ULTIMATE Build a Better $2000 Gaming & Silent Workstation PC Computer "How To" Guide
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
6,737 words · ~33 min read
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Welcome to our next better system build guide. Now, a better system involves
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parts that still deliver great value for the dollar without going over the top
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just for bling, but also means that we're not really skimping on anything.
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So, our target budget for this system was $2,000. Now, in our last build
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guide, we went with a straight gaming build. So, we didn't really spend extra
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money on anything unless it gave us more cooling or more gaming performance in
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some way. This system is going to be more about well-rounded overall
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performance. So, it's still going to be a rocking gaming machine featuring the
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Intel Core i7 4770K unlocked processor.
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We're still going to overclock it, but maybe not quite to the same extent. And
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it also features because it has hyperthreading, because it's got lots of
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RAM, and because we're using silence optimized components, a very quiet
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workstation like element to it as well. So, it's going to be the silent machine
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that's suitable for gaming as well as light workstation use such as HD video
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editing. Now, we're going to show you how to build step by micro step exactly
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the system we have in front of us, but many of these principles will be able to
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be applied to other systems as well. So, we'd love for you to come back and
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reference this video when you're building your own system. With that in
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mind, we've made some menu navigation. So you can go to the main menu up on
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your top right and you can navigate between chapters on the bottom right
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allowing you to skip in between the parts that you find most interesting.
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Now it should be noted we're using annotations to make that functionality
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work. So if you're watching on a mobile device you may not be able to access
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that functionality. If you switch over to a desktop that'll work just fine for
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you. Now without any further ado, let's get started with our better
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gaming/lightworkstation build optimized for silence. Now with our better class
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of system sort of nomenclature in mind, we did give ourselves a bigger budget
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this time around because we were trying to do a couple of more specialized
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things. That is to make the machine great for not only gaming but also light
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workstation use as well as make it quieter. So with that in mind, for our
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CPU, we went with the 4770K. This is a
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Core i7 processor, meaning it has hyperthreading technology. So, while it
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doesn't really offer much tangible performance benefit over a top tier Core
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i5 like a 4670K in gaming applications,
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the 4770K will deliver a significant performance improvement in things like
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video editing or 3D work to justify its
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additional cost. Now, the
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i74770K is an LG150 processor, meaning that it is
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compatible only with LG150 motherboards.
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So, we went with a saber-tooth D87 board. This supports all the
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overclocking features of the chip as well as other Intel technology such as
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smart response technology with SSD caching and all that good stuff. And it
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also has some ASUS exclusive features as well. It's got their thermal armor,
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which is a dust coating that goes over top of the entire board and even you can
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have little pieces to cover up the slots, allowing you to keep the board
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operating in pristine condition for the extent of its lifetime. It has their
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thermal radar 2 technology, which allows you to quickly and easily diagnose
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hotspots on the board as well as monitor the board, make sure your entire system
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temperatures are good. It has their fan expert 2 technology allowing you to
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control all the fans in your system and keep everything nice and cool and
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optimized. You guys noticing a theme here. And it also looks fantastic. And
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since we're using a windowed case, that is an advantage. Last and certainly not
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least, the reason we went with a saber-tooth tough series board for our
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workstation e better gaming build is the
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fact that it uses tough components and comes with a 5year warranty. ASUS
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supports this board for 5 years. That's industryleading, meaning that if you're
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buying something that you want to really work for a long time, a tough series
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board like a Saber-Tooth is never a bad option. The one thing you may recognize
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from our last better build guide is these Corsair Vengeance DDR3 modules. We
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didn't change our memory configuration cuz I still feel that a 2x8 gig DDR3600
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kit is pretty much the best bang for your buck. It does a number of things.
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It gives you upgradability options for the future, meaning you can move to up
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to 32 gigs without any difficulty, without taking these out and tossing
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them in the bin. And it gives you definitely more memory than you need for
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any modern game, as well as probably enough memory for your light workstation
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load. However, if you're doing a lot of Da Vinci Resolve or, you know, After
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Effects rendering or whatever else, then you may want to right from the get- go
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step up and get two of these kits for a total of 32 gigs. Now, our budget gave
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us a ton of options in terms of graphics cards. We could go with an entry-level
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Quadro. We could go with a dual GPU solution with fairly high-end cards. We
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could go with a very high-end single card solution such as a GTX 780. That's
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the route that we ended up going. And
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the reason we did that is because a single GPU solution still delivers the
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best performance regardless of micro stuttering or SLI profiles in any game.
