My Gaming Rig: Ice Flame

[Crunchy Dragon]

Been throwing around names for this build for quite some time, eventually decided on Ice Flame as a name

 

Parts are trickling in bit by bit, I felt the urge to do a pre-build photoshoot with the parts I have currently! I ordered my PSU earlier today, should be here in a week at most.

 

Spoiler

In the back is my Dell SE2717HR 27" 1080p IPS display, next to my S340 White case(going to do a Portal theme with it). In front is my single 8Gb DDR4-2400 stick from G.Skill, my Seagate Barracuda 1Tb HDD and(my pride and joy), my GeForce GTX 780 that will be the powerhouse of my 1080p gaming rig.

 

Also featuring my P-Body figure from Portal 2.

 

I will add to this as the rest of my parts come in, just waiting on my PSU to ship and then a trip to Micro Center to get my CPU and motherboard.

[Unimaginative Name]

Microcenter is love. Microcenter is life. Long live Microcenter!

[Daniel Z.]

there is a portal case btw

[FakeNSA]

1 minute ago, Daniel Z. said:

there is a portal case btw

for all the monies tho.... Us budget builders gotta diy!

[Guest]

Nice! Been seeing you plot this for a while now. Can't wait to see it finished.

[Crunchy Dragon]

19 hours ago, Aelar_Nailo said:

for all the monies tho.... Us budget builders gotta diy!

Yeah haha. I'll probably grab some decals off Amazon or DIY them, still not sure what the full build plan is, the decor is still in the very early stages.

 

I know for sure I want it to say Aperture across the bottom of the window and have the logo on the front, but beyond that I've got no clue. Might do an orange/blue cooling loop once I can afford a custom loop, but again: budget.

[FakeNSA]

7 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Yeah haha. I'll probably grab some decals off Amazon or DIY them, still not sure what the full build plan is, the decor is still in the very early stages.

 

I know for sure I want it to say Aperture across the bottom of the window and have the logo on the front, but beyond that I've got no clue. Might do an orange/blue cooling loop once I can afford a custom loop, but again: budget.

Maybe do an rgb addressable light at the end of a clear rod? Might look pretty cool.... IDK. I am somewhat useless when it comes to modding.

[Crunchy Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Aelar_Nailo said:

Maybe do an rgb addressable light at the end of a clear rod? Might look pretty cool.... IDK. I am somewhat useless when it comes to modding.

Same lol, this'll be the closest thing I've ever done to mod so it'll definitely be interesting.

[FakeNSA]

17 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Same lol, this'll be the closest thing I've ever done to mod so it'll definitely be interesting.

Good luck, and may the force be with you..... For the cake shall not be a lie.

[Crunchy Dragon]

UPDATE: PSU should be here by the 8th(Amazon Prime shipping ftw) and if my weather holds true to the forecast, I should be able to hit Micro Center on the 13th to grab my CPU and motherboard. Made the decision on a Ryzen 5 1600 and ASRock AB350-Pro4 bundle for $265(technically $264.98).

 

I'm starting to plan out the decals in a little bit more detail(by which I mean throw around ideas in my head). It's pretty challenging since my budget for aesthetics is incredibly tight at this moment, so I might just have to go with the stickers for now(might get some form of LED lighting by Christmas, maybe throw in some RGB fans as well).

[dizmo]

Looks like it'll be a really solid build! Haha, my grandma had the same faux wood paneling in the upstairs of her house. It was so thin I thought I'd fly through it if I fell into it

What made you go with single channel RAM? I've started a Ryzen build as well, but everything I saw pointed to dual channel giving much better performance.

 

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Looks like it'll be a really solid build! Haha, my grandma had the same faux wood paneling in the upstairs of her house. It was so thin I thought I'd fly through it if I fell into it

What made you go with single channel RAM? I've started a Ryzen build as well, but everything I saw pointed to dual channel giving much better performance.

Dual channel wasn't in the budget haha. Dual-channel 8Gb kits cost a fair bit more than single-channel(I am aware of the benefits of dual-channel RAM with Ryzen).

 

This single stick 8Gb was ~$80 as it is, while being the most generic 8Gb stick I could find.

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Dual channel wasn't in the budget haha. Dual-channel 8Gb kits cost a fair bit more than single-channel(I am aware of the benefits of dual-channel RAM with Ryzen).

 

This single stick 8Gb was ~$80 as it is, while being the most generic 8Gb stick I could find.

Ahhh gotcha! If you're able to return it, I can link you to someone selling 16GB For $100?

I picked up 16GB myself for $120 CAD. It's only 2133mhz, but with the money I saved I can get a step up graphics card, which eliminates the reasonably small performance hit.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Ahhh gotcha! If you're able to return it, I can link you to someone selling 16GB For $100?

I picked up 16GB myself for $120 CAD. It's only 2133mhz, but with the money I saved I can get a step up graphics card, which eliminates the reasonably small performance hit.

That does sound pretty good, but I really don't have the budget for 16Gb, even if it is only $100. I appreciate the suggestion though, I got a 2400Mhz stick so the performance hit shouldn't be too bad(hopefully). I also don't do anything demanding enough to merit 16Gb memory, I've only ever used 8Gb in my first desktop and my laptop, both of which did basically the same thing and it's always been enough for me.

 

Don't get me wrong, I do plan on getting another 8Gb stick(might be able to get a 16Gb kit of Dom Plats or Vengeance RGB in the future). The only real reason I'm getting a 1600 instead of the planned 1400 is since my Micro Center is sold out on 1400 bundles and someone said the 1600 was really worth the extra money in addition to it should be able to last me a good several years(hopefully) having the extra threads.

