How to Build the ULTIMATE Surround Gaming PC Build Guide
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
3,816 words · ~19 min read
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Heat. Heat.
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4K is here, but honestly, there are still some limitations. The monitors are
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quite expensive for anything but a TN panel. Text scaling within Windows,
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particularly, while maintaining the sharpness and clarity you'd expect from
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a 4K screen, is still a challenge. And finally, they mostly just sit in front
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of you rather than wrapping around. Yes, video card support for multiple 4K
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displays is still pretty iffy. So that
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leaves the aspiring surround gamer in a
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bit of a pickle. Three 4K monitors is beyond impractical, requiring a graphic
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setup forged in the fires of Mount Doom. And while triple 1080p setups are both
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relatively inexpensive and easy to drive, they aren't exactly cutting edge
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anymore. But there's another option. With the way that
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2560x440 27in monitors have dropped in price nowadays, you can snag a few of
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them for around a grand, which means that the only remaining question is,
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what kind of gaming rig are you going to build to power it? So, let's get to
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building, shall we? Welcome to the ultimate surround gaming build guide.
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Before you begin, find a safe, static-free workstation and equip
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yourself with an anti-static strap. I like to keep mine on my ankle to keep it
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out of the way. Now, all we really need for assembly is a multi-bit screwdriver,
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but a pair of side cutters and a pair of pliers can come in handy from time to
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time. Another thing that we're going to need for this build that's a little unusual is I'm going to have my iFixit
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tool kit because we're going to do things like taking apart RAM modules.
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Now, before you actually begin building the rig, I always recommend plugging the
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components in and powering the system up once outside of the case to ensure that
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everything is working while it's nice and easy to reach and swap out
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components if you need to. The motherboard box makes a handy non-conductive test bench if you don't
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have one already. For our CPU, we went with Intel's latest technology. The Core
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i74790K code name Devil's Canyon doesn't
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really change much from the previous generation Core
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i74770K code name Haswell. But due
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partly to improvements in the thermal interface material between the die and
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the heat spreader, it promises lower temperatures and a more consistent
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overclocking experience. I guess we'll have to push the system a little bit
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once we're done to see what we can squeeze out of it. So hold your CPU by
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the edges and identify the corner with the little gold triangle. Align that
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with the corner of the socket that has a plastic triangle indent on it. It should
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be the bottom left. Lift up the retention ARM. Pull back the socket
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cover. Carefully place the CPU into the socket. No force should be required for
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this step. Then lower the socket cover. Lower the retention ARM and secure it
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with the hook in the bottom right corner. The plastic cover should pop off
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on its own. Choosing memory was really tough for this build. Not because we
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needed special performance RAM or because there's a lack of great memory
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brands, but rather because no one makes acid green memory to go with our build.
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So, we settled on an old favorite and we're using a 32 gig kit of Corsair
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Dominator Platinums at 2133 MHz C9, but
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with a twist. First, we disassembled the top bar by removing the two screws at
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either end with an iix it screwdriver. Then, we fashioned a stand and put a few
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coats of black plasti dip on all the silver top pieces. Next, we did a couple
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of coats of green plasti dip blaze on the acrylic light bars for a stealthy
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green accented look that should complement the rest of the system very
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well. With that done, all that's left is to pull back the tabs on the memory
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slots. Align each module according to the notch in the bottom of the stick and
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the key in the socket and press firmly on both sides until the latch closes.
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Fill one set of colorcoordinated slots before the other two if you're only
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using two sticks. The case decision for this rig practically made itself. I
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recently reviewed the NZXT H440, found it to be fantastic, and resolved to use
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it in a build guide at some point. Then this Razer edition came along and took
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the original case, added some tasteful Razer themed accents like the logo on
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the front and green LED lighting in place of the usual white for the IO
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illumination at the back, the glossy accented power supply cover, and yeah, I
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I had to use it. Start by putting both side panels in the original box.
