2016 PC Build Log 2: Hype Train Derailed

Hi guys, this is my February update for my 2016 build.

First of all, since Oculus Rift sky-rocketed to $600 (~33,000 PhP), I decided not to take it for the meantime. Probably will do around 4-5 years later, when the price comes back to $300 since I'm assuming Samsung's and Sony's VR projects will be released as well on a lower price.

Next up, I already got the WD Blue 1TB and I already using it on my AMD build.

For my February purchase, I am 600PhP short (as of writing this) in buying my ttEsports Poseidon Z RGB. Though I'm not rushing it, I'll most likely buy it on my exact birthday.

I also have decided to go for Intel Haswell, particularly i5-4460 since I'll be using its single-core performance for 3D rendering and video editing for my team and as well for myself. I am putting the processor either last or second-to-the-last purchase.

Since I'm going for a Haswell build, I have 2 possible pathways that will depend if there's stock available upon purchase:

First will be MSI B85M-Gaming. It features 4 memory slots, RAID support, and 4 6GB/s SATA ports along with 2 3GB/s SATA ports. I have no idea for myself if I will use the RAID support in the future, probably a RAID 1 for my HDDs.

Second will be Asus B85M Gamer. The only difference between these two motherboards is that this Asus B85M board doesn't offer Crossfire support. They do however both have RAID support, 4 6GB/s and 2 3GB/s SATA ports, and has 4 memory slots. The idea of having a disable Crossfire means that B85M boards (or mATX boards as a whole) won't be a suitable thing for 2 or more GPUs. The reason that I prioritize MSI before Asus, is that I prefer the bright red and black theme rather than dark red. I'll be adding a white LED strip once complete.

I will still go to ESL Manila, then Manila Majors, which means (most likely), I'll be going to buy merchandises rather than components for the first half of the year. I'll also be buying replacement caps for my Razer Kraken Pro since it is already torn apart and exposed foams. I'm still waiting for Razer store near us for stocks.

Budget run-down up to June 2016:
February: ttEsports Poseidon Z
Feb-March: B85M Motherboard
April: ESL Manila / Ozine Fest
May: Manila Majors ticket
June: Manila Majors merch

2016 PC Build Log 1: Proposal build

My next PC build will be a streaming + gaming PC in one case. I still haven’t finalized my decision whether to go Haswell Intel or AMD FX series.

I already purchased the set of 8GB DDR3 RAMs (came from NewEgg), which sets my mark that I can't go Skylake or Zen next year (Though I can go Skylake, there have been a note that long term usage of DDR3 RAMs may fry up the processor). The theme will be black/red, which I found is the most expensive theme in PC building. For the case, I’ll be reusing my Tecware Infinity. It’s a cheaper and more of a local model of Corsair 100R, only with a 120mm fan slot on its windowed side panel, top-mounted front IO including the PR switches. Problem is, the 5.25" bay locks are colored blue, so I have to mod it and turn it to red by using a plasti-dip.

Reason for AMD FX: FX-6300 and FX-8320e offer 6 and 8 cores respectively. Most games often require a maximum of 4 cores, so the additional 2 or 4 cores will be beneficial for the process of rendering and uploading a livestream. Though it may not be as good as an Intel Core i5, the performance per PhP is a big deal.

Reason for Intel: Generally more powerful, but less energy-consuming than AMD. A bit pricier, and might set me back for future upgrades, though my possible upgrades would be only going i7. My CPU of choice for Intel will be i5-4590. Upgrading it to a 4690 would be much less the value worth than going for a 4770 or a 4790k

For this Christmas, I intend to get myself another 1 terabyte of Western Digital Caviar Blue since I blew all my budget up on ESL One ticket and an Adata SP900 SSD. I do intend to import both of my SSD and current-use HDD to my new system for a grand total of 2128GB of storage. Not quite expensive, I'll be earning/receiving 2,000PhP within 2 weeks

Christmas 2015 goal: WD Caviar Blue 1TB

2 weeks later, I’ll start earning for my birthday gift for myself: a new keyboard. My Razer Deathstalker Expert is nearing on its 2nd year (I bought this on the same date as my birthday, almost 2 years ago). My target keyboard is the TTeSport Poseidon Z RGB, a 4,000PhP value RGB keyboard with a choice of either a Cherry MX Blue or Brown switch. Positive reviews have been made on a certain group I joined, and moving from a membrane keyboard to a mechanical one would be a big switch for me, as I been using membranes since the first time I used a computer.

