First Build*: Ghost

MrAnthony · 28 Dec 2012 at 11:45

First Build*: Ghost - Finished (For Now)!

Hello all, and welcome to my first* build! Great name, I know! :rolleyes:

The Reason:
All things permitted, I'm leaving for university next September and shall be needing a computer to take with me. I spent some time trying to decide whether I wanted to get a laptop or a desktop, and in the end decided on a desktop as it will suit me better.

I plan to study Audio Production, and thus need a computer which will allow for me to work away from campus if need be. There are tonnes of Macs on site, so the majority of work I'll do there however it'd be nice to have the flexibility to work away from campus if need be. I originally planned to go X79, but since I plan for nearly all of the work to be done on site I see no need to spend all that money and have all that power anyway. Perhaps in the future, but there's bound to be something else available by then. Right now I just need a machine that will get me through the rest of the year before I leave, and still perform great once I've moved out.

I'm no gaming fanatic, most of my gaming has always been done on console. But it'd be nice to be able to play games on my PC if I ever make such a step. I've been really interesting in getting into Battlefield 3, but i can't help but think it's a waste of money getting it for console since it might not look and play as good. I do play games on my PC, but they're mostly simulations, rFactor, etc. and a fair bit of Minecraft so I'd like to be able to play them at a good quality too. I do plan on getting a decent GPU to allow for this, but for now I'll hold back to focus on the rest of the machine and make do with the integrated GPU for now.

The Build:
I've opted for an i5 3570K cooled by a H100i, paired with the MSI Z77 MPower motherboard. I went with the H100i as the Bitfenix Ghost allows for a radiator in the roof, and the H100i is cheaper and easier than a full custom loop, which for a beginner like me is a little daunting. In case you're wondering why not the i7 3770K, the reasons are practically the same as why not X79. I can't afford it, and don't really think I need it. If I'd had a little more money to play with, it could have been an option, but since I've gone for expensive parts in other areas I've wiped that idea out all together. Why must I be so awkward? :rolleyes:

Really, I should be spending maybe half of what I am doing for parts that will do - But the way I see it, it's better to spend the money on the parts that I want now, rather than 1.5x as much on what I want in the future. I think that makes sense? :confused:

I plan for this system to be pretty quiet, simply because computers are loud, and I don't want to listen to it whirring up all the time. Especially since at times I'm likely to need to leave it running overnight, and whilst I'm living with people I doubt they want to hear to it either so a relatively quiet system is key, but at the same time I'm aiming for performance so looks like I'm sure to be walking a fine line between the two.

My basket is as follows:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 660Ti Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99 - Purchased!
1 x MSI Z77 MPower Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £149.99 - Purchased!
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £99.98 - Purchased!
1 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G.20) £94.99 - Purchased!
1 x Avexir MPower Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AVD3U16001008G-2CM) £79.99 - Purchased!
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 630W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £79.99
1 x BitFenix Ghost Silent Tower Case - Black £74.99 - Purchased!
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £69.98
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £20.99 - Purchased!
1 x Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp - OEM £19.99
Total : £1,110.88 (includes shipping : FREE).

Parts are slowly arriving through the post, I should take delivery of all the purchased items by the end of the week ending January 6th, so hopefully I can get it built and booted once they've all arrived.

I've only the GPU, Storage HDD and Sound Card left to order but none of those parts are required to boot the machine, so it's back to saving and prioritising what needs to be ordered first.

Parts Gallery:

Components:

Bitfenix Ghost:

Intel i5 3570k:

MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower:

Corsair H100i:

Avexir MPower Series 16GB:

OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD - I've had this lying around for ages, and it'd be pointless to not use it especially considering how much it cost at the time:

Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter:

Be Quiet! Pure Power L8 530W PSU:

Peripherals:
For the peripherals, I'm not really too fussed about having tonnes of features on them. I just want them to work, and work well. If they put up with everyday use then they're perfect for me.

I'm yet to get a monitor, but I've got my eye on the recent IPS monitors from AOC but they're a little pricey. Hopefully I should have an increase in funds soon, so we'll see what happens.

Logitech K310 Washable Keyboard - I really like this keyboard. It's nice and quiet, has good amount of functions and I personally think it looks great:

Overclockers UK XXL MousePad:

Build Gallery:
I will start this when I've got all of my purchased items

-----------------------

Please accept my apologies for the low quality photos, but I cannot work my brothers DSLR for the life of me and who knows where my digital camera is, so I just gave up and used my phone because I know how that works, ha! I'll search for my digital camera and retake the photos for you, so it'll at least look nice even if the machine doesn't. I'm somewhat dreading cable management!

Any who, thanks for looking! Wish me luck, and if I do anything daft please feel free to point it out

-----------------------
* On work experience a few years back I took parts out of one case and put them in another.

