Afternoon! I sincerely hope you find the following an interesting read
As I'm writing this it's 16:31, Saturday afternoon. Hungry, thirsty and barely have any fingertips left is probably how I'd describe myself right now. It all started with that familiar old itch last Thursday.. You frequent builders know what it's like - that itch to make something. And it doesn't stop until you feed your desire to do so, does it? (Please read the following in a Zohan voice) So lets go..
(If you don't know what I mean CLICK HERE and watch the movie itself as well, great laugh and good to pass the time with mates 'round)
Wednesday, 28th of September, 22:57:
After thinking about it for nearly a week now I had decided what to do and, of course, how to do it. Set myself a relatively modest budget for a gaming rig then hit up aria.co.uk scouting for components and the following caught my weak "it's 11 o'clock at night after four days hard work at college" gaze:
-Asus P67 Sabertooth - Having owned and currently using a Sabertooth board (X58) and looking at OC3D's fabulous review (once again, thanks guys) which can be found HEREI knew which board I should go for
-i5 2500k - Again perfect for my budget but a great performer, besides I wanted a taste of Sandy Bridge and compare the 2500k to my 950 X58. Another great round-up by OC3D HERE
-Mushkin Blackline 2133mhz 8gb ram - I have a set of Radioactive on my X58 rig, love the heatsinks and the performance. Not much more to add, really. Shame 'bout the lack of review by the kings here but I'm willing to trust Mushkin with my money ANY DAY of the week.. even on Wednesdays.
-Mushkin Chronos 60gb - Always wanted to give a proper SSD a go, why not treat myself? At the very reasonable price set by Mushkin and Aria it was another no-brainer.
-Samsung Spinpoint F4 2tb - Currently using an F3 but running out of space I thought it might be a good idea to boost my por-.. data storage capabilities a little.
-MSI N560Ti TwinFrozR - What do you mean "Why?". It has a cool name and is a combination between THIS 560 and MSI's fantastic TwinFrozR II cooler. Bit of a no-brainer really..
-Fractal XL black - Here I started to struggle a little, I didn't like the flimsy build quality of my Phantom, nor the exceptionally.. bad airflow. So I decided to go with something a little more.. classic, say a big (and heavy.. wow) steel square. I originally wanted an R3 as the XL is THAT massive but as it wasn't in stock with Aria I thought "May as well.." And WOW, it didn't disappoint. The R3 review can be found HERE.
-beQuiet 730W modular PSU - I've always wanted a modular power supply and beQuiet made them good while still retaining a great price. Had to get one, a tad disappointed though.
-Noctua NH-D14 - Again, I don't have to say anything here do I? So I'm wasting my time writing this..? Cool, I'm still going to do it though cos I'm just so fly like that. I have a Noctua on my 950, keeping it cool while being silent, OC3D review pretty much says it all HERE
-beQuiet 140mm Silentwing fan- Just an extra fan, wanted to compare it to the Noctua fans as well as they're nearly the same price. Basically a sort of "Is that 4-5 quid extra justified?" We'll see soon I guess..
All of which were ordered for Saturday delivery. Aria's couriers of choice - CityLink - as always punctual.
Saturday, 1st of October, 08:27:
Calm, cool morning, massive headache and backache. Must've slept tied like a knot again, who knows?
Slowly get up, stare at alarm clock then hit the bathroom. A quick morning service was necessary so I didn't skip on it, swiftly followed by a quick workout. Hit the shower, 15 minutes later as I was getting dressed I suddenly thought "Wait, parts are supposed to arrive today, right?" and just as that thought crossed my mind the familiar noise of a big, lumpy diesel-engined van pulling up outside could be heard through the open windows letting the calm, cool breeze in. Shuffling the curtains a little revealed a Vauxhall Movano in CityLink green and yellow - wondrous sight to my still sleepy eyes.
09:28
As the doorbell rang I was already rushing down the stairs, eager to get my hands on those packages. Greeted the lovely old van driver and helped him unload my packages which were on the top of the pile - Result! Quickly got them upstairs and snapped a few quick ones:
Having taken everything out of the big box already I started unpacking the smaller ones as well. It's just like Christmas really, you can't stop once you've started or it just doesn't feel right. Am I the only 5 year old here when violently punched in the nose by fresh packaging and serious new hardware scents?
