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: .....


.

[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

[chriskwarren]

If that is your first build, then you have found a calling.

Wicked job!

[lemonlime]

Originally Posted by 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.

Glad you liked the review. It certainly is a very nice case

How do you like the 5750s in crossfire? Plenty of oomph?

[punk_zappa]

That was pretty good. I'm impressed.

[zc1]

Lol. Thanks again, all! You don't want to know how long it took me to put this system together. I'll just say "several hours" from start to the final install of Win7 (installed Win7 3 times).

It really is my first build, and I spent a lot of time staring at cables and trying to decide how best to route them, fixing little mistakes (eg. installed mobo then had to take it out because I forgot the backplate), etc. What held me up was some of the small details that you just don`t notice in photos/videos if you`ve never done something before. Otherwise, the case itself has a lot of room and is easy to work with, aside from the 2 uppermost 5.25`` drive bays.

Lemonlime, I'm very happy with the 5750s. I actually was torn between the 5750 (should be great for now) and 5770 (might be better for the future) going into the build. Locally I could only find 1 5770 though (vs. 3 of the 5750s) so that made the decision easy. For my purposes now, the 50s are very good. NFS runs absolutely smoothly with the default settings, and I haven`t tried to push beyond those, yet -- wasted a lot of time trying to get the Logitech PS2/3/PC wheel and pedals working properly, then installed almost all of my remaining software. I probably won't be able to play around with things much until the weekend.

[CTA]

impressive... but i am most confusing about

-Processor: Q6600 (from old system)
-PSU: Corsair HX650

O.O

can hx650 support cossfire?! and can processor handle them?