TR Forums

Hey Y'all,

I read the April system builder's guide, and came up with this, and i'm building my first PC since i was a hardcore Mac user for quite a while.

Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2.5” SATA 3 Solid State Drive (SSD) With AES-256 Encryption
Western Digital WD1003FZEX Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5in Hard Drive OEM
INTEL® CORE™ I7-6700K Processor 8M Cache 4GHZ Base 4.2GHZ Turbo FC-LGA1151 Retail Box
Fractal Design Define R5 ATX Tower Case Black 2X5.25 8X3.5INT No PSU Front 2XUSB3.0 Audio
EVGA SUPERNOVA 750 G2 80 PLUS GOLD CERTIFIED 750W POWER SUPPLY 140MM FAN 10YR WTY
Noctua NH-D15S Dual Tower Heatpipe Cooler w/ NF-A15 140mm PWM Fan LGA115X/2011 AM2/3+ FM1/2+
ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming ATX LGA1151 Z170 Skylake DDR4 CrossFireX/SLI SATA3 USB3.1 HDMI Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series F4-2133C15Q-32GVR DDR4 2133MHZ 32GB(8GBX4) Memory Kit
+ NVIDIA GTX 970

My questions are as follows,
- Is skylake really my best best? I would need something that handles "gaming" for 3D Engine, but also runnign audio editing software which uses a lot of plugins (CPU), Is More core the way to go ? Or is skylake fine ?
- Thunderbolt support on PC seems expensive for nothing, what's the best way to have access to thunderbolt in my case, or am i limited because my rig is mostly gaming oriented ?
- NOISE ! : I can't seem to find anywhere that gives me decent info on noise and cooling, how do i know what i'm buying is quiet ? I took the Fractal case for that and the cooler as well, but i don't know what else i shoudl add... More fans ? quiet ones ?

Thanks !!

Noise is a pretty simple equation. Less fans = better as long as temps are in check. Larger fans = better because rpms are lower.
1) The Define R5 is a good case. TR reviewed it here. Seems to be sufficiently quiet. Are you sure you need a full size ATX case and motherboard, or would mATX fit your needs? If mATX motherboards are acceptable, the Silverstone TJ08E is almost half the volume as the Define R5.
2) The i7-6700K will handle anything.
3) Are you for sure needing 32GB RAM right now? 32GB is quite a bit, but I always recommend only getting 2 sticks of RAM on the initial build so you have room to expand down the road. G.Skill has a 2x16GB kit for the same price as the one you quoted, same speeds also. 2133MHz isn't overly fast for DDR4, and since you're getting a Z170 motherboard, you can run higher speed RAM. Personally I'd prefer this 2x8GB kit of 2800MHz CAS16 for $68. Then when 16GB DIMM prices come down in the future, you can stick a 2x16GB kit next to this for 48GB total.
4) You don't need a 750W PSU for a GTX970. The EVGA 650 P2 is only $90 after MIR and 80 Plus Platinum efficiency.
5) Noctua coolers are very nice. You probably don't need the dual tower version though unless you're going some heavy overclocking. And in that case, its probably better to go with an AIO liquid cooler. The single tower version should be plenty. The Cooler Master Hyper 212EVO for $25-$30 on sale is highly regarded for it's cooling performance. It's fan seems relatively quiet, but even if you wanted to get a better/different fan for an extra $15 that's still less than a Noctua cooler. Be careful what CPU tower cooler you choose, some hang over the first RAM slot which could pose a problem for RAM with tall heatsinks. Do your research.
6) I'd recommend the Gigabyte GA-Z170MX motherboard for $105 after MIR and promo code.
7) You don't need a 7200rpm hdd since it will be storing music, videos, pictures, etc. Something with a slower spindle speed will produce less noise. This 2TB drive for $75 is the same price as the 1TB drive you have in your list. Or $15 more you can get the 3TB version. As a general rule of thumb, good sale prices on 2+TB hdds is around $30/TB.

maxspsound wrote:

Hey Y'all,

Welcome to the Tech Report!

maxspsound wrote:

Western Digital WD1003FZEX Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5in Hard Drive OEM

That is a very small hard-drive. If you're going to go to the trouble of including a spinning hard-disk drive in your PC, I believe that you should get one that holds at least 3.0 TB. If you just need a tiny drive, use an SSD.

maxspsound wrote:

Fractal Design Define R5 ATX Tower Case

I'm going to agree with what DPete27 said about size. Micro-ATX's four PCIe slots are plenty for most of us. I like the Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E. You might also like the Cooler Master Silencio 352.
For a micro-ATX motherboard, take a look at the $115 -10MIR Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5.

