Project Hardon

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Soldato
Joined
21 Nov 2004
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Location
Wishaw
my daughter has been nagging me for a new rig for a while now

current rig is a very early amd quad of pc world origin (was a cheap and cheerful £300 system 6 years ago and its really starting to show its age :(



so I was given some requirements


able to play sims 3
be cool
be small




so far i'm still at the acquiring all the necessary parts stage

heres what I have so far


EVGA Hadron Air case
Gigabyte Z87N Wifi mobo
Pentium K
8gig of Teamgroup 1600mhz ram
Thermalright AXP cooler


I have a 4870 that will get her up and running but still on the to acquire/steal/borrow list

a decent GPU
SSD and storage drive
some led lighting

lists getting shorter woot


seriously tempted to pull the spare 2tb out my own rig and borrow my 280x to get this up and running for now, i'm desperate to have a crack at overclocking the K and see what it can do


once I start building (which is going to be a challenge the Hardon is tiny. so I don't think it will be anything too fancy but should hopefully be a nice neat build.


in case your wondering the project name came from my wife who questioned why I had been googling erections on her laptop :)
 
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ooooh getting there, another couple of bits and bobs ordered


8 gig of ram and a Thermalright AXP 100 with a gentle typhoon fan

go well with the black silent that are already in the case :)
 
might actually start the build today as i'm sure a ssd and gpu can easily be fitted post build


in fact I've got a spare 4870 all I need is a storage drive, sure I can scavenge one from somewhere
 
might even post some pics up of me slipping the hardon out the brown box later


ooeer
 
build started





its TINY



easy part done

back plate fitted





cpu fitted

stock HSF on just for now




4pin connector next to the cpu slot err my psu doesn't have one is that necessary?



then it all went to pot

what a nasty horrible case this is, the cables are all far too short there is ZERO room for cable management and its just far too tight to work in.


this is going to be a challenge ;)
 
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Cheers RJC


we has success





fully installed now and sitting on the desktop woot


all i have to do now is swap the 2TB mechanical out for a SSD when i get one and swap GPUs around once i pick one up for this add some lights and give the wiring a tidy
 
temporary lash up is lashed up









few problems though,

think the mobo is goosed. won't boot with a stick of ram in slot 1 :( tried 3 different sets of ddr3 in it so were down to 4 gigs until i get a new mobo or a 8x1gig stick

and the gnu is a lowly 4870.


hopefully have the thermal right arrive tomorrow and i'll get that fired on then give it a healthy OC
 
not a chance of getting the lightning in i think exterior dimensions of the case is 296mm wide :)
 
now sporting a over clocked 280x at 1200/1600 along side the K @4ghz :)




think it should be potent enough for 1080p gaming :)
 
thermal take arrived so i thought i better get the bleeding thing fitted :)


so stripped it all down again






cooler under assembly



looking good


oh ****



that isn't going to fit now is it

so start again





tighter than a nuns chuff

got the mobo bolted in then realised i hadnt plugged anything in oops

trying to fit the audio connector and system fan was a bleeding nightmare



lots of sweaty words



ahahahaha i still hadn't plugged the 4 pin in either what a noob




many many sweaty words later we have 4 pin audio and system fans connected

some added cable ties for a slightly neater build





and the finished build



clocked to 4.2ghz with a over clocked 280x at 1175, i think this will handle sims3/4 :)




future plans


might see if i can get a blue 100mm fan to mount on the cooler (any suggestions)

and some braided extensions for the 24 pin and 8 and 6 on the gpu just to neaten things up a tad

but happy with it for now
 
going to pull it apart again today :) got some nice new blue fan extension cables arrived today, really should leave it till my 6/8 and 24 pin extensions are bought but hey why not
 
Sub £400

Quick add up

Hadron and psu £85
Mobo £40
Ram £40
CPU £50
Gpu stolen from my rig but say £120
Cooler and cables another £30
Hdd stolen from my rig but say £30 secondhand

Everything from mm apart from the pentium K which was new but their going for £35 secondhand ATM proper budget build :)

£395 all in by my maths

For that I've ended up with a 4.4ghz dual core and a 280x running at 1200/1600

Should be enough to stomp all but the most heavily threaded games but I also
Have a clear upgrade path being able to drop a quad core
CPU in with or without hyper threading later on
 
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