A Christmas Build Story for bored readers :D

[Elswifto]

Hi peeps.
Long time reader, first time poster ^^; Thanks for all the help over the years!

Anyhoo, I looked up and 6 years had passed since my last build. Holy Fack! I have been chugging along pretty good on my good ol' Deneb system.

Mobo: ASUS Crosshair III Formula.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 Black, Upgraded to the 975 in 2013 I think..
RAM: 2x2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600, Upgraded to 2x4GB Vengeance in 2015.
PSU: Rosewill Libertas 800 Bronze.
GPU: 1GB ASUS Radeon HD4870 "The Black Night" Upgraded in 2014 to
2x2GB Powercolor PCS+ Radeon HD6970 Crossfired.
HDD: 320GB WD Veloiciraptor 10k RPM
Case: Open Air acrylic test bench.

It's been an amazing system. Continues to be in fact. The X Fi sound got horrible reviews but I got mine dialed in sweet on Z-5500s. I think those speakers would make almost anything sound good tho. The GPUs still push anything on ASUS 24" @1080p/60. I've never even Overdriven anything yet.
The only problem ever was the LAN crapped out in 2014. I just jammed an old 10/100 card in the slot between the GPUs and it's still rockin'.

But alas, an enthusiast can only go so long without a build and my GPUs just fell on the legacy list at AMD lol. So, I started my homework.

Boy has alot happened since the crosshair III! AMD got derailed with the console business and looks like they are not gonna have CPU in time for me so, I'm jumping (back)over to the blue team for this build. After about a month of research, I put in my orders. The parts arrived in time for Christmas!


The Ritual.

1. Bathe in the river to cleanse and purify my body.
# I just took a shower. It was an unusually hot Christmas Eve!
-seriously, wtf... Santa gonna surf in wearing a speedo!

2. Meditate for hours, visualizing myself at my best.
# Qued up my favorite AMV playlist and skimmed through the manuals.
-Youtube "AMV Jams Lazlo Swift". It'll get ya ready for anything!

3! Draw my sword and charge into BATTLE!!1 >:O
# Unbox and assemble the components.
-Haven't done this in 6 years. I'm so dead. XD

The Gear.

Mobo: ASRock H170M PRO4
CPU: Intel CORE I5 6500 3.2Ghz
# Why? 1. I was being a cheap-*** and they were cheap.
2. I liked the colors!
3. After looking into it further, I was interested in playing with "No K/Z overclocking".
RAM: 2x8GB HyperX Fury Black DDR4 2133
# Why? 1. It's Black!
2. Duh.
PSU: Rosewill Quark 650 Platinum
Case: Rosewill Wolf Alloy
# Why? 1. I trust the brand.
2. They were kinda matchy with the rest.
3. I forgot I was being a cheap-***. Doh!

GPU: 6GB MSI GTX 980 Ti Gold Edition
# Why? 1. Great Specs
2. Color matching
3. Not too big, not $1000
## This actually didn't make it in time for Christams. (Sadface)

Display upgrade alert! This has not been decided on yet. I'll test out the board on CPU graphics until the card comes in and then I'll decide on a display. I know I want Gsync on IPS @anything over 60hz lol. Probably get the new ACER 27" but that goshdern X34 wooo...@@ somebody stop me!

The Goal.

I'm hoping to get 3.5Ghz so I can have some Skylake vs. Deneb fun at the same clock speed. I hope to get 2400 out of the RAM. That would be 50% over
the old gear wich feels right for some reason. Here's to hoping!

K errebuddy. I'll report back how it all went down.

Merry Xmas to all. And to all a Good Game.

 

[trents]

Good luck on getting 2400 mhz out of the RAM.

 

[Elswifto]

Thanks

I should be able to. I know Z boards support over 3k. And the sticks should be able to handle 1 step up.

This thing is freakin me out. Everything is so small!

CPU on ok I think lol, The ram slots are not color coded. I had to look up wich slots to use. Priority for this board is apparently slot 2 in each bank ... wookaay. The DIMMs load from one side and lock in the other. Not used to that :s feels wrong ><;

Moving on. Forgot to mention, I opted in on M.2 with Samsung 950 Pro. This stuff is waaaay smaller then I though it was lol. I can't believe it holds 256 GBs sheeesh! ..and there's a 512 @@;

The battle rages on. Windows 10 from USB3 should be fun...

 

[EarthDog]

Your platform, H170, I don't believe overclocks is why you won't reach 2400.

You also need specific Z170 motherboards to overclock non 'k' chips.

I'm afraid what you have is what you get. Next time, ask us before buying!

 

[Elswifto]

O I C. I thought I read somewhere that this was one of the weird boards you could do it on. You are right though. Asking first would have been smart.
I'll pray for a Christmas miracle!

 

[EarthDog]

Maybe? I'll be praying for you!

Let us know!

 

[trents]

Looked at the board's manual and it doesn't look like their are options for increasing CPU speed. Maybe some memory overclocking is available on that board. Online manuals can be deceiving, howeever, and there is a beta bios available for that board which may provide more options. Generally speaking the "H" based chipset boards are not geared toward overclocking.

 

[Elswifto]

The Christmas coolade has worn off and the family business is done. I can get back to it

I realize I've bursted in here like some know it all. Sorry about that. I really appreciate you taking the time to look into it. Thank you.

 

[trents]

The Christmas coolade has worn off and the family business is done. I can get back to it

I realize I've bursted in here like some know it all. Sorry about that. I really appreciate you taking the time to look into it. Thank you.

Merry Christmas!

 

[Elswifto]

So it has gone surprisingly well. I was on the desktop in about 10 mins after getting her all together. I can now confirm a few things. There is no options on the OC tweaker in BIOS. There is a ram voltage adjuster but no frequency. This is version 1.3. there is 1.8 update that seems to allow the non-z memory + but I decided not to mess with it until I need to for now. Now, in Windows, A-tuner has 1 click performance setting wich shows CPU freq fluttering between 3.5 - 3.6.

So maybe a partial Christmas miracle?

 

[trents]

You would need that. Even better, an overclockable motherboard.

 

[EarthDog]

That 3.6 GHz is just normal behavior out of that processor... Turbo. You may be able to lock all 4 cores there, but not sure how off the top of my head. But yeah, no options = no overclocking.

 

[Elswifto]

Tru dat. Well, now I have something to paddle around in Windows 10. the chip and board were cheapos anyway. It was fun building again and I can always upgrade when I'm ready for more.

I do have questions!

Should I be concerned with the VGA drivers for the chip interfering with with GPU drivers when / if I put that in?

How much of a bottleneck do you think this setup is for 980 Ti?

 

[EarthDog]

Should I be concerned with the VGA drivers for the chip interfering with with GPU drivers when / if I put that in?

No, but you can uninstall them if you choose.

How much of a bottleneck do you think this setup is for 980 Ti?

Little to none at all.

 

[Elswifto]

Awsome. Thanks again for all the inputs and happy hollidays.