When using this resource, please read FragKrag's opening post. The Tech Support forum regulars have helped create countless of desktop systems without any compensation. The least you can do is provide all of the information required for them to help you properly.
Gaming, watching movies, streams. I play most new games that are coming out and would like to be able to run them with ease. I'd also like the GPU/CPU to run relatively cool. Definitely want a full size case.
What is your upgrade cycle?
3 years
When do you plan on building it?
Within a month.
Do you plan on overclocking?
Yes, CPU.
Do you need an Operating System?
No.
Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire?
Single card preferred.
Where are you buying your parts from?
Newegg/Amazon
Totals to $1260. If you need a disc drive than add one for ~$15. Keep in mind the Define R4 is a mid-tower case and mid-towers are already very spacey if you don't do SLI / Crossfire, have a dozen HDDs, or do custom liquid. If you want a full-tower to house eight+ HDDs or radiators than you are welcome to select your own full-tower case that meets your needs / wants.
Just looking for a the best bang for my buck. Pretty basic stuff
What is your budget?
500 USD
What is your resolution?
1680 x 1050 or 1440 x 900
What are you using it for?
Mainly Gaming(LoL+SC2) and school
What is your upgrade cycle?
5 years
When do you plan on building it?
Within the next 2 weeks
Do you plan on overclocking?
No
Do you need an Operating System?
No
Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire?
No
Where are you buying your parts from?
Fry's/Newegg
Totals to exactly $500, keep in mind that some components such as the power supply and harddrive are less expensive at Amazon. If you need a disc drive, add one.
Gaming, watching movies, streams. I play most new games that are coming out and would like to be able to run them with ease. I'd also like the GPU/CPU to run relatively cool. Definitely want a full size case.
What is your upgrade cycle?
3 years
When do you plan on building it?
Within a month.
Do you plan on overclocking?
Yes, CPU.
Do you need an Operating System?
No.
Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire?
Single card preferred.
Where are you buying your parts from?
Newegg/Amazon
Totals to $1260. If you need a disc drive than add one for ~$15. Keep in mind the Define R4 is a mid-tower case and mid-towers are already very spacey if you don't do SLI / Crossfire, have a dozen HDDs, or do custom liquid. If you want a full-tower to house eight+ HDDs or radiators than you are welcome to select your own full-tower case that meets your needs / wants.
Great build and pretty much exactly what i'd get/reccomend aside from case*. I was going to say you might be able to get something like a gtx670 for a lot cheaper and be close in performance, but it seems that US doesn't have the same silly 55%-of-the-price-for-80+%-of-the-performance deals there like OCUK does on the asus directcu II for £189 vs the 770's at £329
*Which is a good case, but more quiet/aesthetic focused than on airflow
The R4 can be pretty stupid in terms of airflow if you want it to be - two 140mm front intakes, one 140mm bottom intake for GPU, one 120mm side intake, two top exhausts and one rear exhaust. Its a really good case because its the only case on the market that is extremely flexible and is actually good at it.
That's good then, it doesn't really talk about it in much detail which generally seems to mean not = priority, and i figured it probably wasn't a focus with it being one of the "quiet" cases. What kind of fan setup would you do?
And btw for such a build Stoids - if you want to stay single GPU, capstone 450 is a great unit and whatever case will do, if you're thinking of sli like me, i was thinking of replacing my old tx650 (what do you guys think of that btw?) because it's got a lot of hours on it and it starts to ramp up in noise if you draw a lot more than 350w (i'd put oc'd haswell on high end air without delid at like 120w +180w per 770 for real world usage, plus other power for stuff like fans, which isn't actually a lot, but it'd overwhelm a capstone 450 or make a lower quality 500-650w psu loud)
so if you want SLI as an upgrade option, you can make the adjustments of considering different cases (depending on how the r4 holds up in terms of airflow - my 120mm intake, 170mm exhaust heats up a lot with only 1 gpu - you'd probably be ok with lots of cases, but i prefer exceptional personally) and on a good strong PSU around 600-650w, one that doesn't do this
at the levels of power draw that you want - though i guess that's a secondary concern, as if you were drawing that much power, you'd have a lot of fans ramping up anyway
The 770 is a great, powerful card though, very efficient. Sometimes can beat it in value with oc 7950/7970 but they pull more power at stock than 770 pulls at max OC (cause it's locked at stock volts) and then they pull a lot more when OC'd. It can get more toasty with multiple cards, but they are powerful value options. It's unlikely you'd need or want a second one any time remotely soon for a 1920x1080 60hz monitor.
If going for silence, leave the top and side exhausts blocked with the blocking plates. Use two front intakes and one exhaust. Connect those three to the integrated fan controller while you're at it. If your ambient temperature is low enough, you can probably run a single GPU/moderately overclocked CPU with this configuration.
