Blackdog builds a PC

Blackdog

Blackdog

Bright Spark
So after a good deal of consideration, I have decided to build my girlfriend a PC to run Guild Wars 2. I couldn't be more happy with my PCS rig, but the only regret I had after all my research was that I didn't get to take part in any of the production stage, so after further research and with a budget of about 550 pounds (excluding windows as i had that covered) I put together the following.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4GHz Socket AM3 6MB L3 Cache Cache 125W

Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz Ballistix Memory Kit

Asus M5A97 PRO 970 Socket AM3+ 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard

XFX HD 7870 DD Edition 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual Mini DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

Corsair 600W CX Builder Series 80 Plus Bronze PSU 3 Year Warrant

Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo AMD Socket AM2 AM2+ AM3 AM3+ FM1 Intel 775 1155 1156 1366 Processor Coole

Samsung SH-224BB SATA DVD Write Optical Drive | OEM

Coolermaster Elite 430 All Black Interior Mid Tower Case with Side Window

WD 500gb Caviar Black

Through various deals i managed to pick the above up for just under 550 pounds, and am super stoked. This is going to be my project for after my exams (finish on the 10th.) I intend to take a load of photos and make a couple of posts as i go through the build process. Check this space...

BD
 
Blackdog

Blackdog

Bright Spark
Awaiting delivery of my parts some time next week. Here's a teaser

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Blackdog

Blackdog

Bright Spark
vanthus said:
You will need to apply thermal paste otherwise your CPU will probably have a very short lifespan,maybe even minutes.
Click to expand...

This is why you're here...hehe. Thanks. I have a bunch of assembly videos queued up to watch, and a friend who has built at least a dozen pcs, so hopefully we would have caught that :p
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Do a build log! And don't just promise to do one like a certain moderator who I will not name :p You know who you are tom.... oops... :clown:
 
Grimezy

Grimezy

Prolific Poster
Ah you are my inspiration. I still plan to do this for my girlfriend as she enjoys a bit of GW2 now but I can't afford it at the moment. Let us know how it goes :) I also feel the same as you, love my PCS rig but can't help but feel something's missing because I didn't help to build it! I also didn't realise the ridiculous amount of case options available before I started doing research for hers... :(
 
Blackdog

Blackdog

Bright Spark
UPDATE - DELIVERY DAY :)

So i took delivery of most of my parts today gents, I am now just awaiting the cooler,some case fans and hard drive from amazon. Everything got here in good nick, however my refurbished MOBO came without any SATA cables or a manual. I can find the manual easily enough but the sata cables are a pain. What's most annoying is that I have a 7 day no questions asked return policy, although for that I'd want to have my cooler for the cpu, and don't want to install the stock cooler for testing only to have it removed. My consumer protection knowledge is pretty sharp, and that buys me 28 days, although I think when work resumes on Tuesday I should get a favourable reply. That's a minor headache, but only because I'm impatient as hell.

I've been working off of three resources, all of which are invaluable to me as a first time builder and are collectively the best information pieces I've found on the internet.

The first is obviously the MOBO manual, which was a lot less confusing than I though - good job ASUS

The second I found on Reddit (R/buildapc -check this out) It's a free guide this guy has published which deals with EVERYTHING I could need, not only in the technical description of parts and their construction, but also on buying advice for every type of pc, not just gaming. I've learned most from this and would recommend it to you as worth a read

http://www.scribd.com/doc/139299700/Pc-Building-Guide

The third resource is from youtube. There are lots of how-to-build-a-pc videos but this is by far the best. Although I could probably manage without, its reassuring to have somebody talk me through installation, and fidgety things like CPU paste. (Note Vanthus saved my entire build by confirming that the application of said paste is indeed something I should try :p .)

[video=youtube;ea_bs5G1yYU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea_bs5G1yYU[/video]

Here's what I have so far

DSC_0656.jpg

This is my processor and cheapo ram. Note i looked and looked online and could not find a SINGLE technical difference between this and their XMS brand.

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This is the core of my build, if I hadn't got such a bargain on this little guy I might not have built the system

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May not pass this on to the missus when she gets her present

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Finally here's a little something I found for us configurators while doing my research

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

Although its just a recommended guide of course I like the usability and the fact that I can see custom cases/coolers as I scroll over them. I like this link for no other reason than introducing this beast into my life

thermalright-silverarrow-sb-e-extreme-award.jpg

So thats it for just now guys, I'll be building this some time next week, depending on whether I crack and go buy more sata cables. Quite nervous now. I miss my silver warranty.
 
Blackdog

Blackdog

Bright Spark
UPDATE: The Build!

So here it is piece by painstaking piece. I have booted up, installed all of my drivers, security software, Steam is installed, Guild Wars 2 is downloading and I have prime 95/heavenly GPU suite to run overnight. Here is the WEM screenshot which gives a rough outline of my capabilities. I've had to use a mixture of uploaded images and imageshack ones, so apologies for that.

performance.PNG

With the exception of my HDD I'm well over 7, which I'm pretty happy with, considering my budget (just north of 500 pounds.) In the next few days ill get to running fraps on some games for comparison, but I'm thrilled that i could get to this point, knowing nothing about PCs (really) only six or seven months ago. Thanks to everybody who helped or has helped me along the way, the PCS forums have been great for getting to grips with all of this. I'm going to post my thoughts for each step in the build process, sorry if they're painstakingly obvious.