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It also runs extremely quietly, runs cool, and it's going to offer great CUDA
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performance for applications such as Adobe Premiere or Da Vinci Resolve. Now,
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why we might go with some of those other options? Dual GTX 660Ti would have been
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better for gaming performance, but would have added heat output, power
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consumption, as well as a little bit of inconsistency in terms of the
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performance. And I usually prefer a stronger single card to two weaker ones
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whenever possible. We could have gone with an entry-level quadro. And
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honestly, if I was going to take advantage of the 10-bit color output or
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if I was going to take advantage to some of the CAD applications that can be
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accelerated by a Quadro, then I might go that route instead. But that won't offer
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a satisfying gaming experience like a GeForce card will. Now, we could also
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pony up and spend more and get a GTX Titan, but that contributes nothing to
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the gaming experience and is more useful for someone like a CUDA developer that
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needs the double precision floating point capabilities of a GTX Titan that
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are cut down significantly on the 780. Last but not least, if we were leaning
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more towards the gaming side and we were willing to wait for Adobe to upgrade
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their suite to support Open CL with all the features, or if we didn't need some
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of the CUDA only features right now, you could go with a Radeon graphics card
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such as a 7970 GHz edition. And you'd also get some free games to go along
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with it with their never settle bundle. And we're going to make the most
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exciting video ever about storage.
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All right, storage isn't that sexy, but we've got an Intel 520 series SSD. This
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is their highest performing consumer grade SSD, and we went with that because
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again, we had a slightly bigger budget. We also up the capacity. We've got 240
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gigs. Now, that gives us flexibility. We can either install a ton of apps and
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games on it or we can segment 60 gigs of it to use as a cache to accelerate our
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mechanical drive. Now, this is where it's going to come down to personal
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choice. We went with a three terbyte WD
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green drive and the reason for that is that with its low power consumption and
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quiet operation. It was a good fit for our build here. However, if you wanted
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to use a dedicated scratch disc or if you needed more storage for large video
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editing projects, you might end up with an internal RAID array for example and
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then an individual dedicated scratch disc rather than going with this single
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green drive solution. So, the options are totally out there. But remember
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guys, green isn't like it was before where you were getting great power
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consumption and low noise at the cost of performance, particularly in sustained
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performance. They're right up there with many 7200 RPM drives now. So, you don't
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have to make that trade-off. And that's why we went this
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route. Whoa. Excuse me. Now, I've talked
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a lot about the silence optimized aspects of the system, but I haven't
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shown you how we're doing it yet. It starts with the power supply. A loud
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power supply is difficult to deal with because you can't just swap out the fan
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without special training or pretty serious danger. So, we've gone with a
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CIC G series. CIC has a legendary
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reputation for building quiet as well as high performance power supplies. In
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fact, many of the power supplies you see in the market with other brand names on
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them are actually manufactured by CIC. This one is 80 plus gold, meaning we
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don't have to remove as much heat from the inefficiency of the power
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conversion. It is also semi-odular, meaning that we don't have to have
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unnecessary cables jumbling up the case, so we don't have to have our case fans
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spinning louder. It uses a single strong 12volt rail, meaning you don't have to
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worry about what plugs into where. And last but not least, it has a 5year
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warranty to go along with that 5year warranty on your motherboard. Now, those
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two components that fail most often over time, the motherboard as well as the
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power supply, have 5-year warranties in this system. Now, it's only a 550 W
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power supply, but I'm going to show you guys what the power consumption of the
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system looks like when you're done. And I think you're going to be pretty impressed at the way it handles it, even
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though NVIDIA recommends a 600 watt
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power supply for a GTX 780based system.
