Feedback on my new PC config

I'm looking for some feedback on this new PC configuration. As a note, I am waiting until the new Nvidia GTX 1080 card is released before I place an order. The video card I have selected below is simply a placeholder. Aside from the video card, I'm not anticipating many (if any) changes to the config before I place the order in June. That is, of course, unless someone sees a change I should consider making.

Thanks!

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Chassis
-Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Digital Storm Apollo (White)
-Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
-Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish

Core Components
-Processor: Intel Core i7 5820K 3.3GHz (Six-Core) (Unlocked CPU)
-Motherboard: ASUS X99-A USB 3.1 (Intel X99 Chipset) (Up to 4x PCI-E Devices)
-System Memory: 16GB DDR4 3000MHz Corsair Dominator Platinum DHX (Extreme-Performance)
-Power Supply: 1000W Corsair HX1000i (Digitally Controlled Power)

Storage / Connectivity
-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 (256GB Samsung 950 PRO) (NVM Express) (Extreme Performance)
-Storage Set 2: 1x SSD (512GB Samsung 850 PRO)
-Storage Set 3: 2x Storage (2TB Western Digital - Black Edition)
-RAID Config: RAID 0: Striping: Performance, But No Data Fault Tolerance (Requires 2 Identical HDDs)
-RAID Card: - No Thanks
-Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)

Multimedia
-Graphics Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB (VR Ready)
-Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
-HPC Processor: - No Thanks

Engineering
-Extreme Cooling: H20: HydroLux LITE: Integrated Cooling System (1x Graphics Card + CPU)
-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: Thermaltake Riing RGB Fans (Up to 6 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

Overclocking
-Boost Processor: Stage 2: Overclock CPU - Up to 4.8GHz (Depends on Cooling and Motherboard)
-Boost Graphics Card(s): Yes, Overclock the video card(s) as much as possible with complete stability
-Boost OS: Yes, Disable and tweak all of the non-crucial services on the operating system
-Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-Bit Edition)

Thanks for the reply. Your feedback is appreciated!

Regarding the hard drives I selected, I'm planning on putting the OS by itself on the 256GB M.2 drive. After that, I'm going to put only a few select games on the other 512GB SSD. Then, after that, any other of the 400 games I have on Steam will get installed on the two larger HDDs that are set up in a RAID 0.

As far going SLI with the GTX 1080 card, I definitely considered it. However, since i'm not really planning on doing much VR stuff, I figure the single card will meet my gaming needs for now, especially with the benchmarks i've seen thus far.

Instead of spending money on SLI, I decided to put money toward two new Dell 27-inch, 144hz, G-Sync monitors. I also picked up a Corsair K70 RGB Rapidfire mechanical keyboard and a Logitech G303 gaming mouse. I'm also in the market for some new speakers but I haven't decided which ones to buy yet. That said, I'm leaning toward the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 THX speakers.

Right on man, guess you know more about it than me at least lol. You got a great game plan, and did good research. I see exactly what you are saying. and WOW@400 steam games lol.

for one it's a faster platform.  both the chip and chipset (100 series) improvements combine to make it so.  it also has more high speed storage connectivity and usb 3.0/some 3.1 depending on the board chosen.  the only advantage it doesn't have over Haswell-E is multi video card support.  all 3 Haswell-E chip skus have more direct pcie lanes than any of the Skylake chips.  your limited to 2xSLI (max) in an x8/x8 config with Skylake.  when you add in a pcie storage device your bandwidth is pretty much used up.  the top two Haswell-E skus are 40 lanes each.  you can easily do 4xSLI +high speed storage with them.

my advice to folks when it comes to choosing between the two platforms is to figure out what your usage priorities are and how much realistic expansion do you plan on doing before a completely new system build.  some people heavy into rendering/editing can get more from the higher core counts with Haswell-E, but a gamer isn't going to see that.  the faster quad core Skylakes are going to serve you better in a gaming environment.  however, a gamer desiring the power of 3 or more vid cards will have to go with Haswell-E.  one area i will say the higher core count comes thru on in games is in physics.  i was running some Firestrike testing while oc'ing my vid cards and while i was getting expected scoring results on the graphics tests, the physics score was rather low.  i've seen the same test run with a 5820K proc and the physics score is much higher than with a 6700K.  what does this mean in real world game experiences?  well, i think you'll see (in some games that rely heavily on physics) the cpu hold back the gpu in physics intensive moments of game play with the 6700K compared to any of the Haswell-E procs. 

my personal setup is: [email protected]; 2xGTX 980ti's (watercooled); 1xPcie NVMe SSD.  i've tapped out my pcie lanes with this config.  i'm even a little concerned i might be experiencing some bottlenecks at times by doing so.  anyone who wants to do more than what i've done should jump on Haswell-E.     

