The Great Computer Build 2013 - HAL 4500 Jr Pt. 2

The process of choosing parts parts for the build began months ago. There were a few components I knew for sure I wanted that were pretty simple to decide on. A few other pieces, not so much. Come to think of it I'm still deciding on a video card! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what I got and why.

Case: Fractal Designs Define R4

Looks like a mini Monolith. But Titanium Gray...

One of the prerequisites of the build was above all else the computer be as quiet as possible without overheating. Naturally a case with sound dampening material would be in the running. The R4 got the nod for a few reasons. First was the sound dampening materials built inside the case. With padding on the side panels, the front door and the top of the case, it cuts down on noise and vibrations from the inside. Second: fan options. There are 6 places to add fans, either of the 120mm or 140mm design, so there are plenty of places to add cooling. With that many cooling options, the fans wouldn't need to spin nearly as fast, thereby making less noise. Third: design. I've always been a fan of clean lines, symmetrical design, and general lack of gaudiness (I'm a huge Audi styling fan, for instance). Having a door to hide the drives and card reader, which blends into the clean side panels just works for me. Before I was serious about the build I was a fan of the old NZXT H2. After some research, I found that Fractal Designs had worked out a few kinks the H2 had with their R3. By time I started buying parts, the R3 was supplanted by the R4, which was available  with a side window. Now, admittedly, a side window wasn't completely necessary, as the case would be on the floor under the computer table, where nobody can really see it. But a little bit of flash never hurt anybody,  and I wanted a side window. It just says CUSTOM, even if nobody cares. So a trip to Microcenter netted one of these. As an aside, I had been debating on the Ti Gray version or the Pearl Black version (only the color of the front door is different; the rest of the case is black). When I went to the store I couldn't get anybody to grab the ladder and get the case for me (always hovering around when I don't need help, never around when I do. Like the cops...), so I jumped up, knocked it off the shelf and caught it. I swore I had the black, but when I got home it was the gray. In the end, I'm happy with that choice.

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K

As with most electronics, there's always a 'sweet spot', a product that will give you the most bang for your buck. Not overpowered for your current or eventual needs (and likewise priced out of your budget), not underpowered now or later (and not bought to meat a lower price point). The i5 2500K was the Goldilocks pick of the Sandy Bridge chips: Faster than an i3, and could be overclocked to match some of the lower i7 numbers, at a price accessible to most builder's budgets. However, by the time I was ready to start buying parts, Ivy Bridge was rolling out en mass. So, it seemed right to pick up it's successor, the i5 3570K. I wouldn't need the hyper threading of the i7 3770, and if I wanted to overclock it I could get faster in most benchmarks than that chip, at a lower cost. Now, realistically, I didn't need the unlocked chip, as my current plans and needs don't warrant any overclocking. Honestly I probably could have been just fine with an i3 chip. But, if you're going to go through the trouble of building your own computer there's no need to gimp yourself from the jump. So the 3570K was a lock

Mobo: AsRock Z77 Extreme4

Unlike most of the choices I had to make, choosing a motherboard seemed like closing my eyes and throwing a dart at a list of names. Admittedly it's hard to get a crappy mobo these days; it pretty much comes down to featureset and UEFI/BIOS preference. None of which I really cared much about, to be honest. As long as I had enough SATA headers for any drives I want to add, as I didn't feel like getting a PCI adapter to add drives (as I did with the old computer), was able to accept 32GB of memory if I decided to go that route down the road, I was fine. Having an onboard wifi card would have been nice, but I'm running Gigabit LAN in the basement, so it was unnecessary at the time (and an add on card if needed down the road would be cheaper). So, it was up to Tom's Hardware for approval. I decided on the AsRock based on 3 things: the recommendation from the website, the fact that Microcenter had them in stock (and would knock $40 off the price if bought with the i5), and that the board was all black, which would match the aesthetic of the R4, with the black/white insides. Hey, if you're going to go custom, there has to be some vanity considerations after all...

PSU: SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold

Choosing a PSU was a headache. I knew I wanted one as quiet as possible. I knew I wanted one fully modular, if possible. I knew I didn't want to spend $200 in the PSU, which was more important than the first 2 demands, as realistically, I was never going to drive the computer to the point that I absolutely needed a $200+ PSU. So the research dragged on. For a while, the thought of a fanless PSU appealed to me, even with their higher price. However, the configuration of the R4 prevented that, as having the PSU mounted on the top of the case generally works better from a cooling perspective with a fanless GPU. So, that was out. Most of the boards, threads, and recommendations from builders gave SeaSonic and their line of PSUs high marks for silence and reliability. The problem was, those PSUs were expensive for a non-modular version. Fortunately, I kept my eye on them. Just before the new year, Newegg had this PSU on sale for $90, which was basically half price, with free shipping. It took 2 weeks to get sent to the house, but a deal like that just could not be passed up, even if I had to wait a month.

