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Okay, since my old workstation is older than I thought (2009 1st Gen Core i7), and it's showing some glitchiness due to "bit-rot" of the 7 year old OS install, I decided it was time. This is my primary workstation, and while it certainly does the job well enough for average desktop work (I don't do any serious gaming on it anymore), I do a lot of video trans-coding and I know a newer rig would make a big performance difference in that department.

Parts just arrived. I got a locked CPU since I have no desire to overclock (I value stability over a few extra clock cycles) and that saves a few bucks. The case got very good reviews for being quiet (it has sound dampening material built in) and I'm replacing the stock 120mm fans with super silent Noctua fans.

I selected the mobo and CPU based on PCPer.com's Leaderboard for a "High end system". I just got the locked version of the CPU instead of the "K" version: http://www.pcper.com/hwlb

1 Corsair Carbide Series 100R Silent Edition CC-9011077-WW Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case (Power Supply not included)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811139058

1 ASUS Z170-A LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813132566

1 CORSAIR CX series CX600 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139028

1 Intel Core i7-6700 8M Skylake Quad-Core 3.4 GHz LGA 1151 65W BX80662I76700 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117560

1 AFT XM-37U USB 3.0 3.5” Kiosk Card Reader AFT XM-37U USB 3.0 3.5” Kiosk Card Reader
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820176024

1 ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827135204

2 Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Case Fan Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Case Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835608026

1 SAMSUNG 850 EVO M.2 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal SSD Single Unit Version MZ-N5E500BW
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820147399

1 Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 2.5" 1TB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDRE1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820226596

1 Seagate Desktop HDD ST2000DM001 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148834

RAM is plain-jane Crucial 2x8GB (16GB) at default speed. I'm not overclocking so I see no reason to mess around with "performance" RAM and it's fussy timing issues. Went for 2 sticks instead of a 4 stick kit so I have 2 slots open in case I want to upgrade to 32GB down the road.

I already have a Win8 Pro license I bought during the $15 a license upgrade offer Microsoft had right after the release of Win8, so I'll be installing Win 8.1. I will probably go ahead and image the 8.1 install, upgrade to Win10 just to license the PC for a possible Win10 upgrade down the road, and then restore it back to 8.1.

Boot drive is a fast Samsung 850 EVO M.2, with a 1TB Mushkin Enhanced Reactor SSD as a secondary for data/video files/etc. Also a 2TB internal spinning HDD which will just be used to store weekly scheduled Acronis images of the boot drive.

Wow that is some rig. My main rig that I game on is old - older than yours. I think my p5q-e came out in 2007.

Nice.

Dual Quadros for the video ?

Heh. No, the GTX 760 from the old rig will get moved over. I've tried to use GPUs for transcoding, but the quality doesn't impress.

I must say, NewEgg was very fast. I selected the free shipping option and wasn't expecting it for a week or more, but it all got here - except the card reader - yesterday (Wed) and I ordered it late Sunday. Crucial also shipped the memory in 3 days and I also did free shipping.

Nice Rig FP. Did you consider the I7 5820 when you were doing research?

Sweet Rig, enjoy you deserve it!

god do i feel like im computing in the middle age's but not being a gamer im fine !

I don't remember when I built this rig or whats even in it other then a 6 core AMD. All I play is TF2 so this thing is still fine for me.

Ok after looking its a AMD 1100T X6 3.3ghz, 16 gig of ram and a Radeon HD6700... Is it that old?

Pugsley wrote:I don't remember when I built this rig or whats even in it other then a 6 core AMD. All I play is TF2 so this thing is still fine for me.

Ok after looking its a AMD 1100T X6 3.3ghz, 16 gig of ram and a Radeon HD6700... Is it that old?

It's fine for TF2. The only thing I would do is slap in SSD in it if you haven't already. The levels load much faster.

Ditto and slapping in an SSD - they are fairly cheap and make tings go way faster.

I usually settle for the stock Intel CPU cooler since I don't overclock, but since I'm trying to make this rig as quiet as possible, I ordered the CRYORIG C7 cooler. It's no taller than the stock cooler, but a lot more efficient, and a very quiet fan design.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 4UF39D5213

I'm not planning on doing major work on this rig until the wife goes out of town in a week (I go into Zombie mode when I'm working on a new PC, and I'm not fit for human company), but I wanted to test everything to make sure it's all working.

Went ahead and installed the CPU (using the stock cooler for now until the new one arrives), the RAM, the onboard M.2 SSD and bench tested it with the PSU outside of the case. Working fine. I disabled UEFI and Secure Boot, and now I'm burning in the memory with MEMTEST86+.

FlyingPenguin wrote: Went ahead and installed the CPU (using the stock cooler for now until the new one arrives), the RAM, the onboard M.2 SSD and bench tested it with the PSU outside of the case. Working fine. I disabled UEFI and Secure Boot, and now I'm burning in the memory with MEMTEST86+.

Can you install the OS to an M2 drive? I can't find a definitive answer.

Yes, assuming the BIOS supports it and any modern enthusiast mobo would. I installed Win 8.1 on it last night.

The 1TB SATA drive will be for data/video files. The 2TB HDD will be for Acronis Images of the M.2 boot SSD.