The Motherboard:
Everything sort of goes around it so I guess it's the right place to start. And what a beast it is - with its fancy armor and camo colour scheme it's an instant eye-catcher, although I can only assume it's a bit of a marmite sort of thing. I for one love it!
The processor:
What I found interesting about my 2500k is that it was made not in China, Korea or Vietnam but in Costa Rica. Hmm.. Anyway. Time to get it in there I guess:
The ram:
Totally ignoring the 2500k's shabby, small, funny-looking piece of *CENSORED* with a *VERY CENSORED* fan and even *BEEP!!12!* thermal pads I bravely soldiered on towards one of the smaller packages, this one:
Nothing that interesting about fitting ram really so I just kind of left it off (Lies, I forgot to snap a pic actually. Don't whip me please!)
The COOLer:
Why hello there you sexy Austrian BEHEMOTH. We haven't seen each other in a while, have we? I have to say it's as if the Noctua has gotten even better during the last 10 odd months. I was just as impressed with the anal attention to detail from the Austrian company to EVERYTHING from the packaging to the actual product. Just.. wow. Been a while since I last met and attempted to tame a Noctua. It's not by chance that I said "met" and "tame". The MAH00SIVE D14 is the sort of thing you meet. You don't just say "Well I bought this D14 here.." or else it might decide to chop every single of your chubby fingers off! Show it respect though.. wow it's rewarding. Anyway I should probably continue with the actual build instead of blabbering on about just how great this thing is.
Oh right, it's REALLY great. It's an absolute doddle to fit as well! Firstly I cleaned the CPU with a sort of alcoholic jelly substance my dad uses to clean his engineering multitool thingy's(It's the actual scientific term for it - look it up!) lenses and matrixes. Works great!
Then it was time for the mounting brackets.. and just how many times can I emphasise on the fact that whoever designed the D14 is a flipping genius? Seriously, you just slide this backplate thingy behind the motherboard, pop four bolts through it which locks them in place so they can't turn then whack a set of spacers on each from the cpu socket side, pop the brackets on top and tighten the thumb screws. Job done.
When I looked at the bottom, contact surface of my Noctua though I was a tad dissappointed. I could see a few marks on there. Out comes the bottle of alcohol-gel-thingy again and some more cotton, wet&dry, elbow grease and another clean with the alcoholic substance (At this point I had already tried it for taste. It's quite sharp, must say.) and the D14's fine bottom looked like this:
Talk about a mirror finish, eh?
Then out came the good ol' NT-H1. I love this thing, it's so easy to work with compared to the likes of MX-3.
A fair ammount of it went on the CPU then came the time to fit the behemoth. After tightening the screws properly, having finally tamed the beast I decided it's time to snap a couple:
Then with the fans fitted..:
..and the bottle of alcohol gel just creeping in the shot to the right there:
How menacing does that black ram look under there by the way? Sick stuff.
-The GPU:
And out came the fanciest of boxes I received today:
I wouldn't really like my graphics card to act as a handgun though, there's something about the idea of it producing loud noises, excessive head and light energy from its capacitors that I somehow don't really fancy. Bold claims on the box by the way, 20 degrees cooler? We'll see soon
By the way, this thing looks fantastic!:
And then I fitted it to the mobo to see what it looks like in its rightful place:
After I had a change of underwear.. and trousers.. and quickly wiped up the desk I decided I've fooled around enough and out came the case! That was a big and heavy box but then again it would be, this thing is HUGE!
Now a little game of spot the difference with the aid of our old friend the alcohol gel diddly!
Before:
After:
And no, I didn't drink it.. much
The PSU:
Good looking box, not really impressed by what it looked like on the inside though. Nasty, brown cardboard - garbage really. Not exactly a rival for Corsair then?
Although I quite fancy the look of the PSU itself. A fine combination of two of my favorite colours - the orange really sets the black off!