In another thread, I wrote:

If you have a need for the six or seven slots offered by ATX, consider a $113 MSI Z170A SLI Plus, $125 Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 3, $128 Asus Z170 Pro Gaming or $150 ASRock Z170 Extreme4. All of those Z170 motherboards support overclocking with a "K" processor. If you will never overclock and you still need to install six PCIe cards, then the $103 Asus H170 Pro Gaming offers a full set of features with the H170 chipset.

maxspsound wrote:

G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series F4-2133C15Q-32GVR DDR4 2133MHZ 32GB(8GBX4) Memory Kit

With Skylake, you have two memory channels. If you want 32 GiB, start with 2x 16 GiB instead of 4x 8 GiB. You can expand to 4x 16 GiB later if you need that much memory.
$105¼ 2x 16 GiB PC4-19200 G.Skill F4-2400C15D-32GIS (DDR4-2400, 15-15-15-35, 1.2 V)

Hey there,

Thanks for the quick reply,

I feel i forgot to mention a few things.

For the HDD, i opted for a 1TB because, its mostly what i need for storing projects. I usually, keep a small work drive, another one for Sound FX and Audio Samples, and then i have backups running on a bigger slower drive. Which is mainly why i took the big case, since it has a lot of room, i thought it would be good for space in the long run. Or maybe you suggest i don't keep a work drive and just get a bigger SSD ? and a 5400rpm disk for storage.

I chose the fractal because i heard it was quiet and i LOVE the look haha, i really don't mind having a big box, if size is not an issue, should i stay with the fractal ? (price point is really good)

I chose the 4x8gb , because it really don't plan on upgrading higher than that, at least i don't think i will need to... ? Also that version compared to the 2x16gb, was a lot cheaper (on sale) in canada (where i am) so i was looking to save. Should i still change if i don't plan on upgrading ?

I don't know anything about overclocking, but i'm developing for VR games right now and i want all the juice i can get, while staying as quiet as possible. Which is why i went for the Noctua, i heard (i'm open to be corrected here) that water cooling systems are noisy. As for the Noctua, i based myself on TR system build to know if it fits with the ram, am i ok ?

PSU : Noted, i will change, do you know if the EVGA is quiet ? (Db ratings )

JustAnEngineer wrote:

$105¼ 2x 16 GiB PC4-19200 G.Skill F4-2400C15D-32GIS (DDR4-2400, 15-15-15-35, 1.2 V)

Nice find. Not sure why that didn't pop up in my newegg search. Here's the newegg.ca link. Go with that kit. Not having heat spreaders will be beneficial for CPU cooler clearance so you can use any CPU cooler you want, and that kit is cheaper than the slower 4x8GB kit in the OP.

Definitely go with the EVGA 650P2 for $125 after MIR and promo code as opposed to the 750G2 for $145. I have an EVGA 550G2 and love it. I did a LOT of research before buying it. The fan is quiet...when it runs at all. My current system (in signature) doesn't pull enough juice even in games to make the semi-passive fan spin. Silence is golden (pun intended).

500GB SSD is fine. It's just not cost effective to get a 1TB hdd when you can get a 2TB hdd for the same price. That's all.

The Silverstone TJ08 costs the same as the Define R5 in Canada. Your choice. My brother, who does freelance recording has the TJ08 and is happy with it. I have the PS07 which is the same case but a cheaper front panel. Each of us has an SSD and single 2TB hdd and there's still room to add 2 other hard drives. However, more spinning hard drives = more noise. So good idea to stick with a single large hdd. What do you think about the looks of the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv for $10 more?

My brother's system is cooled by a Cooler Master Seidon 120V. I think Corsair AIOs are probably quieter, but you can't really hear the pump on his. We swapped his fan out for a quieter one and his system is, for all practical purposes, silent. If you're not overclocking past what you can achieve on stock voltage, the dual tower Noctua and liquid cooling are overkill.

If you really like the design of the Define R5 ATX case from Fractal Design, they make a Define Mini micro-ATX case, but it's not very mini on the outside.

I think i got something now. You guys are awesome.

Changed the Cooler to what you recommended
Changed the RAM
Changed HDD
Changed the PSU as well to EVGA 650

The only thing that i'm still unsure is the motherboard and case. Apart from space, the case size does not really matter right?