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB DDR3-1600

Memory was something I figured, after some internal debate, that I didn't necessarily have to go ALL OUT on. As long as the memory was made by a reputable manufacturer and it  fast enough I didn't really need heat spreaders or super fast timing to support any voltage overclocks (which I'm pretty sure would be a bridge too far for me. At least at this point). That said, I've always heard the mantra 'there's no such thing as too much memory', so at least 8GB would be going in the rig. Brand and exactly how much would depend on what was on sale when I went to the store to pick it up. Originally I was going to go with the Corsair Dominator series. Why? The heat spreaders looked cool. But the Crucial memory was $20 less, which money could be shifted to another part in the build. So, 16GB of Crucial 8x2 memory for $72? Sold. Will I ever NEED 16GB? Maybe not. But I can upgrade to 32GB to max out the board if I so choose too. One thing is for sure. I should never, EVER get a low memory warning, no matter what I have running.

CPU Cooler - Corsair H80i

This decision probably took longer than anything else. Depending on who you ask, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is all the cooler you need. It easily outperforms coolers 3 times it's price. But I didn't want it. It's too....plain. I could have gone something huge like the Noctua NH-D14. But that's a lot of weight hanging off the mobo I didn't necessarily want. So after a month of research and internal debate, I decided going with an AIO water cooled setup. Would it be as efficient as a home built water cooling loop? Nope. But I wasn't even about to invest the time and resources to map one of those out (especially when all I really need was that 212 Evo). Would the AOI setup be overkill? Yep, as there's not much need to overclock anything and what I currently do won't stress the processor out at all. But again, this was first my custom rig, and a water cooled solution would (in theory at least) be quieter than 2 or 3 huge fans blowing inside the case, hanging over the RAM and making installation a PITA. After another few weeks of research. the H80i won out. Between the ease of installation, the cooling efficiency, control of the Corsair Link2 and the ability to change the color of the LED on the pump (vanity has to be taken into consideration, you know...) it seemed to be the choice for me. When the local Microcenter had it in stock, I snagged it.

SSD: Samsung 840 Series, 250 GB

Going into the build, I knew I wanted a SSD for the boot drive. Mostly for speed, partially for vanity's sake. The beautiful thing about a SSD: read/write speeds that simply crush a regular HDD. To be able to go from a cold start to working in 20 seconds or less is fantastic. Programs pop open no sooner than you double click them. The biggest problem with a SSD is storage size and cost. Even with the HDD shortage last year (which is starting to stabilize now) you can get waaaaaaaay more storage for less with a standard HDD than going SSD. Which is why most people, yours truly included, will use the SSD as the  boot drive and supplement that with a bigger HDD for data and programs.It's hard to go absolutely wrong with whatever SSD you chose. Yes, some are faster than others, but the majority of the public really won't notice or care, especially if it's faster than they are used to. That being said, if you're going through the trouble of building your own computer, this is the kind of thing that would matter to you, whether you can ACTUALLY tell the difference or not. Samsung's 830 line of SSDs have been regularly praised in reviews for it's speed, so it seemed to be as good a choice as any. Just before I began to open my wallet to start buying stuff, the 840 was launched. So, 840 it was. The biggest question, however, was just how big a drive to get. While a 60GB drive would be more than enough to install Win7 on, anything else would fill the drive faster than it could boot. While you could install most programs on the HDD, some of them don't like to be anywhere but the C: drive. That wasn't worth the hassle for me. So the debate was between the 120GB, which hovered between $100-$120 depending on the store and the week, or the 240+ range, which went for $170-$190, again depending on the time of day and store. In the end I decided to save and go with the bigger drive. May as well have the ability to install whatever program to the SSD and not have to worry about it (considering I had a 320GB drive in the old setup with programs AND data and wasn't quite 3/4 full, the 250GB should be no problem, with a bit better data management). 

HDD: Segate Barracuda 2TB

Not really much to say here. 2TB of storage (7200RPM speeds, to boot) for under $100? Especially when 750GB, and some 500GB drives were as much a few months ago (and even now, if you want, say, a Caviar Black)? Even if most of my data is offloaded to the WHS2011 server, this much internal storage on the rig for this price? Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

ODD: LG 14x Blu-Ray Burner

Remember I said I swapped out the Corsair memory for the Crucial? That had a lot to do with this purchase. For the most part, any DVD burner will do for 98% of people. I mean, unless you're Mr. Bootleg, you're not burning that many movies at home to trade or sell. Most data is being downloaded from somewhere (either legit or grey market), meaning the few times you really need a physical drive would be to install some piece of hardware or to rip a CD you already own to iTunes (or MediaMonkey if you're smart). Likely you have a Blu-Ray player hooked to your TV or own a PS3 to watch your movies. So there isn't that much need for the majority of the public to install a Blu-Ray player in their desktop, other than because you CAN put a Blu-Ray player in your rig. Which was exactly the decision I had to make. In the end, I decided to get at least a Blu-Ray reader, just in case I wanted to archive the movies I have to my server. Looking at the prices on Microcenter, their Blu-Ray readers were somewhere in the $55 range. The Blu-Ray burners? Closer to $75. Not enough difference to kill my wallet. Plus, with the $25+ I saved switching from Dominator memory to Ballistix, well.... there you go.