Then I noticed a slight issue. Now you see I may have already mentioned this but oh well.. THAT CASE IS MASSIVE! It's like a bloody cupboard.. of doom.. from Hell... FOR GIANTS. And well the power supply is just kind of.. average really. Metal casing felt well made, the cables didn't have the best of braid but for the price I can't really complain. The actual issue is the cables themselves, more specifically their length - not very long. I knew this would prove to be an issue so I had to flip the power supply to what normal people would refer as the correct way around, but people who are really anal about their builds hate. This position:
Don't whip me Tom, I beg you!
Mind you, Fractal did make it easy for me - it's a simple case of undoing 4 screws and flipping the PSU mounting bracket. Nice touch that, Fractal
Now there were three things I didn't really like about the current situation. If we ignore the power supply the other two are kind of obvious, or at least to me. In fact they were making my eyes ache. Know what they are yet? HDD cage and the fact that in the top left the fans' cables were pointing in oposite directions. Why? Why would you make it look untidy? Why would you not make it easy to hide them away?
C'mon it's just a little thing.. I know I'm nit-picking here but you guys put it there in the first place, might as well put it the right way 'round and save us 5 minutes. Those plastic clips holding the top fan were really awkward. The rear exhaust was quite nice and easy though, four screws - zero hassle. Lovely. Now that the fans were the right way round I took a screwdriver to the front HDD cage. It was quite easy to remove, just two thumb screws and it slides out, then 4 normal screws at the top and the bottom to remove the plastic bracket that would hold it in place if it were there.
It was time to introduce case to motherboard. About time as well.. Whipped out all the stand-offs from the little bag supplied by Fractal and tightened them all into their rightful places.
Now I'd love to say "Then some mating occured and this happened" but unfortunately it wasn't that easy. On my X58 build the I/O shield clicked into place in the Phantom and didn't budge as I was putting the motherboard in. Unfortunately that just wasn't the case with the Fractal and this I/O shield. Slight difference in the sizes I guess. No idea why though. I ended up sticking it with duct tape from the outside and slid the motherboard into place.
And then I obviously had to screw it in. It was as easy as anything really until I reached the top left.
Worst place for a screw.. EVAR.
Once she was screwed firmly in her place (Hey, not talking 'bout girls here you dirty minded folk..) though I helped the case onto its legs and snapped up a pic:
I thought it was only time to stick the drives in the cages and lock them up for good. A task made easy by Fractal, I love your HDD cages guys. Just grab four HDD screws from the same bag as the mobo ones and the stand-offs (You have to shuffle through it to find the right screw but it ain't really a problem with the HDD screws as there's like 40 odd of them, go on, you'll find them eventually). Then its just a case of flipping your HDD over and poking the whole thing with a screwdriver a few times.
Stop... SOLID STATE TIME.
That didn't sound good, did it? Don't shoot, not a nutter! Meh.. I know I'm going back to my corner.
As far as mounting the SSD is concerned it's a doddle if you use the screws supplied with it and the Fractal HDD cage. You unfortunately can't put the fancy backplate with the Mushkin logo on. Shame that, I quite liked it and it would fit in nicely with the black case. Normally I'd just chop it up a little until it fit but I'd have to slice straight through the logo which sort of defies the point really.
Anyway now that that was done it was time for the PSU to get hooked up to the motherboard. Firstly the 20pin - went straight in(Was still a little too tight for my liking but who cares).
Then the double 4..
.. it couldn't reach the hole. (Wow, a rhyme!) Damn it.. means I won't be able to use the beastie today. Shame really, was looking forward to it. Why didn't you just make the cables longer, beQuiet?
Then in went the graphics card and time to get that hooked up..
Really, beQuiet. Saving cash on cables again, are we? Why not just make them 5-6 cm longer. Think about those of us with bigger cases, please! Well I managed to get it in there somehow by having the PCI under all the other cables. Whew..
13:00
Lunch break.. I am only human after all. Looked around my room and well you decide for yourself how I felt being a bit of a tidyness freak..
I guess I just get messy as I get more and more into work. I mean who doesn't, right? Besides of course James May but I sincerely doubt he's even human.. Too beige and devoid of feelings for that. Anyway back to the computer!
