First ever build! (A cheap build)

[VisualD]

As (lurking) this community and the LinusTechTips channel was one of the things that inspired me to make my first ever own-made pc build I want to share it with you. It was a project I took on as a therapeutic thing to do and way to handle a and give myself some new confidence in my life after a really tough year. So this build, although not great by any means, but it means a lot to me and is the most powerful PC I have ever had.

 

To start with, I almost lacked any budget for it so I knew it would have to be a case of getting whatever bargains I could find. 

 

Found a cheap case with parts locally and went on to collect it. I came back with a super-ugly and impractical old case but a lot smaller parts for the future. Hey, it is a start.

 

A couple of days later I went to the garbage room and lo and behold, someone had thrown a huge computer case in the junk. So I dragged it home ad it turned out to be a Cooler Master HAF X! Although with a worn outer, dirty appearence and missing parts it seemed okey, until I was installing. A former owner had ripped the power button connector off, but 5min later I transplanted a new one. A working nice case with fans for free! 

I then proceeded to search for something old but overclockable to be able to tinker for fun. A cheap Asus P5Q Pro board with an Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 ended up at my place, soon followed by a Sapphire Radeon HD 6970. To be able to overclock I bought a BeQuiet CPU cooler from a blurry "As is" add from an auction site. I had my hopes that it would be a Dark Rock 3 and later a BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 with mounts arrived! So much luck.

 

As a noobish mistake I realised that I needed a new PSU to handle the power hungry graphics card and asked around. A friend had a Corsair CX600 at work with a noisy fan that they were going to junk, but I got it instead. An internal cleaning later and a carpet of dust lesser it mostly stays quiet although the fan will need replacing in the long run. 

 

Added an 80GB SSD, HDDs and RAM from a nice fela and some other smaller parts and a second monitor and now most of the performance was set! Just a few tweaks later and my first ever build was finished. 

 

Cleaned most of the component out and replaced the thermal compound in the GPU.

 

So here's the final specs: 

Asus P5Q Pro

Intel Core2Quad Q9550 @3.67GHz

BeQuiet Dark Rock 3

Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 (overclocked)

6GB 3x2GB Corsair Dominator 8500 DDR2 (Can't get it going with 4 sticks)

Intel 80GB SSD 

2x250GB + 500GB HDD 

Corsair CX600

DVD-RW 

Memory Card reader 

....and RGB goodness!

 

Although despite not a perfect outer appearance, especially the scratched glass, and old components it is my best gaming PC ever and not to mention something I am prout of.

 

I hope that you enjoyed the read and have a nice day!

[Crunchy Dragon]

Beautiful system, what was the total cost?

[VisualD]

Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

Beautiful system, what was the total cost?

I got some left over parts to sell but I estimate that it lands on €100-150 when all is done. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, VisualD said:

I got some left over parts to sell but I estimate that it lands on €100-150 when all is done. 

Wow that's great.

 

Welcome to the forums by the way, I hope you enjoy your stay!

[VisualD]

Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

Wow that's great.

 

Welcome to the forums by the way, I hope you enjoy your stay!

I can finally play my games without laggy low-settings and got my first dual monitor setup. Such an upgrade! 

 

Thanks for the welcome!

[Crunchy Dragon]

6 minutes ago, VisualD said:

I can finally play my games without laggy low-settings and got my first dual monitor setup. Such an upgrade! 

 

Thanks for the welcome!

Dual monitors are great, I'm missing my dual monitor setup so much right now...

[VisualD]

Some internal pics. Added the bottom fan to help my GPU out with the cooling and got a 1-2*C drop.

[MrRemnant]

8 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Dual monitors are great, I'm missing my dual monitor setup so much right now...

completely agree, was initially disappointed when i was given an second monitor (the gifter not knowing i already had one) now i cant live without it. 

[VisualD]

Just now, HK - 47 said:

completely agree, was initially disappointed when i was given an second monitor (the gifter not knowing i already had one) now i cant live without it. 

It is so practical. Do one thing on one screen and something else on the other instead of constantly ALT+Tab

 

[VisualD]

An update: 
Did a minor upgrade to: 

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3

i5 750 

4x2GB DDR3 

 

Not a huge upgrade but a tiny one that came with with two 24" 1080p monitors.

[JR88]

yeah a cheap rig/backup/ Clocked higher than me still...this generic china oem 6 phase board don't overclock on anything even the ram...

but it runs the x5650 though...stuck at like 2.9ghz and 1333 on the 8gb of ram...sucks man...would be monster if it could overclock. 

cpu is frozen though on water thing barely hits 50c at that at all...thing should run forever. 

[JoostinOnline]

17 minutes ago, JR88 said:

yeah a cheap rig/backup/ Clocked higher than me still...this generic china oem 6 phase board don't overclock on anything even the ram...

but it runs the x5650 though...stuck at like 2.9ghz and 1066 on the 8gb of ram...sucks man...would be monster if it could overclock. 

cpu is frozen though on water thing barely hits 50c at that at all...thing should run forever. 

6 phases is decent. I think you just lost the silicon lottery. 

[JR88]

2 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

6 phases is decent. I think you just lost the silicon lottery. 

No it's the Shit with this generic China board the Bus is stuck at 133mhz it don't go up even if you set it higher...it's fail... I need another board it is a good chip.

[VisualD]

On 2018-03-23 at 12:32 AM, JR88 said:

yeah a cheap rig/backup/ Clocked higher than me still...this generic china oem 6 phase board don't overclock on anything even the ram...

but it runs the x5650 though...stuck at like 2.9ghz and 1333 on the 8gb of ram...sucks man...would be monster if it could overclock. 

cpu is frozen though on water thing barely hits 50c at that at all...thing should run forever. 

Well, with the i5-750 I am currently at ~3.3GHz, with turbo, with tweaks to be made to make it solid. It is much harder to clock than my Q9550 as it just starts beeping crazily at boot with any setting even a tiny tad off. So the silicon lottery seems to be real.

[JR88]

21 minutes ago, VisualD said:

Well, with the i5-750 I am currently at ~3.3GHz, with turbo, with tweaks to be made to make it solid. It is much harder to clock than my Q9550 as it just starts beeping crazily at boot with any setting even a tiny tad off. So silocon lottery seems to be real.

This board is junk idk...should of tried to get a sabertooth or UD3R waited maybe found a good deal, I believe they can run them and clock it.  it's one of AMI's redone Bios's the AMI 8 or whatever etc.  I do not know either would have to ask them...seller was saying the i7 980x being unlocked could be overclocked on it...but those are still high wish I had one to try and find out though.

 

I suppose it's a Miracle at all it runs anyways and now know the chip is still good though. swear picked up like 3-5 degrees on that slightly higher flow pump, now it's not like going over 45c really good.

[VisualD]

What board is it?