Newbie over here!

[bimmernoob]

Hey!

For starters, I'm Matt. I'm 19, born in July.
I work at Velcro USA, full time as a weaver. (Good pay)


I've got a 2004 BMW 325xi 5 speed. Fun car.

I've never built a computer out of spare parts yet, but I've always wanted to, and always planned some out back in the day with friends.

Now that I've got the money, I'm working on building one.

Let's see if I can name off everything, without a millions links.

It'll be running an AMD Phenom II X4 965
Corsair H100 liquid cooler. (some good reviews, some bad. Noisy I guess. Taking the risk)
Asus M5A99X motherboard
8GB G.Skill Sniper Series RAM (may get 8 more for smoother operation)
EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 2GB Graphics Card
Run of the mill 1TB Hard Drive and 64GB SSD for smoother bootings and windows operation.
Run of the mill asus cd/dvd drive. blah blah
Antec Basic Plus 550W power supply
All hidden behind the wonderful doors of the Corsair Obsidian Series 550D.


Not the best, but not slow... yet.

I'd like to OC the processor to 4.1 or 4.2
My brother has his running 3.97 stable on the stock fan. So I assume with liquid I could go a little higher. But let's be real, I'd be happy with 4.0

[JamesLT3]

Hey Bimmernoob! Welcome to PureOC! Thats a nice setup and no slow by any means. I own the H100 and have never had a single problem with it, ive got my 2600k@4.6 with idle temp around 42c and under load 66-68c. Its a great cooler.

[bimmernoob]

Nice! The main issues I've read would eb that the pump makes a clicking sound. Or bubbling sound. If so, I'd return it and get a new one.
It's a super tight fit with the case I'd be getting but I want it. lol
Maybe I can find a few "slim" fans or something.

But As far as HOW TO over clock I'm a moron. I'm going to have my brother and or friend show me how to. I know my mother board can "auto tune" it.. but I read manual tuning is always better.

So I'm anxious for all my parts to arrive! I'll be checking out the rest of the forum, see what kind of gold mine information I can find.

[realneil]

You should be good to yourself and look into the SeaSonic brand of Power Supplies.
(and welcome to our site too)

[bimmernoob]

Not sure if that's sarcasm or not. (I'm on a car forum and everyone is sarcastic)

But I bookmarked the 620W one and if it's good, I'll grab it this coming week.

[SamCR3]

Welcome Matt. Nice little build you have there. No, Neil was not being sarcastic. Seasonic makes the best PSU's hands down. If you can afford it, I would consider getting a larger PSU so you have headroom for future upgrades like dual GPU's, custom water, etc. I'd get at least a 750 watt Seasonic if I were you. This hobby is addictive so plan accordingly. I assume you already have the Phenom II X4 CPU, but if not you may want to consider the new Vishera FX series. We just posted a review of the flagship processor of that line and it did very well. And last, the GPU you selected (550Ti) is a good buy not great card. If you haven't already bought it, you may want to solicit suggestions on the best way to go. Please post a budget so we can help you get the best bang for your buck. And last, I wouldn't use the H100 as an all in one cooling solution. Kind of old tech and there are newer, better units available. Take a look at the new Enermax ELC240 unit. ENERMAX - Product. It's supposed to be top notch. We should have a review up on it fairly soon. Thermaltake also makes a nice 240 all in one solution. Thermaltakeusa*»*Cooler*»*Liquid Cooling*»*Liquid Cooling All-In-One*»*WATER2.0 Extreme All-In-One LCS : WATER2.0 Extreme All-In-One LCS CLW0217. If space is an issue with the case you've selected but you haven't purchased it yet, there are other options at the same price point that will work well. Feel free to solicit suggestions. We are always happy to help.

[Solara2xb]

Welcome to the forums!! Browse around as there are good people on here always trying to help.
So far system is decent, What kind of budget are you looking at??
The items you have listed are a little dated, not all but some of them are. You can probably get something better that won't cost much more, with more recent tech as well.

[aryan51]

welcome to pure oc

[realneil]

I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic.
It's just that many of us have had bad experinces with Antec in the past, while SeaSonic is known for delivering clean and stable power to your system.
It's worth it to pay a little more for that quality because a first rate PSU is the basis for any stable PC.

[bimmernoob]

Hey guys. Thanks for the welcoming!
And as far as a budget, I'm not too worried about it.
I didn't get the card yet but I'd like to say at that price range because i don't game. It's just a "because I can" build.

The case I like becaus of the sound dampening.
I want the water extreme Cooler but that won't fit.

If I had to change cases $150 is probably my limit. I want a blank one no window. USB 3.0.

I have a CPU mobo, ram already though

[PoLoMoTo]

Yea don't get an Antec PSU, they're sh*t. Had one before, didn't like it, maybe one of their HCG PSUs it would have been better but they're quite pricey.
For the GPU even if your not gaming try and get something newer like the 650 maybe.
Also if you can stretch the case budget a little bit I would extremely highly amazingly recommend the NZXT Switch 810, and I'm sure Sam would agree. It does have a window though but it can fit pretty much anything you could imagine for custom waco, with space for a 140.3/120.3 rad up top, a 140.2/120.2 rad on the bottom, and a 120.1/140.1 on the back, if you need more cooling than that then you have issues...