So, after months of research, planning, saving, and buying (most of which came after the job's winter bonus), I had what I needed to replace the wind tunnel of a computer I was currently using:

Like Christmas for geeks

Since I had a number of crisis to deal with at the time, it would have been smart to wait until the weekend to get everything done. Unfortunately, I'm not that smart, which lead to staying up after 2:30 am two consecutive nights to get everything installed, and a third day to go in and clean up the wiring front and back. But in the end, it all came together

I now have a powerful, cool, quiet, color coordinated computer that should easily be able to handle whatever I throw at it now or months down the road. While the LGA1155 chipset may be supplanted by whatever Intel comes out with this year. my current setup should be able to last me for quite a while before I absolutely NEED to replace anything for being wither too slow or totally obsolete. My inner geek is thrilled.

You may notice that there is no mention of a GPU. Any self respecting builder would die before sticking solely with onboard graphics (even if the HD400 GPU on the 3570K is an improvement on past onboard graphics setups). The reason? I haven't chosen one yet. My OCD won't let me pick between a GTX 660, HD 7870, or the  recently released HD7870 LE (which should be faster than both, and probably faster than a GTX 660 Ti). Realistically, I could but a GTX 650 or a HD 7700 series card and be absolutely fine for what PC gaming I do (currently none), but that would seem to be a disservice to the rig I've built. Plus I still have to decide on what monitors I'm going with (after having a dual monitor setup at work, it's hard to go back to a single, even at home). Both, and whatever other peripheral I need to pick up, will be covered in a later blog.

In the end I managed to build a cross between the Baseline and Performance recommended setup from  MaximumPC, but slightly cheaper. I can't hear the computer upstairs, it boots up faster than I can fix a drink while waiting, it looks great, and I shouldn't have to replace anything for a few years unless I absolutely need the newest and best, which I don't. I haven't come up with an official name, so Hal Jr. it is for now. It's not sentient (nor will it be), nor the most powerful or best spec'd rig around. But it was designed and built from the ground up by me, so it's perfect for me. It's the sweet spot.

Maybe I should call it Goldilocks....

The Great Computer Build 2013 - HAL 4500 Jr Pt. 1

I am a geek. A geek with a bit of an OCD complex. And I am OK with that. That's the only way I can explain most of the things that interest me and how I approach them. Take my RC hobby for instance. The majority of people go with whatever Tyco product is shown on TV, or whatever is on sale at Radio Shack.

I'm sure somebody got this for Christmas. Not sure why though...

 Me? I've got maybe 8 vehicles, all of which were built from kits, which had to be ordered online or purchased from a hobby shop (and I have been to most of the shops and know some of the workers of said shops in a 50 mile radius of the house), and can tell you what rechargeable battery (moving to lipos), motor, engine (there is a difference), speed controller, servo, body, starter box, radio....

I can probably name each of those parts. Probably own most of them too,,,

You get my point. Video games. I've played SFII and it's ilk since the arcade scene was hot in the 90's. Most people would just play on their control pad, or, at best, but a controller from Madcatz or Hori (the fact I know the brands already gives the geek aura away). But how many people do you know have gone and built their own arcade stick to play at home? I own 3, all custom, all that needed to have buttons, joysticks, PCBs, LEDs purchased, installed, soldered, wired, and in some cases programmed to work?

El Guapo and El Jeffe. Yes I named them. Don't ask how much they cost...

Like I said, geek.

The one thing I hadn't really done, which seems to be a prerequisite of any geek or nerd, is build my own computer.Not that I hadn't ever grabbed the Phillips head screwdriver and went into a case before, mind you. Back in the days when I graduated, I had the choice of a car or a computer. You can guess which way I went. While I decided on an Amiga 2000 (probably on this side of being a nerd), I had to have extra memory, faster processor card, audio recording card, and a removable hard drive, all of which had to be ordered and installed by yours truly.

In the early '90s, this was a big deal. Just trust me...

Over the years, I've had to add hard drives, memory, or PCI cards to a number of computers for my friends and family depending on their needs. I even had to put together a computer on a $350 budget when my brother's Compaq gave out on him last year. But building one for my own personal use? Never got around to it.

