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- 16 Apr 2011
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I just wanted to write a few words describing the process of building a new PC as a bit of a newbie really, and give some quick thoughts on the components I picked.
Firstly, my old system was one I bought off Ebay from someone who builds a new system each time a new CPU is launched, because it was pick up only I got a real bargain. It was a liquid cooled system with a Q6600. As I started to experiment with overclocking I realised it hadn't been put together well (CPU waterblock loose etc) and after figuring out how to do that, upgrading graphics card & PSU, stripping system to clean out years of dust (dropped CPU temps by around 15c!) I decided that I would build my own PC next time.
And, more importantly, I would choose a case with some cable management features. Here is a snap of my old PC (which I had attempted to make as tidy as possible, but had zero cable tidying features):
I eventually - after a long time considering many different components - settled on an i5 Ivy build with the following components:
3570K
Corsair H100
Asus Maximus V Gene Z77
Samsung Green 16GB
Corsair Performance Pro 256GB
Corsair AX850 PSU (from previous system)
2 5850 Extreme GPUS in crossfire
LG Blu-Ray Writer
Here is the finished build:
Some thoughts:
The case is really nice, but has some issues that reviewers didn't comment on, even though it seems obvious to me that most people would encounter them.
Firstly, the cable management grommets do not seem big enough to get cables easily through. For starters, the header cables pre-wired into the case are very thick, very stiff and quite long. The first grommet is nearly full just from those, without having to squeeze through the motherboard power cable and other bits and pieces.
Secondly, the case has bulges on either side, one side to help accommodate the large fan and the other to supposedly make it easier to stuff cable in behind to end up with a tidy build around the motherboard. Well, this is good in theory but fails in practice because the bulge tapers off towards the front, which is precisely where you need extra room as all of the power cables need to get to the back of the hard drives. I'm using a Corsair PSU and these cables are stiff which means that it requires a fair bit of force to get the side panel back on as you have to flatten the stiff spring of the cables whilst with your other hand you do up the thumb screws.
Considering I am using a lot of Corsair components you would have thought they would have realised that this was far from ideal.
Finally, the fan controller feels very cheap indeed. I know this isn't exactly an expensive case, but Corsair have clearly spent time making it look and feel expensive everywhere else and it just feels like they completely forgot about the fan controller. It has 3 settings, none of which sounds much louder than the last meaning one of two things: either the fans are very quiet, so increasing the speed has little impact on noise; or, the fans don't spin much faster when turned up.
These minor quibbles aside it was great building in this case, the difference in the finished build picture says it all really. As an aside, having the bulk of your components before your CPU is actually pretty handy as you can spend a lot of time tidying cables and making things neat because you have no distraction of having a working PC to play with!
The rest of the system is great. The ram was actually very cheap (picked it up from OCUK for £83.99 for 16GB) and I used to have 8GB of OCZ Reaper HPC 1066 DDR2, I sold 4GB a while back for £78 on Ebay, and will be selling the other 4GB shortly, so the price I got for my old ram made me comfortable buying 16GB of new even if it was overkill. The SSD was quite expensive, but a lot of research told me it was quick in pretty much any circumstance and I tend to keep a few games installed and 128gb was not enough. Having said that, if I had waited a few weeks I would have enjoyed a substantial saving as SSD prices have dropped dramatically this last week or so.
The cooler performs well and is fairly quiet although the pump is louder than I would have liked and many are complaining of an hard drive-like whining which I may be suffering from. However, I wanted a neat and tidy build and I just didn't want a massive lump of metal strapped in, plus the case was
designed to neatly hide the radiator, which it does very well.
The CPU is quick, noticeably faster than my Q6600 @ 3.5 and my crossfire setup can finally work to its full potential. I seem to have a reasonable clocker as well, it is currently sat at 4.6ghz with 1.312v and max temps after 2hrs of Prime 95 Small FFTs of: 72 72 72 73. What is more is that is seems stable even with all of the energy saving modes on - which means the multiplier jumps according to load and often the CPU uses very little power when doing everyday tasks.
I haven't spent much time playing with the staggering amount of features that the motherboard has, but I can report that getting a stable auto overclock at the click of a button takes seconds and results in 4.6ghz from the CPU You can then reduce voltages a bit to reduce heat as most auto-clocks give more volts than you really need to get it stable. Not bad at all. I'm enjoying gaming and know that I will probably save the 4.6 OC profile
and run the chip either at stock for a while, or at 4.2ghz on stock volts. I can save the bigger OC for when I have GPUS / games that need it.
For those of you worried about GPU temps when they are so close together: yes, the top card runs a lot hotter, but no, this does not seem to be an issue, GPUS can take heat and the fan speed can be increased a lot (automatically) when needed. I plan to go back to one card in future, hence why I went for this board over a full size ATX one.
In conclusion: building a PC is actually pretty simple. What takes the time is picking the components because so many would do an equally good job. If you take your time and have plenty of cable ties you can get a very neat build and if you shop around you can get a very powerful PC for a lot less you think.
