just wanted to share a recently completed build

[Coquine]

i shared this build recently with my guild and it sparked alot of conversation and a little excitement about SFF comps so i figured i would try reposting it here. im usually not a fan of SFF computers and i wouldnt personally get one, but this was fun to work on

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so i just got a plethora of old PC parts from my cousin... by old i mean 6 months old or less. apparently he wanted to replace his home brew theater PC with a apple tv :roll:. my plan is to use the parts to build a tiny gaming pc, and i just thought it would be fun to share my project

the mobo is a gigabyte h55n usb3... from what i could tell from reviews its a pretty awesome board for the size with plenty of people overclocking on it.


i also got a tiny 2.5in 500gb HDD. even tho its a laptop drive its read and write speed is on par with some 3.5in hdd's


and i got a tiny case with a powersupply

anther shot with my mid tower case for size comparison... the case is about 8.5"x8"x 11"


i think my first speed bump in this is the power supply :?. it's only rated for 300 watts and its tiny.


from the size of the case i dont think its possible to shoehorn in a standard sized power supply


anyways more updates to come after i hit some stores over the weekend to see what i can scrounge up for parts. those were the only free loots i got. i still need to figure out what to do for the ram, cpu, video card, and power supply . in the mean time i think im going to paint the case interior black since having a black interior makes the computer run 200% faster, and looks alot cooler :lol:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - a few days later

power supply problem solved for now i hope
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817256063

i also got a really nice cpu cooler from frys for cheap since it was an open box, and a quad core cpu... not what i was looking for but the price was right. ill post pics tomorrow

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - a few days after that

heres my cpu cooler BOOM a corsair h50 closed loop liquid cooler. im not a huge fan of liquid cooling but this thing is zero maintenance. i normally wouldnt consider this thing as "liquid cooling", but when the unit takes up 30% of the case's space i think just this once ill make an exception


i replaced the corsair fan with a much quieter thermaltake one with speed control


there are probably nay-sayers out there saying that this thing will never fit in the case but look here. it fits perf..... shit


okay after a little gentle coaxing i took off the 2.5 and the 3.5 inch bay. now the radiator and fan fit perfectly... please ignore the hacksaw handfile and metal shavings in the background. they are unrelated to the build. i made a little extra work for myself now since i have to mount the HDD somewhere else :? .


after a little paint


i plan on mounting another fan on the other side of the radiator in a push pull configuration since the fins are pretty dense. i figure it will give the case and radiator better flow. after i removed the front grill and air filter a fan fits perfectly into it's spot with almost no room to spare... lucky :lol:


of course i had to drill new holes to mount the second fan... but the case is so much more free flowing now


for the video card i plan on using a gtx 460 1gb because of its great performance, and the specs are right.... also because it's coming from my big computer and it gives me an excuse to upgrade :lol:. but the card itself is solid, quiet and only about a year old


it fits with about 1.5 inches to spare!


this is my plan for the case airflow through the cpu radiator. right now it seems like the best solution considering the cooler is so beefy i figure it will still keep the cpu pretty cool


the alternative looks alot worse since the radiator will be pushing hot air into the case, and choking the video card of fresh air


anyways thats it for now... i have the power supply and shiny new sticks of ram on order so i cant do much more till i get those in

- - - - - - - - - - - after i got the power supply i got excited and threw the whole thing together and posted the finished product

- - - - - - - - - - - so i accidently posted the thread before i finished copying and pasting everything else over >.<, but heres the rest of the build

my powersupply came in early. that means YAY... you guys know me im not one to brag or even really toot my own horn but... toot fucking toot :lol:



the assembly is just about done i just need an adapter for the slim optical drive to make it work, but windows is installed and it runs.

still alot of teaking, overclocking and stability testing to do... but that is for another day i just want to have my beer and enjoy :lol:

ill post more pics of the build as well. i wanted to get the finished picture out there since im pretty happy with it

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - the next day...

