Corsair 350D Build - please comment

IntoTheVoid

IntoTheVoid

IntoTheVoid

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Joined
31 Dec 2002
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458
Hi,

I have taken inspiration from Neoni's Corsair 350D build, which I love the look of, and have come up with the following pretty much identical build which will primarily be used for software development and music and movie watching, but also gaming. I will be looking to add one of the new mid range AMD graphics cards when they are released.

Can you please see if you can save me some money on the spec without losing quality. The only fixtures are the fact that I would like the system to be quiet, although not silent, I like this case and I want to go closed loop watercooler for the cpu. I also want an SSD and hard disk. Will not be overclocking and would prefer a modular PSU of decent quality. Is the Asus Gryphon a good alternative to the Gene? as I will not be overclocking? also can I save on the monitor whilst still getting a decent screen?

Thanks for previous advice on builds, which I did not end up buying, primarily because I cannot make my mind up:):

YOUR BASKET
1 x Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Midnight Grey £229.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Asus Z87 MAXIMUS VI GENE Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £163.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 350D Windowed Micro ATX Case - Black £94.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £94.94
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £79.99
1 x CM Storm Quickfire TK Mechanical Keyboard - Brown Switch £68.99
1 x Creative Gigaworks T20 Series II 2.0 Speaker System (51MF1610AA003) £55.99
1 x Zowie AM GS 2300 DPI Optical Gaming Mouse - Black/Red £51.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £49.99
1 x Avexir MPower Red Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CRR) £49.99
1 x TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter (TL-WDN4800) £27.98
1 x Corsair SP120 Quiet Series High Pressure Low Noise - Dual Pack (CO-9050006-WW) £25.99
2 x Corsair AF120 Quiet Edition Low Noise High Airflow - Single Pack (CO-9050001-WW) £13.99 (£27.98)
1 x OcUK Mega Mat Medium Elite Tactical Gaming Surface £9.95
Total : £1,299.71 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
If you are absolutely sure that you won't be overclocking you can save yourself quite a bit of money by getting an H87 motherboard and a non-K processor. And you can use the stock cooler rather than the h100i.

Any particular reason you don't want to overclock? Most motherboards come with an auto-overclock feature these days, so you won't even have to change any settings manually.
 
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no real objection to mild overclocking, but this system needs to be totally solid as I will be using it for my course work. I keep hearing horror stories about Haswell being dodgy on stock cooling even at default clocks, that I have it in my head that I need watercooling. I am a bit wary about the big air coolers, due to the strain on the motherboard (perhaps I am being paranoid. I did like the look of the be Quiet Dark Rock 2.

Also just had a look at the H87 chipset boards and there is not much of a choice in Micro-ATX. Do not really want to go with Asrock or MSI, or even Gigabyte, as I have had good history with Asus.
 
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The only stories i have heard about haswell chips are that not all have the same temps this is due to how they make the chips and have a bad ihs but this only affects when you get close to 4.3/4.4ghz if you have bad temps and instability before then it is more likely that the chips is defective.

Dont worry about clocking it it will be fineand big cpu coolers used to scare me too but it is really nothing to worry about.
 
Done,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x Asus HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **FREE SHIPPING** £227.99
1 x Asus Z87 MAXIMUS VI GENE Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £163.99
1 x BenQ GL2460 24" Widescreen LED Slim Bezel Monitor - Black £113.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 350D Windowed Micro ATX Case - Black £94.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £94.94
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Silver 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY8GX3M2B2133C9) £83.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY8GX3M2B2133C9R) £83.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 620W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £79.99
1 x Edifier R1600T Studio Plus 2.0 Monitors £77.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance K65 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - Silver - Red Switch (CH-9000040-UK) £62.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance M65 Laser Gaming Mouse - Black (CH-9000022-EU) £54.95
1 x Creative Sound Blaster Z High Performance Gaming Sound Card - OEM (30SB150200000) £53.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £49.99
1 x TP-Link AV500 Mini Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (TL-PA411KIT) £29.99
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Cable Bundle - Red £28.45
1 x Corsair SP120 Quiet Series High Pressure Low Noise - Dual Pack (CO-9050006-WW) £25.99
1 x OcUK Mega-Mega Mat 3XL Elite Tactical Gaming Surface £24.95
1 x Corsair AF140 Quiet Series Low Noise High Airflow - Single Pack (CO-9050009-WW) £14.99
1 x Corsair AF120 Quiet Edition Low Noise High Airflow - Single Pack (CO-9050001-WW) £13.99
1 x NZXT CB-LED10-WT 12x White LED Sleeve - 1m £9.98
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Molex to 4 x SATA power extension - Red £6.98
2 x BitFenix Alchemy SATA 6GB/s braided cable 30cm - Red £5.99 (£11.98)
2 x BitFenix Alchemy Molex to 3pin x3 Fan adaptor 7V 20cm - Red £4.99 (£9.98)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Internal Audio Extension Adaptor 30cm - Red £4.49
4 x BitFenix Alchemy 2pin I/O extension 30cm - Red £3.95 (£15.80)
Total : £1,768.32 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
thats a nice spec Ethermaster, but my max budget is really £1500 including a GPU, and I would like to shave a bit off if possible. Thanks for the spec though, appreciate you taking the time.
 
