About two weeks ago, all of my computer parts had arrived from their various retailers. I ordered almost everything from Newegg.com and of course, it all arrived before I could count to two (business days). I bought the CPU and SSD from Micro Center because the CPU was about $80 cheaper there and it was the only place that had the SSD in stock even though it was a few dollars more expensive than other sites.
I ordered the heat sink/fan from some 3rd party on Amazon to try to save a few bucks. Man, that was a huge mistake. I had to wait forever for it to arrive. Let me just say that USPS is the worst shipping method ever! It is sooooooo slow! The online tracking is a joke because they don't bother to update it. The package was supposed to have started in Nevada but I had no clue where it was along its journey. The next time I order something, I'm just gonna save myself the trouble and just buy it from Newegg.com.
While I waited for the heat sink/fan to arrive, I figured I'd order a new tube of Artic Silver 5 (AS5) thermal compound and a uninterruptible power supply (UPS) from Newegg.com. Surprise, surprise, this shipment arrived before the heat sink/fan did. The wait was killing me!
Anyways, the parts finally arrived a few days later and I started unpacking everything. The Lian Li case was simple in styling but is a very elegant case. I wasn't crazy about the blue LED fans but I guess it doesn't hurt to have the few extra horse power. I started with trying to open up the side doors on the Lian Li case. Things were pretty tight so it took a little bit of effort to get some of the screws to turn freely. After I took a peek at what was inside the case, I started to envision the layout of the devices and the cables.
I got started on the motherboard. I put the CPU in place and locked it into place. I put the mounting brackets from the heat sink/fan on the back of the motherboard. I installed the RAM next. No problems so far. I then spread a thin layer of the AS5 on the heat spreader of the CPU. Next came the heat sink/fan. Wow. That thing is a beast!
I then put the I/O shield on the back of the case. I slowly lowered the whole motherboard, CPU, heat sink/fan combination down into the case and wrestled to get the motherboard screws in place. In hindsight, it probably would have been easier if I didn't put the heat sink/fan until much later in the process. I got a ton of nicks and scrapes from trying to work around the fins of the heat sink. Did I mention how buff that thing is?
Anyways, I put the hard drives in next. The Lian Li case comes with some rubber dampeners and screws so that the hard drives just slide into the rails. That's such a nice feature. After popping out the topmost front plate, the DVD-ROM went in next and that was easy to put in with the case's quick latch system.
The PSU went in next followed by the GPU. I connected the power lines mostly along the bottom of the case to keep things as neat as I could. The only exception to this was the stupid EPS12V 8-pin connector which was too short to easily reach the connection on the motherboard. I tried wrapping the cable down along the bottom of the case, behind the motherboard tray, and then back up and around the CPU but it just wasn't long enough, especially in a full tower like this one. Sigh. I just gave up and strung the cable directly over the GPU.
I started wiring up the rest of the system and it went relatively smoothly. The SATA cables easily reached the hard drives. It was a little tricky getting a clean layout for the power cables for the case fans but it was easier when I used the full length of the case fan cables.
It was finally ready for its first power up. I connected my monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power cable to the computer and fired it up. Nothing. D'oh! I forgot to switch on the power switch on the back of the PSU. Okay, attempt #2. Fail again. I forgot to hook up another cable. Okay, attempt #3! Woo hoo! It's alive! IT'S ALIVE!!!
After tweaking the BIOS to run my RAM at its rated 1600 MHz, I started installing Windows 7 onto the SSD. After I finally got to the desktop, wow, this machine flies. It sure runs circles around my old system which I built about 5 years ago. Well, it better considering I spent about $2,000 on this thing! Windows 7 definitely feels pretty snappy on this machine. The load times are minimal thanks to the SSD.
Now onto gaming! Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Beta looks amazing on this machine. It's great to be able to play the game at its highest settings. I think the current beta has reduced quality textures so the final product should look even better when it's released next week. It's great to be able to play at higher than 1 FPS. I can see what I'm shooting at!
So what's next? Well, I still have a ton of old files that I need to sort on the new computer. I've already installed most of the programs that I think I need. I guess when I get some free time, I'll try to run some benchmarks and post some scores. Then it's time to push this system a little bit and see how far this system can overclock!
Oh, since the time that my parts have arrived, I added a few more gadgets to the system thanks to some coupons from Best Buy. My old Sennheiser headset was having problems with being too sensitive when I moved my head so I replaced it with a Logitech G35 headset. My awesome Microsoft ergonomic keyboard was replaced by the Logitech G15 gaming keyboard. It stinks to lose the ergonomic form factor but the keyboard's LCD, extra gaming buttons, riced out LEDs, and anti-ghosting features easily makes up for it. Tary definitely likes that the new keyboard is black because it now matches the rest of my system; My old keyboard was white. Lastly, I replaced my Microsoft Intellisense mouse with the Logitech G500. Let the games begin!
To finish, here are my current system specs:
Monitor: Samsung 930BF-BK
Case: Lian Li PC-A70F
CPU: Intel Core i7 920
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
Heat sink/fan: Noctua DH-N14
RAM: OCZ3G1600LV6GK
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 5870
PSU: Corsair 850HX
Storage:
Intel X25-M 80GB SSD
2 x 1TB Western Digital Cavalier Black
DVD Burner: Sony Optiarc 24x
Speakers: Logitech Z-640 5.1 Speaker System
Keyboard: Logitech G15
Mouse: Logitech G500
Headset: Logitech G35
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