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Next up, we've got a Dark Rock 2 CPU cooler. It looks great. It's quiet. It
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runs cool. No complaints about it whatsoever. We decided to go air cooling
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with this build rather than liquid cooling. We showed you liquid cooling last time, so we're going to shake
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things up. Finally, we've got the Fractal Design Define R4. This is the
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black windowed version, but it's available in different colors or without
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a window if you prefer. It is again silence optimized with acoustic
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dampening materials as well as it has the ability to provide ample air flow
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with ventilation in the front and it gives you the option to remove some of
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the silence optimized material and add more fans with their modu vent
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technology should you so desire. Not
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only that, but it looks fantastic. Oh, my case is gone. I guess
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that means we're going to talk about peripherals now. We're going to start with the Razer Death Adder 2013. I think
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it's a fantastic value, even though it's a little bit of a higherend mouse. So,
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while the peripherals don't fit into my $2,000 budget, the goal here was to pick
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peripherals that I thought were appropriate for someone spending two
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grand on their tower. And the Death Adder 2013 has great heritage. The Death
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Adder is extremely well regarded, but it's got some tweaks. A higher
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sensitivity optical sensor, making it great for gaming without any
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acceleration issues. It's got tweaked ergonomics as well as rubberized grips
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that make it feel great and I just like it. So, there you go. Next up, we've got
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the Filco Magistouch Ninja. We've got a Cherry MX Brown full-sized keyboard.
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This gives a good balance between a typing experience and gaming experience.
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I personally love Cherry MX Brown key switches, and it looks fantastic and
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very professional with the key caps printed on the front rather than on the
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top. That also means that the printing will last forever because it won't wear
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off with your fingers. For our mouse pad, we've gone with the Steel Series
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QCK because regardless of budget, I use it for everything. I love this mouse
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pad. Just just get one. Even if you're not building this system, don't worry
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about it. Now, let's talk about the peripherals that you don't generally touch. We went with the Custom One Pros
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from Bayer Dynamic for our headphones. These are closed, making them great for
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going off to your own little world, whether it's work or play. They sound
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fantastic. They have an adjustable bass port, meaning you can decide, okay, I
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want a ton of bass for this music or not as much for another one, which is
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actually very, very cool. And last but not least, they are incredibly
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comfortable. These are the personal headphone of choice for Slick right now.
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The one drawback being they don't have a built-in microphone, so you will need a
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standalone microphone. For our monitor, this is what I expect to be a bit of a
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contested topic. Now, many gamers will opt instead for fast response TN panels
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because those are going to give you less motion blur as well as less input lag
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when you're gaming. Now, Slick and I discussed it at length and we decided to
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go with a PA248. This is a ProArt series from ASUS because we prefer the vibrant,
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rich colors and better viewing angle to the faster response time for our gaming
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enjoyment. With that said, neither of us are pro gamers. So, what's the advantage
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of this monitor? It's 1920 x 1200 instead of 1080, giving you a little bit
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more vertical resolution. It comes pre-calibrated, meaning those colors are
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going to be accurate right out of the box. And honestly, having gamed on this
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monitor a fair bit, I don't notice any particular input lag. I don't notice any
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particular ghosting even compared to TN panels. So, I'd say for the price, given
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that the 248 isn't that much more expensive than a TN panel, especially a
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gaming grade one, I would go with this option. But of course, the choice is
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yours. And now it is step by
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step. I got kind of far away from the mic there. Time to build this PC. So,
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we're going to start with our usual procedure where we install the
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components. We assemble them together before putting them in the case to make
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sure that everything is working a okay
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before we make more work for ourselves when we're trying to swap things in and
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out and they're inside a chassis. The motherboard box makes a fantastic test
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bench. Before we get started, here's everything you need. A nice anti-static
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place to work. I don't recommend working on carpet if you can avoid it. We are
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actually using a Modmat Extreme from ModRate, which is a nice rubberized
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surface, so we're not going to damage anything. It's not going to slip off away from us and it's anti-static. I
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recommend using an anti-static wrist strap that you then attach the other end
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to either a grounded out power supply or similar or to a grounded wall outlet.
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And finally, you'll need a standard Phillips head screwdriver. First up,
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once we've got our motherboard on our well makeshift anti-static test
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platform, is to install the CPU. The only things you need from the CPU box
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are the processor itself and the stock heat sink, which we're only going to use
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to make sure that the system's working outside of the case. Step one is to lift
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up the retention ARM. There shouldn't be too much force that you need to apply.
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Once it's out of the way, you can actually lift up the entire hold down
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plate. Next up, align the golden
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triangle on the corner of the CPU with the triangle or dot on the CPU socket.
