Like I said with CPU coolers, unless your manually overclocking which I do not recommend you do based on your experience. Then it really doesn't matter.

odds are i'll get it from a shop that builds to spec and does the overclock for you. which means an aftermarket cooler will be called for. its the next thing on the list after processor on pcpartpicker.com, so i'm reading buying guides and product reviews of CPU coolers at the moment. so much fun! - not! <g>.

I juts popped back in here to find that link to that hardware review that mentioned thermal glue.

Here's what they said about the EVO:

"Yes, we know a lot of readers are probably saying "but where's the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo"? Yes, we've used it before, and yes, we know it's the #1 selling CPU cooler in the world. But the honest truth is that's it's just not that good, and in fact has one of the worst stock fans we've ever come across on an aftermarket cooler. Given how vastly superior the Arctic Freezer i32 is in terms of both thermals and noise, there's no longer any reason to buy the 212 Evo. Just save up a few more dollars and get the i32."

SSD doesn't do squat for me except boot the computer a few seconds faster. I

10X faster paging of game assets from disk! That's whats important for game development. Imagine cutting load screen times in Skyrim by 90%. Suppposedly that's what a SSD can do vs an ATA.

The most effective demonstration is to put someone back on spinning rust after a week or two of using an SSD. They very quickly realise: "oh yeah, that's what the difference is!"

Noctua NH-D15 is the best air cooler but requires verifying the case and RAM can accommodate its size.

Yeah, otherwise i'd just go for it. also, big coolers can be a hazard if the PC gets knocked around when moving it.

The Notcura clocks in at 160mm + The Arctic Freezer is about 130mm as i recall.

Though you should just get a Corsair H110i GT. You'll need a case that can house a 280mm radiator in the roof. Most Fractal/Corsair/Phanteks do with ease.

If I had my druthers, i'd go overkill on cooling. Better safe than sorry. Also, the PC will be in a non-climate controlled room. But I can't go super crazy on the price. I'm already in the $2100-$2300 range with monitor. granted, that's as low as $1700 for an 17-6700K GTX1080 pre-assembled, overclocked,and ready to go - which is really quite reasonable. But i'd like to keep the box itself under 2 grand if possible. A really high dollar cooler would eat up all the wiggle room budget that is left. So its a question of how much is enough. I doubt i'll ever be overclocking beyond the recommended 4.2Ghz, although while looking at motherboards i can across folks who were running at 4.7Ghz all day long no problem. They said they hit 4.8Ghz with no problems, but decided to take it easy.

Make sure it's somewhere reputable then.

Any suggestions?

So far I've found:

IBuyPowerPC

CyberpowerPC

and Portatech.com (building custom rigs since 1995)

iBuypower or cyberpower had good ratings (can't recall which)

haven't checked into all possible vendors or ratings on them yet.

http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Revolt-2-Pro

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Syber_M_Elite_300

http://www.portatech.com/products/product.cshtml?id=86294&o=93682&gclid=CjwKEAjw7svABRCi_KPzoPr53QoSJAABSvxftINJ13guKrVIFYilcoLlqXfftryXopGpoHrZIx4lNhoCn_bw_wcB

Its also possible one of the bigger manufacturers such as Acer or Asus might make a suitable box, perhaps one i can drop a gtx1080 into to get what i'm looking for.

I'm sort of glad that I'm looking for a 6700K + 1080, its a somewhat rare beast, which means fewer systems i have to sift though to find the best value. If price were no object, i'd probably just get something like an Area 51 and be done with it - and then I could get back to building games. Researching parts for a new PC will probably burn almost a week of my development time. Or at least a number of days.

If anyone knows of a 17-6700K at 4.2Ghz w/16-32M ddr4, 128-256G onboard SSD, 1Tb SSD, GTX1080, and blue ray writer - please post a link!

You don't need a CPU cooler other than the OEM one

It would seem the 6700K does not come with one - I assume that's the boxed processor. When I went to change the cooler on pcpartpicker.com, It flagged an incompatibility when I removed the one I had already selected, and said the CPU didn't come with a cooler, and I had to select one (from a list of 100+ coolers!).

Limiting motherboards to z170 chipset and 2x SLi or better on PCpartspicker, i still came up with 8 manufacturers, with about 4 models each. Wish they had better specs. You have to find the manufacturer's website just to find out how many PCI slots they have.

Apparently there's something called M2 onboard ssd? uses the PCI bus directly?

Your Chevelle sounds like lunacy.

