Time to start a Skylake me thinks. I'm not entirely set on which components yet, but will most definitely be the i7 6700K, unless something else pops out in the next couple of months.

Build size I'll be looking at MITX. Definitely have my eye on the Obsidian 250D. I've gone huge, now I want to try tiny.

http://www.corsair.com/en-gb/obsidian-series-250d-mini-itx-pc-case

I'm also pretty keen on trying my hand at water-cooling this time around.

Plus I also have the AMD vs nVidia battle in my head. I'm leaning toward the R9 390X.

http://www.ebuyer.com/714700-sapphire-nitro-r9-390x-tri-x-oc-8gb-gddr5-dual-link-dvi-hdmi-11241-00-20g

Martin - What was you thinking for your build?

I was looking at smaller ITX cases at first, some which wasn't much larger than a games console, but these were limited to an SFX Power Supply, and with water cooling in the equation, there wasn't much space.

Yep - This time round I want to do a full custom loop. CPU and GPU.

I'm stumped on the GPU choice at the moment. I heard there's meant to be quite a leap forward next year with Pascal. So I may end up running air cooling, with a cheaper/second hand GPU until something which catches my eye comes along. It'll save having to undo, and redo the cooling loop, and change GPU blocks etc.

I've got my eye on this beauty depending when I introduce water into the system.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Koolance-5-25-Drive-Reservoir-Pump/dp/B006JCH4N4

Shame they don't seem to sell it in the UK yet. Looking at a few comments on various forums there may be a few reliability issues which I hope they manage to sort.

Have you seen this site? Pretty good for pricing comparisons.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com

Anyway, whats happened to EVGA's 10 year warranty on their GPU's? I was shocked to see its dropped to just 3 years now. Zotac offers 5 years which is pretty decent.

I'm still at a loss as to which GPU to opt for. Either go cheap for a year and wait for Pascal, or jump in now and keep it for a good few years.

I'll be looking at 4K as well, as my last setup was donated to my sister, and I downsized to a Macbook. Bootcamp has been nice with Battlefield 4, but my stats have gone down the swanny, as I just can't seem to aim anymore. I'm putting it down to lag, and bad wifi - Not my tactics 

This Acer monitor has caught my eye. I remember when they used to have a really bad name, but seem to have bought their standard up in the last few years. Just need it to drop to the £350/£375 mark.

http://www.acer.co.uk/ac/en/GB/content/model/UM.HS7EE.001

In other news I've ordered my case - the Corsair 250D.

Picked it up for £59 with Barclaycard Beat my Price.

https://www.bespokeoffers.co.uk/consumer/beatmyprice/

You don't need to be with Barclaycard either. Just find a price, paste the weblink, and they'll find it cheaper. There's a few shops they won't accept, I mainly use Amazon links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdx7pXKVwZ8

I'll have to give BF4 a go in native settings on my Mac, which is 2880 x 1800 (I think?). Remembering its on a 15.4" screen. I've been playing it on 1920 x 1200 for a few months to help with the frame rate.

I'll report my findings.

I'll be using W10. I've got it running in Bootcamp on the Mac at the moment, very happy with it.

I need to have a look into the reliability of Acer. There's quite a bit of buzz about them online at the moment though. I was thinking of going through Costco for the monitor, because their returns policy is second to none. (I should know, having worked there for a few years now)

My last monitor was a Dell, my sister has it now, still working nicely. I got that one from PCBuyit, with a nice pixel guarantee.

I have no idea about the SSD yet. I'll probably go for a 500GB, as they've slipped down in price over the years. I remember when I got my first SSD, a tiny 64GB just for the OS, it was around £2 a GB!

I saw the PCIe SSD on Linus Tech Tips, definitely a good space saver if you have a spare PCIe slot.

Anyone else considering ultra-wide?  I'm thinking of swapping out my tripleheaded setup (with 3x acer monitors) for a single ultra-wide (for now - I'd like 3 but can't drive it from the gfx card).

Currently running a GTX970 Strix which is pretty good, but it has the 3.5Mb memory limit then it slows down (4Gb my ass).  That's on an i7 920 (which is still going strong!).

Will likely build a new machine next year which will be current gen proc plus a Titan.

That's good to hear about Acer. I remember years ago they were known for poor quality, but looking at the reviews about them, especially their monitors, they've seemed to have turned things around.

I did have a glance over the ultra wide line up, but they won't fit on my desk. 

