Description

Edit again ;) September 13, 2018. The GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition showed up on my door step. This joker overclocks like a monster and chews through the old Heaven benchmark maxed out with a crazy 2722 score at the settings shown in the last image. It actually went higher at +250 and +450, fan maxed, over volted etc. I ended up leaving the fan profile on a customized version of "agressive" and it hovers between 69 and 71 C when testing and lower depending on the game. I'm loving this blower style card. I think the Nvidia Founders Edition cards are indeed hand picked for the highest stable overclocking. I think this card could go higher with water cooling. Anyway, this was a proper surprise birthday do over present. Joe was even impressed. P.S. I've got an EVGA GTX 1070 SC now for something else. Woohoo!

Edit; Late August 2018. I purchased an EVGA GTX 1070 Superclocked GPU and 4x4GB 1866 CAS 9 RAM for Joe on Ebay. Got it installed on the old PC and he's up and running. Happy birthday son.

Edit; Christmas 2017. The SSD and the original hdd had gotten close to full. I added in a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda hdd and had Joe move over some of the files to free up the SSD and original hdd. Back in business and smooth running. Still kicking butt in 1080p.

Edit; July 2016. Had a wild hair and bid on a GTX 780 on ebay. Won this GPU. I installed it in place of the GTX 680 and my oldest son tested it. What a huge difference over the old GPU. Well my son was so excited I gave it to him and put his old GPU in his little brother's pc.

Replacement, big upgrade from Imac 27" with 8800 gts video. Primarily gets used for gaming. School work on occasion, and research. Recently Adobe CS5 and photo editing! Didn't realize I had set one of my rear fans in the wrong direction. I moved it and got the temps to go lower woo!

Had two extra fans from daughter's build, so I used my 4 1/2" hole cutter and added two portholes to the left and right side panels. one to blow directly onto the hard drive and the SSD he purchased while in Texas working with me and his sister. The other blows directly onto the inlet for the GTX 680 fan. I put Silverstone 120mm fan filters over the holes to act as covers and protect fingers from the blades. I also put in an older digital fan controller with three temp probes to test the HDD, CPU, and GPU temps under loads. It looked awful so it came back out.

Wow what a difference a SSD makes. Wish he could have afforded a 500GB ssd.

So here are the case modification pics and the DVD installed. Yeah I caved and have my son and his sister the drives so they wouldn't have to use my external DVD writer. I also cleaned the thermal paste and reapplied it in the single large grain of rice method and got dramatically better cooling results after s long prime 95 run scared me. Now get a peak of 76 for just a split second after a long run of prime 95 at 4.5 OC.

July 2016 edit. 3570k still running strong at 4.5 Ghz now with a GTX 780 SC. Still an awesome 1080p gaming machine. We noticed the Geforce experience recommending lower settings, but we ignored them and set them to max at 1080 resolution to test the card and got consistantly greater than 60fps on titles like the most recent Doom, and Overwatch. Im surprised and my oldest is happy. Win, win.

Part Reviews

CPU

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor

Great CPU and easily overclocked. Have had this at 4.5Ghz for 2+ years now with no issues at all.

CPU Cooler

Cooler Master Seidon 240M 86.15 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

Exceptional AIO cooling, but noisey fans come standard.

Thermal Compound

Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5 g Thermal Paste

Does what its supposed to.

Motherboard

Asus Sabertooth Z77 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard

Pricey, but fantastic looking motherboard. No issues with it at all.

Memory

G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 CL9 Memory

Looks good. Good speed. Low latency. 5 stars.

Storage

Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Fast and reliable. No issues at all over the past 2+ years.

Storage

Western Digital Caviar Blue 750 GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Good low noise general data hdd.

Storage

Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Quiet, fast enough and reliable.

Case

Cooler Master HAF XB (Black) ATX Desktop Case

Huge desktop pc case. Easy to work in and move around. Awesome cooling and air movement throughout. Easily modified.

Power Supply

EVGA SuperNOVA 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Great psu and cool looking cables. Very easy to work with.

Optical Drive

Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer

Great quiet dvd writer.

Operating System

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 OEM 64-bit

Best version of Windows ever made in my opinion. Love win7 pro.

Wireless Network Adapter

TP-Link TL-WDN4800 PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter

Surprisingly good wifi card with dual 5.4ghz band n.

Case Fan

Silverstone AP122 42.58 CFM 120 mm Fan

Superb directional air flow. I will continue to use these fans to blow air straight at whatever hardware that needs it. Love these fans. And they are quiet

Case Fan

SilenX EFX-08-12 25 CFM 80 mm Fan

Good little quiet fan

Case Fan

Kingwin CFY-012LB 40 CFM 120 mm Fan

Well they are golden in color, spin slow, but are very quiet.

Monitor

Samsung S27C350H 27.0" 1920x1080 Monitor

Great looking monitor. No dead pixels, or issues for 2+ years now.

Keyboard

Logitech Call of Duty: MW3 Edition Wired Gaming Keyboard

Great inexpensive backlit keyboard.

Mouse

Logitech G500 Wired Laser Mouse

My son loves the response and feel of this mouse.

