First gaming build

hugobosslives · 29 Nov 2014 at 17:47

I have loved reading about some of these epic builds over the past year. So that now I've actually got around to moving away from laptops and building my own rig I thought i'd share it here.

First thing to say is that this isn't a fancy expensive rig. Trying to get maximum performance for around £600 quid. The things that I wanted were:

Overclocked i5
Nvidia GTX 970
SSD boot drive

So I've bought all the parts I need except the graphics card. I'm going to hopefully buythat on Monday but I can get building without due to the Intel graphics that come with the i5.

So the components that I have/bought are (and the prices they cost me) mostly from overclockers:

CPU i5-2500k [£110.00]
CPU cooler: Corsair H75 [£59.99]
Mobo: MSI Z77-G43 [Free with CPU] plan to updgrade to SLI Z97 board soon
RAM: Avexir Core White Series 8GB [£59.99]
SSD: 120 GB Sandisk Ultra II [£39.99]
HDD: 500GB from old laptop [free]
PSU: SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" [£49.99]
Case: BitFenix Neos ATX Tower WhiteBlue [£29.99]
Cables: Random selection of cables e.g. sata III [free]

And hopefully a 970 ACX 2.0 Superclocked EVGA for £260ish

So total is £350+ the 970 so just cresting £600

So far I have some of the fans and the SSD. The rest should arrive Monday when I put it together. And I will update this thread.

ALXAndy · 29 Nov 2014 at 21:00

Hey man just some advice... You're thinking about going SLI yes? Before you replace the board have a look at this.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/hypersli-enabling-sli-on-non-sli-motherboards.153046/

Basically it makes the Nvidia drivers enable SLI on non SLI boards, or, to allow you to run it with X4 lanes. A while back I used this on a Asrock 990FX board that was spaced poorly to enable the X4 lane to work with SLI. I lost about 5% performance.

Then I deliberately replaced the Asrock board I had with a Asus board with the same lane layout and lanes as the board you have. It doesn't even support SLI but HyperSLI brought SLI to life. It even worked in a Dell motherboard lol.

It's not worth laying out a hundred sheets or more for a board when yours should do the trick, and, certainly worth a try before buying another board I feel.

hugobosslives · 29 Nov 2014 at 21:18

ALXAndy said:
Hey man just some advice...

wow. interesting. does the 4x lane not bottleneck though? i realise 16x is overkill but i thought 4x would be too low?

ALXAndy · 29 Nov 2014 at 21:37

It does but nowhere near as badly as you would think. The only way to slow a PCIE lane down is to totally saturate it and PCIE 2.0 still has an awful lot of bandwidth. It certainly wouldn't worry me, let's put it that way.

From X16 X16 to X16 X8 I lost 0-3% of the performance. From X16 X16 to X16 X4 I lost 0-5%. In Firestrike I actually scored more running X16 X4 which was quite hilarious.

But yeah, absolutely nothing to be concerned about tbh.

Edit. Do make sure to check your CPU runs VT-X though. I have a feeling the 2500k doesn't... /checks..

Nope actually you're good. It does run VT-X.

http://ark.intel.com/products/52210/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz

It's VT-D it doesn't support for that you need the Xeons...

hugobosslives · 29 Nov 2014 at 21:49

ALXAndy said:
It does ...

haha well you lost me there. I know nothing about these VT-X/D things... :/

so basically i'd just need a bigger PSU and keep the board?

pretty sure even gold rated 550 wouldn't handle sli?

ALXAndy · 29 Nov 2014 at 21:52

550w is pushing your luck a little.

What I'm saying is this - it doesn't hurt to try. If you are 100% going SLI then buy a better PSU, get your GPUs, then give SLI a go with HyperSLI. If it doesn't work then by all means buy a board.

I see absolutely and utterly no reason why it would not work, and, save you £100+ on a board.

You need virtualization support for HyperSLI to work, but, your CPU does support it, so you're OK there. Just make sure it's enabled in BIOS.

hugobosslives · 29 Nov 2014 at 22:11

thanks for the info mate. i'll bare it in mind when i want the extra card

hugobosslives · 1 Dec 2014 at 22:41

So lots of exciting things appeared in the post today

The case came first and I love it:

Then came the Ram, PSU, and H75 cooler:

hugobosslives · 1 Dec 2014 at 22:46

Next up: Fit the parts I can

Fans went in first, then PSU and SSD. I'm all ready for the motherboard and CPU which should arrive tomorrow (tues) or the day after:

IMG-20141201-WA0009_zps4becde27.jpg.html

and all put together it currently looks rubbish. but its progress

:

cliffo88 · 2 Dec 2014 at 10:48

The NEOS looks quite small actually, what's the build quality like?

