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Speedy's Gaming PC Build Thread

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Introduction

The last time I bought a desktop PC was back in 2003 just before I started my current job. I had been shopping around for components and was pretty close to building a PC with an Asus A7N8X motherboard, AMD Athlon XP3000 processor, and nVidia GeForce 4. Ultimately I found a good deal at the time on a Compaq S4500NX which actually had an OEM version A7N8X and Athlon XP3000 in it, so I just spent a little more to add the graphics card.

It was a good machine, and I still have it, but it's really starting to show its age. It's too much hassle as a living room DVR -- most TV is available in streaming format now on much smaller hardware. It's too large for our kitchen desk -- we have a 2007 Sony laptop that fills that role. I gave it to my son recently to try running some current games on it, and it was extremely laggy. I think I might just throw Linux on it for fun, or pull the hard drives and donate it to the local charity.

So, it's time for a new PC. The Sony laptop is still loping along mostly as an email and web machine, but I like editing videos and designing hardware/software, and my son is itching to play some current games. This thread is meant to document our build as reference point in case anyone else is considering building a PC. Along with the parts list and build sequence, I'll try to explain my rationale and show the end results.

I hope a few of you enjoy the build. More to come...

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Great too see & will be watching this thread .

I too had to build a computer last year for gaming as the old one didn't keep up with the New games .

ASUS Z87-Deluxe Duel i went for ! << Now would be old :lol: .

I7 1150 socket .

Evga GC GTX 760 Gforce .

ETC . + water cooled :D .

bcc332a135451f280d3157dec7fcc409_zps5b00

Would like too see what your going to come up with .

Are you water cooling it ?. over clocking it ?. SSD hard drives ?.

OMG!! i'm going nutz wanting to know :lol: .

I was really into building computers & did it alot . Just keeping up

with gaming etc . Stopped doing it 2007/ 2008 some where there .

Old socket XFX 790i LGA 775 .

|O^O| keeping an eye out .

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Parts List

So here's what arrived over the past few days...

Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K
http://ark.intel.com/products/80807/Intel-Core-i7-4790K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_40-GHz

I went with a Devil's Canyon part instead of a Haswell-E mostly because of gaming. Various reviews and tests suggest the higher clock frequency is more meaningful for gaming than higher core counts. Video editing definitely can benefit from more cores, but that's not the main use case for this machine. It's also worth noting that Haswell-E and DDR4 are still commanding some premiums over Devil's Canyon and OC'd DDR3.

Motherboard: ASRock Z97 OC Formula
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20OC%20Formula/

I went with this motherboard with two perspectives -- short-term stability and long-term tuning. The 12-phase power supply, bulky chipset heatsinks, and 2-ounce copper layers are really nice from a system stability standpoint when running the system at stock speeds; I want clean power and good thermals. That said, if we ever want to pursue overclocking seriously, we have the headroom to swap in a better cooling system and start turning up the clock multipliers. ASRock's Nick Shih hit 7.0 GHz with a Core i7-4790K on this board earlier this year.

Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8 GB (2x4GB) PC 19200 / DDR3 2400 OC (two sets)
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/vengeance-pro-series-8gb-2-x-4gb-ddr3-dram-2400mhz-c11-memory-kit-cmy8gx3m2a2400c11r

Total memory will be 16 GB spread across all four slots to take advantage of the dual-channel architecture. There's enough room here to run applications and also have a RAM disk. The heat spreaders, clock ratings, user reviews, and price attracted me to these parts. The motherboard does support up to 32 GB, but there's no real need for that much memory right now.

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX970 Superclocked ACX 2.0 4GB GDDR5
http://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=04g-p4-2974-kr

Several benchmark tests seemed to show the GTX970 as possibly the best value for the dollar currently. The GTX980 is definitely more powerful but costs quite a bit more. Depending on the game one might be able to argue in favor of an ATI R9 290X, but overall the GTX970 seems to be a killer card in its price range. Once I settled on nVidia, I read a lot of user comments about the different brands before settling on EVGA. There's no plan to run a 4K display, so I didn't see a need to get two cards for a SLI configuration.

Hard Drive: Crucial MX100 512 GB Solid State Drive
http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/storage-ssd-mx100

Over the past few years most of my work computers have started arriving with SSDs instead of rotating hard drives. The speed of a SSD is just so much better than a hard drive; in this configuration I'm using the SSD for OS and program storage, and at a later time we'll add a 2 TB rotating drive just for data storage. Reviews on this particular drive were pretty good.

Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-2209
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Computer/Computer+Drives/BDR-2209

This is a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray reader/writer. Basically any and all media are supported. Some games still come on optical media, and I wanted full writing capability for videos. Reviews and user comments looked good for this drive.

Networking: ASUS PCE-AC68 802.11ac Triple-Antenna WiFi
http://www.asus.com/us/Networking/PCEAC68/

What really sold me on this was the extra antenna base and 1 meter extension cables. I've had WLAN cards with antennas close to the chassis in the past, and sometimes it can hurt radio performance. This should give us an opportunity to position the antennas optimally and take full advantage of our router's speed ratings.

Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
http://thermaltakeusa.com/store/Product.aspx?C=1014&SC=1017&ID=1513#Tab0

I remember when the original Level 10 case came out; it made a quite an impression on me. I quickly forgot about it as soon as I read about the $850 price tag. Thermaltake has released a cost-reduced version of their case called the Level 10 GT. With instant savings and mail in rebate, the cost was a much more realistic $130. The design aesthetic is not for everyone, but I like it. I was drawn to the large 200 mm case fans, hidden wiring, large internal size for graphics cards, and lots of bays for drives and future expansion. Some testing documented in reviews shows it does a good job of maintaining temperatures without much noise thanks to the larger, slower fans.

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNova 750 G2
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=220-G2-0750-XR

There weren't too many choices for 750W power supplies with 24-pin ATX connectors and two EPS12V connectors. jonnyGURU's review sold me on this power supply -- startup transient waveforms, noise/ripple, accuracy, load regulation, efficiency, and power factor were all really good under different load and temperature conditions. Initially I was looking at the Corsair CX750, but it didn't have the second EPS12V connector and it was only a bronze 80% instead of gold 80% for about the same price.

Display: ASUS VG248QE Full HD (1920x1080) 1ms response 80,000,000:1 contrast
http://www.asus.com/us/Monitors_Projectors/VG248QE/

The main thing I was looking for was a really short response time. Some reviews pointed out this TN LCD's internal 6 bit per color channel resolution and the use of dithering algorithms to make up for it, but overall color rendering was very reasonable for everyday use. The viewing angle may not be as good as some IPS displays, but the #1 selling point of this display for me is the 1 ms response time -- every delay counts when you're gaming online. 24" diagonal measure, full 1080p HD, and DVI/HDMI inputs are nice features as well.

Speakers: Logitech Z623 Speaker System
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/speaker-system-z623

We went with a 2.1 setup instead of a full surround system to keep the wiring clutter to a minimum. Reviews seemed reasonable for this speaker system. The sound was judged not quite as bright as Harmon Kardon Soundsticks, but the power is higher (200W), the price is lower, and the sound is completely acceptable. We want to feel those frags!

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416804

Mainstream support ends this January, but extended support (security patches) will continue through 2020 for Windows 7. I might jump from Windows 7 to Windows 10 after the first service pack is published.

Odds and ends...

Processor Heatsink: EVGA ACX mITX Cooler
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=100-FS-C901-KR

This might be most questionable component in the system. I was looking pretty hard at the Zalman coolers but recently read they filed for bankruptcy, so I didn't want get stuck with a defective part and no recourse. I do like their all-copper designs. With the EVGA cooler, the main complaints are focused on the clips that secure the cooler to the motherboard. Reviewing the Level 10 GT manual some more, it looks like I could have gone with a larger cooler (more than 92 mm), but it was hard to judge if there would be interference with the system RAM. This cooler looked like it had a footprint that might not interfere with the system RAM. The plan here is to install it and monitor the CPU temperatures carefully. If I have to, I'll revisit this choice again. The EVGA cooler is definitely much larger than the one Intel supplies with their CPU, and the quad heatpipes do make direct contact with the processor. Testing will show if this is a good choice or not.

Heatsink Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5
http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

This was recommended to me by a co-worker who builds PCs for a hobby. This is the thermal grease that goes between the processor and heatsink/cooling fan. Compared to other greases, this one seems to have a little wider operating temperature range.

Heatsink Cleaner/Prep: Arctic Silver ActiClean
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm

This is a 2-step cleaning system for preparing processors and heatsinks.

