Valentine's Day Build ft. My Girlfriend

[paulsterio]

Hey Everyone, 

 

Valentine's day is coming up and what better way to spend it 

than to build a new gaming rig with my girlfriend!

 

Hopefully she'll be able to get all the latest games running 

at high settings at 1080p. I'm just really looking forward to 

playing some multi-player Battlefield 4 going and hopefully 

some other games as well. Anyway, let's get started with the 

specs:

 

- Intel Core i5 3570 (non-K)

- ASUS P8P67 PRO

- ASUS GTX660 DirectCu II

- Corsair TX650

- Noctua NH-U12S

- Sandisk Extreme 120GB SSD

- Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM

- 8GB DDR3 Patriot Signature RAM

- Replacing stock fans with BitFenix Spectre Blue LED

- NZXT Phantom 410 - Black

 

Not a totally unbalanced system overall, but a few odd choices 

in there. I actually got the 3570 for free a little while ago, 

but never got round to using it, so it went in. The P8P67 PRO 

was my old Sandy Bridge motherboard, but with a BIOS update, 

it supports Ivy Bridge just fine. 

 

The GTX660 is my old graphics card and it still pretty much 

runs everything smoothly enough and I'm actually still quite 

happy with it. Everything else is just whatever I could find, 

afford and fit. The Noctua NH-U12S is quiet and solid, picked 

out a decent, cheap 120GB SSD and 1TB HDD. 

 

We're going with a blue theme, so we are replacing all the 

stock fans with blue LED fans. The Patriot Signature RAM 

also fits very well in with the colour scheme. All of this 

will be built in the NZXT Phantom 410 Black to match my own 

build which I completed about a month ago. 

 

Anyway, without further ado, here are some of the components 

which are already here. 

 

Glimpse of the parts!

 

 

This is the P8P67 Pro motherboard from ASUS featuring the 

Core i5 3570 (non-K) from Intel, it works out fine because

Ivy Bridge is still a beast architecture, we'll probably 

get a small overclock out of this chip, just running it at 

turbo 24/7 and getting some BClk OC going. 

 

 

Again, the Core i5 3570 from Intel. Funnily enough, I had

a 3570K in my last build, but I eventually sold that off

just to end up with a 3570 which I got for free off a friend

Regretted not holding onto the 3570K and selling the 3570

instead. 

 

 

It's made in Costa Rica, which is where most of the Ivy 

Bridge parts seem to be made. My 3930K is made in Malaysia, 

so obviously a different plant. 

 

 

Shot of the motherboard, with the blue accenting. I honestly 

think that around this era, when Sandy Bridge came in, 

motherboards started to look nice. X58 was a bit of a hit 

and miss, some looked nice, some looked terrible, but the 

transition definitely started there. LGA775 boards all 

looked terrible to me, but back then, I never noticed it, 

interesting what a bit of hindsight can do. 

 

 

I wonder what this is!

 

 

It's a GTX660 with ASUS' DirectCu II cooler. It's a very

powerful card, not a beast, but still can run all the latest

games at high or even ultra settings. I simply upgraded

because I wanted a new graphics card for the sake of it

but at least this is going to a good home. 

 

 

Storage, just a standard Seagate 1TB 7200RPM drive combined

with a 120GB Sandisk SSD for the boot drive. Really, all

SSDs perform the same, so we just went with whatever we

could put our hands on. 

 

 

That's the RAM I was talking about. It's such a nice, strong

blue, not like the pastel blue that the Corsair Vengeance

tends to have. It's a striking metallic blue, we really like

it. Again, RAM is RAM, it's not complicated, you can't 

really go wrong with anything. This was affordable, looked

nice, so in it went. 

 

 

Our workspace!

 

 

Anyway, this is where it'll be going when done, on the 

right hand side, for the time being anyway. 

 

 

So that's my build right there on the right! Should do 

a little preview of my setup too. Got two LG 27" monitors.

Ducky Zero Cherry MX Blue, Audio Technica ATH-M50s,

some other random stuff. 

