ULTIMATE Intel Compact SLI Gaming PC Computer "How To" Build Guide
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
7,830 words · ~39 min read
0:26
the objective with our ultimate compact gaming build guide was to build an
0:30
extremely powerful basically as good as
0:34
it gets gaming rig within the confines of an extremely small chassis we wanted
0:39
to have the option to overclock this beast we wanted to maintain acceptable
0:43
thermals and we wanted to have it not be too loud this truly is a have your cake
0:49
and eat it too machine as usual we're going to start with the rationale behind
0:53
each of the components why we chose that particular part and some of the other
0:58
considerations that you may want to think about if you're going to undergo a
1:01
similar project and then after that we're going to show you guys the actual
1:05
process of building the machine with nice close-ups of what we're doing so
1:08
you can follow along and then finally we
1:11
are going to show off the finished machine including some performance
1:15
numbers which i think you are going to find to be quite impressive
1:20
before we begin though i would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor thank
1:24
you Intel for making this build guide possible we can't do these videos
1:28
without the support of great companies like Intel they're the ones who are
1:32
actually providing us the budget to set aside a week to plan shoot and edit this
1:37
video so there's ah they're awesome guys over there huge thanks again to Intel
1:41
for making this happen now when you cram a lot of components into a very small
1:46
enclosure the biggest considerations are usually the actual physical size
1:51
constraints and keeping thermals at
1:54
acceptable and safe levels for that reason part selection is absolutely
1:59
critical when the individual components in your system run too hot you are left
2:04
with basically two undesirable options so number one is
2:08
you can just leave them to their own devices and their automatic fan control
2:12
algorithms especially graphics cards will just ramp up fan speeds to
2:16
uncomfortable levels which um i personally find quite offensive although
2:20
it might not matter to you if you're a headphone user so your mileage may vary
2:24
on that one and then option number two is that the components will simply run
2:28
too hot which can cause reliability problems in both the short and in the
2:32
long term now we're going to walk you through each of the parts in the system
2:36
one by one to give you an idea of why we chose it and to give you some tips and
2:41
pointers for how to choose your own whether you are using a small case like
2:45
this or if you're just building a regular non-compact gaming machine
2:50
because remember guys it's not always all about size right
2:55
right the Intel core i7 4770k with a be quiet!
3:01
shadow rock 2 cooler was our weapon of choice for this machine now particularly
3:06
before overclocking Intel's 4th gen core series processors offer unbeatable
3:11
performance per watt so that's the heat output which is necessary for what we're
3:15
trying to achieve here now you could make the argument that there's another
3:19
4th gen processor the 4670k that would be very very suitable for this build but
3:25
we opted for the 4770k with hyper threading just because we're kind of
3:29
going for ultimate here and while most games right now are not going to benefit
3:33
from the additional threads that improvement in the coding of games is
3:37
definitely coming and there are many gamers who also do other things with
3:42
their machines such as video editing or other heavily threaded workloads
3:46
when it came to the memory we actually didn't go full on ultimate here more RAM
3:52
and higher memory speed each deliver very limited performance improvements in
3:57
games so um i mean right now it looks like in
4:00
battlefield 4 there's some benefit to faster memory but that's a bit of an
4:04
isolated case so we decided to go with something pretty standard we went with a
4:09
16 gig dual channel kit of 2133 megahertz memory from a data we could
4:13
have gone all out like 20 400 megahertz or 3000 megahertz or whatever else the
4:18
case may be but the reason we went with this option is that when you go 2133
4:22
you're actually not paying much more than a 1600 megahertz kit so really
4:27
that's the reason why just because it wasn't costing us more once you go past that it starts to get more expensive the
4:32
reason we went with 16 gigs is because it gives us more than enough for now
4:36
with the option to upgrade in the future without totally overspending on the
4:40
memory in comparison to the rest of the system 16 gigs also gives us a little
4:44
bit of flexibility for more memory intensive applications like the video
4:48
editing we mentioned before micro atx performance motherboards often
4:53
actually deliver a pretty compelling value compared to their atx counterparts
4:58
even if you were to use them in a full size case and not an matx case but
5:02
anyway we went with the g1 sniper m5 from Gigabyte because its optimal pci
5:07
express slot spacing allows us to actually install
5:11
two dual slot graphics cards running at PCIe 8x gen 3 which is more than enough
5:16
bandwidth even for 780 ti's and have a
5:20
leftover PCIe forex slot for an additional add-in card of our choice
