White NZXT Phantom 820 build

[savage1987]

Hey guys,

This is the latest build request I've had so I'll not give too much info on budget or anything, rather just outline a basic parts list and hopefully once it all kicks off I can find myself a decent camera and give you a bit of a build log. I don't know how crazy I'll get to go on it yet but I'm looking forward to it and I know there are other people like me around here who just really enjoy seeing a system come together.

With my parts lists I always appreciate scrutiny and suggestions, as well as anything I may have missed!




Case: NZXT Phantom 820 white

CPU: 4670K

Cooler: Enermax ELC240

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H

RAM: Kingston HyperX KHX16C10B1K2/16X (2x8GB)

Graphics: Palit GTX 780 3GB

PSU: Corsair HX-750 HX-650 V2 80+ Gold

HDD1: SanDisk Extreme 240GB SSD

HDD2: Seagate Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit



Extras:

Lite-on IHES312 12X Blu-Ray drive

Wireless adapter, not sure what to use yet as all the normal ones are horrendously green and would look ridiculous in there. Open to suggestions - perhaps a USB adapter style one for neatness, although I'm not very familiar with their pros/cons.

Phobya HeGrease Extreme 3.5g





Plan is to give this as much visual impact as possible without going too crazy on costs. I'm still considering what to do in terms of cabling so again I'm open to suggestions.

CPU will be treated to a de-lid job to take best advantage of the little water loop, I'll give it a bit of an overclock and see how we go, and depending how it all looks as it goes together I may look at painting bits and pieces such as the PSU casing, perhaps the GPU shroud, etc.

A concern I have is that the case may look too .. empty.. without a full water loop, multiple GPUs etc. Hopefully I'm worried over nothing and the relatively small side window will keep any big empty gaps out of sight.


Parts list
Still have around $100 room to move within budget but I'm not sure where best to spend it just yet. Everything in there should work pretty well together.

Let me know what you think! I'm really looking forward to starting this build. It'll be the biggest I've done so far and I should get to incorporate a couple of 'firsts' (for me), which I always love.

Sam

 

[GEN3RATD]

Best case ever haha

 

[wraith]

I have the same case in Gunmetal. So much room. Love it. Why go single 240GB SSD? Go 2 120's in RAID 0 for super speed.

 

[savage1987]

I'm not convinced the real world benefits are there for doubling the risk of drive failure so I hadn't given it any thought. I might do a bit more reading and have a think about it

 

[wraith]

I'm not convinced the real world benefits are there for doubling the risk of drive failure so I hadn't given it any thought. I might do a bit more reading and have a think about it

You lose OS drive your screwed even without RAID. RAID 0 actually increases life because instead of 1 drive having to do everything the load is spread across 2. The whole doubling the risk of failure is very old school.

 

[savage1987]

Well it is and it isn't. Drives do still fail these days for any number of reasons. Chances of at least 1 of 2 drives dying is higher than the chances of a single drive dying, all else being equal.

There are also things to consider.. for example, some SSDs lose TRIM function (something I deem very important) when you RAID them, and Garbage Collection also. I can see the benefits though the more I think about it and I think certain drives are starting to support these features in RAID now. I'll have a talk with Mr SSD (Sean Webster) over on oc.n about it and see what he thinks.

 

[Pollushon]

Looks like a nice build mate. You'll enjoy it.

I have 2 Patriot Pyros in SATA 3 RAID 0, gotta say real-world the performance isn't that noticeable but the benchmarks show otherwise. Was a big winner in the HDD days given how slow platters were.

The Z87 is apparently a pretty sturdy chip, which is a big part in the decision to RAID or not to RAID, but that said, if you're a backups type of person, take regular snapshots and if your array breaks or you lose a drive it's no big deal. That's what I did even in the old school days, never had a problem I couldn't sort in 30 minutes or less.

BTW, TRIM will work fine on that mobo in RAID 0.

 

[savage1987]

Yeah I figure it'll work fine, however after spending the last ~1hr reading up on RAID and current SSDs I think it's still best to stick with the bigger drive if only for simplicity's sake. I can't find solid information anywhere that real-world benefits exist with RAID0 SSDs, except on SATA2 ports, which obviously doesn't apply here.

I certainly will enjoy the build and setup process, however the PC is not for me although it'll blow my PhenomII rig out of the water. I'm looking forward to starting it hopefully some time next week.

 

[wraith]

Ew Phenom. Up to you. I have a single 240 Sandisk Extreme and it's fine for what I do. TRIM has been functioning for a long time now in RAID.

 

[savage1987]

Phenom @ 4.06 goes alright for what it is, but we're not here to talk about mine really.

I wanted to do a full sleeving job on this build but couldn't justify it in the budget so I have settled on some pre-sleeved extensions for a few key cables instead. I'll stuff around on my own tower and see how I go with that before jumping in the deep end on somebody else's I think Save it for a build with a bigger budget (and a bigger side window!)