Hi guys.
I have been buying up parts for the ebtter part of 4 or 5 months now, and finally got round to building the machine a couple of days ago.
Specs:
CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Mobo - Asus P8P67 DELUXE Intel P67 (Revision B3 so no sata 2 degredation)
Memory - Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit
GPU - Sparkle Geforce 460
PSU - Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply
Cooling - Corsair Hydro H70 High-Performance CPU WaterCooler
HDD - OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
Case - Fractal Design R3 midi tower
Optical drive - Standard DVD rewriter.
Monitor - Some 24" from the loca supplier with < 5ms response time and good contrast and brightness ratios. Benq
OS - Win 7 Ultimate 64bit
First off let me say that I did try to be a loyal customer and source all the components I wanted from OCUK, but as I was buying bit by bit, it was not always possible, as I live in Sweden and the shipping costs would have killed me. I did get what I could from them though. Monitor and case were the heaviest so I had to source them locally.
The case was the first part I bought, and it is a beauty of a case. The rig runs really quiet in it, and all the noise dampening helps a lot. The case is also extreemly modable and comes with all the rubber grommits you could want for cable management or watercooling.
I had a bit of an old rig before, not so great motherboard, cheapest CPU in the dual core range, and 2GB ram. I got the SDD recently (third or fourth last component) and thought I would install windows on it and TF2 and some other stuff to see how much of an improvement over my WDC 5400 RPM drive of antiquity. I could not believe it. The shift in loading times was just ridiculous. From pressing the Steam button to getting to a usuable interface used to take nearly a full minute. With the SSD in the old rig it took about 7 seconds. Phenomenal. Needless to say I could not wait to put together the new machine and see what it could do.
A buddy came round and we set to work on Tuesday night. We started prepping the case first, as the H70 is HUGE and is best used (according to corsair) as an intake, so we had to switch all the case fans around to be exhausts. Then we put in the mobo screw stands (or whatever they are called, the screws that the motherboard sits on and then is screwed into) and then mounted the HDD's (I have another HDD with only data on it that I did not include in the specs.) Next we put the CPU into the motherboard (it never fails to amuse me the price of basically a small sandwich of silicon, and that the box is mainly fan, partly chip) and mounted the motherboard. My friend did this part whilst I was making the food and I later found 3 motherboard screws unused outside the case once it was all done. Have to put them in later on
With motherboard mounted, we screwed in the PSU and started threading power cords around the case, then we started connecting all the front panel parts to the mobo, and hooking up the HDDs and optical drives. Then we slid in the GFX card and then came the H70.
The radiator on this beast is massive. I didn't think it would actually fit in the case at first. We managed to mount it and the mounting bracket around the CPU, and then realised the fan header we wanted to use was actually under the radiator, so we unmounted it again, plugged in the fan header and remounted it.
Doublechecking the wiring came next (I have a habit of forgetting to plug in the ATX power supply for some reason) Then we hooked it up and switched it on. It worked first time! No beep though. But it was all OK.
The components were all first class stuff. I was super impressed with both the mobo and the case. Like everything had been thought out well in advance.
The WEI for the SSD in the old rig was 7.1 with most other stuff floating around the 5.1 mark. Now the new rig is running, the WEI for the SSD jumped to 7.4 and its actually the lowest score. Everything else is running at around 7.5 or 7.6.
I'll try to get some pictures up in a day or two.
Any questions or queries or benchmarks you want me to run and post results of, please do not hesitate to ask
I have been buying up parts for the ebtter part of 4 or 5 months now, and finally got round to building the machine a couple of days ago.
Specs:
CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Mobo - Asus P8P67 DELUXE Intel P67 (Revision B3 so no sata 2 degredation)
Memory - Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit
GPU - Sparkle Geforce 460
PSU - Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply
Cooling - Corsair Hydro H70 High-Performance CPU WaterCooler
HDD - OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
Case - Fractal Design R3 midi tower
Optical drive - Standard DVD rewriter.
Monitor - Some 24" from the loca supplier with < 5ms response time and good contrast and brightness ratios. Benq
OS - Win 7 Ultimate 64bit
First off let me say that I did try to be a loyal customer and source all the components I wanted from OCUK, but as I was buying bit by bit, it was not always possible, as I live in Sweden and the shipping costs would have killed me. I did get what I could from them though. Monitor and case were the heaviest so I had to source them locally.
The case was the first part I bought, and it is a beauty of a case. The rig runs really quiet in it, and all the noise dampening helps a lot. The case is also extreemly modable and comes with all the rubber grommits you could want for cable management or watercooling.
I had a bit of an old rig before, not so great motherboard, cheapest CPU in the dual core range, and 2GB ram. I got the SDD recently (third or fourth last component) and thought I would install windows on it and TF2 and some other stuff to see how much of an improvement over my WDC 5400 RPM drive of antiquity. I could not believe it. The shift in loading times was just ridiculous. From pressing the Steam button to getting to a usuable interface used to take nearly a full minute. With the SSD in the old rig it took about 7 seconds. Phenomenal. Needless to say I could not wait to put together the new machine and see what it could do.
A buddy came round and we set to work on Tuesday night. We started prepping the case first, as the H70 is HUGE and is best used (according to corsair) as an intake, so we had to switch all the case fans around to be exhausts. Then we put in the mobo screw stands (or whatever they are called, the screws that the motherboard sits on and then is screwed into) and then mounted the HDD's (I have another HDD with only data on it that I did not include in the specs.) Next we put the CPU into the motherboard (it never fails to amuse me the price of basically a small sandwich of silicon, and that the box is mainly fan, partly chip) and mounted the motherboard. My friend did this part whilst I was making the food and I later found 3 motherboard screws unused outside the case once it was all done. Have to put them in later on
With motherboard mounted, we screwed in the PSU and started threading power cords around the case, then we started connecting all the front panel parts to the mobo, and hooking up the HDDs and optical drives. Then we slid in the GFX card and then came the H70.
The radiator on this beast is massive. I didn't think it would actually fit in the case at first. We managed to mount it and the mounting bracket around the CPU, and then realised the fan header we wanted to use was actually under the radiator, so we unmounted it again, plugged in the fan header and remounted it.
Doublechecking the wiring came next (I have a habit of forgetting to plug in the ATX power supply for some reason) Then we hooked it up and switched it on. It worked first time! No beep though. But it was all OK.
The components were all first class stuff. I was super impressed with both the mobo and the case. Like everything had been thought out well in advance.
The WEI for the SSD in the old rig was 7.1 with most other stuff floating around the 5.1 mark. Now the new rig is running, the WEI for the SSD jumped to 7.4 and its actually the lowest score. Everything else is running at around 7.5 or 7.6.
I'll try to get some pictures up in a day or two.
Any questions or queries or benchmarks you want me to run and post results of, please do not hesitate to ask