January-February 2016 goal: Poseidon Z RGB

For March, I'll be trying to start earning up for the motherboard. My allocated budget for the board is 5k PhP (around $110USD). For Intel path, I come up with Asus B85 (or B85M) Pro Gamer. The size of the board will still depend on the stock where I will buy it. For AMD, MSI 970 Gaming is the perfect board for a black/red theme.

March 2016 goal: Motherboard

April, this month I will not spend on any computer-related part. I'll be earning for ESL merchandises once I go there for 2 days. Kinda exciting to watch a globally major Dota tournament within the greater city. My seat will be at the lower box, section 203.

May will probably be for the power supply. Studying on a tri-semestral university (3 semesters per school year), May is usually the last month before the 1-month vacation starts. During vacation, I can only do like 100PhP per day including my food and other stuffs that I can spend for. My choice of power supply is the Seasonic M12ii 520W 80+ Bronze certified. I want to go for a Rosewill or some other underrated brands that offer 500W, 80+ Bronze, modular, tier 1 or 2 in the PSU tier list, and is within the price of 3,500, but most stores here only offers two PSUs within the said budget: either go for Seasonic M12ii or Corsair CX500M. Being considered as the heart of the computer, I can't risk a lower priced than the two (unless go for the other brand thingy I said earlier). Also, I'll be earning another 500PhP for the upcoming The International 6 online compendium, so I basically can't afford a processor even if I went on the AMD route.

May 2016 goal: Seasonic M12ii 520V

That will be it for now, as I'll make sure to be active in posting my build log time to time. Stay tuned for future posts.

30-day Gaming Challenge

Summer is near, well to a student who has 3 terms per year is actually has only 1 month to have fun. So without further ado, For the month of June, I'll be doing a 30-day gaming challenge. Here are the rules for my challenge:

1. A game a day keeps the doctor away.
2. Around 3-4 hours play time per day or game, stream time will be 1300-onwards PHT (GMT+8).
3. Will be streamed to my Twitch channel on a 360p resolution (Sorry, internet here is quite slow for a 720p stream)
4. Incase of disconnections, come back 5-7 minutes later. Most likely, internet router failed or computer itself failed.

Now here are the games:
1 - Dota2
2 - NBA 2k15
3 - Euro Truck Simulator
4 - The Sims 4
5 - SimCity 2013

6 - Mortal Kombat X

7 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

8 - Battlefield 3

9 - Assasin's Creed 3

10 - Skyrim

11 - Minecraft

12 - Grand Theft Auto V

13 - Sniper Elite v2

14 - Far Cry 3

15 - Elsword

16 - Call of Duty: Black Ops

17 - Need For Speed Most Wanted (2012)

18 - Batman: Arkham Origins

19 - NBA 2k14

20 - Sniper Elite 3

21 - FIFA 14

22 - Crysis 3

23 - Resident Evil 6

24 - Grid Autosport

25 - Left 4 Dead 2

26 - Medal of Honor - Airborne

27 - League of Legends

28 - Need for Speed Underground

29 - Dark Souls II

30 - Game Dev Tycoon

With that, see you starting June 1st!

Case Study #1 - Custom-built PCs vs Store-built PCs

Hello and welcome. This is the first and many more to come case studies I've been thinking. This one's about discusses about half of the people in Manila prefers to buy store-built PCs rather than personal made (aka building your own). Let's start

Store-built PCs

At the time of this writing, 27,370 is $616

Here's one of the store-built gaming PCs. As you might notice, it is not yet at the highest builds for a $620 budget. 

750Ti might be a good high-end graphics card, It can run most games on medium to high at 1080p. Ultra 1080p on popular MOBA games like Dota2, League of Legends, or HotS. 

4GB of RAM would definitely perform the bare minimum of most games nowadays. If you read my previous build, I do also have 4GB of RAM running at 1866MHz, but I'll be upgrading to 8GB in the next few weeks.

Toshiba is considered one of the low-tiers in terms of HDD brands. It is easily overcame by brands like Western Digital, Seagate, or Kingston. And 500GB is not good enough for a $620. The cost difference of 500GB and 1TB hard drive is roughly $5. 

400W PSU might not be a good option for a 750Ti and an APU. Though unlike AMD, nVidia isn't power hungry, so an upgrade for a 400W would be needed to at least 500 or so watts.