Yeah, my own little personal nasa project. I bought my first new car one part at a time from Speed Unlimited, Jeg's, and Summit Racing. The crank alone (made by Crower) was $5000 before machine shop work (1/4 inch stoke and internally balanced) - a true NASCAR part. I probably have 20K + in the project. Got the car for $450 the summer before my senior year in high school - my first car - and I still have it 36 years later. Old Chevy's never die - they just go faster. Doubly true for my "Maxmobile" (we named it Max cause its such an insane vehicle). It was totaled in a fire 30 days after I bought it (a cigarette thrown from another vehicle on the freeway flew under the back seat). Flames as high as the telephone pole wires. Everything from the distributor cap back was totally gutted. Fire department got there in time to put it out before the gas tank blew. I had just filled it up. It would have been 88 sticks of TNT if it had blown. At that point, all I knew about cars was how to change the oil. In three months I had replaced the dash, top, interior, all the glass, all the wiring harnesses and had it passing state inspection again. All the engine needed was a new cap and plug wires (they melted). I drove it for quite a while with the paint still boiled off the doors. Eventually I went with rust oxide red and "Shot down in flames!" In silver letting on the front fenders. Nowadays the car sports a "Porshe arrest me red" paint job, twin L88 scoops either side of a 9" snorkel in place of a hood, twin nascar radiators instead of a nose (that DC beltway traffic can back up for hours!), 6" wide fender flares on all four corners (that just barely cover the tires) and a Ferrari F-40 wing on the back.

Also if you want prebuilt I came across these two recently.

Hmm... that first one is a 6600K, not a 6700K. it only meets the minimum spec for Battlefield 1, but what about the next version of Battlefield? Buy another PC? Clock speeds are sure to go up within two versions.

The second one is closer i7-6700K 16G ddr4, but only a gtx1070, and an ATA drive. Maybe they have other models.

I'm now checking vendors such as microcenter, newegg, etc to determine the manufacturers available to choose from.

Either someone makes what I'm looking for (or close enough) as a standard model (probably cheaper), or I can get a custom built rig (probably more expensive).

Hmm... that first one is a 6600K, not a 6700K. it only meets the minimum spec for Battlefield 1, but what about the next version of Battlefield? Buy another PC? Clock speeds are sure to go up within two versions.

Just so you know Kaby Lake (the generation after skylake) is due out. So waiting might be a good idea, look into it... rumors state January 2017. Also whats wrong with a 1070... its a powerful card. If I were you I stick with a prebuilt or semi-custom from cyberpower.

Just so you know Kaby Lake (the generation after skylake) is due out. So waiting might be a good idea, look into it... rumors state January 2017.

Yeah, and Zen is coming too. Like I said, you can't just keep waiting forever... especially when you're at work stoppage.

kaby lake is out already, but only the laptop CPUs. and they suck compared to the 6700K. 3.6Ghz max, only 2 cores, only 4 meg cache.

Looks like the only notable difference between the 6700K and 7700K for running games is a 4.0 vs 3.6 Ghz base clock speed, and 4.2 vs 4.5 boost speed. It'll address more ram, and handle more PCI slots and USB ports. But the 6700K can already handle 4x the ram most games need, and up to FOUR GTX cards! and who the hell needs 10 usb ports? You sure don't need it to test games.

So it looks like i can wait for the 7700K, and get 300 Mhz more turbo clock speed for my trouble. FYI the fastest Kaby Lake chip is only 300Mhz fatser than the equivalent Sky Lake CPU.

From cnet.com:

"Is Kaby Lake any better than my existing computer processor?

Intel thinks so! The company says its thin laptop chips are 12 percent faster than Skylake in raw performance, and far more efficient at decoding 4K video."

Like i decode a lot of 4K video! pleeze! I watch youtube at 144p to save on bandwidth! <g>

You know how it is, nobody builds anything for us gamers - except Nvidia and ATI.

when was the last time intel or MS came out with ANYTHING primarily for PC games? (other than controllers). I don't think they ever have. OK, DirectX. So there's ONE (ooh and ahh!). And yet PC games help drive hardware and OS sales. Its like they give a damn about everybody but us. That's why i never get too worked up about whatever is hot in the regular computing world. Its usually some BS unrelated to games.

Still looking for a 7700K release date. one thing Cnet did say, the 6700K ought to drop in price when the 7700K comes out.

From pcgamesn,com:

"The latest reports are giving a pretty definitive January 5, 2017 release date for the launch of Intel's new Kaby Lake desktop processors. We had a pretty good idea Intel would be getting their new CPUs out the door during the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, and this latest news seems to confirm that."

So it looks like i'd have to put Caveman 3.0 on hold for 2 months if i want to wait for a 7700K CPu that runs 300Mhz faster than a 6700K.

Doesn't really sound like its worth it to me. OTOH, if a 6600K can go to 4.8Ghz, a 7700K might go to 5.1Ghz. but odds are it will be a LONG time before games require a 5Ghz processor.

And I found 29 vendors that make some sort of i7-6700K + GTX 1080 rig.

So far, i've only eliminated one - Falcon Northwest - just too expensive at $3700+