Build log, My first system designed for cpu overclocking -AMD990FX

[joshjaks]

Finally able to get my build log started. This isn't my first system, but this is the first system I've built for serious overclocking. I also just started experimenting with taking more professional pictures. They are by no means professional, but it did help get a good idea of what I need to do to make them better.

I'll start off with my case, the zalman z9.
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I wanted something roomy, budget oriented, and I had specific ideas about the air flow on the side panel. You'll notice the sidways grill and what I like about that is I can put 2 120mm fans there. I have a similar set up currently and really love what the placement does for cooling. The bottom fan provides good air flow to my gpu fans, and the other puts nice airflow against my mobo heatspreaders and ram. I'll have an even balance of fans in, with fans out creating a crossdirectional airflow that starts in the bottom front corner and flows to the top back corner.

Here's the inside of the case. Power supply already mounted.
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The bottom mount psu is new for me, but I like the idea of not having already warmed case air going through my psu. There is a slight risk of pulling in dust, but I won't be leaving this case on the floor so my dust shouldn't be too bad there. Sideways harddrive rack was a must. I'm sure you all know why. I really like the opening for mounting the back bracket for coolers, that I'm sure will come in handy plenty of times. Cable managment works out good behind the mounting plate and the full black interior just looks awesome.

Front panel and cd drive.
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Asus dvd drive seemed to be one of the best performing and decently silent. Otherwise, just another dvd drive. If you know the z9 cases, you might be wondering about the front panel. First, I didn't like the fan controller. It lights up red and that would throw off my color scheme slightly. Second, I have no need of usb 3.0 for the time being because I have no usb 3.0 devices, but I really like the 4 ports and I wanted them on the front, not the top. My top ports got more in the way than i imagined. Oh, and no door, both previous doors broke off my old cases, no worries this time. That's the case, I'll keep up new posts for hardware and catch this log up.

[killjoyjim]

Nice case.Good looking build.

[joshjaks]

Next on my thread list, as well as one of my first components bought is the ram. I'm a huge corsair fan, always have been. What was really nice, I budgeted $100 for ram and I had plenty of good options in the range. Hence, Corsair Vengeance 16gb 1866
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Black is nice, heat spreaders are good, price was great. Couldn't complain.
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Unfortunately, I hadn't joined the forums by the time I bought these so I wasn't able to shop more towards overclocking ram, but I'm sure these won't let me down.

[joshjaks]

I really wanted a high quality psu this time, and I shopped long and hard for this one. Seasonic 750w.
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Based on reviews, it looked to me like seasonic and corsair were possible the best two brands I could go with and I wanted at least a gold rated power supply. I kinda wish I upped my power a bit, but I got an exceptional deal and because of the quality, I believe I'll be fine for a simple sli set up.
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I was relieved to know that after joining here, Seasonic was a great quality brand, and that they make a lot of corsair psu's as well!

[joshjaks]

I'm posting by individual component because I can't really trust my internet at work, plus, I don't have all of my components yet (shipping) so this is easier to post and keep track.

Next are my fans. For case fans, I wanted good airflow, but they had to be quiet, and no more than a 20 db noise level. Hence my choice for xigmatek.
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These bad boys have over 60 cfm airflow at slightly under 20 db noise level. It took me a while to find out that they use a rifle bearing, or basically a long lasting sleeve bearing. They use grooves in the bushings to help circulate the oil all around to keep the fan from wearing out prematurely.
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I have five of them, all purple led to light up my case. One bottom front, two side, and two top. My back slot wil be taken up by the radiator for my cooling. I was tired of seeing green, red and blue leds. Two common, and purple in black looks really cool so I was really pleased with the purchase.

I also didn't like the stock radiator fan so I upgraded to something a little nicer.
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The cougar vortex has great air flow, is amazingly silent, and comes with a 4 pin connector to work with the normal cpu fan connector. Where most fans tend to blow out sidways a bit, this fan was designed to focus the air flow center and straight out. I wasn't sure if it would end up being a gimmick but after trying it, it lived up to expectations. When my 10 newegg gift cert. comes in, I'll grab a second one for a push pull config on the radiator.

Oh and black screws so there's no silver tips on the outside of the case.
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[killjoyjim]

Cant go wrong with Cougar.

[Bob2701]

Looks like you have an awesome build working.

[JamesLT3]

Looking good so far,keep us updated!