5:24
down the road whatever we want to put in it that's not bad for matx not to
5:29
mention it comes with all the latest bells and whistles including swappable
5:32
op-amps for the on-board audio one swappable op-amp killer networking
5:37
overclocking options galore and all of that at under 200
5:40
the green color scheme will also go very nicely with our green graphics cards and
5:45
green led lighting effects but of course i'm not that shallow so the color had
5:49
nothing to do with it it was all about the technical technological superiority
5:55
i like green for the case we went with the bitfenix
5:58
phenom m it uses the same internals as the prada gm and while it doesn't have
6:04
the same like hardcore water cooling and
6:07
hard drive mounting options as the itx version does it still has room for a
6:12
large air cooling heatsink for the CPU and the added expansion for pci express
6:18
cards is awesome it features five pci slots at the back
6:22
for future expansion which is a huge benefit if you ever wanted to say for
6:26
example add dual graphics cards or something like that it's also small
6:30
enough to easily pack this sli rig around with you to lan parties or
6:34
wherever else you might need to take an immensely powerful well-cooled little
6:38
rig speaking of cooling it can accept plenty of cooling fans which we can run
6:42
at low rpms when we're idling for quiet operation then ramp up as needed we'll
6:48
be using spectre pro green led fans for this machine spectre pros are one of the
6:53
only really good looking fans out there that also have performance and quiet
6:58
operation on their side so there are a couple of other exceptions but for the
7:02
most part you gotta choose performance or looks well we chose both
7:08
once again guys storage is so personal
7:11
but we're gonna go with something pretty standard for this one which should be
7:15
applicable to many different people an Intel 530 series 240 gig SSD will act as
7:21
our os and key application slash games
7:24
drive while a western digital 4 terabyte black will be our storage powerhouse to
7:29
handle a massive steam library media
7:32
collection and all that kind of stuff and still provide excellent performance
7:35
but with huge storage this SSD plus hard
7:39
drive configuration has grown in popularity over the last couple of years
7:42
a lot and i think we're probably going to be sticking with it for quite a while
7:46
for most high performance users i mean
7:49
until something paradigm shifting happens with respect to SSD pricing and
7:53
capacity or maybe some other new technology comes along it makes a ton of
7:58
sense to go with fast small storage and then slower
8:03
massive storage so you get the best of both worlds well guys for us
8:07
there was really only one ultimate gaming graphics card configuration we've
8:12
gone with two gtx 780 ti graphics cards
8:16
from evga i really don't know what to say about these other than that they're
8:21
the fastest gaming cards on the market
8:24
and they're thermal and acoustic performance made them an obvious choice
8:29
over the red team this time around for this specific build because of the
8:34
constraints we have in terms of space we went with rear exhaust cards versus an
8:39
open cooler like evga's acx cooler because we felt we would rather
8:44
compromise GPU temperatures a little bit we'll have the GPU running a little bit
8:48
hotter for the sake of keeping the rest of the inside of the case cooler
8:53
remember that not every component in your system can be read with a
8:56
temperature monitor so for things like your power delivery components on the
9:01
motherboard lower ambient temperatures inside the system can make a big
9:05
difference to long-term reliability so just because you have a couple graphics
9:09
cards in there and your CPU temps look okay and your GPU temps look okay that
9:12
doesn't mean that an open air cooler is necessarily the best choice for you so
9:18
rear exhaust for very small builds is definitely recommended peripheral wise
9:23
for this rig honestly guys i'm not sure how much sense it makes to keep
9:27
including these since everyone's choices will be so different but tell you what
9:32
let me know if you'd like me to keep featuring peripherals that i think makes
9:35
sense for each build and we'll see if we keep doing it in the
9:39
future anyway we just got our hands on the ducky shine three so for our all-out
9:44
machine we are suggesting this all-out keyboard unfortunately ours are blue
9:50
backlight so they won't match the rest of the green theme here but don't worry
9:54
there's a green one available and it's available in all the main cherry mx key
9:59
switch types and in either a 104 key layout or a 10 keyless layout so you can
10:04
get something to match your rig for sure for our mouse we are going with the
10:09
deathadder 2013. again it's green to
10:12
match our build which isn't the main factor here because the main factor here
10:16
is the fact that it features one of the best sensors on the market as well as
10:20
excellent ergonomics this is an extremely well regarded mouse out there
10:24
right now and i have already recommended it in previous build guides but i have
10:27
no problem recommending it again
10:30
finally for our monitor this is kind of big gotta go get it
10:34
we've gone with the benq xl 2420 te if