Had a few snacks, fueled up on soft drinks and Carlsberg and off we go again.
Decided to fit that BeQuiet fan in the front somewhere. I originally wanted it to go in the top, shifting air straight at the Noctua but that didn't work out well. While the Aria site states "Great cooling possibilities, 3x fans included (2x 140mm, 1x 180mm)" you sort of assume that top slot would be a 140, don't you?
Well it's not, it's a 120. Shame that but oh well, that's what the lower door is for I guess. Moved the Fractal fan in the lower slot and popped the BeQuiet at the top as it's black and would fit in more at the top while the Fractal with its white blades matches the HDD holders nicely.
Neither of them stand out from their background. Good.
At this point I just started taking care of the cable management a bit more. Lengthy process it is! And it's very, very fiddly especially at the top left corner of the case where you have everything piled up in one place - Two case fans, A BLOODY HUGE NOCTUA (Which is awesome, just in case I've missed out saying that earlier) and some cables. Fiddly business. Here, you guys can judge how I've done. It's definitely not the best but it'll have to do until my cable extensions arrive. After the first few pics I realised I'd forgotten the SATA cables.. Embarrassing..
Damn you, short cables! Unfortunately not the first time I've had to say that about something of mine
Going through a couple of different stages here. Spot the difference again?
Once that was done I got rid of my monitor, keyboard and mouse and took some art-ish pics of the new and the old rig, old one still in motion. I love the look of them together, Black and White. Giving me some project name ideas tbh..
(You can find my old rig HERE. Don't know why I never ended up updating that once I had fitted the white LEDs. Been busy I guess. Will have to do it sometime soon
)
One of the main problems with the Phantom was that it just felt.. flimsy. No such thing with the insulated, thick steel panels of the Fractal..
After I had finished slacking I decided to clear up the mess that was my room.. and funny enough it all fitted in one box! Nevermind that it's a huge box, fact is it's all hidden away!
And then time to get depressed.. Think about it, right? The only thing I currently lack is an 8-pin extension but that prevents me from using all this new hardware.. Got the power lead and OS on the pen drive ready and waiting for another portion of Aria awesomeness to arrive, will probably be around Monday or something.
Oh well, will have to update this later as well I guess. Hope you've found this log worth-while, I'd be glad to know it entertained you for at least a couple of minutes.
Thanks for reading
Todd
As I'm writing this it's 16:31, Saturday afternoon. Hungry, thirsty and barely have any fingertips left is probably how I'd describe myself right now. It all started with that familiar old itch last Thursday.. You frequent builders know what it's like - that itch to make something. And it doesn't stop until you feed your desire to do so, does it? (Please read the following in a Zohan voice) So lets go..
(If you don't know what I mean CLICK HERE and watch the movie itself as well, great laugh and good to pass the time with mates 'round)
Wednesday, 28th of September, 22:57:
After thinking about it for nearly a week now I had decided what to do and, of course, how to do it. Set myself a relatively modest budget for a gaming rig then hit up aria.co.uk scouting for components and the following caught my weak "it's 11 o'clock at night after four days hard work at college" gaze:
-Asus P67 Sabertooth - Having owned and currently using a Sabertooth board (X58) and looking at OC3D's fabulous review (once again, thanks guys) which can be found HEREI knew which board I should go for
-i5 2500k - Again perfect for my budget but a great performer, besides I wanted a taste of Sandy Bridge and compare the 2500k to my 950 X58. Another great round-up by OC3D HERE
-Mushkin Blackline 2133mhz 8gb ram - I have a set of Radioactive on my X58 rig, love the heatsinks and the performance. Not much more to add, really. Shame 'bout the lack of review by the kings here but I'm willing to trust Mushkin with my money ANY DAY of the week.. even on Wednesdays.
-Mushkin Chronos 60gb - Always wanted to give a proper SSD a go, why not treat myself? At the very reasonable price set by Mushkin and Aria it was another no-brainer.
