My new build with pics

jocksgotabig · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:01

Hi all,

I havent had a PC now for over 15 years (avid Apple fan and XBOX360 user), but have decided to take the plunge and buy a PC for gaming only.

I have been toying with the idea for several months and was adamant I was going to buy a pre-built system (Alienware was at the top of my list). However a few mates said building you own will save a bundle/or get you a better spec for the same money. I have no PC experience but hopefully the following will do the job.

Heres when it all arrived. I originally ordered a Zalman Z9 case but decided after it was all ship to go for the Corsair 650D after reading a few reviews.

Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi Tower - Black
Some unboxing of the case. Couldnt believe how many wires where in it! (being a novice this sent me into a spin - but soon overcame!) No instructions either telling me what they all did.

The case quality was superb, 3 fans in the interior, plenty of room and a good cable management system.

So after spending the next 2 hours working out what did what and reading the manuals and the installation guide on this forum I set about on the internals.

Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM / 16x DVDąRW Lightscribe SATA-II

Piece of cake - on a roll. The Corsair case has these quick release trays so not even a screw needed. Looking good

Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance '80 Plus Bronze'
First job was the power supply. The unboxing...

An then in the tower (how many wires - again spent a good half working all those out - remeber I havent done this before - i didnt even know what way to put the power supply up! ;-)

Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard *B3 REVISION

Now the mobo, spent again a few good minutes working out what did what.

Firstly I added the panel on the back.

I then placed on the antistatic bag and went for the processor.

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor

A few pics..

And a another on the mobo - this was the first wire I attached to anything! Steady progress for a noob! The silver cover to secure the processor needed a good bit of effort, after spending 5 minutes thinking had I put it in right I just gave it a good push and woila - simples!

Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel
Ram time (the last time I had a PC these were only 1mb!) 8GB now..

On the mobo

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ

Again the case has these trays which you pull out - spent 1 mins getting them into the tray and the realised I had put itin back to front - i then spent 15 mins trying to get the bugger out!

Progress so far

The wires at the back

Still hadnt plugged any wires into the mobo

Where does this go - no idea

and this

I then realised that not all the wires need to be plugged in so tucked the little fellas round the back.

Asus GeForce GTX 460 1024MB DirectCU GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Didnt take many pictures here, but here it is in situ - needed 2 PCI cables to power it

So that was it all the compenents in (including my wireless network card). I plugged all the wires onto the mobo, all the fans into the fan controller on the case, audio, usb, power witches etc.

I then plugged into being quite confident that it couldnt have been so easy so it surely wont turn on

result it worked straight away!! I then installed windows which only took about 10 mins and that was it - it worked!

Had a few questions which I posted on the forum which were kindly answered y several members and that was it.

Windows give the machine a score of 7.6 (marked down for the hard drive). I also have HW monitor to see the temps. Using the internet these are the results

I then tried prime95 and the 4x cores run at 70c - is this normal?

And one of the reasons I wanted a PC...

And temps run at 50c when i play this

Thats it folks - thanks for reading.

p.s- please dont tell me my spec is rubbish - i will cry!

RJC · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:04

Nice system, enjoy

Spec is rubbish, you need a i7 920

Amraam · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:07

How much thermal paste did you use on the CPU cooler?

Jony27 · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:08

your spec is ru....very nice

can you return the Zalman Z9+ under DSR?

you mentioned this will be purely for gaming at the start of the thread, should've gone with an i5 2500k and a HD6950 2GB

RJC · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:09

Amraam said:
How much thermal paste did you use on the CPU cooler?

It's pre Applied

King Damager · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:10

RJC said:
Nice system, enjoy

Spec is rubbish, you need a i7 920

You're mean!

Nice system! The first picture was a power cable normally used for SATA devices or the such like (HDD's/Optical Drives etc...) The second picture is a molex connector - You can get hundreds of things which have 'Molex' Adaptors, so you can plug into the molex - most commonly though are fans.

I really need to reseat my CPU cooler... ah well it'll last a couple of days until I ship it up to Uni

kd

RJC · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:12

King Damager said:
You're mean!