[bimmernoob]

Yea don't get an Antec PSU, they're sh*t. Had one before, didn't like it, maybe one of their HCG PSUs it would have been better but they're quite pricey.
For the GPU even if your not gaming try and get something newer like the 650 maybe.
Also if you can stretch the case budget a little bit I would extremely highly amazingly recommend the NZXT Switch 810, and I'm sure Sam would agree. It does have a window though but it can fit pretty much anything you could imagine for custom waco, with space for a 140.3/120.3 rad up top, a 140.2/120.2 rad on the bottom, and a 120.1/140.1 on the back, if you need more cooling than that then you have issues...

I'm not a fan of the windows as its too "flashy" for me.
Honestly, aside from being dated, is there anything wrong with te h100?
I ask because I fell inlove with the obsidian 550D.
And on newegg, they have a default picture with the h100 on the inside.

I can see where everyone says its better to spend a couple dollars more for new stuff, but I've basically fallen inlove with that case, and the h100 seems to fit just right.

Also, I've got 8GB G.Skill Sniper series ram. 2x4gb. Can I water cool that as we'll? Not for performance but just to say I did.

Te reason I'm doing this build. To say "I can".

And the graphics card, I want things to look nice and run smooth.
I play minecraft, Warcraft 3, LoL.
I know the card I picked was over kill but that's good.

I know nothing about crossfire but I know my board supports it. Will it always run 2 cards or do some games allow it and some don't?

I don't want to go crossfire if I its based on game settings.
If its like ram, 2 cards make it better always.. I wanna do that

[Doctor_Death]

Hey Matt, Welcome to Pure OC !

If you would be interested in buying a brand new Intel high-end system, I have 2-3 of them ranging from X79 to Z77, all of them include dual video cards, 240GB SSDs, water or air cooled, your choice.

If your interested, send me a PM and we can talk about prices for each system, the OS installed would be either Win7 Pro 64bit or Win7 Ultimate 64 bit. also each system would come with either 16GBs or 32GBs of memory.

Thanks

[Drdeath]

Did you get the CPU and motherboard yet? If not, I would recommend a IvyBridge 3750K that will not cost much more than what you have. If you live in the states, I could get 3570K's for $179 and MSI Z77-GD45 for $125. That combno will kick the snot over the Phenom II 965 plus overclock easily on air the 4.2GHz or higher. i just got done building one for a friend and If you would like to go that route, I could ship you the CPU and.or mobo. I would skimp on the case and get a better system.

[bimmernoob]

I'm assuming those are intel? I'm sorry but I'm an AMD fan myself.
But I already have the CPU and mobo. Lol

And the case I would skimp on but I'm picky. I want a blank one that isn't flashy. The obsidian 550d is perfect. Pricey though.

I may just sell this system soon ad build a new one. I seem to have te most fun putting it all together.

I'd love to do something crazy. Like a 6-8 core, everything liquid cooled. Ram,CPU,gpu..

Which makes me ask...

If I stay with the gtx 550 ti 2gb... Can I liquid cool that? Is there an all in one system for that?

[PoLoMoTo]

I'm not a fan of the windows as its too "flashy" for me.
Honestly, aside from being dated, is there anything wrong with te h100?
I ask because I fell inlove with the obsidian 550D.
And on newegg, they have a default picture with the h100 on the inside.

I can see where everyone says its better to spend a couple dollars more for new stuff, but I've basically fallen inlove with that case, and the h100 seems to fit just right.

Also, I've got 8GB G.Skill Sniper series ram. 2x4gb. Can I water cool that as we'll? Not for performance but just to say I did.

Te reason I'm doing this build. To say "I can".

And the graphics card, I want things to look nice and run smooth.
I play minecraft, Warcraft 3, LoL.
I know the card I picked was over kill but that's good.

I know nothing about crossfire but I know my board supports it. Will it always run 2 cards or do some games allow it and some don't?

I don't want to go crossfire if I its based on game settings.
If its like ram, 2 cards make it better always.. I wanna do that

The only real problem with outdated stuff is that it may not be supported by new stuff, the main thing would be the graphics card because if you ever do want to play a game you may be held back by your outdated GPU also with the CPU socket you could never really upgrade (This isn't really important to me because at that point I would just build a whole new rig but know it's important to others) Cases though really never get outdated IMO its whatever you like best. As to the H100 I haven't had one so I don't know but some here recently posted about his H100 making a terrible grinding noise may want to go check that out. G.Skill doesn't have any waco kits that I know of unfortunately, I would've liked to for mine too just for the bling factor but remember if you don't want a window you don't really need to spend your money on bling. Also the GPU I would really go with a newer 600 series card maybe the 650 Ti if thats the power you want, personally for a "because I can" build I'd go a little bigger, say a 670. For Nvidia cards it is SLI, Crossfire is for AMD, it always run once you set it to SLI in the settings although some games may take better advantage of it than others. Two cards will always be better for gaming, 3 would be even better but if your just browsing the web you could use anything. If your playing minecraft and want to show off your FPS I know with my dual AMD Radeon 6950s I can get well over 250 FPS and over 500 on minimum settings but the human eye can supposedly not see above 60 FPS but who gives a damn, I can you can't thats what this is all about :P

Yes you can put the 550 Ti under water as long as it is a reference card, same with basically any graphics card as long as it is reference. But just FYI you can't add anything to the loop if you get the H100 as it is a closed loop which does have the benefit of no maintenance.