Hey, I'm Thor... and this is Mjølnir

[ThorBuildingLegos]

A build called

Mjølnir
 
Who would Thor be without his almighty hammer Mjølnir? Some schlob who might go so far as to
crossdress in the attempt to get Mjølnir back, according to some bishop, who also thought Odin
hanging him self from the life tree was a fitting end to the epic saga that is norse mythology
(mmmmmmm religious propaganda). But enough of the cynical historical perspective already,
make with the build! A build that I think might be somewhat awesome, though not
facemeltingly awesome. Without further ado, the build list and some comments:
 

• Fractal Design Define XL R2 Black Pearl
  Cool, calm, sophisticated, a little big though... just like me!
• Corsair HX 850W
  it's da powasupply. It's got... electrolytes *hand motion*... in that I ate off it.
• Asus Maximus VI Extreme
  Smutt for nerds. Dirty, filthy, OC Paneled smutt.
• Intel i7 4700k 4.6GHz
  "The reliable guy" option.
• SilverStone Tundra TD03
  Substance over style or style over substance?
• Asus R9 280X DirectCU II Top 3GB
  Put ALL THE THINGS on ultra!
• Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB 2400MHz
  Wow, thats alot of bandwidth....... yeeaaah...!
• Samsung EVO 840 250GB
  An SSD...! YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH...!
• Seagate Barracuda 3TB
  The mule... yes.
• 2x Noctua NF-A14 PWM
  <whisper>...so cool...</whisper>
• 2x Noctua NF-F12 PWM
  <whisper>...and SILENT...</whisper>

Click to watch video
I actually made a video for you guys where I show you my misguided attempt
at properly and professionally assembling a computer... yes.

 

Fractal Design Define XL R2 Black Pearl w/soundproofing material,
M/ E/ XL-ATX (FD-CA-DEF-XL-R2-BL)
 

I gotta hand it to 'em: the Swedes know how to build stuff. This case is perhaps the best choice of the bunch. It's roomy which is good for airflow, makes it easier to inspect the inside and makes cable management easier (including the "mandatory" cableroom behind the mainboard). The board supports almost all ATX form factors, it's got a fan control I never use (thanks to the mobo), both HDD cages are removable (in case you want a monster radiator in the front -- which is what I might do in the future), the case doors and fan placeholders on the extra fan mounting points come with noise supression padding (one of the extra fan mounting points is on the rightside case door) as well as a dust filter on the bottom of the case that almost stretches the length of the case, providing dust protection -- though I have aimed the fans to point downwards... which might not be a good idea since warm air floats upwards. I have considered ordering a specially cut metal logo for the case (the Mjølnir logo).

My only quarrel with the case is that there were two types of fingerscrews provided (one with a pointy tip and an extra spacer at the base of the screw, or just below the top, and one that had a flat tip and without the extra spacer). One worked in all holes, where as the other only worked in a few. This puzzles me. Why was I supplied with both when obviously one is more than sufficient and does not pose any problems (at least not that I know of)? Why not just give me more of the one type? Well I can always find fingerscrews that fit the bill, but I shouldn't have to. But that aside the case just looks awesome and is very versatile.
 

Corsair HX 850W PSU, 80 PLUS® Gold ATX 12V V2.31,
80 Plus Gold, Modular (CP-9020032-EU)

 

What do I know from a PSU? Is it plugged in, does the LED light up on the motherboard, does the machine start? No? Yes?! Good! Which about sums up my expertise in power supplies. I know 80 Plus Gold is a good standard to meet and I know 850W is more than enough for most tasks. I bought it as a "multi-purpose" PSU. Who knows, I might need the extra power for "evil genius" stuff -- but besides that I have no clue if this was a good buy or a bad buy. Can't go wrong with the Corsair HX series, I've heard...
 

Asus Maximus VI Extreme, Socket-1150 ATX, Z87 chipset,
DDR3, 5xPCIe-x16 slots and is capable of 4-Way SLI/CF

 

Boy howdy. Mmmm-mm! What a great mobo, but for the price? Forget about it...! It's nothing more than a saucy pinup poster for guys working in retail computer shops. I don't think I'll ever use the OC remote thing in all its splender because I have a multimeter, so it's pretty much a piece of plastic that draws electricity, and the only thing I get in return is a little LCD display that's hidden behind the case door -- to once in a while be glanced on by a confused owner, only to be shortly after imprisoned behind the doors once more. But disregarding that I must say this is the perfect mobo for a newb (like me ). The price tag and OC remote is probably just there as an initial test, as if to say "if you buy this you might not be as versed and we have prepared this product especially for you".

