[RichiRichX]

Hey all,

Sorry if this is the wrong section. Just wanted to show you guys my new build. (I have to type this thread up all over again after wiping the text by accident. Damn it! :S)

I've taken PCs apart before so this wasn't too difficult, but still a good challenge as my first build.

Computer I was using before build:

• 4GB of DDR3 Ram (1333 Mhz)
• Intel i7 860 (4 x 2,8 Ghz)
• AMD HD Radeon 5770 1GB
• Gigabyte H55MH-USB3

New build: scroll down to find out...

To start off: The Corsair C70 in Military Green. What else?

Top of the case



Love the reset button (looks like a missile launcher

)





Side panel off



Front panel



(Sorry I don't have a normal picture of the case from the front - totally forgot!)

The motherboard: Asus Z87-Plus. The pins on the I/O backplate were a pain in the ass. Haven't dealt with those in a while ^^.



Motherboard is installed.



And of course : HASWELL! 4770k running at 4 x 3,5 Ghz. I will attempt to overclock my CPU for the first time in a few days. I think one can hit around 4.6-4.8 Ghz with the Asus Z87-Plus. Will post results later.





The heart and brain of a computer... technology is amazing.





CPU is nice and comfy in its socket.

Simply stunning.



Overview of PC with the CPU installed.



Of course this build wouldn't be adequate without water cooling. The Corsair h100i





This was my first time using water cooling. It wasn't too difficult to install.



I will confirm this for all those who want to know. Yes, the Corsair H100i is definitely compatible with the 1150 Haswell socket.

You can adjust the screws when mounting it to the back of the motherboard. All you have to do is slide the screws inwards, and they will align with the holes on the motherboard. It even says <---> 115X on the backplate.





The thing will stay shaky, even after installing the screws on the other side, but don't worry. Once you put in the actual block and the mounting bracket, and tighten them on with the thumb screws, everything becomes rock solid.

I hope that helps someone out there.

H100i is installed.





Memory: 16GB of Corsair DDR3 Ram, running at 1600Mhz. CL10 if I remember well.





The doc at work ^^



Ram is in place.



The PSU: Corsair TX750 V2





Installing the power supply... Who wants spaghetti?



HDD: Western Digital Blue 1TB (7200RPM 6GB/s Sata)





HDD in the tray.



SSD: Samsung 840 Pro.



I was hesitating between the 840 and 840 Pro because of the role it might play in render times for videos (SSD --> HDD). I couldn't find a clear answer so I went with the 840 Pro to be on the safe side.



SSD in the tray.



Just the DVD burner.





Graphics card: Gigabyte Nvidia GeFore GTX 770 2GB OC WF3









Last but not least: the GPU is installed.





Wiring didn't end up being so bad in the end!

The new monitor: Asus VG248QE running at a whopping 144Mhz and 1ms reaction time

I absolutely recommend this mouse and mousepad.

I know the Logitech G700 has too much buttons - but I bought it for the grip and the look. It's a bit of an overkill, sure, but well worth it.

The mouse pad (Taito Mini-Size 3mm by Roccat) is an absolute dream as well. Totally recommended, even if you're just surfing the internet.



All done!

How the setup looks now

Anyway I hope you liked my build and I look forward to posting results from my first overclock!

If you would like to know what I actually do with PC and why I needed a new powerful one, then click here

:

Additional comments:

-The PSU has sleeved wiring, which is alright even though it doesn't cover everything. However the extra cables had to be tied down and hidden at the bottom of the case. A modular PSU would've been ten times better in this case. I might think about that for the next build in a few years.

-In the beginning, the computer booted fine but the DVD drive didn't turn on. Both the H100i and the DVD drive were connected to the same SATA power cable, but the first connector wasn't being used. My instinct told me to move the cables "down" by one connector.

From this:

--> DVD Drive
--> [unused]
--> H100i
--> [unused]

to this:

- [unused]
- DVD drive
- [unused]
- H100i

That fixed the issue

The DVD Drive booted fine and I was able to install Windows.

