Van's new computer!

Howdy folks!

It's been 2 years and more now since my last upgrade and since the computers starting to have teething problems (namely the pump for the water-coolings on the fritz hardcore) I shall be upgrading!!!

Overall, I have been very very dissapointed with the i7 980x CPU and will pass that down to the 'lil lady. I probably will go back into an AMD machine (fan-boyism probably but I dont see the whoop-la of the i7)

The only parts I will keep are the sound card (X-Fi Elite Pro original) and the 2 graphics cards (2x XFX 4890 X2's Black Editions - still the fastest stock cards money can buy clockwise though not top-line DDR chips anymore)

Anyways, onto my case.
Firstly I would say that it has to fit my cards, so it must be a Full-Tower full-stop. God I *FREAKING LOVE NEWEGG!* haha, I chose some fields:
ATX Full-Tower
NO Power Supply
NO 80mm Fans
NO Side Air Duct (these are stupid Ive found using water-cooling, the STACKER830 has side air fans and they don't help really)

I had 1-23 choices. By this stage, it was mostly cosmetics that would be get vote into a shortlist (since you can compare 5 that'd be my shortlist) The 5 left were:

CoolerMaster HAF932 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160
Looking at the case, the side looked too hard trying to show everything there was no illusion or sex appeal it gave off. The people who visit me will 99% of the time only see the case, its important piece because a crappy beige dog-box wont impress but you cant break your budget on something as a $500 case lol.

Good:
- 5 HDD spots, more than enough for most mobos (and factors into the mobo part once you chose your case)
- Solid cable management, ain't no Corsair but still good.

Bad:
- Cooling looks limited, just 1 top, 1 front and 1 rear fan (the rear is removed for the watercooling part)
- Only 1 fan for the side? Kidding me, 4x 120mm is better than that (It looks) 1x 240mm.
- Bottom-mounted PSU, i have a SUPER STRONG dislike for that part of computers. Heat rises... INTO the PSU, not smart. You can top mount but I will try SO HARD to never get bottom mount.

Pro-tip: Always inspect ALL photos, look at the outside as well as the inside, imagine your pieces going into the case, where the cables will run and what sort of space you will have. And realise where AIR FLOW WILL GO! (unless you are going to water-cool then its relatively moot point).

Silverstone RAVEN RV02

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163154
This case IS a monster on the market. 3x 180mm fan in the floor! Jesus man. The comestic initially says "Im mysterious and dangerous" and means it in more than 1 way lol. At 30lbs (~12-15kg) it will break your back!

The motherboard is on a 90 degree angle so those floor fans are front fans for the motherboard which is a design aspect I really like, the air has to flow 1 way and it will with thise system.

Good:
- A lot of space for air-flow, for non-WC systems I would say its #1 for top-line performance cases.
- Looks badass, espically the blue LED grill (looks sinister!)
- 3 very huge fans on the floor.

Bad:
- Weight, will break a nail ladies!
- The motherboard mount in my opinion sit too close to the HDD/Optic drives, its so the WC reservoir has a place behind it to stand but honestly, space could be better managed.
- Gaining access to the machine is a real bastard (just watch youtube and you shall see)

You are wondering why I havnt done the RV02, 700 or 800D. Frankly the RV02 is a horrid looking machine and couldn't bring myself to review it. And the 700 and 800 are the same minus super small differences and I chose one of the cases left

To leave you in suspence, I shall now tackle the CPU/Motherboard in Post#2!

I'm gonna stick to what I said in chat and say go the HAF I don't know why but I've taken a liking to that case and the Silverstones to me one(can't remember which) looked like something out of a low budget Sci-fi and one was jsut meh didnt tickle my pickle.. then there was the 700D and 800D if I'm not mistaken and well liked them but 700D looked a little plain to me the 800D little side window gave it a nice edge.

HAF or 800D is what I would go

CPU's the brains and balls of the operation. My humble opinion is that the CPU is the #3 most vital piece to choose (#2 graphics card and #1 motherboard).

