Taken about three years ago, back when I still had an NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti tucked inside. The motherboard is black and red, and even the BIOS matches that theme.
It looks cool, but it's just not really my style. 🙂
On another note, my Corsair CC-120 arrived today and it's honestly great...
Drew Sanchez82 said:Red LEDs would actually look better with that color scheme than white ones.
I don't think so. If I went with red, everything would just bleed into these reddish tones. Using white keeps things sharp and gives me that nice contrast between the black and the red. 🙂
Timothy Kim60 said:You did a really solid job matching that black and red theme—the case, the RAM, and even the SSD all look great together. Did that SSD just happen to be what you had on hand, or were you specifically hunting for those colors to complete the build?
Did the Cooler not show up yet?
I was actually hunting for an SSD that came in black or black-and-red. I'm thinking about picking up some red extension cables from BitFenix later on to match the vibe.
The Cooler hasn't shown up yet because the delivery guy from Overseas was running behind schedule. 🥱
Ran through a quick Valley bench test, and honestly, the graph looks fantastic. 😁
I’m planning to use this SSD strictly for my macOS installation just to keep the OS isolated from everything else. My original thought was to just grab a basic 120GB hard drive, but I figured, why not? If it gives me even a tiny boost in boot times or makes the system feel slightly more responsive, it's worth it. I'll move my Program Files and User folders over to the HDD and just create symbolic links so the OS does as little reading and writing as possible. I'll do the same for the paging file and temp files—just dump them all onto the HDD.
If you can't find everything in one spot, just grab it at Best Buy or pick up the 8320E at Newegg
My bad, I accidentally added the wrong processor to my cart...
Here’s what I have from Best Buy: 2 x Kingston HyperX Fury DDR3 4GB 1866MHz Non-ECC CL10, UPC: 740617230611 Actually, I’d probably swap those out for some Crucial CL11 RAM 4GB DDR3 1 x AMD CPU Desktop FX-Series X8 8300 (3.3GHz,16MB,95W,AM3+) box 1 x Gigabyte 970A DS3P, AM3+ 1 x MSI Radeon R9 290 GAMING 4GB, 512Bit DDR5 1 x Super Flower Golden Green 550W, 80+ Gold 1 x Samsung 120 GB 850 evo Basic Total: $2054
EDIT: I've been thinking about it, and to keep costs down initially, I'll probably go with the AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB DDR5. That should be plenty for decent gaming for now. It's easier to just upgrade to a beefier card later once newer models hit the shelves anyway.
Robert Rodriguez2 said:Just click the link for the card in your shopping cart; if you look at the top right, it’ll show you that it's currently out of stock. 😁
Here is my take: you save a little bit on the motherboard and the CPU—though honestly, the difference there is so small you won't even feel it. In exchange, you get a much beefier power supply. If I were you, I'd definitely go that route just to have some extra breathing room. That GTX 970 can pull anywhere from 275 to 300W all by itself 😳, not even counting your 8GB of RAM . Hit me up
And you can get the whole setup for $67 less than what you were planning to spend on your current build. You might even have enough left over to grab a decent cooler if you don't already have one 😳 .
Should I go with a Seagate 500 GB, a Western Digital 500, or maybe a Toshiba 1 GB? They’re all priced the same right now $144. I'm leaning toward quality over raw storage space here.
EDIT: Alright, let the arguments begin. 😁
If I pull the trigger on an NVIDIA GTX, I won't have enough room left in the budget for an HDD. 🙂
EDIT2: Actually, looking at the numbers again, I think I can swing both the HDD and an MSI GTX 970. If Smartic guarantees their power supply can handle this build during heavy gaming sessions, I might save some cash by going with a cheaper PSU. I'm thinking about doing a little overclocking—maybe hitting 4.0GHz with steady voltage. Honestly, with these FX processors, even stock settings can be overkill sometimes.
EDIT3: Something just crossed my mind. I heard the NVIDIA GTX doesn't actually have 4GB of GDDR, but rather 3.5GB. Does that really matter, or is it basically negligible?
The savings don't really matter much to me since I’m paying in installments anyway, so my hard limit is basically $2333. 🙂
EDIT: I was originally planning on going with a Noctua NH-U12S, but looking at things now, I actually have enough clearance to toss in an extra HDD too. My old one is getting pretty noisy and keeps hanging on me, so I might as well swap it out. 🙂
That’s why I’m planning to grab a Quiet shadow rock Slim before my new build even arrives. I'm really hoping that its rated 160W TDP will provide enough breathing room for a 120W TDP processor.
crimsonstag84 said:Hmm... the Thermaltake TR2 Gold 600 w? I know it isn't even semi-modular, but it doesn't have an overwhelming amount of connectors anyway. You've got 6 SATA (you'll probably use two), 2 PCIe leads (both will be occupied), and 4 Molex (you could daisy-chain those if you want to run your fans that way).
To me, it’s not really about whether it's modular or not. It’s more about the cable design. I really need thinner, flat cables—especially for the 24-pin and 8-pin connections because they have to route behind the motherboard. There just isn't enough clearance for thick, round cables. Look at how flat the USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 cables are in this photo; those work fine, but the bulky ones are just crushing my cable management foam.
Because they're so short, the 20-pin and 4-pin cables are actually sticking out the front side. I even had to force the 4-pin one in just to make it fit...
but honestly, depending on what parts you're running, you probably won't even need a PSU that pulls $200
Here’s my thought process. I narrowed it down to two options because they have flat cables. My H440 case is pretty tight—there's almost no breathing room between the side panel and the frame because of that insulation foam. Two of these are Semi-modular, while the third one is fully modular. Do you guys think these three models are actually decent enough for the price tag?
The new case finally arrived, so I jumped straight in and swapped my old components over. I actually had to go out and grab an extension for the CPU power connector because the cables from my old power supply were just too short for this setup. It was worth the hassle, though—I’m seeing a 25°C drop in both internal case temps and CPU idle temps compared to before. 😁
From an aesthetic standpoint, you won't even notice the power supply because it's tucked away. 😁 The cables don't even need to be perfectly braided, since I'm planning on just picking up some cheap colored extension cords anyway. Besides, these current ones will be hidden under the floor—the dog's compartment runs the whole length, making it the perfect spot to stash all that extra cable slack. 🙂
