The Monolith

[pdawg]

Been waiting since the start of the summer to build this, and finally got off work and was back home long enough to start!

 

Pics: 

 

 

Parts:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Motherboard: MSI Z97M Gaming Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (Purchased For $154.99) 

Memory: Kingston Fury Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (Purchased For $84.29) 

Storage: Intel 730 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (Purchased For $50.00) 

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card  (Purchased For $299.24) 

Case: BitFenix Phenom M Midnight Black MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $99.99) 

Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $99.99) 

Wireless Network Adapter: Intel 7260HMWDTX1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter  (Purchased For $54.99) 

Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF120 Quiet Edition 39.9 CFM 120mm  Fan  (Purchased For $20.22) 

Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF120 Quiet Edition (2-Pack) 39.9 CFM 120mm  Fans  (Purchased For $24.99) 

Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF140 Quiet Edition 67.8 CFM 140mm  Fan  (Purchased For $20.99) 

Other: 120mm Dust Filter (Purchased For $9.99)

Other: Exhaust Fan Splitter (Purchased For $3.99)

Total: $923.67

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-19 01:42 EDT-0400

 

Purpose:

 

Mainly FPS gaming, though I play a bit of everything. Also, this will mainly be a PC for work since I am going into my Sophomore year of college. Sublime, IntelliJ, and maybe some virtualization for other OS versions, though I also partitioned the 1TB for a 100gb Ubuntu install. 

 

Rationale:

 

CPU: I got the 4770k for my birthday in May. I know, just before the Haswell refresh, but this chip is still a beast!

 

Mobo: The mobo came with really nice audio built in, tons of USB ports on the back, and other features that added to the value. I only got Z97 because it was the same price as the equivalent MSI mobo in Z87, though I may plan on upgrading my CPU if Broadwell brings a really nice upgrade. All depends on price.

 

RAM: Reliable, nice aesthetics, and not the most expensive. 

 

SSD: Also got this for my birthday, so can't complain. Didn't get a choice of size, though I have a 180gb in my school laptop and it is great. The 240gb is great for fitting all OS files, personal files, and one or two games.

 

HDD: Got it on sale for $50. Not really much to say about this, mainly storage for games though.

 

GPU: Also got this on sale. I know the Radeon cards are getting more popular, but the drivers for Linux are great for Nvidia cards and I got this on a bit of a sale, so I couldn't complain. Also, the overclock/cooler really make this card amazing. I have set the fans at 100% for fun, and they sound like a jet taking off. Usually it is silent though.

 

Case: I have to travel quite a bit because I go to college on the East coast, live on the West coast during summer/winter, and work during the summers wherever my job takes me. I wanted something clean, portable, and pretty. Also, I really don't use DVD drives, and it just ruins the front aesthetics in my opinion.

 

PSU: Didn't want to skimp on a power supply. The graphics card only really needs 500 watts, though 650 watts means I won't need to upgrade it anytime soon. Fanless mode is great also because my computer is usually just for work, only occasionally using games.

 

WiFi: Only adapter that came with WiFi and Bluetooth in one. I use Bluetooth speakers at school, so this was a must. Also, since I will sometimes be in houses without ethernet during summers, I wanted to be able to still connect.

 

Fans: Case came with 2 fans, though it is small and not the best with airflow. Because of this, I opted for using nicer, and quieter fans, to keep everything cool. While I could go with a nice CPU cooler instead of the stock one, I decided against it because of my idle temps and no need to overclock (yet).

 

Other: Needed the dust filter because the bottom fan was for air intake, along with the two top ones which already have a built in dust filter. The splitter is connected to the top fans just because the mobo only has 4 fan headers.

 

Temps (Celsius):

 

Idle CPU: 35

Load CPU: 78

Idle GPU: 28

Load GPU: 80

 

Tell me if you have any thoughts/opinions on this build. Also, not to sure about the name yet, though I am a big fan of Clarke. Also, I was amazed the first time I pressed the power button and everything worked without a hitch. First time building, 10/10 would build again!

[pdawg]

nice, fyi use the forums use bbcode

 Thanks, fixing

[pdawg]

Are you taking air in from the top and exhausting it at the front?

 

Kind of. The top is both intake, and the bottom 120mm is also intake. Then the 140mm in the side is exhaust. The front has the PSU, which intakes from the front grille and exhausts out the bottom.

[raultherabbit]

I dig it!  

[rodion.zissou]

I like the build man, I want to do something very similar for a living room box. Great name too, although a bit misleading - I was expecting a full tower  I reeeally like that case though.