First question, Intel or AMD?
I am an avid AMD fan-boy who shelled out for an i7 and frankly NOT BEEN IMPRESSED! So I am back to AMD for the next build.

So its AMD, what next. There are X4 and X6 (number = cores, omg, serious!) But the more important issues are the L3 Cache as this is what helps a CPU under heavy load and yes I put her under heavy loads frequently (STALKER mods take a total dump on resources lol)

With the lovely aid of Newegg! I managed to choose 6MB L3 Cache and "Yes" on support for Hyper-Transport which is similar to the i7's Hyper-threading. It came up with only AM3+ CPUs (which is good to know for our motherboard part)

Next was choosing what CPUs to buy. Do I plan to over-clock? Not really, I prefer manufacturing stock and standard (makes warranties easier to claim).

Next I chose to make all the speeds above 3.0GHz (for me this is a minimum value) along with being Quad or Six-cores. After loading up on more options (6x 512kB L2 cache) I was left with 2 choices:

AMD Phenom II X6 1075T Thuban - 3.0GHz
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Thuban - 3.2GHz Black Edition

Again, Ill let Juff guess what I might get lol As i continue onto motherboards.
What do we know?
- Must be AMDs AM3+ eligible
- Must house 2x XFX Radeons in Crossfire at least.
- Must house 1x X-Fi sound card (takes an 8x)
- Can be E-ATX, ATX, mATX or micro-ATX sized

So I jumped over to motherboards and put in AM3+ only, chose chipset of Phenom II to start with. Only got 4 results, was "devon" as Juff would put it. So i moved out of search and chose a more subtle approach. Typed "AM3+" into motherboards search and got 500 results.

This proves that you shouldn't always take what you're shown the first time. They say to use the 3 R's and its sound advice if its:
1. Research
2. Research
3. Research

This is also where you must use "Advanced Search" and CAREFULLY choose factors to narrow down the search. This process isn't about taking huge chunks of numbers out. It's about finding the quality items that fit what you need. First I changed "Memory used" to be 240-pin only. Cut 5 down. Chose "ATX" since there were some "mATX" boards still left. Down to 29 results now.

Next step: ASUS-only (Will take best 1-3 and then go to other manufacturers)

29 is manageable. I can then further cut out items I do not need. Such as DDR2 boards, ensuring it supports Crossfire (and doesn't throttle #2 to some stupid 4x speed either).
This left me with 5 choices, now I had to check the PCI-Ex16 2.0 configuration. Remember I'm fitting my sound card so the 16x can't be above the 8x's otherwise I can not fit my sound card.

Left with 2 choices now, the cards will fit all my requirements. 1 even would let me triple crossfire at 16x speeds! (Holy smokes lol!)
Now with *ANY* motherboard purpose, you must research the ratings given. Find out why someone gave it a bad score, maybe they used the wrong hardware (some idiot put a GTX480 in a Crossfire supported board... not ASUS' fault hes an idiot).

The only one left, which I confirmed used the same CPU I'm currently thinking about buying was:
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-131-644&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=2&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1#scrollFullInfo

I applied the same processes to MSI, Gigabyte (not a single hit lol, crappy company) and ASRock. And found 3 more with the 1 ASUS I had.
Now it's a process of elimination.

The first MSI board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130223&cm_re=AM3%2b-_-13-130-223-_-Product) was dropped, there was no SATA 6G/b support (will probably use an SSD here)

Leaves me with 3; an ASRock, ASUS and MSI. I can say ASRock make good boards and also owned many ASUS boards during my lifetime. MSI have been on the upswing so this will be hard.

The comments on the ASRock were worrying (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-157-208&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29#scrollFullInfo) so I chose to drop this one based on its comments - even the 5 star ones were still worrying lol.

