BitFenix Merc Alpha Budget build

[andrevautour]

This is a build that I did back in April. It was for a friend of my dad's son as a replacement for his Pentium 4 system with an Nvidia 6200 graphics card!
The build was made entirely out of old spare parts from past builds with the exception of the Bitfenix Merc alpha, which we got at a local computer shop for $40

The specifications:
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha
Motherboard: Nvidia nForce 680i LT
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
Cooler: Zalman 120mm Cooper cooler
Memory: 4GB Corsair XMS2 800MHz DDR2
Graphics: 2 EVGA Nvidia 8800GTS SSC 640MB in SLI
Power Supply: OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 500GB
Optical: Asus DVDRW Drive

I was extremely pleased with the quality, and the amount of modern features the Bitfenix Merc had. The alpha model has 2X 120 fan cutouts at the top with hex mesh. I didn't install any fans there, but it never hurts to have passive ventilation especially in a small case with lots of hot components in it. It has the PSU in the bottom, cpu cutout in the motherboard tray, some cable routing holes for the cpu power 8 pin cable, and some space along the hard drive and optical bays for storing cables. It is a small case so it is quite crowded compared to larger cases, but that is to be expected. I had the cpu cooler already on the motherboard, so it was very tight getting the motherboard 8 pin power cable connected. but the cooler fit fine and had at least 1 inch of space at the top. It comes with 1 120mm fan at the rear, and there is a mount for 1 more in the front in front of the hard drives, and 2 more in the top. There is also some mesh in the side panel for more passive ventilation for the video cards.
Overall I was very surprised and I really don't think you could ask for anything more in a case that costs $40

The 680i LT board was a good board at the time functionality wise, but in the one we had the fan speed controller was not working for the NB and SB fans, sot hey would both run at full speed constantly and you could not adjust them in the BIOS. it was very loud.


IMG_0415 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

The 8800GTS cards looked huge at the time compared to the 6800 Ultra we had before them. Now they look quite small compared to modern cards like the 580GTX

IMG_0416 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

The motherboard cutout and cable routing holes on the back panel.

IMG_0417 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_0418 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

You can take off the entire front bezel and there is a mount for an additional 120mm fan infront of the hard drives. we had lots of fans laying around, so i added on in the front

IMG_0419 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_0420 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


The cables on the Ocz power supply are quite short, luckily the case is also quite small, so it was just long enough to get the 8pin MB power connected nearly around the back

IMG_0422 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0423 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_0424 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0426 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_0428 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



They had a very old wireless card in the old case, which was the only thing that I moved over from the other case, but it ended up being so old it didn't work with windows 7, so they ended up having to replace it with a newer one.


IMG_0429 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



Here is what the cables around the back ended up looking like at the end, definitely not the neatest, but i was happy enough with it for a really small case

IMG_0430 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


I liked the minimal look of the DVD drive we put in

IMG_0431 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Each of the 8800GTSs only had one 6 pin power each!

IMG_0435 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


One of the Zalman CPU coolers from around 2006 I think. From one of my dad's old systems.

IMG_0436 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_0441 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0446 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


With the door on
IMG_0452 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



Top mesh
IMG_0456 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[tinytomlogan]

Merged all into one post. Please do not multi post in future its against the rules and it can be mistaken as a spambot by the site.

1 post and wait for a reply, if you need to add more..... hit the edit button.

 

[andrevautour]

Merged all into one post. Please do not multi post in future its against the rules and it can be mistaken as a spambot by the site.

1 post and wait for a reply, if you need to add more..... hit the edit button.

No problem. I apologize.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Nice job Andre, it seems that you're always building computers.

I couldn't help but notice the first line of the OP: "It was for a friend of my dad's son"

So a build for your friend, ?

 

[andrevautour]

Nice job Andre, it seems that you're always building computers.

I couldn't help but notice the first line of the OP: "It was for a friend of my dad's son"

So a build for your friend, ?

Haha, I guess a better way to put that would be my dads friends son.
i have another build that i have been working on for another friend of the family, i will post a log for that later.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Haha, I guess a better way to put that would be my dads friends son.
i have another build that i have been working on for another friend of the family, i will post a log for that later.

Yeah I thought you had meant that. It's like everyone you know wants a PC built

 

[wassupdoc]

I'm not surprised if they turn out this neat Great little system, should still be able to keep up on most games too

 

[andrevautour]

I'm not surprised if they turn out this neat Great little system, should still be able to keep up on most games too

yeah, its definitely no ttoo bad! the only thing is with older cards like that they sometimes dont perform as good with new games as they do in benchmarks for example.

my sister has 2 4890s is crossfire in her computer right now and in 3D mark vantage they score almost as high a score as a single 6950, but in real world they dont run any newer games even close to as well as the 6950. I can run skyrim with everything on ultra and 2560x1440 resolution and always stay above 60fps and her computer can barely run skyrim at medium and 1080p. and of course with any DX11 stuff it cant even do dx11 at all. i know skyrims not the best example but same goes with other modern games even though the 2 4890s get almost as good a score in 3dmark, they're not even close with running newer games.

With these 2 8800gts the vantage p score was about 6100 with one card and about 9700 with the second card in.

update 22-04-13:

Some comments about the BitFenix Merc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orckhbwm6vE