Skylake Build

ReZonator

1. What is your budget? €650

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming and media.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No.

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Hard Drives, SSD, HD 6870 1GB. Corsair builder series cx 600 watt PSU (4+ years old)

5. Do you need a monitor? NO. Have 1080p.

6. Do you need peripherals? No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes. Will play it save enough so probably 4Ghz, or a little more perhaps.

8. How can you pay? CC, Paypal, Bank Transfer, etc.

9. When are you purchasing? No rush, but in the coming month is feasible. I am interested in seeing what other skylake hardware is released in the coming months.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Galway, but I should be ok.

________________________________________________________________

I'm looking at building a Skylake rig in the near future, and after looking about and taking postage into consideration I might go with something like the build below from Computer Universe.net. I am working with a limited budget so I will hold off buying a modern graphics card and make do with an old 6870 for a while. I would appreciate any comments or advise about the build.

ASRock Z170 Pro 4S ATX ASRock Z170 Pro 4S
ATX
Product-ID 90613449; 1,23kg
in stock, ready for immediate shipping
ready for shipping
€ 118,76

Intel Core i5-6600K Boxed Intel Core i5-6600K
Boxed
Product-ID 90613426; 0,08kg
in stock, ready for immediate shipping
ready for shipping
€ 278,03

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR4 Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR4 Kit
Product-ID 90567067; 0,1kg
available on short notice
dispatched in 1-2 days
€ 54,27

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Product-ID 90428949; 1kg
in stock, ready for immediate shipping
ready for shipping
€ 32,98

Delete Item! Corsair Carbide 200R schwarz Corsair Carbide 200R
schwarz
Product-ID 90492054; 9kg
in stock, ready for immediate shipping
ready for shipping
€ 65,02

XFX P1-650G-TS3X 650 Watt XFX P1-650G-TS3X
650 Watt
Product-ID 90553022; 2,323kg
available on short notice
dispatched in 1-2 days
€ 80,52

Total Product Value € 629,58 + € 8 Postage with DHL

€ 650.15

What do you think?

ReZonator

Cannot edit, but RAM speed is DDR4, 2400 MHz.

Digital Solitude

A new GPU would be a better investment than a new case or PSU imo.

What're you coming from?

ReZonator

Q6600, DDR2. I'll probably pick up a new GPU after Christmas. I have an old ATX case but it's crap enough so I figured it's time to get a new one.

Digital Solitude

Fair enough, I wouldn't go for an XFX PSU, I didn't even know they made them. I'd stick with BeQuiet, Corsair or SeaSonic

ReZonator

You could be right about that, though the XFX is 80 PLUS Gold. I guess using my current 4+ year old PSU is asking for trouble?

Digital Solitude

Not at all, most PSUs, good ones anyways, should last 6-8 years. If not more. If its working now there's nothing wrong with keeping it

ReZonator

Good to know. I might keep the one I have then and save a few quid. Hopefully if/when it dies it will spare the rest of the build.

challengemaster

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Fair enough, I wouldn't go for an XFX PSU, I didn't even know they made them. I'd stick with BeQuiet, Corsair or SeaSonic

FYI, Seasonic make the XFX PSU's. No reason to avoid them.

Eoinmc97

challengemaster wrote: »

FYI, Seasonic make the XFX PSU's. No reason to avoid them.

This. SeaSonic make so many PSU's under brand names that it's hard to tell sometimes. However, the quality of SeaSonic speaks for itself.

unkel

I'm also interested in this. Also coming from a Q6600

I only need CPU + mobo + RAM so the above would work out at €450 for me. Is Computer Universe.net considered the best / cheapest current supplier?

Is there a new Intel tick / tock coming within the next year that I should wait for? I believe this Skylake i5-6600K 14nm is the very latest i5 only released in recent weeks?

BTW I'm also a heavy user of the PC but I do not game or edit videos. So I am piggy backing on ReZonator's thread - hope you don't mind

Digital Solitude

unkel wrote: »

I'm also interested in this. Also coming from a Q6600

I only need CPU + mobo + RAM so the above would work out at €450 for me. Is Computer Universe.net considered the best / cheapest current supplier?

Is there a new Intel tick / tock coming within the next year that I should wait for? I believe this Skylake i5-6600K 14nm is the very latest i5 only released in recent weeks?

There will be new ones down the line yeah, even a Haswell i3 will be a big jump

unkel

Did a bit more reading up and it looks like there is no new tick (to Cannonlake 10nm) for desktop CPUs until second half 2017 (2 years away). Moore's law dying a slow death?

So might as well pull the plug sooner rather than later. Now what mobo to buy?

Eoinmc97

unkel wrote: »

Did a bit more reading up and it looks like there is no new tick (to Cannonlake 10nm) for desktop CPUs until second half 2017 (2 years away). Moore's law dying a slow death?

So might as well pull the plug sooner rather than later. Now what mobo to buy?

Kaby Lake will be the Skylake refresh. Honestly, the only thing Kaby Lake will do is bump uo clocks and "maybe" add eDRAM to the CPU just like Broadwell did.

Currently, the Skylake line is only worth it when coming from pre Sandy Bridge CPUs, and whilst the K SKUs are good overclockers, I believe the true value lies in the i5 6500 paired with a H170 board.

levitronix

the best skylake chips are the laptop chips really low power and iris pro graphics and laptop K chip set !! option

SterlingArcher

Is a skylake i5 really worth just shy of an i7 4790.

TerrorFirmer

I wouldn't bother with Skylake at this point. There are years left in Haswell. In fact there's still years left in Sandybridge....

By the time either of the above platforms becomes obsolete in the sense that they'll no longer be able to run new games to a decent level with a good card, it will be long post-skylake.

unkel

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I wouldn't bother with Skylake at this point. There are years left in Haswell. In fact there's still years left in Sandybridge....

OP and myself currently have Q6600 S775 DDR2 systems. Are you recommending we upgrade to Haswell / Sandybridge instead of Skylake?

Surely not?

ReZonator

OP here. I decided to go with Haswell myself. Waiting on an Xeon E3 1231 V3 (4 core, 8 thread, 3.4 base clock, 3.8 turbo), 16 Gigs of DDR3 and a ASRock B85M-DGS (Tom’s Hardware Editor Approved Award). The board is minimalist, but I can't overclock the Xeon anyway so I went with the cheapest board that had PCI E 3.0. I'll make do with may case, Graphics card and PSU for the time being. Along with a SATA DVD burner the whole lot came to € 420 including delivery from MindFactory. It should leave enough room in my budget for a Graphics card if I can find a good price. I figured the extra threads would be a better long term investment than an overclocked i5, but who knows? It's a gamble. Thanks for the opinions but I think Haswell should be enough for the foreseeable future.

TerrorFirmer

I obviously wasn't recommend upgrading to Sandybridge, but yes, I would take Haswell over Skylake at the moment.

If you had bought a Sandybridge i5 in 2011, you'd still be playing the latest games at high settings effortlessly with a decent card, and most likely will continue to do so for another considerable time.

Intel have totally outdone themselves performance wise with Sandybridge, every release since then has just been slight improvements.

Haswell is a lot more affordable at the moment and by the time any haswell i5 is obsolete, so will skylake. The difference just isn't there.

unkel

Taking into account myself and the OP aren't gamers. What Haswell i5 CPU + mobo + 8gb ram would you recommend that's significantly cheaper than above €450 Skylake combo in the OP and pretty much on a par performance wise?

All your advise is greatly welcomed. I've been out of this game for quite some years