SATA Cables: Rosewill 19.7" SATA III w/ Locking Latch
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119474

SATA III rated (6.0 Gbps), metal locking tabs, good length, good user reviews...

We already have the following from last year...

Razer Blackwidow Ultimate Keyboard
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-ultimate-2013

Razer Tartarus Keypad
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-tartarus

Razer Naga Mouse
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga

When it comes to building a custom PC, I'm sure each person has his personal preferences for parts. I tried to find appropriate current technology that isn't bleeding edge (but has lots of life left in it) and received good reviews from various magazines, blogs, and users. I tried to find components that are a little overengineered for stock speeds, but could support some level of overclocking in the future if we want to start pushing some limits. The goals are good performance, reliability, and opportunities for tinkering down the road.

More to come...

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Now that sounds like an excellent rig ! .

You have some go gear in that combo .

I'm sure there will be pic's etc & a build thread :lol: . I hope :D .

I would have thought we would have been up to DDR6 or 7 by now , but

we are still stuck using DDR3 .

Thanks .

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Looks like a decent beast there mate...

will be interesting to see your scores after testing... one Q why not going for dual cards? as its a gaming pc I would think the one card would struggle after 12 hrs gaming.

(I work in IT,a senior systems consultant for the past 4.5 years and have been heavily involved in cracking/overclocking/system security over the years I own 3 gaming rigs which I never use)

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z00ter, I went for a single card because the benchmarks for current games show over 60-80 fps in full 1080p HD and ultra high quality settings. If I need to go SLI in the future, it shouldn't be hard to get another nVidia card and pop it in. For now this will satisfy what we're trying to do.

Update

I built the PC, fired it up, and loaded Windows 7 Pro 64-bit successfully. All the drivers and OS updates loaded with no problems. The whole system seems to be running well, but I'm keeping an eye on CPU thermals and thinking about reorienting the CPU cooler. I ran out of time today to upload all my pictures and write about it; that will come in a day or two. Then I'll have some more tuning and tweaking before I publish some benchmark numbers.

Here are a few teasers for now... I'll write more later...

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The Hardware Build

The first step was to go to work and borrow an ESD mat and wrist straps so we could work safely around the electronics. It's the beginning of winter here and the temperatures and humidity have been dropping, so building up a charge just walking across the floor has been getting easier. Even though it was raining outside for the whole day, I didn't want to take any chances. By wearing a wrist strap that connects to Earth ground electrically, all charge accumulated on us is bled back to Earth.

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Newegg shipped the Level 10 GT case in its original box with no additional wrapping or boxing. When I first retrieved the box from the UPS depot, I was a little worried as one of the box edges had a hole in it. Fortunately, everything survived the trip just fine. One nice feature of the case is the large handle designed into the top of it; it's easy to lift out of the box and place on a table.

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Wrapping removed...

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The front of the case has four 5.25" slots, one 3.5" slot, and five quick release trays for SSDs/HDDs. There's a lock to prevent SSD/HDD removal if so desired. The right side of the case has power and reset buttons, HDD activity LED, headphone and microphone jacks, and four USB 2.0 ports.

IMG_1512.JPG

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On the left side of the case there's a window for seeing the motherboard and top 200 mm LED fan, a side 200 mm LED fan, and a lever for directing the airflow up (towards the graphics card) or down (towards the power supply). A lock secures the side door. The drive trays are prominent near the front of the case.

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The back of the case includes grommets for optional water cooling, a 140 mm exhaust fan, a spot for the ATX IO shield, eight expansion slot covers, and an opening for the power supply.

IMG_1514.JPG

The right side of the case is relatively bare with just some graphics. The side panel does slide backwards and come off completely after removing two rear thumb screws. This allows access to any wiring hidden beneath the motherboard.

IMG_1515.JPG

Here you can see the fan and louvers, the motherboard mounting surface, and the grommets for running cabling in and out of the hidden compartments.

IMG_1516.JPG

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Right side cover removed... The chassis includes several fingers for holding the cabling securely against the internal mounting plate.

IMG_1517.JPG

Left side cover removed... It simply lifts off the hinge pins on the main case. One nice feature is the 200 mm fan is connected through some conductive pads and pogo pins to the main case, so there's no cabling to disconnect when removing the door.