Are you using Windows 10 Slopey? How're you finding it with FSX?

I've got you a couple of screen shots Martin, one with W10 scaling, and one without, in a resolution of 2880 x 1800.

No scaling:

150% Scaling:

When I first used W7 in bootcamp the scaling was a bit blurred in places, but all looks good in W10.

Slopey wrote: Will likely build a new machine next year which will be current gen proc plus a Titan.

I gather there'll be other architectures available by then, in addition to Skylake. Skylake S, Broadwell K, Broawell E etc.

Considered a Titan myself. GTX 980ti comes close though, just somewhat less CUDA cores, VRAM etc but loads cheaper. Titan is reference design of course, whereas the 980ti is available with a full non-reference design, better cooling and components.

Matt wrote: I've got you a couple of screen shots Martin, one with W10 scaling, and one without, in a resolution of 2880 x 1800.

Thanks Matt, much appreciated. Maybe I will switch to W10, not sure, read about plenty of bugs, FSX, P3D issues and driver problems, kind off putting me off till a few updates have been released. Read the other day that W10 has been the most unstable Windows release since Windows ME.

ITX Z170 boards are still scarce at the moment, so someone might pop something out the bag soon.

I tested BF4 this evening at 2880 x 1800, the in game menus were fine under W10, scaled up nice and big. I'm pretty sure under W7 everything went tiny, which was why I stayed under 1920 x 1200.

It was really bugging me where the M.2 was positioned, never realised it was on the back.

Paired with one of these it would be rather nice. 

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/512gb-samsung-sm951-m2-(22x80)-pcie-30-(x4)-ahci-ssd-mlc-nand-read-2150mb-s-write-1500mb-s-90k-70k-i

I've found this AS Rock board which seems pretty nice. Got the option for rear M.2 as well.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z170%20Gaming-ITXac/

I didn't realise those cards were both the same at first glance, Scan's had a slightly different manufacture code. Just realised its the way they've listed it.

I'm wondering how reliable these M.2 cards are. I've seen a few forums scare mongering about heat issues with the mounting on the rear boards. Mine may be worse as the board will be horizontal. Although watercooling will help keep the case cooler.

Still waiting for my Obsidian 250D to arrive. Getting twitchy now. 

I'm hoping tomorrow it'll turn up tomorrow.

I was a bit surprised, I thought these Barclaycard bespoke merchants would be UK based. Not that I'm worried about this, as its not like it'll go wrong.

Ah that's not a bad idea! - I've not looked at the case yet, to properly see how the motherboard tray has been cut. I'll have a fiddle around over the weekend and see how much breathing space the tray gives.

Photo's to follow! 

Still stumped on the motherboard at the moment.

I think I've decided on the EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW. It uses a reference shaped board, but with a custom circuit, so will fit in my case.

The stand has been getting loads of flack for some reason, partly because of its lack of adjustment, and partly because of the styling. I really like it.

The Kingpin won't fit in my case. I can't have anything larger (higher) than the reference board. The EVGA FTW seems to be the fastest card with reference styling.

Ah, did you talk her into an MATX case? 

I'll decide soon on the motherboard. I was going to jump straight into water cooling, but I think I'll do air for a few months at least first. Water can be phase two of the project. 

I'm not sure on RAM at the moment. I've noticed Corsair was doing "Corsair Link", but seems to be more of a fad. Plus that would mean having a majority Corsair components. The GSkill RAM looks pretty good! I may have issues with the heatsink height though.

Power Supply I'm looking at Corsair, possibly the RMi series. Although I must check out EVGA, I've heard they are very good.

Storage I'm undecided. I need to have a proper look at the case. If I take out all of my HDD/SSD bays I could have a nice reservoir and pump down there, but would mean I would have to go M.2.

Or I could use the optical bay for a reservoir, and have a pump below the two SSD drives, if I remove the HDD bays. This option would probably work out better with releasing air too. Ah so many options.

CPU cooler, I was looking at the low profile Noctua. I'll need to check the RAM clearance though when I've chosen my board.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/noctua-nh-l9i-low-profile-quiet-cpu-cooler-intel-lga1150-1151-1155-1156

Fan's will probably be Noctua. Running on the motherboard profile, so they can tune right down. The EVGA GPU fans switch off too when not under load, so I'm hoping for a quiet system.