For the motherboard i'm worried that in the long run i might want Thunderbolt support (for audio interfaces) so basically or one extra PCIe, i mean, my interface (Metric Halo) is firewire right now, but will swit and Thunderbolt soon and for PC's (USB), but who know's, new audio stuff still seem to favor Thunderbolt. (But this is not a must have, i'm just asking)

And

Maybe the PCIe SSD's when they get cheaper, or will i never want those in this build's lifetime ?

That's why i'm still leaning toward the initial size of the tower and motherboard.

All of the motherboards that I linked support M.2 2280 PCIe+NVMe SSDs. Unfortunately, these high-performance drives still carry an unattractive price premium over similar SATA+AHCI drives in the same form factor or SATA+AHCI drives enclosed in a 2½" plastic case.
http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/internal- ... =a7&page=1

maxspsound wrote:

NOISE ! : I can't seem to find anywhere that gives me decent info on noise and cooling, how do i know what i'm buying is quiet ? I took the Fractal case for that and the cooler as well, but i don't know what else i shoudl add... More fans ? quiet ones ?

You could check out if SPCR has reviewed the widget you're looking at, and see how loud they say it is.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Generally with fans you want them to be bigger and slower if you're looking for a low noise solution. That's why 120 and 140mm fans are the norm now, even on cases that are small in comparison. I'm using a couple of PH-F140SP's from Phanteks in the builds I have here. If you really want to go all in about noise you can also use a fan controller to run them at reduced speed, but at 19dba you probably won't hear them above the ambient noise level anyway.

Regarding the thunderbolt issue: It seems like you don't want/need a motherboard with onboard thunderbolt (since the Asus Z170 Pro doesn't have thunderbolt?) but want the ability to add an add-in card down the road? A mATX motherboard like the Gigabyte Z170MX Gaming5 that JAE and myself recommended should suit your needs. The GPU will sit in the top PCIe x16 slot and cover the PCIe x1 slot, if you need/want an internal WiFi card (there are USB WiFi cards also) that would sit in the second PCIe x16 slot, and a thunderbolt add-in card would be in the bottom PCIe x16 slot. In other words, you can stick a PCIe x1 or x4 card into a PCIe x16 slot on a motherboard. The Z170MX Gaming5 also has special regulated USB ports for USB DACs. My brother has the Gigabyte Z97MX-Gaming5 which he likes, hence why I recommended the Z170 version.

I've talked with my brother regarding the curious industry lag in sticking with Firewire audio interfaces. USB is very common on many modern devices and Firewire is basically an obsolete tech. USB3.0 has more bandwidth than Firewire and isn't nearly as expensive to implement as Thunderbolt (licensing fees). I just don't see why it would make sense for the industry to choose Thunderbolt over USB3.0.

Yeah, its mostly a driver issue. Some audio DAC's are actually going from firewire (400/800) to USB 2.0, because they optimized their drivers to a point where firewire is not need anymore and USB2 is really stable. I heard USB3 for DAC's is overkill and as of yet, unstable for audio.

For the rest, thanks for all the help ! I'm going to order soon and build this tiny beast !

Thanks !


-M

If you don't mind, please post a finalized build list when you get everything purchased so others can reference this thread at a later date.

Here is the "final" build.

Ordered it today.

In the end i did a lot of reading on quiet stuff so i changed a few things, and decided to stay with the ATX size. I realized that i needed more PCIe slots for possible UAD audio processors and etc. Read also more on quiet operation and i might, in time, add a bit more fans if ever, but so far this is good for the first month, i needed to build it quick for a specific gig so i had to make a choice fast, so i split down the middle for a few things, but all in all, i think this will be MORE than enough power for this year.

INTEL® CORE™ I7-6700K Processor 8M Cache 4GHZ Base 4.2GHZ Turbo FC-LGA1151
EVGA SUPERNOVA 650 P2 80 PLUS
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA3 (Was 20$ cad more than the regular SSD, so i decided to try it)
Western Digitial WD2003FZEX Black 2TB SATA 6GB/S 7200RPM
ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming ATX LGA1151 Z170
Corsair Carbide Quiet 600Q Full Tower
be quiet! Shadow Rock 2 CPU Cooler

I will post back when i get it built, to let y'all know if its quiet or not haha.
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series F4-2400C15D-16GVR DDR4 2400MHZ 16GB (2X8GB) Memory Kit
NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970

More fans mean more noise. If you can get by with just one or two case fans you should probably stick with that.

You should be very happy with that build.

