Description

Just ordered the parts for this beast. I'll post pictures and stats when I put it together.

I have been really happy with my upgraded Sony Vaio Z133 laptop and I haven't really seen the need for a pc in the past ten years but as my current laptop is getting old but still works like a charm for most daily personal and business needs and as I plan to setup a permanent NAS server at home I decided to just invest some money and make a PC I can always upgrade with the day.

CPU : Steal.

Cooler: Not going to leak!

Motherboard: took some research but had to settle on this affordable beast.

Memory: Let's hope the rebate's come through! I was going to go with 16 but it was prices too cheap with the rebates so I took the unnecessary plunge.

Storage: Made sure I can fit up to 8 drives in future with raid friendly motherboard and roomy case. for now stuck to the bare minimum of 1 SSD and 1 3T.

Video: Had to settle for a 4 GB overclocked 770 as the price difference was noticeable. I look forward to playing GTA 5 and this should do the job!

Wireless: I Blame the incomplete motherboard (network should be built in all of them), had to get a separate Bluetooth stick too.

Case and fans: Big, roomy. decent build, lots of places to put fans (room for 9 fans, 8 120 and 1 200.. came with 2 and I bought 5 so do the math :P)

Power: Gold EVGA with 750 should be enough for some modest overclocking and future additions .. math says it needs minimum 500.

Optical: haven't used one in a few years... not sure why I added it.

Monitor, Mouse, and Keyboard: already have a bunch of them.

Overall I think I put it together at a reasonable price for the power (prices include all taxes, shipping, and yet to be received rebates!) As this is my first build ever (have not built it yet). I put a decent amount of research into it, and other than the over powered ram, I would love to hear what you think about my build.

Comments

  • 73 months ago
  • 2 points

I would have gone with 8 or 16gbs's of RAM instead and would have got a 780, or a h100i.

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

The above comment meant to be a reply. Sorry I was learning the forum system :p

  • 73 months ago
  • 2 points

The ram has a $25 rebate on it, bringing the price down to around $40 a pop.. It was overpowered in the spirit of black Friday.

I didn't want to overdue the graphic card as I know I'll be changing it every year or so.. thinking was to keep it under 400 (hit pretty close). from what I've read the performance difference between 770 4Gb and 780 3Gb is not huge but price would have been at least $220 more.

Thanks for the input jaredt.

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

having owned both cards before, there is a significant performance difference, maybe not so much at 1080p, but at higher res. :)

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

Looking at benchmarks there is a 5% to 15% difference in performance between 770 and 780. While that can be considered quite a bit, the cost of 780 is easily 30% more which would force me into keeping the chip for a while.

What I decided to do instead was to invest at a reasonable range so I can reinvest again at a reasonable time period. If money was no issue at all, I probably would have gone 780 but the the numbers didn't make sense for me at the moment.

Cheers for your input :)

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

no complaints from me just offering my two cents, seems i have used both cards. 770 will serve you perfectly, enjoy!

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

Post pics on the inside please!

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

I will, and I'll let you now about them as soon as I actually put it together (at the moment I have just ordered the parts)

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

I would love to see some pics of the finished project, be sure to notify me!

  • 73 months ago
  • 2 points

Absolutely, it should be ready in 10 days or so :)

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

Looks like it's going to be a great build, can't wait to see it finished.

I would kindly disagree about a 4GB 770 only being marginally below a 780. GK110 is a significant improvement over 770. Going from a 760 to a 780 classy is literally twice the performance (not an apples to apples comparison but pretty close). It would also help with the triple monitors. Both should work fine unless you expect 8x AA Ultra settings on Crysis 3 lol.

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

To be honest I've never tested either chip so I had to revert to the professional benchmarks found on Google search. What I noticed was a 5 to 15% difference in performance on average. I also found that RAM is not usually a bottleneck for either chip so having 4 in 770 vs 3 in 780 would usually not make a difference except when there are multiple monitors involved and the amount of dense pixels needed to be shown increases, at that point one of the biggest performance factors is available RAM. Hence why I paid $50 more to get more ram for my multiple monitor setup.

Overall I agree that 780 would have been better but by investing 30% more I would have pushed back my willingness to change the part as better technology arrives.

My goal in this build was to keep every part reasonably powerful while reasonably cheap so I can change parts as I see fit, when a brand new top of the line hits the market, there is usually a hefty premium price attached so I went for the 2nd bracket parts that relatively preform exceptional without the extra price tag weight.

Cheers for your input :)

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

can you please post more pics of the finished build. I bought the 650 version of the evga psu for my 280x. I dont have all the parts tho, I would like to see how it looks and performs in your build. +1

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

I have an Antec 1200 and it's horrible (in my opinion). I hope your 1100 is better. This should be good :)

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

It had decent video reviews and it ticked all the necessary requests, above all it was cheap. Although I'm not going to lie I've had 2nd thoughts myself as I've found better cases looking around.

Eleven in newer than 12 with USB 3.0. And case should not be a huge deal anyhow (as long as it has a place for the boards and enough fans to heat the room). So it should be fine for now.

I'll let you know when I have the pictures and I've tested it myself.

Cheers.

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

As long as it works for you, man!

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

I ended up changing the case to Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl). Thanks for pushing me to research the case before my order was shipped.

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

No problem! The R4 is awesome :)

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

-1 for a not built rig

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

Patience! the comments here has already made me call NCIX to change my case so weather it gets a point or not, the fact that people are sharing their opinions is going to make a difference to the build when complete.

  • 73 months ago
  • 1 point

People get picky about incompletes being in the completed builds section instead of the forums