Flagz is joining the PC Master Race (HD Minesweeper! & Need Help)

[Flagz]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor (Purchased For $149.99)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $35.00)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (Purchased For $79.99)
Memory: Kingston Fury Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $4.99)
Storage: Seagate 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive ($79.99)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card (Purchased For $179.99)
Case: BitFenix Shinobi Window ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $59.99)
Power Supply: Rosewill Tachyon 650W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $45.99)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $14.99)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (Purchased For $79.99)
Total: $730.91

Here's my first ever build. Wanted my first Gaming PC so yeah. All parts currently in transit, will update when I'm done with pictures! Tell me what you think!

I also have a few questions for you fellow builders; after it's all built what next? Just boot from disk and pop in the W8? After that just install drivers and it's all done? I've never done this from COMPLETE scratch, always updated from Mobo, Processor and HDD. Thanks!

Also I've seen benchmarks, but realistically what can this rig do? Sound off!

 

[Keith Wallace]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. You plug in your PSU, fire it up, open the disc drive, and put the OS disc in. You shouldn't even need to go into the BIOS to have its boot priority changed because it won't find anything to boot from anyway. If you DO need into the BIOS, I think you either press-and-hold or mash Delete to get in there (I never go into my BIOS, so I always forget), then just navigate to the boot priority (probably located in different places on different motherboards). You might even consider finding your drivers before your stuff shows up and put it on a disc or flash drive, then move them on and install them after you've got your OS on.

As for what the PC will do, you should have enough power to handle everything released in 2014. The Intel stuff has more more, no question, but I think you got a good-enough deal to warrant the AMD option. If you're on a single-monitor setup, I don't think the 280X will have any trouble, and no game's CPU-intensive to really push the 8350, except maybe a 25-man WoW raid. You MIGHT see high-end games next year push your GPU some, but I would still say that it would handle single-monitor play just fine (it's when you go dual- or triple-monitor that it would run into issues).

 

[Flagz]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. You plug in your PSU, fire it up, open the disc drive, and put the OS disc in. You shouldn't even need to go into the BIOS to have its boot priority changed because it won't find anything to boot from anyway. If you DO need into the BIOS, I think you either press-and-hold or mash Delete to get in there (I never go into my BIOS, so I always forget), then just navigate to the boot priority (probably located in different places on different motherboards). You might even consider finding your drivers before your stuff shows up and put it on a disc or flash drive, then move them on and install them after you've got your OS on.

As for what the PC will do, you should have enough power to handle everything released in 2014. The Intel stuff has more more, no question, but I think you got a good-enough deal to warrant the AMD option. If you're on a single-monitor setup, I don't think the 280X will have any trouble, and no game's CPU-intensive to really push the 8350, except maybe a 25-man WoW raid. You MIGHT see high-end games next year push your GPU some, but I would still say that it would handle single-monitor play just fine (it's when you go dual- or triple-monitor that it would run into issues).

Ok, and I'ma pack it with Fans for OC in the future (If I choose to, but I don't really see any games I'm interested in) so I would connect the 2 to my Mobo and Connect the 5 to my PSU via Molex? My CPU Heatsink/Fan will have a dedicated Mobo Spot correct?

 

[Keith Wallace]

CAN you pack it with fans? I only see the Newegg listing mention two fans in the case, and it doesn't say anything about room for more. The 8350's not too bad to overclock, but I'm not sure how hot it gets (it's a power-hungry CPU, like AMD's whole lineup at the moment). My dad's got the same CPU, and he just purchased the Corsair H100i water cooler, I think.

The CPU fan should have its own plug-in spot near the top of the board (by the CPU socket, naturally). I think mine's a small, 4-pin one. Not sure if it's different for the 8350. However, if you check in on Quark's thread, you'll see that some fans need a molex converter to plug in, as the PSU might not have the right/right number of connectors for your fans.

The first thing you're going to want to do, though, is find out if your case even supports additional fans. My first one had just a single fan slot (in the back), and I left the door off at all times. My current one came with 5 fans installed, and I love it.

 

[Flagz]

CAN you pack it with fans? I only see the Newegg listing mention two fans in the case, and it doesn't say anything about room for more. The 8350's not too bad to overclock, but I'm not sure how hot it gets (it's a power-hungry CPU, like AMD's whole lineup at the moment). My dad's got the same CPU, and he just purchased the Corsair H100i water cooler, I think.

The CPU fan should have its own plug-in spot near the top of the board (by the CPU socket, naturally). I think mine's a small, 4-pin one. Not sure if it's different for the 8350. However, if you check in on Quark's thread, you'll see that some fans need a molex converter to plug in, as the PSU might not have the right/right number of connectors for your fans.

The first thing you're going to want to do, though, is find out if your case even supports additional fans. My first one had just a single fan slot (in the back), and I left the door off at all times. My current one came with 5 fans installed, and I love it.

The PSU I'm getting is a full modular, so I think it'll have the connectors. My Mobo has "1 x CPU fan header, 2 x system fan headers, 1 x power fan header" so I'm guess that means a power for the front, rear, Heatsink/CPU fan, and PSU fan? Idk. My case has enough room, 1x Rear, 1x Side, 1x Bottom, 2x Front, 2x Roof,

 

[Keith Wallace]

The PSU fan's part of the PSU, that's powered by the PSU itself, nothing to plug in. Your board basically has headers for 3 fans. I don't know how many my board has, as I just plugged them all into the PSU directly, I think, except MAYBE the front ones?

