Associate
Well, as the OcUK staff know, I love Fractals, and I finally got one a week or two ago, along with shiny new hardware to replace my old build. I thought I'd share a few pictures to show how it went.
The specs are as follows: Fractal Design Define R2 Black Pearl, Corsair HX650, Asus Crosshair IV Formula, AMD Athlon II X4 645, 2x2GB G.Skill RipjawsX 1600MHz, Thermalright IFX-14 with San Ace 9G1212H1011, Pioneer S19LBK, Samsung F3 1TB HD103SJ, Hitachi Deskstar 1TB, Intel Pro/1000GT NIC, Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music, Asus Geforce GTX460 768MB, 3xSharkoon 120mm 2000rpm and 2xSharkoon 140mm 800rpm, Lamptron FC2 fan controller (modded by rjk) and the NZXT 8-pin and 24-pin extension cables.
It's a good improvement from my old system both in terms of specs and looks. My older system was similar to above, minus the San Ace, 140mm fans, Deskstar, Pioneer drive (I had a Liteon which was on its way out) and I had a P5Q Pro, Q6600 which wouldn't go higher than 3GHz, and 4GB of XMS2. It was housed in an original Coolermaster Stacker STC-T01, and looked horrendous - this was the best I could do as all the cables were just a little too short.
I'm unsure why Imageshack felt the need to rotate the image, so if you could all just turn your monitors or heads 90 degrees, that'd be fantastic.
Anyhow, here's my new build - and yes, for those with sharp eyes the power switch was indeed on the wrong position on the front panel header, but I didn't feel like taking the side off to retake my pictures once I realised it wouldn't turn on and swapped it.
PC as a whole
Above the CPU, showing how my fan wires pretty much disappear with a bit of effort
Cables from my PSU, and possibly the wordt looking part of the build - my PCI-E power cables snaking through my case like a boa constrictor
The front of the case, showing how I recessed my fan controller. This one's not been rotated for some reason, so you can turn your heads/monitors back vertically now. Thanks Imageshack.
I did run into some issues with the build. When I finally had it all together, my fan controller wouldn't fit. Well, it would fit normally, but it wouldn't go any further, so I couldn't recess it therefore I couldn't close my case door. it's exactly the same width as my DVD drive, however the Fractal accepted the DVD drive with no issues. Odd. A little hammering to the side of the FC2 later, it slid right in., It's not coming out again, but I got it in there (in the bay I'd rather it wasn't in) and that's what counts.
Got it all powered up, after realising I'd connected the power switch incorrectly, and my Samsung HDD went *click* *click* *click*. Sigh. One replacement HDD later, the PSU went *bang*. Sigh, again.
Thankful that my 8-pin didn't reach, forcing me to buy an extension and for some reason go for a 24-pin extension too, I disconnected the extensions and modular cables, and swapped the PSU. If I'd had to re cable manage the entire build, it would have gone out of my window immediately, I'd had more than enough at this point.
I have my overclock dialed in, 3.73GHz on this chip seems to be the limit, using 1.475V. I've got my Northbridge at 2400MHz, HTT at 2160MHZ, and my RAM at 1600MHz, 9-9-9-24-2T, 1.5V. My temperature are great, the max I've seen on the CPU is 54C after a 12-hour Linpack stability test. Very nice improvement on my old build, and it looks so much better. It's much quieter too due to having overall better airflow and fan placement. I've recently had my room redone, and together with my black glass desk, black Icemat, G11, G5, and Samsung 26", it's looking sleek. When I get my carpet in on Wednesday, I'll grab a picture of my setup so you guys can let me know what you think.
Well, that's about it I think. Questions/comments/criticism are all welcome, this is the first time I've ever posted a build of mine online so go easy, heh.
Finally, thanks to the rest of the OcUK team for their help, support, etc!
The specs are as follows: Fractal Design Define R2 Black Pearl, Corsair HX650, Asus Crosshair IV Formula, AMD Athlon II X4 645, 2x2GB G.Skill RipjawsX 1600MHz, Thermalright IFX-14 with San Ace 9G1212H1011, Pioneer S19LBK, Samsung F3 1TB HD103SJ, Hitachi Deskstar 1TB, Intel Pro/1000GT NIC, Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music, Asus Geforce GTX460 768MB, 3xSharkoon 120mm 2000rpm and 2xSharkoon 140mm 800rpm, Lamptron FC2 fan controller (modded by rjk) and the NZXT 8-pin and 24-pin extension cables.
It's a good improvement from my old system both in terms of specs and looks. My older system was similar to above, minus the San Ace, 140mm fans, Deskstar, Pioneer drive (I had a Liteon which was on its way out) and I had a P5Q Pro, Q6600 which wouldn't go higher than 3GHz, and 4GB of XMS2. It was housed in an original Coolermaster Stacker STC-T01, and looked horrendous - this was the best I could do as all the cables were just a little too short.
I'm unsure why Imageshack felt the need to rotate the image, so if you could all just turn your monitors or heads 90 degrees, that'd be fantastic.
Anyhow, here's my new build - and yes, for those with sharp eyes the power switch was indeed on the wrong position on the front panel header, but I didn't feel like taking the side off to retake my pictures once I realised it wouldn't turn on and swapped it.
PC as a whole
Above the CPU, showing how my fan wires pretty much disappear with a bit of effort
Cables from my PSU, and possibly the wordt looking part of the build - my PCI-E power cables snaking through my case like a boa constrictor
The front of the case, showing how I recessed my fan controller. This one's not been rotated for some reason, so you can turn your heads/monitors back vertically now. Thanks Imageshack.I did run into some issues with the build. When I finally had it all together, my fan controller wouldn't fit. Well, it would fit normally, but it wouldn't go any further, so I couldn't recess it therefore I couldn't close my case door. it's exactly the same width as my DVD drive, however the Fractal accepted the DVD drive with no issues. Odd. A little hammering to the side of the FC2 later, it slid right in., It's not coming out again, but I got it in there (in the bay I'd rather it wasn't in) and that's what counts.
Got it all powered up, after realising I'd connected the power switch incorrectly, and my Samsung HDD went *click* *click* *click*. Sigh. One replacement HDD later, the PSU went *bang*. Sigh, again.
Thankful that my 8-pin didn't reach, forcing me to buy an extension and for some reason go for a 24-pin extension too, I disconnected the extensions and modular cables, and swapped the PSU. If I'd had to re cable manage the entire build, it would have gone out of my window immediately, I'd had more than enough at this point.
I have my overclock dialed in, 3.73GHz on this chip seems to be the limit, using 1.475V. I've got my Northbridge at 2400MHz, HTT at 2160MHZ, and my RAM at 1600MHz, 9-9-9-24-2T, 1.5V. My temperature are great, the max I've seen on the CPU is 54C after a 12-hour Linpack stability test. Very nice improvement on my old build, and it looks so much better. It's much quieter too due to having overall better airflow and fan placement. I've recently had my room redone, and together with my black glass desk, black Icemat, G11, G5, and Samsung 26", it's looking sleek. When I get my carpet in on Wednesday, I'll grab a picture of my setup so you guys can let me know what you think.
Well, that's about it I think. Questions/comments/criticism are all welcome, this is the first time I've ever posted a build of mine online so go easy, heh.
Finally, thanks to the rest of the OcUK team for their help, support, etc!
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