[Build Log][Update 2: performance] ~ Project Patchwork ~

[KamiKatze]

Introduction

 

Hello fellow techies, i present to you my very first full build log! This is actually by far not my first PC that i built and it is not my primary PC either, but this will be my secondary PC that will sit at my parents house, so i don't have to carry my PC around whenver i come home.

 

As the title might suggest, this is a complete patchwork PC that is thrown together by parts that i had lying around or that were gifted to me just for the sake of building such a ludicrous machine. I will go over each part and tell a bit where it's coming from in the further log.

 

 

 

Special Thanks

 

I want to take a moment and thank certain people who helped me enable this PC in the first place. 

 

Firstly, i want to thank my girlfriend, who found an advertise for some old free motherboards that somebody on Facebook was giving away, one of which is of course going into this build. My gf also gave me her Win 7 key that our university provides to every student (mine is already in my main PC).

 

I want to thank our community member @xTrekStorex for opening the "German Talk" thread in our forum. Without this, i would not have met so many cool fellow german techies, who all contributed to this build! He also helped me with CPU selection and learning more about my motherboard.

 

Furthermore i want to thank our german community member @MoDtEc for selling me his 120 GB EVO SSD for almost FREE! This will do niceley in my PC!

 

Big thanks also go to our german community member @virtualTune for donating 2x500 GB Western Digital Black drives to me for FREE! Yes FREE! Huge thanks to you!

 

I feel obliged to the entire "German Talk" crew for supporting me in the planing part of this build, thanks guys!

 

Lastly, i want to thank my brother, who gave me his Power Supply, that he had lying around!

 

 

 

Parts and Thoughts

 

Now to the actual build. These are the parts that go into the build:

 

 

Main Parts

 

CPU:                 Athlon 64 X2 3000 to be replaced by Phenom II X4 965 BE     (50€) Owned

CPU cooler:      Thermaltake Contac 39                                                             (25€) Ordered

Motherboard:   Asus M3N78-VM                                                                        (FREE) Owned

RAM:                4x1 GB 800 MHz Aeneon RAM                                                  (FREE) Owned

SSD:                Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB                                                        (20€) Owned

HDD:                2x500 GB Western Digital Black                                                 (FREE) Pending

GPU:                Point of View GTX 580                                                               (FREE) Owned

PSU:                 bequiet! Straight Power E7 450W                                              (FREE) Owned

Case:                Cooler Master N200 window                                                     (36€) Ordered

OS:                  Windows 7 64 Bit                                                                        (FREE) Owned

 

 

Other

 

Fans:                SilenX Effizio Quiet LED blue                                                     (11€) Ordered

Controllers:       Scythe Kaze Q                                                                           (12€) Ordered

MOSFET:         10 VRAM heatsinks from Alphacool                                           (8€) Owned

Thermal Pads:  Akasa sticky thermal pads 8x8 cm                                             (7€) Owned

Adapters:         1xMolex to Sata; 2xMolex to 6 pin PCIe                                     (8€) Owned

Cables:             3x Sata 30 cm                                                                            (4€) Owned

LED Strips:       ~1.3 m of white LED strip clippings; needs soldering                 (FREE) Owned

 

 

A total of 181€, which is pretty good for such a spec-ed PC, that is (hopefully) not just powerfull enough for Tripple A titles but also half way silent and flashy! Yes this is a bit of a flashy one, since i went the more silent route with my primary PC already.

 

As is said, i will go over the origins of each part in the Log, if there's something interesting to tell.

 

Without further ado, here's the process:

 

 

 

The Build

 

I will try to do this chronologically but since i didn't have time to start this build log the last couple of weeks, and since i already did a lot with this build, there might be some mix ups in the pictures.

 

 

These are the free motherboards that my gf found on facebook. The one in the middle is the Asus M3N78-VM That goes into this build. The top one is some AsRock board with an Athlon 64 non-X2 inside, good ol' AM2 stuff. The bottom one is ancient! Some Asus whatever board. I like it a lot, it reminds me of my childhood.  :wub:

Nevertheless, the main player here, the Asus M3N78-VM is a real powerboard as @xTrekStorex told me. In spite of being a AM2+ board, it is abled to support some AM3 CPUs, which will come in handy further down the road.

 

 

 

Here is some RAM in it's green glory! It is from my old PC that i had from 2006-2010-ish. It served me well. It would actually be a good competitor to this PC, but i sold it. So what left are those 4 magnificent sticks of 800 MHz DDR2 RAM.

 

 

 

Here's the board on my professional test bench. - yes the motherboard is raised by pencils to allow more airflow underneath. The cooler was actually also in that motherboard giveaway pack.