The last 2 boards were, so so very difficult to choose between but because of the fact the MSI board had less USB ports (currently using 9 USB and 3 e-SATA) the ASUS had more appeal. The MSI board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-130-274&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=5&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=3#scrollFullInfo) is still a fanstastic board!

CPU Cooling

In short, if you want good water-cooling, Crosair H50 is the only name you need know.
Corsair H50 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010&cm_re=H50-_-35-181-010-_-Product

When picking out coolers, check they SUPPORT THE SOCKET you are buying (AM3, check!)



PC Memory is a little difference, our motherboard says we can use upto DDR3-2100 under (O.C.) but DDR3-1333 maximum without (O.C.), typically use the highest non-O.C. and you should be fine.

So we know DDR3-1333, but what type?
I wouldn't waste time with 1GB sticks, and 2GB sticks are enough for 32-bit OS. The 64-bit OS however can take some 4GBs and considering our motherboard supports up to 16GB and has 4x slots. Why not slap 4x4 in there!

Initially looking, a 4x4 would cost $400 US... no way. Think on second thoughts I'll migrate back to the 2x4 range! (better competition across the board there) and I managed to pick a few with good latency and 2 were the DDR3-1333 requirement.

First was the lesser known company Patriots http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220520

Then the more known 2x G.Skills
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231403
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231402

It was clear that with RAM, they're pretty much all the same. So I chose the lowest CAS Latency and took the Patriot!

Price you say?

Van, that'll cost a bomb? NO!

(Well, sorta)

Case - Corsair 800D $379.00
CPU - Phenom II X6 3.2GHz $295.00
Cooling - Corsair H70 $169.00
RAM - Corsair 2x4GB $179.00

Why was the RAM changed? They didn't sell it in Australia (sheesh)

$1,351.00 - TOTAL

All you need to do is bring across your own graphics card, monitor and keyboard/mouse and its a pretty darn good system. If you really wanted to same some money, downgrade the case first (I think that HAF932 was ~$100 cheaper...)

Awesome. Thanks for doing this Van; I want to upgrade my PC first half of next year.
I wanna get a serious BEAST too.
Gonna try put about 1500 into it.
Gonna save some money by using my current case I think.
Thermaltake V3 Black edition. I'm not sure if it's the best option for a build with water cooling and dual video though.
What are your thoughts van?

Jerms wrote:

Awesome. Thanks for doing this Van; I want to upgrade my PC first half of next year.
I wanna get a serious BEAST too.
Gonna try put about 1500 into it.
Gonna save some money by using my current case I think.

$1500 will get you a pretty shapely beast, Im assuming all you would buy is CPU/Motherboard/RAM and maybe GPU?
I might have a small surprise in store for you...

Jerms wrote:

Thermaltake V3 Black edition. I'm not sure if it's the best option for a build with water cooling and dual video though.
What are your thoughts van?

First question is what type of water-cooling. What component(s) are you going to cool? Id assume being a novice, to start with CPU cooling, maybe VGA if theres a kit for it.

Onto the case, ThermalTake off the bat to me ain't an elite case maker. Power supplies they're second to none (maybe Corsair but im yet to own one).
The first look I had, looked weird that front control panel is in the middle of nowhere.
The second look, i viewed the internals of it. Theres a fan right in-front the PSU placement. If you have a large PSU (probably not for your level of usage?) There might be a size issue here. Theres a good range of fans. Floor, Door and Front sucking in and 2 Roof and 1 Rear blowing out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133094&Tpk=thermaltake%20v3

If anyone else wants to view it. Another bottom-mount PSU. Something I have had a pet peeve about for a long time (heat rises you stupid case manufacturers). Being a Midi-Tower I have 1 last word of caution, make sure the GPU can *FIT after the side fan and funnel is on!* a lot of newer GPU's are larger and require more and more space. The case will have dimensions, thats of the outside - remember theres the MB tray, the MB itself and the side door to fit also that take away from the internal dimension. The GPU itself will have dimensions too that are typically true.

