My first "Themed" build

Hello members of TekSyndicate~!

I've been around here for about 6-8 months now as an active user. But I haven't shared much of my personal rig other than what is on my profile. As my current rig was my entrance into building, not tinkering, I bought it with the intention of future purposes of the case, and not so much about the hardware. So I built it for functionality and without much bling or real theme other than trying to maintain a Blue/Black colour scheme. I didn't have much love for the Red/Black theme but it's grown on me since Asus moved to the Gold/Black theme. And with the H440 coming in with a Red and Black coloured case that blows my mind in elegance and great looks with lots of fine functionality, I've decided it's time to start my true personal rig. As my current system will be put to the side for a while for it to become my home server.

[The HAF XB/my current case does seem to be a great case for a quiet air cooling with the ability to put a massive 200mm fan in the top, and with the horizontal motherboard layout, the bottom of the case is able to house plenty of hard drives. However it comes with support for only two 3.5in hotswap bays, there is a dual 5.25in bay that is begging for a hotswap bay.]

So, on to the build. 

I've currently ordered the parts, and when they arrive I will commence the build log~!


The Parts

  • Red/Black NZXT H440
  • AMD FX 8350
  • Corsair H80i
  • Asus ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z
  • Seasonic G-550 Modular Power Supply [80+ Gold]
  • MSI TriFrozrIV 660ti PE
  • Intel PCI-E Gigabit RJ-45 LAN
  • Kingston Blu Black 8GB [2x4GB] (Will be adding another two DIMMs come BlackFriday/CyberMonday/BoxingDay sales)
  • Samsung 840 128GB SSD
  • Seagate Momentus XT 2.5in SSHD 500GB
  • Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB
  • WD Green HDD 2TB

 More to come

Looks like a good build! I was thinking about doing one myself. That NZXT case in the red is gorgeous. Really wish I didn't just build a PC and I really hate to take my AMD system out of the Define XL. 

I'm not a huge fan of the H80i personally but it should be decent. Why the extra NIC? The onboard one will be plenty for your needs. 

I want to try a bunch of things with having a NIC for direct connection to other systems/my local network and for troubleshooting issues. Only $20/30 investment for if I ever do have a dead NIC somewhere, and having it on hand isn't terribly bad. I'm sure I'll learn some other uses later on. I'll find use of it, at some point. It's just nice having two NICs to play with, considering I'm going into a Networking course in the fall.

I would like to replace the H80i with something like the Swiftech H320 or a 280mm Rad, but I already have the H80i from my current rig, and the $100-200 to spend on 10-15C difference isn't worth it right now. Maybe in the future. (I would like to go custom loop, but I know I wouldn't maintain it properly so AIO is my only option that I feel safe with)

Looks nice!

No gpu? ._.

I'm reusing my 660ti, I'm also hoping to try and pick up a R9 290 after the price fall this summer and then during a major sale. Hoping to spend about $350 on it. 

Thanks I forgot it in the parts list.

i'd go for western digital or hitachi/HGST HDDs less likely to become a paperweight, also models that weren't shipped in bulk are less likely to die

looks decent to me ☺

I like the build. I haven't been seeing too many 660ti's for a while. Good card.

The 4TB Seagate I got on sale last summer for like ~$100 so I couldn't go wrong with that, I ripped it from an external drive, same with my 2TB, however my 2TB has been with me for about 3-4 years now without any issues at all. I do plan on adding another two 3TB or 4TB drives if I can find some WD Reds or Blacks on sale. I'm using the 4TB as a temporary high capacity storage for my music and video until I can get my hands on a NAS for a redundant library. I know it's a drive with some bad rep, but $100 for 4TB is always nice.

It's pretty much a 670 though, I currently have it OC'd to an average factory OC'd 670. Plus it's stock speeds are already factory OC'd to almost a stock 670. Beast of a card with being quite quiet as well. When it ramps, it's not terrible, not whiny at all just a very "WOOSH" like sound. 

Though I do plan on replacing this with a R9 290 or a future revision of AMD cards, so I can have both cards run in the system, one for AMD optimized games and one for Nvidia optimized games. (since I'd have no use for the card other wise, and I kinda want to keep this 660ti until it dies)