10:38
you saw my unboxing you'll already know that for a 144 hertz monitor it is far
10:43
and away the best looking one we've ever
10:47
seen in terms of color and viewing angle the one caveat is that it doesn't
10:52
support g-sync so yeah until monitors that support
10:56
g-sync start arriving i don't know that i can recommend investing in a gaming
11:01
monitor right now but if i absolutely had to then that would be the one
11:05
which leads us finally to our operating system we went with Windows 8 because
11:10
that's all you can really get right now for gaming maybe at some point here
11:14
steam os is going to be an option but that is still very much in beta right
11:18
now in fact we have it running upstairs very much in beta not ready yet Windows
11:23
8 for this particular machine when it comes to pre-build safety and
11:29
setup basically what you want is to start with a safe static free
11:34
workstation and anti-static strap i like to keep mine on my ankle to keep it out
11:38
of the way you also want to make sure there's no unnecessary clutter around so
11:41
that you can lose screws or trip on something and knock something over
11:44
because that would be disastrous next up all we really need for assembly these
11:49
days is a multi-bit screwdriver and the last thing is i always recommend
11:54
doing your first build and powering it up outside the case to ensure that
11:58
everything works while it's nice and easy to reach in case something goes
12:03
wrong and you have to take it back to the store or send it back to the manufacturer the motherboard box makes a
12:08
very handy non-conductive test bench for this outside the case installation
12:15
we'll start with CPU installation after carefully removing the CPU from the
12:20
package align the little golden triangle on the corner of the CPU with the
12:24
triangle on the plastic cover then what you're going to do is lift the retention
12:28
ARM by pushing away then up without
12:31
removing the plastic cover that protects the delicate pins inside the socket just
12:34
leave that in place for now then what we're going to do is gently place the
12:39
CPU in the socket the risk of damage to your system is highest at this point in
12:44
the build process so be extremely careful if you're forcing it then there
12:49
is definitely a problem once the CPU is in place pull down the retention cover
12:54
then pull down the retention ARM lift it out away a little bit and then
12:59
lock it under that little clamp right there once you've done that there it goes the
13:04
plastic cover will pop itself right off put that in the motherboard box for safe
13:08
keeping if you ever need to return your motherboard they will require you to
13:11
send it in with this cover because once again those pins inside that socket are
13:15
extremely fragile ddr3 installation is
13:18
simple pull back the tabs on your motherboard
13:22
align the notches on your memory with the notches inside the sockets then
13:28
insert it gently and finally press firmly down on the memory on both sides
13:32
until the latch clicks back into place on its own
13:36
then you're done always install matched memory sticks in
13:40
the color matched slots on modern motherboards for dual channel operation
13:45
this gives you better performance when it comes to heatsink installation
13:49
everyone is a little bit different and
13:52
be quiet! mounting systems are not always my favorite but they do have solidly
13:56
built products at good prices so that's why we went for it in this particular
14:00
case because it's going to fit quite well with the rest of our hardware but
14:03
still give us maximum cooling on the CPU so don't be intimidated by all the
14:09
little tiny bits and screws and pieces right here we're going to show you how
14:13
exactly it all goes together on the board so we start
14:18
with the back plate you position the back plate so that the screws on the
14:22
back of the little back plate that's already on the motherboard poke through
14:25
the much bigger back plate then you're going to take each of these four longer
14:29
screws and put them through the board so that we can access them on the top
14:35
the next step is to take the little plastic washers
14:38
and clip them from the top so that they stay in place and don't fall back
14:42
through the board so now they're going through the back plate and they are
14:46
stuck in place now that the back plate is securely in
14:50
place we can thread on the nuts that will support the CPU hold down use the
14:55
included wrench to hold them in place from the front of the board while
14:58
tightening them from the back of the board with a phillips head screwdriver
15:02
now we're done with our board for a little bit and it's time to work on the heatsink itself simply use the four
15:08
countersunk screws to attach the hold downs to the bottom of the heatsink
15:13
that's how we're actually going to well hold it down onto the CPU now this next
15:18
step is optional but to maintain the awesome looks of this system we are
15:22
going to swap out the stock fan which is actually a very good fan with a spectre
15:27
pro just remove the metal clips on the stock fan and then put them back onto the new
15:32
fan exactly the same way it's actually quite quite simple and now it's looking
15:37
good oh yeah next up put a line of thermal compound
15:41
