Corsair 600T Custom Build

[Zephlar]

My GF has an old gaming laptop from like 2005-2006. Age of Mythology is about one of the only games we can consistently play together on, outside of flash games. We always had to keep a bag of ice under it if we wanted to play something for an extended period of time. Actually Borderlands ran fairly decently at minimum settings on it which was surprising. Still, we couldn't really play the games we wanted to together.

Decided I was going to build her a PC from some of my hand me down parts. Have a DnD group on FB I was able to get some parts cheap from a fellow geek. I got the MOBO, CPU & GPU for $150, which was a steal. Kind of progressively gathered parts over the last year and finished it up in time for Xmas. She had no idea I had been doing this, and was over the moon about it 

We've been playing ESO a lot lately, which has actually been a lot of fun. It's so different now, in a good way.

Specs:
Corsair 600T Case
W7 64Pro
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD
2TB Seagate
16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3
Amd Phenom x4 965 3.4ghz
Radeon R9 280 (Gigabyte Windforce)
M5A97 MOBO
Corsair Hydro Series H55 Liquid Cooling Unit
Ozark 600W Power Supply (A hand me down, It actually has enough power!)
LG Internal Super Multi Drive GH24NSC0B

[Spectere]

That's a hell of a sleek looking case! Judging by the specs it looks like you're going to get a lot of bang for your buck.

Also, I really hope that's your toe at the bottom of the pic.

[Zephlar]

That's a hell of a sleek looking case! Judging by the specs it looks like you're going to get a lot of bang for your buck.

Also, I really hope that's your toe at the bottom of the pic.

The case is really big for a mid tower. Very simple and easy to get around in. Got 35-40fps+ Max Settings 8xMSAA on Titanfall, which was impressive.

You know, I didn't even notice my big ass toe on until the very first comment on Imgur pointed it out. Fortunately it is not her toe. 

[Spectere]

You should be able to hit 60fps easy if you dial the MSAA back a bit. Even so, getting that kind of framerate for $150? Not too shabby!

Heh, I probably wouldn't have even noticed the toe if I hadn't done my original reply with my phone. When I swiped down to reply that was pretty much the only part of the picture that I could see.

[Sneaky]

Nice man, I want to upgrade to that case for some better cooling and cable routing options. Nice build!

[Zephlar]

Nice man, I want to upgrade to that case for some better cooling and cable routing options. Nice build!

You won't be disappointed. The knob for the fan is a nice touch, and even at max speed you can barely hear a thing. Tons of room, wonderful airflow, push panels. I found it at a local Fry's Electronics for $149. Online tends to go for $170-$180.

I should have made her a tiny little PC like Ian's most recent build lol.

[Spectere]

I should have made her a tiny little PC like Ian's most recent build lol.

Spearheading the mini-ITX revolution since 2016.

In all seriousness, mini-ITX is fantastic for some use cases, but it is definitely harder to find parts to support it if you're in the AMD camp.  While there is a reasonable selection when it comes to Intel (33 new mobos), there are only 8 AMD boards, with only 4 of them supporting FM2+. The number of boards with AM3/AM3+ support? Zero.

You would have definitely had to buy a new CPU/mobo.  The case would definitely been cheaper, but the cost of those parts would have more than made up for it.

I'm thinking there just isn't enough demand for more specialized AMD builds, which is a shame. The A10-7800, even with the AMD stock cooler (which, from what I read, are quite bad...not sure if things improved over the last few years) runs pretty cool, even under heavy load.

Another tricky aspect is the PSU. If the mini-ITX case you get supports an ATX power supply (like mine does) you pretty much need to get a modular PSU. Even with a modular PSU, you end up with a bit of a cabling disaster. If it weren't for the PSU, my build would be very clean. However, as a result of that (plus the fact that I need to use both SATA-style and Molex-style power connectors for the HDD and front fans, respectively), there's a bunch of slop in the front of the case that I had to zip-tie away from the fans. Yuck. I've considered just using the Molex cable and running a Molex to SATA adapter to my HDD to simplify the wiring a bit.

If you get a case that uses a mini-ITX PSU, you've traded wiring headaches for a whole different set of much larger issues. On Newegg, the highest output mini-ITX PSU puts out 400W. However, none of the units that put out that kind of wattage are from brands that I would trust using for a new build.

What it really comes down to is that you're really not saving much space if you do a build like mine (mini-ITX + ATX PSU). My rig is a bit shorter than a mid-tower but is a bit fatter since the mobo sits flat. If I didn't get the case for $40 I wouldn't have bothered.