theaterinterior

Did you even read my post? I clearly said that I'm going to be liquid cooling in a few months why bother getting a heatsink when its going to be redundant in a few months? 'Lmfao' And I chose windows 8 for a reason. I already own Windows 7, I don't want to downgrade. It's flat/matte black, I absolutely love it, thank you!

i'm not a fan with sleeved cables, just to have a nice 'tucked' cables and it would be awesome just like the way you did it. okay...i dont wanna sound like a critic here but here are some 'refinements' i would do; re-route those USB, power, HDD LED headers just above that grommet where you route it. move the 24pin(if there's enough slack) to that grommet where the rest of your power cables go through for a much cleaner look. then pull back more of the slacks behind the mobo tray and everything would be even more perfect I have no idea how they got where they are. Why would I route them through like that? I confuse myself sometimes. I'll definitely follow up on that! The 24 pin doesn't fit in the lower grommet unfortunately. Thanks for the tips! Don't worry about sounding like a critic! You did just what I asked for and you were super constructive while at it! EDIT: I moved the USB headers to the proper position, the HDD LED etc. were already in the correct grommets. I attempted to re-route the 24-pin and the 8-pins for the gpu, but neither would fit. I added in another 1tb hdd too! Thank you kindly! I used the stock thermal paste and honestly temps aren't great... But they don't go any higher when gaming or doing anything cpu intensive, so I guess it's doing alright. Thank you very much! I got completely confused with the fan controller cables and thought they were meant to attach to the motherboard! I felt like an absolute fool when it clicked. It depends where you are and what volumes you can play at... The feel of the 11rack is second to one thing only. The real thing. It's not bad or far off. In Australia though, the Mark V is about 8 grand more expensive. It sounds better, but not that much better. To add to that, I get the same great tones at a low volume. I would be willing to bet that the Eleven Rack sounds better than the Mark 5 at bedroom levels until you get to small gig levels. On top of that, I can record (at any hour of the day) without micing up a cab and I get a bunch of great effects to go with it (The reverb and delay is second to none!) Also, it comes with Pro Tools for free, and that would usually be the price of the Eleven Rack AGAIN on top of it. A few limitations, the delay and reverb does not 'spill over,' so if you change to a patch with less or no delay/reverb it cuts off abruptly. There is no Mesa Cab emulation, only a few Marshall 4x12 cabs, and only one is usable for metal tones. Also, John Petrucci uses two mics on each of his cabs: a Sure SM57 and a Sennheiser MD421. Both of these microphones are well emulated inside the eleven rack, but only one can be used at a time. To perfectly nail John Petruccis tones one would need to either A: Use to Eleven Racks (this is the only option if playing live) or, B: Use Pro Tools to record a dry track and run it through two different patches one after the other using the different microphones. Honestly, I just settle for the sound with the SM57, it sounds great. For recording, I'll go the whole nine yards and record each track twice (two sets of those for each left and right channel too, that's 8 tracks!) But for jamming or playing live, no ones going to be able to tell that you're just using one mic.

IMGUR Link for pictures, in case you find that easier. This build has been a long time coming. It started off as a 3770K build, but an unfortunate incident with a less than reliable power supply left those parts bricked. I learned my lesson and did the second iteration properly. Here she is! All the boxes lined up. I don't know why but this seems to be a mandatory thing in some places, so here it is. Olive, our cat, decided to help out with the photos. Cats and boxes. Finally, the good stuff! RAM is pretty, but overpriced. I got a great deal though, and seeing as I'm liquid cooling in the (near) future, it won't get in the way. I was so happy with this cable management when I built the thing. I really think that was because I was so excited to get going and didn't want to spend any more time on it. Looking back on it, I don't think it's anything more than passable. I'm planning to go back and sleeve them individually and do a proper job of it at some point though. We're moving in a few weeks, so this is the bare minimum. Scratched up mouse, not sure where that keyboard even came from... My Studio Monitors are missing as is a monitor to actually push the 7970. That will come soon. Headphones are Beyerdynamic DT990's. Absolutely gorgeous when properly driven. But at the moment I'm running off of a FiiO E7 or something similar. The Eleven Rack is an amazing amp simulator. I tried the POD and it was amazingly versatile, but not very realistic. I have less options here, but they're better. I get a killer Dream Theater-esque tone out of this thing. The 24" monitor is fine for the time being, but things will get really interesting when I finally get the 30", hopefully by the end of this year or the beginning of next. I'm thinking of picking up a 1440p 27"er for the time being. Kogan (a cheap electronics place in Australia) has a super cheap one that I'm interested in. Final changes will be a full liquid cooling custom loop in a few months and a decent sized SSD, as well as a few more independent hdds for some redundancy. Also, some fishing line to pull up that sagging GPU until I (if I can find one) get a waterblock on it. 7970 might become a 8970 or be traded for a reference 7970 so that I can get a waterblock for it. Might even become a GTX 780 depending on the prospects of the 8xxx series. If you can see anything I can improve with what I have available (better cabling or anything) please let me know! I'm looking to improve it in any way. PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $389.00) Motherboard: Asus Z87-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Purchased For $265.00) Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $62.00) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $0.00) Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (Purchased For $405.00) Case: NZXT Phantom (Black) ATX Full Tower Case (Purchased For $259.00) Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (Purchased For $114.00) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Professional (OEM) (64-bit) (Purchased For $75.00) Mouse: Logitech G9x Wired Laser Mouse (Purchased For $0.00) Total: $1569.00 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.) (Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-20 20:57 EST+1000)

Why the dominator Platinum? There's nothing wrong with it, I have it myself, but Vengeance or plain old Dominator is a lot more cost effective. Put that extra cash towards a custom loop.