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There should also be two indentations. The CPU only fits in one way. Never
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force it. The socket is very fragile. Give it a little wiggle to make
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sure it's in the right spot. Lower the cover plate and then
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bring down the retention ARM. There should be a little bit of force required
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this time. You'll have to swing it out a little bit wide and then hook it
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underneath the hold down clip. And what you'll notice is that protective
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covering over the pins in the CPU socket now pops off completely on its own and
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your CPU is installed. Installing the stock heatsink is a snap. Well, four
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snaps, actually. It has thermal compound pre-applied, so you don't have to worry
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about that. Just make sure that you have enough slack on the four pin CPU fan
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connector to reach the header on your motherboard. I'm going to plug that in.
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There we go. Then apply pressure in a diagonal fashion to the four hold down
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pins until you hear them snap into place.
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Installing RAM is easy as pie. 3.14 that
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is. I usually recommend using the two slots that are furthest away from the
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CPU socket. And then all you have to do is make sure that you align the notch in
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the bottom of the RAM with the notch in the socket. In this particular
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motherboard, you can see only one side has a retention clip. So, put that side
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in. Put the side with no retention clip in first. Then press down firmly until
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the clip goes into place. Rinse and
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repeat. Please don't rinse your memory.
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Now it's time to move on to the case. So, we're going to open up the side
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panels, both side panels, because we're going to need access to the back of it
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for all of our cable management. Keep your screws somewhere safe. I recommend
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keeping them in a small dish, such as the one that I of course have readily
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available right here. thumb screws go in there and put your side panels somewhere
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safe. The last thing you want to do is trip over them or something like that
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and scratch them or dent them before you even have a chance to put together your
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computer. I recommend putting them in the box that they came in with the
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packing foam in between. This is an optional step, but I like to do it. So,
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you take the box or baggie or whatever the accessories for your case comes in,
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open it up, and dump them all out. Make sure they're all there. This particular
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case comes with a little inventory on the back of the box that tells you
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exactly what should be inside. Then you take all those pieces and dump them in
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your tray. That way you know where everything is when you're looking for it
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and you don't have to be fumbling around. The next thing to install is the
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IO shield. You're going to regret it if you forget this one, so I recommend
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doing it first. All you have to do is take it out of the motherboard box,
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position it at the back of the case. Sometimes there's a placeholder there.
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Don't worry, you're not supposed to use that. just take it out. On this case, we
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don't have that, though. And then press on all four corners firmly until you
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hear them snap into
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place. Next, we're going to prepare the case to have the motherboard inside it.
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Fractal includes a little adapter from Phillips head to the hex pieces that are
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the motherboard standoffs that you're going to screw into the tray. They also
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clearly label with an A for ATX and an M
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for MATX or shorter motherboards where
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you need to put in the standoffs. We're going to put in nine standoffs in all
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the ones marked A. Next, the motherboard goes into the
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case. I'd really recommend laying your case flat before doing this.
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Then what you do is you position the IO
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on the back of the motherboard with the IO in the back of the IO panel which you
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just installed. Slide it into place very carefully without scraping the back of
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the motherboard against the motherboard standoffs that you also just installed.
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I recommend holding the motherboard by the CPU heat sink, that stock heatsink
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that we're going to take off, in order to prevent touching sensitive parts on
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the motherboard or putting undue strain on other parts of it. Once it's in
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position, put in at least one screw so
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that it holds in place. Then put in the other eight screws and your
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motherboard's installed. Now we're ready to get that stock CPU cooler out of
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there and replace it with our aftermarket one. Now, the reason we put
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the stock one in in the first place was just in case we had some weird clearance
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issues while we were trying to install things in the system. We didn't want to,
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you know, have to take an aftermarket one back off because it can be a little
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bit more difficult than the plastic push pins that are used on the stock one. So,
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I've pulled that off. Now, boop. Now, all we got to do is install our
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aftermarket one after, of course, cleaning off the CPU. So, use 99%
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isopropyl alcohol, wet a piece of toilet
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paper, clean off the bulk of the thermal compound, then follow up with a lintfree
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cloth. That's going to allow you to make sure that there's no residue left on the
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CPU. Next up, you're going to put some thermal compound on. Your cooler is
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going to come with thermal compound. Put on about the same amount as uh about a
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cooked grain of rice is what I would go for for a modern
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CPU. Now, we need to make a decision about how we're going to orient the heat
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sink in our case. Now, if we had top exhaust, we might consider mounting the
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heat sink horizontally like this so we could take advantage of it. But we left
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the module vents in, which means we don't have top exhaust. So, we're going
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to opt to position our heat sink vertically like this. Then, when we
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install our fan afterwards, we're going to install it pushing air towards the
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back of the case, pulling air through the heat sink so that we're leveraging
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that rear 140 mm exhaust. Now, to
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install it, you want to make sure that you have enough clearance around your
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RAM for the side that you're going to have your fan on. If we had the fan on
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this side, say for example, like this, we wouldn't have room with this
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high-profile RAM. So, something you might want to consider is going for a
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lowprofile Vengeance RAM kit rather than a high-profile one like this if you're
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going to use an air cooling heat sink. Instead, what we're going to do is we're
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just going to turn it around. So, our fan is going to be right next to our exhaust fan right here on the heat sink.
