Back in October of 2016, i bought i5-6600K CPU, MSI Z170A Gaming M5 MoBo, Arctic Freezer i32 CPU cooler, Arctic MX-4 thermal paste, Arctic F12 PWM PST fan, 2x 4GB Kingston Savage 3000 Mhz RAM and Win 7 Pro SP1 OEM DVD. The rest of the components were taken from my AMD build (GPU, storage drives, ODD, PSU, case, KB, mouse, headphones, speakers, webcam, card reader, monitor and printer).

Few weeks on-wards, i bought MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X 3G GPU. With new GPU, my Skylake build was ready for 1080p gaming while still looking bland in a Chieftec case borrowed from AMD build.

In December of 2016, i bought Corsair 760T v2 black PC case, Seasonic PRIME 650 80+ Titanium PSU and Demciflex dust filer kit. With this, my Skylake build was looking considerably better while being powered by the best 650W PSU money can buy at current date. While the Demciflex filter kit helps to keep my build internals dust free.

For 2016 Christmas, my wife got me a present in form of a nice and comfy racing-styled chair with black & red theme. While the chair isn't part of the actual PC build, i still consider it part of the whole setup.

Next step was improving the airflow inside my build. While 760T did came with 3x Corsair AF140L fans, those didn't move much air. So, in January of 2017, i decided to buy 3x Corsair ML120 PRO red LED and 3x Corsair ML140 PRO red LED fans. With this, i was able to improve the cooling inside my PC and add additional eyecandy towards my black & red themed build due to the red LEDs inside Corsair ML series fans.

My love towards RGB was started by the small MSI RGB LED logo on my GPU and in February of 2017, i bought NZXT AER RGB140 & HUE+ for my Skylake build. Since i wanted RGB LED strips for my build, i decided to go with the AER & HUE+ set, just to try out NZXT AER140 RGB fans.

While gaming on my Skylake build was great, i was handicapped by the old PS/2 KB that i used with my AMD build. Enough was enough and in March of 2017, i bought Corsair STRAFE RGB with Cherry MX Silent switches. While the KB came with a premium price, it's N-key rollover and full RGB are the two main features why i picked it. Also, i don't like additional macro keys on my KB.

With 7 case fans and 4 of them connected to the built-in 2 speed fan controller, i wanted more control for my case fans. And so in April of 2017, i bought Thermaltake Commander F6 RGB fan controller and 3rd NZXT AER140 RGB fan. Now, i have 6 out of 7 case fans connected to my fan controller and i can control my fans individually when needed. Commander F6 RGB also has nice LED display that matches my build's black & red theme since i have the panel shining in red color.

In May of 2017, i bought Kingston Savage 2x 4GB DDR4 3000 Mhz RAM and Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB HDD. Additional RAM is for the latest AAA titles while 1TB HDD replaced my aging 500GB HDD out.

In the next month, June of 2017, i bought CableMod SE-series full cable kit (Red) for my Skylake build and NZXT HUE+ for my Haswell build. With this, the main part of my Skylake build is done and i can now focus on upgrading my Haswell build. Since HUE+ controller came with 4x LED strips, i took 2 LED strips out of it and installed them in my Skylake build. While the rest goes to my Haswell build.

Since in July, August and September i upgraded my Haswell and AMD builds, i decided to buy some nice RGB peripherals for my Skylake build. And so, in October of 2017, i bought Corsair Void Pro RGB, Corsair Sabre RGB and Corsair MM800 RGB Polaris for my main PC. With these 3 additional items, my main PC now has a full set of Corsair RGB peripherals where all are controlled via Corsair CUE.

In November of 2017, i improved my Skylake build further and bought aesthetically matching speakers; Avermedia Ballista Trinity to be exact. My old speakers (ColorsIT SP-968) are now returning back to my AMD build. I also bought Cablemod SE-series cable combs to tidy up the power cables, especially the 24-pin power cable.

Since i didn't have anywhere where to hang my Corsair Void Pro RGB headset, in January of 2018, i bought Corsair ST100 RGB headset stand. Now, i can show off my headset in style, especially since ST100 RGB also has compatibility with Corsair CUE and i can sync all the lightning of my Corsair peripherals together.

While blackouts are rare where i live (once in every 2 years or so), they still do happen. Last blackout caused me to loose 3 hours worth of work and that was the last straw. After some thorough research, in February of 2018, i bought two CyberPower CP1300EPFCLCD UPSes, one for Skylake build and another for Haswell build. Now, we don't have to worry about blackouts which would cause us to loose our unsaved work on an instant.

Since the Kingston HyperX 3K SSD (240GB) was getting full and i was long planning to buy a SSD for Skylake build, so i can return the Kingston SSD back to my AMD build, in March of 2018, i bought Samsung 960 Evo (500GB) M.2 NVMe SSD. At first, i was thinking to get Samsung 850 Evo (500GB) which i also have in my Haswell build but since my MSI Z170A Gaming M5 MoBo has 2x M.2 SSD slots and i never had a M.2 drive, i decided to go with M.2 NVMe SSD. My first thought when seeing the 960 Evo was: "It is so tiny!". Drive installation went smoother than i expected and now, when the drive is up and running, i can hardly see the speed difference between 2.5" SSD and M.2 NVMe SSD. Still, i'm happy with my M.2 NVMe SSD with extra space on my OS drive.

While HDDs have better price to GB when it comes to storage space, compared to the SSDs, they also wear out more quickly due to the moving components. Not to mention the noise they produce. And thanks to this, my WD Blue (1TB) backup drive started to show it's age and needed replacement. While i could've gone with the same WD Blue (1TB) for replacement, i wanted to have something more durable. And so in May of 2018, i bought Crucial MX500 (1TB) SSD. With the price of 1TB SSD, i could've gone with Hitachi NAS (6TB) HDD but i don't need the extra space. Also, since i made my SSD as data drive and made my old data drive as a backup drive, the much faster read/write speeds of my new SSD are very handy to access my data.

When browsing around, i came across of the custom colored anodized thumbscrews CableMod offers. Since they looked very nice, i decided to get them for my Skylake build. I also browsed some more at CableMod store and found that they also offer custom sleeved internal cables. So, in June of 2018, i bought from CableMod: 10x anodized thumbscrews, 4x 2-pin chassis I/O cables, 2x internal USB 2.0 cables, 1x internal HD audio cable and 1x 4-pin fan cable, all in red color. I also bought the exact same set for my Haswell build as well but in blue color to match it's theme.

After 8 years of usage, the mic on my Logitech C170 died. And so, in September of 2018, i bought a new webcam: Logitech C922. Nice small tripod was also included with the webcam. Compared to the C170, C922 has much better image and sound quality. Then again, C922 is much newer tech than C170.

After a lot of research and some saving up, in March of 2019, i bought 144 Hz gaming monitor. I went with MSI Optix MAG241CR since it reviewed very well and i also like the MSI brand. Biggest improvement is with color accuracy since my old Topview T2491Wd monitor has TN panel and it's color accuracy is worst of the three (other two being VA panel and IPS panel). While IPS panel has the best color accuracy, i'm used with the TN panel 1ms response time and due to that, i decided to go with VA panel, which is the best of both worlds. Now, my Topview monitor returns back to my AMD build and i can put it back to the service.

With the new monitor, my Skylake build is officially complete. Of course i have few ideas to upgrade it as time goes on but for now, Skylake build is finally finished.