Ha ha

, I did put a stick out Tongue

jocksgotabig · 10 Sep 2011 at 19:12

I ran *********** and they said i could return - will do this in the next couple of days.

I knew someone would say 'i should have' ;-)

No thermal paste required as stated

Remember I'm a noob - should run BF3 ok though

Keyser Soze · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:02

very nice, thanks for the pics.

I love that case, I want one

fowler002 · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:13

if you plan on overclocking the cpu(and if you don't then you should be locked up for crimes against k cpus

), you'll want to get a aftermarket cpu cooler.

btw horible grapgics card for gaming, wouldn't run bf3 etc at all

Jony27 · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:16

fowler002 said:
if you plan on overclocking the cpu(and if you don't then you should be locked up for crimes against k cpus ), you'll want to get a aftermarket cpu cooler.

btw horible grapgics card for gaming, wouldn't run bf3 etc at all

sarcasm?

it will run it but not on high

PrChaos · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:30

Nice build you got there mate. Although I can't help but agree with other people when they said it would have been more beneficial to get an i7 2500k and overclock it with an aftermarket CPU. Perhaps a Silver Arrow or one from the Corsair Hydro range with a good fan.

Nevertheless, still a great setup with a very nice case. Looks very roomy in there.

You did a great job for a noob who's never built a PC before.

Subliminal Aura · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:43

You put a smile on my face when I saw the title....

Thank you for posting pictures

GTO656 · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:48

Wow very nice build there mate, Is the samsung blu ray drive good? I was thinkin of geting tht model.

fowler002 · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:51

Jony27 said:
sarcasm?

it will run it but not on high

yes sarcasm, notic the wink smiley?

with the next gen of cards coming out 'soon' not the best time to be buying 580s etc and getting cheaper card to tide you over if you don't already have graphic card you can use in the mean while, tho saying that I've ecently splashed out £460 on 2x 6950s(got £40 of that back today for selling the deus ex codes) as I couldn't resist having bought a new dell u2711 monitor(£570 new from the bay)

if after your first pc build you're feeling confident, could try custom watercooling(think the case has enough room)

Tibbz2 · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:54

Subliminal Aura said:
You put a smile on my face when I saw the title....

Thank you for posting pictures

Haha same here

Love posts like this, i find them really interesting, especially with lots of pics!

But yeah, very nice build, i wish i could afford an i7!

jocksgotabig · 10 Sep 2011 at 20:55

Cheers for comments all. Glad you like the pics. Is an I7 not as good as an I5 then?

I may add another graphics card as the one i have is SLi - will this make it better? Ill probably only play dawn of war style games on it, i may get BF3 but ill have it on xbox as all my pals are on that platform.

Samsung drive is fine - quiet and quite cheap

fowler002 · 10 Sep 2011 at 21:00

the i2600k is better than the i2500k if you're doing video encoding and use programs that support hyper threading(the cpu has 4 physical cores but hyper threading doubles it up giving you 8 total, I'm not versed in the fine details so will leave it to someone else). for gaming and other tasks that don't make use of that feature or the extra l3 cache of the i2600 then its better to save the money and get the i2500k(unless you don't do 2nd best

).

RJC · 10 Sep 2011 at 21:02

jocksgotabig said:
Cheers for comments all. Glad you like the pics. Is an I7 not as good as an I5 then?

Samsung drive is fine - quiet and quite cheap

Your CPU could be class as overkill for gaming, were's the i5 2500k is a good medium, Intel have kept the i5 and i7 names, I have the i7 920 which your CPU is slightly a head in benchmarks.

PrChaos · 10 Sep 2011 at 21:50

fowler002 said:
the i2600k is better than the i2500k if you're doing video encoding and use programs that support hyper threading(the cpu has 4 physical cores but hyper threading doubles it up giving you 8 total, I'm not versed in the fine details so will leave it to someone else). for gaming and other tasks that don't make use of that feature or the extra l3 cache of the i2600 then its better to save the money and get the i2500k(unless you don't do 2nd best ).

+1 for this guy

Also... Never done it myself but apparantly the i5-2500k is ridiculously easy to overclock. Just up the multiplier I think to get your desired speed. (or so I've read)