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The good news is that mounting this be quiet! Dark Rock 2 is quite simple. All
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you do is position the heat sink. Then you can actually squeeze the back plate
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under the thermal armor on the saber-tooth, which is kind of neat because it holds it in place and screw
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the four screws in from the back. Then all that's left to do is mount the fan
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to the heat sink using the included clips. Plug the CPU fan connector into
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the header on your motherboard and you're done. Your heatsink is now
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mounted. Next, we're going to install the power supply. So, you have the
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option of either having the fan on the bottom of the power supply or on the
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top, but we're going to go with the fan pointing down this time around. This
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case does have a filtered intake down there, so you don't have to worry about it getting completely clogged up with
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dust. But the main reason that we're going this route versus the other way
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around is that it looks like our cables are going to have a little bit of
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trouble reaching the very top where our eight pin CPU connector is unless we
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install it this way. Because the fixed cables on this power supply, the 24 pin
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and the 8 pin are going to be over on your right hand side, my left, if I
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install it with the fan down. To attach the power supply to the case, we simply
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use the four screws that come in their own little baggie that are threaded
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correctly for the back of the power supply. So now it's time to start
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running some of the connectors. So we're
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going to start with the 24 pin connector. This provides most of the power to your motherboard. We get to go
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through that nice cable management hole down there at the bottom, through this
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other nice cable management hole up here at the top. Then we curve around, plug
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that bad boy in, and we have wired our
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24 pin connector in a nice, neat, tidy, clean way. Next, we've got our eight pin
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connector, which is also going to route behind the motherboard tray. So, it's
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going to go right through that bottom spot there. Then is going to come back
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up the There we go. top left of the
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motherboard tray and plug right into that eight pin connector up at the top
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left. This part's a little bit tricky, so if you can't get it yourself, maybe
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get someone with small hands to help you out with it. Now, this is the point in
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the build guide where it's all about social
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networking or making connection. Yeah, making connection connecting things.
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That's what I was looking for, right? Connecting things. So, we're going to
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start with our front panel connectors. USB 3 is a large block of a connector,
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usually blue, very thick, very inflexible. You want to run that as
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close as you can to your front USB 3 port, which in the case of this
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motherboard happens to be right angle, which is awesome, meaning it's going to
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look nice and tidy, and you don't have to have a big loop toloop. Next up,
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you've got front USB 2. These ones have a small missing pin, so it only goes in
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one way. Plug that block into any of the USB 2 headers on your motherboard.
