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Here are the progression pics. Sorry if they're big or small or grainy or whatever.
What I started with:
Empty case, with hard drive cage still installed (which I took out later, and you will see why):
Motherboard installed:
Case fans, front panel USB 3.0 header, and front panel HD audio jack header plugged in. The fan cables were kinda short in relation to where the pins are on the motherboard, so I may replace the fans at some point and get something with longer cables, or just splice the cables and add some length so I can clean it up more:
RAM and CPU installed (dust cover still on CPU socket while I get the radiator mounted):
Water Cooler radiator mounted and heatsink/pump assembly mounted to the SPU and Motherboard:
Video card installed:
Hard Drives installed in sleds that are attached to the back of the motherboard tray, and SATA cables connected (this is why I removed the hard drive cage):
I connected power to each item as I went along; it seemed easier to do it that way. The cabling is still a mess, but I need some different length cables, etc, and I got tired of building. I don't have any pics of it powered up, cuz I've been too busy playing games! It runs like a dream. Just need to get a better monitor instead of the crappy 60 Hz 1080p one I've got now.
Oh, and the coup de grâce.....I forgot to put the port shield on the back of the motherboard, so at some point I have to tear it all down and put it back together
*EDIT: Total cost, excluding hard drives and monitor since I already had those was around $1200.
What I started with:
- Corsair Obsidian Series 450D Mid-Tower Case (came with 2 x 140mm (in front) and 1 x 120mm fan (in rear) already mounted in the case
- ASRock Z97 Extreme4 Motherboard
- Intel Core i7 4790k (4.40 GHz) Processor
- MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4G Video Card
- 16 GB Crucial Ballistix 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM (will upgrade later to higher speed if I see a bottleneck here)
- Corsair CX600M Power Supply (will upgrade if I plan to overclock or add a second 970 later on)
- Corsair H100i Closed Loop CPU Water Cooling unit
- Reusing 250 GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD and 750 GB Seagate HDD from my now-obsolete gaming laptop, because I didn't want to spend more money
Empty case, with hard drive cage still installed (which I took out later, and you will see why):
Motherboard installed:
Case fans, front panel USB 3.0 header, and front panel HD audio jack header plugged in. The fan cables were kinda short in relation to where the pins are on the motherboard, so I may replace the fans at some point and get something with longer cables, or just splice the cables and add some length so I can clean it up more:
RAM and CPU installed (dust cover still on CPU socket while I get the radiator mounted):
Water Cooler radiator mounted and heatsink/pump assembly mounted to the SPU and Motherboard:
Video card installed:
Hard Drives installed in sleds that are attached to the back of the motherboard tray, and SATA cables connected (this is why I removed the hard drive cage):
I connected power to each item as I went along; it seemed easier to do it that way. The cabling is still a mess, but I need some different length cables, etc, and I got tired of building. I don't have any pics of it powered up, cuz I've been too busy playing games! It runs like a dream. Just need to get a better monitor instead of the crappy 60 Hz 1080p one I've got now.
Oh, and the coup de grâce.....I forgot to put the port shield on the back of the motherboard, so at some point I have to tear it all down and put it back together
*EDIT: Total cost, excluding hard drives and monitor since I already had those was around $1200.
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