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Conveniently, NZXT includes retainers so you don't have to find somewhere safe to
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put the thumb screws while you work. Take out the rear 140 millimeter fan by
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removing the four screws. Then put these aside. And then remove the front bezel
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by popping it off from the bottom. There's a magnetic fan filter here. Put
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that away for now as well. We'll need it again later. Remove all of the 3 and 1/2
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in drive cages to get at the three front 120 mm fans. Remove their screws from
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the front. Then pull them out the side. Now, what we're going to do is replace
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all four of these fans with the appropriate size Bitfenix Spectre Pro
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green LED fans to match the rest of our build. First, install the 140 mm fan at
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the back with the lead in the bottom right corner and trailing across the
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motherboard tray. Then, slide the three front 120 mm fans into place so their
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power leads are on the bottom right if you're looking at them from the front of
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the case. Then use the same screws we took out to mount them back in the
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front. Put the fan filter back and pop the front bezel back on. Now, as much as
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ASUS would love for me to tell you, we chose the Saber-Tooth Z97 Mark1 for its
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cool thermally controlled fan profiles, its SATA Express port for future SSDs,
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or its one-touch easy overclocking. That
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would be a lie. Uh, this was all about the looks. The clean looks enabled by
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this board's plastic thermal armor covering made it the only Z97 board that
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made any sense in this build aesthetically. I mean, I guess the
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5-year warranty on Tough Series boards didn't hurt matters either, but that's
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why we went with it. So, from the box, you'll need the board itself, the IO
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shield, two SATA cables, and the manual. And optionally, the dust covers for any
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PCI Express RAM or other slots that you
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aren't planning to use for your system. Start by pressing firmly on all four
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corners of the IO shield at the back of the case until they snap into place.
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Then, since NZXT pre-installs the correct nine standoffs for ATX
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motherboards, you can just lower the board into the case, putting its middle
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mounting hole through the post that takes the place of one of the normal
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standoffs. Be sure while doing this not to crush the wire for the rear case fan
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or accidentally block your top PCIe slot. This post will hold the board in
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place while you screw in the other eight standoffs. Here, here, here, here, here,
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here, here, and here. While you still have easy access to the board, plug in
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the front power and reset switches, as well as the power and drive activity
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LEDs. Follow up by plugging the block style connectors for USB 2, front audio,
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and USB 3. Plug in the SATA data connectors as shown. Then, finally,
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connect all of your fans. We'll use the three headers on the bottom edge of the
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board for the front fans and the right edge header for the rear fan. This lets
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us take advantage of ASUS's excellent inbios fan control to keep the system
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both cool and quiet. Originally, I had planned to use a dual 140 millimeter
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all-in-one liquid cooling unit for this build, but Swiftech called me up three
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days before I started scripting it and told me they finally have the successor
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to the H220 ready, the H220X. It features a more powerful, more
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reliable pump, an enthusiast grade block, interchangeable color plates, and
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finally, unlike most all-in- ones, it's expandable if you want to add more
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blocks or radiators. So, we'll start by changing the color plate to match the
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system better. Remove the four plastic push pins and black cover. Swap out the
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included plate for the green one in the box to match our system better. Then,
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put the cover and push pins back in. Optionally, at this point, the cooling
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system can be drained. The tubing can be shortened and the fluid can be replaced
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with green hydric to better match the system since the H220X uses standard
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enthusiast grade tubing and fittings and has a refillable reservoir. On to
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mounting. Swifte ships the H220X with LGA1 1150 mounting hardware
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pre-installed. So, all you need to do is unscrew the four thumb screws. Remove
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the adhesive covers on the back plate. Stick it to the back of the motherboard
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like so. Apply the included thermal compound to the middle of the CPU about
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the size of an uncooked grain of rice. Screw the top hold down in a cross
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pattern into the back plate and plug the power lead into an asked fan header on
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the motherboard. We used the one under this hatch, but the fit might be a bit
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tight for your liking. The
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radiator/reservoir/p pump unit will be mounted with the stock fans flipped
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around so they're pulling air through the rad than exhausting it from the top
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of the case and with the fittings towards the front of the case for better
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clearance between the motherboard and the built-in pump/reservoir unit. We can
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pop off the top bezel the same way as the front. Then use the eight included
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halfthreaded screws to secure both the fans and the radiators. Then we need to
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finish wiring this bad boy up. The included PWM hub can be hidden behind
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the back of the pump. It uses a SATA connector for power and we can leave
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this dangling for now. The CPU fan header on the motherboard can be used
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for PWM signaling. Then we plug the pump into channel one and the fans into any
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two other channels. So the speed of all three will be controlled by your
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motherboard. Then we finish up by running the SATA connector for the pump
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and leave that dangling as well. Normally I go pretty conservative on
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power supply choices for these guides because we stick with fairly low power
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consumption single graphics card setups. Not today. We'll be loading this bad boy
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up with a Corsair AX1200i 80 plus platinum fully modular
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power supply unit. So, we'll get silent operation at idle with the fan not even
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turning on and great efficiency even when we are under full load. Slide the
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power supply in, fan side down, and screw the bracket back in. At this
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stage, I usually run all of my power connectors in reverse. So, starting at
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the motherboard, starting with the 8 pin and 24 pin connectors for the
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motherboard, and then run them back down to the basement. Next up, you'll need
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two modular SATA cables. Leave one of them loose in the basement. Then run the
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other one up through the hard drive area using the last two connectors to power
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your fan hub and water pump. After that, grab a modular Molex cable for your
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built-in case lighting. And finally, grab four PCIe power cables for the
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graphics cards. Run those through the cable management grommets before
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securing them and the rest of all of your modular cables to the power supply.