The AI Suite (which some people have had lots of problems with) was instrumental in the OCing of my computer (though I went from 4.7GHz to 4.6GHz after a BIOS update). Everything from the TPU, EPU, the Digi-power control thing and the fan benchmarking and setup have made the process of overclocking so much easier (but may also not be optimal, signified by some bluescreens -- but again: what do I know about OCing?) I'll probably try someone elses OC Profile, if someone else has a similar setup. There are probably similar variants of this board from Asus that are cheaper, with the AI Suite and all the onboard components which probably would be the better choice, but again I'm satisfied with this choice in regards to functinality. In regards to the price of the thing... not so much in hindsight...
 

Intel Core i7-4770K,
Haswell with 4 cores and 8 threads, etc, etc...

 

I always go with Intel. It's always been singed in my brain that Intel is the "more reliable and stable" option, where as AMD was always "for gamers on a budget who want to squeeze every little piece of performance by not prioritizing unit lifespan and turning the values up" option. I've had to reevaluate this stance as it's pretty much a misguided one. More cores and hyperthreading are just the tip of the iceberg in regards to CPU performance and lifespan, no? Perhaps when mobos with PCIe 4.x and DDR 4.x hit the market I'll be inclined to try out an AMD CPU.
 

Silverstone Tundra TD03 AIO (or "closed loop") liquid CPU cooling
with stock fans running at 1500~2500 RPM with 16~33.5 dBA noise output (90103)

 

As I've never had any experience with liquid cooling solutions I was thuroughly hyped for this product. As it stands it was perhaps not the best choice, as I should've gone with a radiator that has a two 140mm fans side by side rather than a radiator with 120mm fans on both sides of the radiator to ceate a push-pull effect. The reason is that the CPU could benifit from a larger radiator, so I'd eventually like to make the switch. But I am still very satisfied with its performance and minimal noise output. It's really quite wonderful to have a high end gaming machine that you have to be quiet to actually hear. My Xbox 360 with a DVD spinning in it makes WAY MORE noise.
 

ASUS Radeon R9 280X
3GB GDDR5 (R9280X-DC2T-3GD5)

 

What can I say? I have faith in Mantle. If you compare hardware and software development the past 15 years you'll see that the biggest bottleneck in regards to high end computing and 3D rendering is at the software side of things. Everything from the framework (DirectX, OpenGL, OpenAL, OpenCL, DirectCompute, Mantle, etc), the drivers (Catalyst or GeForce), the operating system itself (Windows, OS X, Linux, etc) are in all likelyhood not using the potential of all general hardware. This is because software development standards and practices are always shifting. You also have the program that uses the resources provided by the components and how it uses the various techology and differing standards to it's advantage - if not completely focused on performing optimally on a specific line of products. Ofc it can turn out to be a bust (or "yet another addon technology") but I placed my bet and I think I placed it well (GSync is on it's way and looks awesome as well).

But I have had some problems with this GFX. It's the usual suspect (amdkmdap stops responding) which crashes any game full stop (and is also a very unhelpful error to get as any more detail requires direct debugging of the application in question). It's really annoying at times and has two equally stupifying remedies that manages to stave the problem off, and thats to either run the game OCed or without OverDrive or OC. To clarify the card comes clocked at 1070MHz, a voltage of 1200, a memory clock of 6400, a "power target" of 100% and the fan set on auto. I found a blog post that told me to set the CPU cloc to 1230, with a voltage of 1300, a memory clock of 6600, a power target of 120% and the fan speed still set on auto. When playing "Ass Creed: YARR! THAR BE PIRATES!" on the default clock settings the game is actually more proned to crashig then when it's overclocked. Is this because of the HW magic the AI Suite does? It's funny how OCing actually makes the system MORE stable. I have however encountered tearing and screen corruptions in game while playing OCed (albeit less crashing than while using normal clock settings) - I'll chalk it up to the drivers still being in BETA and the games I'm playing being new and unpatched. And then there's turning off overdrive, which forces me to decrease the games rendering quality to make the game (mostly) conform to a framerate. Perhaps I should turn off overdrive and rely on GPUTweak alone? Perhaps I should reconsider the balance between CPU, RAM, GPU and SDD/HDD to make a more stable environment. But I need to research it more... and the hw needs more time to be asserted... orrr someone might perhaps have an OC Profile, maybe?
 

