Evolution of my rig to date

I originally built this rig back over a year ago (around September 2013).  Up until that point all I had for technology was an old Acer laptop I had managed to salvage by putting manjaro on it, an old dell optiplex with 1gb of ram and a Pentium 4 dual booting xp and Lubuntu, and my prized nexus 7.  The Manjaro laptop was unusable when I got it from my aunt, and it was really what opened the flood gates to me being interested in computers.  Suddenly instead of being limited by old hardware on windows, I had a light weight, efficient, and effective pc.  Sure, it only had a dual core amd and 2gb of ram, but with Manjaro it would run minecraft, host a LAN server, manage my torrents in the background all while having a few tabs open with 2 screens!!!  Compared to the POS optiplex I was used to I was amazed, and I loved that little computer to death.  Literally

To be honest the computer was on its last leg when it came to me.  All manjaro did was extend the time before it died.  I've concluded that the death of the laptop was caused by a motherboard issue, so there was really nothing to do.  I'd lost the first real venture I had taken into the computer world and had no intention of going back, and around the same time I'd also just gotten a job.  At the time many of my friends had all built computers, and with their guidance I put together a basic list.  I had no idea what I was doing at first but I kept watching videos and comparing benchmarks and came up with what I felt was the best build at the time (hint: I was wrong).  Already missing my laptop workhorse I asked to borrow the money needed for the build from my grandma, with the understanding I'd pay her off ASAP.  This is the build I ended up with

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/n3PcFT

Here was the "reasoning" behind the build

CPU - I wanted a capable processor.  My friend swayed me to the AMD side from intel, but I switched for a few reasons.  First, the difference between a 8350 and a 3770k was not as great as the difference between the 8350 and a 4790k.  Also, many people reported easier times overclocking on AMD, as well as better performance gains.  The final reason and probably the most compelling for me was the idea of 8 cores.  I knew very well that games would only use up to 4 cores, sometimes even less, and that the AMD would take a performance hit in single threaded operations.  But only using 4 cores meant having 4 cores open for other processes, like skype, utorrent, and chrome.  Even though the core's resources would have to be stressed, I was confident that the extra cores would help.  In over a year of using my rig ive never had an issue with multitasking lag.

Heatsink- I dont think I really need to explain this one.  Its quieter than the stock and gave me a bit of room to play with overclocking.

Mobo- I've taken a lot of heat from different people about spending as much as I did on my ROG board.  One of the main things I wanted out of this build was the ability to overclock, and get that performance "for nothing" just like I did on my linux build.  This board has been rock stable and I've never had any issues.  It has all the features I could ever want and then some and really made learning to overclock much less stressful and more enjoyable (read, clear cmos and ok go buttons).

Memory- Was the cheapest from a reputable manufacturer at the time.  I had no idea how timings worked so I went with 1866 since it was like 5 more than 1600 and why not.

Storage- I really didn't know what to look for here, or the differences (real world or synthetic) in HDD.  I knew I wanted WD since I have had 3 or 4 seagate drives die on me, and friends have had a good experience.  I remembered hearing that the WD Blacks were good, and I jumped on it, not knowing the normal price for 1tb drives.

GPU- Not actually a 270x, but rather a 7870ghz edition.  This was Sapphire's dual-x version and the only reason I went with the card was because I had the cance to get it for around 160, which I thought was a steal.

Case- I had originally intended to use a HAF 912 for the build but I jumped on this case when I saw it on sale for almost half off.  I figured "its usually a 100 dollar case, it should be really good".  Well, yes and no.

PSU- At the time there really wasn't too much wrong with the psu.  Respectable vendor, 80+ bornze, 750w modular.  However a few months after the build OCZ went out of business, end warranty.  Got this because it was the watts I wanted at a reasonable price

So lets talk about the problems with this build.

First off, the case was solid, but not what I needed at all.  No removable HDD cages, support for only 120mm in the front/back and a 200 on the top, this case offered few options and even fewer  expandability paths, taking away any option of using an AIO cooler.  The case was however very open and easy to build in and kept my components as cool as I could ask for.  The next problem came with my power supply.  Since there was no warranty I always felt a little nervous overclocking on the rig and worried about power issues.  Lastly, the build was really not balanced, as the money I spend on the ROG board and 8350 could have netted me a 7950, which would mean much better gaming.  Over time I tried to fix the problems.

The first big upgrade for my computer was new fans for the front.  I went with 2 noctua NF-F12s.  They helped with temps a bit, but not to the extent I wanted.  This prompted me to go out and grab the best air cooler I could find (due to AIO limits), the nh-d14.  Followed by another 7870ghz, the rig had become a bit beastly. (picture shows a third 7770 i threw in for mining litecoin when it was -20f outside, my room was dropping to 54 during the day and that really helped warm it up)

I sold one of the 7870s and had my single for a long time then upgraded to a r9 290 when the price dropped to 280.  This was the last upgrade of 2014 and laid the foundation for my 2015 upgrade plan.

