# custom pc builders



## 150274 (Mar 23, 2013)

_deleted_


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## Pul5ar (Feb 15, 2012)

Yay, a thread where I can show off my project.
It's not finished yet so I don't have a photo, but I'll post an image of the sketchup model I have of it.

Specs:
Case: Silverstone TJ07 (modded)
CPU - Intel Core i7 4770k
RAM - 16GB 1600Mhz Crucial Ballistix Tactical
Motherboard - Asus Sabertooth Z87
Graphics Card - EVGA Geforce GTX 670 FTW
Sound Card - Sound Blaster Z
HDD - Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (Probably adding an SSD at some point)
PSU - Corsair HX850W
Cooling:
Single loop, liquid cooling the CPU & GPU
Reservoir - Lund POM-Plex
CPU Block - Watercool Heatkiller 3.0
GPU Block - Watercool Heatkiller 680 block & backplate
Pump - Swiftech MCP350 w/Alphacool top
Rads - 1x Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 480 & 1x Phobya G-Changer 240
Fans - 6x 120mm Xilence 2 Component fans
2x 92mm Xilence 2 Component fans
Tubing - will be 10mm copper tubing painted red


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## Pul5ar (Feb 15, 2012)




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## Tabris (Jul 14, 2013)

I5 2500K @ 4.5 Ghz
PNY GTX 680
Cooler Master 932 Advanced
Corsair TX850
8GB Corsair XMS3


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## modus (Apr 27, 2011)

I'm always confused by how much RAM people put in their rigs. You're not going to use more than 8, unless you work in 3D modeling or do animation type stuff. You guys have really nice PCs though, I feel outdated.

GTX 470
AMD Phenom II 6-core (switching back to Intel next time)
6GB DDR3
Corsair TX850
90GB SSD/500GB HDD


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## geodude (Jul 22, 2013)

this stuff looks expensive


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## Noca (Jun 24, 2005)

Intel i7-2600
Corsair Vengeance 16GB(4 x 4GB) @ 1600 mhz DDR3 ram
Gigabyte - GA-Z68A-D3-B3
Corsair 120 GB SSD
Seagate Barracuda 3.0 TB HDD
WD My Book Essential 3.0 TB HDD
??? 320gb 5400 rpm HDD
EVGA GeForce GTX 660ti FTW Signature 2 2GB GDDR5 
Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced Full Tower ATX Case (RC-932-KKN5-GP)
Seasonic 850w Gold 80 plus PSU
NZXT Sentry LXE External Touch Screen Fan Controller
Blu-ray drive
DVD burner
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional - PCI-E
Windows 7 professional


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## Pul5ar (Feb 15, 2012)

Ahvav said:


> Amazing build dude!!!
> 
> How much for the watercooling loop?


Thanks m8, it's been in the works for ages, I finally feel like it's nearing completion.

Not entirely sure how much off the top of my head, but probably too much considering I don't have a job right now :um.

The CPU waterblock I had on my last PC, a socket 775 Core 2 Quad 9650. So I just bought the mounting upgrade for socket 1156/1155/1150. The GPU block was bloody expensive, but you only live once :yes. I already had the pump and the reservoir on my last loop. I got the stuff from here http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/ .


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## modus (Apr 27, 2011)

Ahvav said:


> Awesome build
> 
> But why not the 660ti from MSI?


Why do you prefer MSI over EVGA? Through my limited experience, it seems like EVGA is the default choice.


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## Tabris (Jul 14, 2013)

exobyte said:


> Why do you prefer MSI over EVGA? Through my limited experience, it seems like EVGA is the default choice.


Better coolers.
The new ACX cooler is excellent though. But until now evga have usually only released reference cooled cards, which suck.


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## modus (Apr 27, 2011)

Ah, well the only time I've had trouble with GPU heat is when I had GTX 470 in SLI. I always deck out my cases with the maximum number of fans.

Probably helps to live in Ohio.. not too much heat to worry about.


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## Tabris (Jul 14, 2013)

It's the noise I'm more concerned about :b If the GPU is louder than my case fans then it bugs me.
470 SLI was crazy loud; I had 480 SLI and it drove me insane.


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## modus (Apr 27, 2011)

I understand that! My current build is so friggn loud. It's the worst thing about it. I don't have a fan controller available, so when it ramps up during a game, it just says ramped up forever until I do a reboot. I've had more powerful builds that are half as loud.. stupid thing.


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## Tabris (Jul 14, 2013)

Hm that's strange, it should definitely quiet down when you exit a game.