Something Else · 28 Dec 2012 at 16:13

those msi motherboards are so nice they really give asus boards a run for their money in the looks department.

MrAnthony · 28 Dec 2012 at 16:38

I know exactly what you mean. I could decide between the MPower, Maximus Gene or the Z77 Sabertooth.

All roughly similarly priced, all look great and have loads of features. In the end, I was swayed by the MPower.

Something Else · 28 Dec 2012 at 20:11

the maximus gene is a great looking board (i have one)

its a matx which is fine but i think for a larger case such as your nzxt it will look out of place.

have you made any progress on this yet?

MrAnthony · 28 Dec 2012 at 20:19

I'm awaiting my case and memory to be delivered tomorrow. Then next week my cd drive, h100i and PSU will be delivered.

Just waiting for a check to clear and I'll get them ordered. Don't see any reason I can't boot without the sound card, graphics card and storage drive

If I had the H100i now, I'd put everything in the case when it arrives but I don't want to start building it all just for it to get covered in dust and stuff so I'll wait until its ready to be built.

Should be built and running by next Friday, but we'll see.

I shall take photos of everything when they arrive and post them here

Something Else · 28 Dec 2012 at 21:06

when doing a test boot what i do is build everything up outside the case on something like cardboard

connect up the psu, cpu, cooler and ram and gpu if you want, dont connect any storage drive, trip the motherboard into starting with the pw+/- header and see if it posts. if it works fine and shows bios and boot screen then you can proceed to build into case.

thats how i do it but if you feel more comfortable another way then you should do that.

MrAnthony · 28 Dec 2012 at 21:31

That's what I planned to do!

I can use the power button on the motherboard to boot it right, rather than using a screwdriver and shorting pins?

Something Else · 28 Dec 2012 at 21:37

ah yea sorry you can. i have this on my asus board but i never used it. im used to shorting the pins. at least you have two options for doing a boot test now.

MrAnthony · 28 Dec 2012 at 21:53

Lovely, thanks for the information

Mr-White · 28 Dec 2012 at 22:01

MrAnthony said:
Logitech K310 Washable Keyboard - I really like this keyboard. It's nice and quiet, has good amount of functions and I personally think it looks great:

Easy to wash away all those little accidents

MW

MrAnthony · 28 Dec 2012 at 22:21

Mr-White said:
Easy to wash away all those little accidents

MW

Ahhh!

Like coffee spills.

Mr-White · 28 Dec 2012 at 22:28

MrAnthony said:
Like coffee spills.

Yes...coffee spills

MW

MrAnthony · 28 Dec 2012 at 22:45

Okay, tea spills. I don't even like coffee

MrAnthony · 29 Dec 2012 at 12:33

Right, thanks to the great staff at OCUK getting my order upgraded to Saturday delivery, DPD brought me two more goodies this morning!

First off the case - Looks fantastic. It's much better in person than in the photos and videos online. Some people have said it feels a bit flimsy and cheap, but I've given it a once over had a play and see what's what and it feels a pretty sturdy piece of kit to me. Granted, this is my first build so I've nothing to compare it to except the cheap home PC I've been using for years now, and apart from a memory upgrade and a clean I've not needed to mess with the case.

I'm waiting on my H100i before I start filling the case up, so I'll get back to you on the quality and ease of use then. But for now, it's looking good to me!

Now for the memory - Matches the motherboard, and looks really nice. to be honest, I don't know why I'm caring about aesthetics so much for this build since you can't see into the case, but if in future I decide i want a window, at least it'll look nice then!

I don't know much about memory, but 2 8GB sticks for £66 seemed like too good of a deal to pass up. I'll let you know how it performs when it's built and booted.

Just waiting on my H100i, Asus DVD drive and a Be Quiet L8 530W that I picked up yesterday.

Dropped to the 530W version as I don't plan to SLI and reports suggest that 500W is more than enough for the spec above, so we're all good there.

Thought you lot might find this a little funny:

The build hasn't even started yet and I've already ran into a problem. My flipping mousepad is too big for my desk! But rather than get rid of the mousepad, I'm hoping to get a new desk as the one I have isn't level (It's like a bowl shape!) and my K310 rocks on it quite badly. So I'll get one with a little more depth I think. I didn't even think to measure it before I bought it, so I figured I'd at least test fit it when it arrived.

I've updated the original post with the pictures of the memory and the case. That's what I'll keep doing I think as it's easier to post all the pictures up there and let you know rather than posting them twice.

For the actual build, I think I'll post detailed versions, and more of an overview in the original post

Thanks for looking!

- Anthony.

MrAnthony · 31 Dec 2012 at 12:57

More stuff, hoorah!

The poor post lady though, it's absolutely lashing it down and she still knocked at my door with a smile on her face!