IMG_1518.JPG

The brown accessory box that came inside the case includes a headset hanger, several bags of screws and standoffs, some cable ties, an ATX12V extension cable, and a small piezo buzzer.

IMG_1520.JPG

One of the first things we did was pull the wiring out of the retention fingers and tidy up the routing just a little bit. Given some of the signals and their locations on the motherboard, it made sense to route some wires through the bottom grommet and some of them through the middle grommet (in the set of three vertical grommets).

IMG_1521.JPG

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With the case prepared we worked on the power supply next. EVGA does a nice job packaging it.

IMG_1523.JPG

The power supply is packed inside a cloth pouch; the instruction manual lies on top of it. On the other side of the box are all of the separate cables for each power supply port, as well as another pouch for storing unused cables. This is a full modular power supply, so we only had to install the minimum number of cables for the system. This is nice for saving space inside a case, not blocking airflow, and trying to keep things neater overall.

IMG_1524.JPG

Power supply box contents spread out...

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EVGA includes a test header to plug into the main ATX connector on the power supply; this allows you to test the power supply before connecting it to other parts of the system.

IMG_1527.JPG

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The power supply slide into the bottom mounting bracket, and then it's secured with four screws to the rear of the case.

IMG_1530.JPG

I suggested to my son that we install the SSD and optical drive next, that way all of the non-motherboard items would be addressed and we could then focus on just one spot in the case. First up is the SSD; it comes in a small box and doesn't include any documentation... Crucial's web site did have a PDF available, though.

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Basic packaging...

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Installation was pretty straightforward. The SSD installs into one of the removable drive trays, then slides in to connect with a SATA backplane already installed in the case. The backplane only routes power to a common power connector; the individual drives have their data connections passed through to separate connectors. I was careful to make sure the connectors lined up whiles sliding the tray in, but I still had to press the back of the backplane at the same time I was installing the tray because the backplane board would flex a little. By doing this I knew the connectors were completely mated.

IMG_1534.JPG

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Here you can see the SATA data cable and the SATA power cable connected to the backplane. The power cable is one of three supplied by EVGA with their power supply; each cable can power up to three devices. The extra connectors just rest at the bottom of the case in this installation...

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Up next is the Blu-Ray writer/reader. This is the standard 5.25" half height size that has been in PCs for a long time.

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We installed the drive in the top bay. The case includes a sliding quick engagement/release mechanism for holding the drive in place, but in my experience the drive will rattle in the bay if an out-of-balance disc is inserted. To combat any potential vibration issues, I installed two screws to securely hold the drive in the bay in addition to clicking the quick release mechanism into place.

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At this point the hidden wiring has been cleaned up, the power supply is installed, the SSD is installed, and the Blu-Ray drive is installed. Power has been connected to the SSD, Blu-Ray drive, and the fan controller for the case. The loose cables are all signal connections, not power connections, that must go to the motherboard.

IMG_1538.JPG

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Now for the fun stuff! For the most part all the motherboard work will happen outside the PC case first, then it will be installed, and finally the signal cables and remaining power cables will be installed.

Here we have the Z97 OC Formula motherboard, Core i7-4790K processor, CPU cooler, DDR3 memory, and thermal prep and grease.

IMG_1539.JPG

The motherboard box includes the motherboard (of course), a SLI cable, some SATA cables, a hard drive saver cable (switches power off when not in use), ATX IO plate, manuals, and storage pouch. The included cables weren't used as we're only running a single graphics card, we already had other SATA cables, and we're not going to use the HDD saver feature.

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Pretty picture of the motherboard...

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Here's the Core i7-4790K still in the box. Both the processor and a stock CPU cooler are included, but we will replace the stock cooler with a larger EVGA cooler later.

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Here's a side-by-side shot of the stock cooler and the EVGA cooler...

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240-pin DDR3 DIMM memory modules... There are four 4GB modules, one for each motherboard slot, for a total of 16GB installed.

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It all went together pretty quickly. The processor socket has a long arm that is pulled outwards, then up, to slide the socket cover back and then up. This exposes the 1150 pins built into the socket. We were careful to remove the processor from the packaging without touching any pins or the metal cover, and gently placed it into the socket checking the keying features mated correctly. Then we lowered the socket cover and slid it forward by lowering the long arm and latching it into place. There was a plastic protective cover over the top of the socket that popped off (correctly) with the processor installed. This exposed the top of the processor for a CPU cooler.