 

 

 

 

I have a personal gripe with uncooled MOSFETs and i was thinking of getting some heatsinks for it.

 

 

 

As i mentioned before, the AM2+ socket on this motherboard is capable of handling AM3 CPUs after a BIOS update. So i performed the update, which was really easy thanks to Asus' EZ-flash utility. I don't know why people are so scared about flashing motherboard BIOSes lol! 

So in all it's glory i present a AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, bought for 50€ on eBay, which replaces the old Athlon 64 X2 3000. 90 nm dual core out, 45 nm quad core in, you would never know the difference from looking at it, awesome!

 

 

 

 

"Hey, whatcha doing there?" - "err, nothing special, just shorting out the power button pins with my old CPU" -> MORE SWEG!  B)

 

 

 

 

Here's a shot of the retro old BIOS. Latest BIOS 1801 confirmed! Phenom CPU confirmed! 4 GB RAM confirmed! HL3 confirmed!

 

 

 

 

Some time has passed and look what arrived! @MoDtEc  SSD that he sold to me for 20€ including shipping. I formated it while i was waiting for some adapters.

 

 

 

 

Before we go on i have to introduce the big boy that swings the pixels! My good old Point Of View GTX 580!! I aquired it in March 2014, after i sold my R9 280X. I sold it because at the time i wasn't playing games and i was focusing on university. So after this, that GTX 580 fed me through summer until the 900 series arrived. After being replaced by my 970 Strix, the 580 was sitting on a shelf doing nothing.

I have modified it a little bit. I removed the ridiculous stickers and used the rough side of a sponge to turn the glossy plastic into a slight brushed look. The backplate is form coldzero.eu and cost me 30€ inclduing shipping. The top side of the PCB was colored with black sharpie to stealthen it even more   I really like this card a lot, Fermi master race! Had to use molex to PCIe adapter because the PSU had only 1x8pin PCIe connector.

 

 

 

 

When my molex to PCIe adapter arrived i immediatley started testing the full system and installing windows on the SSD. I had to use my main PCs DVD drive to install windows off a DVD because i didn't have a Windows 7 USB stick around and i forgot to rip a DVD drive out of an old PC in my dad's office. The OS is Windows 7 64 Bit, provided for free by my university! Oh yeah.... thanks university....

Getting slightly messy on my desk. 

 

 

 

 

The OS is installed and i am running a full PC off a pile of ghetto hardware. Just taking a break while the windows updates are installing.

 

 

 

 

The MOSFETs got too hot for my taste during the installation process (touched them) so i decided to put on some head sinks from alphacool via some thermal pads. This can only be done once i know how much space my Thermaltake Contac 39 CPU cooler needs, so until then, they will stay uninstalled.

 

 

 

 

 

That's it for now!

 

The PC is running! - soft of. I haven't done any stress tests yet. This will be done, once the case and cooling accessories arrive. The two HDDs from @virtualTune are also still pending. The next update will feature the rest of the build process and maybe already some performance numbers!

 

Thanks for reading till now, stay tuned! 

[KamiKatze]

Update 1

 

Update! Finally! I got the parts after all and set to work immediatley.

It is time to find the correct hammer and then queue the music!

 

 

First, here are again the two WD Black HDDs from @virtualTune.

 

 

 

 

Here is in fact the complete part setup, let's go!

 

 

 

 

I allways like to start off with the CPU cooler. The thermaltake Contac 39 is a nice cooler for the price. It has the necessary sweg!

 

 

 

 

Before i mount it though, i was jsut making sure how i want to mount the little alphacool VRM heatsinks. Looks great, they should fit without any interference.

 

 

 

 

Glam shot of some Arctic MX-4 that i use onb all of my CPUs/GPUs!

 

 

 

Before i present the complete package, i want to say that the Contac 39 is a bitch to mount. It required an awful lot of force. I mounted it 3 times in total until i was sure that it's not me. Here's the terrible motherboard bend that it causes. (I already improved it a lot on the pic).

 

 

 

 

The fan mounts are also ridiculous. They are held by some rubber pins. The vibrations are not so bad as it will turn out, but rather the noise of the fans themselfs. Anyways, i ripped one off.

 

 

 

 

Before the mobo goes in, we still need to put on the VRM sinks. I just drew some rudimentary cut outs on the Akasa foil.

 

 

 

 

Fiddeling them on there was a pain in the arse!

 

 

 

 

This is how i placed them. These were at least the hottest parts when i touched them during a small burn test.

 

 

 

 

Now the motherboard is ready for take off! Looks goregeous to me!  :wub:

 

 

 

 

Time to finally put everything in. The N200 was smaller than i expected...