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Don't worry too much about which goes where because it doesn't really matter.
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If it fits, it sits. Our drive setup is going to be the standard SSD for OS and
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key applications with hard drive for mass storage affair that has been my
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go-to for quite some time. The OS drive will be an Intel 730 series 240 gig SSD,
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a drive that offers great performance, consistency, and reliability. But since
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it isn't big enough for a full game library these days, instead of just
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going with a green drive for pure storage, we are going to be helping it
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out with a 4 TBTE WD Black, which will handle mass storage, but can also do in
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a pinch for game loading or key application loading as well. Undo the
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thumb screw on the bottom SSD mount and slide it towards the window side of the
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case to remove it. Use four of these screws to secure the drive to the sled
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with the connectors facing the motherboard. Slide it back into place.
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Secure the thumb screw. Then plug in the terminal SATA power connector from the
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modular cable that we left in the basement before and run the data cable
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we plugged into the motherboard before up through the grommet behind the
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motherboard and then through the access hole to plug into the drive. Next,
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choose an appropriate hard drive tray. I'm going to use the middle one. Remove
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both thumb screws at the back and pull it out. Use these special screws to
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secure the sled to the bottom of the drive through the antiibration mounts.
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Then put the drive sled back in place and do up the thumb screws. Connect SATA
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power and data in the same manner as before. In our 4K build guide, I went
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with dual GTX 780 Ti and SLI because I
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figured I could still get away with 3 gigs of video RAM. Not so today. At over
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11 million pixels, surround two and a halfK monitors have over 30% more pixels
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than a single 4K monitor. So, we went with the best bang for the buck dual
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graphics solution from a uh high
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resolution perspective. Power consumption and heat output be damned.
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Dual Radeon R9290s from Gigabyte with powerful triple fan windforce coolers on
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them. These won't throttle and we might
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even be able to overclock them a little bit, too. I think these are going to
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deliver some amazing performance in this application. Now, you may have noticed
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already that the coolers have a green plasti dip accent on the side. This was
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achieved by removing the six screws holding the cooler on from the back,
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then removing the four screws for the top brace that improves the rigidity of
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the graphics card. I applied three coats of white plasti dip undercoat and four
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coats of blaze green on top. I had originally planned to paint more parts
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of this build, but I felt if I overdid it, it would be overpowering, so I
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settled on just little accents like this one. I still think that we could have
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done better in terms of the green color here, perhaps with a gray undercoat
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instead of white. But at some point, we do have to film these build guides and
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stop dinking around in the garage. So, here we are. Oh, actually, while you've
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got your GPU cooler off is a good time to replace the stock thermal compound on
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there as well, but leave all the other stuff like the uh the thermal pad to the
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RAM and whatnot. So, now it's time to install them. We simply remove the two
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PCI slot covers that correspond to each of our graphics card slots, the top two
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PCIe 16X slots by removing the thumb
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screws. Position each card over the slot and when it's aligned, firmly push it
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into place. Then put back the thumb screws that you just took out. Plug in
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two PCI Express Power connectors, an eight pin and a six pin per card. And
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for your finishing move, I guess step back and appreciate it because we don't
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have Crossfire bridges on high-end AMD cards anymore. I don't know what's more
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impressive about the H440, the fact that it looks so good from the front or the
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fact that uh it can look so good from the front while looking so horrible from
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the back. So, it's time for cable management. Honestly, I won't be doing
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much because this system is going to look great regardless. I'm just going to
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take everything, wrap it up down as tight as I can because you don't
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actually have a ton of space behind the motherboard tray on this case. And I'm
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going to jam it all in the basement, which is all hidden by that nice little
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stealth power supply cover. Then we're going to close up the side panels and
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call this baby ready to rock. Now that
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the system is fully built and up and running, it's time to talk monitors.
