Project: Blue & Black (First Build Log)

Chesney420

Chesney420

Chesney420

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11 Jan 2014
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Eíre
Second PC build but first build log. (So go easy on me :p)

I'm building a PC for everyday use. (Gaming,a little Photoshop,music,movies,web browsing,etc)
Im going for a blue & black theme. :cool: As I'm a bit short on funds I'll be buying a part or two a week.

Components

Processor: AMD FX8320 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P
Power Supply: Be Quiet! CM BQT L8-630W
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE R9 290 4GB
Case: BitFenix Shadow
Cooling: Corsair Air Series AF120-LED 120mm Quiet Edition High Airflow Blue LED Fan x3 & Cool Master 1156 RL-S12V-24PK-R1 Seidon
Memory: Four 4GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz. (Two Blue & Two Black)
Hard Drive: 1TB Western Digital 7200rpm hard drive.
SSD: Kingston HyperX 120GB SATA3 3K Gaming SSD Drive x2 (Will have on RAID0)
Sound Card: Startech 7.1 Ch Pci Digital

I've already got 1TB HDD,three sticks of 4GB RAM (One's faulty, waiting on replacement), and a copy of Windows.

I'll also be using braided cables (Blue & Black) to go with the theme.

Can't wait! :D
 
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Hi Dude,

Have you bought any of the parts yet? What is your budget - I think we might be able to improve the kit list.

Answers to questions:

1. Looks like it comes with 5 fans, a couple of which have blue LED's by the looks of it. Should be all the fans you need but they will be cheap models and might be quite loud.

2. I have never gone SLI/XFIRE just due to various issues with games that require patches and new drivers to fix. Less hassle with 1 card. The 760 is not bad at all, AMD 280 or 280X would be best if you can afford it.

3. Yeah there aren't many I can think of. Sapphire do blue or purple accented cards I believe.

Let us know your budget and we can spec up a complete build for you.
 
WalderX said:
Hi Dude,

Have you bought any of the parts yet? What is your budget - I think we might be able to improve the kit list.

Answers to questions:

1. Looks like it comes with 5 fans, a couple of which have blue LED's by the looks of it. Should be all the fans you need but they will be cheap models and might be quite loud.

2. I have never gone SLI/XFIRE just due to various issues with games that require patches and new drivers to fix. Less hassle with 1 card. The 760 is not bad at all, AMD 280 or 280X would be best if you can afford it.

3. Yeah there aren't many I can think of. Sapphire do blue or purple accented cards I believe.

Let us know your budget and we can spec up a complete build for you.
Click to expand...

The hard drive & 8GB of ram :p My budget is about €1100

1. As long as all the fans are there I'll try them out for a while before I order new ones.

2. I was thinking of getting a GIGABYTE R9 290 4GB instead of going with SLI

3. If I get the GIGABYTE R9 290 it'll do because it pure black.

I'm thinking of getting a AMD FX8350 Black Edition 8 Core. Has any of you ever used it?
 
So €1100 = about £920

Here is what I have put together:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-R929OC-4GD) £347.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x MSI Z87-G43 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £79.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £79.99
1 x Zalman Z11 Plus Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black £59.99
2 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £55.99 (£111.98)
1 x Alpenföhn Brocken CPU Cooler £32.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £912.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).



-Deffo for the R9 290, it is best card for the money right now.

-The Zalman case has good reviews and loads of fans so I don't see any reason to
change that if you like it

-I changed you over to an i5 haswell CPU as they are still preferred for gaming and your budget can fit one in

-I went with a mobo that will fit you colour theme and will allow some overclocking of the i5

-650W Superflower PSU will be fine for 1 card. If you think you might run 2 cards in future then go for an 850W or more.

-I put in 2x 120GB SSD's so you can set them in RAID0 to get 240GB space and double the speeds!

-A decent yet inexpensive CPU cooler (not sure if it will deffo fit the zalman case but you don't want to be using the stock intel cooler really).

-A DVD writer if you think you might need it to install windows etc.

-You already have the memory which will be fine

-Didn't include a soundcard as the mobo has half decent 7.1 HD audio built in
 
WalderX said:
So €1100 = about £920

Here is what I have put together:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-R929OC-4GD) £347.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x MSI Z87-G43 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £79.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £79.99
1 x Zalman Z11 Plus Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black £59.99
2 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £55.99 (£111.98)
1 x Alpenföhn Brocken CPU Cooler £32.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £912.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).



-Deffo for the R9 290, it is best card for the money right now.