Edited by db188 - 25 May 2016 at 4:16pm

Put the OS on the fastest drive...that will get you the best user experience possible. How many games are you going to have installed on your system? If you're going to have less than 15 AAA games on it, then you can make due with a 1TB drive for mass storage; 35 for a 2TB drive. The reliability of a single SSD will be much better than 2 HDD's in RAID 0, in addition to being faster, quieter, and have lower power consumption. I'd recommend a 256GB or 512GB 950 Pro + 1TB or 2TB 850 Evo. The Z170 Pro Gaming board is a good choice.

https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=1419459 but with a GTX 1080 instead of GTX 980 GPU.

Get some thumb drives to do occasional back-ups of user files and such that cannot be redownloaded. Keep the thumb drives off of the computer pretty much any time you aren't backing up your computer. This way you are protected against ransomware.

Edited by  - 25 May 2016 at 6:21pm

there are other mobos, other drives, etc, that you can think about using.  since you're only going with a single vid card, you've got plenty of options for pcie storage.  Intel (i'm using the Intel 750) and Samsung have pcie nvme ssd options that are blazing fast.  you can actually populate 1 or more in the pcie slots (i think most z170 boards disable the third pcie slot when an m.2 is in use.  that still leaves plenty. 

i've chosen to personally stay clear of Asus boards from now on, so i can't speak as to how well the Asus Pro Gaming will serve you.  both DS installed Asus Deluxe's went bad on me and i switched to Gigabyte G1 Gaming GT. 

additional thoughts are that you're wasting a lot of drive space, performance, and cash on only having the OS on your best drive imo.  you need 20GB for a 64-bit W10 OS.  i would put current games you play on this drive as well.  you can use your secondary ssd for storing older games and data. 

Originally posted by Acetylide Originally posted by Necrovoodoo Storage / Connectivity -Storage Set 1: 1x SSD M.2 (256GB Samsung 950 PRO) (NVM Express) (Extreme Performance) -Storage Set 2: 1x SSD (512GB Samsung 850 PRO) -Storage Set 3: 2x Storage (2TB Western Digital - Black Edition) -RAID Config: RAID 0: Striping: Performance, But No Data Fault Tolerance (Requires 2 Identical HDDs) Is there a particular reason you're also going with a RAID 0 configuration with 2x 2Tb hard drives as opposed to an external storage solution(I'm assuming this is going to be strictly for storage)? For someone such as myself, I would be running the system to the computer shop whenever something went wrong with the RAID drives. I do not have any firsthand experience with RAID configured drives, their frequency of issues & causes, but I do know that when issues do arise, it can be a pain in the ass, which in my opinion is not worth the small amount of performance boost. Nevertheless, this is just my opinion, and for someone who has experience working with & troubleshooting RAID configurations, it shouldn't be a problem unless they fail to regularly back up their data.

Speed was the primary reason I was planning on using RAID 0 for the two platter drives. That said, after getting some feedback and doing some price comparisons, I've decided to change my plan. I'm now going with the storage config below:

-OS and Certain AAA Game Titles = 1x SSD M.2 (512GB Samsung 950 PRO)
-All other games and storage needs = 1x SSD (2TB Samsung 850 EVO)

This setup will perform faster but I will have less storage space available. However, I figure if I end up needing more space, I can just get an external drive to use. I could really use a NAS device at some point anyway.

nice choice on the HDD, that Samsung M.2 is a beaut.

Originally posted by Democules nice choice on the HDD, that Samsung M.2 is a beaut.

Thanks! I'm really looking forward to seeing how it performs. I've never had this type of drive before so it should be interesting!

i wish you a trouble-free and pleasant experience with your build.  i was glad to offer some suggestions and hopefully steer you in a good direction with some of your build decisions.  welcome to the DS family!  the usual suspects will be here to help you with any issues that crop up and i'm sure i speak for the community when i say we can't wait for pics

Originally posted by Necrovoodoo ........................................... ......................................... I'll be placing my order when the GTX 1080 card becomes available.

They are available now.

It looks like the GTX 1080 card is available on the Digital Storm site now. That said, I'm thinking about waiting for the Asus Strix edition. Hopefully, Digital Storm will offer it when it's released.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-strix-gtx-1080-revealed,31905.html

Originally posted by nolt84 configurations looks awesome. I wonder it will come into the price range of 5 to 7 figures. Correct me if i am wrong.. This will be on my list of dreams to get

That computer could be yours for under $4k. That is far less than "5 to 7 figures".

The only 5 figure models so far are the extremely tricked out Aventums and Hailstorms.

Originally posted by nolt84 ................................ I wonder it will come into the price range of 5 to 7 figures. .............................

What kind of beast are you talking about for "...5 to 7 figures." ? A couple of Crays?


Edited by hoserator - 07 Aug 2016 at 3:22pm