[Imbellis]

19 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Yeah haha. I'll probably grab some decals off Amazon or DIY them, still not sure what the full build plan is, the decor is still in the very early stages.

 

I know for sure I want it to say Aperture across the bottom of the window and have the logo on the front, but beyond that I've got no clue. Might do an orange/blue cooling loop once I can afford a custom loop, but again: budget.

If you're in uni, you could probably laser cut the petg (by adding another layer) or engrave something else besides the window.

I'd guess that it'd take a half hour of machine time.

 

Edit: You may be able to cut the window in such a way that it looks like it's engraved rather than cut. (Such as in LTT's laser video Here)

[dizmo]

13 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

That does sound pretty good, but I really don't have the budget for 16Gb, even if it is only $100. I appreciate the suggestion though, I got a 2400Mhz stick so the performance hit shouldn't be too bad(hopefully). I also don't do anything demanding enough to merit 16Gb memory, I've only ever used 8Gb in my first desktop and my laptop, both of which did basically the same thing and it's always been enough for me.

 

Don't get me wrong, I do plan on getting another 8Gb stick(might be able to get a 16Gb kit of Dom Plats or Vengeance RGB in the future). The only real reason I'm getting a 1600 instead of the planned 1400 is since my Micro Center is sold out on 1400 bundles and someone said the 1600 was really worth the extra money in addition to it should be able to last me a good several years(hopefully) having the extra threads.

Yeah. Depending on your graphics card (I noticed you have the 780) 8GB can see a pretty big performance hit over 16GB. It sucks, I was all ready to pay $40 for 8GB of DDR4 single channel but it would have given me trouble with my GTX 970 plans. Haha, yeah I picked up a 1400 too. $100, couldn't say no, plus I'm only gaming at 1080p60 and I have no plans to keep it more than a year.

[Crunchy Dragon]

4 minutes ago, Imbellis said:

If you're in uni, you could probably laser cut the petg (by adding another layer) or engrave something else besides the window.

I'd guess that it'd take a half hour of machine time.

 

Edit: You may be able to cut the window in such a way that it looks like it's engraved rather than cut. (Such as in LTT's laser video Here)

Sadly I'm not in uni and I have no access to such tools.

 

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Yeah. Depending on your graphics card (I noticed you have the 780) 8GB can see a pretty big performance hit over 16GB. It sucks, I was all ready to pay $40 for 8GB of DDR4 single channel but it would have given me trouble with my GTX 970 plans. Haha, yeah I picked up a 1400 too. $100, couldn't say no, plus I'm only gaming at 1080p60 and I have no plans to keep it more than a year.

The more I read about the 780 the more I love it. Plus I got it for free so that's an added bonus

[dizmo]

3 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

The more I read about the 780 the more I love it. Plus I got it for free so that's an added bonus

Hey, you can't beat free I've actually seen them sell for decent amounts too (for how old they are), so once you save up some money a video card upgrade will be a lot less painful!

[Crunchy Dragon]

55 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Hey, you can't beat free I've actually seen them sell for decent amounts too (for how old they are), so once you save up some money a video card upgrade will be a lot less painful!

Hopefully it'll be able to last me a few years, I'm only playing 1080p 60Hz so with some overclocking it should be able to keep up with the next generation of Nvidia cards. I've heard it said that the 780 performs like a 1050Ti these days but I've noticed it seems to be more comparable to a 1060(gonna benchmark my PC against my friend's, he's got an i5-4590 and a 1060 3Gb).

[dizmo]

19 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Hopefully it'll be able to last me a few years, I'm only playing 1080p 60Hz so with some overclocking it should be able to keep up with the next generation of Nvidia cards. I've heard it said that the 780 performs like a 1050Ti these days but I've noticed it seems to be more comparable to a 1060(gonna benchmark my PC against my friend's, he's got an i5-4590 and a 1060 3Gb).

Yeah I remember it being kneecapped by driver updates. Probably depends on the game. I wish I could find affordable 970s, everyone locally wants $300 or more for them. Ridiculous. I could have bought a 980 before the summer for $200.

[Daniel Z.]

57 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Yeah I remember it being kneecapped by driver updates. Probably depends on the game. I wish I could find affordable 970s, everyone locally wants $300 or more for them. Ridiculous. I could have bought a 980 before the summer for $200.

Once I saw 2 980 ti g1 gamings for 300 snow rupees each in Vancouver/Fraser valley area. I regret not getting it, I could flip them for 150 profit each

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Daniel Z. said:

Once I saw 2 980 ti g1 gamings for 300 snow rupees each in Vancouver/Fraser valley area. I regret not getting it, I could flip them for 150 profit each

Would these be the 980Ti SLI Linus and Dmitiri got in Scrapyard Wars?

 

 

[Daniel Z.]

2 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Would these be the 980Ti SLI Linus and Dmitiri got in Scrapyard Wars?

 

 

I dont think so, it was posted way before scrap yard wars

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, Daniel Z. said:

Once I saw 2 980 ti g1 gamings for 300 snow rupees each in Vancouver/Fraser valley area. I regret not getting it, I could flip them for 150 profit each

Haha yeah from time to time wicked deals pop up. There were 2 980's for $450 just a couple weeks ago.

[Daniel Z.]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Haha yeah from time to time wicked deals pop up. There were 2 980's for $450 just a couple weeks ago.

Theres a Strix 390 with broken fans for 200