Hey gang - I've been mostly lurking for awhile here lately but I'm bubbling up to the surface now because its time to build a new gaming rig and I'm looking for some input. (As in: I don't keep up with this stuff and I've no idea what the current technology has for features, what the sweet spots are for price/performance, etc. so please tell me who I should give my money to!)
My son is also gonna be building his first system so its a father/son thing.
I'm looking to spend around $1,200-1,500, my son is aiming for a bit less.
My general target is for 16 GB of RAM, decent graphics (but not bleeding edge), a moderate SSD for the system drive and frequently used apps (games) plus a TB or more of traditional disk.
So I know that the current Intel processor tech is Skylake and there are different mobo chipsets you can get to run with them. It seems that Z170 is meant for overclocking and supporting multiple video cards (though there are other things you can have/do with that chipset). Should we be focusing on Z170 or might H170 be good enough?
This is a Z170 mobo that seems to be priced reasonably:
ASRock ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Z170 Gaming K4 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
It seems like the Intel i5 is a decent middle-of-the-road CPU. We were looking at this one:
Intel Core i5-6600K 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I56600K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530
We both have current monitors that are probably OK for now so we can leave those out of the shopping cart at this time, though we'd love to hear any thoughts on that as well as all the other components.
I have a few other items we've been looking at but I guess I'll just leave it here for the moment. Please help us spend our money wisely.
Thanks, gang!
My son is also gonna be building his first system so its a father/son thing.

I'm looking to spend around $1,200-1,500, my son is aiming for a bit less.
My general target is for 16 GB of RAM, decent graphics (but not bleeding edge), a moderate SSD for the system drive and frequently used apps (games) plus a TB or more of traditional disk.
So I know that the current Intel processor tech is Skylake and there are different mobo chipsets you can get to run with them. It seems that Z170 is meant for overclocking and supporting multiple video cards (though there are other things you can have/do with that chipset). Should we be focusing on Z170 or might H170 be good enough?
This is a Z170 mobo that seems to be priced reasonably:
ASRock ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Z170 Gaming K4 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
It seems like the Intel i5 is a decent middle-of-the-road CPU. We were looking at this one:
Intel Core i5-6600K 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I56600K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530
We both have current monitors that are probably OK for now so we can leave those out of the shopping cart at this time, though we'd love to hear any thoughts on that as well as all the other components.
I have a few other items we've been looking at but I guess I'll just leave it here for the moment. Please help us spend our money wisely.

Thanks, gang!
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