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So I’ve been saving up some money for a gaming PC build the last few months and finally bit the bullet and bought all of the components and spent yesterday evening putting everything together.
Here’s the parts list:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $212.00)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $27.90)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 12g Thermal Paste (Purchased For $8.22)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Purchased For $159.00)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased For $74.99)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (Purchased For $89.99)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $62.99)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (Purchased For $259.99)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (Purchased For $42.87)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $72.00)
Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-S2S-124K-GP 44.7 CFM 120mm Fans (Purchased For $12.04)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (Purchased For $74.99)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $1096.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-14 15:31 EDT-0400)
Here’s a pic of all the components, minus the case:
Empty case:
The first thing that threw me off was the fact that my case only came with one mobo standoff. I didn’t realize that this case didn’t require standoffs. This was a foreign concept to me.
For the most part, the build went relatively pain free. I had a bunch of trouble installing the mobo, as I had to pull it out a few different times. Once I got that squared away, I installed everything piece by piece and tried to boot up the computer.
All the components assembled:
When I powered on the computer, the screen stayed black, but the debug code on the mobo made it seem like it posted successfully. I tried plugging the DVI cable into the DVI port on the mobo and the screen suddenly turned on.
I then reseated the graphics card and used the power adapter that came with the card. After reseating the card, the monitor would now turn on when connected to the graphics card.
Once I figured out the graphics card problem, I began to tidy up the cables.
Back panel of the case with cables tied together:
I forgot to take a picture of the front of the case after working on cable management.
Now that all the components were good to go, I installed the OS (Windows 8) and installed the applicable drivers.
My temporary work station:
One thing I need to work on: staying organized when building the computer. This was a picture taken about 80% through the build of my work station:
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the build. I’m embarassed to say how long it took me (five hours
), but regardless, everything seems to be working. One thing that amazes me between this build and my first build back in 2005 is how far along cases have come. With removable HDD/SSD drives and easy routes for the cables, working with this case was 10x better than my old case.
Best part of this build: Windows 8 boots in less than 5 seconds
I didn’t have a lot of time to test the build for stability last night, so I’ll be doing that this evening as well as trying out some games.
Here’s the parts list:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $212.00)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $27.90)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 12g Thermal Paste (Purchased For $8.22)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Purchased For $159.00)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased For $74.99)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (Purchased For $89.99)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $62.99)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (Purchased For $259.99)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (Purchased For $42.87)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $72.00)
Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-S2S-124K-GP 44.7 CFM 120mm Fans (Purchased For $12.04)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (Purchased For $74.99)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $1096.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-14 15:31 EDT-0400)
Here’s a pic of all the components, minus the case:
Empty case:
The first thing that threw me off was the fact that my case only came with one mobo standoff. I didn’t realize that this case didn’t require standoffs. This was a foreign concept to me.
For the most part, the build went relatively pain free. I had a bunch of trouble installing the mobo, as I had to pull it out a few different times. Once I got that squared away, I installed everything piece by piece and tried to boot up the computer.
All the components assembled:
When I powered on the computer, the screen stayed black, but the debug code on the mobo made it seem like it posted successfully. I tried plugging the DVI cable into the DVI port on the mobo and the screen suddenly turned on.
I then reseated the graphics card and used the power adapter that came with the card. After reseating the card, the monitor would now turn on when connected to the graphics card.
Once I figured out the graphics card problem, I began to tidy up the cables.
Back panel of the case with cables tied together:
I forgot to take a picture of the front of the case after working on cable management.
Now that all the components were good to go, I installed the OS (Windows 8) and installed the applicable drivers.
My temporary work station:
One thing I need to work on: staying organized when building the computer. This was a picture taken about 80% through the build of my work station:
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the build. I’m embarassed to say how long it took me (five hours
), but regardless, everything seems to be working. One thing that amazes me between this build and my first build back in 2005 is how far along cases have come. With removable HDD/SSD drives and easy routes for the cables, working with this case was 10x better than my old case.Best part of this build: Windows 8 boots in less than 5 seconds
I didn’t have a lot of time to test the build for stability last night, so I’ll be doing that this evening as well as trying out some games.
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