Silent PC build for casual gaming and 4K HTPC

[Nebula the Great]

Hello All,

I've been reading SPCR articles for several months now, but I'm completely new to building a custom PC. I hope you can help me identify good, value components, that are just right for my needs.

My current PC is 6 years old, it's loud, slow, and sometimes I have even trouble playing 1080p content. I've bought a Samsung 840 EVO drive which helped quite a lot with boot times, but the mechanical HDD for mass storage is still annoying at times when it starts spinning... And the GPU fan is just unbearable when under load.

So it's time to get a new PC. Budget is around £1000, but the less the better. I'm London, UK based.

I do casual gaming, but nothing fancy. No first person shooters or the like, so don't need to run the latest games at max res. A bit of WoW, car simulators, strategy games, or old games that don't require a lot of horse power. I also use my PC as an HTPC. I'm thinking of getting a new 4K TV for Christmas, so would like to make sure I can stream 4K HDR content (preferably at 60Hz) to the TV without any issues (HDMI 2.0a).

I do a bit of photo editing as well which is incredibly slow on my current PC that only has 4GB RAM.

I'm planning to upgrade to Windows 10.

As a start, I have put together the following shopping list, but I would very much appreciate your view as to whether this would be a good idea, whether I would have enough cooling and whether the build would be mostly inaudible which is a key factor since I use this as an HTPC as well. I would also appreciate advice on whether I could make this build much cheaper (e.g. £500). I do like the option to go with the latest generation Skylake processor/chipset, but if I can get similar performance with older components and for half the price, I'm open to compromise and your suggestions...

Thank you for your help.

Nebula

CPU Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor £154.98
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler £56.90
Motherboard Asus Z170-K ATX LGA1151 Motherboard £97.56
Memory Kingston FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory £77.33
Storage Samsung 128GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive £71.57 - for operating system
Sandisk Ultra II 960GB 2.5" Solid State Drive £220.92 - for silent mass storage
Video Card Asus GeForce GTX 950 2GB Video Card (STRIX-GTX950-DC2OC-2GD5-GAMING) £138.18
Case Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case £83.90
Power Supply SeaSonic X Series 400W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply £92.99
Operating System Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) £72.96
Total Cost: £1067.29

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/yHKYjX

[CA_Steve]

Welcome to SPCR.

Holy cow! pcpartpicker(UK) is taking 20 sec to refresh a page. Here's my short list of money saving changes and additional comments.

CPU: Intel Core i3-6300 3.8GHz Dual-Core Processor (£116.99 @ Novatech)
- While only 2 cores/ 4 threads, the freq is much faster (handy for many apps and games (like WoW)).
CPU Cooler: Scythe Kotetsu 79.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£31.11 @ Amazon UK)
- inaudible and solid performer.
Motherboard: Asus Z170-K ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£97.56 @ Amazon UK)
- good choice. Oddly, the H170 Pro Gaming mobo costs more in the UK.
Memory: Kingston FURY 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£42.66 @ Ebuyer)
- 8GB is fine for everything except more intensive photo work. Try it and see if you need more. It's easy to add it.
Storage: A couple of things.
- A 128GB SSD doesn't have enough flash chips to fill all the read/write channels and really degrades write performance compared to 250GB class.
- For your use case, I'd still get one SSD and one HDD (like a WD Red 2TB) for media. You won't hear the 5400rpm HDD from 10' away.
Video: MSI Gaming is another choice.
Case: Ok.
PSU: Alternatives are be quiet! Straight Power 10 500CM, EVGA P2 650.

[Nebula the Great]

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!

I'll probably be ordering the new config in a few days.

Cheers.

[Abula]

Welcome to SPCR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here some comments,

CPU Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor £154.98
Case Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case £83.90
Power Supply SeaSonic X Series 400W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply £92.99

Fine choices, no comments.

CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler £56.90

Personally i would go with Scythe Kotetsu £31.11 FREE UK delivery or Scythe Ninja4 £45.55 FREE UK delivery, cheaper and overall better pick, for more info check the following SPCR reviews,
Scythe Kotetsu CPU Cooler: A Compact King
Scythe Ninja 4: A Legend Reborn

Motherboard Asus Z170-K ATX LGA1151 Motherboard £97.56

You are going with an none oc cpu, i think you should go with H170 and save some $$$. I would suggest you take a look into MSI H170 Gaming M3 £96.13 & FREE Delivery in the UK, it look very nice imo, even has your desired M.2 slot, and it has a very good Bios fan control, and the price is pretty good for what it offers (imho).

Memory Kingston FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory £77.33

Fine, but check QVL List for compatibility with the motherbaord you end up buying to avoid issues later on. Try to get memory with lower heatsinks, or standard height if you can to avoid any incompatibilities with your CPU cooler/fan.

Storage Samsung 128GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive £71.57 - for operating system

Wait for Samsung 950Pro if you are planning on going with M.2, seems its going to be the best in the market. I would also go for 256gb to get the full speed benefits from the ssds, most of the 128gb are crippled, if you dont need all the space you can always overprovision to extend the life of the ssd and to sustain its performance.

Sandisk Ultra II 960GB 2.5" Solid State Drive £220.92 - for silent mass storage

I agree with Steve, personally i think its best from the value stand point, a WD Red is the way to go, but if you really want to spend a lot for storage, then save some and go with Crucial BX100 1TB

Video Card Asus GeForce GTX 950 2GB Video Card (STRIX-GTX950-DC2OC-2GD5-GAMING) £138.18

I prefer MSI, in my experience is quieter under load, MSI GTX 950 GAMING 2G £136.61 £139.18 & FREE Delivery in the UK. Btw for watching movies, really depends on what you will use, there are some filter that will ask for a befier card, again depends on how you giong to render the videos.