HalfBakedJake · 2 Dec 2014 at 13:00

Good luck with the build, I remember building my first PC. Huge feeling of achievement at the end

hugobosslives · 4 Dec 2014 at 10:17

cliffo88 said:
The NEOS looks quite small actually, what's the build quality like?

Seems pretty good actually. Only problem I had was one mobo screw thread was poorly tapped and thus wouldn't screw in.

Rightttt. Update so all the parts arrived and I went with a MSI GTX 770 in the end. Got a bit excited so forgot to take many pictures haha:

Getting an adapter for these power pins as the panel won't go on haha

Played at bit of Crysis 3 and Fifa and getting some crazy low temps on High 1080p. Really happy

Got to do some cable management and play around in the BIOS with OCing and Fan control but it works! Feels gooood

Total cost came to just around £480 as I went with the 770 not the 970 in the end. Seems alright for 1080p gaming. I plan to get either another 770 or the x70 of the next generation

I will update when I've done all the tidying up

ED209 · 4 Dec 2014 at 11:22

not bad at all, what temps are you getting on the processor with the all in 1 water block?

I have a after market fan one and been looking at upgrading this to a water cooling block.

hugobosslives · 4 Dec 2014 at 12:43

ED209 said:
not bad at all, what temps are you getting on the processor with the all in 1 water block?

I have a after market fan one and been looking at upgrading this to a water cooling block.

Depends on fan speed.

set to 30% its 22C idle and about 28C when browsing tabs, videos, music etc. Ramps upto about 60-70% in gaming but never breaks 50C.

Really impressed with this cooler:

eg. right now:

Damo667 · 5 Dec 2014 at 06:36

I've just upgraded my pc and added a 2nd gtx770. Total power drawn from the wall after using it a week was 659w with a 4790k so my cxm 750 was enough. However you need 4 pcie connectors for 2 cards, 2x 6pin and 2x 8pin. My psu only had 2 pcie outlets for modular cables and I didn't have enough piggy back cables so I had to use a molex to pcie adapter. I've since bought a hx750i which is more efficient and has more than enough connections for sli gtx770. Bear that in mind with your psu choice. Non modular will not have enough pcie connectors.

hugobosslives · 5 Dec 2014 at 19:01

Damo667 said:
I've just upgraded...

Yeh I only have 2 eight (6+2) pin PCI connectors on this Superflower PSU but two 770s would definitely go over a modest 550W so I would have to either by a 650+W GPU and a second 770 or get more efficient gpus such as the 970s.

I have just played far cry 4 and got 50-70 fps (av 60) on ulta/very high settings at 1080p which I'm more than happy with

so don't see the need for SLI just yet haha.

tonschk · 11 Dec 2014 at 20:19

Hi there, where have you found the black/orange fans ?

hugobosslives said:
** Image removed **

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hugobosslives · 12 Dec 2014 at 14:03

tonschk said:
Hi there, where have you found the black/orange fans ?

In the first post?

They are just cheap ones of a auction site. Had a free £10 to spend and as I run them off the motherboard headers and not the PSU I can make them ultra quiet when not gaming

cliffo88 · 14 Dec 2014 at 18:16

hugobosslives said:
Seems pretty good actually. Only problem I had was one mobo screw thread was poorly tapped and thus wouldn't screw in.

That seems to happen to me on whatever case I have :mad:

hugobosslives · 4 Mar 2015 at 10:09

Thought i'd update this post with a few changes I've made. First the boring...I added a new 1TB WD Blue disk for all my steam games

Had a bit of a fan clicking problem devlop on the 770 which wouldn't disappear despite taking off the msi cooler and re oiling and seating the fans.

So i've installed the H75 directly to the GPU using a NZXT G10 bracket and some extra heatsinks. I've then put a massive noctua heatsink on the 2500k.

temps on the gpu in fc4 have gone from 78C to around mid 60s (card is on about a 5% overclock on top of boost clock)

Main problem was the pathetic options on my case for mounting fans/rads. I've basically ghetto modded it up with the last fan actually on the outside of the case. Anyway enjoy the pictures haha:

cooler off

add some vodka:

much better. so sexy naked. (oh and added some extra hink sinks i had lying around to aid surface area. they are placed above where the hottest chips are underneath the black plate)

then add one of these bad boys:

here's it in the case with the new cpu setup. doesn't look pretty but the temps are great:

i only put one fan on the noctua as one on the back would screw up the noctua airflow

any questions or advice?