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Usually, there are a couple of them. Finally, we've got front panel
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audio. Front panel audio usually has a couple of different options, HD and
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AC97. This one only has HD. That's great because it's been a long time since any
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motherboard required an AC97 pin out. Once again, missing one block in the
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pins. So, just plug that into the front panel connector. Guys, this is the point
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in the build where don't be shy about checking out the motherboard manual to
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double check where all of these things are, which leaves only the front power
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button, reset button, and power LED to
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plug in. Now, I normally show you how to
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plug these in directly to the board, but because I'm a bit of a purist, but there
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is an easier way. ASUS has what they call their Q connector, which allows you
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to plug them all in easily where you can see what you're doing and then take that
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whole block and plug it into the motherboard. I still insist on doing it
24:54
the other way simply because it makes the connector slightly more low profile
24:57
so there's less chance of them interfering with anything and I
25:01
personally think it looks better this way. But you have either option. We've
25:05
got two drives to install. One's a 2 and 1/2 in SSD. The other is a 3 and 1/2 in
25:10
hard drive. We're going to opt for using the lower of the drive bays. This is
25:15
just to make cable management a little bit more tidy. And to mount our SSD is
25:19
very, very simple. You orient the ports towards the back of the case, the side
25:23
that we're not working from. Put in at least a couple screws. Let's face it,
25:28
it's a non- mechanical device. It's not like it's going to get broken if you don't put in enough screws. And
25:33
then slide the cage into place. For the
25:37
hard drive, the process is slightly more complicated. Retrieve the sled. We're
25:42
still using the same ones. Grab the screws that have the
25:48
spacer on them because there are rubber grommets in the sled positioned
25:52
perfectly for 3 and 1/2 in drives. Then
25:56
orient the ports towards the back of the case that we're not working on. Screw
25:59
all four in securely. Remember, this is a mechanical
26:04
device. And then slide the sled into the
26:08
case. Those rubber grommets are going to help prevent vibrations from being
26:12
passed from the drive to your case, which is going to make it operate much
26:16
more quietly. Now, we've got to connect those
26:19
drives that we just added to the system. This power supply is modular, though, so
26:23
there's no SATA connectors attached to it. Go into the usually a little baggie
26:27
or box inside your power supply box and grab a dual SATA connector. So, this
26:33
will allow us with one cable harness to plug in both drives. You can plug the
26:37
six pin connector into any of the outlets on the power supply itself as
26:42
long as they are the same. So, six pins.
26:47
Then, plug each of the SATA power connectors into the back of the
26:54
drives. Once you're finished with power, grab a couple SATA data cables. These
26:59
will be included in your motherboard box. I would recommend grabbing one
27:03
straight one and one right angle one. Plug the other ends where they're both
27:08
straight into the
27:13
motherboard. Then plug the straight connector into the SSD and the right
27:18
angle connector into the hard drive at the back. As we get close to the end,
27:22
you guys are probably starting to notice that this is a really, really tidy
27:27
looking build. You can hardly see any wires. This is what great cable
27:31
management, a wellthoughtout build, and modular cables will do for you because
27:35
we're only going to plug in one more modular cable harness. And this is going
27:39
to allow us to get power to our fan speed controller as well as the fans
27:44
that are integrated to the case. We're going to allow the ASUS motherboard to
27:48
control the CPU fan because it does a really good job of that and it can be
27:52
controlled from within AI Suite. So, all we need to do now is plug the modular
27:57
connector into the power supply, run it through the back just
28:02
like we've done with all the other ones, and we can power all of the fans in this
28:06
case simply by plugging one Molex connector into the Molex lead that comes
28:11
out of the front panel. Now, at the back of the case, connecting our fans is
28:16
simple. We've only got two fans in the case, one at the back, one at the front.
28:20
So, we take those leads and plug them into ones that are coming out of the
28:25
front fan connector. So, there's one short one. I'd recommend running that
28:29
one to the front. And there are two long ones. I'd recommend connecting one of
28:33
those to the back. And you can use that other one for something else in the
28:36
future should you desire. Maybe an additional front fan if you decide to
28:40
add that. So close, guys. Time for a little bit of cable management. Now,
28:45
here's a tech tip for you. A lot of your components are going to come with twist
28:48
ties. I usually put those with the zip
28:51
ties that came with my case because it gives me even more cable fasteners to
28:55
use. Some of the zip ties can be particularly long. And these are great
28:59
for when you want to take a nice big bundle of cables, take one of those
29:03
little hooks that are on the back of the motherboard tray, and then tie the whole
29:07
bundle together all in one place like so. Because there's so much cable
29:12
management room on the back of the motherboard tray in the Define R4, you
29:16
don't have to worry too much about bulky cables causing you to not be able to
29:20
close up the side panel once you are done. And now it's time to put that sexy
29:26
GTX 780 into your rig. So find the top
29:29
PCI Express slot, PCIe16 is the long
29:33
slot, and remove the next two PCI slot
29:37
covers down from that. So that means removing the thumb screw, not letting
29:41
the PCI bracket cover fall onto anything
29:45
random because that might be bad. Okay, loosen the thumb screw. Undo it again.
29:49
This time not letting it
29:53
fall. That time I let the thumb screw fall. Don't worry too much about this,
29:56
folks. Don't worry. We got this. We're experts here. All right. Now, you
30:00
position the graphics card with the PCI Express 16X slot aligned with the PCI
30:04
Express 16X slot in your motherboard.