Well, the build is bought! I'm not sure what the etiquette is here for showing off a build, or if that's even allowed. But I am totally happy with this build. Best cable management I've done, super quiet and temps are sitting terrifyingly low. I'm not sure if there was something else wrong with my last build, but this one boots incredibly fast. 12.6 seconds apparently! (Although I don't remember where I saw that... I can't find the information now that I'm looking for it) I'm glad I got the encouragement here to go ahead with it!

Well, I'll be sure to report back with my findings when I eventually procure one! As for the username, it must be from lurking here then, odd that your name stuck out. I guess you provide good content! I only really frequent audio engineering forums and used to frequent the nexus forums for the elder scrolls.

I tried Windows 8 and Windows 7. The SSD ended up failing anyway, maybe it was just on its way out. BTW, your username seems very familiar. I'm not sure if its from lurking here a few years ago or if I've seen you somewhere else. You don't happen to frequent any guitar related forums do you?

I've had a lot of people telling me to get an SSD. To be honest, I had one for a few years and saw an amazing difference on OS X and Linux, but quite little in Windows. Still going to look into a newer one though.

I save about $4 if I recall... I might be a little off, I just remembered I was looking at a different mobo when I compared prices. I shall check again! EDIT: its less than I thought! CPU is $4 cheaper, mobo is $4 more expensive! Same price, plus shipping. As for Morrowind... Kind of. I get a HUGE nostalgia kick from that game, so I use the default meshes and textures. I have added a SLIGHTLY increased draw distance (I find being able to see from Seyda Been all the way to Vivec really decreases the scale of the game) but I run some heavy shaders on it. Dynamic depth of field, dynamic landscape shadows, ambient occlusion, reflective water, simulated global illumination in water, god rays... The list gets extensive. I too REALLY love that game. I must have been playing it for nearly ten years at this stage.

That website seems to be having a few issues... Those stores aren't available to me in Australia. This is close to the cheapest price I can get, but the location and support is worth the slight price premium for me.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $389.00) Motherboard: Asus Z87-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Purchased For $265.00) Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $62.00) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $0.00) Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (Purchased For $405.00) Case: NZXT Phantom (Black) ATX Full Tower Case (Purchased For $259.00) Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (Purchased For $114.00) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 3-Pack (OEM) (64-bit) (Purchased For $0.00) Monitor: Dell U3014 60Hz 30.0" Monitor (Purchased For $1499.99) Total: $0.00 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.) (Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-07 04:01 EDT-0400) Budget: $1500.00 AUD + $1499.99 for monitor Games: BF4, DayZ, Minecraft and Morrowind (GPU shivers for those last two) Uses: Gaming, Rendering, CAD, Maya, Light room/Photoshop and Pro Tools Overclocking: Yes Extras: KRK Rokit 8" monitors, Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro Kind of wondering if it is worth going with liquid cooling in a few months. I'm not willing to risk delidding and I've heard gains are minimal with anything but Sandy Bridge. I really want to over clock heavily though. Quite A few parts are from my last build. CPU and mobo are the only things that are new. Any glaring incompatibilities a or anything?

Ouch, I wish I'd known that before. I have tried everything suggested in this thread. I have a friend who should have a few spare 1155 boards. Could my CPU damage his board if there is something wrong with it? Also, I'm using the stock cooler and thermal paste. What do I have to do about that when I put the CPU in the new motherboard? I have tried every suggestion in this thread.

Still waiting to be able to get the pictures off of my camera, but I managed to test my setup with a friends power supply. Unfortunately, it produced the same results. Now there was an incident where a screw fell into the PSU while it was off, but I don't think that could cause the same problems to occur, could it? If I'm right, what am I looking at? New CPU, motherboard or both?

The new graphics card has not been opened. I'm running off of the onboard graphics. As mentioned in the original post, I was booting up with the intention of removing my old drivers when this problem took place. I took the motherboard out of the case, removed the 'thermal armour' and believe that there are no burns or broken connections. I have a picture of some whitish dust that was on the back of the motherboard. I believe that it is just dust, as any burns would surely be blackish in colour? I will upload the picture shortly, but I'm quite sure nothing is wrong with the motherboard.

I reset the BIOS via the settings menu, but I actually couldn't see a CMOS battery. :/ I think there is a clear BIOS switch on the back and I can move the jumper on the motherboard. But if I went to default settings and saved them it should be the same thing, right? I'll take the motherboard out and examine for damage, I do think the new PSU could be at fault though, especially with the error message about the surge protection from a faulty PSU. I just want to be sure before I go through the lengthy return process. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my post!