Operating System Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) £72.96

I would go with Windows 10.

As a last remark, i would suggest you get an extra fan for the front, i always like to have positive pressure to avoid dust entering from holes like the PSU or PCIe vents, etc, this can be avoided mostly (not totally) by adding the second frontal fan.

[edh]

Pretty much agree with everything raised so far. One thing I would say though is that ATX is a large form factor for so few components. MicroATX might save money as both case and motherboard may be cheaper. Cooling headroom will be irrelevant without a lot of high end hardware anyway.

[Nebula the Great]

Thank you for your help. I've made a few adjustments to my config: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/sPk4bv

Do you have any views whether a GTX 950 will be sufficient to stream e.g. 4K Netflix or 4K Youtube to a 4K TV at 60Hz? I believe 30Hz is not a problem, but a few videos/movies are now available at 60Hz if I'm not mistaken.

@Abula: Can you send me info on the Samsung 940 Pro? I couldn't find anything online... what I've heard was that the SM951 NVMe based is the best SSD on the market currently, which I thought would be an excellent choice for my boot drive.

@edh: Thanks for the comment but all the smaller form factors seem to be more expensive. So I don't mind the bigger form factor (space is not an issue).

[Abula]

Do you have any views whether a GTX 950 will be sufficient to stream e.g. 4K Netflix or 4K Youtube to a 4K TV at 60Hz? I believe 30Hz is not a problem, but a few videos/movies are now available at 60Hz if I'm not mistaken.

I cant say for sure as i dont own one to test, but for youtube i would think so, even netflix, thats what i would guess. Issues come for example on rendering with MADVR + LAV Filters + Jynx or any of the newer filters, some even ask for heavier cards, like GTX960 or more, really depends on the filters, and this is at 1080p, at 4k you going to need more GPU power for rending with those filters, but i would expect you shouldn't have issues with netflix or youtube at 4k, probably even intel iGPU should be fine for those if you want to skip the video and test.

@Abula: Can you send me info on the Samsung 940 Pro? I couldn't find anything online... what I've heard was that the SM951 NVMe based is the best SSD on the market currently, which I thought would be an excellent choice for my boot drive.

First i made some edits on my post adding some more comments and links for UK (i didnt get that for some wierd reason). On the 940Pro was recently anounced by Samsung, you can read their website (or in my previous post) link. The SSD is not out yet, it should be in the short term, i expect it to be out before the years end, personally i dont recommend the 951, i had some friend with issues with their laptops with them, some requiered bios updates some simply were not compatible. I would wait for the 950Pro if i was looking for m.2, but if you cant wait, i would go with Samsung 250GB 850 EVO M.2 SATA SSD £80.

As last comment, im going to recommend you research more about Asus both in the GPU and Motherboard, personally i have not liked they lie about their motherboard headers, something that was supposed to be fixed this gen, but there are some reports that are not, read more on ASUS Z87-Deluxe fake 4-pin headers & other fan control info. MSI on the other hand offers a very well thought bios fan control, no lies, simply know how they work and you wont need software to mange your fans, its very good imo, and what i continue to recommend, the motherboard i suggested on the my previous post even has m.2 and a very nice layout and design, either way we all are fans of brands, and a lot like me, support what we personally like, so if you like Asus go for it, im just not a big fan of them anymore. Also on the GPUs, both Asus and MSI are wonderful cards on idle, and on light load both are really good, where you see the difference is on load, MSI has bigger fans and less aggressive fan curves, and to me better heatsinks as the noise on load on Asus is very annoying while on MSI is more tolerable and less noticeable.

[CA_Steve]

Abula - fyi: viewtopic.php?p=596717#p596717

[Abula]

Abula - fyi: viewtopic.php?p=596717#p596717

Thanks for the link, there are some that say its fine others that its not, personally idk what to believe on Asus, until i build another setup with Asus ill believe what i see. There are certain things that i have to test on my own to believe, for example, on pervious asus motherboards i could manage PWM fans on Voltage controlled headers, just fans like noctua were unstable at certain voltages either not reporting correctly the rpms or stopping, weather asus has done the right is what i would like to test and see if its not simply voltage controlling on SYS_FAN headers on supposedly PWM switchable headers.

[quest_for_silence]

I'm open to compromise and your suggestions

20-25% less price (atm), probably a bit faster, not cutting edge technologies: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/M6GsGX

possible add-on: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/sBYwyc

[Abula]

@Abula: Can you send me info on the Samsung 940 Pro? I couldn't find anything online... what I've heard was that the SM951 NVMe based is the best SSD on the market currently, which I thought would be an excellent choice for my boot drive.

Seems its going to hit retail in 6 days, amazon already started taking preoders, man you are tempting me to build on skylake this ssds seem so nice.... i must resist.... i must resist.... either way here are the links for the preorder if you are intersted,

Samsung 950 PRO -Series 512GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD 2-Inch MZ-V5P512BW
Samsung 950 PRO -Series 256GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD 2-Inch MZ-V5P256BW

If you dont want to buy a new fresh product, then consider the Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB M.2 SSD (MZ-N5E250BW).

[CA_Steve]

I can't get excited about the 950 Pro for a gaming build. Seriously, who cares about 0.2 sec faster boot and game load times than the 850 Evo? For a serious cost adder and way more power consumption. Check out the Tech Report and Anandtech reviews.