Muphzilla

The MB, chip selection & waterblock mainly

I don't think it would sag much or at at all. It's a solid 1 1/2 inches thick and is all hard wood. However the horizontal supports I plan on installing will help prevent that. The whole desk weighs close to 275lbs. Did you check out the updated build list? I added the 2011 CPU and motherboard along with a new watercooling block. Also I added monitors. I believe they should be a good choice.

It is surprising how stable it is. I was working on the second post when you saw it. There will be horizontal supports as soon as I get them made. I actually wanted the bolts to be seen. Its was all about function and ease of portability. The desk is on the second floor of my house and when I move it will need to be taken apart to get down the stairs. The bolts are located on corners that are usually not used so there is no function taken away. I came up with a cool Idea to cover the bolts with some bullet casings cut to fit over the heads. But it also allows me to do some redrawing and expand the versatility of the desk. I can always make shelves and use the current holes to bolt on another floor support on the top side and install pipes vertically and install shelving. The possibilities are endless. If I were making the desk for a house I would live in for a long time then I would have made it with 45 degree joints where the 2 sections meet. But that was not possible at my current location. Honestly it is quite large. Its 6 foot by 8 foot

The raw butcher block came with sharp 90 degree corners. I roughly rounded them all with a air tool then hand sanded for smoothness. Where the 2 pieces of the L shape meet were kept at 90 degrees for a flat finish between desk segments. I did not try to achieve a perfect round edge. I wanted a natural "knotty" feeling on the edge. I used the worlds tiniest hammer to knock indentions into the edges (see below why). After the shaping was completed I measured ad drilled holes in all 4 corners of one desk and 3 corners of the second piece of the L shape. I didn't want to have a desk leg directly in front of me. As far as staining went, I suck at staining.... But I had a good experience with it and learned a lot. I stained them with a complete smooth finish then used a orbital sander to remove between 50-100% of the stain to give a old distressed look then reapplied stain. The stain I used was a stain & sealer combo. The indentions I placed into the wood allowed stain to collect and give a darker appearance in the indentions. This effect gave it a more natural look of knots in the wood. I still need to get some iron pipe for the horizontal supports between the T fittings. They will need to be custom cut and threaded to the correct dimensions. 98% finished product

Sorry google told me. So here is the beginning of the long journey ahead. Not only have I learned things about computer hardware that I have never learned, I also learned that I'm not a carpenter. Although I do have to say it came out good, the pictures did not. I hate cameras Beginning raw material: 2 - 6' x 24" butcher block 7 - 6" x 1" iron pipe 7 - 8" x 1" iron pipe 7 - 12" x 1" iron pipe 7 - 1" floor supports 7 - 1" pipe caps 14 - 1 x 1 x 1/2 T fittings 28 - 13mm bolts & nuts 56 - 13mm washers 1 - 1/2" x 2" x 16" wood plank 1 - 1/2" x 1 1/2" X 16" wood plank 6 - 2 1/2" wood screws 4 - 2" wood screws 3 - quarts of stain & sealer 1 - paint pan 1 - floor stain applicator 2 - foam paint brushes ? - sandpaper 1 - package of sanding drums Grand total - $825 Hours to complete - 24 I imagine I forgot something and I'm not including tool cost because that runs into the thousands

How would I go about posting pictures on here? The search only brought up stuff about cameras.

I haven't posted in here in a little bit. I have been dealing with a death in the family & the issues that come with it. I'll be posting some pics up of my progress on the desk I'm building sometime today or tomorrow.

I like your reasoning behind all of what you said. Again this is my first PC build so I am a noob but I have done a fair amount of research. So thank you for your patience in helpin me. Thanks for the heads up on the water block. I didn't see anything mentioned in the ad but I'll take another look at it. So I will take you up on your advise. I just needed to see a better argument for the additional cost. I guess in a few years a 4960x would not be a bad option. I'll make changes to more accurately portray my build plans tonight when I get home and hopefully tally up how much this is all going to cost. I still think I'm going to go with case labs as well and draw out the build a little longer to cover cost. But I plan on buying parts here soon and get some of this stuff rolling