[joshjaks]

Ok, continuing with my cpu cooler, the Cooler Master Seidon 120m.
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I agonized over this because I was originally planning on a cooler master hyper 212 evo. This went on sale right after release for $40 dollars after a rebate. It was extremely hard to find benchmark direct comparisons from AIO to air coolers, and once again, I was nervous about this being another gimick, but after seeing some things that indicated that I should at the very least get the same performance, I decided the price was worth the grab.
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The compact design is really great. I didn't have any trouble with space, plus, I don't have to worry about ram, pci slots or heatsinks being in the way. I stuck it on my e8400, which had a hyper 212+ on it, and started testing it. It wasn't hard at all to take my overclock from 3.6 to 4.0 ghz easily. The highest temp I saw was 68-69c with a single fan. A dual fan set up after several hours would only get up to 64c but usually stay around 60-61. These temps are all while running the prime95 burn test. I switched back to my hyper, and for a bit was bummed at what I saw. I left my 4ghz oc and didn't see temps going over 65c. Couple of things though. I went from a single cougar fan to, essentially, a dual push pull set up again. Because the radiator took my back fan slot, I only had the one but with the hyper 212+ I was able to reinstall my rear 120mm fan which is right behind the cooler. But the other thing, I decided to do a long stress test again and when I got back to the comp, my temps after several hours where in the low 70s. From the looks of everything, this cooler should get me a lower full load temp from at least 5c to as much as 10c from the hyper 212+.

[joshjaks]

On to hard drives. Done with them. No matter what you do, you can't get above a 5.9 in wei (which really is a worthless score but for obsessive compulsive people, I like to see the number move) and it was time to move to ssd. I don't have a lot of hard drive space needs. I have a 500gb raid 0 now and only use about 115 gb of it. I decided I wanted roughly 500gb again however, of ssd in a raid 0 and I could run everything off of it. The other problem, I really didn't want to spend more that $150 dollars per drive if possible. Enter in the OCZ vertex 3.
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I wanted something a little higher end, but when I started shopping in september, I was eyeing up drives like the vertex 4, kingston hyperx and some higher end corsair drives. Problem was, they were all hovering around $200+ and not budging. I had to get the drives on newegg due to a deal I worked out with my mom, various home projects I did for her. When I got the newsletter for the vertex 3 on sale for $130 after rebate, I did some fast research, saw comparible performance to drives with later indillux controllers, and one of the best drives as far as sandforce controllers were concerned. Plus, these were max IOPS, slightly better than the normal vertex 3's. I agonized, but decided that that price for 2 240bg's was too good to pass up. Newegg did have some really good thanksgiving sales, but I still would have been at least $30 more per drive, and I was able to use those savings well on other components.
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Love the black silver color schemes and glad I have the adapter tray. My final piece for storage was a simple back up drive. Nothing fancy, all I wanted was extra capacity for $50. I got lucky by getting a 1 tb seagate barracuda, 7200 rpm and 32mb cache for just that, and I'll use that for my back up drive, and extra storage just in case I need it.
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[joshjaks]

I'll try not to gag anyone too hard here, and if 8 has become your least favorite number as of recently, then CAUTION: DO NOT PROCEED!!! For my OS I did decide on Windows 8. Before voting for banning me on the forums, tracking my IP and ruining my computer, or finding my address and burning my house down, let me explain. I took a venture and threw the trial version on my old system. It's running the nvidia 780i sli chipset and I'm using a radeon HD6870 graphics card (which originally were 2 nvidia 8800 gt's that both burned out). I didn't have any driver problems whatsoever with the new OS. Installed and ran fine and I actually had to use windows 7 drivers for the chipset. Outside of that, it only took me the better part of 15 minutes to get the feel and find my way around windows 8. It was different, it was slightly quirky and I really liked it. I decided on 8 for my new build because I already saw graphics support and Asus was boasting windows 8 ready motherboards. They had an oem sale for $70 bucks preorder and I jumped on it. Btw, microsoft, for how much money they have has gotten really cheap on their packaging!
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My last three components are already ordered, and mostly on their way. I already have a gtx 670, which I will be shooting and uploading hopefully this weekend, and my amd fx 8350 cpu + Asus crosshair V formula-z mobo should arrive next monday. I'll start building and keep taking shots to show my progress.

[SamCR3]

Very nice!

[Doctor_Death]

You might want to change the name of this thread, to My first system designed for overclocking, the way you have it makes it sound like it was the very first system designed lol

[Solara2xb]

You might want to change the name of this thread, to My first system designed for overclocking, the way you have it makes it sound like it was the very first system designed lol

fixed it for him! lolz, but yet, it did originally sound like it was first system designed this way. lolz.. But we understood what he meant..

Great Job so far! Liking the list of parts, I am a big Corsair Fan also.. I use allot of Corsair memory in my builds.
But I have learned to venture out a bit, I just picked up a set or GSkill Memory for my Intel bench that is native 1866mhz.

Keep us updated on the post

[Adham]

that will be a nice RIG, hope to catch u up later on LoL

[joshjaks]

Thanks for editing that, I was about to ask how. I looked through all kinds of settings and couldn't figure it out, but in my forum access or whatever it was called, it looked like I only had access to submit, edit and delete posts, not threads. Let me know if I'm missing something. Thanks for all the comments too, by the way. I'm getting really excited!