Project: Blue on Black

[Bolas]

There's nothing wrong with your Corsair 800D case. It's a great case, and will serve you well. However, I would have recommended a better radiator, like a Thermochill or Feser or XSPC. The reservoir is fine. Now as for the fans, I really would have strongly suggested the Gentle Typhoons, simply because they really are the best fans you can buy today, and they will blow those NB's away, literally. I don't know how to explain this, but: color is really not an issue, because how often are you going to be staring at the fans? They should be spinning most of the time anyway, and the color really won't matter much. (Except for those Pink and Brown Noctuas, that kind of ugly is a problem.) And IMO, you really should have used 1/2" ID tubing, but plenty of people use the smaller stuff, and are quite happy with it. It will bend better, so it does have some advantages, and nobody can say it is the wrong choice. As for the $1,000 cpu, well that is the kind of thing everybody has to decide for themselves. And if you have the money to spend, well, getting the latest and greatest cpu is fun, but just remember the fun doesn't last, and something newer and greater will be out before you finish benchmarking your current cpu. However, since you are a man who keeps him computer going for at least 10 years, you will be pretty well served by that proc, and maybe you need to spend $1,000 to buy a little future-proofing.

All in all, great planning and great build. Congrats on a n00b build, it's tough to think about all this stuff before you build a rig, and it looks like you really thought about everything and did almost everything right. However, I think those monitors are a bit much, but I may just be an old-fashioned two monitor guy. Also, I can't believe your wife let you stockpile all of those boxes in that room for weeks. My wife would have gone mental over that, but that might be just her irrational fear of "clutter". Who knows. Either way, you are a lucky man.

Thanks for the kind words. I will buy nicer radiators when I do a larger case or when I get annoyed with these. I was not impressed with the build quality of these radiators, so they will not be a permanent fixture in my builds, I suspect.

I do like the Gentle Typhoons, guess I should have done a survey on which fans, LOL.

The deciding factor for me for the tubing diameter is what size of sleeve MDPC-X had available for tubing. I wanted to try out some things with sleeving and I read on xtremesystems.org that tubing size made a negligible difference in system performance.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=147767

I actually only kept my computer for 8 years, and only with upgrading the memory and the graphics card. I bought the top of the line in 2000 and when it could no longer do what I wanted it to do, but the processor I wanted wasn't out yet, I bought a refurbished HP dv9260nr laptop to tide me over until Nehalem.





Not the best specs in the world, but for $1000 a little over two years ago, it wasn't too bad of a system. Got me some portability which I can still use even after building the desktop.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...reg_R1002_USEN

I have only had one monitor before, so three is a nice upgrade. I looked at the ratio that I like, and 3 monitors in portrait gives a very nice aspect ratio. Reviews I've read point out that with two monitors, there is a bezel right in the middle of your view. So your gun sights are between the monitors -- your main focal point is the bezel. Not really what I wanted. I ended up deciding on three monitors when everyone seemed pretty unanimous that there was no reason to spend more than $5k on a computer and a great system could be had for $4k, so I put the balance into monitors.

My wife didn't let me stockpile things for weeks. The monitors sat on a pallet in the garage in my parking space until I got home from my trip and then I moved them to my corner of the basement and started ordering additional parts almost immediately. March 25th to 31st was the bulk of the parts ordering, stuff mostly showed up the first week of April, and now I'm starting the build, so really not much sitting around at all. Not anywhere near as much sitting around as if I had waited for Rampage III Extreme and Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 4GB.

I wasn't exactly sure when to order because I didn't know for sure when I would get the monitors. It's a pretty tight timeline between when I got them, when I ordered parts, and when I started building. All the boxes have been confined to my 1/4 of the basement, so she doesn't have too much clutter of mine to deal with. Not in comparison to toddler toy clutter, anyways, LOL.