There is very little difference between the two. I'm not overclocking just to overclock. By my research only a slight overclock will yield actual in game performance & beyond a certain point latency becomes a issue. I'm not going to reach that point. But I'm sure a 4770k will run dual monitors for light work/research and run games very well. So why would I get a 2011 when I'm not going to use it to its fullest extent? Or overclock past 4.5 at the most? I just don't see saving $30 on a GPU to spend $150 or more on a mobo with comparable features? I don't need 64g of ram... At most I would consider going 32gb which a 1150 will accompany.Edit: I don't mean for any of this to sound condensending I'm actually pretty curious to as why I would need this stuff 2-5 years down the road. Because in a couple years a newer/better things will be out and I imagine I would need a new motherboard/GPU regardless plus DD4 ram will be out by then. As it figure 1150 & 2011 will be a thing of the past by then. Please correct me if I'm off base on this

Thanks for the support. I'm also building a "custom exotic" L shaped desk for this to sit on. The top will be either butcher block or 2 solid slabs of wood. I guess that's a good advantage of living in Alaska. Lumber prices seem pretty reasonable.

The optical drive is an external one. So it will only be plugged in when it is needed. Also to reply to the rest of the comments - I have been thinking about all of this for the past few days and contemplating on what would be more "future proof" for the money. And on my quest I actually found something that is actually 99.9% future proof... I have decided to keep my original plan on CPU/Mobo combo. So I'll be going with the 4770k & ROG extreme VI. The money I would have spent on going with the 4930k I'm going to invest into the case which is future proof. I'll be going with the caselabs STH10. I just have to wait for their store to reopen before I can build & price the case I want. I really took your options into consideration and was heavily leaning towards the LGA2011 until I saw Intel is coming out with new chips with different sockets this year. The only thing is performance is not expected to be boosted by a considerable amount. So either option I went with would lead me to buying a new motherboard & GPU on the first system upgrade no matter which route I went with. So it makes more sense to spend more money on "future proof items like high end water cooling & a really nice case since those will remain constant (except the waterblocks). To me this makes the most logical sense. A 4770k will be about $300 cheaper than a 4930k with marginal to not much improvement in gaming. And since it's all about gaming & overclocking for ONLY gaming performance a 4930k would have been wasted cash for my needs. Thanks for all the replys. I appreciate y'all making me reconsider and think hard about my options. I have learned quite a bit about home PC's on my journey.

I find it hard to believe that a game would use that many cores to where they benefit from a 6 core. Also the 6 core is ivy bridge vs the 4 core haswell which is a newer architecture. I guess I'm having trouble being convinced that it would be necessary. I'm not trying to flame you because I'm new to this. Do you have any references or specifics/data to back this up? Maybe I'm missing something.

I could do that but I'm already custom making the desk I'm putting the PC on & I'm not a sheet metal worker. I deal with the avionics & environmental portion. So the fire control radar, radios, data links, flight controls, forced air cooling, liquid cooling etc... But that is a idea I'll keep in mind for the future. I have moved to the QA portion of the flight line & my boss is a sheet metal guy. Maybe I can convince him to help me put something together. I'm actually pretty stoked about the water cooling. I think it will look pretty sweet

I need to figure out how to multi quote. My work pc can't process simple math let alone post a reply... But I don't think a 4930k would benefit gaming very much. I actually considered a 4960X but the price was too high for very little gain. It's not about the money spent. It's just based on gaming/basic performance alone. I wouldn't be using a 6 core to its max potential. But then again I could be wrong... I had no clue what a sandy bridge or ivy bridge was just 3 weeks ago or what GPU stood for. But my technological experience in other fields have helped in my research. Let me know if I'm way off base with my thinking.

The monitor/tv debate is a good one. I'm considering other options. When I was preplanning this build I considered a 540air but it would be too small for the amount of cooling. I'm looking at 3 radiators, 2 reservoirs & possibly a dual pump of a single type or compound pump set up with a small reservoir supplying a small pump which in turn supply's a large reservoir which would supply the main pump for the entire system. One pump would probably be perfectly fine. I'm just thinking of safety and reduced stress on the cooling system. Especially with all the restrictions in the system. I'll be looking at a dual loop in the future when I watercool the RAM & Mobo on a separate loop from the GPU & CPU. I'm looking to overkill the cooling system so I have no limitations on that side & could potentially add more components into the system when 2, 3 or 4 way SLI is necessary. As of right now it seems a single 780TI would be better since some games do not support SLI or crossfire.