I'm still here or at least I think I am......

<---- this guy.

AM4 is only going to grow while Intel moves ahead with their new sockets too.

Picked a good time to build (if you ignore the video card shortage).

kaninja
I only lurked in 2007. Didn't join until mid '08. Nice to see some "old timers" come around.

Me too, I guess we're the noobs.
Man does time fly or what.

I've never been super active, but been around for quite some time.

A lot has changed for me over the years: finished the PhD, got a job, got a wife, got a house, now I got a kid on the way, but I am still running my old gtx 260's on my 750i FTW.

Talonman
Making final decisions on my build now...
 
I want an Z270 mobo 
7700K CPU
GTX 1080 TI GPU...
Still not sure on the case...
About an 850 W PSU (EVGA brand)
Still not sure if I should go 16 or 32 GB.  (G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series)
Still not sure if I should go D15 Air, or AIO water.
 
Can spend up to 5 grand...
Money will arrive Friday 7/21/2017.....   
 
What is your favorite case?
 
What is your favorite x299 mobo?
 
Thanks!
 

Hay there Talon. This old ass remembers ya!! lol, I still have my 260 core 216's and my 8800 GTS 320's. TBH, id probably wait a few and go Threadripper if I was gonna spend money like that since its only a couple weeks away. Case wise, well that's kinda hard to say unless you know what the rest of your build will entail. Im kinda partial to Lian-Li, Mountain Mods, Little Devil but others like CM, Antec, Corsair etc... aren't off the table just farther down the list. 16gb should be more than enough unless your going to run hard core photo/audio editing software or a Ramdisk. By the time you will actually require more DDR5 will be out and youll be rebuilding probably. Id say def AIO for cooling the GPU/CPU if not full on H2o, but that's part of the issue with myself not being able to pick a case for ya at this point cause AIO's have a limited amount of tubing so they can only go certain places in the case, h20 needs careful thought and the room to arrange and work but if you go Air only that would give you many case options. Let us know EVGA brotha and welcome back to the disease!!!!!

I registered for an account in 2007, but wasn't very active back then. 

Wow thanks for all the posts boys!!
 
I have considered going thread-ripper.... Just don't know if will do OK with games.
 
Intel does keep making us buy new motherboards, to get new CPU's...
 
They say Thread ripper, will be letting you just pop new faster chips in, rather than upgrading your motherboard.
I could flip over to Thread-Ripper.
 
This is my latest post in the Z270 section: (Help me with my Z270 build)
 
OK... I am still thinking I want to go air cooling.
I know it's disappointing, with all the RGB hype going right now, but I want to know the peace of mind of no water in my rig this time...
 
So I am still looking for non RGB low profile ram to work with the 7700K.
 
With this ram: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz C15 Desktop Memory Kit - Red (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15R)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013GZ5PD2/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I12FNBVJB3DJU9&colid=2IGUJC77NYBR7
 
It does not say Dual channel... Are we 100% sure that this would work on a Z270 mobo?
Is there better low profile ram?
 
In light of my want to use air cooling, and use the D15, I switched cases... To the anidees AI-Crystal-CUBE-LITE ATX Steel / Tempered Glass Cube PC Case Support E-ATX, 280/240 Radiator -Fan Less Black
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MY65HNW/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I1IOMYB0OPTJRZ&colid=2IGUJC77NYBR7
 
I now have come to my senses, and am trying to save some cash on the build, keeping it under 5 grand.
So once again with prices...
 
Case: anidees AI-Crystal-CUBE-LITE ATX Steel / Tempered Glass Cube PC Case   $140.00
 
Case fans front (2) Noctua 140mm Premium Quiet Quality Case Cooling Fan NF-A14 FLX    $44.00
Case fans front (3) Noctua NF-A8 PWM Premium 80mm PC Computer Case Fan  $51.00
Case fans top (4) Noctua NF-F12 120mm PWM Cooling Fan  $80.00
Case fans rear (1) Noctua NF-A9 FLX 92mm Premium Quality PC Computer Case Fan  $17.00
Case fans rear (1) Noctua NF-F12 120mm PWM Cooling Fan  $20.00
 
CPU: CPU: Intel 7th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)  $309.00
 
Noctua NH-D15 6 heatpipe with Dual NF-A15 140mm fans  $90.00
 
Storage:
(2) Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E250BW) Set up in RAID 0 for OS.  $300.00
(2) Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E1T0B/AM) Set up in RAID 0 for Games. $680.00
(1) WD Blue 3TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD30EZRZ For System Backups.  $100.00
 
OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home USB Flash Drive  $110.00
 
Ram: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz C15 Desktop Memory Kit - Red (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15R)  $149.00
 
Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z270E GAMING LGA1151 DDR4 DP HDMI DVI M.2 ATX Motherboard with onboard AC Wifi and USB 3.1   $230
 
Monitor: ASUS ROG SWIFT PG27AQ 27" 4K/UHD (3840x2160) IPS 4ms G-SYNC Eye Care Gaming Monitor with DP and HDMI ports  $880.00
 
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 ELITE GAMING, 11G-P4-6796-KR, 11GB GDDR5X, iCX Technology - 9 Thermal Sensors & RGB LED G/P/M  $800.00
 
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P2, 80+ PLATINUM 850W, Fully Modular   $160.00
 
Ultra HD player: Pioneer BDR-211UBK Internal BD/DVD/CD Writer Supporting Ultra HD Blu-Ray Playback $128.00
 
Mouse: Mionix Castor Multi-Color Ergonomic Optical Gaming Mouse, MNX-01-25001-G  $50.00
 
Keyboard: Keyboard: Bloody B720 Light Strike LK Optical Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - Neon LED Backlit - LK Black Switches  $75.00
 
Speakers: Audioengine A2+ Black (Pr.) 2-way Powered Speaker System  $250.00
 
Chair: Vertagear P-Line PL6000 Racing Series Gaming Chair - Black/Red (Rev. 2)  $400.00
 
Gaming controllers: (2) Xbox Controller + Cable for Windows  $96.00
 
 
Total so far...  5,159.00  Wow... That's with no tax!  
 
Video of my case being air cooled...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oFJ_RdEPb4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I33d6OeQ-E

Welcome back. I guess I am one of the real ole timers 15 years and counting
 

WB, Talon.  I remember that avatar.  Glad to see you pop back in for a while.

wmmills
Hay Talon. Dual channel just means its two sticks of ram to utilize two slots of ram on the mobo. If you use only one stick then its single channel and half the throughput. So if it does not say dual on the description it may be a single stick or 3 sticks. As for the rest, to make your parts really shine you got to remember that the HDD is the slowest thing in your pc and everything else waits on it. So with the money you have to spend, the best thing you can do is get the fastest hdd/ssd drives in a RAID that you can reasonably afford and youll get great results from the rest of your build. DO NOT get a 5400 rpm HDD for your desktop....you will regret that immensely.  As far as the O/S goes you can still upgrade your old Win 7, even though the upgrade program is officially over it still works. I wouldn't BUY Win 10 for any amount of money myself. The only thing it has going for it is DX12 and even that's not a plus because all the studios are starting to adopt Vulcan instead, which does exactly what DX12 does and more and it does it better. You may want to just stay with 7 anyway cause it looks like Redmond is going to end up starting windows as a sub service probably, which im sure you wouldn't want any part of like the rest of us. As far as the Bluray player goes, id get a external enclosure and the internal drive and use it like that if I had to have one. You probably wont use discs enough to need it installed in your pc, plus that external enclosure can be used for SSD's/HDD's also, in a hurry without having to open your pc...which is always a nice thing. :)

Thanks for the info...
 
I agree about the Hard Drive, I was only getting one for system backups.
I do want (2) Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E250BW) Set up in RAID 0 for OS.  $300.00
(2) Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E1T0B/AM) Set up in RAID 0 for Games. $680.00
 
I figured the system backups could run slow, but still should probably bump up the RPM's on it.
 
As far as the OS goes, I don't have any currently installed, as I am building from scratch.
I do still have my full retail version of 7 Ultimate x64 that I bought...
I am a Linux man now, and love Ubuntu Mate.
I was only getting Windows 10 for Games. I would love to see Vulcan take off on linux.
I would drop Windows 10 (the key logger) like a hot potato.
Games like Overwatch don't have a Linux version. Sad!!
Installing my 7, and upgrading to 10 is an outstanding idea. Love it!
 
Not a bad idea on going external on the blue-ray player.... I would not need to even buy it now, if I wanted to wait on that for a while...
 
I did click buy on a GTX 1080 TI FTW3 Elite in red today, along with a Super Nona 850 G3 80 plus Gold Fully Modular PSU today.
I am starting to collect parts!  

Welcome back and enjoy your new rig...

welcome back
 

Didnt know 2008 was considered old timers....
 
 

Old timer checking in.