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Now, the important thing here is not necessarily the models of monitors that
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I'm using. While I do love me some ASUS ProArts and PBS, I've got a PA279Q in
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the middle here flanked by two PB278Qs. Something with slimmer bezels
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might have actually been nicer for this. No, the important thing is the type of
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monitor that is being used and how to mount them all somewhat elegantly. All
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three of these panels run at a massive 2560x440 resolution and they're mounted
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using the modular expandable triple monitor erotic stand that I reviewed
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here. Surround gaming isn't for everyone, but if you're into immersion,
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that's a joke. Get it? Into immersion. Immersion. Anyway, uh if you want that
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kind of experience, it doesn't get much better than this. Choosing the
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peripherals for a color theme matched
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type of build was actually a little bit challenging since while normally I would
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go purely based on ergonomics, performance, etc. Today I have to try
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and find good stuff that's also available in like black and green.
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Corsair made the keyboard easy fortunately with their K70 RGB fully
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programmable backlit mechanical keyboard. It's wellb built with a solid
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aluminum back plate and made in Germany Cherry MX switches. It looks amazing and
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the fact that it can change colors makes it the most chameleonike of all the
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keyboards which makes it badass or something. Anyway, moving on. The mouse
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we've gone with or that I wanted to go with is a classic, the Razer Death Adder
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2013 with it high performance optical sensor and ergonomic design that's
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available in both right and left-handed varieties. But what you actually see in front of you here on the table is a G502
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because one of my employees took the Death Adder 2013 without telling me, so
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I don't have it anyway. for the headset. Well, at that point, I gave up on
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matching stuff. Just buy these sweet Star Wars themed Streets by 50
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headphones. They're like $200, but they're totally worth it. Just kidding.
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Check out the audio sub forum on line as techtips.com for a legitimate
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recommendation in your price range. Although, I can't promise that it'll match your black and green color scheme.
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Now, let's take a step back. We made it this far and we jumped ahead a little
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bit. Let's talk about the software setup side of things. Press delete while
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booting to get into the UEFI BIOS. Load your customized defaults. Set up your
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fan curves and make sure you set up the header for the uh illumination on your
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water block to run at full speed all the time so that it's nice and bright and
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looks fantastic in your system. Once you're done with that, switch to
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advanced mode in the BIOS for some CPU
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overclocking. We've got a full overclocking guide for this CPU which
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you can watch here. But for now, here are the values that worked well for my
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CPU for AI tuner, CPU ratio, and core
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voltage. Now, there's lots of other stuff in here that you can play with if
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you want, and I'd recommend starting at Linus techtips.com if you want to get
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some help from our fantastic community if it looks a little overwhelming. To
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install your Windows operating system, create a bootable USB flash drive and
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then reboot while mashing F8 immediately to get to the boot device selection menu
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where you'll pick your USB drive. Once the setup process has begun, it's
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basically a matter of clicking next until you land on the Windows desktop.
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At the desktop, grab the latest drivers off the manufacturer websites for your
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components. Go to nite.com for your essential free applications and grab
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some stress testing apps and a Rivetuner derived overclocking utility such as
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Afterburner to overclock your graphics cards. Your mileage may vary, but these
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are the settings I got these puppies running at. Schmexy. So, now that that's
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out of the way, let's find out if our rig here can actually handle all 11
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megapixels of gaming glory at playable frame rates. Now, to be clear, we were
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never expecting even a powerful gaming rig like this to max out every game at
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this res at all. But these settings and
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frame rates deliver a beautiful and very playable gaming experience that I think
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is truly special. While you guys enjoy some glamour footage of our finished
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system here, I want to take an opportunity to extend a huge thank you
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to Intel for making this video possible. These build guides are incredibly
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timeconuming for us to produce. And without sponsors like Intel to foot the
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bill, we wouldn't be able to set aside the week of time that it takes for my
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team to script, film, and edit them. So, thanks Intel for supporting the DIY
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folks who want highquality guides that enable them to confidently build their
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own PCs. I hope you guys enjoyed this video as much as we enjoyed making it.
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Hit the subscribe button now if you haven't already. And until next time,
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peace out.