which is included with your heatsink onto the CPU and then position the
15:45
heatsink with a sensible fan orientation
15:48
so we're going for kind of a pseudo push pull configuration so once the
15:53
motherboard's in the case the rear exhaust will actually help the fan that
15:58
we installed as a push van pull air through that massive heat sink also
16:03
don't forget to orient the fan when you're installing it so that the power
16:07
lead reaches to the CPU fan header without any extra cable mess you know
16:12
lying around all over the place solid cable management starts at every step
16:16
making sure that you're maintaining it so you can you can actually plug that in
16:20
now we're ready for that i think at this point you'll start to see why we went
16:23
with a low profile memory kit from adata for this build tall memory modules can
16:29
interfere with large CPU heat sinks in some cases
16:33
get it in cases they can interfere because this is a computer and we're
16:37
going to put it in a case and oh man i cracked myself up
16:43
okay no but seriously we're we actually aren't quite done with this yet uh we'll
16:48
use that wrench again from the front and then the screwdriver again from the back
16:53
but this time we are tightening nuts onto the top of the hold down
16:58
again this isn't my favorite CPU mounting mechanism in the world but the
17:02
good news is that once they're all on there it is extremely solid and it's not
17:07
going anywhere now my friends it is time to start
17:10
working on the case so we're going to begin by taking off both side panels by
17:15
removing the four thumb screws at the back what i really recommend doing is
17:19
taking these side panels and putting them back into the case box for now
17:22
because we won't need them until a bit later the phenom m is a little bit
17:26
different from most cases though in that we will need it at some point during the
17:29
assembly process here because you can see that the front i o is actually
17:34
located on one of the side panels where we have our power and reset buttons as
17:38
well as our front audio ports and our usb 3 ports one little trick for this
17:42
case as well that we're going to actually do is we're going to switch
17:46
sides and we're going to put the side panel with the i o on the left hand side
17:51
of the case and we're going to take this side panel move it over to the other side i found that when i was working on
17:56
this case recently that it was a little bit easier to do cable management that
18:00
way and the only drawback is that the logo on your power and reset buttons
18:04
will be upside down in the finished product
18:08
now that the case is open undo the twist tie that's holding the accessory box in
18:12
place that box contains all the screws you need to assemble your system so um
18:18
please don't lose it and for that matter don't lose that twist tie twist ties are
18:23
a handy dandy reusable way of doing cable management later on you can even
18:27
cut them to size according to what you need if you have nice long ones like
18:31
this next you'll need to remove the brace that's across the side panel just
18:35
take out the four countersunk screws and pull that out and put it somewhere safe
18:40
make sure you also put those screws somewhere safe i recommend the accessory
18:44
box that already contains all of your other screws
18:47
now it is time to replace all the fans that came with your case if you want to
18:52
the ones that come with it are decent but we're throwing inspector pro so yeah
18:56
it'll be much more difficult to try and do this later so make sure you do fans pretty much first we'll start at the
19:01
bottom by removing the air shield that comes on the case i don't plan to
19:05
reinstall this because we're going to need that airflow space next we'll
19:09
remove the four screws that are holding in the bottom fan
19:13
take off the stock fan and then we're going to reuse those screws to replace
19:16
it with our spectre pro i also changed the orientation to turn this one into an
19:20
intake to bring fresh air to both my CPU heatsink and also up to my graphics
19:26
cards we then repeat that same procedure for the rear fan replacing it this time
19:30
with a 140 millimeter spectre pro just to get a little bit more airflow just a
19:35
reminder here guys make sure you're checking your fan orientations as you're
19:39
installing each of them it's nice to have logos the right side up in the
19:43
finished build but it's even nicer to have short easy to manage runs to the
19:48
fan headers on your motherboard once everything's installed now we would have
19:52
liked to install more fans in the top of this case two 120 millimeter fans up
19:57
there would have been absolutely perfect for fresh air for those graphics cards
20:01
but unfortunately the fans don't quite fit between the metal of our chassis and
20:07
the plastic outer layer and when given the choice between a board with tight
20:12
spacing between the graphics cards which would cause one of the cards to be
20:17
starved for airflow but it allow top fans to be installed for even better
20:21
airflow to the other card and then going with this board which offers much better
20:26
graphics card spacing but doesn't allow for those top fans to be installed on
20:30
the other side um i think we that was a sacrifice we were
20:35
