Planning for Future Upgrades

WarrenPeace

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Jul 17, 2014
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Why post a new thread when you can necro an old one?

What's this?

HOWIE is evolving!

So, after my Memorial Day vacation, I returned home to a small bonanza of goods. Now, I've got no issues with what kind of silicon people like putting in their computers, but AMD fanboys may wish to stop here.

Not pictured: the other GTX 770 in my old PC.

Major thanks to @SlumLord for helping me get all the components together, he is a majorly cool dude. So, on with the building!

First order of business: plug in the CPU, install MB, install watercooling


The nice thing about a new build is the opportunity to take the time and arrange all the cables nicely.


That said, I do subscribe to the mullet school of cable management.

Not pictured: it got worse.

Mostly assembled, time for the next step...


We have lights! Fans spinning up! Systems booting clean!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a computer!

Oh, the carnage!


After cannibalizing the old rig for a HDD and 2nd GTX 770 and an extra 16 GB of RAM (color scheme broken)


And the final product, all sealed up and pretty looking:


So, what am I running now?

CPU: Intel i7-4970K @ 4.0 GHz (overclocking to come later)
Motherboard: MSI Z97
GPU: 2x MSI GTX 770s, running in SLI
RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance @ 2133 MHz
Storage: 480 GB Corsair Neutron XT, 2TB Western Digital
Power: Corsair AX760i
Cooling: Corsair H100i, lotsa fans.

Still finishing all the programs installations, but my baby is running quiet and cool right now. Star Citizen loading times are a small fraction of what they were. I'm looking to get started on The Witcher 3 by this weekend. Thanks again to @SlumLord!
 
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Halvix

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Halvix
Looks good. I'm using that same old G15 keyboard... Almost replaced it a year ago, but still working great so meh.

Which corsair case is that and how do you like it? I'm planning to upgrade soon and thinking a new case/fans/cooling is gonna be on the list to go with the new GPU.
 

WarrenPeace

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Looks good. I'm using that same old G15 keyboard... Almost replaced it a year ago, but still working great so meh.

Which corsair case is that and how do you like it? I'm planning to upgrade soon and thinking a new case/fans/cooling is gonna be on the list to go with the new GPU.
I just upgraded that G15, it's given me a good decade of service and is due for replacement. The case is a 750D out of their Obsidian line, very sleek and good cooling.
 

Fenrig

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Do you still have it? Was it the first rev (blue light with the flip screen) or the second one (orange lights and a static screen)?
 
Jul 6, 2014
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Evga had numerous bad generations of trash recently. Only now have they started to push ok stuff. Still, overpriced for the performance.
They used to make great boards like the x58 classifieds... after that they were awful. Z77, x79 were trash. z87/z97 were decent. X99 has turned out to be a rather good board but still pricey.
 

Halvix

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Do you still have it? Was it the first rev (blue light with the flip screen) or the second one (orange lights and a static screen)?
I'm typing on the G15 with the blue lights/flip-up screen right now. Never did use the flip-up screen much, don't look down at the keyboard much while gaming...
 
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Fenrig

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Fenrig
I'm typing on the G15 with the blue lights/flip-up screen right now. Never did use the flip-up screen much, don't look down at the keyboard much while gaming...
I've got the rev2 with the orange and I actually preferred it to the rev1. I leave the screen on the clock just so I don't get too carried away when I don't have my phone near by. On a day off though it can frequently be "oh, it's still only 1100, plenty of time." *blink-blink* "oh shit, how did it get to be 1900 in only two hours?!"
 

WarrenPeace

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Do you still have it? Was it the first rev (blue light with the flip screen) or the second one (orange lights and a static screen)?
Definitely still have it, it's my backup keyboad now. It's the 1st gen model, blue lights and flip screen. That screen is the only thing I really miss on my new K95, I used it for time and to see who was actually talking in Mumble.
 

AntiSqueaker

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How was the watercooling installation? I was looking at picking one of those Corsair h80is (only 120mm fan slots on my rig #thestruggle)
 

WarrenPeace

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How was the watercooling installation? I was looking at picking one of those Corsair h80is (only 120mm fan slots on my rig #thestruggle)
painless and easy. It comes with the heatsink material pre-applied. I attached a few brackets, 1 behind and 1 over top of the actual transfer point. It came prefilled, so no monkeying around with that business. the hardest part was plugging in some of smaller wires, and that's just because I have giant ham hands.
 
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