DSC_0661.jpg

Our CPU is in place. This was a pretty stress free process, not too much force was required at all.

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Ram was also pretty easy, the MOBO manual clearly shows you which slots to plug into and the sticks popped into place with a little downward pressure.

DSC_0663.jpg

With the stock cooler's bracket removed I fitted the bridge for the Hyper Evo 212.Metal bases were supplied so I was never directly screwing into the MOBO.

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http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3934/dsc0671bj.jpg

Here's the cooler screwed on from the top. My friend stepped in and did some clever routing of the CPU_Fan cable round the brackets of the mounting board. I'm glad he was there as I definitely would have missed something like this. It was also nice whenever in a situation where a little bit of force has to be applied, to get a little bit of reassurance that I'm not about to snap my parts in two. There's also the warranty sticker here, which I later stuck down to the bracket.

This was the thermal paste application. Again I handed this task over to my buddy who had more experience with this, he used a plastic applicator to spread it out nice and evenly.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2227/dsc0666u.jpg

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/646/dsc0669d.jpg

Then came the MOBO mounting pins which were well labelled on the case, I also stuck in the back panel for my MOBO and screwed in my PSU.

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7387/dsc0679y.jpg

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/5095/dsc0680hy.jpg

One of my headers for the front panel connectors had come loose in transit. A little surgery was applied, and we were good to go.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/3259/dsc0676g.jpg

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/1672/dsc0683av.jpg

The optical drive and HDD were tool-less installations and went in without any trouble.

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/7513/dsc0686eh.jpg

Now just for the GPU! I had to remove the PCI slots from the rear, and this, alongside cable management is my main criticism of the Coolermaster 430. I accidentally removed the top two instead of leaving one bracket intact. Unfortunately you cant reinstall these once they have been removed, however i was able to remove the correct one and somewhat wedge it on top to fill the gap, so I can live with this.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9791/dsc0687qb.jpg

Once both of my SATA cables were installed, front panel/USB was hooked up and with my PSU attached to everything I was ready to power on. As you can tell we left cable management till we had a good startup.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8537/dsc0692so.jpg

I had a little bit of a crisis here as with everything finally plugged in, the power button yielded nada. Not a sound. We checked our way back and I had, true to form, incorrectly plugged in the front panel power connector :( With that fixed BOOM - into BIOS. The ASUS software was pretty user friendly and worked with a mouse.

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/1838/dsc0695ri.jpg


Finally we used some cable ties to keep everything together as neatly as possible. This case has zero cable management functionality so everything just has to be tied into the bottom corner under your hard drives. This isn't ideal, especially without a modular PSU but for this budget (this is a sub £35 case) I get a decent looking functional housing with good cooling, so inner aesthetics aren't too much of a worry. Here's the side panel on, loading up drivers and waiting to game in all her glory. She has been christened "Lola" by the missus.

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/1607/dsc0702l.jpg

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1911/dsc0703r.jpg

So that's it. Im pretty proud of what I put together, and my understanding of respective parts and their importance has definitely improved. Will I forgo another high end PCS rig in the future? I'm not so sure. This was one cheap build, and that's great, as I knew that if anything happened I wasn't dealing with my super expensive gpu/processor or whatever. If i have any problems with Falcor (my main) then I can pick up the phone and have somebody who knows a lot more about this deal with that problem without question. So I don't think PCS need batten down hatches too soon as I probably won't put them out of business in a hurry. I was amazingly lucky with good prices on parts, and I haven't calculated exactly how much I've saved, though I don't think its been earth shatteringly cheaper. There's definitely something to be said for going through the process of bringing a computer to life, and that is unquantifiable. Perhaps PCS will introduce a "build it yourself" option for folks like me, and let me loose at the warehouse :)

All the best everyone, I put a good chunk of work into this build/thread but you guys are pretty good to me :p

Blackdog (Underclocker)
 
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vanthus

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
Well done,brilliant,it must be a great feeling to have built it yourself and see everything working :).Something I planned on doing for years now, just for the satisfaction of achievement,but never got round to it and probably never will now as the notions wore off.
The learning experience will probably also give you a lot of confidence now to tackle anything that goes wrong with your own and other computers.
 
Blackdog

Blackdog

Bright Spark
vanthus said:
Well done,brilliant,it must be a great feeling to have built it yourself and see everything working :).Something I planned on doing for years now, just for the satisfaction of achievement,but never got round to it and probably never will now as the notions wore off.
The learning experience will probably also give you a lot of confidence now to tackle anything that goes wrong with your own and other computers.
Click to expand...

Thanks man. Yeah I'll definitely be able to add SSD's,HDD's and maybe sli my 670 without a hitch. Think that will have to wait till 2014 though.
 
OneZeoN

OneZeoN

Enthusiast
Yeah nice review and the pc looks the part!

I'd love to build the pc im currently saving for but I know almost nothing about builds and would have no one to help with pastes, cables and set up etc.
Ill just get PC Specialist to do it and ill stick in my Gtx 670 (thats stressful enough for my lack of knowledge lol)
 
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