 

[Flagz]

The PSU fan's part of the PSU, that's powered by the PSU itself, nothing to plug in. Your board basically has headers for 3 fans. I don't know how many my board has, as I just plugged them all into the PSU directly, I think, except MAYBE the front ones?

Yeah I didn't know, that was on the spec sheet for my Mobo. Just copied and pasted lol

 

[Flagz]

The PSU fan's part of the PSU, that's powered by the PSU itself, nothing to plug in. Your board basically has headers for 3 fans. I don't know how many my board has, as I just plugged them all into the PSU directly, I think, except MAYBE the front ones?

A quick Bing just shows that its used with FEW power supplies just to monitor the PSU fan in case of power failure. Hmm. Learning alot in this short week lol.

 

[QwarkDreams]

A quick Bing just shows that its used with FEW power supplies just to monitor the PSU fan in case of power failure. Hmm. Learning alot in this short week lol.

Not that usual that the PSU fan can be monitored. Mostly with higher end PSUs or like certain PSUs from Corsair that can be monitored with Corsair Link.

For more fans you may need a splitter. I don't know if you can monitor them correctly when plugged into a fan header on the mobo. I 3 of mine just connected to the PSU (Corsair ships them with adapters to reduce the voltage to 7V so you have at least a little bit of control over the RPM, I'm sure that you can buy them seperately from other brands; some even have a voltage step.down integrated into the splitter).

Looks like I totally didn't see this thread :-/

 

[Flagz]

Not that usual that the PSU fan can be monitored. Mostly with higher end PSUs or like certain PSUs from Corsair that can be monitored with Corsair Link.

For more fans you may need a splitter. I don't know if you can monitor them correctly when plugged into a fan header on the mobo. I 3 of mine just connected to the PSU (Corsair ships them with adapters to reduce the voltage to 7V so you have at least a little bit of control over the RPM, I'm sure that you can buy them seperately from other brands; some even have a voltage step.down integrated into the splitter).

Looks like I totally didn't see this thread :-/

I went with the NXZT Mesh fan controller, 5 fans connected to it (BitFenix Spectres 120M (4) and a Cool Master Jet Flo 120M for the side!) connected two stocks and the Cool Master Hyper 212 Evo to the MB. Big difference in airflow now! Would have helped to know of splitters earlier, but I'm kinda happy I spurged on a Controller.

 

[QwarkDreams]

I went with the NXZT Mesh fan controller, 5 fans connected to it (BitFenix Spectres 120M (4) and a Cool Master Jet Flo 120M for the side!) connected two stocks and the Cool Master Hyper 212 Evo to the MB. Big difference in airflow now! Would have helped to know of splitters earlier, but I'm kinda happy I spurged on a Controller.

Fan controller are much more user friendly since you don't have to open the case everytime you want to change the fan speed (also lets you skip the "testing" part, so you don't5 ahve to set them up and monitor the temps and in which config (5V, 7V, 12V) you'll get the best noise/performance ratio. There are also a few fans out there that have difficulties starting when you power on your PC, since the voltage to start them has to be higher.

Long story short: a fan controller is much much much better and more convenient if you want to control the speed.
The only time you are better off with a simple splitter (without step down) is when you don't care if the fans run at max speed and don't want to spend more money on a controller.

NZXT has also the "Fan Grid" which is basically a splitter in box form (opposite to cables). Some of their cases even have a fan splitter pre-installed (I think the H440 is one of them). And some cases even have a fan controller built in (altough most of them only let you control all your fans at ones, so you have no seperate control over the individual fan speeds -> you turn the speed up, every fan will spin faster). Unless - of course - you connect the splitter to a fan controller (in case you have more fans than rotary controls.

If you have fans with LEDs the brightness will change according to the voltage (or in a more visual way: according to the speed). The faster they spin the brighter the LEDs will shine.

 

[Flagz]

Fan controller are much more user friendly since you don't have to open the case everytime you want to change the fan speed (also lets you skip the "testing" part, so you don't5 ahve to set them up and monitor the temps and in which config (5V, 7V, 12V) you'll get the best noise/performance ratio. There are also a few fans out there that have difficulties starting when you power on your PC, since the voltage to start them has to be higher.

Long story short: a fan controller is much much much better and more convenient if you want to control the speed.
The only time you are better off with a simple splitter (without step down) is when you don't care if the fans run at max speed and don't want to spend more money on a controller.

NZXT has also the "Fan Grid" which is basically a splitter in box form (opposite to cables). Some of their cases even have a fan splitter pre-installed (I think the H440 is one of them). And some cases even have a fan controller built in (altough most of them only let you control all your fans at ones, so you have no seperate control over the individual fan speeds -> you turn the speed up, every fan will spin faster). Unless - of course - you connect the splitter to a fan controller (in case you have more fans than rotary controls.

If you have fans with LEDs the brightness will change according to the voltage (or in a more visual way: according to the speed). The faster they spin the brighter the LEDs will shine.

Yep that's why in half I purchased it. 5 individual controls, and if I'm trying to DL or idle at night, I can lower all the LED fans and not only does it lower speed but they dim as well! I think its a perfect investment! I usually keep them running near max anyway just to keep things cool, they're nit as loud as my old AIO fan was so I'm ok with it!