regarding optical...as much as I love having an internal DVD drive it should be noted that there's a lot of external USB drives including Blu-ray burners so I wouldn't discount a case you otherwise like just because it lacks a 5.25" bay.

I get what you guys are saying about the 250D being large for a mITX case, but I like the idea of having compartments and enough room for a liquid cooling setup. Overclocked i7-5820K anyone?

Regarding optical...as much as I love having an internal DVD drive it should be noted that there's a lot of external USB drives including Blu-ray burners so I wouldn't discount a case you otherwise like just because it lacks a 5.25" bay.

I will keep that in mind.

I've seen a video early this morning watching a dude putting together a build using the 250D. With the AIO water cooler it was a tight fit, but it still looked easier then other build videos I've seen using mITX cases without the cooler.