Before installing the CPU cooler we installed the DDR3 memory. This was easy; the modules just snap into place. We also cleaned the top of the processor and the bottom of the CPU cooler with Arctic Silver cleaner, then applied Arctic Silver 5 grease to the top of the processor.

Actually installing the cooler turned out to be a hassle. True to some of the user reviews I read, the mounting clips were difficult to deal with. I could usually get one side of the heatsink secured to the motherboard, but as soon as I tried to attach the other side of the heatsink the first clip would pop out. There was simply too much force pushing the heatsink away from the processor. To fix this I used some small needle nose pliers to bend the mounting arms down just a little bit to reduce the pressure between the cooler and processor, but still maintain enough pressure to squeeze the thermal grease between the two.

I'm not confident this CPU cooler installation is the best. There are a lot of variables at play between the strength of the mounting leg springs, the thickness of the thermal grease, the break-in process for the thermal grease (multiple power on/off thermal cycles, 200 hours of cure time), the speed and direction the fan is blowing, how much of a thermal improvement Intel might have made to this revision of the Core i7 family, etc. Ultimately the PC did power up and the processor didn't cook itself, but I'm keeping a close eye on the temperatures for now.

Here's the completed motherboard subassembly...

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Installing the motherboard subassembly into the case was straightforward. The ATX IO shield snapped into place in the case first, then the motherboard was angled in and slid into place to engage the IO shield pins. Nine screws were used to hold the motherboard in place.

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With the motherboard in place the next steps included installing the graphics card and WLAN card. Two of the eight I/O shields had to be removed from the case for the graphics card; it just dropped into place and is held in the socket by a retention latch. The thumbscrews holding the I/O shields were installed again to secure the card to the case. For the WLAN card only one I/O shield had to be removed. The card itself is so short it doesn't mate with the retention latch.

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The last hardware steps included connecting power to the motherboard and graphics card, and connecting all the loose case cables to the motherboard. These included an AC'97 cable for the front headphone and microphone jacks, the rear case fan cable, a USB 2.0 cable for two of the front USB ports, several discrete wires for power switch/reset switch/power LED/HDD LED, a small piezo buzzer, the SSD SATA cable, the Blu-Ray SATA cable, the eSATA cable, top USB 3.0 ports, and the CPU fan. I would have liked to have cleaner wiring, but the cable lengths are as provided by the vendors, and they have to design for a variety of cases. Overall the case is very open; there are no real restrictions to air flow.

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I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst the first time I turned on the power. Everything came to life, and I was able to get into the BIOS right away. The BIOS includes a hardware monitor page for all of the major board voltages, the CPU temperature, and eight motherboard temperature sensors. After watching the voltages and temperatures for awhile, I decided to go forward with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit installation and then install drivers for all the hardware.

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Right now the CPU temperature is hovering around 30C at idle, but it goes as high as 80C when being stressed by Prime95. Some basic FPS games only pushed the CPU to about 50-55C, but as mentioned earlier I'm not sure the thermal connection between the processor and cooler is the best at the moment. I need more runtime to let the thermal grease break in some more per Arctic Silver's recommendations.

Possible next steps...

- Reorient the power supply so the fan is pointing down through the bottom of the case.

- Possibly change the direction of airflow on either the rear case fan or the CPU cooler.

- Do some intentional on/off thermal cycling to optimize the grease more quickly.

- Tweak on the voltage, clock, and fan settings.

- Run some benchmarks.

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Great write up

I used to dabble a lot building pc's

about 10 years ago I had 6 machines running for SETI, have calmed down now

just have seti/ Boinc running on my current desktop ( 1 machine out performs all 6 of my old dual processor systems)

my current desktop was built in 2009, so upgrade is due.

I did add an intel SSD boot drive back in 2012, made a huge difference.

I am also surprised that ram speeds haven't changed much in the last few years

loving the modular power supply, will have to add one of those to my next build

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Thanks!

We've put a little more run time on this computer and I'm getting comfortable with the temperatures now. What really helped is a forum thread on Tom's Hardware that explained Intel's lab testing conditions and the differences between stress testing suites. Under normal usage we're only seeing about 40-45C core temperatures now. I opted not to reorient the power supply or change the case fan direction because the CPU temperatures and the rest of the motherboard temperatures have plenty of margin.

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