Budget 2500K First Time Build

Using only 1x120mm Antec Tricool fan on low is fairly quiet, but the temps are obviously higher. Never really overheated or anything, but the GPU got up to 70s and the fan kicks in and is annoying.

I ordered a Fractal Design 140mm fan for the top and a Nexus Basic Real Silent 120mm for either the front or side (by the GPU). I'll play around with configurations to see what cools the best but is still very quiet. I'm leaning towards more of a quiet PC which is why I think I'll probably get the Fractal Design R3 case.
 
I still have 3x120mm spaces to fill, I wouldn't say no to an offer! :p

The ones I got are supposed to be nice budget quiet fans for only about £6-7 a pop, which fits nicely into the theme of my build. :D
 
I bought Batman Arkham City today from EA Origin (Steam rival?) for £12.50. I installed Origin on my PC but Origin are having technical issues with accounts/passwords today. Basically I can't link the EA account I used to buy Batman with Origin. It keeps saying incorrect password, but it also is unable to send out password reset emails. I talked to their customer service guys on the phone, won't be sorted out until this evening. I reckon later though.
 
Gawd Origin was a pain the ass. Finally, got it up and running. Also, with the hotter weather, I really need those case fans to arrive now. They were sent yesterday, so should arrive tomorrow.

I've just left the GPU fan on 37% as I can't really hear it over that speed with the case under my desk, and it keeps GPU temps at 80 degrees with it overclocked to 950MHz.
 
Fans came, they're pretty quiet and dropped GPU temps by about 10 degrees. They don't seem any louder than with just the one Antec fan that was there. I left the 120mm antec fan out back, put the 140mm FD fan at the top (exhaust) and put the Nexus 120mm at the bottom front.
 
Here's another picture from the same time as above:

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But here's a more recent one since getting some decent speakers. These are Fostex PM0.5 active monitors. They sound pretty good. The guy I bought them from also threw in an E-MU 0404 sound card which is old but still supposed to be a very good studio sound card. They still sell for like £25+ on ebay even now and it was made in 2004. But I've also ordered an external USB DAC as I'm picking up a fair amount of PC noise due to the internal sound card.

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Borsch said:
Awesome rig now! Love the monitors! Its not really "budget" any more though;) These active monitors cost £250+, not £25+ of course. how much did you pay?:)

As for your sound card picking up internal PC noise- is it a PCI card? Sandy Bridge has a problem with (all?) good audio PCI cards. I have sold my iAudiophile 192 when I upgraded from Dual Core system. It sounded PERFECT on dual core, but on Sandy it had lots of crackles, that I have later read were due to Sandy Bridge no longer natively supporting PCI interface.
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I picked these monitors for £100 and that came with the 1/4" cables and E-MU 0404 soundcard. I'm pretty sure it is PCI. It's not too bad with the noise. I can only really hear it if I have volume on the monitors at about 1 o'clock or more. It's just a slight background hiss that isn't there when the computer is off.

I also got the Boogie Bug XL gaming pad today. Ordered it for £10 yesterday and it arrived today. I've just taken it out and rolled it the opposite way and stuck it back in the tube for a while so the ends don't stick up anymore.
 
bhiqa said:
Nice build mate, and good work on the costing! I've had my 2500k running stable at 4.8 for around 8 months now, yet to find anything to slow it down, but the temps on intelburn do worry me a little :P
Do the lamps help with the black levels on your dell? I find it a bit lacklustre on films occasionally but it might just be caus my room is really badly lit...
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I have the lamps in a variety of configurations depending on what I'm doing. Sometimes I put them completely behind the monitor, sometimes I will put the opening flat against the wall to get everything really dim. I haven't really paid attention to black levels tbh, it's much better than my old laptop so that's all I have to compare with.
 
Thanks Phill. :)


I noticed my GPU starting to get very warm after installing the soundcard. It would get over 70 degrees during gaming, then the fan speed would kick up to over 40% which is very audible. I can start hearing the fan at around 37%, and it was getting to over 45% which is very irritating. If I manually kept the fan at 37% or below, the GPU temp would get over 82 degrees.

Previously, I'd heard it recommended to block off the side case fan opening as it helped airflow. Well I tried taking it off and it has dramatically helped cooling the GPU. Fan speed now stays well under 35% and temps stay at around 62 degrees when gaming. This is very quiet for me, and nice and cool. It wasn't a problem before the sound card, but that thing must have significantly changed airflow through the case, so the side opening has helped. I don't have a fan in there yet, I guess it doesn't really need it.

CPU temps always stayed around 40 degrees during gaming.
 
Replaced the dodgy Antec 120mm fan with a Gelid fan. With just the fans plugged in but not installed, the Gelid was silent but now that it's in, I can here a faint hum that I didn't hear before. I don't know if it's so much quieter that I'm hearing something else, or if the Gelid fan is causing the hum when installed. Need to investigate.
 
Ok, so the hum wasn't from the new Gelid fan, but it's from the Nexus fan I put in a few weeks ago. For some reason it's started to have a faint buzz. It only does it when it is mounted. Annoying. To fix it, I have a little square piece of cloth that I've stuck in front of the fan on the fan filter. The cloth is probably 100mm across and quite thin. Much quieter now, and idle temperature seems to be exactly the same. Hopefully it will be quiet in the Fractal R3.
 
R3 should be coming tomorrow. Nice little project for over the weekend. I also bought Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 and Saints Row the Third. :D
 
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