If you're after a Midi-Tower. I like these:

Antec Nine Hundred - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021
CoolerMaster HAF932 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197
Antec P183 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129061

Though if you're shopping for a new case consdering these 4 factors:
1. How many HDDs, Optic Drives will you need space for (and the fan controllers etc that take up that 5" external spot)
2. Are there holes for an external water-cooling tower (or does your cooling kit have a slit for it to go out via PCI holes)
3. How important is the look? Its the only thing you'll see 99% of the time (if you built it properly lol) and it does matter the looks after a time.
4. Material involved, dont get shitty plastic, get Aluminium or Steel-alloys that will withstand the test of time and maybe a move or two. Cases can last 2-3 builds which for most people is close to a decade.

This price list of what I think I'll be getting, nothing final yet but i tried to keep it all under 2.5k personally.

Part	Qty	Price ($)
Corsair Graphite 600T	1	225
CoolerMaster MegaFlow 200mm	2	70
AMD PhenomII X6 Black Edition	1	295
Corsair H70 CPU Cooling	1	169
CoolerMaster SickleFlow 120mm	2	30
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula	1	329
Crosair 2x4GB DDR3-1333	1	179
OCZ Vertex2 E-Series 120GB SSD	1	279
Seagate 1TB Barracuda	2	138
XFX Radeon HD6870	2	630

SHIPPING - $85.00

TOTAL inc Shipping
$2,429.00

Ordered it today! WOO!

Posted a screen shot for all to see!



Lets hear some comments/questions or some Intel/NVIDIA cheese-riding!

vanhelsing wrote:

Ordered it today! WOO!

Posted a screen shot for all to see!

[/url]

Lets hear some comments/questions or some Intel/NVIDIA cheese-riding!
[flash]This is strangley humorous[/flash]

It's....beautiful...
If you build it....they will come...and be jealous of your computer.

You are going to kick alot of ass and chew alot of bubblegum with that computer.

Well I'm told they won't have some parts (they sold out) so I get a few days to make 2 alterations. Though, it's exciting because I read an article today how ThermalTake Frio is BETTER than the Corsair H70 lol. Both fans on the CPU Cooler does 110CFM, when i get done, my fans are going to do 110CFM on EACH! side lol.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=14111

They even say, a 220W CPU is SUPPORTED!
The 1090T is 130W ... so that's A LOT of OC'ing.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=6848

133 CFM @ 3,000 rpm ! WHAT THE!

Gentlemen.



She is ordered and paid for! What is she, they ask? Firstly, its a Corsair 800D!


PSU - Corsair HX-1000
CPU - AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
CPU Cooling - Corsair H70 CPU Cooling
Mainboard - ASUS Crosshair IV Formula
RAM - Corsair 2x4GB DDR3-1333
GPU - ASUS ATI-Radeon 5890 in CrossfireX (4 Physical GPUs in 1 system!)
HDD - OCZ Vertex2 E-Series 120GB


So there she is! What do poeple think? Want to call me a fanboy?
What do people think of the system, I expect it to last me until 2015-2016 roughly (I think mid-range GPU in 2015 games isn't too much to ask for.)

Will I OC? Probably after a few months, I've read 4.0GHz is achievable on air cooling, so water cooling (hence why I took the H70 over the Frio, regardless the Frio had better temps)

Check out my other threads on building a PC! I've got completed:
$1,500 - Intel or AMD setup
$1,000 - Budget Gaming

With a few more to come soon, Im thinking a 1,000-1,200$ LAN gaming rig. Having a stupidly awesome rig (that nobody in their right mind would buy lol, unless they wish to bankrupt themselves). Lastly, might make some mini-ATX micro-ATX builds around the new i7 LGA1156 chipsets, they are very thermally nice to smaller cases.

That is equal levels of awesome and awe-inspiring.
You have to post pictures when she is done.
And benchmark reports. DO IT VAN.