Well after a couple of hours fapping around with cables and checking and re-checking that everything was how it should I was finally ready to plug it in and turn on that power. BOY was I nervous as this was first ever build but I took a deep breath and..... SUCCESS! To say that I was relieved was an understatement. I wasnt exactly sure what could go wrong but to be honest I really didnt want to find out.
As for the build itself I found it much harder than I thought it would be. Putting in the PSU at the start was easy but I did not enjoy handling the processor and delicately putting into the mobo or having to put what felt likeexcessive pressure on the RAM for it to click in place. The case I chose was the Antec Nine Hundred and I have to say that it wasnt the best case for the first time builder. Putting the mobo in was quite a tight squeeze and once it was in I had NO room to work with. Having removed the HDD cages for extra space I put in the graphics card and then the soudn card which slotted in quite nicely.
Now the only problem with this was that I had neglected to put any cables in place. This made the next part REALLY fun. Linking up the front panel connectors was a bit cramped, then the power to the mobo, the graphics card, the fans and, wait a minute WHERE DID THIS MESS COME FROM? Tidying up the cables took the best part of an hour with the four fan cables being an extra special pain but once that was done and the CD drive and HDD were all hooked up it was all ready to go.
Looking back on the build the only thing that REALLY annoyed was the rubbishy heatsink that came with my E6750. The quality seems so so (idling at about 25 degrees C although mainly cos of the fans) but the attachments were just awful. I had it on wrong for about half an hour because of the unclear instructions and it wasnt until I checked and was able to pull the heatsink off that I knew something was awry. It turns out you had to turn the flappy screw things 180 degrees instead of the more obvious 90. To do this you really had to violate those screws. I think I dented the fan a bit with my excersion for some of them but in they went and that was that solved. Better instructions next time Intel please.
Well, as for the performance of the pc itself. It can run Gears comfortably maxed out on a 1280*1024 monitor and Crysis on high with no AA on the same sized screen. I have almost finished Crysis and it is a really good game. The graphics were nice but the nano suit really stood out as being a great inclusion and the gameplay turned out to be really very fun. What I really liked about this game was the tremendous sense of realism that came with it. The environments were incredible as was the AI (for some parts, for others it was quite average) and the last five hours or so of the game were unbelievably good.
Crysis asideI am quite satisfied with the way the build went. It was MUCH more fiddly than I thought but that was mainly down to my inexperience and case choice. I have noticed my graphics card is getting quite hot so I will probably buy a side fan some point today and if that doesnt solve the problem I will get a compatible heatsink.
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