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## Nono441 (May 14, 2012)

My current build (2.5 years old except for the SSD) is:

- P8P67 motherboard
- i5 2500k CPU
- HD6950 GPU
- 4GB memory (should be 12GB, but I just can't be bothered replacing the faulty sticks at the moment, works well enough)
- 120GB SSD
- 500GB HDD x2
- 2TB external HDD
- 750W PSU
- two 1920x1080 21" monitors
- generic case (I'm not really into flashy stuff)
- and the cheapest DVD reader/burner I could find

So, yeah, pretty baseline specs at the time, no exotic stuff like watercooling or anything, and perhaps a bit obsolete by now but it's still going strong. It wasn't originally built as a gaming PC but turns out it doesn't do a bad job at it, eats any game for breakfast at highest settings at 1920x1080. The second monitor isn't for gaming but for work (otherwise I would've taken three of them, obviously, but it's too expensive and they don't fit on my desk anyway )

The next upgrade due is the CPU, going for a 4th generation i5 probably. But I need to save up for a (non-gaming) laptop before that, I've recently needed the mobility. I'm not much into building monster rigs (I prefer the software aspect of it  ) but I can definitely see the appeal.

Don't have any pix of the inside right now (it's 1:30am) but I might snap a few later.


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## modus (Apr 27, 2011)

Just ordered for the school year..

G.SKILL 12GB RAM @ 1333
Sapphire HD 6970 2GB
2TB WD Black

Jokes on me, my major requires 12 or more gigs of RAM. Anyway, I HOPE my hard drive was the problem and this fixes it.. I could get past the BIOS but then just a blank screen. I also figured out my mobo has PCIe 2.0 so I had to dig deep for a powerful GPU. I always order mATX mobos for the extra space and it always comes back to bite me, not enough features.

Modest upgrades, but I was shocked that the 6970 was cheap yet outperforms the GTX 470.

Had to get rid of my old RAM. If anyone's interested: 
OCZ 6GB (2GBx3) 1600 Model: OCZ3X1600LV6GK
Works fine, just can't mix and match RAM. These are discontinued so I couldnt upgrade.


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## overkill (Aug 5, 2013)

Processor - AMD FX 8350 
RAM - 8 GB corsair DD3
PSU - 750 W 
Motherboard - Asus M5A7 8L-M
GPU - ATI Radeon HD 5450


My GPU is holding back my system, I intend to upgrade to the 7970 when I get the cash


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## The Phantom Pain (Oct 6, 2010)

I don't get building a 1500+ PC. Most of this stuff will be obsolete in 3 years tops. I hate dropping 600 bucks on a GPU alone only to see mid range cards priced 1/3 of it overpowering it in a few years which is why I won't do it.

But anyway, here's my planned budget PC build:

Case - Logisys ATX Mid-Tower Blue/Black Desktop Case with 480W PSU. $49.99

Asus/AMD Motherboard. $80-$100

CPU - AMD A10-6800K Richland 4.1GHz (4.4GHz Turbo) Quad-Core Desktop Processor - Black Edition with AMD Radeon HD 8670D - $149 

GPU - AMD Radeon HD 7790 (or a HD 6670 crossfire) $89.99-$129.99

Ram - Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3. $69.99 

Western Digital WD10EFRX Red 1TB SATA III 3.5" Hard Drive. $79.99

With that, I hope to run all of this gens games on high settings at full 1080P. I'll use one of the next gen consoles as my primary next gen gaming platform and this for maxing out this gen. But I need a system that will at least run BF4 which is why I haven't finalized it yet. 

If BF4's recommended settings are high, this obviously will change drastically ( and the price of my build will go through the roof...).


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## h00dz (Dec 25, 2012)

Yay its e-penis time!!

Monitor 1: Ben Q E2200HD Monitor
Monitor 2: Samsung T27A950 120hz 3D Screen
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68X-UD7-B3
CPU:Intel Core-i7 2600k @ 4.5ghz
CPU Cooler: Corsair HD100 CPU Water Cooler
Memory 16gb G-Skill Ripjaw X 8-8-7-24 1600
Graphics: Geforce GTX 680 SLI
Sound Card: M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192
HDD 1: 128gig OCZ Vertex-3 MI
HDD 2: 2TB Western digital caviar black
HDD 3: 600gig Western Digital
HDD 4: 600gig Western Digital
PSU: Seasonic X-850 80Plus Gold 850W
Case: Coolermaster HAF-X with 3 addtional fans
Drive: Cheapest Blue ray/dvd drive I could find
Speakers 2x 110w Behringer Truth B820A Studio Monitors
Sub: 360w Behringer B2092A Studio Sub

I think that pretty much covers it.. and yeah I think I did go overboard TBH but i just wanted to do it anyways. I highly doubt I will ever spend this much cash on a rig again, its not worth it.