-Another problem I ran into was the "CPU Fan error" message at boot up.

There is a 3-pin fan connector on the motherboard called "CPU_FAN". If you don't connect the processor fan there (in my case the cooling block), then the computer thinks you don't have a CPU fan running, which isn't true. Just connect the 3-pin fan power cable there and the error message will disappear

(Hope this helps anyone who might run into the same problem).

P.S.

A buyer's tip: I ordered everything from www.caseking.de, however the SSD, monitor and DVD burner were from Amazon.

Can I recommend Caseking? Well. Here's the thing. Everything arrived in good shape, but the shipping tracking didn't really work at all (shipped by GLS).

As for the customer service.. I really have to say caseking.de suck. I'm sorry to bash, but I feel it is important to advise others.

I called to cancel another monitor I ordered with the PC, and the man on the phone was not only pretty rude, but he also told me that nothing could be done, although the monitor was there for another 24 hours. This means I had to go and send it back myself after it arrived, which is simply stupid and a waste of time. I'm still waiting for them to reimburse the monitor and the shipping costs.

The prices were however pretty damn good, if not the lowest I found in Europe. For example, I got the 4770k at a mere 304 euros and the shipping costs were very reasonable (only 15 euros).

 

[shilka]

Looks great

Do you plan on a second GTX 770?

 

[Selquist979]

Nice build.

 

[RichiRichX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shilka

Looks great

Do you plan on a second GTX 770?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Selquist979

Nice build.

Cheers to both of you!

Yes - I might get another 770 in the future, but I think my money would be better spent on a proper sound card and studio monitors. Will just have to see!

I am looking forward to using Vegas and Premiere with the new build. BF3 hit well over 100 frames both on low and ultra. Very satisfying!

 

[shilka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichiRichX

Cheers to both of you!

Yes - I might get another 770 in the future, but I think my money would be better spent on a proper sound card and studio monitors. Will just have to see!

I am looking forward to using Vegas and Premiere with the new build. BF3 hit well over 100 frames both on low and ultra. Very satisfying!

Well its just that you spent money on a non modular overkill PSU and you could have gotten a lower wattage modular PSU for the same money instead

Not trying to be rude or anything just saying

If you planed on a second GTX 770 then it would make more sense

Anyway its still a great build

 

[RichiRichX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shilka

Well its just that you spent money on a non modular overkill PSU and you could have gotten a lower wattage modular PSU for the same money instead

Not trying to be rude or anything just saying

If you planed on a second GTX 770 then it would make more sense

Anyway its still a great build

You're probably right. I spent more time researching for the motherboard, CPU, SSD, RAM and GPU.

However, I did finally manage to wire the PSU pretty well and hide any extra "snakes" ^^. It is very quiet indeed as well (unlike my last PC) and that's what counts the most for me

What would you have personally suggested in any case?

 

[shilka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichiRichX

You're probably right. I spent more time researching for the motherboard, CPU, SSD, RAM and GPU.

However, I did finally manage to wire the PSU pretty well and hide any extra "snakes" ^^. It is very quiet indeed as well (unlike my last PC) and that's what counts the most for me

What would you have personally suggested in any case?

The fans on the Corsair H100i are alright but they are not really high end fans i would replace them

Other then maybe replacing the case fans as well there is not really anything wrong with everything you did or ways to improve your build

 

[ibleedspeed]

sweet rig bro. love the c70.

 

[barkinos98]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichiRichX

-Another problem I ran into was the "CPU Fan error" message at boot up.

There is a 3-pin fan connector on the motherboard called "CPU_FAN". If you don't connect the processor fan there (in my case the cooling block), then the computer thinks you don't have a CPU fan running, which isn't true. Just connect the 3-pin fan power cable there and the error message will disappear

(Hope this helps anyone who might run into the same problem).

