Sup guys.. I've been gathering parts for a computer build for the past couple months. I wanted to wait for AMDs Bulldozer FX processors, but I found the 965 for 115 so I just got that. The motherboard is Bulldozer ready so I'll eventually upgrade. Anyways, finally got the rest of my parts yesterday and put it all together. Here's a few pics
Specs:
CASE: NZXT Tempest Evo MOBO: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 965 @ 3.8Ghz OC CPU Cooler: ZALMAN CNPS 9700 NT 110mm GPU: HIS Radeon HD 6850 1GB RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB DVD Drive: LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer PSU: Corsair TX650 V2 Monitor: Samsung 23" 1080p OS: Windows 7 Professional x64
So many boxes to get rid of..
All black mobo ftw
Phenom installed. I made sure to lick the pins for that extra power boost... haha
The drives..
SSD mounted and ready to be installed
lots of wires
This case has really good cable management. Definitely recommend it.
All finished
Eventually I'll throw some cathodes in there to light it up some more lol.
Haha yeah, there are 6 case fans. The fans don't draw as much power as you would think. It keeps it pretty cool inside. I thought it was going to be really loud, but I was surprised when I first turned it on. Even when the graphics card and CPU fan are running at full speed it still isn't that bad.
That's one sweet rig. High 7's on the WEI! Paul, six fans is pretty standard on these mid-high level cases. I have eight, plus a turbine blower that I can ramp up for high stress apps. These new super fast components generate a lot of heat, and the best thing you can do for their longevity is supply an air flow across them, and lots of it. Most of these cases are built in a 2-3 front (in) and 3-6 rear and/or side/top (out) config. Creates a wind tunnel straight through the case. This is why it is so important to make sure your case is somewhat air tight, and every unused slot is covered up.
Dang 8 fans, must be a full-size case. A turbine blower? That's awesome. Did you have to mod your case for that or no?
Skullz, final cost came to around $1000. Do you have the 2333T? I've had it for a couple years. It's great and cheap too! I might be buying another one for dual 23''
That's the last machine I built which was ages ago.
If you guys want to talk about air flow, there are 7 120mm fans, 1 140mm fan and a 200mm fan(the big one in the front). This machine is no longer like this since I don't care for flashy computers anymore.
They actually have fans that run very quiet. I would not be surprised if those were the ones used. The build of the case also can be a big factor of noise.
Sweet builds Rob. The SSD I bought at the time was one of the highest rated for its price... couple months later everything changes. I wish I woulda bought a larger one, but they're too expensive.
Doreen it does make noise that's forsure, but it doesn't really bother me. Well, at least this time of the year because I have a floor fan running at full speed 24/7 because it's so damn hot up here on the second floor.
If you want quiet fans that move a lot of air look to Noctua, even at full tilt they're barely audible and push a lot of CFM BUT I will say this much, they are hideous.
Thanks Steve and yea, 120 is the bare minimum I would go with on an SSD and the C300 you have still performs pretty well, I should have said gone with a higher capacity in my earlier post. I was actually going to drop some money into a nice SSD setup or even OCZs Revodrive X2 BUT then I started doing research and have pretty much scared myself out of a purchase due to reading all the horror stories that SSDs create. The Revodrive mentioned is a PCI-E storage device that's expensive and I was going to run one of those until I discovered the thing draws 13.5 watts at idle which may not seem much but an SSD will draw about .5 watts at idle, the real issues isn't so much the power consumption but the additional heat generated. No thanks, my machine already makes my room hotter than I'd like, of course that's kind of nice in the midwest Winters we have.
I've never had more than a good stock computer and I've played some serious warcraft, starcraft, C&C etc without any problems. Not to mention playing poker online multi-tabling while playing music and stuff too. I guess these computers would just do all that more efficiently?
Lol @ serious warcraft, starcraft and C&C, just thought that was funny. Anyhow, the average computer can handle most RTS games with low to mid settings pretty easily BUT when you start improving quality for visuals frame rates suffer and eventually you're playing a game and getting only 5 FPS which would be terrible. For that you need a decent video card and even then sometimes it's not enough depending on settings used. Some people like to have a ton of things running too so you need more ram, a faster CPU or fast storage hardware if you move around a lot of data. I really don't think efficiency is the right term to describe what people want in most cases but it's the experience. Now if you use your machine for work then yea, efficiency is important because time is valuable in that case.
Paul, I disagree about them saying what phones can do. The clock speeds are there but in most cases smart phones are turds that you'd want to rely on only in a scenario you had no access to an actual PC. I've used a bunch of Smartphones although I don't own one and I'm definitely not impressed that's for sure. They often have huge delays and freeze ups, ugh. Despite that I would get one BUT I always break my phones so I use whatever outdated piece of junk that can take a beating.
