Feedback on New Gaming PC Build

Any feedback on this build would be greatly appreciated.

Some of the questions I have for this build are:

1. Would installing my OS (Windows 10 Pro) on a M.2 SSD be worth the price over a SATA SSD? My goal is lightning fast boot times. Currently I plan on putting my OS on the M.2 SSD and my games on the SATA SSD.

2. How much maintenance is involved with the HydroLux LITE (CPU Only) option? I don't want to use a water-cooling option that requires a large amount of upkeep. I can perform the maintenance if needed, but ideally, I'd prefer to set it and forget it.

3. How much should I overclock my CPU if I'm water-cooling it? In this build, I've selected the maximum overclocking option that Digital Storm offers.


Thanks!

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Budget:
$4000

Expectations:

-Windows to boot quickly.
-Games to load quickly.
-Current generation games to run at max settings at a minimum of 60 FPS (preferably more) at 1440p resolution (I already own monitors for this).
-Game genres I play include FPS, Action/Adventure, MMORPG (examples: Overwatch, Doom, Battlefield 1, Witcher 3, World of Warcraft, etc.)

Usage:
Mostly for gaming. 60-70 hours per week.

Special Needs:
Dual monitors at 1440p. One monitor for gaming and one monitor for web surfing and/or watching movies on Blu-Ray or YouTube. I want to do these things at the same time.

Saved Ticket #: 1610845

Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Digital Storm Apollo (Black)
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2 GHz (Codename Kaby Lake) (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z270H GAMING (Intel Z270 Chipset) (Up to 3x PCI-E Devices)
System Memory: 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Digital Storm Performance Series
Power Supply: 850W EVGA SuperNOVA
Expansion Bay: Hard Drive Hot Swap Bay (EZ-Rack)
Optical Drive: Blu-Ray & DVD Writer/Reader (Burn + Play Blu-Ray & DVDs) (12x BD-R) (Internal)
Storage Set 1: 1x SSD M.2 (250GB Samsung 960 EVO) (NVM Express)
Storage Set 2: 1x SSD (2TB Samsung 850 EVO)
Storage Set 3: - No Thanks
RAID Config: - No Thanks
RAID Card: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Graphics Card(s): 1x GeForce GTX 1080 8GB (Performance Edition) (VR Ready)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
HPC Processor: - No Thanks
Extreme Cooling: H20: HydroLux LITE: Integrated Cooling System (CPU Only)
HydroLux Tubing Style: Flexible Tubing (Requires HydroLux Liquid Cooling System)
HydroLux Fluid Color: Green Fluid (Requires HydroLux Liquid Cooling System)
Cable Management: Exotic Cable Management - Green - (Cable Combs with Custom Color Sleeved Extension Cables)
Chassis Fans: Corsair LED Airflow Performance Edition (Green) Fans
Internal Lighting: Remote Controlled LED Lighting System (Multiple color options and lighting effects)
Airflow Control: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 3: Overclock CPU - Up to 5.0GHz (Depends on Cooling and Motherboard)
Boost Graphics Card(s): - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Factory Reset Feature + Windows Installation CD (Partition up to 50GB of Storage)

Hi Necrovoodoo,
That is a nice system. The real gurus will be by and give you savvy advise.
The boot times from a M.2 are supposed to be faster than with an SSD and those are faster than the old platter drives (HDD), so .....I can only vouch for the quickness of the SSD over the HDD. It is very noticeable.
I don't know about the Hydrolux Lite. The Pro does require some maintenance and filling. I think the Lite is as maintenance free as you can make an open loop.
DS will oc your cpu  to a stable state.
Enjoy.

    Auto correct is where my typos come from.   Well, not all of them.   Some make no sense at all.   

Originally posted by Acetylide If you got rid of the fancy glitz wiring & lighting, stick with the Corsair LED Airflow Performance Edition (Green) Fans, drop the OC to stage 2, replace the 850-watt PS with the fully modular 750-watt PS, go with a Corsair H115i - 280mm Liquid CPU Cooler, and you should be able to put a single SSD M.2 (2TB Samsung 960 PRO) in the system for a grand total of around $4,068(excluding taxes). Then "everything" will be guaranteed to load fast, even while doing updates and playing a game or three. Of course, that's just me, and the above recommendation I made is probably a bit overboard in regards to meeting your read/write speed requirements. I'm one of those people that prefers a quiet desktop that performs, and since I work in low light, I could do without the "night in Las Vegas" lighting. Nevertheless, we each have different priorities & tastes, so you may not be distracted or bothered as much by the lighting. The current M.2 SSD and SATA SSD combo you have selected for your intended uses seems kind of pointless unless you're going to use the M.2 to store other programs that will be regularly needing to read/write LARGE chunks of data from/to. 250 Gb in my opinion is a small amount of storage to work with beyond the OS and critical programs since games can be 10's of Gb or larger in size. For your intended uses, a single 2 TB SATA SSD should be enough. Whether you should get the EVO or PRO, I'll leave that to the SSD gurus on here. With your current configuration and changing ONLY the M.2 SSD to a SATA SSD (2TB Samsung 850 PRO) in Storage Set 1 and losing the other SATA SSD in the Storage Set 2 will bring the cost of your system down to $3806, which means you'll still have the 850-watt PS and all of the fancy lighting/wiring.

Thanks for all of the replies. I really appreciate everyone's feedback!

Acetylide, do you know if there's any speed benefit to installing your OS on a drive by itself? In other words, which of the following is faster:

A) One SSD with both OS and games installed on it.

or

B) Two SSD drives. One with the OS installed and one with the games installed.

For practical reasons, I've always preferred option B because if my OS drive failed, I could replace it without having to re-download all of my games again. However, I want to speed things up, so I'd be open to just using a single SSD for both if it can provide a noticeable speed increase. I can just back the games up to a NAS from time to time as a precaution.

Also, regarding water-cooling, I am now seriously considering the "Corsair H115i - 280mm Liquid CPU Cooler" you suggested. I really like that it's maintenance free. I guess the reason I overlooked it before is that I really like the look of the HydroLUX LITE option. I'm really into the aesthetics of my PC so I like it when there's some LED/RBG color options. From the picture of the Corsair H115i, I assumed it didn't have any LEDs and was just plain black. Can you, or anyone here, confirm that it does have some LED or RBG options on it by default? I can't seem to find any pictures of it in use.

I know it sounds silly to gravitate toward an option based on how it looks, instead of purely on how it performs, but I'd like to have the best of both worlds, looks and performance, if possible.

On a side note, I'm thinking about changing my case from an Apollo to the Coridium. Does anyone here have the Coridium case? If so, how do you like it? What is good and bad about it?

Originally posted by Necrovoodoo Thanks for all of the replies. I really appreciate everyone's feedback! Acetylide, do you know if there's any speed benefit to installing your OS on a drive by itself? In other words, which of the following is faster: A) One SSD with both OS and games installed on it. or B) Two SSD drives. One with the OS installed and one with the games installed. For practical reasons, I've always preferred option B because if my OS drive failed, I could replace it without having to re-download all of my games again. However, I want to speed things up, so I'd be open to just using a single SSD for both if it can provide a noticeable speed increase. I can just back the games up to a NAS from time to time as a precaution.

No speed difference.
You have to think of it like this as well: What happens if the other drive you use to store the games on fails instead of the OS drive?
Like I said, you're better off simply going with a single 2 Tb SATA SSD and back everything up regularly.

You made excellent selections.  Looks real good and Congrats.   

Congrats!