TL;DR: I need mobo suggestions (see below for what I'm thinking right now), CPU air cooler suggestions, and any other suggestions for a powerful, but very quiet 1080p gaming PC with decent life. If you can cut the price without taking a big hit to performance or increasing the noise a bunch that'd be great.
First off here's the build I have so far: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Yg2RQV
It's been about six years since I built my current PC and I am looking to build a new one. Big focus for this build is trying to keep it quiet. I spend a lot of time with no sound just on reddit or whatever, and the drone of the fans in my current PC its getting real old. But first I'll try to follow the format laid out in the stickied post.
Approximate Purchase Date: Probably by the end of the year. Getting the itch to build, but I'd like to try to catch stuff on black friday and christmas sales if possible. Also, the CPU availability might hold me back a bit. I'm willing to wait for more motherboard reviews too, since it looks like Z370 is still pretty new.
Budget Range: $1800 is probably as high as I'd like to go, but if I need to go higher I can just save up a little longer and push the purchase date back. But I'd really like to cut that down to $1500 if possible without sacrificing performance/noise. But $1800 is good too. Not buying a monitor or mouse or keyboard. Just the tower and OS.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Would like to stick to Newegg and Amazon mostly just cause they are what I know, but it looks like B&H has better availability on the CPU.
Location: Alabama, USA
Parts Preferences: I tend to run Intel and NVIDIA
Overclocking: Maybe a little but nothing crazy. Would like to keep the life of the parts fairly high.
SLI or Crossfire: Probably not
Your Monitor Resolution: 2 1080p monitors, nothing fancy. Probably game on one and watch netflix or something on the other.
So the overall goal and plans for the future. Mostly gaming and general internet stuff. I do tend to game and netflix at the same time, so I'm thinking more cores/threads would help. No VR. No streaming/twitch. Might output to a TV when I get a new one.
Looking forward I would like the CPU and mobo to last about 5 years. The rough plan right now is PC this year, sticking to 1080. Buy a solid 4k TV next year. Probably 2-3 years from now upgrade monitors and GPU to solid 4k, probably the equivalent to whatever a GTX 1080 will be at the time. Upgrade memory and storage as needed.
Reasoning on parts, based on need and future plans:
CPU: Looking to future proof a bit, so I'd like to jump to the 8th gen. I7 doesn't appear to offer enough over the I5 to justify the price, given mostly gaming. Looking at the 8600k instead of the 8400 given higher clock speeds and that I might play with overclocking a bit.
Memory: I like the lower profile since I'm looking at bigger air coolers.
SSD: My current setup has an SSD for boot and a couple games and an HDD for the rest. I'm not a fan of the dual setup, because every time I go to touch something on the HDD it takes a while to spin up. This might be that I just don't know how to configure it right. I have the cash so I thought I'd just fix the problem and jump to a single large SSD. If I need more room I'll add on in the future.I also don't have a bunch of videos or photos or anything taking up space. It will mainly be for games.
GPU: I'm leaning toward the 1070 to save a little money and because I'm only running 1080p. I'd be open to dropping to a 1060, but I don't want to take a big performance hit and it needs to last at least 2 years. I'd like those years to be at pretty high settings.
PSU: I like the titanium cert.
So the things I need some help/advice with:
Motherboard: I'm looking at the Gigabyte Aorus 5 or 7 and the ASUS ROG Strix E or F. I'd like to stay with the ALC1220 audio codec, which seems to rule out a lot of lower end boards. On board bluetooth would be nice, as I like using an xbox one controller (I'll probably get a new one with built in bluetooth specifically for this PC), but I'd love to hear recommendations for adding bluetooth (PCI, dongles, whatever). I'm also leaning toward the higher end boards for a little futureproofing, at least what you can with a mobo. And the more USB the better.
Cooler: This is one I'm really not sure on. I want as quiet a PC as reasonable so I'm looking at the larger coolers, probably either be quiet! or Noctua. But given that I'll only be doing modest overclocking, if any, I don't want to be ridiculously over cooled. I'm also not sure how to tell if it'll conflict with my memory. That's why I'm leaning toward the lower profile corsair.
Case: I'm looking for a super quiet, simple appearance, monolith style case. What I've seen suggests the R5 is one of the quietest cases out there right now that doesn't compromise on space for building (I have big hands). I'm also considering adding more case fans. The PC will be on a wood floor, but we have a cat and I'm concerned about hair getting in. I'm also not the best at keeping the thing clean. I'm thinking maybe two fans in the front (intake), the one on the back (intake) and one or two filtered fans on the top (exhaust). If I can keep the hair and dust out, intake on the bottom and exhaust front and back might be better so I can keep the top closed. I'm also considering replacing the stock fans with others if it will cut down noise. Any recommendations on fan configuration that will keep this cool, but reduce noise and dust/hair in the case would be appreciated.
I'm also open to going to smaller cases. I'm not sure if I'm going to use the optical drive from my current build and I don't need a bunch of harddrives. A smaller form factor would be nice, but I don't want to compromise performance or noise.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I wanted to layout what I was thinking. Looking forward to seeing what you recommend.
