New Family PC - my first build

[Crunchie]

Hi all, thought I'd post my build up, and say thank you to everyone who has offered advice, this forum and also pcpartpicker were invaluable in helping me put this thing together.

The main uses for the PC are for my programming (Java mainly), some moderate gaming (although I'm more a console gamer to be honest) and for the family to use for internet, homework, email etc.

I had a strict budget of £1000 for the pc, a monitor and the OS so I had to be very careful getting the right balance. I wanted quality components but had to be realistic about what would be suitable and within budget.

Overall the build went smoothly, the only problem I had was I put too much thermal compound on the first time and had to clean it all off and do it again.

As far as the components go I'm really happy with the case, it was a joy to build in and really looks great on my desk too. The motherboard seems fine, and the bios is nice and straightforward to use. CPU and ram, well I haven't overclocked it yet (will be soon though) but the PC feels super quick. The SSD seems to make a huge difference, booting to Windows 8 from cold is like 5 or 6 seconds I think. Ridiculously quick. The monitor is lovely, very bright vivid colours, glad I went for an IPS display.

The PSU took a bit of work to fit, mainly due to the length and type of cable. The 24 pin only just reached the motherboard after routing round the back, and that was with the psu rotated fan down. If I wanted it facing up it wouldn't have reached at all.

The CPU cooler was actually pretty straightforward to fit and runs nice and quiet, matches the case fans quite nicely too!

I haven't got any games installed yet so can't really comment on the GPU , but I'll be buying Crysis 3 soon and will update then.

The mouse and keyboard are really nice, especially like the mouse.

Oh, I tried to do some cable management and it went ok, but I was a bit gutted at having to use a red SATA cable for the ODD. I'll probably replace that with a grey or black one if I can at some point.

That's it I think! Thanks for looking,

Cheers Rich

 

Part List: 

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K

Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600

Storage: Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5" SSD

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 2GB

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl)

Power Suuply: Be Quiet! BN181 Pure Power L8 530W Modular Power Supply

Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer

Monitor: Dell U2312HM 23.0"

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit)

Keyboard: Cherry Stream XT Keyboard

Mouse: SteelSeries Sensei Raw

Mouse Mat: SteelSeries Surface QcK £6.50

 

PCPartPicker link: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/rthomas/saved/1j3r

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bluejay0]

Beautiful. High end for family? Kids playing right :P

[SSOB]

Nice! 

[KneesWeak]

great job, a lot of lefties though?

[Bicko96]

wow thats pretty nice

[Crunchie]

great job, a lot of lefties though?

 

I'm the only lefty in the house, wife and two kids are right handed. The wife is already winding me up by swapping it over just to check her facebook updates.  <_<

[Emkryan]

Nice clean station. Very elegant

[MrSuperb]

I don't really like that keyboard. I bought it, because it was cheap and i needed one quickly.

 

price/performanc-wise the Dell is great ;)

[JSuttsPCs]

What about some finished views of the whole inside and also what are the parts I can see all of them from the photos!

[Crunchie]

What about some finished views of the whole inside and also what are the parts I can see all of them from the photos!

 

Oops! Forgot about the part list, I've added it to the opening post. Will try and take some more pics of the finished interior.

[JSuttsPCs]

Oops! Forgot about the part list, I've added it to the opening post. Will try and take some more pics of the finished interior.

That would be great!

[Flechette1866]

Looks sweet. You have a lucky family, having such a rig!

[zxcvbnmmssdh]

Nice, like the case

[TechTheWorld]

I have that exact mouse pad! Nice choice!

[CJPowell27]

Man that MSI board looks great