***** My Z77 Build log ***** 1st May 2012

moonboy52

This is my first big PC Build since Socket 775 in 2007.

I thought i would do a log thread and add pictures when the parts arrive.

Any thoughts welcome

I got one of the 10% discount codes from OcUK so the total price was £1239 roughly.

Oh and i am still deciding what CPU to get. Waiting for more reviews about Ivy. It will either be the 3770k or the 2600k if the stories about heat issues with Ivy are true



YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-2680-KR) £429.95
1 x Silverstone Fortress FT02 Gaming Case - Black (SST-FT02B-W) £214.45
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £169.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £119.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £109.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £109.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM2+/AM3+) £84.98
2 x Samsung Green 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit (MV-3V4G3D/US) £49.99 (£99.98)
2 x Akasa AK-FN058 Apache Black Super Silent 120mm Fan - 4 Pin PWM £9.95 (£19.90)
Total : £1,376.93 (includes shipping : £14.75).

ShadowHearth

wheres CPU?

overkill on PSU too m8. btw they are not the cheapest around for builds.

Tea_Bag

awesome RAM. would have been nice to have heat spreaders for looks. its an almost guaranteed 2400Mhz+

I'm guessing you're waiting on ivy?

moonboy52

ShadowHearth wrote: »

wheres CPU?

overkill on PSU too m8. btw they are not the cheapest around for builds.

Waiting on real world ivy reports.

The 10% off brought the price down a good bit and i am selling my GTX480 for 140 euro.

Tea_Bag wrote: »

awesome RAM. would have been nice to have heat spreaders for looks. its an almost guaranteed 2400Mhz+

I'm guessing you're waiting on ivy?

That ram gets great reviews / comments.

Aye waiting on Ivy

Serephucus

I hope that's a typo. €140 for a GTX 480? That's extremely low.

Looks like a cool build though, hoping for lots of pictures. :P

moonboy52

Serephucus wrote: »

I hope that's a typo. €140 for a GTX 480? That's extremely low.

Looks like a cool build though, hoping for lots of pictures. :P

£110 is what they are going for at the minute in the members market on OcUK.

You can buy brand new EVGA 480's for £180, so selling it for £120 i think is reasonable. (18 months old)

The 680 is costing me around £280 after the sale of the card and the 10% discount.

All-in-all i am happy enough with the cost.:)

Edit: I may have got more on Adverts.ie, but there are so many messer's there it pains me to sell anything on it. People looking to swap for camera's and asking for stupidly low offers

Serephucus

Wow... I had no idea they had gotten that cheap. Never mind so. :P

moonboy52

They are still a great card.

Anyone thinking about buying one don't be put off with talk of heat and noise.

My 480 never went above 77c and with a custom fan profile on Afterburner the fan never went above 60% fan speed.

A good bang-for-your-buck card!

Serephucus

Agreed. Mine never went above 80°C, and that was overclocked.

moonboy52

Just bought some P-Clips from the bay to aid with cable management.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160752233268?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649


I am looking into braided cables. The Bitfenix Alchemy ones look good and TTL recommends them.

YOUR BASKET
1 x BitFenix Alchemy 24pin ATX extension 30cm - Blue £8.99
2 x BitFenix Alchemy 6pin PCI-E extension 45cm - Blue £6.49 (£12.98)
2 x BitFenix Alchemy SATA 6GB/s braided cable 30cm - Blue £5.99 (£11.98)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy 8pin EPS extension 45cm - Blue £5.99
Total : £44.93 (includes shipping : £4.16).



There is a seller on the bay i got recommended that makes his own though.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/modpcuk/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

moonboy52

I decided to go with the Bitfenix cables.

£40 for them, but in for a penny in for a pound :P

moonboy52

I just ordered the 3770K from OcUK for £250.

Should be a nice boost from my Q6600 :P

Tea_Bag

moonboy52 wrote: »

I just ordered the 3770K from OcUK for £250.

Should be a nice boost from my Q6600 :P

its nearly three times as fast in certain situations. if this is for gaming though you can save a chunk and get the 3570 instead.

moonboy52

Tea_Bag wrote: »

its nearly three times as fast in certain situations. if this is for gaming though you can save a chunk and get the 3570 instead.

It is for gaming primarily Tea_Bag.

I am willing to pay the extra for HT though as i am studying for my CCNA and i use VM's and other software which HT would benefit i think.

I can always turn it off and on as required.

moonboy52

My case and my SSD and mechanical drive have arrived

glynf

Same case & SSD, you're a man of good taste:)

moonboy52

The PC is built. Here are a few crappy pictures from my phone

glynf

Nice job and gl with it, do bitfenix do extension cables for pci as well?

moonboy52

glynf wrote: »

Nice job and gl with it, do bitfenix do extension cables for pci as well?

They do glyn.

I am waiting for 2 to arrive before i attempt to cable manage the case.

Have you any pictures of the back of your case to give me some ideas?

OcUK has a huge selection of them in stock.

glynf

Ahh OK, It'll look a lot better when the GPU cables are Blue as well. There's a few pics of how I did mine here.

moonboy52

glynf wrote: »

Ahh OK, It'll look a lot better when the GPU cables are Blue as well. There's a few pics of how I did mine here.

Man, that is superb cable management!!

I am waiting on some of those p-clips also.

glynf

Thanks, and who said perfectionism was unhealthy.:)

moonboy52

glynf wrote: »

Thanks, and who said perfectionism was unhealthy.:)

They obviously were not PC aficionados .

I notice that the cables coming from the front of your case are braided. Did you do them yourself?


I hope i cable manage 50% as good as you! It really is well good as the room at the back is not great so it has to be good.

glynf

Yep, every last bloody one:) Got the sleeving, heatshrink & tools off MDPC, expensive sleeving but amazing quality. Nice guy that runs it, only takes orders at a certain time as posted on his site-only open about 1-2 hrs a week.

There's not a lot of room behind the motherboard tray but it can be done. There are loads of cable retainers out there as well. These sticky-back tie wrap mounts are great, have used them for years building/wiring control panels etc. The black ones with small black tie wraps on an FT02 would not be noticeable either.

If you want to get heat shrink, Radionics do various types & colours.
They have braided sleeving as well but I'm not sure how small they go, anything I got there was for cable looms so it was 40+mm. They have a place in Rialto near the canal.

moonboy52

Awesome tips there glyn. Cheers man!