Re: Getting a new computer. Need advice.
These pics were kinda taken as I went along, so there were all sorts of changes made here and there (mainly because I had no idea what I was doing, as I am a hardware newbie).
The 24-inch ASUS flatscreen plus a fleeting glimpse at my front toes
The Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P Motherboard just chillin on a beachtowel, enjoying its last moment that it had to itself before the inevitable gangbanging by all the other parts of the system.
12 total GB of DDR3 1600 OCZ Gold RAM. That'll last for a while.
The Antec 1200 case, empty except for a fitted Corsair 850W Power Supply Unit. This is where I just kinda stared at it for an hour, not really sure where to begin.
After throwing in a few things, I took more pics... this is a pic of the video card and the dual 1 TB hard drives. 2 TB of room gives you a lot of room for... media.
Some optional fan holding thing that came with the case. Notice what's in it. That's my response to optional fan holders.
The upper bay with the optical drive. It burns/reads/writes DVD's and CD's, and that's about it. I figured having BluRay capabilities wasn't really worth it yet.
The i7 920 CPU... little does he know he's about to get a faceful of heatsink
Behold! My absurdly massive, overcompensating behemoth of a heatsink: The Prolimatech Megahalem
Another view of the heatsink. The thermal compound used was Arctic Silver 5.
There was another optional fan holder on the side of the case... so I got a fan for it.
The heatsink needed lovin too
Back end of the wireless card. Looks kinda gangly.
Okay, so the case fans are four-pin Molexes...
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS, the optional fans are all three-pin!? FUUUUUUUU-
**** wasn't going to work unless I figured out what the hell to do with all these.
After I finished wiring... I couldn't help but notice how messy the PSU cables were. It looked like a bomb went off in a pile of snakes and sent guts out all over the place.
Meanwhile, the top half of the case looked like it was growing veins and was about to become sentient.
Finished! I fixed most of the messy wiring by putting everything I didn't need behind the motherboard plate... looked a lot cleaner.
Front side of the case in the dark
Side view. Fan totals: Three frontal intake fans, one central intake fan to help cool the GFX card, a side intake fan to help cool the PSU and GFX card, the fan in the PSU to cool itself, the fan in the GFX card to cool itself, a fan on the heatsink, two exhaust fans in the back, plus...
...a huge 200mm fan on the very top of the system. This sucker is massive and looks like a jet turbine.
With a little bit of light, we can see that things look a lot cleaner now.
I couldn't really make the PSU cabling look much better -- all I really did was feed unused cables up through the back, kept the used PCI-E's in front, and ran both of the Molex chains up the back and had them poke in only when needed. SATA cables suck, BTW.
The tower, screen, and laptop in the same shot. Sooo many things glowing all at once. Now that this system is built, I can finally use it to play a good game of Minesweeper or Solitaire.
SYSTEM SPECS:
Antec 1200 Full Tower Case
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P Motherboard
Intel i7 920 Processor with D0-Stepping
Prolimatech Megahalem heatsink
Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound
12 GB DDR3 OCZ Gold RAM
Two 1 TB 7200 RPM Hard Drives
EVGA GeForce GTX 295 1792 MB Video Card
LG DVD/CD R/RW Drive with LightScribe Support
Corsair 850W Power Supply Unit
Edimax Wireless Adapter (802.11b/g/n)
ASUS 24" HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor
Windows Vista 64-Bit Version (with free upgrade to Windows 7)
A ****load of fans
Extra sound blasting provided by my Logitech Z-2300, which I had purchased at the start of summer
The computer has been named "Optimus," as well :P
These pics were kinda taken as I went along, so there were all sorts of changes made here and there (mainly because I had no idea what I was doing, as I am a hardware newbie).
The 24-inch ASUS flatscreen plus a fleeting glimpse at my front toes
The Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P Motherboard just chillin on a beachtowel, enjoying its last moment that it had to itself before the inevitable gangbanging by all the other parts of the system.
12 total GB of DDR3 1600 OCZ Gold RAM. That'll last for a while.
The Antec 1200 case, empty except for a fitted Corsair 850W Power Supply Unit. This is where I just kinda stared at it for an hour, not really sure where to begin.
After throwing in a few things, I took more pics... this is a pic of the video card and the dual 1 TB hard drives. 2 TB of room gives you a lot of room for... media.
Some optional fan holding thing that came with the case. Notice what's in it. That's my response to optional fan holders.
The upper bay with the optical drive. It burns/reads/writes DVD's and CD's, and that's about it. I figured having BluRay capabilities wasn't really worth it yet.
The i7 920 CPU... little does he know he's about to get a faceful of heatsink
Behold! My absurdly massive, overcompensating behemoth of a heatsink: The Prolimatech Megahalem
Another view of the heatsink. The thermal compound used was Arctic Silver 5.
There was another optional fan holder on the side of the case... so I got a fan for it.
The heatsink needed lovin too
Back end of the wireless card. Looks kinda gangly.
Okay, so the case fans are four-pin Molexes...
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS, the optional fans are all three-pin!? FUUUUUUUU-
**** wasn't going to work unless I figured out what the hell to do with all these.
After I finished wiring... I couldn't help but notice how messy the PSU cables were. It looked like a bomb went off in a pile of snakes and sent guts out all over the place.
Meanwhile, the top half of the case looked like it was growing veins and was about to become sentient.
Finished! I fixed most of the messy wiring by putting everything I didn't need behind the motherboard plate... looked a lot cleaner.
Front side of the case in the dark
Side view. Fan totals: Three frontal intake fans, one central intake fan to help cool the GFX card, a side intake fan to help cool the PSU and GFX card, the fan in the PSU to cool itself, the fan in the GFX card to cool itself, a fan on the heatsink, two exhaust fans in the back, plus...
...a huge 200mm fan on the very top of the system. This sucker is massive and looks like a jet turbine.
With a little bit of light, we can see that things look a lot cleaner now.
I couldn't really make the PSU cabling look much better -- all I really did was feed unused cables up through the back, kept the used PCI-E's in front, and ran both of the Molex chains up the back and had them poke in only when needed. SATA cables suck, BTW.
The tower, screen, and laptop in the same shot. Sooo many things glowing all at once. Now that this system is built, I can finally use it to play a good game of Minesweeper or Solitaire.
SYSTEM SPECS:
Antec 1200 Full Tower Case
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P Motherboard
Intel i7 920 Processor with D0-Stepping
Prolimatech Megahalem heatsink
Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound
12 GB DDR3 OCZ Gold RAM
Two 1 TB 7200 RPM Hard Drives
EVGA GeForce GTX 295 1792 MB Video Card
LG DVD/CD R/RW Drive with LightScribe Support
Corsair 850W Power Supply Unit
Edimax Wireless Adapter (802.11b/g/n)
ASUS 24" HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor
Windows Vista 64-Bit Version (with free upgrade to Windows 7)
A ****load of fans
Extra sound blasting provided by my Logitech Z-2300, which I had purchased at the start of summer
The computer has been named "Optimus," as well :P
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