For the longest time, I'd been playing games on sub-par PCs at sub-par settings and got to see a lot of my friends getting what they wanted when it came to high-end rigs (mostly from their parents back in the day). The last time I had anything that could be considered top of the line for games may have been during Windows 3.1. Damn that makes me feel old.
Started working and saved up till I could finally afford this baby and am ecstatic at this point. Glad that I finally have a high-end rig of my own on which I can play on 1440p at excellent settings with great framerates. Even though I have some RGB components, I went for mostly white/black/gray theme. Have the lights set to breathing mode besides the kraken x62. And light will turn red if passing a temp threshold.
- CPU - 7700k was fairly straightforward. OC'd without any issues.
- CPU Cooler and Compound - Can't comment much on the included NZXT fan performance since I wound up using the Corsair ML140s, but the cooler works very well. The pump curve is set aggressively, peaking at 100% pretty early and I barely hear it. A note on the stock compound, it's ok. I was getting around 64 degrees on it. Replaced it with Antec Formula 7 which my friend had after he finished his build and it brought down load temp by 7 degrees. Hmm....I wonder if that's how Antec named their paste :)
- Motherboard - Went with this board since it had onboard WIFI and a nice sound solution. Got it bundled with my CPU at Microcenter. BIOS is fairly intuitive and if you're lazy with OC'ing, there's some profiles in there you can take advantage of. The 3.1 USB is a nice addition too.
- GPU - The hardest part of this build was waiting and waiting till this card was released. There were times I was gonna say screw it and get a 1080 which is by no means a bad card, but I was relieved when it was announced and got my hands on it from the initial nvidia preorder. OC'd in afterburner and set a fan curve there too. The card is loud when hitting 70%, but with headphones, who cares? It's gonna be very tough to get these babies nowadays thanks to their effectiveness in mining cryptos, so try keeping a close eye on when nVidia releases these. They're sold out within SECONDS!!!
- RAM - What can I say, these are the new Gskill Tridentz RGB sticks @ 16GB, 3200MHz. They've very nice looking and I wanted them to glow white to match the theme. Someone told me it resembled the "SS" logo, can't be unseen now haha
- Case fans - Got them for their impressive CFM and SP performance, not to mention the theme. They are expensive, but what the hell, I'll be sticking with 'em for a while, so I went with it. I calibrated them to speedfan and they run very quiet until you hit 70-75%. For now, I have the rad fans on exhaust and the rest intake. They maintain a slight positive pressure. Some of you may argue that the heat exhausted by the GPU may recirculate through the back, but I switched the back intake to exhaust and it was just a small difference in temperature, but my case pressure went negative and I want to avoid the dust accumulation. After watercooling, shouldn't be a problem any longer.
- Case - There's a lot of Phanteks Enthoo Evolv builds over here and maybe mine is just another brick in the wall, but I'm not surprised. These cases are the best looking I've seen by far. Sleek and stylish. To boot, it was very easy to build in and manage cables and that's coming from someone who did their first build. Call me vain, but I'm glad that my hardwork is represented by this beauty of a case :D
Just a small tip, if mounting a rad or fans on the upper radiator mount and you don't fill in all the space, cover up the remaining space with something (foam, cardboard, acryllic, etc...) or the hot air will recirculate back into the case rather than exhaust.
That's about it. I had so much fun learning all the ins and outs of building and to see what a great community there is to help you out if you were ever to get stuck. Here's a few more glory shots, but if you have any questions of your own, feel free to lemme know!
