My first build, bought and built completely by myself at 14

[EpicEric]

I've always wanted to build a PC, and I was inspired by LTT, so I thought I'd post it here.

 

First of all, some of you may ask how I got the money for this. At the beginning of May, I started a small lawn mowing and yard work business in my municipality.

 

CPU

 i7 10700k

Cooler 

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4

Motherboard

Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC

RAM

32gb (4x8) Crucial Ballistix DDR4 3200

Storage 

WD Black SN750 1TB

Seagate Barracuda 2TB

Graphics card 

Asus Dual Evo RTX 2080 Super v2

(Edit: Currently waiting on 3080)

Case 

NZXT H510

PSU 

Corsair RM850x

Case fans

 2x Be Quiet! Pure Wings 2 140mm PWM

 

Monitor 

Asus VG248QG (165hz)

Keyboard 

Redragon K551 RGB

Mouse

 Logitech G700s

Headset

 SteelSeries Arctis 1 Wireless

Microphone

 Blue Snowball iCE

 

This was extremely fun to build. People told me that it would be frustrating and somewhat difficult, but it was very easy and definitely worth it.

[thedangerine]

Awesome build! if you are anything like me this will lead to more builds in the future and a newfound love for tech. It's always awesome to see people build their first pc and hear they had a good time

[EpicEric]

Just now, thedangerine said:

Awesome build! if you are anything like me this will lead to more builds in the future and a newfound love for tech. It's always awesome to see people build their first pc and hear they had a good time

Yes, I'll definitely build more in the future! It was an awesome experience and I'd love to do it again.

 

Thanks!

[zeros]

Welcome to the PC team with a blast!

[Pndude1000]

Nice, clean build. You have no wires sticking out but I have one question. Why did you choose a Air cooler for CPU cooling over a AIO. Im worried that your CPU thermals might be a bit to high. You could probably fit a kraken M22 on the top vent/left side vent. https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-m22 Or you could go for a bigger radiator and replace the two fans at the front of the case with one of these: "https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-x53, https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-x63, https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-z63, https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Liquid-Cooling/iCUE-RGB-PRO-XT-Coolers/p/CW-9060044-WW". I really love the cable management you have done and how there are no wires sticking out.

[Vishera]

Looks good,but your GPU is sagging and that case is a hot box (avoid NZXT,most if not all of their cases are hot boxes).

[aisle9]

Holy crap, what do they pay you kids to mow lawns these days?

 

Seriously, that is impressive, and that is a beautiful choice of components on your part. There is nothing there to nitpick. You even managed to find a solid PSU on your first try, and that's the mistake everyone makes on their first build. Congratulations, and enjoy being one of the elite few who can hit 60 FPS on GTA 4.

[EpicEric]

48 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Looks good,but your GPU is sagging and that case is a hot box (avoid NZXT,most if not all of their cases are hot boxes).

I am aware and my temps are very good. Thanks.

[EpicEric]

47 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Holy crap, what do they pay you kids to mow lawns these days?

 

Seriously, that is impressive, and that is a beautiful choice of components on your part. There is nothing there to nitpick. You even managed to find a solid PSU on your first try, and that's the mistake everyone makes on their first build. Congratulations, and enjoy being one of the elite few who can hit 60 FPS on GTA 4.

Thanks! The one thing that I get criticized for is my case choice, but I really like the look of it and my temps are very good.

[EpicEric]

1 hour ago, Pndude1000 said:

Nice, clean build. You have no wires sticking out but I have one question. Why did you choose a Air cooler for CPU cooling over a AIO. Im worried that your CPU thermals might be a bit to high. You could probably fit a kraken M22 on the top vent/left side vent. https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-m22 Or you could go for a bigger radiator and replace the two fans at the front of the case with one of these: "https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-x53, https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-x63, https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-z63, https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Liquid-Cooling/iCUE-RGB-PRO-XT-Coolers/p/CW-9060044-WW". I really love the cable management you have done and how there are no wires sticking out.

Thanks!

 

Honestly, I don't think I could have done such a great job cable managing without this case. It was great to work with and build in.

 

As for the CPU temps, they're actually really good! It idles at 30° and goes up to 84 on benchmarks, with a custom fan curve that maxes out at 65 percent. So I definitely have substantial headroom, and I'm considering setting it a little higher to push those temps below 80.

 

Also, I chose an air cooler because I didn't want to have to deal with liquids, especially on my first build. I also really like the unique look that this massive cooler has in a relatively compact case like this.

[Deuteronomy93]

6 hours ago, Pndude1000 said:

Nice, clean build. You have no wires sticking out but I have one question. Why did you choose a Air cooler for CPU cooling over a AIO. Im worried that your CPU thermals might be a bit to high. You could probably fit a kraken M22 on the top vent/left side vent. https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-m22 Or you could go for a bigger radiator and replace the two fans at the front of the case with one of these: "https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-x53, https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-x63, https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-z63, https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Liquid-Cooling/iCUE-RGB-PRO-XT-Coolers/p/CW-9060044-WW". I really love the cable management you have done and how there are no wires sticking out.

That cooler is more than enough for the CPU, good AIOs are great but definitely not a necessity in any way, I think some people get fooled into thinking that these days.

 

The reason the Hyper 212 is so good is because it cools very respectably (particularly for a single tower) for a very low cost. Bequiet aren't the penultimate aircooler company but they make very good products.

 

A dual tower cooler for a upper-mid level CPU is fine.

[Deuteronomy93]

Just an addition to this as it might help Pndude and others, specsheets are readily available online to check before you start builds, really enabling you to see what the headroom is for your build.

• 10700k
  • TDP: 125W
    • Note that this is stock and in a good environment, overclocking will change this but with 4 fans there is no issue.
  • https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/199335/intel-core-i7-10700k-processor-16m-cache-up-to-5-10-ghz.html
• Bequiet (I'm honestly not great with aircoolers these days as I haven't done it for years but I think it's a Dark Rock Pro 4?)
  • TDP: 250W
  • https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1378
  • If it isn't that cooler, I still can't imagine that it would be too different in terms of heat dissipation.

But it's the story as usual, look at your cost, look at what you want to achieve and headroom for tweaks/upgrades. The aircooler will last you a very long time as it will dissipate a lot of heat and the fans are good and reliable.

 

If in the future you wanted to upgrade, I'm sure that would work fine for most builds going forwards as we're not in the days of Bulldozer/Piledriver anymore and heat isn't as much of a factor.

[-ism]

Beautiful build! Welcome to the PCMR. It always makes me happy to see more understated builds without excessive RGB nonsense. Should treat you well and be extra silent!

[HM-2]

Really impressive first build- especially the cable management which is usually a secondary consideration for most people. Very tidy indeed!

 

As the poster above suggests, I would recommend some kind of GPU support bracket to help counteract the weight. My preference is for the type that screw into the motherboard mounting holes like this-

 

 

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian-li-gb-001-anti-sag-bracket-for-vga-cards-black-ca-77n-ll.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw1ej5BRBhEiwAfHyh1B-f4gJUtqMcsh83K9weTSgQDqoE5Cnd4POmlwXMAragt606C6lolhoCB4IQAvD_BwE