 

 

 

 

First is the SilenX Effizio fan. The stock one from the back goes to it's twin in the front. This is actually a really nice fan. It has a good performance ~1400 rpm and is not too loud. Almost no vibrations. It's not bequiet/noctua stuff but still pretty nice!

 

 

 

 

While stripping down the N200 i saw that the plastic front bracket was glossy, EW!

 

 

 

 

I took the rough side of a sponge and applied some linear strokes. Much better!

 

 

 

 

There was even one of these guys in the case acessories. haven't seen one in quite a while. This will definiteley go into the build!

 

 

 

 

Here's a look at the empty chassis. Really not that much space in there. But i have worked in smaller cases before...

 

 

 

 

The mothership has landed! Took me a while to find the right screws, there were different kinds of standoffs with different screws. 

 

 

 

 

The heatsink fits exactly into the side panel's buldge, just as I've planed.

 

 

 

 

Next up: storage! The CM N200 actually requires you to screw out the HDD cage in order to put all the drives in.

 

 

 

 

Yummy, storage sandwich!  :lol:

 

 

 

 

This is one of my favourite parts in this build. Cheap-o Scythe Kaze Q. A simple but effective 4 channel fan controller. This thing is damn necessary it it will turn out later.

 

 

 

 

 

Ssshhhh!!! The bequiet 450W PSU looks schmexy. 450W i a little low for this build, but more on that later.

 

 

 

 

 

Btw. guys, i didn't have an I/O shield. Could've bought one but... eh...

 

 

 

 

Getting really crowded in here...

 

 

 

 

Added even more cables (SATA etc.) and tried to do my best at cable management. I know it looks really bad but that's just the angle. The airflow is actually great and i bundled most of the cables and tied them down. There was just no place behind the motherboard tray and most of the PSU conenctors were just unused. Had to use an entire molex harness to give power to my GPU for example.

 

 

 

 

The back looks better but only because there is really not space between the motherboard tray and the back side panel. Also notice the USB 3.0 cable. There is no USb 3.0 on this motherboard and another adapter would just clutter the front even more so i left it unplugged

 

 

 

 

 

Closed it up, actually looks pretty tidy. The N200 sadly didn't have a cut out for the CPU power connector so i had to lay it over the mobo.

 

 

 

 

 

Here you can see what i meant by small. It's standing in the footprint of my Define R4. Actually really impressive that everything fit in. btw look at that schmexy GPU backplate. One of the reasons why i wanted a windowed case.

 

 

 

 

Turn  it on and.... uuuuaaaaah dat lenseflare!!! Magnificent!!!

 

 

 

 

 

I had some asia noodles with lots of glutamate while i waited for the downlaods and formating to happen.  :rolleyes:

 

 

 

 

I almost forgot the white LED strip that i wanted to solder. So i whiped out my iron if you know what i mean.

It is sadly a warm white, because it was initially in my red/black primary PC. The blue-ish white would've fit better but.. oh well...

I used plasti dip for isolating.

 

 

 

 

I decided to put the CPU fans and the LED strip onto the Kaze Q aswell which required me to use some of the oncluded extensions and a y splitter for the front fans, in order to clear up another connector. I stuffed everything into the 3.5" bay.

It didn't work out as well as i had planned however and i ended up with the LEDs plugged to the motherboard and the CPU cooler to the Kaze Q. Now everytime the PC boots up it is complaining that there's not CPU cooler installed, lol. More on that later.

 

 

 

 

 

That's it!!! The build is done for now, glam shots incoming:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The actual build with all its complications took me an entire day and was a lot of fun!

 

My next update will include all the performance testing: Benchmarks, Gaming peformance, heat output, power consumption, noise etc. So stay tuned for that! Thanks for reading so far.

[KamiKatze]

Update 2: Performance

 

 

Whats up guys, today will be the second and final update for this build log: Performance.

 

Gaming

 

I ran some quick gaming tests where i used the graphics settings that GeForce experience has suggested, regardless if it ran like shit or not. I used FRAPS to record the FPS and did the excel magic to present you my graphs.

 

 

 

Can it run Crysis? Yes it can! Crysis 2 was set to max with 4xAA by GeForce experience and ran okay. Gameplay was fun and it didn't have any hicups, i would however tune it down a bit to improve the framerate.

Crysis 3 on the other hand was a mix of High-Ultra with 1xAA and ran really well! There weren't that many sliders that weren't set to Ultra, except for shadows (Medium) and AA (1x). In fact it ran so well that i set the AA to 2x and the shadows to High for the benchmark. Still surprised ho often it hit the magic 60 FPS mark.

