General PC Discussion - special cameo appearance by Asthenia

[Asthenia 138]

Hello fellow humans,

So recently I've been thinking - I'm a cocky smart ass, why haven't I built a PC yet? I bet I could do that shit, I joined a Service Desk supporting 4500 staff with no prior experience (aside from being a cocky smart ass who knows computers like the shaft of my cock and learns faster than you can say "say, do you know...") and now I'm one of the favourites on the team, I can do anything!

And now here I am, typing away hoping you'll pay attention. It all started last year, I bought a case on a whim, cause I thought it was pretty. The Fractal Design R3, which I'll post pictures of below. It ended up getting a few cosmetic scratches while in storage when I didn't have enough money to build into it, but nothing I can't polish out with a little love.

The build as of right now, is waiting for me to get paid on Thursday next week (April 5th), and to meet up with a friend to get my GPU on Friday.

This started out as a "I'll build something cheap" build that has spiralled into something beautiful. Initially I was looking at a locked i5 and a GPU along the lines of a GTX 460. Yeah, that cheap. That'll also explain some of the components I'm working with, these will all be upgraded probably on or after the 5th, or the 6th of May. I'm in the process of moving into a new place too, so this is living alongside that.

Side note - I'm at work right now and I finish in 10 minutes, all pictures will be updated with personal ones and thumbnails probably Monday!

Case - Fractal Design R3 Black Pearl

My colleague / friend offered me this for £40 when he moved to M-ATX. I took one look and got him the money out before even checking I could afford it. I love the style and the colour, and it's fucking enormous!

It looks pretty warm inside there when it's closed up, but I'm not not a fucking moron. There's plenty of space for cooling and I've taken advantage.

R3, empty inside

R3, front

R3, open front

PSU - OCZ ZS-550W

One of the cheap components I was talking about, this needs to be upgraded to at least 600 of a trusted brand, but for the sake of my future I'm looking at around 800/1000w.

ZS-550W

Motherboard - Asus P8Z68-V LX

A good quality, budget LGA1155, Z68 motherboard. Great reviews, and Asus are trustworthy.

LX Rear

LX Processor Seat - Dem pins, mmm.

Processor - Intel i5 2500K 3.3GHz Sandy Bridge - OEM

The first person to ask "y didnt u get a i7, its wel much betta" has the pleasure of my fist in their cunt. Hyperthreading and 100 extra cycles? No thanks, I'm playing games, not processing video or folding! And the first person to ask "y dnt u w8 an get ivy burdge?" gets a reasonable explanation. I bought the 2500k before Intel announced April 29th for Ivy, and I want it now, not in a month. This way, I get to rip 4.8GHz out of it for gaming, and achieve 5GHz stable before selling it on to someone who will appreciate a cheap Sandy when Ivy comes along.

This is the thing I've been most excited about since I decided on overclocking - the 2500K!

Underside

Topside

Unboxing

I ordered the OEM model, but Scan were out of stock so they sent me the retail version and I get to mount the stock cooler on my wall and giggle at how cute and small it is.

Update - 06/04/12

So... My motherboard was a dud. When I bought it, I didn't open it all up and check it. Came to testing and the pins on the socket are fuuuucked. Only a couple of them, but bad enough not to POST. No way in fuck will OC'ers RMA it, they turn away pins and blame it on you. No biggie, sleep well sweet prince. Excuse to upgrade to a Z77.. But I need a mobo to test on! So I rushed out and bought a H67 board which came with an i3 2310 (I think), which I'll be selling for cheapsies... This means I can't OC for now but I don't have a cooler for the time being any way so that's fine, I'm using the cutesy Intel cooler at the moment.

Onwards...

Memory - Crucial Ballistix Sport, 8GB (2x4), 9-9-9-24, 1600mhz

Ramory

This is another aspect of the build that was bought for the low spec machine. I'll definitely be upgrading in the near future (when I sell stuff I'll put it up on here first to see if any one's interested)... It's great RAM and I like it so far, but I fancy lower timings and I don't wanna play about with it... that said, I'm gonna run it for a couple of months and see how it goes.

GPU - Gainward GTX 580 Phantom, 1536MB (1.5gb)

What else do I need to say?

I get it on Wednesday, sitting on an AMD HD6850 in the machine at the moment, it was on offer so I had to... So fucking excited to get the 580. Such a nice looking card too.

[Pieface 15]

Are you a member on bit-tech? If you become an active member, Scan give out free delivery for orders over £20 See Here

Just thought it'd be a good idea for you if you're gonna become a regular customer

[narcolepsy 581]

Nice choice on the 2500k. It out performs some of the 8core bulldozers (which are inherantly shit) the only spot I'd suggest is upgrading the PSU, I run a less powerful machine and I've overloaded my 600W stealth Xstream 2 from OCZ before and I only run a Dual Core, 5770, 4gbs of DDR2 etc

[DuPz0r 5362]

I'd suggest maybe getting a 650W PSU if you're planning to overclock to 5ghz, as well as any other components you decide to overclock.

Overall though it should be a good runner.