 

 

And there is my build. Waiting on the R9 290X 

waterblock which is coming in tomorrow! I've

cut the tubing in advance for that, so hopefully it'll

just drop right in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, that's all for today guys. We'll be building 

tomorrow, so pics should be up tomorrow night

or maybe the next day. Stay tuned!

 

I know it's not the best build or the most pretty 

or expensive, but it's a little different, don't 

think I've seen a Valentine's day build before, so

it's something I wanted to share.

 

PS. @alpenwasser, I love the way you format your posts, 

so I've gotten into this linebreaks thing too Hope

it makes things easier to read.

[Jvagle875]

Can I be your girlfriend?

[SAV1OUR]

awesome gift but that pump/res whatever it is (not that knowledgeable with custom loops) is leaning seems a bit sketch   

[paulsterio]

awesome gift but that pump/res whatever it is (not that knowledgeable with custom loops) is leaning seems a bit sketch   

 

Broken mounting bracket, awaiting a new one

[Phage]

lol this is actually amazing.great build an a great way to spend valentine ;p

to:paulsterio

from:phage

[Guest GRRigger]

gamersvalentines gift hahah awsum

[alpenwasser]

The P8P67 PRO was my old Sandy Bridge motherboard, but with a

BIOS update, it supports Ivy Bridge just fine.

Ha, I have the same M/B! And yeah, Ivy bridge is still pretty

rockin' (well, Sandy Bridge and the hexcore LGA1366 too IMHO ).

 

Shot of the motherboard, with the blue accenting. I honestly 

think that around this era, when Sandy Bridge came in, 

motherboards started to look nice. X58 was a bit of a hit 

and miss, some looked nice, some looked terrible, but the 

transition definitely started there. LGA775 boards all 

looked terrible to me, but back then, I never noticed it, 

interesting what a bit of hindsight can do.

I noticed that too when I searched around on eBay for old MB's

a few months back. The early X58 boards look terrible IMHO, but

some of the later ones are pretty nice methinks.

 

PS. @alpenwasser, I love the way you format your posts, 

so I've gotten into this linebreaks thing too Hope

it makes things easier to read.

Hehe, awesome!

[Liam-McShane]

The crooked chipset heatsink is driving me crazy. Other than that, nice stuff. Will you be my valentine next year?  :wub:

[ForsakenLive]

If I shave my legs, will you get me a PC?

[paulsterio]

Ha, I have the same M/B! And yeah, Ivy bridge is still pretty

rockin' (well, Sandy Bridge and the hexcore LGA1366 too IMHO ).

 

I noticed that too when I searched around on eBay for old MB's

a few months back. The early X58 boards look terrible IMHO, but

some of the later ones are pretty nice methinks.

 

Hehe, awesome!

 

Yeah, I actually got the ASUS P8P67 PRO for super cheap

when they were bringing in the Z68 boards, but I actually 

really like the P67 boards, sure, they lack a couple of features

present on the Z68 ones, but apart from that they are great. 

 

Yeah, later X58 boards are quite nice, but anything before 

X58 is pretty terrible, like there seemed to be no focus on

colours, especially all that terrible blue PCBs. 

 

 

The crooked chipset heatsink is driving me crazy. Other than that, nice stuff. Will you be my valentine next year?  :wub:

 

Where abouts is the crooked heatsink?

 

Anyway, the PC's been built. 

 

Here's a little teaser. 

 

 

Pics will be coming soon (the in progress ones!)

[itslegendddd]

Ya Phantom 410 build!

[Analog]

Nice build! Did your gf like the computer?

[paulsterio]

Nice build! Did your gf like the computer?

She sure did, she actually built most of it herself, with me giving random commentary

[alpenwasser]

Yeah, later X58 boards are quite nice, but anything before 

X58 is pretty terrible, like there seemed to be no focus on

colours, especially all that terrible blue PCBs.

Not to mention the horrifying rainbox of colours they often used for the RAM

and PCI(-E) slots... 

 

Where abouts is the crooked heatsink?

I think he means the chipset heatsink, in one of the pics it looks like it's

slightly crooked (look at edge of the chipset heatsink and compare it to the

alignment of the SATA connectors). Might just be an illusion on the pic though.