I use my current PC for both gaming, and work in my home office. The parts are about 5 y/o, but I can get my work done, and I can play most games reasonably well.
Tonight I decided to start searching around for space parts for my current rig, so in case a component went tits up, I could just swap it out, while saving up to build an Uber rig that should last about 5-6 years. I mistakenly thought "Well, these parts are pretty old, so they should be pretty cheap." Boy, was I wrong. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places, but trying to find NEW spare parts would return results that were ridonkulous. For instance, I've got an old Sandy Bridge i7-2600K. Some joker on NewEgg is trying to sell the non-K version of it for $414. Amazon was a little better, but they were still trying to charge $365 for it. I can get a brand new i7-6700K Skylake for $330. Nobody had any "new" versions of my motherboard, either. NewEgg had a refurb unit listed for $100, but it was out of stock. The only in stock Asus Z68 based motherboards I could find at were all refurbs, and different models. It got even more bizarre, when trying to find a spare for my Gigabyte HD-7950 Windforce. People were trying to sell it used anywhere from $350+ to over $500!
At this point, it would just be cheaper for me to build a slightly modified version of the Sweet Spot build from the latest guide on here. I'll list off what I'm thinking about getting, and ask a few questions about some of the components:
Here's what I'm considering picking up:
i7-6700K
MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6G
Noctua NH-D15S
EVGA Supernova G2 750W PSU
(I've already got a really large system case, plenty of fans, a Samsung EVO 850 for my OS drive, and a bunch of HDDs, so I don't need to buy those).
One of these motherboards:
Asus Z170 Pro Gaming
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3
Gigabyte Z170X-Ultra Gaming
One of these sets of RAM:
G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3200
G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4-3200
G.Skill Ripjaws V 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4-3200
Now, here comes the questions about the components where I listed multiple possible purchases:
1) I've had really good luck with Asus motherboards in the past, but the NewEgg reviews have been all over the map. Seems a lot of people were having their boards either DOA, or die shortly after install. The two Gigabyte boards didn't fair that much better, but I think the more expensive of the two seemed to have the least amount of complaints. Trying to take it all in consideration, it just seemed like every Z170 based board was having problems. Anybody here experience issues with the models I listed, or were reviews just due to bad luck, incorrect install, etc...? This isn't going to be the base for the Uber rig, and it'll only have 1 graphics card, so I don't need anything other than something that'll be rock solid stable, with plenty of connections for HDDs and USB peripherals.
2) As far as the RAM goes, I'd love to have 64GB, if possible, but going through the motherboard manuals to look at their qualified vendor list was...strange. One of them even listed 128GB RAM support (8x16GB), even though there's only 4 slots. Another would only have some 4x4GB corsair modules listed under DDR4-3200 support. I'm also a bit confused if I need to make sure the modules support XMP 2.0, and if Windows 7 even supports 64GB RAM. The Intel Ark page for the CPU says it does, and the motherboard manuals did sporadically list 64GB support (just in the non-3200 speed sections). It's not mission critical to have 64GB, since I have 32GB now, but I would make it easier to run more tasks at the same time. I also noticed in the sample build page, that the recommended RAM was the 2x16GB configuration. Was that because it was $35 cheaper, or to help with heat dissipation?
Oh, and I'm sorry I'm forgetting your username, but I'd like to give a shout out and a big "Thank You!" to the user in the comment section of the peripheral post from yesterday or today. I checked out that Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS HOTAS and it looks like it would be perfect to play some games like Evochron Legacy, Wing Commander Saga, Elite, X3, and maybe Star Citizen, etc... It's only going to be $130 when it rolls out, and Thrustmasters web page on it mentioned it used a lot of the same tech that my Warthog does (which I baby, since it's still $500). I also found out their $90 rudder pedals will work with both my Warthog and the 16KM FCS, so I'll give those a shot, as well!