-Samsung Spinpoint F4 2tb - Currently using an F3 but running out of space I thought it might be a good idea to boost my por-.. data storage capabilities a little.
-MSI N560Ti TwinFrozR - What do you mean "Why?". It has a cool name and is a combination between THIS 560 and MSI's fantastic TwinFrozR II cooler. Bit of a no-brainer really..
-Fractal XL black - Here I started to struggle a little, I didn't like the flimsy build quality of my Phantom, nor the exceptionally.. bad airflow. So I decided to go with something a little more.. classic, say a big (and heavy.. wow) steel square. I originally wanted an R3 as the XL is THAT massive but as it wasn't in stock with Aria I thought "May as well.." And WOW, it didn't disappoint. The R3 review can be found HERE.
-beQuiet 730W modular PSU - I've always wanted a modular power supply and beQuiet made them good while still retaining a great price. Had to get one, a tad disappointed though.
-Noctua NH-D14 - Again, I don't have to say anything here do I? So I'm wasting my time writing this..? Cool, I'm still going to do it though cos I'm just so fly like that. I have a Noctua on my 950, keeping it cool while being silent, OC3D review pretty much says it all HERE
-beQuiet 140mm Silentwing fan- Just an extra fan, wanted to compare it to the Noctua fans as well as they're nearly the same price. Basically a sort of "Is that 4-5 quid extra justified?" We'll see soon I guess..
All of which were ordered for Saturday delivery. Aria's couriers of choice - CityLink - as always punctual.
Saturday, 1st of October, 08:27:
Calm, cool morning, massive headache and backache. Must've slept tied like a knot again, who knows?
09:28
As the doorbell rang I was already rushing down the stairs, eager to get my hands on those packages. Greeted the lovely old van driver and helped him unload my packages which were on the top of the pile - Result! Quickly got them upstairs and snapped a few quick ones:
Having taken everything out of the big box already I started unpacking the smaller ones as well. It's just like Christmas really, you can't stop once you've started or it just doesn't feel right. Am I the only 5 year old here when violently punched in the nose by fresh packaging and serious new hardware scents?
The Motherboard:
Everything sort of goes around it so I guess it's the right place to start. And what a beast it is - with its fancy armor and camo colour scheme it's an instant eye-catcher, although I can only assume it's a bit of a marmite sort of thing. I for one love it!
The processor:
What I found interesting about my 2500k is that it was made not in China, Korea or Vietnam but in Costa Rica. Hmm.. Anyway. Time to get it in there I guess:
The ram:
Totally ignoring the 2500k's shabby, small, funny-looking piece of *CENSORED* with a *VERY CENSORED* fan and even *BEEP!!12!* thermal pads I bravely soldiered on towards one of the smaller packages, this one:
Nothing that interesting about fitting ram really so I just kind of left it off (Lies, I forgot to snap a pic actually. Don't whip me please!)
The COOLer:
Why hello there you sexy Austrian BEHEMOTH. We haven't seen each other in a while, have we? I have to say it's as if the Noctua has gotten even better during the last 10 odd months. I was just as impressed with the anal attention to detail from the Austrian company to EVERYTHING from the packaging to the actual product. Just.. wow. Been a while since I last met and attempted to tame a Noctua. It's not by chance that I said "met" and "tame". The MAH00SIVE D14 is the sort of thing you meet. You don't just say "Well I bought this D14 here.." or else it might decide to chop every single of your chubby fingers off! Show it respect though.. wow it's rewarding. Anyway I should probably continue with the actual build instead of blabbering on about just how great this thing is.
Oh right, it's REALLY great. It's an absolute doddle to fit as well! Firstly I cleaned the CPU with a sort of alcoholic jelly substance my dad uses to clean his engineering multitool thingy's(It's the actual scientific term for it - look it up!) lenses and matrixes. Works great!
Then it was time for the mounting brackets.. and just how many times can I emphasise on the fact that whoever designed the D14 is a flipping genius? Seriously, you just slide this backplate thingy behind the motherboard, pop four bolts through it which locks them in place so they can't turn then whack a set of spacers on each from the cpu socket side, pop the brackets on top and tighten the thumb screws. Job done.