2015 is all about building a well balanced rig that will perform well in a great number of situations, as well as offering maximum performance.  To start the upgrades off, I upgraded from the Antec case to a Fractal r5.  I decided to go with the r5 for the water cooling options.  Part of the eventual upgrade path involves converting to liquid cooling, and the case really fits the balance of size and performance I had in mind.  Next I changed the nh-d14 out for a cryorig r1 ultimate.  The cooler is slightly better and that small difference makes a huge difference in some cases, plus now a friend of mine who recently built his own rig was able to afford a cooler with performance outside of his price range.  Most recently is the upgrade to the psu.  I upgraded to a Seasonic 1250w gold psu, for a few different reasons.  This will cover all my power needs, even with a multi gpu setup with OC cards and an OC CPU.  Beyond that, the gold efficiency is nice, power savings are always great.  Most importantly for me the power supply is rock solid reliable, and offers best in class power delivery.  The case and PSU combination can easily carry me through at least 2 platform upgrades, maybe even more.

Planned upgrades include another 290 for crossfire, a crucial mx100 512gb SSD, better fans, and custom water cooling.  This will in my opinion end up with a very high end rig with a wonderful balance of size, acoustics, efficiency, performance per dollar, and overclockability.

 

Sorry for the wall of text, had to cover all previous ground before I would be able to address each new upgrade individually.

Pictures appear in order of oldest to newest

 

Very nice build, I used an old laptop for the longest time and got a new laptop then built my desktop. Big jump in performance I'll tell you that much. One thing I did not see is what OS do you plan to use? Will it be Linux or Windows?

 

Great read and I look forward to some more updates.

I'm currently using windows 7 ultimate on the WD Black, and i have manjaro on the HDD from the laptop.  I'm thinking about putting arch on there but there are just little things that chip away my enthusiasm about arch, manjaro is a bit nicer since I can still use the repositories and be sure I can connect to the internet (totally a user issue, btw.  arch is great).  

I've actually got an "upgrade" coming next week.  Taking the cooler off of my gpu and painting it.  After it was dubbed "the school bus" because of the color I cant stop noticing it lol.  While I've got the cooler off I'm also redoing the thermal paste and the VRM thermal pads.  I'm really excited to get that done but I still haven't picked a color.

Btw thanks for reading, it's nice to get feedback from the community

I'd never heard of that CRYORIG cooler before. Kind of reminds me of Phanteks dual tower cooler.

How much better is it than the Noctua? Are we talking like 1 or 2 degrees?

Looks very nice, I like your planning, custom loops are my favourite! I'd love to see a build log for it sometime. 

I also think you should case mod it. Like personally I think if you are going to do a custom loop you should go all the way and 'butcher it to beauty'. Like grab a 10+mm piece of black acrylic, and create your own mobo tray. rip out that bit of metal. Make some perfect holes for cable management in it and resleeve your wires. Create like a PSU cover and mount your HDD/SSDs in/on there and mount your reservoir on it. Repaint those awful white bits and then attack it with the theme of your choice, adding a bit of flair here and there but keeping it modest. I'd thats personally kind of what I'd do, but a bit more detailed, just ideas! :)

My load temps dropped from 72-65 under 2 loops of realbench.  I think some of that had to do with the thermal paste application though.  Every review I've seen of it puts it 1-2 degrees ahead of the nh-d15, which is 1-2 ahead of the nh-d14, so 2-4 degrees lines up with my ~5.

I've been looking at how I want to set the loop up and I'm starting to lean towards a dual 360 mod.  I think there should be enough room if I mounted one radiator on a side panel.  I was thinking about using the space where HDD usually go.  That's still a ways off though.  Tomorrow I'm "modding" the GPU, painting the shroud either white or black.  I haven't really decided yet.  I'll also be putting fujipoly thermal pads on the VRMs and MX-4 on the die, so hopefully better performance.

I totally agree. Though only if it is the window version of the case otherwise it is a wasted effort with the big risk of it going pear shaped if his skills are not up to snuff.

Naturally, you HAVE to window it. There is no argument, or I will visit your house in the middle of the night armed with a battery powered dremmel, 2000 grit sand paper and can of matt black spray paint.

There should be sufficient space in the top and front to mount 2 360 rads and fans. Just get rid of the 5.25 inch bay. Then gut the fan mounting and replace it with a piece of aluminium or acrylic with mounting holes, and large fan cuttouts for airflow. You should be able to mount it directly to the base frame. I think you would have more than enough room.

I don't even think you need to do that. Just get rid of the 5.25 inch bays and you are right as rain.

According to fractal's site you can only fir 1 360 in at a time.  One in the top or the front but not both.  They could be wrong and I kinda think they are but i haven't had enough time to check it myself lately and it's a new enough case that no one has done anything like that yet.

I wouldn't go as far as say that NO ONE has done anything like that yet, just that no one has posted about it. I was actually thinking about getting this case and carving it up for my next build but I decided I'm going with a 350D and jamming an ungodly amount of hardware in it. It only looks as though that top 5.25 inch HDD bay is in the way and you may be a little tight once you mount fans on your rads in the top conner as well.