willing to make not to mention of course having the graphics card spaced out like
20:38
that gives us a future expansion and the ability to install another pci express
20:42
card here power supply installation starts by taking out the thumb screw that holds in
20:48
the power supply bracket here at the front of the case
20:51
the holes on this bracket do allow for the fan on the power supply to face
20:57
inward towards the components or outwards towards the front of the case
21:01
where it can take in air from these little vents on the side at the front
21:05
here but the design of the case favors
21:08
inward facing for my build however i don't have much air intake because i
21:13
wasn't able to install those top fans so in order to keep my intake and exhaust
21:18
as balanced as i can which is optimal for cooling i wanted to install the
21:22
power supply with the fan facing towards the front of the case so it could pull
21:27
in its own fresh air then exhausted out the bottom of the chassis without
21:31
affecting the pressure of the inside of the case the air pressure
21:35
so i had to do a quick double check to make sure that all of my cables would
21:39
reach with acceptable cable management to the places that they needed to go and
21:43
then i was ready to commit and screw the bracket into the power supply in my
21:47
chosen orientation now i'd like to take this opportunity to point out that the
21:51
pure power 700 watt power supply we're using is by no means the only option for
21:56
this build in fact it's not even really that high end for something that's like
22:00
an ultimate build i was just trying to make a point that modular power supplies
22:05
like this Corsair ax860i aren't always
22:09
the best option especially when you're planning to use all of the connected
22:14
cables anyway because modular power supplies tend to be larger to
22:19
accommodate that modular interface so as long as we can manage the cables or use
22:23
them all we're not really getting any benefit out of the modular interface the
22:27
other point i was trying to make is about the power efficiency of the
22:30
components we're using this 700 watt power supply will handle it i'll show
22:34
you guys that at the end of the video but with all that said it's only an 80
22:38
plus bronze power supply and all that so an ax860i or something similar would
22:43
also be a great choice for this particular build i guess the other thing
22:47
is whoops excuse me we always use modular power supplies so i'm shaking
22:51
things up a little bit anyway to finish up the power supply installation we
22:55
align the little notches on the bracket slide the power supply now connected to
22:59
the bracket back in put the thumb screw back in place and then flip the case
23:04
over so that we can plug in the pass-through
23:08
cable that allows the power supply to be installed in the front of the case it's
23:12
a little bit tricky it's a little bit of a tight fit but uh we managed to get it
23:15
in there now is also a good time to flip that power supply switch to the on
23:20
position if it has one to save yourself some headache later when you finish the
23:24
build press the power button on the front of the system and it doesn't turn
23:27
on and you're like oh what's wrong with that it's just the power button on the bottom
23:31
of the power supply but you didn't think of it because it's on the bottom of this case
23:36
so before putting in the motherboard there are a few things that we're going to need from the motherboard box grab
23:42
your i o shield your sli bridge and your SATA cables we'll need the i o shield
23:46
now but the other two you can put aside for later installing the i o shield is a
23:50
little bit tricky in this case remember that the motherboard is 180 degrees off
23:55
the normal upright orientation so your io shield will go in upside down
24:00
compared to normal make sure you get that right at this stage
24:03
next find the motherboard standoffs in your box of case screws they look a
24:07
little something like this then grab the little included tool that
24:11
adapts your phillips head screwdriver to a standoff socket there are four
24:15
standoffs already installed but you'll need to use that little tool to install
24:20
four additional ones here here here and here
24:23
now guys you can see that our power supply is actually already in from our
24:28
test fit but don't worry we're going to show you the whole installation process
24:31
in just a moment in really small cases like this it can
24:34
be handy to pre-connect some of the cables to your motherboard before
24:39
actually lowering the motherboard into the case particularly the 8-pin CPU
24:43
connector is going to be hard to reach with that large CPU heatsink nearby so
24:47
we pre-connected the 8-pin and the 24-pin atx connector it's important here
24:53
though to note that we aren't able to fully install the power supply until
24:57
after the motherboard is screwed in place due to space constraints
25:01
particularly with that large heat sink screwing in the motherboard is pretty
25:05
easy but make sure guys that you're using a long enough screwdriver and i
25:08
would highly recommend using a magnetic one so just put the eight screws into
25:13
the eight different places where they go and again please use a magnetic
25:17
screwdriver because otherwise screws can fall into little nooks and crannies in