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## modus (Apr 27, 2011)

h00dz said:


> Graphics: Geforce GTX 680 SLI


holy adult jesus


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## Nono441 (May 14, 2012)

exobyte said:


> holy adult jesus


You think that's a lot? Get a load of this "computer":










Yeah, I thought so too. Some people are just insane


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## h00dz (Dec 25, 2012)

Nono441 said:


> You think that's a lot? Get a load of this "computer":
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What the hell?? Thats like 20 graphics card??? lol


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## modus (Apr 27, 2011)

I bet THAT guy uses a full size tower. Or maybe a uh.. used car frame.


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## Nono441 (May 14, 2012)

Ahvav said:


> There is no SLI bridge between the cards, so I think it is a whole bunch of computers on a single rack
> 
> For testing purposes maybe


It's not for gaming. SLI is mostly used for that. You can use multiple graphic cards at the same time if they don't need to interact directly (this is probably a mining rig for bitcoins).

SLI is helpful for games since it provides a standard way for graphics engines to use multiple graphics cards, but it's not actually needed in most applications. I know a few computers at my university for the graphics design courses have eight or more GPU's for rendering: each renders one part of the image independently. Physics majors use them too for simulation work etc.. then you can make GPU clusters and cool stuff like that.


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## Sacrieur (Jan 14, 2013)

SLI works different than the name suggests, it's not the same technology it was named after.


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## h00dz (Dec 25, 2012)

Must for some serious bloody processing power then. What kind of application would need that many cards? Bitcoin farming lol?


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## h00dz (Dec 25, 2012)

Ahvav said:


> What's that?


http://foreverrising.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/what-is-bitcoin-and-what-is-bitcoin-mining/


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## NightAtSydney (Aug 8, 2013)

AMD FX 6100 6 core ( Stock 3.3ghz/3.6ghz/3.9ghz turbo )
AMD Radeon 7750 GDDR5 1GB
G Skill 1866 16gb Ram
Corsair 450w PSU
60GB Kingston SSD ( Boot )
2TB External HDD ( Steam games )
Windows 8 64Bit

Planning on building a Piledriver 8350 rig soon, possibly a Richland A10 APU desktop, also got some spare FX chips laying about, 4100 and a 4130 Quad cores, just a matter of time and money. 

Also wanting to cross fire some AMD Radeon cards, always used to running single GPU configs!


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## Tokztero (Sep 12, 2013)

Case: Antec 900

MoBo: MSI Intel Z77A-GD65 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge Overclocked 4.3ghz

GPU: GIGABYTE NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 OC 4GB GDDR5

RAM: G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB DDR3 1600MHz

PSU: XION PowerReal 850W

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

HDD: Seagate 500GB Hard Disk Drive 

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit


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## TheExplosionist (Apr 13, 2009)

Case: Xigmatek Elysium
Mobo: Z77X-GA-D3H
CPU: 3570k
GPU: HD7950 @ 1100/1250
RAM: 8Gb Samsung Green
PSU: Fractal Design Newton R3 800W
HDD: Samsung 840 EVO 500Gb
OS: Win 8.1


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## Colt45ws (Nov 17, 2013)

My main rig is Winter:
Cooler Master HAF 932
Cooler Master UCP 900W (80+ Silver)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
Intel Core i7 980X 3.33GHz (@4.01GHz) (Gulftown)
Prolimatech Megahalems with 2x 120mm fans in push/pull
3x Mushkin Redline 4GB DDR3-1600
2x AMD Radeon HD6950 2GB (BIOS Modded to 6970 shader counts)
NEC USB 3.0 PCIe card
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum PCIe (upgraded output opamps/capacitors)
Adaptec 6805 PCIe hardware RAID controller


5x Samsung F3R 1TB (RAID 5e) [Storage] 2.7TB usable
2x Toshiba MG03ACA300 3TB (RAID 1) [Bulk Storage] 2.7TB usable
Samsung 830 256GB SSD [OS]
10X LG BluRay burner
Windows 7 Professional x86_64
Dell U2713HM 27" LCD [Primary]
NEC LCD2470WNX 24"LCD [Secondary]

My server is Dash:
Dell PowerEdge SC1430
2x Intel Xeon 5148 2.33GHz (Woodcrest)
4x Kingston 2GB DDR2-667 FB-DIMM
2x Hitachi Deskstar 400GB (RAID 1)
10X DVD-ROM
Hardened Gentoo Linux x86_64

My laptop is Luna:
Lenovo T500
Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz (Penryn)
2x GSkill 4GB DDR3-1066 SO-DIMM
ATi Mobility Radeon HD3650
WD Scorpio Black 500GB
Windows 7 Professional x86_64

My router is Sarah:
Antec ISK110 (has 80W DC-DC power supply and 90W 19V power brick)
MSI Fuzzy RS690T MiniITX (improved MOSFET & chipset cooling)
Athlon X2 4450B 2.3GHz (Brisbane)
2x hynix 2GB DDR2-667 SO-DIMM
Fujitsu MHW2120BH 120GB 2.5" (Requisitioned from an Xbox 360, lol)
Hardened Gentoo Linux x86_64


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## Diacetylmorphine (Mar 9, 2011)

Just built it about a month ago.