Not sure about LED's yet. I'm not using an optical drive this time, so could shove them in there, with a bit of tinsel. 

Sexy stand...

I've gone in for the ASRock Gaming ITX. It has an optional U.2 adapter too, if you don't want to use M.2

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z170%20Gaming-ITXac/

PSU I went for the EVGA Supernova P2 850. I was amazed by its review, and its got a nice passive fan option to keep the noise down.

http://eu.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=220-P2-0850-X2&family=Power%20Supplies&uc=EUR

I'm still a bit stumped with the CPU cooler. The one you've linked to looks very good. I'm not sure whether to go cheap, i.e buy a stock cooler, and don't OC until I go water early next year when a plate is released for EVGA's FTW 980Ti. Or go more expensive i.e. something like the Noctua you linked to, and forget watercooling. Or go ahead with just CPU only watercooling now.

I'm a bit annoyed with my sexy monitor too. I had a good play around with it this evening, and noticed a ton of light bleeding everywhere over it. I expect a bit, but look at the photo below! I'm going to drop Amazon an email. 

There's not much online about ASRock. I know they've been around for years, and apparently come off the same production line as ASUS. They seem to be a bit of an underdog, in regards to their brandname in the market. All their boards seem to be getting rave reviews about features on offer.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/anton-shilov/asrock-fatal1ty-z170-gaming-itxac-tiny-gaming-platform-with-8-phase-cpu-vrm/

I've decided on this RAM. It's got nice low profile heatsinks, so shouldn't be too intrusive on an ITX.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb-(2x8gb)-corsair-ddr4-vengeance-lpx-red-pc4-25600-(3200)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-16-18-18-36-xmp-

The basic distilled water would need changing often though.

I got everything put together now, and I'm so glad I didn't opt for a fully custom water loop. The precision to fit all the components together was down to 0.25mm, and that's not just around the radiator!

I even has to leave a screw off of a fan as it was interfering with my CPU fan header.

I'll post a few photo's later in the week. I'm just amazed it all fitted.

Next step will be to swap out my corsair front 140mm fan for a nice Noctua. The fans which come with the H100i GTX seem to be pretty silent, so will leave them for now.

After that I'll look at over clocking.

The shipping was okay on mine. I don't think I paid any at all.

I'll probably get the A15. I may end up getting a couple of A8 / R8's outside the case on the back too, as the 980Ti is turning the case into a little oven when it kicks in.

I haven't tried out any in depth overclocking yet, I've just switched on the "Auto" OC, which upped the CPU to 4.5GHz. All is stable, but before I really start looking into it, I want to get the airflow under control inside the case. Maybe some different thermal paste too, I think I've used Noctua in the past.

Which PSU are you going for, or are you using your current one? Did you go for 16GB of RAM?

If you're thinking of 4K still, Windows 10 has done a very nice job at scaling. I've not even had to set anything myself.

It's done even a better job then it did on my Mac. Although the Mac is half the size of my current monitor.

How's the build going?

I'm still in a dilemma with my fans. I'll have an update soon. 

EDIT: Meant to say - My eyes will be kept out of the car insurance, come walking dead thread until I've caught up. 

The H100i GTX is silent, the radiator fans too. If it wasn't for my front case fan the whole system would be silent while not gaming. The EVGA power supply switches its fan off when the load is low enough, and the GPU switches its fans off when cool enough.

I'm waiting for Noctua to bring out their 200mm fan, I'll put that in the front, and leave the back vents as a passive exhaust. I have the radiator fans pulling air into the case too.

The temps are not too bad.

Idle Average Temperatures:

System - 36C

CPU - 19C (Stock Clocks, Fans 720 RPM)

GPU - 44C (Fans off, under 7% GPU load)

SSD - 31C

Gaming Max Temperatures (4K Max Settings):

System - 60C

CPU - 56C (Stock Clocks - ~70% Load - Fans 880 RPM)

GPU - 84C (Fans spooled to 69%, under 92% GPU load)

SSD - 42C

I'll dabble in a bit of overclocking soon.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9318446" rel="nofollow - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9318446

I was thinking of having the radiator as an exhaust, but I can't be doing with dust in this build, so I wanted to keep a high pressure.

Yeah I was thinking the GPU was a little toasty, but it isn't too bad considering its got the same clock speed as the Classified, but only the same cooler as the Super Clocked edition. If it was the bog standard reference board, with standard clocks I would have been worried.