25:20
the case where they're extremely difficult to retrieve a magnetic
25:23
screwdriver will not damage your components the magnets are not nearly
25:27
strong enough we'll take this chance now to put our
25:30
power supply back in but don't worry guys the details for that are coming in
25:34
in a second so just sorry don't don't mind the power supply don't mind the man
25:37
behind the curtain um and now is also a good time to connect our fans to the
25:42
appropriate headers we could plug them directly into the power supply but i
25:47
prefer using the onboard connectors on the motherboard to enable BIOS and
25:51
software level fan control once the system is up and running
25:55
now normally we do cable management as a finishing touch but the way we're doing
26:00
this build forces us to do it now while we can actually still get it anything
26:05
the first step is to figure out exactly which connectors we're going to need
26:09
from the power supply and jam all the extra ones behind the power supply where
26:14
it can be completely out of sight and out of the way of our airflow we'll use
26:18
some zip ties to keep them in place because they're so tight that i don't
26:22
think twist ties will do the trick in this case next we'll position the side panel with
26:27
the front connectors next to the case on the left hand side
26:31
remember not the side it came on then we'll pass all those cables through to
26:35
the front first we'll plug in the front panel hd audio then the front usb 3
26:40
these connectors are both keyed and or missing pins so they'll only go in one
26:44
way just be gentle with them and then finally the front power and reset
26:48
switches as well as the front power and drive activity leds now bitfenix doesn't
26:54
color their positive wires which gives it a very clean look but also makes it a
26:58
little bit difficult to figure out which one's the positive wires so you will
27:02
need to match up the wire indicated in your manual where it needs the positive
27:06
one with the tiny little arrow on the
27:10
corresponding front header so guys look
27:13
really carefully at it and make sure you get these right in fact at
27:18
this stage even though there's no graphics card in here you can do a quick power on test and make sure that the
27:23
leds illuminate because if you get this wrong now you'll be tearing out your
27:26
graphics cards if you need to fix it in order to get at that little spot
27:31
speaking of graphics cards next we can tuck our pci express cables out of the
27:36
way we will need those soon though when we install the video card so just a
27:40
twist tile do the trick to to make sure that you know they're just out of our
27:44
way so we can figure out what we're doing and then the next bit is just
27:48
one way of doing this okay so if we were using the included cross brace with the
27:53
case we could simply install our three and a half inch drive and our two and a
27:57
half inch SSD on here throw that into the case and that would work just fine
28:02
that's the way it's intended to be used we came up with a bit of a different
28:06
idea though i wanted a cleaner look to the internals so i had to grab a couple
28:10
of longer SATA cables and i'm going to be running them down to the bottom of
28:14
the case where i'll be kind of ghetto mounting the SSD on top of the hard drive i'll show you all that in a minute
28:19
but it's up to you which way you want to do it one other thing i like about this
28:23
approach with not having the cross brace in there is that it gives me the option
28:26
to add a side panel window as like a diy mod later on in the future so it's
28:32
totally up to you anyway i grabbed those data cables plugged them into the
28:35
motherboard one little trick that i use is because i can never remember for
28:39
stacked SATA cables for stacked right angle SATA cable connectors which one is
28:45
zero and which one's one like which is the first port is i'll usually plug them
28:49
into completely different stacks so that it's easy to
28:53
figure out which one is the first one in the boot order by default in the BIOS
28:57
and i'll plug my SSD into that one so that if i ever reset my BIOS i don't
29:01
have to remember to go and manually reset my SSD as the boot device it's
29:05
just a nice little building trick for you anyway once that's done you've got
29:09
pretty much everything plugged into the board and it's time to tuck everything
29:13
nicely behind that left side panel and close it up don't force this if it's not
29:18
closing check what it's stuck on readjust and
29:22
try again clean cable management is not worth damaging something so just take
29:27
your time and go slow once you do get great cable management going on though
29:31
it's very satisfying and having the pci express slot area nice and tidy is great
29:36
for airflow for your graphics cards and will help them run cooler and last
29:41
longer all right so here it is guys the
29:45
not really recommended way that i'm installing my drives into the machine i
29:49
am going to put both of them rather than here
29:54
right down there under the CPU heatsink there's
29:58
lots of airflow from the fans around there but obviously there is a problem
30:02
there aren't enough mounting points for two drives more on that later anyway
30:07