Speakers

Logitech Z506 155 W 5.1 Channel Speakers

Great sound, but have a buzz when ambient noise is low.

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Comments

  • 81 months ago
  • 4 points

First time putting a pc together. I think we did it well. I would have put in a SSD right off the bat now, but he doesn't mind. It is so much better than the old 27"Imac he had. The whole yellow and black theme was a little disappointing. Not really yellow, but it looks great in the bedroom when its dark. His little brother is sometimes asleep in the room and the noise and lights are low enough that it doesn't even phase him. The case had tons of room in it, but I will go with a different type for my daughter when we do hers.(Probably will paint it pink and put in a couple of red led fans for hers.) Gotta get more of that MONEY first!

  • 81 months ago
  • 3 points

+1 one for build and Borderlands of course!

  • 80 months ago
  • 2 points

Lucky Kid Very Good Build

  • 80 months ago
  • 2 points

Yeah, he is. Poor thing still owes me on it per our agreement. Wish he could afford to pay it off and put in more goodies, like blueray, another gtx680, custom water cooling, fancy lights, whatever. Guess that's just me. He loves it.

  • 81 months ago
  • 1 point

the video card was really $456 in April when I ordered it, I just joined pcpartpicker today and listed the setup. I didn't see that model listed for the 456 price. Oh and the 700 series hadnt come out yet. It was a kick in the pants to see the new models come out right after I bought that 680. Btw where can I place more fans? I have the 240 cooler in a push pull config. I am confused about the top fans I currently have them venting, and wonder if it would cool even better if I made them push air down into the case and then let the rear fans, video card, and side mesh vent.

  • 81 months ago
  • 1 point

I think if you were to have a larger fan (if it's possible to fit one on there with the other components) on top as exhaust, you could maybe get a bit better cooling. Heat rises, so you have intake at the lower and front areas, and exhaust out the top and rear. Are you gonna put in an optical drive, and if you were to, would you have room in the bottom? I'm thinking about getting this case for my next build, just looking to get some input as to how it all works and fits.

  • 80 months ago
  • 2 points

yep installed a DVD. I did put in two more fans, but modified the case to made them go whet I wanted. One blowing fresh filtered air onto the video card inlet, and one on the HDD.

  • 81 months ago
  • 1 point

Side note, the total price was still around the same listed above. I just kept creeping the price up and up.

  • 81 months ago
  • 1 point

Does a cooler master 240 compete with a corsair h100, or it still lineup with a corsair h60 in its performance? I am thinking of using an h60 with an i7 3770k for my daughter.

  • 81 months ago
  • 1 point

Thanks I have those golden or well supposedly yellow fans on top as exhaust, but they don't flow much air. My son asked if I could make it glow yellow inside. I am wondering if I change the fan config and maybe put one extra in the empty drive bay place, but I'm not sure it will do anything for me since this case has the motherboard tray located in the middle of it. I haven't had any heat issues with it since we got it going in April, and my son has used it almost everyday for hours and hours. they hottest I have seen it was a reported 45C. No plans for an optical drive. I use an external for any installs requiring it. I do plan on getting a decent SSD for it, but I am confused as to whether I will have to get another Builder win7 to get it to boot from it. I hope I can use the one I purchased the first time. BTW I will get the exact costs of the build and place them in even if I put it in the custom spots. this price seems a bit higher than I paid.

  • 81 months ago
  • 1 point

Oh I chose that case and the setup based a lot of inexperience, wanting components that would last and keep that sucker cool, and would fit on the top rack of the metal shelves in my son's room. I ran the cables through the wall and into a small( but still air conditioned and heated) room where he did his studies and used to have the iMac. I loved the huge areas provided by that case, but I will be using a mid tower case for my daughter's build. I did unhook the power button led and added a lot of tint to the hard drive led so it would be only a golden glow when on in the room at night. BTW I removed the hotswap control panel form inside in favor of a direct connection to the hard disk, and had to reposition and tighten the front control panel or the bumping the case would reset the pc. Fun to put together and see it light up and run so well and amazingly quiet.

  • 65 months ago
  • 1 point

I almost got that case. Still thinking about getting one for another build im planning. how did you like working with it?

  • 65 months ago
  • 2 points

It was fun with lots of space. This case it's huge. No chance of gpu card sag and can take large water coolers. The only draw back I saw was the huge freaking area this box consumes.

  • 53 months ago
  • 1 point

Awesome build. Especially for a first timer (I'm a noob too). Any eta on the AMD build?

  • 53 months ago
  • 1 point

Thanks, man. My oldest is still loving that huge thing.

  • 81 months ago
  • 0 points

Weird that you chose a 500 dollar 680. Did you already have it on hand? You could have gotten a very good 770 for that price (with 4gb's of vram).

Or waited a few days for AMD's new graphics cards, the new R9-9970 is supposed to be faster than a 780 for about 500 dollars. That's all rumors, though.

Other than that, it's a good build. Pretty clean.

  • 80 months ago
  • 1 point

I'm sorry I didn't respond correctly. When I bought it, the 700's weren't out, and I paid 456. Wish I could have waited to build it today with the current prices, but that was then.

[comment deleted]
  • 53 months ago
  • 1 point

Thanks