What particular plugins are you going to be using? Sometimes you need stuff with a lot of CPU spunk and other times you need lots of RAM (particularly for big sample libraries). I built my PC with audio production (and some VM hosting) in mind. At first I wanted to try to keep it on the cheap with a Core i5-6600K, but I wound up replacing it with a Core i7-6700K. I have a total of 32GB of memory (in a pair of 16GB modules, which wasn't cheap, but I went mini-ITX with this system so it's my own fault). It's let me hit basically-realtime latencies (sub-10ms round trip) in Pro Tools 12 using an assortment of AAX plugins—nothing out of the ordinary, but there is a linear-phase EQ from Waves, and I've used Kontakt/NI Komplete sorta heavily for the last 2-3 months.

Looks like a great build.....you can even run the rift:)

derFunkenstein wrote:

I have a total of 32 GiB of memory (in a pair of 16 GiB modules, which wasn't cheap.

Prices are quite a bit better now than they were a year ago.
CA$180 2x 16 GiB PC4-19200 G.Skill F4-2400C15D-32GVR (DDR4-2400, 15-15-15-35, 1.2 V)
CA$173½ 2x 16 GiB PC4-19200 Kingston HX424C15FBK2/32 (DDR4-2400, CAS 15)
CA$229¼ 2x 16 GiB PC4-25600 G.Skill F4-3200C16D-32GVK (DDR4-3200, 16-18-18-38, 1.35 V)

maxspsound wrote:

Samsung 850 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA3 (Was 20$ cad more than the regular SSD, so i decided to try it)
Western Digitial WD2003FZEX Black 2TB SATA 6GB/S 7200RPM

The EVO will be fine. I have a personal boycott of Samsung SSDs since they really did take a dump on 840-series customers from a great height and I won't forgive them for that in a hurry. Nonetheless, the 850 EVO is one of the best midrange drives you can buy.
I always opt for low spindle speed drives (such as WD Reds) in my builds now since the reduced noise and vibration is worth the reduced performance. In saying that, the Blacks are some of the quieter 7200RPM drives you can get, so no big deal there.

maxspsound wrote:

NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970

This is the deal-breaker. Any graphics card at this level will be both the power-hungriest and noisiest part in a quiet build. What model you chose will have a huge impact on the noise levels.
The good news is that many of the 970 cards on the market are quiet or inaudible at idle, and I guess if you're gaming you will have game noise or headphones masking the noise of the graphics card anyway.

Have you already bought the 970? If not, look at reviews of the specific model you intend to buy and see if it has good acoustic performance at idle before you buy.

I have four 5 year old WD WD green 2tb drives and they have performed flawlessly for me. Also the gaming machine, my light gaming/HTPC and my very light gaming HTPC have been running 24/7 for all those years so I believe when the drive is not in use the way it parks like most every 5400 rpm drives really helps with the life of the 5400rpm high capacity drives.

I do not know how they work exactly, if they stop spinning altogether or just slow to 100rpms or what but they have been working great. Come to think about it I think never letting the drive come to a complete stop and letting the platter just slow to 100 or so rpm's would take a ton a strain off the drive motor instead of it trying to turn the platters from a complete stop...especially the really big 4+ TB drives with 5 or 6 platters. This is just a thought. But starting the platters from a dead stop is when the motor strains the most I would think.

The Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2 is a great cooler and it definitely offers a lot of cooling per $, but it's HUGE (front to back). It looks like it overhangs all 4 RAM slots. Hopefully those G.Skill RAM heatsinks fit underneath the CPU heatsink.....according to this you might be ok.

IMO, that's a lot more heatsink than you need. It's also very heavy (2x the weight of typical 120mm towers!!) and will put a lot of stress on your motherboard. Be sure to lay your case down so the cooler is facing up when/if traveling.

maxspsound wrote:

Hey Y'all,

My questions are as follows,
- Is skylake really my best best? I would need something that handles "gaming" for 3D Engine, but also runnign audio editing software which uses a lot of plugins (CPU), Is More core the way to go ? Or is skylake fine ?

Thanks !!

No. Broadwell is your best bet. Specifically, the i7-5775C.

It doesn't run any hotter than Skylake, and in return for a (tiny) performance loss vs Skylake you get 128MB of CPU cache. It was intended for HD graphics use but in practice is a L3 general CPU cache.

From your post I'm assuming that you're building something for general workstation use as well as gaming so I'd look to one of the two available socketed Broadwell CPUs.

Edit: Something else to keep an eye on is a I7-5820 based build, which is comparable pricewise to a high-end Skylake system but has far more CPU power. Of course it also uses far more power and requires a 2011v3 motherboard.