When I looked at the bottom, contact surface of my Noctua though I was a tad dissappointed. I could see a few marks on there. Out comes the bottle of alcohol-gel-thingy again and some more cotton, wet&dry, elbow grease and another clean with the alcoholic substance (At this point I had already tried it for taste. It's quite sharp, must say.) and the D14's fine bottom looked like this:
Talk about a mirror finish, eh?
Then out came the good ol' NT-H1. I love this thing, it's so easy to work with compared to the likes of MX-3.
A fair ammount of it went on the CPU then came the time to fit the behemoth. After tightening the screws properly, having finally tamed the beast I decided it's time to snap a couple:
Then with the fans fitted..:
..and the bottle of alcohol gel just creeping in the shot to the right there:
How menacing does that black ram look under there by the way? Sick stuff.
-The GPU:
And out came the fanciest of boxes I received today:
I wouldn't really like my graphics card to act as a handgun though, there's something about the idea of it producing loud noises, excessive head and light energy from its capacitors that I somehow don't really fancy. Bold claims on the box by the way, 20 degrees cooler? We'll see soon
By the way, this thing looks fantastic!:
And then I fitted it to the mobo to see what it looks like in its rightful place:
After I had a change of underwear.. and trousers.. and quickly wiped up the desk I decided I've fooled around enough and out came the case! That was a big and heavy box but then again it would be, this thing is HUGE!
Now a little game of spot the difference with the aid of our old friend the alcohol gel diddly!
Before:
After:
And no, I didn't drink it.. much
The PSU:
Good looking box, not really impressed by what it looked like on the inside though. Nasty, brown cardboard - garbage really. Not exactly a rival for Corsair then?
Although I quite fancy the look of the PSU itself. A fine combination of two of my favorite colours - the orange really sets the black off!
Then I noticed a slight issue. Now you see I may have already mentioned this but oh well.. THAT CASE IS MASSIVE! It's like a bloody cupboard.. of doom.. from Hell... FOR GIANTS. And well the power supply is just kind of.. average really. Metal casing felt well made, the cables didn't have the best of braid but for the price I can't really complain. The actual issue is the cables themselves, more specifically their length - not very long. I knew this would prove to be an issue so I had to flip the power supply to what normal people would refer as the correct way around, but people who are really anal about their builds hate. This position:
Don't whip me Tom, I beg you!
Mind you, Fractal did make it easy for me - it's a simple case of undoing 4 screws and flipping the PSU mounting bracket. Nice touch that, Fractal
Now there were three things I didn't really like about the current situation. If we ignore the power supply the other two are kind of obvious, or at least to me. In fact they were making my eyes ache. Know what they are yet? HDD cage and the fact that in the top left the fans' cables were pointing in oposite directions. Why? Why would you make it look untidy? Why would you not make it easy to hide them away?
C'mon it's just a little thing.. I know I'm nit-picking here but you guys put it there in the first place, might as well put it the right way 'round and save us 5 minutes. Those plastic clips holding the top fan were really awkward. The rear exhaust was quite nice and easy though, four screws - zero hassle. Lovely. Now that the fans were the right way round I took a screwdriver to the front HDD cage. It was quite easy to remove, just two thumb screws and it slides out, then 4 normal screws at the top and the bottom to remove the plastic bracket that would hold it in place if it were there.
It was time to introduce case to motherboard. About time as well.. Whipped out all the stand-offs from the little bag supplied by Fractal and tightened them all into their rightful places.
Now I'd love to say "Then some mating occured and this happened" but unfortunately it wasn't that easy. On my X58 build the I/O shield clicked into place in the Phantom and didn't budge as I was putting the motherboard in. Unfortunately that just wasn't the case with the Fractal and this I/O shield. Slight difference in the sizes I guess. No idea why though. I ended up sticking it with duct tape from the outside and slid the motherboard into place.
And then I obviously had to screw it in. It was as easy as anything really until I reached the top left.
Worst place for a screw.. EVAR.