 

 

 

 

 

Next up we have Battlefield 3&4. Battlefield 3 ran well. It felt a lot better than it looks like on the graph. Settings were completeley maxed.

Battlefield 4 ran like shit, as it allways does, except you have a NASA PC. Settings were a mix between medium and high, but even setting everything to low didn't help. That game is just rekt, playing it is not fun on the Patchwork PC.

 

 

 

 

Bioshock Infinite ran at maximum settings and butter smooth. This game looks great but is also  easy to run as you can see. Might replay it over christmas on the Patchwork.

 

 

 

 

Far Cry 3 is another demanding title that i wanted to include. I sadly don't have FC4 yet (or any other new-ish game for that matter) but i wouldn't play them on the patchwork either. Anyways... settings were a mix of High  and Ultra With 2xAA. FPS lie in the 50-60 range which is nice since that's exactly what i got when the GTX 580 was still in my primary PC. The down at the beginning is when the map was still loading.

 

 

 

 

Titanfall might look like a lot of fun on the Patchwork but it isn't! Not at all. Settings were Medium-High, no AA. But the laggy servers draged this down so much that you missed headshots with your rifle and punches with your Titan. Not fun, still god MVP in that round, after not playing for 2 months though.

 

 

 

 

 

Noise, Power Consumption and Temperatures

 

The Patchwork is a real budget PC so i had to take off marks somewhere. Let's go from best to worst.

 

The temperatures are really good! The Contac 39 can cool the CPU to below 50 °C in every scenario. It idles around 37 °C and in games it reaches around 45-47 °C. Temepratures were collected via Coretemp, i hope the reported temps were correct. The Thermaltake Contac 39 was dialed to ~70% thrust with the Scythe Kaze Q. So were all the case fans, more on that later, in the nosie discussion.

The GTX 580 ran like a charm. I gave it my 7.5% overclock that i had determined in my primary PC already. I applied a fan curve in MSI AB that was falt until 60 °C and then stalls until 80 °C. In games aswell as stress tests it reached around 77 °C which is aproximateley 7 °C cooler than in my Define R4 with the same fan settings. Reason for that might be the restricted air flow of the R4 and the fact that i typically dial my Silent Wings down a lot.

 

Power consumption is really bad! The system draws around 440W under synthetic loads (Prime95 + Furmark) and 400W in demanding games. The fact that the PSU is just 450W doesn't make this better. I'd say it's very close to bottlenecking/ overwhelming the PSU. I honsetly have no idea where the power goes when i look at the temperatures though. Idle power draw is 200W, not so good either. :-/

 

Now to the worst part: Noise. At idle/web browsing i usually have the knobs on the Scythe Kaze Q all the way down (5V). The fans are pretty silent at that voltage. The two WD black HDDs blow my head off however! Thanks @virtualTune

No i really like the HDDs but they have really annoying and strong vibrations that transfer perfectly to my desk.

When we look at load scenarios things get worse. At the beginning i jsut wouldn't care and turn the fans all the way up to 12V. The stock Cooelr master fans are no loud but move good air! The SilenX fan that i bought for the rear exhaust is awesome! It's a quality fan with minimal airflow noise and adequate motor noise, even at 12V. The Thermaltake Contac 39 is the worst of them all, it has a very high pitched hissing noise to it. It sounds like a jet engine and that's cool for the first 30 seconds. Then i decided to dial everything down to an adequate level (~9V or 70% of the knob).

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Building this kind of a PC was really fun! I enjoyed gathering all the components over time and am really thankful for all the contributs that were made by various people, thank you! I Really liked building it since it has been something different. The PCs that i have build so far were ATX and/or expensive. I have swapped non modular PSUs before but planning and building and entire PC on  a budget in a small form factor has brought me back to the roots.

I am impressed by how powerfull the PC is despite the old hardware. The SSD definiteley takes it to a whole new level.

 

Things i don't like are the noise and the fact that it is very un-upgradeable. I also don't like the sound quality of the RealTek chip. It sounds really bad, but then again it's 9 years old. So i will probably put in a Asus Xonar DGX at some point. This won't be part of the build log anymore.

 

I will use this PC as a secondary PC at my parents house. However I don't think that's gonna be it. I don't want it to stand at my parents house for 90% of the year. Maybe I'll give it to a friend of mine who i know since i was born.

 

Lastly i want to thank you for reading and following my little log!

 

 

 

-KamiKatze

[flibberdipper]

I LOVE RETRO BUILDS, AND NOW I LOVE YOU!!!