Ethermaster, nice spot on the powerline adapters, did not think of those as an alternative.
OracIe, that OCUK watercooled 350D looks very interesting. Are Overclockers closed loops easy to deal with, I note they say you may need to top up fluid after shipping?
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7970 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x BenQ GL2460 24" Widescreen LED Slim Bezel Monitor - Black £113.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87M-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £97.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 350D Windowed Micro ATX Case - Black £94.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £94.94
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £79.99
1 x Qpad MK-50 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - UK Layout - Red Switches £69.95
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CW) - Blue Light £49.99
1 x Qpad 5K Laser Gaming Mouse £49.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £49.99
1 x Creative A320 2.1 Speakers (51MF0405AA003) £32.99
1 x TP-Link AV500 Mini Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (TL-PA411KIT) £29.99
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Cable Bundle - Blue £28.45
1 x Corsair SP120 Quiet Series High Pressure Low Noise - Dual Pack (CO-9050006-WW) £25.99
1 x OcUK Mega-Mega Mat 3XL Elite Tactical Gaming Surface £24.95
1 x Corsair AF140 Quiet Series Low Noise High Airflow - Single Pack (CO-9050009-WW) £14.99
1 x Corsair AF120 Quiet Edition Low Noise High Airflow - Single Pack (CO-9050001-WW) £13.99
1 x NZXT CB-LED10-WT 12x White LED Sleeve - 1m £9.98
2 x BitFenix SATA Cable 30cm - sleeved blue/black £8.99 (£17.98)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Molex to 4 x SATA power extension - Blue £6.98
2 x BitFenix Alchemy Molex to 3pin x3 Fan adaptor 7V 20cm - Blue £4.99 (£9.98)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Internal Audio Extension Adaptor 30cm - Blue £4.49
4 x BitFenix Alchemy 2pin I/O extension 30cm - Blue £3.95 (£15.80)
Total : £1,463.05 (includes shipping : £14.75).

 
Ethermaster that spec looks fantastic, will just change the mouse to an ambidextrous one as I am left handed. Do you think 550 watts is plenty for the GPU as the 650 G series is out of stock at the moment?
 
The 750D is out now and that's the full ATX case. It has three 140mm fans as standard and has decent watercooling options.

YOUR BASKET
1 x BenQ XL2411T 24" TRUE 144Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £259.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-OC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £158.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 750D Full Tower Case - Black (CC-9011035-WW) £134.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 750W Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (0-761345-06223-7) £99.95
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £74.99
1 x CM Storm Quickfire TK Mechanical Keyboard - Brown Switch £68.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £65.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler *Manufacturer Refurbished Unit - 90 Day Guarantee £44.99
1 x CM Storm Recon 4000 DPI Gaming Mouse £39.98
1 x TP-Link AV500 Mini Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (TL-PA411KIT) £29.99
1 x Corsair SP120 Quiet Series High Pressure Low Noise - Dual Pack (CO-9050006-WW) £25.99
1 x Edifier M1370 2.1 Speaker System - Black £23.99
1 x OcUK Mega Mat Medium Elite Tactical Gaming Surface £9.95
Total : £1,305.74 (includes shipping : FREE).



Excellent ATX mobo with SLI & Xfire support (PSU covers this). Haswells memory controller loves fast RAM so I've used 8GB of 2400Mhz. The H100 is a refurb but I'm using the price saving to pay for the upgraded SP fans.

Panel is 120Hz+ so is a gaming panel, alternate mouse to consider and speakers. Same SSD but upped the HDD capacity for storage. I do like things to look tidy but I personally wouldn't "waste" cash on coloured extensions or fancy fans. These you can change or add later (you have free P&P anyway) as you see fit but to each their own.

Best of luck with the build.....once you can settle on what you like :)
 
I do like the look of the Carbide 540, but have read reviews of it not being very quiet? I suppose if I had a closed loop cooler and some quiet case fans it would be alright. Cheers.
 
oceaness said:
What have you started :p
Click to expand...

Haha its a beautiful case, had a lovely time building in it!

as for the PSU i have a 550 G-Series Seasonic, No Problems whatsoever!

also as for the watercooling i wouldnt be comfortable for a first time watercooling setting up a custom watercooling rig, thats why i went for a prefilled system such as the h100i and changed the fans on it to the SP120s
 
The Asus 7970 dc2 top £210 is prob the best GPU to get, its this weekend only. The new midrange cards wouldn't be much cheaper, the 7970 comes with free games you can sell if you have them/don't like them while the new 2xx series don't.

Edit: the matrix model is £222 if you can stretch to it.
 
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