30:08
Make sure everything is lined up correctly. Press down firmly. Then all
30:13
you have to do is put those two thumb screws back
30:17
in. And then once you're finished with the thumb screws, in much the same
30:22
fashion as you did before with your SATA drives as well as your fan controller,
30:28
plug the two PCI Express connectors into
30:32
your power supply. Run them up the back of the motherboard tray. bring them up
30:36
to your graphics card and plug one six
30:39
pin connector in. So that's with the two extra pins just left dangling and one
30:45
eightpin connector in to your graphics card. Now it has all the power it needs
30:50
to deliver all that juicy 3D
30:55
goodness. And there you have it, guys. If that's not a gorgeous build, then I
31:01
don't know what is. It goes to show you how optimized components as well as
31:07
somewhat careful assembly. I mean, we weren't totally militant about the way
31:12
that we did our cable management, but it goes to show you how those things
31:15
together can turn into a very, very nice
31:19
looking rig that you'd be proud to call your gaming machine, but not embarrassed
31:23
to call your professional workstation. Now, performance. One of the most fun
31:28
things about getting a new computer is comparing it to your old one and going,
31:32
"Yeah, that's a lot better." So, I
31:35
always like to run some rudimentary benchmarks just to see how much time I'm
31:39
going to be saving. But, I guess I'm wasting some of it running the benchmarks. Don't worry too much about
31:43
that because we're touting this machine not only as a gaming machine. So, you
31:48
might want to run some 3D Mark benchmarks or some built-in benchmarks
31:51
in some of your favorite games, but also as a workstation machine. We're going to
31:54
run Cinebench, which is a free application for benchmarking, and that
31:59
shows off the rendering prowess of your computer. So, we're going to run the CPU
32:04
benchmark there. Not only can you evaluate how much of an improvement you
32:07
got over your old system, but also how much of an improvement you got by
32:11
overclocking. By turning our CPU up from 3.5 GHz, which turbos up to 3.9 with one
32:17
or two cores active, all the way up to 4.4 4 GHz on all cores all the time. We
32:22
were able to get more than a 25% performance improvement in Cinebench,
32:27
which is going to be noticeable in the real world when you're actually working
32:31
on things, which I personally think is incredibly cool. And all of that is
32:36
while maintaining the silence of this machine to the point where you pretty
32:39
much have to put your ear next to it in order to hear the fans. But what's
32:44
performance without efficiency? Haswell offers unprecedented C states, that is
32:49
lower power states for the CPU to the point where this machine with a GTX 780,
32:56
that's a Titanbased GPU, so GK 110 with
33:00
a Haswell 4770K, so it's got your hyperthreading, it's got your
33:05
overclocking up to 4.4 GHz, idles at 55
33:09
watts drawn from the wall. That means the system is actually consuming less
33:14
than 50 watts once you factor in the inefficiency of the power supply
33:18
converting AC to DC power. Not only that, but when we created a load
33:23
scenario that was completely unrealistic running Firmark as well as Ida's CPU
33:28
test, we were only able to draw a total of 465 watts from the wall. That means
33:34
the actual system power consumption maxes out around 400 watts. Remember
33:38
when I said that 550 watt power supply was going to be just fine in this
33:41
system? There you go. I wouldn't exactly go and add another GTX 780 to it without
33:46
upgrading the power supply, but you'll certainly be able to do small
33:49
incremental upgrades like maybe a little bit more RAM or a couple more drives
33:53
without any difficulty whatsoever. Now, all of that's fine and good. So, now
33:57
we've got power and now we've got efficiency and performance and all that
34:01
good stuff. But what about temperatures? Because silence optimized is all fine
34:05
and great, but if it's running really hot, you're not going to be comfortable
34:08
with it. Even with our overclock, check this out. Running our stress test, we're
34:12
running at 63°. Now, this room's a little bit cool. So, let's say maximum
34:17
70°, even if you're in quite a warm room. That is pretty darn impressive.
34:22
Your Core i7 4770K is going to perform
34:25
great and last for a long time with those kinds of temperatures in this kind
34:29
of environment. I hope you guys have enjoyed this build guide with featuring
34:33
Intel's Haswell fourth generation 4770K. Don't forget to subscribe to
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Effective for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos. And please
34:42
guys, leave a comment under the video. Let us know what you'd like to see for
34:45
future build guides because I can promise you more of them are coming.