[Asthenia 138]

Howdy! Haven't had a chance to get on properly.

Yep, exactly what I'm thinking, Cyan & Dup. The PSU just isn't appropriate for what I wanna do with it now.

Pie, no I'm not, but I will be ordering more from them so I'll sign up.. Is it the same sorta deal they had with AVForums (I think it was AVF), where you have to post a certain amount before getting it? Thanks for the tip.

[narcolepsy 581]

Are you you taking it 5.0ghz on air? I'd hate to see them temps on that, even with a badboy noctua fan or s/t.

Unfortunate to see the mobo was fucked, was it a RMA board where they sell it cutprice or s/t?

[Asthenia 138]

Oh god no, not on air. I'm not fully water cooling it either though, you know the Antec Kuhler kits? I think there's another brand that does them better too, but my mind is blank. I'ma put the processor on that. Nope, it was brand new, on offer at the time. It does suck cause it was like my own Moby's "My First Motherboard", so it being a dud cut me like a wicked edge... All working at the moment though, just reinstalling Windows for a 3rd time.. Nothing wrong with the previous installs, just finding a happy base for the partitions.

[narcolepsy 581]

Corsair H100? I hear thats high performance gear.

I've reformatted 3 times in the last month. I just cant get windows to see 4gb's of ram, even with 64bit ultimate. Unsure if its a mobo limitation or s/t

[Asthenia 138]

Mini update on the first post btw. I've looked at the Corsair H100 a couple of times, but I'm not sure... I'm edging towards the Antec H2O 920 set up with 2 1850RPM Gentle Typhoon's.

Really? What mobo & mem are you running?

[narcolepsy 581]

Foxconn G31MX board and DDR2 Rendition branded ram.

[Asthenia 138]

Hey hey hey... Any luck Cyantist?

I'm finished my build now.

Overclocked the i5 to 4.6GHz for my "24/7 overclock", Corsair H60 cooler in push/pull, the Phantom is at 920MHz on the Core, 2010MHz on the Memory Clock. (On the 550W PSU! Stable too!) Pics below.

The 2P is for a friend who needed a reference.

Sorry the images look like shit, Facebook shat on them. I'll take some with my D40 soon.

[narcolepsy 581]

Nah, I guess its a board limitation, it was cheapo board and its foxconn so meh.

Nice to see all your gear showed up sounds like a nice set up, and props on the OC.

Pics dont work though >

[Indy 350]

How much did it cost in total Ast?

[Pieface 15]

Are you not going to get a dedicated sound card?

[Massacre 7646]

Ast, I want to ejaculate on your computer.

[selpy 5]

I sloppy second Massacre.

[Asthenia 138]

Fuck, are the pics still not working? I'll Imgur them, they work fine from mine and work though.

http://i.imgur.com/xOQxM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zxiyu.jpg

I don't like to think about it, Indy. About £650, including £130 for a monitor.

Pie - Sound card and DVD drive are coming out of this month's pay. Just moved house this weekend so, priorities. Saying that I've no complaints from the on board sound at the moment. For gaming at least.

Massy, Selpy - Thanks.

Holy fuck, it's Selpy!

[selpy 5]

Holy fuck, it's Selpy!

WHERE?!!

On a *related* sidenote: building your own does have that horrible contingency of fundage... it sucks to have to wait to add hardware paycheck to paycheck, but at least youll be happy with your finished product.

[Pieface 15]

Fuck, are the pics still not working? I'll Imgur them, they work fine from mine and work though.

http://i.imgur.com/xOQxM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zxiyu.jpg

I don't like to think about it, Indy. About £650, including £130 for a monitor.

Pie - Sound card and DVD drive are coming out of this month's pay. Just moved house this weekend so, priorities. Saying that I've no complaints from the on board sound at the moment. For gaming at least.

Massy, Selpy - Thanks.

Holy fuck, it's Selpy!

I was just thinking about cooling with the sound card. Sure I read somewhere a sound card also helps the processors cooling (May be wrong though).

[Edgecrusher 91]

I don't like to think about it, Indy. About £650, including £130 for a monitor.

For the components you have used, that's not bad at all.

[Asthenia 138]

Not bad at all, considering I got the 580 for £200 off of a friend of mine who pretty much rebuilds whenever something he likes comes along.

[Pieface 15]

So I'm guessing your friend either got a 680 or is getting the new 690?

[Indy 350]

I have a dell pc (2009) in my house that nobody uses. It's a Quad core @2.5ghz with 6GB RAM, but it has a crappy AMD Radeon HD graphics card. Do you reckon it's worth upgrading my graphics card so that I could play the latest games. Could it be capable of reaching high settings? If so, what graphics cards do you recommend (not sure of price, but maybe £100)?

[Edgecrusher 91]

What motherboard do you have in it?

[Indy 350]

A quick google tells me that AMD Radeon HD 6850 would be a good purchase.

http://shop.amd.com/uk/All/Search?NamedQuery=radeon6000&SearchFacets=category%3AGraphic%20Card%3Bmodel%3ARadeon%20HD%206850

What do you guys think?