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Ever since my i7 literally caught fire a couple months ago, I've been waiting for Skylake so I can build a new system and stop using my backup system as my primary workstation.
However, I'm a bit disappointed in Skylake from what I've seen so far. Was just wondering what the rest of you thought.
I don't care about the integrated GPU, not unless I can find a board with triple HDMI 2.0 on-board. Otherwise I have to go discrete GPU(s) anyway for a triple 4K setup.
DDR4 is a bit underwhelming from what I've seen. Especially considering it costs about 30% more right now.
Better support for M.2/U.2 out of the box is nice, and I would like to find a replacement for my 1TB Samsung 850 Evo in a M2/U2 form factor.
If you guys are building, which board are you looking at?
I was researching more and found that Skylake's Z170 platform doesn't support DisplayPort 1.3. This is a real shame, because it's only with 1.3 that you can get MST daisy-chaining of two 4K monitors.
I suppose ultimately it isn't the end of the world, as I aim to have three 40" 4K monitors and would need a discrete GPU anyway.
The main reason I'd like to move to mini-ITX is to get rid of the very large footprint my current case has. My current case is a custom open case, it's not really a case but just a tray:
It was great when I was working on my workstation all the time, but here in Ecuador this is really no longer something I can do because I can't just order up parts from Newegg or Amazon and play around. My new hobby has been building my house, so at this stage I'm looking to downsize the footprint, get something silent, and mini-ITX fits the bill.
This shows the scale of a mini-ITX case well (case is the silver item in corner)
So the next question is, which mainboard to buy. Still researching that. And then I need to pick the PSU and water cooling setup, but the most difficult decision is likely the GPU.
About the case: Oh that's pretty. If you can't get your hands on it for some reason, as an alternative, I would propose Fractal Design's Mini ITX cases. I have one for personal use (home server), would recommend it.
About processors: I share your sentiment. I haven't upgraded my personal CPUs for a long time - both my Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge builds have been rock solid with 24/7 overclock. If anything breaks down, I'd take whatever latest Intel has to offer simply because there's hardly any reason to take the older generation processors given the price points of the newest ones. I will be going in the same direction as you on the smaller form factor.
That Ncase is a real beuty but my experience is that silence and mini-itx cases don't go hand in hand though. Would rather go for a mini tower, but that's my opinion.
It's pretty quiet, but I am still searching. I'm open to suggestions if you know of an SFX form factor PSU with a quieter rating. I personally always try to buy the best PSU's, I have several Seasonic's that have always been fantastic, but they don't offer much in the way of SFX's.
The CPU will be water cooled most likely. I very rarely run CPU intensive tasks on this workstation so it will almost always be at lowest fan setting on the cooler.
Can't really comment on any specific psu but regarding the cooler, if you could sacrifice your cpu go some degrees higher in temperature I think you could achieve a significant more silent pc. Which monitors have you been looking at? Sounds interesting with multiple 40" 4k displays
edit;
Most mini-itx cases are open due to the small formfactor, that's why i suggested a mini-tower and preferably with noise dampning
I too am debating a Skylake build. My current i7 laptop (Alienware) is long in the tooth.
I've heard good things about the intel i7 5820K and X99 motherboard (they do some small form factor boards too)
Had you considered a Haswell-E type build with X99 instead? This would use DDR 4 too, which as you've noted, doesn't seem to give too much of a performance boost. X99 supports quad channel memory, skylake is dual.