first we're going to mount our hard drive these rubber grommets and screws
30:11
will do nicely for that so just put the grommets in from the bottom of the case
30:15
then position the drive in place with the SATA connectors towards the side
30:20
panel then screw it in from the bottom alright so there wasn't really any
30:23
trouble there well no this is where the magic starts guys i'm going to put my
30:27
SSD right here on top of the hard drive how
30:30
you might ask well with a very famous canadian invention
30:34
velcro just put this stuff on the back of the SSD stick it to the top of the
30:39
hard drive and you are ready to rock next install the SATA power cables and
30:44
say the data cables onto both drives and then run them along the bottom of the
30:49
case for better cable management now that we've done so much work to
30:54
prepare ourselves for GPU installation it's actually pretty straightforward all
30:58
we do is turn the case around and we find oh this has a tool-less pci slot
31:04
mounting mechanism so just undo the screw there lift it up you're going to
31:08
have to remove the pci slot covers that are already in there because they're in
31:13
the way for us to install our graphics cards then
31:16
grab one graphics card i'd probably recommend doing the top one first and
31:20
then carefully maneuver it into the case what you'll probably have to do is put
31:24
it kind of butt end in first into the five and a quarter inch bay that of
31:27
course we can't use because our system is so full of other gear in spite of the
31:31
fact that it's in there and in spite of the fact that the front of the case
31:34
actually doesn't even have a spot for it you know that's the that's the phenomenon for you anyway uh so you go
31:39
ahead and put that in and then press it down firmly then follow up with the
31:44
second card pressing it down firmly then go around to the back put that last pci
31:49
cover in unless you have another expansion card such as a sound card or
31:53
raid card or you know i don't know like a red rocket
31:56
card or whatever you want to do with this awesome little machine that is
31:59
aside from putting in additional slot covers put the screw back in place and
32:04
then just plug those bad boys in since you
32:07
put the pci express power cables exactly
32:10
where you were going to need them earlier on in the build they're right there so one eight pin and one six pin
32:15
connector for each of the graphics cards and we are pretty much done here folks
32:22
okay well we're not quite done we're finished the hardware which brings us to
32:26
software number one is in a system with two drives i've seen Windows do this
32:31
stupid thing enough times that i recommend physically unplugging the
32:34
drive you don't want any of your Windows files on so go ahead and unplug the hard
32:39
drive from time to time it stores the boot manager on one drive and then the
32:44
actual os on the other drive so the system can't boot without both of them
32:48
in which is ridiculous so that's just one little tip for you guys then when we
32:52
get into the BIOS there's a couple little configuration tips that are just
32:56
even just basic stuff like not overclocking or anything like that so just make sure that hci mode is enabled
33:01
for all of your SATA ports and ensure that all of the components are detected
33:05
correctly your memory is running at the correct speed and all of that good stuff
33:10
next up Windows installation is a snap if you know how don't worry about the
33:14
lack of a disk drive in this machine you can just grab all the files off of a
33:18
disk copy them to a blank usb drive and boot from that it's faster and more
33:24
convenient in fact most of the techies i know just have a dedicated usb drive for
33:28
doing os installations just like that drivers are the next thing and there's
33:32
something that many people struggle with but it's not too overwhelming if you
33:36
break it down even devices that already have drivers
33:39
installed so Windows update will grab drivers automatically for a lot of this
33:43
stuff i would recommend grabbing the latest ones directly from the
33:46
manufacturer website so you can start with Gigabyte they make your motherboard
33:50
so they should have the latest Intel chipset drivers lan or network drivers
33:55
and sound drivers but then when you're finished with that you can just do a
33:59
double check and you know head over to Intel's site bigfoot site real tech site
34:03
or whoever else manufacture might manufacture the actual chips on the
34:07
board itself but as a catch-all the Gigabyte website should be fine and then
34:11
you'll also need to go to NVIDIA's website to get the latest drivers for your graphics cards you can pick up
34:15
GeForce experience and it'll continue to keep them up to date on its own now if
34:20
there's something that you're having trouble finding a driver for here's a
34:23
little trick that i use go to the device manager right click the component in
34:27
question then just go to details and use the drop down box to go to hardware id
34:33
then google the then underscore number
34:37
number number and device underscore number number number string and it will
34:40
usually tell you exactly what that device is so then you can google that
34:44
and you can find a driver for it so now it's conclusion time guys i'd
34:48