Certainly, compared to the prices and specs of pre-built systems you can buy it makes an awful lot of sense to build your own.
Firstly, my old system was one I bought off Ebay from someone who builds a new system each time a new CPU is launched, because it was pick up only I got a real bargain. It was a liquid cooled system with a Q6600. As I started to experiment with overclocking I realised it hadn't been put together well (CPU waterblock loose etc) and after figuring out how to do that, upgrading graphics card & PSU, stripping system to clean out years of dust (dropped CPU temps by around 15c!) I decided that I would build my own PC next time.
And, more importantly, I would choose a case with some cable management features. Here is a snap of my old PC (which I had attempted to make as tidy as possible, but had zero cable tidying features):
I eventually - after a long time considering many different components - settled on an i5 Ivy build with the following components:
3570K
Corsair H100
Asus Maximus V Gene Z77
Samsung Green 16GB
Corsair Performance Pro 256GB
Corsair AX850 PSU (from previous system)
2 5850 Extreme GPUS in crossfire
LG Blu-Ray Writer
Here is the finished build:
Some thoughts:
The case is really nice, but has some issues that reviewers didn't comment on, even though it seems obvious to me that most people would encounter them.
Firstly, the cable management grommets do not seem big enough to get cables easily through. For starters, the header cables pre-wired into the case are very thick, very stiff and quite long. The first grommet is nearly full just from those, without having to squeeze through the motherboard power cable and other bits and pieces.
Secondly, the case has bulges on either side, one side to help accommodate the large fan and the other to supposedly make it easier to stuff cable in behind to end up with a tidy build around the motherboard. Well, this is good in theory but fails in practice because the bulge tapers off towards the front, which is precisely where you need extra room as all of the power cables need to get to the back of the hard drives. I'm using a Corsair PSU and these cables are stiff which means that it requires a fair bit of force to get the side panel back on as you have to flatten the stiff spring of the cables whilst with your other hand you do up the thumb screws.
Considering I am using a lot of Corsair components you would have thought they would have realised that this was far from ideal.
Finally, the fan controller feels very cheap indeed. I know this isn't exactly an expensive case, but Corsair have clearly spent time making it look and feel expensive everywhere else and it just feels like they completely forgot about the fan controller. It has 3 settings, none of which sounds much louder than the last meaning one of two things: either the fans are very quiet, so increasing the speed has little impact on noise; or, the fans don't spin much faster when turned up.
These minor quibbles aside it was great building in this case, the difference in the finished build picture says it all really. As an aside, having the bulk of your components before your CPU is actually pretty handy as you can spend a lot of time tidying cables and making things neat because you have no distraction of having a working PC to play with!
The rest of the system is great. The ram was actually very cheap (picked it up from OCUK for £83.99 for 16GB) and I used to have 8GB of OCZ Reaper HPC 1066 DDR2, I sold 4GB a while back for £78 on Ebay, and will be selling the other 4GB shortly, so the price I got for my old ram made me comfortable buying 16GB of new even if it was overkill. The SSD was quite expensive, but a lot of research told me it was quick in pretty much any circumstance and I tend to keep a few games installed and 128gb was not enough. Having said that, if I had waited a few weeks I would have enjoyed a substantial saving as SSD prices have dropped dramatically this last week or so.
The cooler performs well and is fairly quiet although the pump is louder than I would have liked and many are complaining of an hard drive-like whining which I may be suffering from. However, I wanted a neat and tidy build and I just didn't want a massive lump of metal strapped in, plus the case was
designed to neatly hide the radiator, which it does very well.
The CPU is quick, noticeably faster than my Q6600 @ 3.5 and my crossfire setup can finally work to its full potential. I seem to have a reasonable clocker as well, it is currently sat at 4.6ghz with 1.312v and max temps after 2hrs of Prime 95 Small FFTs of: 72 72 72 73. What is more is that is seems stable even with all of the energy saving modes on - which means the multiplier jumps according to load and often the CPU uses very little power when doing everyday tasks.
I haven't spent much time playing with the staggering amount of features that the motherboard has, but I can report that getting a stable auto overclock at the click of a button takes seconds and results in 4.6ghz from the CPU You can then reduce voltages a bit to reduce heat as most auto-clocks give more volts than you really need to get it stable. Not bad at all. I'm enjoying gaming and know that I will probably save the 4.6 OC profile
and run the chip either at stock for a while, or at 4.2ghz on stock volts. I can save the bigger OC for when I have GPUS / games that need it.
For those of you worried about GPU temps when they are so close together: yes, the top card runs a lot hotter, but no, this does not seem to be an issue, GPUS can take heat and the fan speed can be increased a lot (automatically) when needed. I plan to go back to one card in future, hence why I went for this board over a full size ATX one.
In conclusion: building a PC is actually pretty simple. What takes the time is picking the components because so many would do an equally good job. If you take your time and have plenty of cable ties you can get a very neat build and if you shop around you can get a very powerful PC for a lot less you think.
Certainly, compared to the prices and specs of pre-built systems you can buy it makes an awful lot of sense to build your own.