even though i sort of skipped to the end yesterday, here are pics of what the build looked like

i fergot to mention it earlier, but the reason why i went with a quad core i5 750 is this...

its been used and lapped for cooler temps. this voids the warranty but brings the price down quite a bit... good for me :lol:

the new beefier 450w powersupply with extra long cables :?


as i start assembling the computer and attaching the slim cd drive i start to think that the guy that invented these doesnt have any friends


because of the way the CD tray has to be mounted i have to attach it first which limits alot of the room i get to work with


its octo-puter


heres how it looks after i organized the cables and completed it... ty hardware store cable ties

the whole thing weighs about 12 pounds!

now for the sad news... the power supply is defective . what took me hours to do took less than 5 minutes to tear down :cry: . i took all the normal precautions including hooking up and powering the system before installing everything, and everything was fine. thats how i installed windows. it was only at around 280 watts when i was stress testing the video card and the cpu at the same time did the power supply start clicking. which makes me think that one of the power rails in the power supply is defective.

other than that i overclocked the cpu to a super conservative 3.4ghz (stock 2.80). just enough to take advantage of the 1600 frequency ram, and temperatures were really good even with the fans on low speed. the video card is running at 800 mhz core clock (stock 675)

but yeah big bummer about the power supply :cry:

- - - - - - - - - - - - about a week later after i got the power supply issue sorted out
its aliiiiiive bwahahaha


the next few pictures are pretty nerdy so i kept them small, click to enlarge. also if youre not a huge nerd feel free to stop reading now.

time to button it up and overclock... i kept all the voltages at stock settings so things wouldnt heat up so much


usually to test i turn the clocks up a little higher than i would have them on for use just so i know that the overclocks are stable.

time to test the ram... notice that i tested the ram at 1660 since i was testing for only an hour
passed

i ran prime 95 together with furmark to keep the cpu and video card at 100% load at the same. obviously this would never happen in normal use or even heavy gaming it would never get this hot, but its sort of an artificial worst case scenario to make sure everything is stable and properly cooled.

that picture was about 20 minutes in, i fergot to take one at 2hours at the end , but even then the cpu temps never got past 70 and the videocard spiked at 77 and hovered mostly around 75-76. all those temps were well within spec'd 80 for cpu and 90 for gpu.

while all of that was going on the powersupply had no problem providing power. it was drawing 342 watts from the wall which means it was only putting out 270-280ish watts. well within the spec'd 450watts


for a little extra insurance it turned my cpu clock down from 3.48 to 3.44ghz and the ram clocks from 1660 to 1640

i tested it last night when dal was busy and i was getting 50-90ish fps in dal depending on where i was with max settings cept for shadows being on low and anti aliasing at 2x with 1920x1080 resolution ...hurray

now i just need to christen it with a fresh HLK kill

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shortly after i built it i sold it since i didnt need a second computer... this was just a project i wanted to do on a whim with the free parts i got. it also gave me cash to upgrade my own gpu

[chaud]

Can't wait to see what kind of temperatures you get with it closed!

[Deleted]

Can't wait to see what kind of temperatures you get with it closed!

Should be pretty decent actually with the cooling he has on there.

[llDemonll]

Personally I'd have gone for a 5770. Quieter, cooler, and is more on the performance level of the rest of the system

Gj though, I like build threads like this =)

[Coquine]

Personally I'd have gone for a 5770. Quieter, cooler, and is more on the performance level of the rest of the system

Gj though, I like build threads like this =)

im sure if youre comparing reference coolers that would be the case, but im a huge fan of gigabyte's windforce coolers. theyre the quietest i have ever owned. this particular card is only audible when the fan ramps up to 70%ish, and it usually doesnt get that high unless im running a benchmark

*edit* also i used that card because i ripped it from my big computer, and it gave me an excuse to upgrade

on another note the rest of the build is in the process of being approved my a mod... i would have made one big super post, but it flubbed up and clicked the wrong button