Other than that, the remaining parts is considered "okay" for $550. 

Custom-Built

I'll try to do my own custom-built PC using the budget of $620. The parts I'll be using are considered brand new and came from Dynaquest:

CPU:  Intel Pentium G3258 ($73)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-DS2 ($53)

GPU: Sapphire R7 260X ($134)

RAM: Gskill RipjawsX 1600MHz 8GB Dual Kit  ($67)

PSU: Corsair VS450 ($36)

HDD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue ($56)
SSD: Kingston v300 120GB ($63)

Case: Tecware Omega ($25)

Monitor: Philips 203V5L 19.5″  ($85)

Keyboard + Mouse: A4Tech KRS-8572 Combo ($9)

Total: $601

Parts defined:

CPU -- Pentium G3258 is considered one of the best non-Core series Intel CPUs as of now. It can be overclocked from 3.2GHz to a stable 4GHz on stock cooler. 

Motherboard -- Not much to say, but it is compatible to the 1150-based CPUs. It also supports overclocking, has 2 memory slots, 2 USB ports at the back, but does not have USB 3.0 for front panel connectors.

GPU -- R7 260X is considered the AMD version of the best 1600x900p GPUs. Its nVidia counterpart is actually the 750Ti, but 750Ti is a lot more expensive the 260X. 260X's power consumption is covered by our 450W 80+ Corsair VS450.

HDD / SSD -- Here's what I'd said about the upgrade. With a $600 budget ($20 less than the store-built), I can get double the capacity of the pre-built and an additional boot drive of 120GB SSD. SSD performs up to 4x faster than a hard disk drive. Boot time takes an average of 5 seconds on Windows 8.1 than 15 seconds on HDDs.

Case: Tecware Omega is a local case here but considered too good for its price. But this case is only sold on few stores. It has front a USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, free 3 120mm fans (2 with no LEDs and 1 with a red LED), and a tinted window side panel.

Monitor: An upgrade from 1366x768 monitor to 1600x900 resolution is quite good. Though it is close to a full HD monitor, we can't get a 1080p on that budget. Well, we can, but we need to remove SSD and get a 4GB RAM instead of 8GB.

Conclusion

Overall, getting a custom built PC is far better than buying a pre-made one or a store built. But still, if you want to go for a store built, go for it. I'm not forcing you to go for the custom built, and a good side on the store build PCs is that when you need something to return for a warranty, they're there to assist you.

Building "The Dream": Build Process

This is your guide on how to build your own PC, whether an APU or a CPU. ALWAYS READ the manuals if you need help.

What you need:
     Before you start, grab a + screwdriver (we call it a Philips), an anti-static strap and your power supply. Connect the alligator clip to the fan grill of the power supply, and connect it to a power outlet. DO NOT FLICK THE SWITCH OF IT. It could possibly electrocute yourself. What it does is you become a ground of the system you are doing. This is to prevent static electricity going through the parts, as it may kill your parts before you actually use it.

You also need to get the box of your motherboard as a non-static surface. We don't know what will you use as surface, but the box would be the best option.

APU Installation

     Whether its an APU or a CPU, it is the same. Locate the triangle mark on it, then pull up the retention arm.

                       

 

     Grab your APU by its sides and locate the gold triangle mark on it. Carefully drop it to the socket, matching the triangles on the motherboard and the APU. Once done, return the retention arm to its original position to lock the APU.

RAM Installation

     Since the APU Cooler is quite large, we will first install the RAM. It is pretty straightforward: Open the tabs marked DIMM1, both left and right. Match the hole of the RAM to the part of the slot which doesn't has a hole. To lock the RAM, push one side first until it snaps into place. then push the other side. If you have another RAM stick, you need to put this to DIMM2.

APU Cooler

     This could take you longer than you installed the 2 pieces above. Get your Hyper T4 box, and find the part exclusively for FM2 motherboards. It is a long metal with one plastic opener at one side. Attach it to the cooler. The middle part should lock to the cooler itself. Else, flip it over and try again. Once done, grab a thermal paste and put a small line on top of your APU, put the cooler on top, slide first the one without the plastic arm to the lock, then secure the other side. Then do a 180-degree lock on the arm. Don't worry, apply as many force as you can to properly secure the cooler. Just don't break the motherboard.