like to talk about a couple things so one is some performance numbers and some
34:52
temperature numbers for our system small systems no longer need to perform
34:58
any differently from big systems this right here has a core i7 4770k perfectly
35:04
capable of overclocking it also has two gtx 780 ti's it will perform as well as
35:10
a much larger system that has that same hardware and in terms of temperatures
35:15
honestly considering the size of this little beast i think you guys will be
35:19
pre quite impressed by the numbers that we're showing you right now this is
35:22
under a gaming load so a real world load
35:25
scenario so let's talk about an overall trend as
35:29
well aside from this is a great performing reasonably quiet actually
35:33
that kind of impressed me i'm quite impressed by that you want to go into the BIOS and configure fan control if
35:38
you want to make it this quiet but you know even running at full speed i
35:43
think it probably won't bother most people anyway very very quiet so aside
35:46
from the performance and the quiet and the compactness let's talk about the
35:49
trend towards comportability and smaller
35:52
size in the industry in general i think the mac pro is a very interesting
35:57
comparison here now this isn't as powerful as a mac pro particularly one
36:02
with a 12 core CPU in it i mean the mac pro is more um
36:07
workstation oriented it supports quad channel memory it's got dual workstation
36:11
grade graphics cards in it as opposed to consumer grade graphics cards although
36:15
we could put workstation grade graphics cards in here but it's also
36:18
very very very small on the other hand this system is a
36:23
little bit bigger it's a very heavy hitter for its intended use which is
36:27
heavy gaming and light video editing or other content creation and in my mind
36:32
it's much more flexible it's much more
36:35
upgradable especially right now this is this is another trend that may
36:40
or may not take off but apple's certainly banking on it
36:45
less internal expansion and more external expansion i talked a lot while
36:50
we were doing this build guide about why i liked this particular board for its
36:54
ability to allow us to expand and put dual graphics cards in it and then even
36:58
expand further and add an additional pci express slot in it
37:02
apple has not given the option at all to expand either
37:07
via pci express or even the internal
37:11
drives of the device you can just get a bigger single pci express SSD and that's
37:15
pretty much all you can do they want you to use Thunderbolt an external expansion
37:20
option in order to get things like high throughput storage uh professional grade
37:25
expansion cards like capture cards or red rocket cards or other devices um and
37:31
they want you to do all that outside the the case so you can actually get like
37:34
Thunderbolt to pci express enclosures and things like that and i just have to
37:39
wonder a little bit if this isn't a better middle ground because we're
37:44
getting that compactness although so it's small enough to sit next to your
37:47
monitor without being so small that it's you know really really tiny and
37:51
impressively small but we actually get some internal expansion i gotta wonder
37:56
if the person who wants a tiny little mac pro
38:00
wants an octopus of Thunderbolt cables coming out of it connected to their
38:04
monitor and then you know external storage box one and two and three and
38:08
four as they end up needing more things i mean we could still put a couple more
38:11
drives in this thing without even resorting to anything external
38:14
whatsoever just by putting this bracket back into the machine so
38:19
there you go guys this to me is a fantastic option it's a pc of course you
38:25
could probably find a way to hack and tosh it if you really wanted to run os 10 and i'll be interested to see where
38:30
we go from here now we focused a lot throughout this build
38:34
guide as well on the high end potential of this system how it's got 4770k and
38:39
like dual 780 ti's and it ended up being very expensive but i want to also talk
38:44
about some recommended ways to scale back and get better bang for the buck
38:48
out of it by going with a 4670k
38:52
a single gtx 770 or 780 and a smaller
38:55
SSD and hard drive you could actually build a system quite like this but push
39:00
the price point down to the point where it really doesn't cost any more than a
39:03
regular desktop machine and still offers great expandability for the future so
39:08
maybe it's not the kind of thing where you're going to chuck your current pc in the garbage and go buy one of these but
39:11
next time you're shopping for a pc whether you move it around a lot and
39:15
attend lan events or you don't it just sits in one place you may want to
39:19
consider a small machine do you need all that expansion or is this the
39:23
interesting middle ground between something like the mac pro and something
39:26
like a full-fledged atx desktop tower anyway guys until next time thank you
39:31
for watching this ultimate compact gaming system build guide like the video
39:35
if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it and leave us a comment if
39:38
you have any feedback on our build guides or special requests for the next
39:41
one because there will be more of these
39:56
um
40:15
so
40:27
you