Finally Gave it a Go

[zc1]

After lurking and learning on this site and a few others, I became inspired to have a go at building a system. Before this project, the extent of my experience with computer components was installing hard drives, RAM, video cards and swapping a processor. I had a good idea of what was involved in the build, but just had never done one, before.

I wanted to reuse as many components as reasonable from my old computer (Dimension E9200 w/ E6320 swapped for Q6600, 2 x 500GB Seagate HDDs, NVidia GeForce 8600 GTS and 6200 + 3 Samsung monitors, Philips 20X DVD writer, 4 x 1GB Kingston PC2-6400 ValueRam, Windows 7 Pro) but upgrade it to where it would be better for productivity (CS3, Vegas) as well as fun (NFS SHIFT is my current favourite).

What I liked from my old system:

-Q6600; fast enough for my needs stock, and can be overclocked if need be
-Seagate drives; have served me well. I'm paranoid about losing data, though, so wanted more backup, though
-Monitors; good quality, good resolution
-DVD writer; works; fast enough but would be nice to have a second one

What had to go:

-GeForce 8600 GTS and 6200; Nvidia drivers bogged things down and weren't stable -- random failures to refresh, etc. Fresh install of Win7 w/o updating drivers and system was faster to boot, but still unstable (hangs, refresh failures). Update drivers and Windows boot became too long for my liking and the hanging/refresh problems persisted. These glitches even occurred with benign tasks (word processing, web browsing) --> Gave 8600 GTS to my wife since her MOBO has an Nvidia chipset.

The Build:

-Case: Silverstone FT02-BW
-Processor: Q6600 (from old system)
-Processor Cooling: H50
-Motherboard: EP45-UD3P
-PSU: Corsair HX650
-RAM: Mushkin DDR2 Redlines (4x2 GB)
-Graphics: Sapphire Radeon 5750x2 crossfire with Sapphire Active Displayport to DL-DVI adapter cable
-HDDs: 3x Seagate Barracuda 500 GB 7200RPM drives (2 from old system, 1 new); OCZ vertex turbo 120GB SSD
-ODs: Philips DVD RW 20X (from old system) and LG DVD RW (new)
-OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit


Photos:

Front Panel




Cable Management...





A Couple of Shots of the Interior:






It Has to do This to be Worth The Effort:



Building this system was extremely gratifying.

Thanks to all of the HWCs on this site for your reviews, posts on components, videos, etc. This is sure to be the first of many builds.

[martin_metal_88]

Wow pretty nice and clean! I like how silverstone can fit a big rig in a case that is not that huge and still keep it cool and cold. The H50 shold also perform good pulling air from the down. Great setup my friend!

[gingerbee]

very nice setup

[MarkOne]

Originally Posted by zc1

.

:s hok::sho k: .....


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[lemonlime]

Very nice! Congrats on your new rig

[zc1]

Thanks everyone! Lemonlime, your review was a big help in swinging me towards the FT02. It turned out to be the right case for me, and pretty easy to work with.

[Dead Things]

You're really a pro system builder and you're just joshing with us, right?

[Chromey]

Originally Posted by Dead Things

You're really a pro system builder and you're just joshing with us, right?

Or someone that ate their PC building weaties.

[SugarJ]

Very nice build! First FT02 I've seen other than reviews, and I like it!

[AmuseMe]

Wow... I want to buy two more monitors now. Looks really good God that case is big