 

POST outside of the case

     Before you put the motherboard to the case, make sure to POST is. POST means Power On Self Test. If it powers on, with or without case, it means it would work after you put it on the case. To do this, connect the 8-pin and the 24-pin connectors from the power supply to the motherboard (I'll explain later on how to), and locate the power switch on the front panel connectors. Tap it with any metal thing (the screwdriver head will do for now). And if it boots to your monitor, tap it again to shut it down. It means your system successfully boot up with no errors.

Putting it all to the case

If your POST end well, great! You can now put it on your case. Unplug every external connection (monitors and other peripherals) and the power supply connectors (both the 8-pin and 24-pin). Get your case, and start unscrewing the 4 thumbscrews at the back. Pull both the side panels and store it safely in the meantime. Once opened, you might see some connectors. Most of it are the front panel connectors, and some are fan connectors. In my build, I pre-installed a blue LED strip on the sides to produce a good blue-themed rig.

Put the motherboard

Prior to installing your motherboard, put metal standoffs into the holes where the motherboard holes and case holes match. If there are too many holes in the case, do the "hand method". Locate the top-leftmost hole (both on the case and motherboard), and measure the space between the hole on your motherboard. 

Screw on the right is the standoff.

Also, before putting the motherboard, get first the back IO shield. It is a metal strip with multiple holes to protect your IO panels at the back of your motherboard (or at the back of your system). Install it from the inside, and pop the 4 corners of it to the case. To ensure that the IO shield is intact, push it from the outside by a finger. Now that you have anything else, time to put the motherboard!

Power Supply

But wait! Since my motherboard has an 8-pin at the top, I installed first my power supply to prevent cable management problems later. There are two options on how to install a power supply: top-fan or bottom-fan facing. Top fan facing is a way to become an exhaust for the system as it will pull the air and push it outwards. Bottom fan facing is having its own air circulation, making it less heat output but prone to dust buildup. Since I have a fan filter underneath, I used the bottom-fan facing.

Slide down the power supply, and screw it using 4 of these screws to the designated screw spots.

  

The find the 8-pin connector and use the cable management holes so that the connector will be at the top.

Connecting the connectors

You can screw down the motherboard with the screw for the standoff (the silver screw with the standoff in the picture above). Once done, connect the 8-pin adn 24-pin that you manage earlier like this:

 

Next is the front panel connectors. They're probably the hardest to put because it's small, so do this now before ou put other cords. Best method is to go top to bottom, left to right, but other will go from rightmost to leftmost.

Next are the block connectors. They are big, unlike the front panel. Installing them is easier since the connector and the socket has one missing pin/pinhole. You can't get a mistake here. Most modern motherboards and cases offer a USB 3.0, but if you don't have, save it for a later upgrade. Install the USB 2.0 into the JUSB1 socket and your HD Audio to the AUDIO port. Since both my motherboard and case has USB 3.0, I installed mine.

Installing HDD

Tecware Infinity offered a slide-and-lock for 3.5" HDD, and for the 2.5" HDD/SSD, there is a pointy edge to place it and lock it on one side. This case also provided a different screw to put the 3.5" HDD. 

Once done, connect the SATA power and SATA cables. The power is connected to the power supply, and is the flat-headed connector. It only fits one-sided. For the SATA cables, there are two types: a straight-end and a 90-degree cords. I used the 90-degree for the 3.5" HDD and a straight-end for the 2.5" HDD. Connect the cables to the motherboard, and HDD installation is complete!

Fan Installation

This part is somehow optional, somehow required. Fans keep the air temperature inside the case cool. It can be one intake and one outtake, so air circulation will be good. Cool air goes in, warm air comes out.

In my case, I only added one outtake since my CPU cooler has a fan intake to the heat of the CPU. I also used a Buffer B4, an anti-vibration kit for fans. Put the B4 onto the fan and snap it out at the back of the case. If you're using screws, screw it tightly since it will be difficult on the new fans.

Close the case by returning back the side panels, and turn it on by plugging it to a power socket. Since I got an aftermarket cooler, I decided to overclock it a bit by turning it from 3.9 GHz to 4.5GHz. It can run Dota2 with ultra settings (V-Sync and AA: On) at 30FPS and high (V-Sync and AA: Off) at 40-45FPS. Sniper Elite v2 Ultra at 50FPS. And NBA 2k15 at high settings.

This concludes my blog post / tutorial on how to build your first PC. I'll be back with another set of build logs for future. Hope you enjoyed!