*Monitor*: Dell U3014
*CASE* Coolermaster Storm Trooper
*MOBO*: ASrock Extreme 3 Z87
*OPTICAL* Pioneer BDR-208DBKS 15X Blu-Ray Disc Writer OEM
*CPU*: Intel i5 4670k 3.40 GHz
*CPU COOLER:* Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler
*GPU*: SLI 2 X Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 OC Edition 4GB 
*RAM*: G.Skill Ares F3-1600C9D-8GAO 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3
*SOUND CARD* Asus Xonar D2
*PSU:* Corsair RM-850 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
*SSD*: Samsung 830 256GB 
*HDD*:Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB 7200RPM
*OS*: Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit


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## Colt45ws (Nov 17, 2013)

The Phantom Pain said:


> I don't get building a 1500+ PC. Most of this stuff will be obsolete in 3 years tops. I hate dropping 600 bucks on a GPU alone only to see mid range cards priced 1/3 of it overpowering it in a few years which is why I won't do it.


Well, see what I did was give myself plenty of room to upgrade and cycle parts into other machines in a trickle-down upgrading type thing. My system started with a i7 920 with 6GB ram, HD5870, 64gb SSD and 4 500GB HDDs on a highpoint controller. Hard drives were first. They were big plies of crap that kept failing. Literally, I would send one back to Seagate and by the time I got that back another went out. I would keep one extra to put in when one failed.
Upgraded the ram. I put them in my brother's machine that I was putting together for him. So I only had to buy another matching to make it 8GB on his dual channel board.
Then the fan went bad on the 5870 and I sent it back, but not before I bought one of the 6950s in it now so I wouldnt be without a card. When I got the 5870 back, I put it in my brothers machine too.
Then the SSD took a crap. I had an image of it though, so I upgraded to the Samsung.
Then the 980X. I sold the 920. 
Recently I upgraded my screen to the Dell 27", which is 2560x1440. The ol' 6950 wasn't really enough I felt. So I bought another off of EBay and put them in crossfire. 
I still have awhile to go I think before I feel the need to upgrade the major components. It just cracked 33k hours and my standard for service is 50k. So, about another year and a half Ill start looking at replacement. Whats coming down the pipe vs what is currently available, etc, etc.
Its not the bad *** box it once was. But it has plenty of sauce for everything I ask of it. Ive played games on it while simultaneously compiling in a VM.

I use or sell all the parts I upgrade depending on age. I run things into the ground. Sarah, the router, is a recent upgrade. It was an Athlon XP box. I still have a Pentium 4 box in service.


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## Tom The Beast (Nov 25, 2013)

I'm using this now, it wasn't as "cost-efficient" as I could of made it as I was rather computer illiterate a few months ago at the time I built it...

Case: Antec Dark Fleet DF-85

Power Supply: Corsair 500 builder series

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z87X-D3H

Memory: Kingston Genesis 1600mhz 

CPU: i5 4670k @ 3.4 ghz

CPU Cooler: Nero 3 v2

GPU: Asus 560Ti at stock

Hard drive: 1TB Western Digital


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## Ledgarden (May 3, 2013)

Ugh. Just reading this thread makes me a bit envious. Can't wait till I save up enough money to build my own. My laptop recently crapped out on me and if there's one thing I learned from that experience is if you need a laptop and like to game then just get the minimum for the laptop and just use the desktop for gaming. Ugh such a big regret buying that laptop.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

It's not great. I have this titchy too small case too:

*motherboard:* Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 1366 motherboard
*Ram:* Corsair 6gb (3x2gb) PC3 - 12800 RAM memory 1600 mhz
*CPU:* I7 920 2.66ghz 
*Power supply:* OCZ GameXSteam 850w psu 
*Harddrive: * Seagate Barracuda 1TB SATA
*Diskdrive:* Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW 
*Graphics card:* GeForce GTX 460 1GB PCI-Express 2.0 HDMI (Sonic)
*CPU fan:* Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (120mm)

*pc case:* Xigmatek Asgard Black, Mid Tower, ATX Case










Pretty boring looking case too 

I did have a arctic cooler freezer 7 pro fan (I bought one and it failed in several months, and then the next one did the same.) my new one (the one mentioned above) has lasted about a year which is a record. I have some other fans that came with the case but can't remember what they were called.

I've changed the hard drive since the original build too, after last one failed.


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