[ALXAndy]

Point of view are nice guys to be honest. I used to have a POV GTX 470 and not only did they say it was cool (pardon the pun) to fit a Zalman V3000F to it they also sent me some graphics for my 295.

 

They're dutch IIRC and you get the mom and pop store sort of support which I really like.

 

580 is still a beast of a card so long as you stick to 1080p. It's only the silly vaginal games like Crysis 3 and so on that will make it sweat but they're all crap games any way.

 

Love the T-Bird vintage porn there, btw.

[KamiKatze]

I LOVE RETRO BUILDS, AND NOW I LOVE YOU!!!

 

Thanks. I knew you would like it.

 

Point of view are nice guys to be honest. I used to have a POV GTX 470 and not only did they say it was cool (pardon the pun) to fit a Zalman V3000F to it they also sent me some graphics for my 295.

 

They're dutch IIRC and you get the mom and pop store sort of support which I really like.

 

580 is still a beast of a card so long as you stick to 1080p. It's only the silly vaginal games like Crysis 3 and so on that will make it sweat but they're all crap games any way.

 

Love the T-Bird vintage porn there, btw.

 

I will stick to 1900x1200. The card ran really well in my main PC, i hope the Phenom will be a good match.

 

I hope the LED fans will keep the old school porn up.

[flibberdipper]

Thanks. I knew you would like it.

 

 

I will stick to 1900x1200. The card ran really well in my main PC, i hope the Phenom will be a good match.

 

I hope the LED fans will keep the old school porn up.

I feel like half of the reason this build is a thing is because of me.

[LarsReviews]

German Talk = Awesome  :lol:

[chilicheeseburger]

Awesome Build log Always nice if older parts are put to a good use.

Topic followed

[KamiKatze]

German Talk = Awesome  :lol:

 

Awesome Build log Always nice if older parts are put to a good use.

Topic followed

 

Thanks guys, i am looking forward to finishing this build

[flibberdipper]

Thanks guys, i am looking forward to finishing this build

I'm looking forward to it as well.

 

Which reminds me, I should make my dad take me to IKEA very soon so I can get the parts for a desk. I'm not going to take pics of my rig until I have a desk, so my minions might start to get pissed and riot.

[Smooth Bunz]

Can't wait till we see it finished

[KamiKatze]

Build will be delayed a little bit due to complications with the order.

[flibberdipper]

Build will be delayed a little bit due to complications with the order.

Nooooooooooo.

[KamiKatze]

The Parts were shipped!!!!!

To the wrong adress.... Motherfucking warehouse sent it to my parents house! My parents are on vacation however. Worst of luck and my neighbours will take the delivery and my stuff will sit at home until i get there around christmas.....

[flibberdipper]

The Parts were shipped!!!!!

To the wrong adress.... Motherfucking warehouse sent it to my parents house! My parents are on vacation however. Worst of luck and my neighbours will take the delivery and my stuff will sit at home until i get there around christmas.....

Oh damn it. Can I kill the damned warehouse???

[KamiKatze]

Oh damn it. Can I kill the damned warehouse???

 

Please do so. Mindfactory AG in germany. *launches missle* Will never ever order from them again. Get my order wrong and then adds an unfriendly customer support.

 

Will keep you guys updated on when you can estimate the next real update.

[MoDtEc]

I love those Frankenstein-builds because of awesomeness

 

German Talk FTW! 

[KamiKatze]

GOOD NEWS!!!

 

@virtualTune 's 2x500GB WD Black HDDs arrived! I'll fetch the rest of the parts from the wrong adress tomorrow. Showcase of the remaining hardware will follow, I'll just leave this here as a teaser:

[virtualTune]

GOOD NEWS!!!

 

@virtualTune 's 2x500GB WD Black HDDs arrived!

yay  

[KamiKatze]

MASSIVE UPDATE

 

Look at the 2nd post, enjoy!!

[virtualTune]

"So i whiped out my iron if you know what i mean."

@LinusTech would be so proud

[chilicheeseburger]

Awesome.

You could get a cheap USB 3.0 pci card to plug in the case usb3.0 cable. But it would look weird thru the side panel window.

[KamiKatze]

"So i whiped out my iron if you know what i mean."

@LinusTech would be so proud

 

He really rubs off on me. xDDDDD (auf mich abfärben)

 

Awesome.

You could get a cheap USB 3.0 pci card to plug in the case usb3.0 cable. But it would look weird thru the side panel window.

 

A friend oof mine actually has a USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 adapter that he doesn't need. But the time it takes to motivate him to not forget to bring it to me in university is not worth it, not to mention the extra cableing. I also have 2 USB ports on my keyboard, so i will most likeley never user them anyways.

[MoDtEc]

Its very bling so far......