Once she was screwed firmly in her place (Hey, not talking 'bout girls here you dirty minded folk..) though I helped the case onto its legs and snapped up a pic:
I thought it was only time to stick the drives in the cages and lock them up for good. A task made easy by Fractal, I love your HDD cages guys. Just grab four HDD screws from the same bag as the mobo ones and the stand-offs (You have to shuffle through it to find the right screw but it ain't really a problem with the HDD screws as there's like 40 odd of them, go on, you'll find them eventually). Then its just a case of flipping your HDD over and poking the whole thing with a screwdriver a few times.
Stop... SOLID STATE TIME.
That didn't sound good, did it? Don't shoot, not a nutter! Meh.. I know I'm going back to my corner.
As far as mounting the SSD is concerned it's a doddle if you use the screws supplied with it and the Fractal HDD cage. You unfortunately can't put the fancy backplate with the Mushkin logo on. Shame that, I quite liked it and it would fit in nicely with the black case. Normally I'd just chop it up a little until it fit but I'd have to slice straight through the logo which sort of defies the point really.
Anyway now that that was done it was time for the PSU to get hooked up to the motherboard. Firstly the 20pin - went straight in(Was still a little too tight for my liking but who cares).
Then the double 4..
.. it couldn't reach the hole. (Wow, a rhyme!) Damn it.. means I won't be able to use the beastie today. Shame really, was looking forward to it. Why didn't you just make the cables longer, beQuiet?
Then in went the graphics card and time to get that hooked up..
Really, beQuiet. Saving cash on cables again, are we? Why not just make them 5-6 cm longer. Think about those of us with bigger cases, please! Well I managed to get it in there somehow by having the PCI under all the other cables. Whew..
13:00
Lunch break.. I am only human after all. Looked around my room and well you decide for yourself how I felt being a bit of a tidyness freak..
I guess I just get messy as I get more and more into work. I mean who doesn't, right? Besides of course James May but I sincerely doubt he's even human.. Too beige and devoid of feelings for that. Anyway back to the computer!
Had a few snacks, fueled up on soft drinks and Carlsberg and off we go again.
Decided to fit that BeQuiet fan in the front somewhere. I originally wanted it to go in the top, shifting air straight at the Noctua but that didn't work out well. While the Aria site states "Great cooling possibilities, 3x fans included (2x 140mm, 1x 180mm)" you sort of assume that top slot would be a 140, don't you?
Well it's not, it's a 120. Shame that but oh well, that's what the lower door is for I guess. Moved the Fractal fan in the lower slot and popped the BeQuiet at the top as it's black and would fit in more at the top while the Fractal with its white blades matches the HDD holders nicely.
Neither of them stand out from their background. Good.
At this point I just started taking care of the cable management a bit more. Lengthy process it is! And it's very, very fiddly especially at the top left corner of the case where you have everything piled up in one place - Two case fans, A BLOODY HUGE NOCTUA (Which is awesome, just in case I've missed out saying that earlier) and some cables. Fiddly business. Here, you guys can judge how I've done. It's definitely not the best but it'll have to do until my cable extensions arrive. After the first few pics I realised I'd forgotten the SATA cables.. Embarrassing..
Damn you, short cables! Unfortunately not the first time I've had to say that about something of mine
Going through a couple of different stages here. Spot the difference again?
Once that was done I got rid of my monitor, keyboard and mouse and took some art-ish pics of the new and the old rig, old one still in motion. I love the look of them together, Black and White. Giving me some project name ideas tbh..
One of the main problems with the Phantom was that it just felt.. flimsy. No such thing with the insulated, thick steel panels of the Fractal..
After I had finished slacking I decided to clear up the mess that was my room.. and funny enough it all fitted in one box! Nevermind that it's a huge box, fact is it's all hidden away!
And then time to get depressed.. Think about it, right? The only thing I currently lack is an 8-pin extension but that prevents me from using all this new hardware.. Got the power lead and OS on the pen drive ready and waiting for another portion of Aria awesomeness to arrive, will probably be around Monday or something.
Oh well, will have to update this later as well I guess. Hope you've found this log worth-while, I'd be glad to know it entertained you for at least a couple of minutes.
Thanks for reading
Todd