First off here's the build I have so far: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Yg2RQV
It's been about six years since I built my current PC and I am looking to build a new one. Big focus for this build is trying to keep it quiet. I spend a lot of time with no sound just on reddit or whatever, and the drone of the fans in my current PC its getting real old. But first I'll try to follow the format laid out in the stickied post.
Approximate Purchase Date: Probably by the end of the year. Getting the itch to build, but I'd like to try to catch stuff on black friday and christmas sales if possible. Also, the CPU availability might hold me back a bit. I'm willing to wait for more motherboard reviews too, since it looks like Z370 is still pretty new.
Budget Range: $1800 is probably as high as I'd like to go, but if I need to go higher I can just save up a little longer and push the purchase date back. But I'd really like to cut that down to $1500 if possible without sacrificing performance/noise. But $1800 is good too. Not buying a monitor or mouse or keyboard. Just the tower and OS.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Would like to stick to Newegg and Amazon mostly just cause they are what I know, but it looks like B&H has better availability on the CPU.
Location: Alabama, USA
Parts Preferences: I tend to run Intel and NVIDIA
Overclocking: Maybe a little but nothing crazy. Would like to keep the life of the parts fairly high.
SLI or Crossfire: Probably not
Your Monitor Resolution: 2 1080p monitors, nothing fancy. Probably game on one and watch netflix or something on the other.
So the overall goal and plans for the future. Mostly gaming and general internet stuff. I do tend to game and netflix at the same time, so I'm thinking more cores/threads would help. No VR. No streaming/twitch. Might output to a TV when I get a new one.
Looking forward I would like the CPU and mobo to last about 5 years. The rough plan right now is PC this year, sticking to 1080. Buy a solid 4k TV next year. Probably 2-3 years from now upgrade monitors and GPU to solid 4k, probably the equivalent to whatever a GTX 1080 will be at the time. Upgrade memory and storage as needed.
Reasoning on parts, based on need and future plans:
CPU: Looking to future proof a bit, so I'd like to jump to the 8th gen. I7 doesn't appear to offer enough over the I5 to justify the price, given mostly gaming. Looking at the 8600k instead of the 8400 given higher clock speeds and that I might play with overclocking a bit.
Memory: I like the lower profile since I'm looking at bigger air coolers.
SSD: My current setup has an SSD for boot and a couple games and an HDD for the rest. I'm not a fan of the dual setup, because every time I go to touch something on the HDD it takes a while to spin up. This might be that I just don't know how to configure it right. I have the cash so I thought I'd just fix the problem and jump to a single large SSD. If I need more room I'll add on in the future.I also don't have a bunch of videos or photos or anything taking up space. It will mainly be for games.
GPU: I'm leaning toward the 1070 to save a little money and because I'm only running 1080p. I'd be open to dropping to a 1060, but I don't want to take a big performance hit and it needs to last at least 2 years. I'd like those years to be at pretty high settings.
PSU: I like the titanium cert.
So the things I need some help/advice with:
Motherboard: I'm looking at the Gigabyte Aorus 5 or 7 and the ASUS ROG Strix E or F. I'd like to stay with the ALC1220 audio codec, which seems to rule out a lot of lower end boards. On board bluetooth would be nice, as I like using an xbox one controller (I'll probably get a new one with built in bluetooth specifically for this PC), but I'd love to hear recommendations for adding bluetooth (PCI, dongles, whatever). I'm also leaning toward the higher end boards for a little futureproofing, at least what you can with a mobo. And the more USB the better.
Cooler: This is one I'm really not sure on. I want as quiet a PC as reasonable so I'm looking at the larger coolers, probably either be quiet! or Noctua. But given that I'll only be doing modest overclocking, if any, I don't want to be ridiculously over cooled. I'm also not sure how to tell if it'll conflict with my memory. That's why I'm leaning toward the lower profile corsair.
Case: I'm looking for a super quiet, simple appearance, monolith style case. What I've seen suggests the R5 is one of the quietest cases out there right now that doesn't compromise on space for building (I have big hands). I'm also considering adding more case fans. The PC will be on a wood floor, but we have a cat and I'm concerned about hair getting in. I'm also not the best at keeping the thing clean. I'm thinking maybe two fans in the front (intake), the one on the back (intake) and one or two filtered fans on the top (exhaust). If I can keep the hair and dust out, intake on the bottom and exhaust front and back might be better so I can keep the top closed. I'm also considering replacing the stock fans with others if it will cut down noise. Any recommendations on fan configuration that will keep this cool, but reduce noise and dust/hair in the case would be appreciated.
I'm also open to going to smaller cases. I'm not sure if I'm going to use the optical drive from my current build and I don't need a bunch of harddrives. A smaller form factor would be nice, but I don't want to compromise performance or noise.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I wanted to layout what I was thinking. Looking forward to seeing what you recommend.
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