I've had an interest in computers since I was young. I remember when the novelty of that new computer wore of after a year or two of use and experimentation with the software side of things. Out came the screwdriver and apart came the PC. It's funny looking back at the older specs... 66Mhz CPU? Unimaginable and so far gone now.

Anyways, two decades have gone by, a lot's changed and my PC seems to be changing less frequently. My current PC has served me well for roughly 3-4 years now, but things are starting to slow down and errors are becoming more frequent. I am currently running an AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6GHz with 4Gb RAM on a budget mobo with an outdated Radeon HD 4350. Playing Diablo III on low settings in 1024x768 should not be done. I'm yet to experience the true potential. I've also got a handful of games I cannot even run, such as Battlefield 2, Skyrim and Medal of Honor Warfighter (Thanks EA!).

After much thought I've decided to build a new one... something for everything. My most common tasks are playing games (NES graphics...), graphic design, web design, converting large videos and feeding my music library, some of which I've currently given up on.

My research has brought me to this. I've been in possesion of this case for a couple of years now and decided to utilize it for my new project. Holding to the style and colours of the case, I've opted for red parts where possible and logical.

Like the collage?

...

...

... I was that bored.

I'd have drawn a picture, but my crayon broke...

...

*cough*

...

Some parts will recieve minor red accents and the side of the case may be modified at a later date to improve internal visibility. I'm also still yet to decide on a CPU cooling system, but anything that does the job well and looks evil is going in the shopping cart too. There's 5 fans inside this case already, a 140mm top and bottom with 2 120mm fans in the front and 1 on the sidepanel.

Thoughts, criticisms & opinions are very much appreciated. =) Anyone with a similar setup?




[For those not viewing images...]

Asus Maximus V Gene
Intel® Core™ i7-3770K
Asus HD 7870 2Gb
G.Skill Trident-X 16G Kit 2400MHz (8Gx2)
Thermaltake ToughPower 80Plus Gold 750
WD Black SATA3 2Tb
SanDisk Extreme SSD SATA3 120Gb
Asus DVD-RW
Asus Blu-Ray Writer


... my first thread. =) DiabloHub. <3

Awesome!

Of course you HAD to go with the Diablo 7870.

No CPU fan/cooler?

Here are some images of mine:





Pardon the blurry images. And yes, the picture of it in my case is without the graphics cards.

I only just realised there was a Diablo edition... whether or not I get it all depends on what I can get a hold of in Australia.

As for the cpu cooler... I'm undecided right now.

@Khan I'm loving that case. I'm kinda wishing I went for the white model... what's the cpu cooler you're running? It fits my requirements. =)

Its the Thermaltake SpinQ. The link is to the blue horizontal model. I can't seem to find the red vertical one anymore...

Found it. Apparently discontinued at Newegg.

Awesome specs. The i7 isn't actually all that great for gaming (not that it's bad, by any means), but for your other work, like video editing, it's going to be a huge boon. Be prepared for many, many gigs of mod downloads for Skyrim, because the community has made massive upgrades to practically every graphic in the game and your machine will handle them with a breeze.

Appreciate the investigation, Khan. =) Found one here for $56. This will literally be the "cherry on top". Thanks a bunch. =)

Thanks for the reply, ecocd. I was contemplating the high-end i5 at first, but opted for the i7 as I seem to multi-task a lot. I'm also looking into the viability/practicality of a dual touchscreen monitor configuration. Seemed like a nifty idea in my head.

Looking forward to some epic gaming in a month's time. =)

Only suggestion I have is to possibly upgrade that SSD to a big bigger.

Mine's almost full now and I'm less than a year out - and that's just with the operating system and some base programs. I've got plenty of room on my hard drive but the speed difference on that SSD is just amazing and you'll want everything "program wise" to install on the ssd.

Excellent, thank you for the suggestion. =)

The 480Gb model is 11c cheaper per Gb than the 120 & 240's, but I'm thinking I may just get 2 or 3 120Gbs and have one for OS, one for programs and the last for games... that is if a PCIe SATA controller is what I think it is... (My mobo has 2 x SATA 6Gb/s ports, as well as 2 more on this "controller" they speak of??)

Just purchased the SpinQ VT. =) Should have a couple of components per week for the next few weeks. =)