Nothing special, just my DVD drive but I know for a fact I can't do without one. I'll still be burning and ripping CD's for years to come because yes, I still buy CD's

Building will hopefully commence by the weekend, just two parts left to arrive now, my PSU which is in the post still and my H100i which is on preorder

- Anthony.

MrAnthony · 1 Jan 2013 at 16:43

The Build Begins!

Now that the new years celebrations are out of the way, I needed something to do to keep myself occupied. I'm going crazy not being able to get this thing built yet, but the post is holding me back, haha!

I thought I'd spend some time having a proper look around the case, and also show you lot as well. I also decided to get the SSD, optical drive and input/output shield mounted while I was at it.

------------------

Here's where I intend to do the whole build. You've seen this desk before but I thought I'd show you again

When you open the case for the first time, this is what you're presented with. A bunch of cables and some plastic bags. As you can see, the inside of the case is very roomy, but I have a feeling it may not have the same feel once the motherboard is mounted in there. The holes for cable routing do have rubber grommets, however you're going to have to install them yourself which is actually quite frustrating. I understand it's easier for BitFenix to just package them and leave the user to it, but it would be nice for them to be installed already. I have a funny feeling once I start passing the larger cables from the PSU through them, they're going to be popping back out which may get annoying, but we'll see what happens.

I do like that the entire interior of the case is black though. It makes it look very smart and clean looking.

Inside the plastic bags you get a load of screws, a couple more standoffs for mATX motherboards, rubber grommets, little adhesive feet for the PSU (I assume?), a user guide (mine has two copies of the same page in it :rolleyes:

) and you also get the HDD slides, which I have not pictured for some reason. There are enough slides to fill all of the available spaces if you keep the case in its current configuration. The wall for the SSD slides can be removed to allow for longer graphics cards, or moved along slightly to allow mounting of larger sized mechanical drives. However, there are not enough of the larger slides to have the whole tower in this configuration.

This is the inside of the side panel, and here you can see the silencing material BitFenix have used. The material is of a decent thickness and is rather smooth to the touch. However, quite malleable as it's very soft. Be warned as you could end up with a permanent imprint into the material.

I tried to get a closeup of the material, but my camera just wouldn't play ball. I think you can get a rough idea of what it's like though.

Looking at the actual motherboard tray there is a key imprinted into the metal. It simply shows you what the letters next to all of the standoffs mean. A nice feature to have, particularly if you're a first time builder. Also pictured here is the pin used to align the motherboard in the case correctly, also a nice thing to have.

Here is what the SSD/HDD slides look like. I have mounted my SSD in the case already, and doing so was very easy indeed. The plastic simply bends around the SSD and clips into place. I was worried about bending the plastic too far and snapping the slide itself, however the plastic is very thick and doesn't feel like it's going to break. I believe there is some form of vibration absorbing feature with these slides, however I could not spot anything in particular so I may be wrong there.

I've also mounted the optical drive, which was also very easy to do due to the tool less mechanism that the case has. I have however screwed the drive into place on both sides to make sure it's definitely secure, and help hold it in place when it's spinning up.

Here is the drive mounted in the case. If it matters at all, I very much like the way the drive looks in the case. The black pretty much matches, and it's nice and flush with the case, so it's all good

Finally, here are some pictures of the case itself. The lighting is a little bit iffy, so there are some funny reflections from the tables. The case isn't that shiny, it has much more of a matte finish to it. I very much like the aesthetics of this case, more so than the similarly priced offerings from Cooler Master, and Fractal Design. Corsair also have their silent case, but it's a little more expensive than the BitFenix, and in my opinion still doesn't look as nice.

That's it for now I'm afraid. Just thought I'd actually do what I can without the parts that I'm yet to receive

Cheers!

- Anthony.

Doomedspeed · 1 Jan 2013 at 18:02

That is one Purdy case Mr...

*Rich* · 1 Jan 2013 at 19:30

Agree ^^^ really nice case.

BuZ · 2 Jan 2013 at 13:49

Looking nice; great case

^_^

MrAnthony · 5 Jan 2013 at 15:29

Doomedspeed said:
That is one Purdy case Mr...

*Rich* said:
Agree ^^^ really nice case.

BuZ said:
Looking nice; great case ^_^

Thank you all, I'm glad you like it! Out of all the Bitfenix cases, it's certainly the best looking in my opinion. But, I like the simplistic things.

---------------------

Just a little update, I got my Be Quiet! PSU yesterday. The UPS man brought it to my door yesterday afternoon, which was a little unexpected since it wasn't supposed to be delivered until next week, so it's all good!

Just waiting on the H100i still, and I can finally crack on, wahay!

I've stuck a picture in the original post if you're interested!

- Anthony,