To start off id like this page to be also my short Introduction. HEY, Im Jarred Casley... or CAZ. Im from the Central Coast of Australia (Born in Sydney) and i am building my first "proper" system, but trust me I'm no noob at this. My original budget of $1500 was a little over but by the time i finished finalizing the components i was very happy with my selection. I joined OCC after reading an awesome review and thought it would be great to share my work-log here with you guys, seems like an awesome site and forum
Little insight into the threads setup. Theres 2 parts. I will link each of them when the time is right. Part 1 is here and ill be talking about the theory of the PC. Part 2 is the awesome part of building it with pics of course . The order wont be in for a week or two so part 2 will be out soon i hope. I also separated them as id like the pics to also be on the first and second posts in the thread.
No more! lets BEGIN
Lets start with the SPECS
All bought from one of Australia's leading online computer store, CentreCom. (Product Placement anyone?)
$187 Thermaltake Toughpower XT 775W ATX Power Supply with Cable Management
$80.30 Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 6GBS
$196.90 Corsair DDR3 12GB (3x Vengeance 4GB) 1600MHz CL9 (CMZ12GX3M3A1600C9)
$336 Intel Core i7-960 / 3.20GHz / 8MB Cache / LGA1366
$118 Cooler Master Scout SGC-2000 - Black ATX Tower Case (No PSU)
$369 Asus RAMPAGE-III-FORMULA Intel motherboard - 6x DDR3 / 6x Sata Raid / Gigabit LAN / LGA 1366
$331.10 Gigabyte nVidia N560SO-1GI-950 GTX560 TI, 950Mhz, 1GB GDDR5, 256BIT, HDMI, DVI
----------------------------------- $1,646.10
The point to this system was GAMING and FUTURE-PROOFING.
THE NAME: The name "CAZ C2 Extreme i7" is a bit misleading as its not an i7 extreme, but the rig is , Or CAZ Custom-2 (CAZ C2) for short. CAZ being my nickname and C2 making it my second Custom built PC.
Originally I was going to get the RAMPAGE III Extreme, but decided that after reading a review on the formula it was a better choice for gaming and the extreme would be a 'little' too extreme. You may think the formula is still a bit of overkill but i just had to have those features the ROG series offers and money wasn't such an issue.
I didn't decide to go with a second generation i7 as after a little research i decided that i would rather an original. I just dont really like the new Sandybridge ones over the 900 series i7.
The case, The scout You cant go past the quality of this case compared to its price. and to be honest i LOVE the look of it over MANY other cases that are more expensive. Its just a piece of art and gotta love that handle. I also purchased an additional Cooler Master RED LED 120mm fan to go on the side panel as reviews state this can lower GPU temp a lot due to its position. But its stock fans (3) would be plenty enough as is.
Now for the GPU. After reading reviews on it i was hooked. SUPER OVERCLOCKED at stock, yes please. After seeing benchmarks i was blown away when it was compared to other G/Cards such as the GTX 570 and at that price i just had to have it.
You may also notice something missing?!? ... The optical drive. With all the thrill of choosing components i kinda overlooked it haha (*OCC YELLS NOOB*) No biggy, ill just pick up a cheap one at the local Rip Off Store (what they call a computer shop). But i still have my current ASUS DVD/CD combo so im all set. You may also see the words Futureproof and the lack of SSD. Well i think the 1tb will furture proof me for a very long time as ive lived with 160gb very happily. And SSD would have been nice as a primary OS storage device but the prices just didn't allow it unless i made some serious modification to my current specs.
So what do you think? I cant wait to post PART 2, expect lots of nice pics of building it. Maybe the odd Nerdgasm or two