We ran into the same problem with my friends' mobo, i think you can turn that off in the BIOS, but i dont know if you can do it on your board since his board is advertised as an oc board (rampage 4 extreme)

 

[RichiRichX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by barkinos98

We ran into the same problem with my friends' mobo, i think you can turn that off in the BIOS, but i dont know if you can do it on your board since his board is advertised as an oc board (rampage 4 extreme)

Yea I think you can disable it, but I just reconnected the fan to the CPU_FAN connector. Problem solved

I measured the total boot time from power on to opening Google.com in Chrome. It's roughly 21 seconds.

Bios takes about 10s
Windows another 11-13s

Note: I did disable a few useless features in the BIOS for POST to be faster.

Will start overclocking soon!

 

[daguardian]

Great build, really like that case!

How are your temps with H100i?

 

[RichiRichX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daguardian

Great build, really like that case!

How are your temps with H100i?

Cheers mate

Roughly.. I'd say 30 degrees Celsius at idle, 60-65 under load.

Will try to overclock now. There's a good guide by Linus on youtube. But I'm not sure what to expect. I ran 2 passes of Memtest86+ with no problems, however I didn't have time to run Prime95 or Aida64 for long. Will do that after I OC to check for stability. I'm sure the CPU is fine atm.

Edit:

Strange, I'm getting 80+ temps while running prime95 now

 

[wfor1pilot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichiRichX

Edit:

Strange, I'm getting 80+ temps while running prime95 now

I was really considering an H100i for my rig as well but, they don't seem to cool all that well (from some reviews I've read). Have you set your fan/curve options in the asus software?
P.S. Nice rig indeed !!!

 

[_s3v3n_]

Very nice build RichiRichX

+1

 

[RichiRichX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wfor1pilot

I was really considering an H100i for my rig as well but, they don't seem to cool all that well (from some reviews I've read). Have you set your fan/curve options in the asus software?
P.S. Nice rig indeed !!!

Thanks very much!

I forgot to post back:

• Right now my 4770k is overclocked at 4.4Ghz running at about 1.265 volts on Adaptive voltage. (Offset is on "+" with a value of 0.040) for those who would like to know. It's not 100% stable but it's pretty good. I'm still getting there.
• My PSU, the Corsair TX750 V2 was making some kind of rattling/scraping noise. It would do this as soon as I did even the smallest task, like opening a new tab in my browser or opening a program. It reminded me of the old hard drives which you could actually hear working.
  
  Anyway, got it replaced by Corsair through an advance RMA. Corsair really have excellent support (if not the best!). Unfortunately the second unit has the same problem. I'll be back with a video soon, which is also for Corsair, and they might hook me up with a PSU from a better series. I'm crossing my fingers - even though this problem seems to be a widespread with Corsair PSUs.

And don't worry about the h100i. It's a great cooler. It was just me who was messing around with overclocking and I didn't really know what I was doing.
It also has this "Corsair Link" hardware already integrated. That means if you download the software you can actually control the speed of all fans connected to it, directly in Windows, and also change the colour of the LED on the waterblock. Mine alternates smoothly between 4 colours all the time, pretty nifty

Quote:

Originally Posted by _s3v3n_

Very nice build RichiRichX

+1

Thanks a lot! Appreciate it

 

[Inglewood78]

Enjoy your new toy

 

[Nick7269]

Very nice, can't wait to see how well the new 4770's are running.

 

[bfmv2k5]

Hello. Fairly new around here.

Very clean build overall, good job man!

Would be, if I had one, to set the h100i for blue when the rig is cold and red when it hits a certain point so you know perhaps if something is going wrong. Of course, that's if your not constantly monitoring or anything of the nature in other ways.

 

[Frank33]

How good is the 770 at not keeping up at 144Hz? What game do you play?

 

[newone757]

Ahh the MPK49. I have one too but I need a nice slide out side table for mine like you have. Its in the waaaay