-The Zalman case has good reviews and loads of fans so I don't see any reason to
change that if you like it

-I changed you over to an i5 haswell CPU as they are still preferred for gaming and your budget can fit one in

-I went with a mobo that will fit you colour theme and will allow some overclocking of the i5

-650W Superflower PSU will be fine for 1 card. If you think you might run 2 cards in future then go for an 850W or more.

-I put in 2x 120GB SSD's so you can set them in RAID0 to get 240GB space and double the speeds!

-A decent yet inexpensive CPU cooler (not sure if it will deffo fit the zalman case but you don't want to be using the stock intel cooler really).

-A DVD writer if you think you might need it to install windows etc.

-You already have the memory which will be fine

-Didn't include a soundcard as the mobo has half decent 7.1 HD audio built in
Click to expand...

Thanks :D

I really like the look of that board :cool:

- Will 650w be enough? The GIGABYTE R9 290 needs 600w alone:eek:
- Will the cooler be good enough for overclocking?
 
Hey
just FYI, there is no point getting a pair of SSDs to run in RAID0 as it does not give you there sort of performance you would expect from traditional HDDs going from standard to RAID0. toms did a review of it a while back i think.
the 240gb M500 is now under £100 so it even saves you money (i have used 4 in the past week and whilst they may not be the fastest on paper, i can't see the difference in startup or shutdown times between that and my samsung 840 pro)
the 290 doesn't NEED 600, it will only draw around 300 at max load, even with a small overclock. (check manufacturers spec and review that include power consumption).

regards

Adam
 
Chesney420 said:
Thanks :D

I really like the look of that board :cool:

- Will 650w be enough? The GIGABYTE R9 290 needs 600w alone:eek:
- Will the cooler be good enough for overclocking?
Click to expand...

Yeah 650W will be fine, with a decent branded PSU that is gold rated it will be much more efficient than a cheap brand. I have a 290X, an overclocked i5, 7 fans and all the lights etc it draws about 500W max at load. That is with a Corsair AX gold rated PSU, the Superflower units are equally good.

They state 600W incase people use the cards with a non-brand cheapo PSU like "POWER GAMING BEAST XTREME HYPER 850W" which can only actually output 600W without going bang! I made that PSU name up by the way ;)

phate1337 said:
Hey
just FYI, there is no point getting a pair of SSDs to run in RAID0 as it does not give you there sort of performance you would expect from traditional HDDs going from standard to RAID0. toms did a review of it a while back i think.
Click to expand...

I might be a bit of a RAID fanboy hehe. But I have been running RAID0 on 2 SSD's for the past 2 years and see great performance out of it, it's never double speed but it's still a lot faster than the single SSD. You might be better spending the money on 1 larger SSD though if RAID doesn't take your fancy.

EDIT: The board I specced is at the cheap end of the Z87 range so if you are planning on overclocking the CPU a lot it would pay to invest in a Gigabyte or Asus higher end board - you will get better results, more easily.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-R929OC-4GD) £347.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £101.99
1 x Seasonic M12II EVO Edition 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Fully Modular Power Supply £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £65.99
1 x Deepcool GAMMAXX S40 CPU-Cooler - 120mm £19.99
Total : £798.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Check your email.

How about something like that?

The PSU is modular and more powerful for the same price.

the SSD is of a better quality.
 
WalderX said:
-I changed you over to an i5 haswell CPU as they are still preferred for gaming and your budget can fit one in
Click to expand...

stulid said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-R929OC-4GD) £347.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £101.99
1 x Seasonic M12II EVO Edition 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Fully Modular Power Supply £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £65.99
1 x Deepcool GAMMAXX S40 CPU-Cooler - 120mm £19.99
Total : £798.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Check your email.

How about something like that?

The PSU is modular and more powerful for the same price.

the SSD is of a better quality.
Click to expand...

- I've been thinking about it and I'm going to stick with an AMD CPU. I know there not as good but I just prefer them as a brand if that makes sense haha.

- The PSU I was looking at was £62.98 for the same wattage :eek:

- Would there really be enough difference in speed to spend more & buy two SSDs instead of a Crucial CT240M500SSD1 240GB? It's only £87.
 
I hear what you are saying.

The CX750 is not modular and technically not as well built inside, 750W should be ample for most dual card setups too.

I run a pair of fast SSD's in RAID0, it is nice, but any good SSD is going to a noticeable improvement over a HDD.

Check your email.
 
Came home to this today :D

cq1c.jpg

Will put up pics tomorrow.
 
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