For performance, fill the top exhausts as well as bottom and side intake with 140mm fans. Take out one of the hard drive cages as well, if you don't need it, as it restricts airflow. If you're running a single SSD and 3.5" HDD, you can remove both hard drive cages: the 3.5" HDD can go into the 5.25" bay with an adapter and the SSD can be officially mounted behind the motherboard.
I think the build quality is still worse than Antec's Performance One series but Fractal has a much better designed chassis in every single way. I definitely see where you're getting at, since there are better performance cases on the market, but I don't think there's a case that is better designed (or built) for $80 - cases three times the price can still be seen using wimpy rubber grommits for hard drive mounting!
I'm currently in the middle of building and I'm stuck. I can't get the metalclips of the Phanteks PH-TC14PE over the fans. Every video I find just shows it done and I have no clue wtf the trick is.
Yes, I'm sure I have them in the right direction.
e: To clarify: basically if I put one side into the plastic mount thingy it becomes utterly impossible to force the other into his holding thingy. I guess I could bend it to fit but it doesn't seem like how it should work.
I'm currently in the middle of building and I'm stuck. I can't get the metalclips of the Phanteks PH-TC14PE over the fans.
Don't worry man, it takes longer to get the second screw in and get to the cpufan plug for me than it does to rebuild half of the system :D
There's some awkwardnesses like it was clearly not designed to fit with the vrm heatsinks on the ud3h, it's literally physically impossible to reach unless you use a slightly magnetized screwdriver and hope that you don't drop the little screw. Plugging the fan in without unmounting the entire cooler takes like 5 minutes at best. And some stuff like the fan clips, they're just awkward til you know how to do it, then it's just a little tricky sometimes if there's limited space (:
You guys offer an amazing service by carefully picking out custom parts based on lists and budgets like this. This forum is a superb resource, and I salute you all.
I try to help when i can especially in areas where i have focus/knowledge, some other people are better with building towards a specific budget though definately *looks at skyr etc* and do great work
It's a hard task to pull together a build for one of a ton of different markets in a specific budget with certain needs, a lot of variables
And Aylear, i'l help you a bit with OC stuff if you want. I dunno about writing a guide though, maybe a list of quick general tips to post publically or something like that. It's a little confusing with Haswell too, because different board manufacturers have stuff named quite differently sometimes, or have different behaivors
I appreciate the offer! In my case a simple checklist and some tips would be perfect, because I'm getting an UD3H so I have the guide at my disposal, which is a great resource and all but it's very complicated.
I've been reading the Haswell OC thread on this forum as well, and it seems very mobo dependent.
I'm currently in the middle of building and I'm stuck. I can't get the metalclips of the Phanteks PH-TC14PE over the fans.
Don't worry man, it takes longer to get the second screw in and get to the cpufan plug for me than it does to rebuild half of the system :D
There's some awkwardnesses like it was clearly not designed to fit with the vrm heatsinks on the ud3h, it's literally physically impossible to reach unless you use a slightly magnetized screwdriver and hope that you don't drop the little screw. Plugging the fan in without unmounting the entire cooler takes like 5 minutes at best. And some stuff like the fan clips, they're just awkward til you know how to do it, then it's just a little tricky sometimes if there's limited space (:
I'm super happy that I have small hands, I got that screw in with my fingers. :3
Currently my only major fear is that I turn it on in the end and figure out the RAM doesn't work. Would mean taking apart so much with that gigantic piece of cooling. Also those 1m fan cables of the Phanteks, jeesh. This is gonna take some serious work to cover those up.
Edit: I should use that thing via PWM, right? ALSO THOSE CABLES SO LONG T_T
The Nanoxia Deep Silence One is a good alternative to the R4 (moreso in Europe) as it has a very similar design, but very slightly cheaper (I got mine for 89 euro). They trade blows in terms of design and features. My friend has an R4, me a Nanoxia, so I feel I can make a fair comparison (had a look at his R4 this weekend). The Nanoxia wins in my opinion, based on price and a slight advantage in features.
The Nanoxia has a far superior fan controller. It has a 2x3 setup, with a slider setup (allowing a nice bit of variance in fan speed). The R4 has 3 switches, and the stock fans are noticeably louder. The Nanoxia's fans are inaudible when at low speed, and quite low when maxed. And you are limited to three fans on this single controller.
The R4 is slightly bigger, and the peripheral USBs are better designed. (The Nanoxia has a somewhat obnoxious button you press to click out the connectors, but the weight of the cabling puts too much weight on the spring and I fear this will break some time). The Nanoxia's power button also doesn't sit flush on the case top, it "rolls" about the centre-point.
On August 12 2013 23:08 Cyro wrote: Hows it going also, r.Evo?
Looks great so far. Mainboard installation was easy once I figured out there were plastic caps that I needed to remove to get it through the I/O shield, Fan installed, PSU installed.
This video is glorious:
Getting close to firing it up for the first time. :3
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/corsair_psu/tx650w_noise.gif)