Now, admittedly, very few people NEED to build their own computer. If you think about it, computers, as with everything else, are getting smaller and more portable. Most people can get along just fine with a low to mid-spec laptop. Tablets like the Nexus 7 and the ubiquitous iPad are expanding because they provide access to the things most people use a computer for (e-mail, messaging, web surfing, Netflix and the occasional game of Angry Birds or Words With Friends) in an easy to use portable device. Smartphones are getting faster with bigger and brighter displays (watch how many 5 inch phones come out this year), with better cameras front and rear to truly become all in one devices (which, ironically, are used less for making phone calls than ever).

Sorry Apple fanboys....

Even if you need a traditional desktop (and if sales and stocks are any indication, more people than ever don't), you can pop into your local Best Buy or hit Dell's website and get more computer than you need for your daily tasks. So why on earth build one yourself?

Simple answer: Because You Can. Even if you go through Dell or HP and customize one of their computers and have it shipped to you, there's always going to be a level of choice that you can't get unless you build it yourself. Say you're heavy into gaming on your PC. You may want more onboard memory and a separate video card to make sure you can get the highest graphics level on any given game. If you do music production, you may need a discrete audio card that will allow greater control and cleaner sound than your onboard audio from the motherboard. If you do video editing you may need a much faster processor and tons of memory. While your choices may be limited with a mass market seller, if you build your own each specific part cam be chosen based on your individual need. Then there's the customization factor. Want a case with plenty of vents for your cooling fans? Need one with a side window to show off your handiwork? Need multicolor lights in your fans or in the case to match your mood or your lighted keyboard? Feel like building a water cooling loop to keep the CPU chilly while you overclock the mess out of it? You've got to go custom. Do you NEED to do any of this? Nope. But you CAN do it, so why not?

Doubt you can buy this at HH Gregg....

Like I said, geek...

So, that being said, I decided I wanted to build my own computer. The current desktop I had was given to my from my IT manager at my job. He had ordered a mobo replacement for one of our servers, and got a whitebox desktop setup instead. Go figure. It was old, but serviceable  Athlon X2 processor, 4GB memory, DVD burner. A step up over the old Dell P4 I had been using (another decommissioned job from my office). The thing was, the computer was LOUD AS F$^K.  With no front fan and only a 80mm rear fan, it had to spin as fast as it could to keep the inside cool, even with a vented side panel and my aftermarket cooler I bought (with another 80mm fan, meaning it was still spinning ultra fast). Add to that a no name, barely vented power supply and you have a noisy, but underpowered, setup. I could hear the fans spinning from the upper landing before heading down the steps to the basement. My WHS2011 server, which I had cobbled together from another decommissioned computer (Lenovo something-or-other P4, which I simply added memory, bigger HDD and Gigabit LAN), and stays on 24-7, was nearly silent. This had to stop. I thought about simply replacing the case with something that could take bigger, quieter fans, and maybe the power supply and CPU cooler to make sure I could keep the sound down. But if I was going to go through the trouble of moving a mix of old and new parts to another case, I may as well take the time and just go from scratch all the way and build up a rig that is at least in the current cycle of parts (pretty sure the CPU and the mobo of the other rig had been discontinued years ago). The process of choosing parts, it turned out, was more difficult than I expected.

I get a lot from my father. My name. My eclectic taste in music. The benefits of good audio equipment (if you only knew how many headphones and high end walkmen I went through as a youth...).

One word: SuperBass

The benefits of good video equipment (which is why I'll go plasma over LCD if I'm paying for it). And the incurable need to research any and every electronic purchase for at least 4 months before buying anything, and even after making the purchase fretting over your decision for weeks afterward, even if you love the purchase. It's horrible. My dad obsessed so long over whether or not to get his Pioneer plasma TV (the one that was a step down from the legendary Kuro line) that my mother threatened to order it, have it installed in the den, and dare him to say anything about it. There were articles, reviews, price comparisons, etc around his house for months. He may have printed out close to a ream of paper on the TV and it's comparisons before finally pulling the trigger and buying it. It was frustrating, even for me, since he would e-mail me stuff on his TV. But in the end, he got it, he's happy, and it looks fantastic (I already told my mother when he passes I'm taking his TV). Sadly, he passed that same affliction on to me. Anything I buy has to be researched, reviewed, double checked, cross referenced, vetted by 2nd and 3rd parties, compared, seen, touched, debated, slept on and price matched before my wallet opens. I annoy my friends. I annoy my wife, I annoy myself. I hate it. I can't help it. So I blame my OCD on my father and keep it moving.

Now that we have the prelude out of the way, I can get to the actual build in the nest post. Which, hopefully, won't take another year, unlike any of the other projects I've got to finish (or start) a writeup on...