Time for new computers. I’m behind the times and reading quickly.

CPU

Broadwell-E LGA-2011, probably a Core i7 6850K at $600 for the 40 PCIe lanes.

Water cooling time? Corsair Hydro H100i GTX

Motherboard

Motherboards with X99 chipsets can have 128 GB RAM and read/write speed is around 60 GB/sec. SSDs on a M.2 interface can read/write 1500 MB/sec.

18 boards

Asus Rampage V Extreme 10

  • $600
  • EATX
  • 1 M.2, 1 U.2
  • 10 SATA 6G
  • 6 USB 2.0, 8 USB 3.0, 2 USB 3.1 Type-A, 2 USB 3.1 Type-C
  • Wifi, Bluetooth
  • SupremeFX Hi-Fi Kit

Reviews

Asus ROG Strix X99 Gaming

  • $340
  • ATX
  • 1 M.2, 1 U.2
  • 8 SATA 6 GB/s, 1 SATA Express
  • 1 USB 3.1 Type A, 1 USB 3.1 Type C, 5 USB 3.0, 8 USB 2.0
  • Thunderbolt (header on board - needs add-on card)
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Intel NIC
  • WiFi on board

Reviews

Asus X99 A-II

  • $250
  • ATX
  • 1 M.2, 1 U.2
  • 10 SATA 6G, 1 SATA Express
  • 8 USB 2.0, 8 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 USB 3.1 Type-C

Reviews

Asus X-99 Deluxe-II

  • $420
  • 2 M.2 (one via PCIe), 2 U.2
  • Thunderbolt and card ($70 separately)

Reviews

Gigabyte X99 Designare EX LGA2011-v3

  • $400
  • ATX
  • 1 M.2, 2 U.2
  • 10 SATA 6G, 1 SATA Express
  • 4 USB 2.0, 9 USB 3.0, 1 USB 3.1 Type-A, 2 USB 3.1 Type-C
  • Wifi, Bluetooth

The M.2 drive goes under the primary PCI-Express slots, so probably runs hot and would be thermally throttled.

Reviews

MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon

  • $340
  • ATX
  • M.2, U.2
  • 10 SATA 6G, 1 SATA Express
  • 8 USB 2.0, 11 USB 3.1 Type-A, 2 USB 3.1. Type-C

Reviews

MSI® X99A XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM

  • $430
  • ATX
  • M.2, U.2
  • 10 SATA 6G, 1 SATA Express
  • 7 USB 2.0, 12 USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 USB 3.1 Type-C
  • WiFi, Bluetooth

Reviews

Video

GeForce GTX 1080 sounds good. Water-cooled Corsair for $750.

Or air-cooled MSI GTX 1080 Gaming Z, also $750.

SSD

Samsung 950 512GB, of course. Two of them if the motherboard permits.

OCZ RD400 1 TB

Samsung 850 EVO 2 TB.

Power supply

Probably something fairly beefy

Antec CP-1000 (1000W)

Sound

Yes? No?

Asus Xonar DX.

Case

  • Antec P380
  • Cooler Master MasterCase 5
  • Corsair Carbide Series 400C
  • Fractal Design Define S

Benchmark/stats programs

  • AIDA64
  • AS SSD Benchmark
  • ATTO
  • Cinebench
  • CPU-Z
  • CrystalDiskMark
  • HWBOT Prime
  • Hyper PI
  • PCMark
  • POV Ray
  • Sisoft Sandra
  • 3DMark
  • WPrime 32M/1024M

Review sites

There are far fewer than there used to be

Suggestions

Newegg

Item Price
Intel Core i7-6850K $609.99
ASUS ROG STRIX X99 Motherboard $334.99
Samsung 950 Pro M.2 512GB $317.99
Samsung 850 EVO 2 TB $624.99
Corsair Vengeance 2 x 16GB DDR4 3200 $189.99
Corsair Vengeance 2 x 16GB DDR4 3000 $169.99

Amazon