IMPORTANT! Final Part Check Before Buying First PC! PLEASE HELP!

Great build , you have to remove a section of HDD cages for the card to fit.

Few items to consider before pulling the trigger:

1. Remember that at this point in time, we are on the proverbial "bleeding edge with Z270 MoBos and CPUs. I typically wait 3 months or so from when a new chipset / CPU drops to all manufacturers to find ... well better said for the bleeding edge folks to find.... MoBo bugs as well as wait for the 5-6 BIOS and onboard divers updates that will occur and fpor the inevitable yield improvements on CPU production lines whereby the newer CPUs are more efficient and therefore average overclocks get bumped a bit. Sometimes there are minor an only inconvenient (such as Asus Z87 boards where external devices fell asleep and wouldn't wake up (fixed by C1 stepping). Other times they lead to industry wide recalls as happened with the B3 stepping for P68 boards. If ya don't wanna chance that ... may wanna wait till April.

2. The H7 is a better cooler than the $25 Hyper 212 but it's not in the neighborhood of the Noctua NH-D15 or Phantels PH-TC14PE

3. With DDR4 3200 available for under $100, might consider an upgrade.

4. If ya change one thing, it should by the HD

The SSD doesn't do beans for anything not stored on the SSD. For all the rest, presumable gaming ... what would you prefer ?

WD Blue = 4.01 MB/s
WD Black = 6.34 MB/s
Segate SSHD = 9.76 MB/s

$73 1 TB - https://pcpartpicker.com/product/ftPfrH/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st1000dx001
$99 2 TB - https://pcpartpicker.com/product/NpBrxr/seagate-firecuda-2tb-35-7200rpm-hybrid-internal-hard-drive-st2000dx002

We haven't installed a HD in over 6 years ... only SSDs... all still in use

5. The space is very competitive at the 480 / 1060 level .. what you choose depends on what you play. And you did well by selecting the MSI...

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/RX_480_Gaming_X/28.html

this is thus far the only RX 480 that looks like it can compete with the GTX 1060 and its custom designs

the [MSI Rx 480] card is 4% faster than the RX 480 reference and 6-7% slower than the GeForce GTX 980, GTX 1060, and Radeon R9 Fury, which all have roughly the same performance at 1080p

Click to expand...

Now let's look at that in some detail ...

a) The MSI **was** 6 - 7 % slower than the reference 1060 at the time of testing... The MSI 1060 was 3% faster than the reference model... So "outta the gate", the 1060 had a 10% lead in TPUs test suite.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/RX_480_Gaming_X/23.html

b) Recent AMD driver improvements show a 2.1% average increase in performance from the last driver update, we don't what if anything nVidia driver updates have provided.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_Crimson_ReLive_Drivers/6.html

c) The MSI 1060 overclocks 15.1% / The 480 gets 8.6%

d) So, according to TPU, with a 10% advantage from release date, and the overclocking advantage (6%), the AMD driver improvements won't be enough to offset that gap.

e) But, while TPUs 16 game test suite and even the 21 games tested in the driver article represents a very wide swath of today's popular games, they may not be the games you pay, so best to start here, go thru the games of interest **to you** and consider the choice accordingly

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/RX_480_Gaming_X/6.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X/6.html

There are some secondary considerations:

f) The MSI 480 is now $260 / MSI 1060 is now $277 ... $17 advantage

g) 480 requires a 75 - 100 watt bigger PSU which adds cost ... figure $10
MSI 480 (196 - 224 watts) https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/RX_480_Gaming_X/21.html
MSI 1060 (121 - 125 watts) https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X/22.html

h) With rule of thumb of 1 fan per 75 - 100 watts , an extra case fan may be warranted... figure $15

i) Difference in power usage is worth about $75 over 3 years at USA average $0.131 per kw-hr

j) The 1060 is 3 dbA quieter than the 480

All that being said, those secondary consideration won't matter if the card you choose isn't equal or faster than the other **in the games you play** . If you don't use MSI Afterburner, than OC advantage doesn't matter ... if you don't pay for electricity, then cost of power doesn't matter. This is why, with the cards so close in performance, these issues are worth considering but in the end, they won't matter unless the games you play show little or no advantage either way.


6. Case is a pretty old design (2011) ... I'd consider something a bit more modern and with more features. The lack of dust filters is a concern. I'd try and move up to an Enthoo pro ($89) ... or the Pro M ($75)

NZXT Source 220
(8.6 rating) https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NZXT/Source_220/6.html
(90-90-92-85-92 rating) http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4354/nzxt_source_220_mid_tower_case_review/index.html

Enthoo Pro
(9.3 rating) https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Phanteks/Enthoo_Pro/6.html
(90-90-92-85-92 rating) http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6515/phanteks-enthoo-pro-full-tower-chassis-review/index8.html

If budget is an issue, the Eclipse 400 is being raved about at the $65 mark.

Eclipse 400 ($65) listed as one of the top cases of 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQmPG-pKks4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzXmR9QerOY

See 4:00 minute mark for best 1st time builder case
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zMOrX3MM-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aJzKiizvJI


Again you did very well .. just a couple of ideas you might consider before, as you said ... "pull the trigger". The two (2) things I'd give the most thought too would be:

The Eclipse P400 is a H U G E upgrade at no cost
The SSHD is almost 2.5 times as fast as the HD.