Kingston HyperX Genesis
16 GB : 4 x 4 GB 1333Mhz min & 2400Mhz max OC

 

After playing around with the RAM settings, and making Windows 8 dish out the frownie faces like teenagers texting dramatically, I managed to turn my ram down to 1333Mhz to get a CL9 (or 9-9-9-24) timing. I did this because most people will say a lower timing (a.k.a "latency") means better responsiveness in gaming. But does it make a difference? Does anyone here have any comparisons I could read? I'm to lazy to Google... and I read somewhere that 2400Mhz memory isn't properly utilized by software today either. Soo many opinions...

 

Samsung 840 EVO 250GB Basic SSD
which can ("in theory") read 540MB/s and write 520MB/s (MZ-7TE250BW)

 

This is perhaps the best choice for a system drive right now. This was really a no brainer. I did not go for the Pro version but don't feel I've lost out (I haven't yet tested it properly outside of Samsungs "benchmark", but copying large files from one part of the SSD to another is amazingly fast and I hope that I can replace the Seagate Barracuda 3TB with a 2TB SSD in the near future...
 

SEAGATE Barracuda®
3TB SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB, 7200RPM (ST3000DM001)

 

Storage unit, for stuff thats non-essential for software and OS runtime. Nuff said. I chose Seagate for much the same reasons I chose 4770k: because I am used to them and have been satisfied with the stability (or perceived stability) of their HDDs since as long back in time as I can remember.
 

2 x Noctua NF-A14 PWM & 2 x Noctua NF-F12 PWM
140mm & 120mm PWM fans, 300rpm min and 1500/1200rpm max

 

Linus made me do it...! Which led me here, due to the fact that I am thuroughly satisfied with this product but I would not have bought it at my local computer enthusiast store at first glance. The one closest to me has Noctua fans featured prominently in the middle of a tall rack that holds the fans, which makes the beige and brown fans stand out in a sea of black cardboard and plastic. Dunno if it was an idea by the marketing department to make them stand out by looking like they were envisioned in the 70s. But we prefer substance over style, don't we? The 120mm fans replaced the fans on the Tundra TD03 and made a huge difference in regards to noise, how often the fans spin up at high speeds and how the CPU has a constant stable temprature despite taking on big tasks (I haven't checked yet after a couple of hours of gaming, but I should - and soon). One 140mm fan went on top of the case (the one closest to the middle - due the fact that the radiator and fans stick out quite a bit and the top case fan would be halfway above them) and one went in the front of the case above the hardmounted HDD cage (there are two spots there and one is currently empty - do I REALLY need another fan there?) So one out of two on top, one out of two in the front. I left the Arctic Silver fan at the bottom of the case but have considered replacing it with another 140mm fan, and even adding more Noctua fans. But I'm guessing I'll have to learn more about what creates a good thermal environment for computer components, as well as how to properly direct airflow before I can consider my system to be "completely optimal". Give us a hint, will ya?

 

So there you have it. My system as of today. I would deeply appreciate some hints and tips towards getting my system
running more smoothly, and perhaps increase the performance a smidge? Also, would you change any of these components,
and for what reason? I'm always looking to improve this machine as it is more about the machine than it is about gaming or
anything else. It's a labour of love from a computer geeks perspective. If you'd like me to make any tests, benchmark, attempt
to change OC settings or the like please let me know. Like I said I'm always looking to improve my build

Thanks for reading!

[NohbdyKnows]

I'm Ready

[DirkaFat]

I'm Loki

 

 

 

I didn't read the whole thing, but there are going to be pictures, right?

[Excon]

A few things I would change but otherwise looks good.

[LogicDeifying]

I am ready to get my body doused in holy water.

Starts drowning in holy water *COUGH*COUGH*

[Vindola]

Hmmmm Seagate... hmmm

 

 

 

I'm Ready

[ThorBuildingLegos]

I'm Loki

 

 

 

I didn't read the whole thing, but there are going to be pictures, right?

 

*starts punching DirkaFats arm* Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself...! And yeah... BUT! I made a video... which wasn't very prominent. Hold on, let me make it blatantly obvious that I made a video.

[Youbetternot]

[LogicDeifying]

Just watched the whole video.

It's not bad except that you shake the camera at moments...

[Luckris]

I'm Loki

 

 

 

I didn't read the whole thing, but there are going to be pictures, right?

DAT PROFILE PIC

You're so going to be hired by Hollywood to do all their movie graphics. Looks like you already are!